(Part 2) Top products from r/TooAfraidToAsk

Well, the thing is OP, like everything, it's really, really complicated. I have met trans people of all walks, orientations, and ages. Some of them are extremely masculine. Some extremely feminine. Some cringingly, affectively, trying-far-to-hard so. Some extremely neither of those, and somewhere in the middle.

I know a software engineer from Amazon who wears overalls and no makeup. She's not femme at all. Not a single stereotype about her, unless "middle-aged lesbian" is the one you were going for. I know one trans woman in her 20s so is an MUA who is so femme you would think she was born female. I know another trans woman to whom this applies and she is in her 60s, so bear in mind what I am about to say now with a pinch of salt.

I heard one cringe-inducing story which I will now tell you. I was at a workshop on exploring our own gender which was being given by a cis presenter. And honestly it was cringe. She was clearly doing her best and clearly had a point to make but we just were never quite on the same page. At one point she asked us all to write down what we thought were typically feminine and typically masculine traits. For 'feminine traits', myself and a group of other trans women all put down things like "Strong", "Resourceful", "Driven", "Determined", "Independent", "Has strength of character", and so on. For "masculine", we put "lazy", "weak", "self-serving", etc. And why would we not? We are transitioning to be women. Why would we think anything else of femininity? But the honest truth is that that exercise hurt. It hurt and made us all, but most of all the NBs in our group to whom no gender or stereotype applies, extremely depressed and dysphoric. "Women (and men) are not stereotypes" we said in the feedback. "We are all so much more than that."

In the closing session, the cis presenter related a story. She had been at conference about LGBT stuff and a trans woman much, much older than her with obvious stubble came up to her and after awkwardly complementing her appearance, said something like (and the presenter's voice deepened as she said this), "I especially like your handbook. You know what us girls are like with our hair and handbags." I was appalled. Why tell this particular story in this particular way to a group of trans folk? Is it because you genuinely think that is what all trans women are like? And also how dare you make fun of her like that? She has to work so hard, every single day--just to be seen as female. And here you come along. You take all of it away from her. A struggle you will never know. Her femininity revoked in an instant. My cis therapist was also suitably appalled.

The point is that if a minority of trans people can have stereotypes about cis people, a minority of cis people also have stereotypes about trans people. Honestly, usually its more than a minority.

Growing up I knew a cis girl who I was close friends with once confided in me that she wanted nothing more in life than to be a housewife and after procuring a suitable husband would spare no effort to make that happened. She also embodied every conceivable feminine stereotype you could imagine. She always and only wore pink. Cute handbags, every time. Beautiful, perfect nails, teeth, and hair. Her favourite song was by Aqua. Her voice was like a spring flowing on a summer's day, her fingertips like snow flakes in winter. And because she was born female, she will never, ever be judged for any of that. Can you imagine what people would say if she was trans? After graduating medschool she got a Ph.D in cell biology, before starting and managing a successful shipping company. I am very well aware of how much harder she will have had to work than her male peers to make that happen but as far as I am aware she has still not given up on her childhood dream. (And honestly her curriculum vitae probably makes her more successful at this, not less. What man wouldn't want to marry a devoted genius who didn't particularly care about her career but happened to be extremely good at everything she put her mind to? Idiots, that's who.) Sometimes stereotypes can defeat you in the most unexpected of ways.

The truth of the matter is that everyone embodies a stereotype, just not usually the ones you're thinking of. A majority of my trans friends, whether M2F or F2M (of which there is a roughly equal split), are non-binary. That means that they emphatically refuse "he", "him", "she" or "her" pronouns. They would not be caught dead in dresses, nor would they ever wear makeup, nor do they watch football, or drink beers with boys. Their body types tend toward the aggressively androgynous making assigned-at-birth-gender difficult or impossible to guess. Only when they speak can you know.

Even my cis friends are stereotypical. Nearly all of them are polyamorous working-class queer super-mums with no long-term partners in their early 30s and you have to take everything associated with that stereotype to understand what makes it true, from the nose rings to the queer cuts. Honestly, nothing has changed since the 80s. But that's not a stereotype you were expecting, was it?

