Trans and nb- choice? or fundamentally who and what we are?

[Trinity]

Thought I'd stir up some thoughts here.

From the earliest memories I knew I was different, didn't know how.

And as DES trans its pretty obvious what happened to me personally.

But I don't think of trans as a choice, its too imperative, too fundamental, too much dysphoria.

I was always different, I was headed down this road from the beginning.

I've heard that a whole lot.

I always maintain that being trans/nb is a physical thing.  That its how we are fundamentally wired.

How is it for you?

[Leena]

No it's not a choice, though a lot of transphobes think it is because most of us do make the choice to go into the closet to escape the hatred.

I knew I was trans and was sort of out even as a kid, but negative experiences eventually pushed me into the closet. I still wasn't the guy people wanted me to be, and was never masculine enough for them. I just can't be a guy. I could look like one but I couldn't talk or act like one. I was almost mute because everything I said was "gay", and then everyone thought I was wierd because I didn't talk.

[Trinity]

Jun 18, 2021 9:43:11 GMT 8 Leena said:

No it's not a choice, though a lot of transphobes think it is because most of us do make the choice to go into the closet to escape the hatred.

I knew I was trans and was sort of out even as a kid, but negative experiences eventually pushed me into the closet. I still wasn't the guy people wanted me to be, and was never masculine enough for them. I just can't be a guy. I could look like one but I couldn't talk or act like one. I was almost mute because everything I said was "gay", and then everyone thought I was wierd because I didn't talk.

years and years you are on this board and I never realized you went through that too.  I knew about the early trans thing, but I didn't know about the abuse.

What a comment, talk about cutting through the crap, much appreciated by me here.

[Ativan Prescribed]

I just fought back by saying shit right back at people, I had a few friends who said things in helpful ways, but mostly it was the queer and faggot shit as well, but then right back at them with things like I'm still a better person than you could ever be.
I got punched a lot of times, shoved around, took more than a few to the head, but then I suddenly grew like several inches over the summer before ninth grade, I also worked out by bailing hay that summer and had a decent for my age job at night, so I had money as well.
But the one thing I did and I did well, was just physically fight back, shove me and you got knocked down, punch me and you got punched several times, hit me in the head and it was like a machinegun full of hits to yours, and I stopped the introvert stuff at least on the outside.
I grew my hair long and was in constant trouble for that, got to high school and all hell broke loose about dress codes and hair length, I won.
I can't say I was a nice guy about anything, I played the part I needed and that was tougher than you are, more daring than you are, smarter in general and just lippy as hell, I took it when shit went wrong, but I also had gained a lot of respect from the worst of the worst, and I was one of them.
Life is not meant to just coast through if you ask me, so I rarely did, just try to keep up was a common thing I said, way to many drugs, way to much drinking and partying, I like to think it was the right amount of guns, but most people would disagree.
But through it all, from as far back as I can remember, there was no choice, I am who I am and although I didn't apologize for it, I also didn't hide the fact as much as some did and I knew who else in my circles was gay and trans of some sort, girls and boys, but we were a tight group.
We had our separate circles of friends, but when we needed to talk, we had each other, and nobody ever once said anything along the lines of choice, to us it was the same as having like red hair, you just did and it meant nothing, it meant you had red hair is all.
There is all the studies done and MIR's and this and that, but nobody has ever once said this is the reason why and nobody has ever said this is the reason why not, I think its just more proof that its all a social construct, gender is a thing like red hair, its just hair, the color makes no difference and you don't get to choose, but then you can decide to color it if you want, you can make that choice to hide it in the closet if that suits you, which is fine, if it works for you then it works for you.
But one thing is overwhelmingly clear, that people are not born bigots, they choose to be and should they hide it in a closet, I think they should, but then I think neutering is effective as well as more drastic measures, you don't get to decide how someone is based on your own fears of different, bigots are so abnormal in how they go about trying to justify bigotry, I mean the mental strain on them has to be big, they know others who just think of them as assholes because thats the core principle of bigotry, you have to be an asshole to begin with and maybe thats something they are born with, wiring that just causes them to be assholes no matter how in their own face it is, but they can just decide to keep it in the closet, they can make that choice if they want, just like they want you to be in the closet for them, but there are more LGBTQ people than there are the flaming bigots, limp minds addled by an inferior upbringing, maybe mom just stayed do drunk while pregnant because they couldn't stand your father who beat you because you did something he didn't like, not that it was wrong, but because he just didn't like it because maybe his mother had the same problem with drinking, as his father probably did, its a family affair of abuse from generations of just being bigots, but its still clear that being a bigot is a choice, being LGBTQ isn't and never has been. Bigots need to make the choice to stuff it in their closet and act like humans.
You see, for people born a certain way that isn't different but rather just are, there is no real reason to stuff it in a closet, but for people who choose to be assholes, its their choice and when called out for it, they need to realize that they do have a need to stuff it in their closet, nobody likes an asshole and nobody likes a bigot, not even other assholes and bigots, because reality has a way of peeking in on their addled thought patterns, it should anyways when so many times you are called asshole and bigot and really can't keep friends other than other asshole bigots, but then those aren't real friends, they are just more of the same assholeness and bigotry and nobody likes them either, hanging out in groups of assholes and bigots isn't like a good thing even though they seem to think it might be, but really, when you run into assholes and bigots, they generally have the tell tell signs all over them and around them and other dufus who do the same know that more than one in the same space is just twice as much wasted space.
But when it comes to LGBTQ people, they have all kinds of friends, know why? Because they know what losers assholes and bigots can be and are, just like everyone else can, there is nothing redeeming about being an asshole or a bigot, like I said, its a waste of space.
There needs to be laws about them getting married and being on sports teams, they need less rights than everyone else gets, they need a govt agency keeping a close eye on them, they need to be followed by groups of people calling them bigots and assholes, its their choice and they need to know its their choice.

