Hey there,

I recently found out Kris Tyson is now trans. She had a wife and a child before the transition. This kind of made me wonder. How can anyone be sure they won’t turn out trans? Like what made you (to any trans people out there) make the switch?

To add a little context. I am a man, straight maybe a tiny bit bi. I have a some traits/interests that would typically be “reserved” (please excuse my terminology here and there) for women.

For instance, I dance a lot. I have even started ballet dancing. And in the past I had an eating disorder. Now I know this may sound a kind of bigoted or stereotypical. But I don’t mean it that way, this is purely based on statistics.

However I feel in no way that I am in the wrong body. I like being a man, I like the idea of masculinity, and I like being a man who dances. (Okay granted, I did not like the eating disorder)

But it makes me “worried” if I do end up trans when I already have a wife and children. I want to know before I get all of that done you know what I mean? Tyson probably wanted too, now that I think about it.

Bottom line: How did most trans people know they were trans?

  • AFK BRB Chocolate@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    However I feel in no way that I am in the wrong body.

    I’m not trans, but I believe that’s the key. You said “turn out trans,” but I believe most trans folks never really felt like they were in the right body, ever, though they might not have realized what it was that was wrong earlier. It’s not like people wake up one day and think, “oh shit, I’m trans!”

  • Brkdncr@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    Dancing and an eating disorder don’t make you bi. Same-gender attraction does.

  • Bilbo_Haggins@lemm.ee
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    4 months ago

    Cisgender woman here, I just wanted to add that if my husband were to come out as trans, that would not be a tragedy or something I wished he’d gotten figured out sooner for my sake. In this hypothetical scenario, if it somehow managed to make us incompatible as married partners we’d deal with it but people have gotten divorced for much worse reasons before. The worst part for me would be worrying if he’d been miserable during our marriage, because I love him and would hate for that to be his experience of our time together.

    It’s really hard to imagine because AFAIK we’re both cis but personally I’d probably prefer to stay married to my spouse even if he changed his gender identity. I mean he’s still the same person I married and we still love the same things and have a wonderful life and child together. I dunno, maybe it wouldn’t work out in the end but I sure as hell wouldn’t be mad at him for something he couldn’t change.

    Anyways, my point is you don’t have to assume that your relationships with cis people will all get blown up if you do happen to be trans. I appreciate the urge to have your ducks all in a row before embarking on significant life events but the truth is that marriage and adulthood is super messy anyways. If you marry someone and have a kid with them the odds are good you will have all sorts of chaotic events to deal with- physical illnesses, mental illnesses, kid stress or illness, weight gain or loss, money trouble, job changes, changes in personality with age, the list goes on and on. The trick to being happily married is rolling with the changes, working hard at your partnership, and being committed to your partner, not having it all perfectly lined up at the start.

  • TheAvarageNerd@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    I’m a somewhat gender nonconforming man. I have long hair. I enjoy wearing colorful, frilly clothes. I crossplay in videogames. I love reading shoujo mangas. There’s a bunch of very “unmanly” hobbies I have. And I’ve had this question for a while: what if I’m actually Trans, and just masking it with stuff I deem acceptable for a man?

    Then, after about one year of living together, my flatmate came out to me as Trans. She realized/admitted it to herself a bit before moving in (we knew each other before, but we weren’t really close), and started experimentally wearing women’s clothes and doing makeup (and probably some other stuff) whenever I was away for the past half year. I was one of the first people she came out to.

    Over the next few years I saw her transition a lot. I was there, when she came out to a couple of common friends, gave her the courage to come out to her family (which caused some issues in the beginning, but ultimately turned out good), experienced her fashion change from awkwardly hyper feminine (pink skirts, fishnets, an oversized bra stuffed with definitely too much TP) to something that suits her much more and feels natural to her body type (still skirts and stockings and bras, just less awkward). She even started HRT recently.

