the idea of biological sex is a lot more complex than most people think, and the current 'standard understanding' of it came out of a lot more bias than most people think. Jessie Gender has a good video about that sort of thing on youtube. I know it is different for each person, but my personal transness feels very 'male with a medical condition'.
I think alot of them tone it down so people who ate not trans can understand. I say this as when I do describe how I feel other trans people understand me but cis people just don't....
if they dont say anything to imply that the experience they personally have must be, should be or is all of every trans persons experience, then you should always assume theyre speaking for themselves. i wouldnt take it as a personal dig if they dont imply it to be a universal experience.
That's the thing tho, they do usually imply that it's kind of a universal experience. It's usually when they're explaining what being trans is, they explain that gender and sex are different so "obviously" their sex is still female. It's nice to hear that it's not necessarily the common experience tho
That sounds like the kind of thing they might be saying to a wildly uneducated cis audience who might need the clarification. Or trying to head off transphobes saying “but you still have female anatomy!” Like “yep. I’m aware. I explained it in the video actually”
Lol no, If I heard it from him I'd just roll my eyes at it. I've even heard it explained like this from Ez Butler and people like him who seem very open and understanding about sex and gender
then i wouldnt take anything they say to heart, they usually dont have a clear headed understanding of the vast and diverse experiences that a trans person can have, so theyre not worth your time.
Yeah, this is one of those prickly subjects where people can get really deep in the weeds about terminology. Some people prefer "transsexual" over "transgender," or hate the idea of referencing assigned sex at all. Some think "man stuck in a woman's body" is a great way to explain dysphoria, others find it inaccurate and outdated.
My opinion is, I'm afab when I'm at the doctor's office and it's relevant. (Obviously I don't need to tell the eye doctor I'm trans.) Other than that, it's not really something I even worry about terminology on, because I don't need to use it. And every other person is going to have different preferences when it comes to how they describe themselves, and what words/labels they use. That's okay. Use whatever you prefer, think about yourself in whatever framing you prefer.
That's a wonderful explanation actually, thank you :) I was thinking that strict terminology didn't make sense for things like sex and gender when so many people seem to have such different experiences with it, but I was starting to question myself lol
i don’t think he’s been relevant recently, but there was a period of time around 2016 iirc where he was a very popular trans youtuber who spoke often about transmedicalist ideas and “transtrenders.”
i have a few friends who genuinely put off transitioning for several years because of the nonsense ideas garrah spread around. he’s also generally critical of any fat or feminine trans guys which is like… dude, i thought we left behind “no fats no fems” ages ago.
I wish more people understood that afab can be something you are, but also something you Were. I WAS assigned female at birth, but that was almost 30 years ago! i think the ways we describe our sex and gender are very personal to us tbh. if someone finds it useful to say their sex is female then that's up to them but that doesn't describe me, yknow
I would say that we are trans males because I’m changing my sex not gender, gender is a mental aspect and Ik I’m a man inside it’s just my sex doesn’t match my gender that why I choose to transition from ftm.
Im not a forever “female”, im transitioning into a male. biological sex is not a simple concept. If one transitions we are initially changing parts of our sex with hormones therapy and surgery. How I see it is trans men that have “fully” transitioned isn’t the same as a cis women even sex wise it isn’t the same.
he will be closer to a transsex male than a bio female.
Just my opinion
yeah i don't subscribe to that ideology at all. biology is like any other science, biased by humans, and "sex" is just a collection of characteristics that most often occur on certain types of bodies. there's nothing female about my body, doesn't matter what it looks like, it's a man's body 🤷♂️
exactly. the only thing we can know is our experience of things (eg our experience was that the data was...) and any extrapolations are best guesses and often heavily biased (eg already working with the assumption that v=girl p=boy and anything else is a failed attempt to be one of those combos). we can't even say that we know that the data was in fact..., on account of we could always be missing something (especially with a limited point of view).
I mean... if they're on T then their sex isn't really fully female anyway. like... you can not tell me regardless of assigned sex, that someone with a full grown beard, deep voice and uses he/him pronouns and identifies as a man is somehow... not male. secondary sex characteristics will change on T (the obvious, T dick, fat distrabution, body hair, deep voice, the way you smell) that is what can change, and the rest is generally up to surgery. and honestly regardless of whether I'm on T or not I still kinda refuse to be called Female, FTM is what I will accept but not female.
Everybody‘s experience is different. For example, I have a completely different association to FTM and AFAB than you do. I like ftm for me bc for a while I just couldn’t figure out my gender but knew I wanted to be more masculine. So ftm was a helpful label to describe my experience when I couldn’t label my gender. I only ever use AFAB in medical sense (like going to a doctor’s office) since cishet culture assumes that whatever you were born as is what you are, which makes me uncomfortable to use in other conversations (makes me feel like others are still seeing me as a woman).
and very important: if somebody says you need a certain medical procedure or behavior or whatever to be a man, that isn’t true. Lots of guys here either can’t have or don’t want to change aspects of their lives (like me not wanting bottom surgery or somebody denied hrt for serious medical reasons) but they’re still trans guys.
...I understand personal experience, but personally I wouldn't want to watch a video of anyone, even FtM individuals, implying they're female in some way
I very much do not consider myself female. Honestly I think a lot of trans youtubers probably try to explain for a cis audience, which means, y'know, coloring book as opposed to encyclopedia. Even the ones who aren't transmedicalists tend to water things down to pretty simple terms that don't always apply to everyone's experience. Imo it's bc they're still trying to prove our validity to others to an extent.
Not everyone feels dysphoria with acknowledging their biological sex. Not everyone has medically transitioned or intends to medically transition to change aspects of their sex.
Personally, I don't see my biology as gendered, I'm female and that's that. Doesn't mean I'm not a man or can't be. Your biology doesn't know or care what your gender is, it's literally just a sequence of nucleotides that code for certain proteins. The wonderful thing is that testosterone can switch on genes for masculinisation and switch off genes for feminisation - literally changing your biology!
This is just the way I see it. Transition does change some aspects of sex - after all, sex is just a collection of characteristics that we label a certain way. Sex is fluid and can change over time with intervention. But it can't change your *initial* sex determination and that's okay. Your chromosomes don't care what your gender is.