As for myself, I'm pretty normal. I have a small list of kinks which I share in common with many other cis women. I like wearing dresses and painting my nails and feeling like others think I'm pretty. Do I do that because I like them innately or do I like them because I live in a cis-supremecist society where I am harshly-judged or even assaulted or murdered if I don't look the part? I don't know but your life being on the line is a pretty good incentive to start enjoying doing anything especially when doing something makes you get treated as the person you really are and not doing something gets you assaulted or murdered. Is "Why do you like doing that?" really a serious question when put into that context? This is the rock-and-a-hard-place intractable dilemna that trans women like me are faced with. If we refuse to conform to the stereotypes laid out for us by cis society we are "gross", "disgusting", "perverts", just "men in dresses", "come on, make an effort". If we do "make an effort" we're "walking stereotypes", "vain, self-obsessed, interested in no one but themselves", and "all womanhood means to them is hair, fake tits and makeup". It is the same trap laid out for cis women of course, only deadlier.

There are lots of reasons why my life is better now and many of them are social because there are lots of terrible things about being perceived to be a guy when you're really a woman. Being expected to know the football scores by other men or to have an opinion on them. People thinking I'm bad with children. Women being afraid of me. Honestly do you want to know the first thing my best friend ever said to me? I was presenting as a guy at the time. It was in the kitchen of a mutual friend's house where I was making tea for the hosts of the party. I said to her, "Do you know where they keep the sugar?" and she said "I'm not interested in a boyfriend, sorry." (Sometimes I bring it up to tease her but honestly she knows that I know exactly where she was coming from when she said that.) When what you want most is to be friends with other women, being seen as a guy is a difficult place to start from.

Of course there's the physical stuff too. The self-loathing when you look in a mirror and see a guy staring back at you. The hatred of your own body. I have a recurring dream that my body is covered in thick, course fur. The cancerous, tumorous growth that grows and shrinks arbitrarily between your legs. It doesn't even look pretty! Your voice, which sounds like gravel dragged on sand-paper. (Honestly my voice is much higher and more variably-pitched but of course I got bullied for speaking like that as a child and had to teach myself to speak like a man so I didn't get bullied). Can you imagine being the heroine in a book by Franz Kakfa or a prop in a painting by HR Griger? Honestly it's like that. The crippling, unrelenting dysphoria. Natalie Wynn captured the experience well.

Is being trans based on gender stereotyping? No, absolutely not. It's physical, it's psychological, it's social. It's about lots of things. It's about wanting the freedom to be the person who you really are. I don't see how or why cis people like to stereotype us. But they do. Maybe a small minority of trans people do seem to base their identity on stereotyping. I tend not to get on very well with those people. Should that for a minute invalidate their trans ness? No, absolutely not. And it sure as hell shouldn't invalidate mine.

I deleted another snarky response because that doesn't do anything but make me feel better. You give enough of a shit about this topic to make all these posts so here's my honest response. Even if you're right about a topic and don't think you can be convinced otherwise, it is intellectually invaluable to be able to take the other side's position to better understand your own. Read this if only to bolster your own beliefs on this topic, and maybe consider some things that possibly haven't crossed your mind before
https://www.amazon.com/Race-Matters-25th-Anniversary-Introduction/dp/0807008834

Respect.

The current state of media consumption in the US tends to reinforce our own ideas. Conservatives watch Fox, etc. Liberals watch MSNBC, etc. Same with websites and what we view on different websites. Someone could be a subscriber to T_D or socialism or neoliberal, but unlikely to all. And on video sites, we get more of the same. Both sides often talk past each other, using the incomplete information they've been given, without really thinking about it thoroughly.

Whenever you think you understand something, there is always more to learn, always more questions. For instance, you mention that the USA over time has favored more liberal policies. This is the idea of progress, which is one of many metanarratives or overarching worldviews. But you might be surprised to learn that the US historically has cared much less about that and more about its own interest in power. The US has overthrown democratically elected governments and installed right-wing dictators around the world.

America was founded by several groups, each with different backgrounds, lifestyles, and values. One of these groups were slave owners, who created their region of America in the tradition of a slave society, in which armed free rich whites controlled illiterate, bound black slaves. This is one of the regional models on which America was founded. Other groups, such as Quakers, Puritans, and Catholics, had a more egalitarian, race-neutral vision. But the idea of a society based on a racial hierarchy, with whites at the top and blacks on the bottom, is one of the founding models of the U.S.


https://www.businessinsider.com/the-11-nations-of-the-united-states-2015-7


https://www.amazon.com/American-Nations-History-Regional-Cultures/dp/0143122029


https://www.npr.org/2013/11/11/244527860/forget-the-50-states-u-s-is-really-11-nations-says-author

This isn't crazy. It's totally, completely normal, and a sign that you're actually a well-put-together human being.

