I promise I am not a reactionary, but I am somewhat uneducated on the subject so I might say something offensive accidentally, sorry in advance about that.

So, does gender dysphoria stem from a disconnect between the body and some “gender socialization” function of the brain, which could be solved by getting socialized and treated by everyone as the correct gender from the start, or something that stems from a disconnect between the brain and the actual body parts and hormones, so the transition is needed to alleviate that, or both?

  • AdmiralDoohickey@lemmygrad.mlOP
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    6
    ·
    1 year ago

    Thanks for the answers, I guess I will make another question. Do non-binary people have those mismatches as well, or it’s pretty much neurodivergent people who can’t fit the gender roles that are asked from them and express themselves differently? I am a ND cis male and I don’t fit with most men (too aggressive for no reason, and I am not really masculine in personality) so I can kind of understand why someone wouldn’t want to conform to their gender, but I wonder if there is a biological component to it

    • AcidSmiley [she/her]@hexbear.net
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      12
      ·
      1 year ago

      There’s all kinds of nonbinary identities, the term is more like a catch-all category and not at all like a distinct “third gender.” And how to approach physical changes varies as much among nonbinary people as our understanding of gender. There’s nonbinary people who differ from cis people mostly in how they view themselves and gender and who do not transition at all. There’s nonbinary transfems like me who go by she / her exclusively, present feminine, who can best describe themselves as women to the average cis person and who require the full range of medical procedures that you’d classically think of when picturing your average trans woman, yet our relation to our gender is actually a deeply nonbinary one that’s closest to the understanding of these lesbians who view “lesbian” not as a sexuality, but a gender indentity. I even know an afab person who is nonbinary / agender, goes by gender neutral pronouns, has a very androgynous style (think butch lesbian, but with cutting edge makeup and hairstyling skills) yet dey underwent the full range of laser hair removal because in spite of being afab, dey used to sport more facial hair than your average cis guy and where very much not happy with that. Then there’s forms of bottom surgery whose entire point it is to create ambiguous genitals, like penile-preserving vaginoplasty, or phalloplasty without a vaginectomy, and these are mostly (but not exclusively) requested by nonbinary people. I know enbie transmasc people who adjust their low dose testosterone regimen to just masculinize themselves in specific ways (like lowering their voice, but not getting bottom growth), a ton of transmasc enbies undergo mastectomies, there’s transfem enbies who only go on estradiole until they’ve grown boobs and then stop and go back to living on testosterone. There’s all kinds of possibilities for gender affirming care, i honestly think we’ve only just begun to see what’s possible because nonbinary people were gatekept from transitioning for such a long time.

    • Are_Euclidding_Me [e/em/eir]@hexbear.net
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      11
      ·
      1 year ago

      Yes, nonbinary people can also have bodily “mismatches”, for want of a better word. I’m agender and socially I very much don’t fit into either the “man” or “woman” category. But my physical transition has looked almost exactly identical to that of a binary trans man, and I’m now comfortable with my body in a way I didn’t know was possible before I started transitioning. That being said, I don’t always get gendered male by strangers, and I’m glad for it. I like being a little androgynous.

      Also, not every nonbinary person is neurodivergent. It’s totally possible to be neurotypical and still nonbinary.

    • Orannis62 [ze/hir]@hexbear.net
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      10
      ·
      1 year ago

      Keep in mind that nonbinary doesn’t just mean one thing, it’s an umbrella. I’m both nonbinary and a woman (I like to say that my internal identity is neither man nor woman but politically I’m a woman).

      But yes, despite being nonbinary I still have a lot of physical dysphoria. I need estradiol to not feel like my body is always in a low-grade state of panic, and I feel bottom dysphoria very strongly. But there are people, binary and nonbinary, who have none of those physical feelings of dysphoria and that doesn’t change their identities