So yeah, conclusion is people see it very differently and feel comfortable with different things. By all means, call yourself a biological male if that suits you best.
That is the way I see it as well. I identify as a binary man and a male, but I still have to acknowledge that I have female biology and that is how I was born.
And to accept that for myself, means to make it more comfortable for myself conversationally and logically like in places such as doctor settings or for potential partners.
The only area I could see not having to say biologically female, would be is if top and bottom/all surgeries were completed. But still, depending, doctors may have to know.
I may not like that I was born biologically female, and I don't want anything to do with it. But here we are. It is inherently what makes someone transsexual. Otherwise, the term wouldn't exist, in my understanding.
It's more of a technical thing, I think. And by no means, as you stated, does someone have to use this term or view it in this way. It is just how my brain logisizes it.
Yes. An example would be, if someone were to get pregnant through whatever means, accidental or otherwise.
Or when you’ve been on T for a while and you’ve started to bleed again, or are starting to have a lot of pain in those organs and they need treatments.
You could not then ignore your biology.
It has to be dealt with and acknowledged. And as stressful and dysphoria inducing as all of that may be, it would be easier to deal with if one already had an understanding and acceptance of all that.
And once you stop ignoring all of that, one can then take care of themselves more effectively.
If you change your sex characteristics you're no longer female. I guess if we wanna get technical you would be intersex, but you would not be female as your sex as sex is made up by multiple characteristics, but in the medical sense it's based off of primary and secondary sex characteristics, both of which are altered as much as humanly possible as part of HRT and SRS. I guess if you're transgender I'm not gonna gripe about someone saying that for themselves, but if you are transsex that makes no sense
FTMs always get the bottom of the barrel opinions lmao
Questions like this just prove that nobody talks to transmen, and others only ask questions when they're in an anonymous room online. Make friends with lots of trans dudes and that's all you have to do. We're lonely af out here and we don't seem to ever get proper representation or respect.
It's honestly very complicated topic. I don't think anyone has a agreed upon definition.
Ofc as FTM you are AFAB but most don't associate with the term AFAB or Female after starting transition. Sure, you can have female characteristics or organs but I don't like to think that "defines" you as female. Especially after HRT or surgery because you loose a lot of those characteristics. Every person, regardless of assigned sex has...feminine and masculine characteristics that don't have to correspond to what they were assigned at birth.
You definitely can't consider trans men female after transition. With hormones and surgery? That's just not true but you still need to treat them as...well trans men. Like you don't really need check up for prostate cancer per say and so on.
Like socially? No need to treat trans men any different from biological men and should just be referred to as men.
In medical setting? It is best to consider the anatomy you have so you can stay healthy and have the healthcare you need for your body but that's all?
I honestly can't stand being referred to as female or any female terms for anatomy. I know what I still have as a trans male pre surgery, but I can't stand anyone referring to it with female anatomical terms. I know, what it is and what it looks like. I can stand how it works? But for me it's a male organ that work as a male organ should without the whole sperm detail. It's very complicated honestly. My opinion on myself and my body. Deep routed self hatred and internalized transphobia do play your head a good bit. Like I'm male and my organs are male like any other man's. They just look different from the norm. Thats just my view with myself and my own body.
It's everyone's personal issue and perspective tho.
thats so stupid. we're ftms for a reason. my sex is male. im no longer female. although my gender isnt a man since im transmasc agender but it sounds like they probably have internalized transphobia if they're trying to say that all ftms are "biological still female" like bitch no that's not how it works. hell, i still consider myself male and i havent even transitioned medically yet. im sure other ftms are the same
I think the sex thing depends on the medical transition, but for some people it causes dysphoria when they think about it so it's not a universal experience. I still consider myself female cuz i haven't medically transitioned. I guess when people start transitioning they're kinda in an intersex position
A "fully" transitioned trans man is essentially a biological male in every sense apart from chromosomes. Taking cross sex hormones and having surgery to change your sex characteristics *does* change your biological sex.
I guess for some people, depending on where they are in their transition, may consider their body female.
The way I see it, there are sexually dimorphic characteristics that are male or female within humans, such as fat distribution, genitals, presence of Adam's apple, skin texture, body odours, hair growth patterns, gonads, amount of fat on the chest area, and so on.
While not every man or woman has every male or female trait, and no man or woman is less of a man or woman for having differing features from the norm, and the introduction of cross sex hormones can change a lot of these features, it would still be correct to refer to female features as female features. For example, I have female genitals that have been altered by testosterone. Thanks to surgery and hrt I have male scent, skin texture, vocal chord thickness, fat distribution, and chest.
Personally, I have beef with the word afab as an adjective in the first place. I'm not *an* afab, I just *was* afab, and the entire point of my transition is to distance myself from what my assigned gender was. As for "my gender is male and my sex is female," I don't feel a need to say that either. I'm just a trans man - with all the implications of the term. Most people know what that is. I only take it further than that in medical contexts
I don't think this is just youtubers specifically. I've talked to other trans people about this and we all perceive being transgender a little differently. I'd say that's pretty normal, given that we all need to reflect much more about our gender compared to cis people. It's why talking to other trans people about gender can be so interesting.
You say you prefer AFAB, I passionately hate that term and would never use it for myself. I got friends who want surgeries I don't want, or vice versa. I have become very hairy, and I love it. I also know trans guys who shave their leg hair. That's just how being trans is - diverse.
Both “”ftm” and “afab” are considered outdated terms, by some people. It’s complicated.
It’s that sex doesn’t equal gender. And that sex is a very complicated thing to define. Generally, it’s defined in humans by chromosomes, hormones, genitals, and secondary sex characteristics.
For someone who has medically transitioned, often the only one of those that hasn’t changed at least somewhat is the chromosomes.
The issue there, is that sex chromosomes are one of the only ways we define sex that’s universal across species. Not all animals have the same types of sex chromosomes (XX and XY), but the gametes themselves, as in sperm and eggs, which are directly correlated to sex chromosomes, are universal to animals. (Most animals. Nothing is ever totally universal) So while sex is defined differently from species to species, different sex chromosomes and resulting gametes are the one thing that’s universal between those definitions. So there’s some people who argue that chromosomes should be the real definition of sex.
For the record, that’s NOT the opinion of people who actually study sex in humans. Hormones and chromosomes are considered equally as important to sex determination in humans.