If that, and the other comments here, aren't convincing enough, check out The Imp of the Mind: Exploring the Silent Epidemic of Obsessive Bad Thoughts by clinical psychologist (and Harvard professor) Lee Baer.

In the book, Baer talks about these thoughts and his own experiences working with patients with concerns about them. His thesis is as follows:

Your brain explores ideas. That's just what it does. You sit there, you're bored, and your brain just comes up with stuff.

When your brain comes up with an idea that your moral values find distasteful, it's totally normal to think, "Hey that's a bad idea." But just leave it there. There's no need to feel any shame whatsoever about those ideas.

Some people feel incredible shame about this totally natural behavior of your brain, and they shouldn't. (The shame itself is totally natural, too, and possibly a sign of good moral functioning -- but, it should be corrected once someone understands that these sorts of thoughts can't be helped and are totally natural themselves.)

Baer offers some techniques for letting go of the shame associated with intrusive thoughts. The basic idea is just embrace that your brain is playing with a silly idea (feel free to have a laugh!), and then gently let go of it. Having an intrusive thought does not mean that you're a bad person, or that you would ever act on that thought. It's just the totally natural behavior of your brain. Celebrate that everything is working right up there.

Sometimes just seeking is enough. Seeking in and of itself can be a purpose. It will lead you to places you can't even imagine right now, both professionally and in terms of your personal development/happiness, if you consciously make it a priority in your life

What could you do today to imbue your life with meaning? If you can't answer that question, what could you do to start figuring out what is meaningful to you? Some ideas:

1. Research world religions and attend a service of the one that makes the most sense to you, even it doesn't come from your culture.
   
2. Sign up for classes that interest you at a community college. Don't worry about degrees, etc, just choose something you genuinely want to learn about.
   
3. Start the process of volunteering for a cause that seems worthwhile to you.
   
4. Plan and start saving for an extended trip. You're 19 and it sounds like you don't have any big commitments. Spend 6 months backpacking around Africa, or India, or Latin America, or the Carribean, or Southeast Asia. Volunteer or work abroad.
   
5. Look into joining the Peace Corps or Americorps, or whatever the equivalent to those things in your country is.
   
6. Start looking into living in an ashram or a monastery so you can spend some time thinking about what it's all for and learning from other seekers just like you.
   
   Those are just 6 random ideas off the top of my head. Maybe none of those sound interesting to you, but there's something you can do today.
   
   Suggested reading:
   
   We're All Doing Time by Bo Lozoff

Did you even bother to read the articles you posted?

1. Examination of developing brains - differences in white matter.
   
2. This works slightly in your case - but only shows that there might be size differences in different areas of the brain.
   
3. Again, an analysis of developing brains
   
4. This is from 1991.
   
5. From the abstract - "we did not find any significant difference in global WM volume between males and females."
   
6. This study is on rats.
   
7. "Our study demonstrates that, although
   there are sex/gender differences in the brain, human brains do not
   belong to one of two distinct categories: male brain/female brain."
   
8. This really doesn't include any research but rather attempts to persuade for further investigation in brain sex research.
   
   Conventional research suggests that although there are small differences in some areas of the brain between males and females, these differences are not very large and there is a ton of overlap between. There is not a distinguishable "male" or "female" brain that we can definitely identify. Therefore, it doesn't make sense to say that transgender have a brain of the opposite sex. Some recent studies have shown that people with gender dysphoria may instead have disconnectivity within networks involved in body perception.
   
   If you want to read a great book that examines the history of brain sex studies and debunks the male/female brain hypothesis, read Cordelia Fine's book Delusions of Gender.

I (44m) was recently diagnosed with adult ADHD and for me what goes through my mind is ..... Everything... all at once.... over and over and over again. Often the thoughts are then punctuated with a feelings of guilt for being such a fuck up under achiever. I can’t remember anything I’m not interested in and I find it impossible to finish almost any task. I have been diagnosed with depression and anxiety previously and I believe both are a direct result of my ADHD. I was so relived when got a the diagnosis as it allowed me to feel a bit “less” guilty for my personality. It’s nice to know that there is some sort of reason for the way I have always been. Definitely an emotional relief to realize that I am different then most others and that there is an actual reason why am the way I am. The ADHD meds seem to help with focus, but there are a lot of tactical things I still need to address in order to live my best life. The diagnosis was just the start of my journey and I have a long way to go. I would take a look at FAST MINDS by Surman/Bilkey if you would like to understand more about how folks with ADHD operate and practice methods to change that operation.

https://www.amazon.com/Fast-Minds-Thrive-Think-Might/dp/0425274063/ref=nodl_

TechTV's Catalog of Tomorrow https://www.amazon.com/dp/0789728109/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_cPy6CbM3HJW10

This book came out in 2004 I believe and had the timeline go up to 2020.

