Back to Basics

My recent surgery, along with some articles and blog commentary that have been causing ripples in trans circles, has had me thinking about some of the basic reasons behind transition and the kinds of related things people often get muddled up about. I'm also far enough along that I've grown hazy on my own thinking regarding a few of these things, so in the interests of returning to the basics, here's a handful of the common, deeper questions and misconceptions that tend to arise:


Why can't you simply make the best of what you've been given, and accept who you are without changing yourself via transition? After all, you'll never really be female.

I tried, I really did. Even with the support I've received, transition isn't easy by any stretch of the imagination and I'd never have even set a single footstep down on this journey if it wasn't my last recourse. The easy way to understand this, if you don't already, is this phrase:

"I can't imagine ever having a sex change."

Me neither, until a few years ago. I mean, who would honestly want to put themselves through all this stuff if it weren't necessary? That's how strong the gender dysphoria can be.

Never being exactly like a natal female is something I just have to accept. But the primary reason for transition is to seek relief from gender dysphoria, and that's exactly what it has done.

The other side to this is that I'm actually closer to being who I am after transition than before; I'm less guarded and closed up, more open and apt to be happy. In short, this is who I am.


If you are already presenting as female and people are reacting to you as a female, why do you need genital reassignment surgery?

Lots of varying answers to this depending on who you ask, but for me personally, it's because I still saw what was down there whenever I had to undress and it was triggering the gender dysphoria that I'd worked so hard to relieve myself of. Having male genitalia also impacted my everyday life in practical ways, such as making me choose clothing based on having to hide "the bulge". And on another level, it made me feel fraudulent in that whenever someone met me and gendered me as being female, I felt guilty for "misleading" the person because of what was hidden from plain sight.

And of course, it means being able to conduct sexual relationships as a female - something my mind has always instinctively posited and which manifested in fantasies I've had while growing up. The "male way" simply seems distressing and wrong.

As I recover from surgery, I can see that these problems are fading away for me.


If you believe that gender is fluid and a construction of society, wouldn't you then just be reinforcing gender roles by making people see you as female?

That's kinda backwards. To understand why, just ask the same question of any genetic female. Genetic women aren't out there "trying" to be women - they simply are women. The same goes for transwomen.

The problematic area is that transwomen (particularly in the early stages of transition) are more apt to play up to gender stereotypes in order to fit in and pass, but as real life goes on, the tendency to do this generally dissipates (which is another reason I'm an advocate of the Real Life Experience).


A transman having a baby is like having your cake and eating it too - people can't have everything, so why should they be allowed to do these things that other men can't do?

If a transman still retains functional female reproductive organs, then why shouldn't he be allowed to have a baby? There are already enough things denied to transpeople in general, transmen in the specific - after all, there is no reliable surgery for female-to-male genital reconstruction so the vast majority of transmen don't have an option there anyway. The argument that "he wanted to become a man; he is now a man and therefore shouldn't be allowed to carry a child" is nonsensical because it denies the person's past as a natal female: genetic men don't become pregnant because they are biologically incapable, not because they simply call themselves men.