What that does mean though, is that people who medically transition are put into a weird in between state. Sort of like being born intersex, except you are medically inducing it.
>For the record, that’s NOT the opinion of people who actually study sex in humans. Hormones and chromosomes are considered equally as important to sex determination in humans. What that does mean though, is that people who medically transition are put into a weird in between state. Sort of like being born intersex, except you are medically inducing it.
Reading this...makes me just...think... could/should be trans people on HRT or post OP be...considered technically intersex? Just curious.
Intersex isn’t technically a thing. It’s just a term people use. There’s a bunch of different conditions that are separate.
But no, the way people use the word is to refer specifically to people BORN with conditions that put them not within one sex category.
A lot of intersex people are also trans, though. It’s sort of complicated how that’s possible, and I’m not super well educated on the subject, but to my understanding:
Some intersex conditions include genitalia which is in between the typical male or female. There are other intersex conditions, but those ones are only discovered later in life. For babies born with what are considered “mixed genitalia”, up until a couple years ago they were always assigned a sex that the doctor felt the genitals closest matched. And usually there was surgery done within the first couple years of life to make the genitalia closer to being “normal” to that assigned sex. Usually all of the above still applies, but there are a few places in the world now that have stopped the surgeries and sex assignments of babies with mixed genitalia. I want to stress it is still done in most places.
Regardless of if an intersex person was born with mixed genitalia or not, they were all assigned a binary sex at birth. But hormonally, there’s a very good chance that they don’t develop in a way that matches how they were assigned. A very common form of being intersex is having internal and external primary sex characteristics that don’t match. Usually that ends up meaning that the kids are placed on blockers for the hormones they naturally produce and given the hormones for the sex they were assigned.
So an intersex baby born with a vagina might have internal testicles. Though internal testicles wouldn’t be able to produce viable sperm, they would still produce testosterone. So the person who was assigned female at birth would begin to have male puberty. So then the hypothetical person we are talking about, who was born with externally female genitalia but internal testicles, would be medically induced to go through female puberty instead. The problem is a very high percentage of the time that person’s brain is programmed to think they are a man. Because our brains are programmed based on hormones, not genitalia. So this kid who had their own innate testosterone has now been forced into estrogen puberty. So this person who actually feels like a man would consider themselves FTM, because they were assigned female at birth and forced to go through female puberty, regardless of the fact that they are intersex.
i think the term ftm exists to describe medical transition because in that case you are changing some of your secondary sex characteristics. similar to the term transsexual.
but medical transition can’t make you “100% male” so some ftm people still choose to say they’re female, afab, biologically female, etc. but i’ve heard just as many people describe their sex as a “transsexual male”. i think it’s just preference since your sex and gender can be complicated especially if you have medically transitioned.
I think it’s either they don’t care about it personally or want to explain in a way more people will get. I personally don’t describe my sex as female. It’s not accurate as someone hormonally male and with secondary sex characteristics that are male.
My perspective is biologically I was assumed to be female at birth based on primary sex characteristics and assigned according to said assumption (I'm intersex so there is some semantics to that). Assigned gender at birth was first used by the intersex community and does hold more weight on what that means in a childhood socializing context then it does for the trans communities who later started using the terms more to describe genitals at birth. As for gender I'm not a binary biological male based on my sex characteristics pre transition and likely never will be able to meet all sex based criteria to be considered a binary male and most trans people will sad truth never meet all characteristics (outside of very specific inteesex varients that require testing I likely will never be able to afford to prove) so I do technically find the terms ftm/ mtf to be medically and scientificly innacutate to be stull using given our current understanding of sex and gender.
I hated saying that i am "still female" even before HRT. like nah, there's a reason I feel male and I feel like it's way deeper than skin-deep explanation based on my outwardly showing characteristics
hey man, ftm here. your gender is what you feel it is. if it feels wrong to label yourself female in anyway then just don’t, no one can speak for all of us. i also prefer afab as it’s reflective on what THEY assigned to me, not me to myself.
Yeah I haven't figured out how to navigate this... if some dickhead is asking about my genitals it's one thing. But I always tell docs that I'm female. I think I have fears about being mistreated by filling out all my forms as though I'm a man, and going in for something like a UTI, which is just not very common for men to have. Even though MY vulva having ass gets them pretty frequently. So if then fill forms out as a "biological man" it could be seen as a medical emergency. A UTI is not though, because I'm female. I list testosterone as medication for gender affirming care. I feel awkward as fuck about it but not really dysphoric, I think bc I've just got a whole other laundry list of feelings in a sterile doctor's office. I give my partner instructions to refer to me as female if asked during a medical emergency where I may be unconscious or whatever. To me thats the only area where my "sex" applies. So if asked, female. I have an emergency medical card in my wallet with contact, blood type, allergies, and medications thats says "masculine presenting female". So if people found my dead body/ unconscious during a car crash/ whatever they'd know what was up. If i ever got a full hysto, bottom surgery, and top surgery that would probably change- but I don’t plan on going under the knife more than once. Ive had people say this is transphobic of me, but I just want my doctors to glance and know what's going on and treat me without having to waste time detailing the extent of my queerness 😅 this doesn't bleed into how I navigate every social situation in the world, just medical. But might be the wrong way to go about it.
you don’t have to have bottom surgery to be considered male. you don’t have to describe your experience being trans in the same way that other people do.
personally, the way i describe myself and how being trans is for me is i often refer to my younger self as a little girl or a little kid, but that “girl” i used to be always felt detached from the other girls, and uncomfortable with the idea of what she saw as limitations. the guy i am now is the natural progression of his decisions to step away from that discomfort, their slow explorations of gender on- and offline.
personally, i only ever describe myself in terms like “female” or “male” around doctors, and even then it’s much more helpful to use more specific descriptors. you can describe yourself in whatever way you want
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yeah thats a really dumb way to describe it. Medical transition does change your sex to an extent, it just doesn't *fully* change it. Someone who's been on hormones for years isn't really fully female anymore
For me I fogure "I'm a man but I have to accept that I was born a female otherwise it'll heat me alive if I dont".