[Leena]

I wrote more about my childhood on the old forum, it kind of blew up though, so I may have avoided talking about it much since. While there were some unique details on how I was forced into the closet, it's not that uncommon of a story for trans kids.

I am happy that some trans and nonbinary kids are growing up in accepting environments now, but that was pretty unheard of when I was a kid.

[Trinity]

I never walked right. I learned "the walk" later to protect myself, but most of the time I would forget to do it.

The abuse and faggot calling drove me to use humor to deflect, turn the tables on the guys doing it, but that was a learned skill that came later.

Like many in the narratives, I became the best at whatever I could, and since I didn't do ball well, sports, when asked if I wanted to be a wrestling manager or helper or whatever it is, I said yes, and it caught on, and in the tenth grade I tried for it. Unfortunately the county champion was in my wieght class and the state champ was in the next class up, started at 98 and went to 105 and 112.

At the end of the season, the counties were open so even though I was second string I got to be in the tournament, and in the final it was me against the same kid in my class that was first seed. And i beat him for the county championship that year.

The point is, the bullying and the faggot calling created a reverse effect, I became tougher, more withdrawn but I was a terror on the mats, during one match in order to win, I had to really turn it up and the last few seconds and I practically ripped the guys arm out of its socket, not total dislocation but he was on ice after that one. Turned the whole team match around, it was one of their best guys and I was in over my head but I knew an olympic move he didn't and I used it and he got pinned.

I wanted to prove I wasn't what I really am, I buried she as far down as I could, I hated her, I was ashamed of her, and then it became legal to drink, and within a year I was a full blown alcoholic, plus it was 1976 and pot came into play. Later came poppers, and with poppers came the loss of my viginity on the female side of it.

It all nearly took my life, but I have always been the warrior, and now sober over 35 years I fight for others and in my own way I fight here.

The damage caused by what happened to me can't be overstated, and the home situation was intolerable even with loving parents, they would have accepted me and knew the truth, but the social stigma was too much for me and I wound up walking the path of the straights in the end, besides, emotionally my love is for women, even if my body is trans female and wired hard that way.

