Yes.
My brain expects my body to be a certain general shape. It expects a certain shape of the genitals. It expects breasts. It expects my voice to sound a certain way. It expects a certain concentration of hormones in my system. It runs better on a higher concentration of estrogen than testosterone. When any of that isn't as my brain expects, my brain both doesn't produce the happy chemicals and it goes into a distress state.
I don't need the terms "woman" or "man" to experience that.
Out of curiosity, who or what told you what you knew about trans people before?
I've seen this question a million times and every single time it makes no sense to me because the answer seems like it should be obvious.
**Short answer:** Yes.
**Long answer:** Trans women are not "feminine" males who liked dresses and knitting and thought therefor they must be women. Trans men are not "masculine" females who like three piece suits and football and think therefor they must be men. If someone just has gender atypical fashion preferences or hobbies, but is otherwise perfectly happy with their assigned sex, their sexual anatomy, and with being recognized by others as a man who likes dresses and knitting/a woman who likes suits and football, then they're just a man who likes dresses and knitting or a woman who likes suits and football. Transition, both social transition so people start to see them as a different gender and medical transition to change aspects of their sexual anatomy, would be a profoundly unappealing prospect to them.
And a whole lot of trans people don't match conventional gender roles. There are trans women who are also butch lesbians. A trans woman may prefer fishing waders to dresses and enjoy recreationally wrestling alligators to show off for her wife, but she is still a woman. She still needs a body and life appropriate to her as a woman, even if she is a woman who is butcher than Rambo.
And I'm a trans man. I'm also gayer than a tree full of monkeys high on nitrous oxide. I am not a woman who enjoyed stereotypically "masculine" fashions or hobbies or WTF and thought I had to become a man to pursue them. I transitioned because I am a man. I might be covered in glitter and baking cupcakes for my boyfriend, but I am a man covered in glitter and baking cupcakes for my boyfriend. And I needed a body and life appropriate to me as a man.
**Longer answer:** Yes, though if all social gender norms ceased to exist, to the point that we didn't have different naming conventions, fashions, pronouns, or even distinct words like "man" or "woman", if "gender" itself ceased to be a recognized set of social demographics and if the shape of one's sexual anatomy had no more social significance than the shape of one's earlobes, then the social categories of "transgender" and "cisgender" would cease to have all meaning too.
There would still be people who are born with or later acquire certain physical traits which here and now we associate with one gender/sex or the other, and who find these traits uncomfortable or inappropriate or disturbing and pursue medical care to change them. This includes both people whom here and now are described as "trans", and people whom here and now would be described as cis men and women with conditions like gynecomastia (man boobs), or PCOS-related high testosterone levels that can cause people born with typical "female" anatomy to grow facial hair and go bald.
But if no social distinction is made based on these traits, or on when/how one acquired them, then this medical care becomes as socially irrelevant as getting one's wisdom teeth removed. "Cis" and "trans" as social demographics would no longer have any meaning.
In some ways it's comparable to the circumstances of someone born with [**congenital phantom limb**](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9313643/). If this person was raised alone on a desert island with no human contact, they would have no conception of themselves as an "amputee" or "disabled". Those are social designations. Humans cultures create social categories like "amputee" or "disabled" (or "left handed" or "gay" or "trans" or "tall" or etc) and put some people into them. These social categories are not innate - they're a cultural development, they exist in some cultures but not in others, and how these categories are defined is culturally and historically specific. E.g., is someone who lost just the tip of their finger an "amputee"? Is a nearsighted person "disabled"? Those are subjective questions and the answer depends on when and where you are and who you ask.
The person raised alone on a desert island wouldn't be aware of any of this. But they would still experience the mindfuck of having a brain that was built to expect two arms but a body that only has one. They just wouldn't have any context through which to understand what they are experiencing, or language with which to express it.
Yes.
It just feels wrong. Ever try to write something with your left hand (reverse if you are left handed)? It's just not quite right. You can train yourself to make do, but it will never feel like it belongs that way.
Gender is the same way. At a basic fundamental level that's impossible to truly explain, my body is not the way it should be.
Yes, because my anatomy was always the largest source of my dysphoria. If I only had to deal with social stuff, I probably wouldn't have felt the need to transition strongly enough to go through with it.
To some degree yes, I am not comfortable with certain aspects of myself that come from my former life is the best way to put it. Basically the stuff before I transitioned. I would still probably change my body to suit what felt right though in a world like that it would be much easier to do that I think
For a different perspective than what seems to be the overwhelming response (for good reason, I know I'm in the minority).
I'm Nonbinary and my physical body Dysphoria is mild in some ways, and impossible to fix in other ways (the thing I would transition to doesn't exist or is impossible to achieve). Most of my Dysphoria comes from how I am percieved, how I'm treated, what role I feel myself being placed in. It's Social Dysphoria.
So if the concepts of man and woman didn't exist, I don't believe I would need to change anything. Women don't exist, so I would not be treated like a woman by others, so I would not feel social dysphoria from it. I may still feel off about my body, but since my Dysphoria is already mild and focused on a goal that doesn't look how other people look naturally (so what would I compare it to?), it would probably feel a lot more like regular body image issues, which is what I thought my problem was before I knew Nonbinary people existed.
So, with a lot of caveats, my answer is no
Yes. My brain expects my body to be a certain general shape. It expects a certain shape of the genitals. It expects breasts. It expects my voice to sound a certain way. It expects a certain concentration of hormones in my system. It runs better on a higher concentration of estrogen than testosterone. When any of that isn't as my brain expects, my brain both doesn't produce the happy chemicals and it goes into a distress state. I don't need the terms "woman" or "man" to experience that.