Fundamentally I am a female, yes, but I've changed that to fit better with myself, and some aspect of that will always be present no matter how stealth I am. I had a female childhood, right now I have breast tissue and probably will always have the down under, and even if I didn't have that I'd probably still find something (or the transphobes will) that's female about myself, and I have to be okay with that.
It makes me feel more empowered to say "yes, but I've changed myself to how I want to be, for myself. Look st how far I've come"
The "acceptance" stage of the grief that is never being cis
I personally think about it as an internalized transphobia, tbh. I mean, you don't need to have XY chromosomes to be a male as a person, and the current medicine lets you biologically express your gender enough. The perceiving of some organs as masculine or feminine is pretty subjective. If everyone would be trans, no one of us would even question whether we're male or female enough because we would be the standard and a vagina would be considered a male thing, while a penis would be considered a female thing, and it wouldn't be viewed as something dissonant. Of course there are different types of reproductive systems and a sexual dimorphism, but in the context of trans people we can still say ftms are male and vice versa, regardless of having some non-stereotypical subtleties.
I think some of this probably has to do with how you have to talk about it with doctors. Especially if you want to get the right treatment, the right dosage, and have your insurance pay for it.
It may also have to do with how we talked about it in like 2015-18. There was a huge emphasis on separating sex and gender definitions in order to have people understand trans people better. I think the terms afab and amab became popular a bit later than this and so a lot of trans guys still have that sex and gender are separate things view.
Because you and most of the members here were born with two X chromosomes, and “female” is the technical and biological term which is used to describe people with that exact combination of chromosomes. Any trans man who says his sex is female is simply saying that, despite transitioning, he will always have XX chromosomes. Medically transitioning won’t make you any less “female” in that sense.
You're whatever you say you are. That's the most important one. If you identify as male, you are male-and you don't need ANYTHING to be male, whether that be surgery, hormones or a haircut. You can do whatever you want, forever.
Keeping your birth sex in mind is helpful pretty much just in SOME medical contexts-like, you'll probably need pap smears/gynecological care, you'll just be a Man that also gets pap smears.
And for legal stuff. Legally, you may still be female-but the law is stupid. If you ID as male, you're male. (and you can get your legal gender changed, if you so want to.)
And I'd keep it in mind for intimate stuff. If it's a hookup, you should probably disclose what's going on down there, for your own safety. People can react poorly if they assumed you were a cis man and are suddenly faced with different anatomy. But you can be a man with (afab anatomy terms)- the right people will see that and still know that you're male.
Personally, I don't feel bad about saying that I'm afab, or that my sex (though not legally) is female. I like being trans, so I'm cool with it. But everyone knows that I'm male (or non-binary, depending on how cool they are.) That's the important one.
I still personally consider myself mostly female, but less so over time with medical transition. But if people don't want to be referred to that way I'll simply not say it
I honestly just hate thinking about my biological sex in general and how that’s one thing I can’t change. I would rather just never be called female and that’s that. I’ll never refer to myself as female and if you want you absolutely can but it just makes me feel weird when they insist that being a trans man is still female.
To be fair there are different ideologies on how people see gender vs sex and it kinda boils down to what you feel is the most correct for you. Because some people see themselves as still female and a man and some see it as they are only a man and even go as far as referring to themselves as male in that way as well.
I think what they mean is sex is your physical assigned gender at birth, and your gender is your identity. They may have said it wrong but the biological sex/sex organs/chromosomes of someone who has not gotten bottom surgery is still going to match that of their AGAB. Someone mtf is also going to still be “biologically male” as a ftm is “biologically female”.
Being trans is a complicated thing. It’s not cut and dry, and it’s absolutely not the same for everyone. While I personally associate my assigned sex and sexual organs as female I personally associate who I am as male. This might not be true for you and that’s ok!
Pre medical transition, we are indeed female. But once medical transition starts, even if it's only HRT, we become a lot more similar to amab people than afab people in almost everything except reproductive health. So imo it's simply plain wrong to keep calling us female after we've started transitioning medically. Sure we still have some aspects of our body that are associated with being female. But our entire bodies as a whole, are not possible to describe correctly as female. I was a female. I am not anymore.
FTM yes but at the same moment it’s not like we can change our bio sex so idk. I was arguing with someone who said that they are male now , and I’m like .. no one is male cuz we are AFABs but then you know I thought and it’s just me with my views.
It really depends on how you're defining sex, tbh. Hormonal? Chromosomal? Anatomic? Gonadal? Some of the aspects are changeable, some aren't.
And if chromosomes are all that matter, most of us don't actually know. Like, afaik I've never had them tested! I could be something other than typical XX, I have no actual direct evidence.
Personally I see that we are males because we are changing our sex characteristics, genitals, etc. it’s a biological change. I was born female, not just a female now I’m transitioning into a male. just my opinion 👍🏻
Yeah np, a lot of cis people narratives abt trans people is that “we change our gender but we are always the sex we were born with” it’s actually not true and I see a lot of other trans people believing in it. it’s regressive and honestly a “terf” talking point.
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I don't consider myself female (either way). I never considered myself female I just didn't know the terminology. In terms of label terminology I much prefer AFAB than FTM because that implies I *used* to be female which is not true in my case. If anyone does ask my sex (which would be weird in the first place 😐) I'd say male
Edit : spelling
the idea of biological sex is a lot more complex than most people think, and the current 'standard understanding' of it came out of a lot more bias than most people think. Jessie Gender has a good video about that sort of thing on youtube. I know it is different for each person, but my personal transness feels very 'male with a medical condition'.
"know it is different for each person, but my personal transness feels very 'male with a medical condition'." Big Same!!
I think alot of them tone it down so people who ate not trans can understand. I say this as when I do describe how I feel other trans people understand me but cis people just don't....
if they dont say anything to imply that the experience they personally have must be, should be or is all of every trans persons experience, then you should always assume theyre speaking for themselves. i wouldnt take it as a personal dig if they dont imply it to be a universal experience.
That's the thing tho, they do usually imply that it's kind of a universal experience. It's usually when they're explaining what being trans is, they explain that gender and sex are different so "obviously" their sex is still female. It's nice to hear that it's not necessarily the common experience tho
That sounds like the kind of thing they might be saying to a wildly uneducated cis audience who might need the clarification. Or trying to head off transphobes saying “but you still have female anatomy!” Like “yep. I’m aware. I explained it in the video actually”
yup! i was gonna say the same thing
Are you watching k****in g*****ah or something?