If I could find it in my house I'd love to see what predictions were true.

I think they claimed we cracked the code to programmable matter around this time.

Americans have a strong mythology about WW2. The US was pure and good, the Germans and Japanese dark and evil. By opposing them, the US saved the world. American viewers are warm and welcoming towards this message.

https://www.amazon.ca/Empire-Their-Own-Invented-Hollywood/dp/0385265573

And yes the Jewish factor is strong in Hollywood. No one kind of admits this openly but it's real.

The Magnesium Miracle (Second Edition) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0399594442/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_DcEyDb6TVS92S


Plenty of evidence about this.
People CURING - Alzheimer’s, fibromyalgia, adhd, insomnia, pms, muscle cramping, Parkinson’s, and so much more

Don't worry, I get that too. Intrusive thoughts cause physiological reactions because it triggers your nervous system which has a kind of memory. This book gives a really good explanation of all this and might help you normalize your feelings:

The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma https://www.amazon.com/dp/0143127748/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_HjdsDbCFDF0G6

It's a lot more complicated than that. Recommended reading for you: https://www.amazon.com/Gothic-Architecture-Scholasticism-Erwin-Panofsky/dp/0970821654

Kindof like blackface, it was used in really really bad ways, so bad you cannot even joke about it. Certain peeps took white pride and went entirely too far, to the burning cross’ point, along with other practices. I just bought this book, I cannot go a few pages without putting it down...

>What is the actual point

The point is to discover a purpose for yourself, and then to continue to achieve that purpose. Check out Purpose-driven Life from a library or on Kindle for a full explanation.

https://www.amazon.com/Everyone-Turtleback-School-Library-Binding/dp/0613685725 ....?

https://www.amazon.com/White-Fragility-People-About-Racism/dp/0807047414

you might need this

> your determination to catapult this question I had into a debate … Instead of hopping on to assume the worst about mothers who may have a question to ask another

I don't want to catapult this into a debate. I was just interested in the answer to my question. And I don't know why you think I assume the worst, far from it. I'm just wondering why you'd not be interested in a dad's perspective on this question. I don't think it's similar to asking about "how come I have erectile dysfunction?" - and even so, there are plenty of female sexologists that have a 100x better answer than any random dude.

> I do feel asking other mothers about their experiences was warranted due to the hormonal aspects involved

Thanks, I can get that, I guess that could make it more likely for women/moms while men/dads can have the same experience. And...you know, that answer was basically all I was wondering about. Other people have tried to turn this into a debate.

Have you heard of David Benatar's "Better Never to Have Been: The Harm Of Coming Into Existence", I also found it after the fact. Perhaps you might find that interesting.

The book Ordinary Men by Christopher R. Browning might provide you with some answers, blew my mind.

Breif Description:
While this book discusses a specific Reserve Unit during WWII, the general argument Browning makes is that most people succumb to the pressures of a group setting and commit actions they would never do of their own volition.

https://www.amazon.ca/Ordinary-Men-Reserve-Battalion-Solution/dp/0062303023/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1543123973&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=ordinary+men&dpPl=1&dpID=51LEkLnM3RL&ref=plSrch

I'm of the mind that happily pregnant women who engage in bad practices during pregnancy are typically 1) ignorant of or don't believe in the effect it is having on the fetus (i.e. "My mom smoked with me and I turned out fine!"), or 2) are deeply struggling with addiction (and furthermore, scared to seek help, as they know they will be judged and potentially prosecuted/jailed).

With this in mind, I think most in most cases, women need information, education, and non-judgmental assistance to keep their pregnancies as healthy as they can manage. I really don't see it as a point on the "my body, my choice" continuum, you know?

Also, for what it's worth, discussions like this always remind me of Lynn Paltrow, quoted in Jennifer Block’s Pushed: The Painful Truth About Childbirth and Modern Maternity Care: "[We live in] … a culture that celebrates the woman who conceives quadruplets after multiple fertility treatments- treatments that put the fetuses at risk for severe prematurity, neurological damage, and death- yet imprisons the woman who puts her fetus at far less risk with illegal drug use."