    And throughout all this, I realized one thing: I fundamentally don’t empathyze with that aspect of her in any way, shape or form. Like, I understand rationally what she’s going through. I see her get visibly happier every step of the way. If I was Trans, and just couldn’t admit it to myself as I said in the beginning, I’d expect to feel something when looking at her changes. Maybe some jealousy or envy. Or at least some type of “I want that for me too” type of thing. But I don’t. Whenever my flatmate did a change, my only thoughts were : “great for you” and “I wouldn’t bother doing that for myself”.

    Living with a trans woman made me fully realize that I am male. I’m very much ok with people putting me in the same group as people like Leonardo Di Caprio, Ghandi, Trump, the five year old boy next door, and the rest of more or less 50% of humans that have ever lived (I know that’s normative of the gender binary, but I couldn’t think of a way to phrase this without making it overly complicated). Yet I am fundamentally different from every one of those. So to me, it feels like I shouldn’t really place any value on being part of that group. I just know that I am, and that’s it.

    As for you: talk to trans people. See if you can relate to them. Watch videos by trans creators. Experiment with stuff you consider to be feminine, and see if it makes you happy. Or if it makes you feel uncomfortable, try to figure out why. And if you find stuff you like, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you are trans, though I believe that at some point that is strongly implied.

    I have know idea what it actually means to be a man or a woman, or trans, or non-binary, or agender. I’ve just had an opportunity to figure out which of these groups I fit in. And I’ve realised that in the end, even though I know something about myself now, it doesn’t really matter.

    • Ookami38@sh.itjust.works
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      4 months ago

      This post mirrors my own life way too eerily close. Roommate I lived (still do) with transitioned from male to female. I’ve always been pretty feminine and have, naturally, had the questions. Their transition really opened my eyes to what it all means, and helped me to realize that, nah, I’m fine with the body I have (well, okay, I still have some body problems, but it’s just cause I’m fat) and just like the things I like, and that’s ok.

  • pyre@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    dancing doesn’t make you a woman. feeling like a woman does. do you feel like you’re a woman? if not, you’re not a woman.

    • jol@discuss.tchncs.de
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      4 months ago

      I think this is way too simple to answer OP’s question. Not all trans women “feel like a woman” from birth. Otherwise way less people would come out as adults.

      • pyre@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        so? are you suggesting people should transition just in case they feel like a woman in the future? no. you do it when you feel like it. i just think op is too caught up on gender norms, and thinks going against them might indicate you’re trans. it’s not the case.

          • pyre@lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            it’s not a conclusion. I’m just saying that there’s one key element to being a woman. and it’s not dancing.

  • Ookami38@sh.itjust.works
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    4 months ago

    You’re asking people to describe a qualic phenomenon. This thing, the feeling of being trans, isn’t really something someone can describe to someone who hasn’t experienced it.

    Ultimately, what you’re describing to me is less trans, and more along the lines of how I am. I’m a cisgender male, but I’m also very feminine in certain areas. I paint my nails, I enjoy dancing, too, and I play female characters in games where I can make the character. I enjoy teaching, and nurturing. I have no desire to change my gender, or to conform any more strictly to one set of gender norms or the other.

    So often, you’ll hear trans people say they always knew. I think that’s both the case, and a bit off. My guess is that they’ve always had a feeling SOMETHING was amiss, but weren’t really able to nail down the exact feeling until, well… They started considering transitioning.

  • FiniteBanjo@lemmy.today
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    4 months ago

    If it matters to you then you’ll know. If it doesn’t matter to you, then find another interesting facet of life to fixate on.

  • EleventhHour@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    For instance, I dance a lot. I have even started ballet dancing. And in the past I had an eating disorder. Now I know this may sound a kind of bigoted or stereotypical. But I don’t mean it that way, this is purely based on statistics.

    these things do make not a person LGBTQ+

    However I feel in no way that I am in the wrong body. I like being a man, I like the idea of masculinity

    this seems to be pretty much the qualifying criterion, and, to this, I’d ay no, you’re (very probably) not trans.