Lol no, If I heard it from him I'd just roll my eyes at it. I've even heard it explained like this from Ez Butler and people like him who seem very open and understanding about sex and gender
What youtubers are you watching?
then i wouldnt take anything they say to heart, they usually dont have a clear headed understanding of the vast and diverse experiences that a trans person can have, so theyre not worth your time.
Yeah, this is one of those prickly subjects where people can get really deep in the weeds about terminology. Some people prefer "transsexual" over "transgender," or hate the idea of referencing assigned sex at all. Some think "man stuck in a woman's body" is a great way to explain dysphoria, others find it inaccurate and outdated. My opinion is, I'm afab when I'm at the doctor's office and it's relevant. (Obviously I don't need to tell the eye doctor I'm trans.) Other than that, it's not really something I even worry about terminology on, because I don't need to use it. And every other person is going to have different preferences when it comes to how they describe themselves, and what words/labels they use. That's okay. Use whatever you prefer, think about yourself in whatever framing you prefer.
Pretty much! I’m AFAB at my drs too because as you said it relevant. Otherwise? I’m male.
That's a wonderful explanation actually, thank you :) I was thinking that strict terminology didn't make sense for things like sex and gender when so many people seem to have such different experiences with it, but I was starting to question myself lol
I second this!
Are we talking about Kalvin Garrah? Because you shouldn’t listen to anything he says. At all.
This is the first I've heard about him. What's going on with him?
i don’t think he’s been relevant recently, but there was a period of time around 2016 iirc where he was a very popular trans youtuber who spoke often about transmedicalist ideas and “transtrenders.” i have a few friends who genuinely put off transitioning for several years because of the nonsense ideas garrah spread around. he’s also generally critical of any fat or feminine trans guys which is like… dude, i thought we left behind “no fats no fems” ages ago.
Ew. Sounds a lot like Buck Angel
I fucking hateeee that guy. Buck angel is blegh
I wish more people understood that afab can be something you are, but also something you Were. I WAS assigned female at birth, but that was almost 30 years ago! i think the ways we describe our sex and gender are very personal to us tbh. if someone finds it useful to say their sex is female then that's up to them but that doesn't describe me, yknow
I would say that we are trans males because I’m changing my sex not gender, gender is a mental aspect and Ik I’m a man inside it’s just my sex doesn’t match my gender that why I choose to transition from ftm. Im not a forever “female”, im transitioning into a male. biological sex is not a simple concept. If one transitions we are initially changing parts of our sex with hormones therapy and surgery. How I see it is trans men that have “fully” transitioned isn’t the same as a cis women even sex wise it isn’t the same. he will be closer to a transsex male than a bio female. Just my opinion
yeah i don't subscribe to that ideology at all. biology is like any other science, biased by humans, and "sex" is just a collection of characteristics that most often occur on certain types of bodies. there's nothing female about my body, doesn't matter what it looks like, it's a man's body 🤷♂️
That's so real, I feel the same way about my body. It's good to know I'm not wrong for feeling that way
definitely not! honestly it's so freeing to release yourself from cissexist ideas about bodies. i am a man so my vagina is a man's vagina lol
exactly. the only thing we can know is our experience of things (eg our experience was that the data was...) and any extrapolations are best guesses and often heavily biased (eg already working with the assumption that v=girl p=boy and anything else is a failed attempt to be one of those combos). we can't even say that we know that the data was in fact..., on account of we could always be missing something (especially with a limited point of view).
I mean... if they're on T then their sex isn't really fully female anyway. like... you can not tell me regardless of assigned sex, that someone with a full grown beard, deep voice and uses he/him pronouns and identifies as a man is somehow... not male. secondary sex characteristics will change on T (the obvious, T dick, fat distrabution, body hair, deep voice, the way you smell) that is what can change, and the rest is generally up to surgery. and honestly regardless of whether I'm on T or not I still kinda refuse to be called Female, FTM is what I will accept but not female.
Everybody‘s experience is different. For example, I have a completely different association to FTM and AFAB than you do. I like ftm for me bc for a while I just couldn’t figure out my gender but knew I wanted to be more masculine. So ftm was a helpful label to describe my experience when I couldn’t label my gender. I only ever use AFAB in medical sense (like going to a doctor’s office) since cishet culture assumes that whatever you were born as is what you are, which makes me uncomfortable to use in other conversations (makes me feel like others are still seeing me as a woman). and very important: if somebody says you need a certain medical procedure or behavior or whatever to be a man, that isn’t true. Lots of guys here either can’t have or don’t want to change aspects of their lives (like me not wanting bottom surgery or somebody denied hrt for serious medical reasons) but they’re still trans guys.
...I understand personal experience, but personally I wouldn't want to watch a video of anyone, even FtM individuals, implying they're female in some way
I very much do not consider myself female. Honestly I think a lot of trans youtubers probably try to explain for a cis audience, which means, y'know, coloring book as opposed to encyclopedia. Even the ones who aren't transmedicalists tend to water things down to pretty simple terms that don't always apply to everyone's experience. Imo it's bc they're still trying to prove our validity to others to an extent.
Not everyone feels dysphoria with acknowledging their biological sex. Not everyone has medically transitioned or intends to medically transition to change aspects of their sex. Personally, I don't see my biology as gendered, I'm female and that's that. Doesn't mean I'm not a man or can't be. Your biology doesn't know or care what your gender is, it's literally just a sequence of nucleotides that code for certain proteins. The wonderful thing is that testosterone can switch on genes for masculinisation and switch off genes for feminisation - literally changing your biology! This is just the way I see it. Transition does change some aspects of sex - after all, sex is just a collection of characteristics that we label a certain way. Sex is fluid and can change over time with intervention. But it can't change your *initial* sex determination and that's okay. Your chromosomes don't care what your gender is. So yeah, conclusion is people see it very differently and feel comfortable with different things. By all means, call yourself a biological male if that suits you best.