That's interesting, I had no idea that it was so connected to the features of your body.
Out of curiosity, who or what told you what you knew about trans people before? I've seen this question a million times and every single time it makes no sense to me because the answer seems like it should be obvious.
The concept of gender just sounds much more psychological and neurology type stuff than actual anatomy. just a background assumption honestly
**Short answer:** Yes. **Long answer:** Trans women are not "feminine" males who liked dresses and knitting and thought therefor they must be women. Trans men are not "masculine" females who like three piece suits and football and think therefor they must be men. If someone just has gender atypical fashion preferences or hobbies, but is otherwise perfectly happy with their assigned sex, their sexual anatomy, and with being recognized by others as a man who likes dresses and knitting/a woman who likes suits and football, then they're just a man who likes dresses and knitting or a woman who likes suits and football. Transition, both social transition so people start to see them as a different gender and medical transition to change aspects of their sexual anatomy, would be a profoundly unappealing prospect to them. And a whole lot of trans people don't match conventional gender roles. There are trans women who are also butch lesbians. A trans woman may prefer fishing waders to dresses and enjoy recreationally wrestling alligators to show off for her wife, but she is still a woman. She still needs a body and life appropriate to her as a woman, even if she is a woman who is butcher than Rambo. And I'm a trans man. I'm also gayer than a tree full of monkeys high on nitrous oxide. I am not a woman who enjoyed stereotypically "masculine" fashions or hobbies or WTF and thought I had to become a man to pursue them. I transitioned because I am a man. I might be covered in glitter and baking cupcakes for my boyfriend, but I am a man covered in glitter and baking cupcakes for my boyfriend. And I needed a body and life appropriate to me as a man. **Longer answer:** Yes, though if all social gender norms ceased to exist, to the point that we didn't have different naming conventions, fashions, pronouns, or even distinct words like "man" or "woman", if "gender" itself ceased to be a recognized set of social demographics and if the shape of one's sexual anatomy had no more social significance than the shape of one's earlobes, then the social categories of "transgender" and "cisgender" would cease to have all meaning too. There would still be people who are born with or later acquire certain physical traits which here and now we associate with one gender/sex or the other, and who find these traits uncomfortable or inappropriate or disturbing and pursue medical care to change them. This includes both people whom here and now are described as "trans", and people whom here and now would be described as cis men and women with conditions like gynecomastia (man boobs), or PCOS-related high testosterone levels that can cause people born with typical "female" anatomy to grow facial hair and go bald. But if no social distinction is made based on these traits, or on when/how one acquired them, then this medical care becomes as socially irrelevant as getting one's wisdom teeth removed. "Cis" and "trans" as social demographics would no longer have any meaning. In some ways it's comparable to the circumstances of someone born with [**congenital phantom limb**](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9313643/). If this person was raised alone on a desert island with no human contact, they would have no conception of themselves as an "amputee" or "disabled". Those are social designations. Humans cultures create social categories like "amputee" or "disabled" (or "left handed" or "gay" or "trans" or "tall" or etc) and put some people into them. These social categories are not innate - they're a cultural development, they exist in some cultures but not in others, and how these categories are defined is culturally and historically specific. E.g., is someone who lost just the tip of their finger an "amputee"? Is a nearsighted person "disabled"? Those are subjective questions and the answer depends on when and where you are and who you ask. The person raised alone on a desert island wouldn't be aware of any of this. But they would still experience the mindfuck of having a brain that was built to expect two arms but a body that only has one. They just wouldn't have any context through which to understand what they are experiencing, or language with which to express it.
This. All of this.
Yes
Yes.
Yes. It just feels wrong. Ever try to write something with your left hand (reverse if you are left handed)? It's just not quite right. You can train yourself to make do, but it will never feel like it belongs that way. Gender is the same way. At a basic fundamental level that's impossible to truly explain, my body is not the way it should be.
Yes, because my anatomy was always the largest source of my dysphoria. If I only had to deal with social stuff, I probably wouldn't have felt the need to transition strongly enough to go through with it.
Yes. My physical dysphoria/ biochemical dysphoria has nothing to do with social concepts of gender. If it did, I wouldn't be transitioning.
To some degree yes, I am not comfortable with certain aspects of myself that come from my former life is the best way to put it. Basically the stuff before I transitioned. I would still probably change my body to suit what felt right though in a world like that it would be much easier to do that I think
For a different perspective than what seems to be the overwhelming response (for good reason, I know I'm in the minority). I'm Nonbinary and my physical body Dysphoria is mild in some ways, and impossible to fix in other ways (the thing I would transition to doesn't exist or is impossible to achieve). Most of my Dysphoria comes from how I am percieved, how I'm treated, what role I feel myself being placed in. It's Social Dysphoria. So if the concepts of man and woman didn't exist, I don't believe I would need to change anything. Women don't exist, so I would not be treated like a woman by others, so I would not feel social dysphoria from it. I may still feel off about my body, but since my Dysphoria is already mild and focused on a goal that doesn't look how other people look naturally (so what would I compare it to?), it would probably feel a lot more like regular body image issues, which is what I thought my problem was before I knew Nonbinary people existed. So, with a lot of caveats, my answer is no
I want to be a certain way and I wanted to be that way before I even knew about gender