    But it makes me “worried” if I do end up tran

    people are born LGBTQ+ and typically know it all their lives. From you descriptions, it seems like you might just be Bi. Enjoying “non-masculine” activities doesn’t really mean anything in and of itself. Being LGBTQ+ isn’t something one “ends up as”-- it’s something we always have been.

    when I already have a wife and children

    and so what? sure, there may be some adjustments for them to make, but, unless they’re transphobes, it shouldn’t be a problem.

  • A_Very_Big_Fan@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    It’s not really a feeling of being in the wrong body, at least for most people. It’s about what makes you feel comfortable and what gives you confidence.

    For me, what makes me feel comfortable and confident is training my voice, wearing more feminine clothes, painting my nails, doing my hair… Being pretty is what I want for me, and what “made me make the switch” was accepting that repressing that part of me isn’t good and won’t make me happy.

  • RegalPotoo@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    I think there are few overlapping things here that are probably worth pulling apart. Keep in mind that all of these are spectrums, some people might experience these acutely, others mildly, others not at all.

    • Gender non-comformance: having a preference for activities that are typically ascribed to or preferring to appear as the gender opposite to the one you present as - men who like wearing dresses and sewing, women who prefer having short cropped hair and playing rugby
    • Transgender - a feeling that your sex (your biology) does not match up with your gender (do you consider yourself to be a man or a woman?). Gender is a really complex thing and is pretty strongly informed by society - what were you taught “man” and “woman” means beyond just sex. For some people this disconnect can be dysphoric, and it quite often overlaps with gender non-comformance
    • Transition - changing your gender presentation to be different from your sex. This can be small things - changing your hair style - to large changes such as getting legal recognition for a new name and gender identity or seeking medical interventions.

    I guess my point is that there are plenty of people who engage in small non-conformances or who feel like their experience of being man doesn’t 100% line up with how society perceives men, and that’s valid, and is a trans experience, but doesn’t mean that they do or should feel like “trans” is a label or identity that applies to them. In the same way that you can understand that you are a little bit bi, without that being a significant part of your identity

  • toomanypancakes@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    I changed my gender at around 25 because I had significant issues with my voice, my body, and my genitals that caused me significant distress and interfered with my life, but they were present and ever increasing pretty much since I hit puberty. I knew something was wrong from an earlyish age, and dealt with it pretty much just when my husband was okay with it. I’d always envied women for their natural sex characteristics, and if I didn’t get a negative reaction when I came out as a teenager I would have transitioned much earlier.

    I think if you’re happy in your body’s secondary sex characteristics, you probably don’t have to worry about being trans. From what you’ve said here, it sounds to me like you probably aren’t.

  • surewhynotlem@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    IANA trans person.

    From what I’ve heard, a big factor is body dysmorphia. Do you look at your chest and think it’d feel more right with boobs on it? Does the idea of facial hair seem like it could never be “you”?

    You don’t have to be all man all the time. You can like feminine things. That doesn’t mean you’re actually a woman. There’s plenty of shades of grey.

    • 🦄🦄🦄@feddit.org
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      4 months ago

      Nitpick: it’s body dysphoria, not dysmorphia. The latter makes you actively see your body differently from what it is.

  • xmunk@sh.itjust.works
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    4 months ago

    If you have a partner it’s the less likely outcome that they’ll reject your new gender identity. Gender is a spectrum and we’re all a lot more interesting than just what our gender is anyways. Someone who was attracted to you was attracted to a lot more than just your gender expression so, on the whole, rather little about you is changing when you come out as trans.

    I am not trans so I can’t talk to that realization but I am non-conforming and coming into that identity was mostly a relief. I had to cloak a lot and found myself pretty distinct from a lot of the stereotypes about men - I was married at the time and my partner didn’t bat an eye.