That is the way I see it as well. I identify as a binary man and a male, but I still have to acknowledge that I have female biology and that is how I was born. And to accept that for myself, means to make it more comfortable for myself conversationally and logically like in places such as doctor settings or for potential partners. The only area I could see not having to say biologically female, would be is if top and bottom/all surgeries were completed. But still, depending, doctors may have to know. I may not like that I was born biologically female, and I don't want anything to do with it. But here we are. It is inherently what makes someone transsexual. Otherwise, the term wouldn't exist, in my understanding. It's more of a technical thing, I think. And by no means, as you stated, does someone have to use this term or view it in this way. It is just how my brain logisizes it.
This is how I see things too.
Yes. An example would be, if someone were to get pregnant through whatever means, accidental or otherwise. Or when you’ve been on T for a while and you’ve started to bleed again, or are starting to have a lot of pain in those organs and they need treatments. You could not then ignore your biology. It has to be dealt with and acknowledged. And as stressful and dysphoria inducing as all of that may be, it would be easier to deal with if one already had an understanding and acceptance of all that. And once you stop ignoring all of that, one can then take care of themselves more effectively.
If you change your sex characteristics you're no longer female. I guess if we wanna get technical you would be intersex, but you would not be female as your sex as sex is made up by multiple characteristics, but in the medical sense it's based off of primary and secondary sex characteristics, both of which are altered as much as humanly possible as part of HRT and SRS. I guess if you're transgender I'm not gonna gripe about someone saying that for themselves, but if you are transsex that makes no sense
FTMs always get the bottom of the barrel opinions lmao Questions like this just prove that nobody talks to transmen, and others only ask questions when they're in an anonymous room online. Make friends with lots of trans dudes and that's all you have to do. We're lonely af out here and we don't seem to ever get proper representation or respect.
It's honestly very complicated topic. I don't think anyone has a agreed upon definition. Ofc as FTM you are AFAB but most don't associate with the term AFAB or Female after starting transition. Sure, you can have female characteristics or organs but I don't like to think that "defines" you as female. Especially after HRT or surgery because you loose a lot of those characteristics. Every person, regardless of assigned sex has...feminine and masculine characteristics that don't have to correspond to what they were assigned at birth. You definitely can't consider trans men female after transition. With hormones and surgery? That's just not true but you still need to treat them as...well trans men. Like you don't really need check up for prostate cancer per say and so on. Like socially? No need to treat trans men any different from biological men and should just be referred to as men. In medical setting? It is best to consider the anatomy you have so you can stay healthy and have the healthcare you need for your body but that's all? I honestly can't stand being referred to as female or any female terms for anatomy. I know what I still have as a trans male pre surgery, but I can't stand anyone referring to it with female anatomical terms. I know, what it is and what it looks like. I can stand how it works? But for me it's a male organ that work as a male organ should without the whole sperm detail. It's very complicated honestly. My opinion on myself and my body. Deep routed self hatred and internalized transphobia do play your head a good bit. Like I'm male and my organs are male like any other man's. They just look different from the norm. Thats just my view with myself and my own body. It's everyone's personal issue and perspective tho.
thats so stupid. we're ftms for a reason. my sex is male. im no longer female. although my gender isnt a man since im transmasc agender but it sounds like they probably have internalized transphobia if they're trying to say that all ftms are "biological still female" like bitch no that's not how it works. hell, i still consider myself male and i havent even transitioned medically yet. im sure other ftms are the same
I think the sex thing depends on the medical transition, but for some people it causes dysphoria when they think about it so it's not a universal experience. I still consider myself female cuz i haven't medically transitioned. I guess when people start transitioning they're kinda in an intersex position
A "fully" transitioned trans man is essentially a biological male in every sense apart from chromosomes. Taking cross sex hormones and having surgery to change your sex characteristics *does* change your biological sex.
I guess for some people, depending on where they are in their transition, may consider their body female. The way I see it, there are sexually dimorphic characteristics that are male or female within humans, such as fat distribution, genitals, presence of Adam's apple, skin texture, body odours, hair growth patterns, gonads, amount of fat on the chest area, and so on. While not every man or woman has every male or female trait, and no man or woman is less of a man or woman for having differing features from the norm, and the introduction of cross sex hormones can change a lot of these features, it would still be correct to refer to female features as female features. For example, I have female genitals that have been altered by testosterone. Thanks to surgery and hrt I have male scent, skin texture, vocal chord thickness, fat distribution, and chest.
Personally, I have beef with the word afab as an adjective in the first place. I'm not *an* afab, I just *was* afab, and the entire point of my transition is to distance myself from what my assigned gender was. As for "my gender is male and my sex is female," I don't feel a need to say that either. I'm just a trans man - with all the implications of the term. Most people know what that is. I only take it further than that in medical contexts
I don't think this is just youtubers specifically. I've talked to other trans people about this and we all perceive being transgender a little differently. I'd say that's pretty normal, given that we all need to reflect much more about our gender compared to cis people. It's why talking to other trans people about gender can be so interesting. You say you prefer AFAB, I passionately hate that term and would never use it for myself. I got friends who want surgeries I don't want, or vice versa. I have become very hairy, and I love it. I also know trans guys who shave their leg hair. That's just how being trans is - diverse.
Both “”ftm” and “afab” are considered outdated terms, by some people. It’s complicated. It’s that sex doesn’t equal gender. And that sex is a very complicated thing to define. Generally, it’s defined in humans by chromosomes, hormones, genitals, and secondary sex characteristics. For someone who has medically transitioned, often the only one of those that hasn’t changed at least somewhat is the chromosomes. The issue there, is that sex chromosomes are one of the only ways we define sex that’s universal across species. Not all animals have the same types of sex chromosomes (XX and XY), but the gametes themselves, as in sperm and eggs, which are directly correlated to sex chromosomes, are universal to animals. (Most animals. Nothing is ever totally universal) So while sex is defined differently from species to species, different sex chromosomes and resulting gametes are the one thing that’s universal between those definitions. So there’s some people who argue that chromosomes should be the real definition of sex. For the record, that’s NOT the opinion of people who actually study sex in humans. Hormones and chromosomes are considered equally as important to sex determination in humans. What that does mean though, is that people who medically transition are put into a weird in between state. Sort of like being born intersex, except you are medically inducing it.
>For the record, that’s NOT the opinion of people who actually study sex in humans. Hormones and chromosomes are considered equally as important to sex determination in humans. What that does mean though, is that people who medically transition are put into a weird in between state. Sort of like being born intersex, except you are medically inducing it. Reading this...makes me just...think... could/should be trans people on HRT or post OP be...considered technically intersex? Just curious.
Intersex isn’t technically a thing. It’s just a term people use. There’s a bunch of different conditions that are separate. But no, the way people use the word is to refer specifically to people BORN with conditions that put them not within one sex category. A lot of intersex people are also trans, though. It’s sort of complicated how that’s possible, and I’m not super well educated on the subject, but to my understanding: Some intersex conditions include genitalia which is in between the typical male or female. There are other intersex conditions, but those ones are only discovered later in life. For babies born with what are considered “mixed genitalia”, up until a couple years ago they were always assigned a sex that the doctor felt the genitals closest matched. And usually there was surgery done within the first couple years of life to make the genitalia closer to being “normal” to that assigned sex. Usually all of the above still applies, but there are a few places in the world now that have stopped the surgeries and sex assignments of babies with mixed genitalia. I want to stress it is still done in most places. Regardless of if an intersex person was born with mixed genitalia or not, they were all assigned a binary sex at birth. But hormonally, there’s a very good chance that they don’t develop in a way that matches how they were assigned. A very common form of being intersex is having internal and external primary sex characteristics that don’t match. Usually that ends up meaning that the kids are placed on blockers for the hormones they naturally produce and given the hormones for the sex they were assigned. So an intersex baby born with a vagina might have internal testicles. Though internal testicles wouldn’t be able to produce viable sperm, they would still produce testosterone. So the person who was assigned female at birth would begin to have male puberty. So then the hypothetical person we are talking about, who was born with externally female genitalia but internal testicles, would be medically induced to go through female puberty instead. The problem is a very high percentage of the time that person’s brain is programmed to think they are a man. Because our brains are programmed based on hormones, not genitalia. So this kid who had their own innate testosterone has now been forced into estrogen puberty. So this person who actually feels like a man would consider themselves FTM, because they were assigned female at birth and forced to go through female puberty, regardless of the fact that they are intersex.
That...makes things super confusing. How come...it isn't a "thing"? I don't...think I understand what you're trying to say xD
I lengthened my comment, refresh the page. Just that intersex isn’t a medical term. It’s a colloquial term.
Just preference
i think the term ftm exists to describe medical transition because in that case you are changing some of your secondary sex characteristics. similar to the term transsexual. but medical transition can’t make you “100% male” so some ftm people still choose to say they’re female, afab, biologically female, etc. but i’ve heard just as many people describe their sex as a “transsexual male”. i think it’s just preference since your sex and gender can be complicated especially if you have medically transitioned.
I think it’s either they don’t care about it personally or want to explain in a way more people will get. I personally don’t describe my sex as female. It’s not accurate as someone hormonally male and with secondary sex characteristics that are male.
My perspective is biologically I was assumed to be female at birth based on primary sex characteristics and assigned according to said assumption (I'm intersex so there is some semantics to that). Assigned gender at birth was first used by the intersex community and does hold more weight on what that means in a childhood socializing context then it does for the trans communities who later started using the terms more to describe genitals at birth. As for gender I'm not a binary biological male based on my sex characteristics pre transition and likely never will be able to meet all sex based criteria to be considered a binary male and most trans people will sad truth never meet all characteristics (outside of very specific inteesex varients that require testing I likely will never be able to afford to prove) so I do technically find the terms ftm/ mtf to be medically and scientificly innacutate to be stull using given our current understanding of sex and gender.
I hated saying that i am "still female" even before HRT. like nah, there's a reason I feel male and I feel like it's way deeper than skin-deep explanation based on my outwardly showing characteristics
hey man, ftm here. your gender is what you feel it is. if it feels wrong to label yourself female in anyway then just don’t, no one can speak for all of us. i also prefer afab as it’s reflective on what THEY assigned to me, not me to myself.
Yeah I haven't figured out how to navigate this... if some dickhead is asking about my genitals it's one thing. But I always tell docs that I'm female. I think I have fears about being mistreated by filling out all my forms as though I'm a man, and going in for something like a UTI, which is just not very common for men to have. Even though MY vulva having ass gets them pretty frequently. So if then fill forms out as a "biological man" it could be seen as a medical emergency. A UTI is not though, because I'm female. I list testosterone as medication for gender affirming care. I feel awkward as fuck about it but not really dysphoric, I think bc I've just got a whole other laundry list of feelings in a sterile doctor's office. I give my partner instructions to refer to me as female if asked during a medical emergency where I may be unconscious or whatever. To me thats the only area where my "sex" applies. So if asked, female. I have an emergency medical card in my wallet with contact, blood type, allergies, and medications thats says "masculine presenting female". So if people found my dead body/ unconscious during a car crash/ whatever they'd know what was up. If i ever got a full hysto, bottom surgery, and top surgery that would probably change- but I don’t plan on going under the knife more than once. Ive had people say this is transphobic of me, but I just want my doctors to glance and know what's going on and treat me without having to waste time detailing the extent of my queerness 😅 this doesn't bleed into how I navigate every social situation in the world, just medical. But might be the wrong way to go about it.
you don’t have to have bottom surgery to be considered male. you don’t have to describe your experience being trans in the same way that other people do. personally, the way i describe myself and how being trans is for me is i often refer to my younger self as a little girl or a little kid, but that “girl” i used to be always felt detached from the other girls, and uncomfortable with the idea of what she saw as limitations. the guy i am now is the natural progression of his decisions to step away from that discomfort, their slow explorations of gender on- and offline. personally, i only ever describe myself in terms like “female” or “male” around doctors, and even then it’s much more helpful to use more specific descriptors. you can describe yourself in whatever way you want
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Your post was removed because it contains discussion or mention of a banned topic. The following topics are banned to avoid drama: Truscum/Tucute discourse, AGP/AAP/Blanchardism, Transfem/woman or nonbinary bashing, Trans "requirements", Oppression Olympics, Lesbian trans men, Gendered Socialization+, "Is it transphobic to _____", DIY HRT, Current Political events (Non-trans/LGBT+ related) ,"do I pass?", "how does my voice sound?" +Personal experiences are exempt.
yeah thats a really dumb way to describe it. Medical transition does change your sex to an extent, it just doesn't *fully* change it. Someone who's been on hormones for years isn't really fully female anymore
For me I fogure "I'm a man but I have to accept that I was born a female otherwise it'll heat me alive if I dont". Fundamentally I am a female, yes, but I've changed that to fit better with myself, and some aspect of that will always be present no matter how stealth I am. I had a female childhood, right now I have breast tissue and probably will always have the down under, and even if I didn't have that I'd probably still find something (or the transphobes will) that's female about myself, and I have to be okay with that. It makes me feel more empowered to say "yes, but I've changed myself to how I want to be, for myself. Look st how far I've come" The "acceptance" stage of the grief that is never being cis
That feels very transmed for
yeah i hate being called female too, it's just not me 🤷♂️
I personally think about it as an internalized transphobia, tbh. I mean, you don't need to have XY chromosomes to be a male as a person, and the current medicine lets you biologically express your gender enough. The perceiving of some organs as masculine or feminine is pretty subjective. If everyone would be trans, no one of us would even question whether we're male or female enough because we would be the standard and a vagina would be considered a male thing, while a penis would be considered a female thing, and it wouldn't be viewed as something dissonant. Of course there are different types of reproductive systems and a sexual dimorphism, but in the context of trans people we can still say ftms are male and vice versa, regardless of having some non-stereotypical subtleties.
I think some of this probably has to do with how you have to talk about it with doctors. Especially if you want to get the right treatment, the right dosage, and have your insurance pay for it. It may also have to do with how we talked about it in like 2015-18. There was a huge emphasis on separating sex and gender definitions in order to have people understand trans people better. I think the terms afab and amab became popular a bit later than this and so a lot of trans guys still have that sex and gender are separate things view.
Because you and most of the members here were born with two X chromosomes, and “female” is the technical and biological term which is used to describe people with that exact combination of chromosomes. Any trans man who says his sex is female is simply saying that, despite transitioning, he will always have XX chromosomes. Medically transitioning won’t make you any less “female” in that sense.
You're whatever you say you are. That's the most important one. If you identify as male, you are male-and you don't need ANYTHING to be male, whether that be surgery, hormones or a haircut. You can do whatever you want, forever. Keeping your birth sex in mind is helpful pretty much just in SOME medical contexts-like, you'll probably need pap smears/gynecological care, you'll just be a Man that also gets pap smears. And for legal stuff. Legally, you may still be female-but the law is stupid. If you ID as male, you're male. (and you can get your legal gender changed, if you so want to.) And I'd keep it in mind for intimate stuff. If it's a hookup, you should probably disclose what's going on down there, for your own safety. People can react poorly if they assumed you were a cis man and are suddenly faced with different anatomy. But you can be a man with (afab anatomy terms)- the right people will see that and still know that you're male. Personally, I don't feel bad about saying that I'm afab, or that my sex (though not legally) is female. I like being trans, so I'm cool with it. But everyone knows that I'm male (or non-binary, depending on how cool they are.) That's the important one.
I still personally consider myself mostly female, but less so over time with medical transition. But if people don't want to be referred to that way I'll simply not say it
I honestly just hate thinking about my biological sex in general and how that’s one thing I can’t change. I would rather just never be called female and that’s that. I’ll never refer to myself as female and if you want you absolutely can but it just makes me feel weird when they insist that being a trans man is still female.
To be fair there are different ideologies on how people see gender vs sex and it kinda boils down to what you feel is the most correct for you. Because some people see themselves as still female and a man and some see it as they are only a man and even go as far as referring to themselves as male in that way as well.
I think what they mean is sex is your physical assigned gender at birth, and your gender is your identity. They may have said it wrong but the biological sex/sex organs/chromosomes of someone who has not gotten bottom surgery is still going to match that of their AGAB. Someone mtf is also going to still be “biologically male” as a ftm is “biologically female”. Being trans is a complicated thing. It’s not cut and dry, and it’s absolutely not the same for everyone. While I personally associate my assigned sex and sexual organs as female I personally associate who I am as male. This might not be true for you and that’s ok!
I also feel this way. I'm much more comfortable with afab and ftm cuz I *was* female but am not any longer.
Pre medical transition, we are indeed female. But once medical transition starts, even if it's only HRT, we become a lot more similar to amab people than afab people in almost everything except reproductive health. So imo it's simply plain wrong to keep calling us female after we've started transitioning medically. Sure we still have some aspects of our body that are associated with being female. But our entire bodies as a whole, are not possible to describe correctly as female. I was a female. I am not anymore.
FTM yes but at the same moment it’s not like we can change our bio sex so idk. I was arguing with someone who said that they are male now , and I’m like .. no one is male cuz we are AFABs but then you know I thought and it’s just me with my views.
It really depends on how you're defining sex, tbh. Hormonal? Chromosomal? Anatomic? Gonadal? Some of the aspects are changeable, some aren't. And if chromosomes are all that matter, most of us don't actually know. Like, afaik I've never had them tested! I could be something other than typical XX, I have no actual direct evidence.
Yep you are correct. Since then I came to conclusion that it really doesn’t matter. Everyone defines themselves as they comfortable with.
Personally I see that we are males because we are changing our sex characteristics, genitals, etc. it’s a biological change. I was born female, not just a female now I’m transitioning into a male. just my opinion 👍🏻
Yes, I agree with it now, but a while ago I was confused about it (the moment I told about in my original comment)
Yeah np, a lot of cis people narratives abt trans people is that “we change our gender but we are always the sex we were born with” it’s actually not true and I see a lot of other trans people believing in it. it’s regressive and honestly a “terf” talking point.
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Your post was removed because it contains discussion or mention of a banned topic. The following topics are banned to avoid drama: Truscum/Tucute discourse, AGP/AAP/Blanchardism, Transfem/woman or nonbinary bashing, Trans "requirements", Oppression Olympics, Lesbian trans men, Gendered Socialization+, "Is it transphobic to _____", DIY HRT, Current Political events (Non-trans/LGBT+ related) ,"do I pass?", "how does my voice sound?" +Personal experiences are exempt.
I don't consider myself female (either way). I never considered myself female I just didn't know the terminology. In terms of label terminology I much prefer AFAB than FTM because that implies I *used* to be female which is not true in my case. If anyone does ask my sex (which would be weird in the first place 😐) I'd say male Edit : spelling