I learned to escape, and to fight, and to survive, but I was primed for self hate and self destruction.

It was in this forum that I learned to accept and love myself, all of myself, and to be free.

Hugs.

[Ativan Prescribed]

I had a friend who in like eight grade maybe as we were walking the county road into the small town, he was behind me and suddenly said I walk like a girl.
Then he went into this long thing about how to walk like a guy, and that started that up for me, but it felt uncomfortable and besides, he always bounced when he walked, we nicknamed him coil, like a spring.
But he was not bad about how he talked about how I walked, it was just a casual observation, and he had a speech impediment where it was hard for him to pronounce 'L' in words, like nothing came out in place of it, it was as if it didn't exist.
So he showed me how to walk, which was hilarious because of his odd way of walking and I eventually got him to be able to use the L sound in words, but it took a few years... I caught on to the 'walk' pretty fast.
But I also just didn't like how long it took me to get anywhere walking as a kid and he was like a few miles away, so I took up running and it became a real thing for me to be able to do it efficiently and also quietly.
But I also got into that runners high without even realizing it was a thing so running became something I just did a lot of, which at school it turned out I was faster and could go the distance better than the track team.
A couple miles was nothing to me, I did a regular route of about ten miles usually, so when I had the best of the distance runners from track in my class, I just stayed ahead of them and then near the finish line I would turn backwards and run the last hundred feet that way laughing at them.
They wanted me on the track team something bad, but they had rules about hair length and mine was always way to long, try as they did to get me to cut my hair and join the team, I refused and asked them why I would want to be on a team of runners who couldn't keep up with me.
High school was the turning point for long hair in the dress code and dress code in general, half the football team took me and several others down to the locker room by force and mangled our hair so bad with scissors and clippers that they figured we would end up having to get short hair cuts.
We didn't, it was like a badge of honor to not get it cut and then there was law suites and it even got in the news and finally the school district gave up when they had lost so much in lawyer fees and we were winning anyways, along with a couple million in damages that they just went ahead and dropped the dress code completely, you had to follow the state laws, which meant something on your feet even if it was just socks, and hair could be whatever you wanted it to be, and you had to keep your groin and ass covered, but even that wasn't really defined, so lots of odd things happened for a couple weeks after it all was over with, but the best part, the other half of the football team and the baseball team all quit in protest over it and ruined both teams for a few years until the coaches finally quit and then it went back to normal, the ones who quit were the best they had and the ones who dragged us to the locker rooms ended up getting the shit knocked out of them by the ones who quit, it set up the school as one of the better ones in the state after it was all said and done, the assholes didn't stand a chance against everyone else, despite their loud screaming and yelling about it all going to hell, and it did, because of them and being assholes.
When good people stand up and tell the assholes to sit down and shut up, it works. In this country, the people need to tell the assholes to sit down and just shut the fuck up, because nobody wants to hear their shit anymore, the country wants to move forward and that means everyone, except for the asholes, they can move forward but they still need to sit down and just shut the fuck up and let the adults in the room take care of things.

[nyx]

The question whether trans/nb is a choice or not - to me it is actually both. I can't decide about who I am and what I need. These things are nothing I picked from a list or anything, realizing that I am nb and trans was simply taking a closer look at myself and finding things there. But on the other hand, life is full of decisions and I think in most situations, we have at least two or three possible ways to go. This is even true for my transition, as I think that me feeling to need certain changes is not my choice, but walking along that road is full of choices, and it would even be a possible, yet very bad, choice to don't take this road and decide for a different one, like staying closeted or whatever. But being a human being that seeks happiness, and being also kind of brave and stubborn, I decide to go the transition road. There are still choices on the road, like how fast I want to walk or which steps I want to make, when to make those steps, etc.
So maybe I didn't chose the waters I am sailing in, but I am still the captain of the ship. Sadly, there are lots of pirates... But this doesn't change that I'm captain, and to stop me from sailing, they'd have to be stronger... which they aren't. That said, I know that I am a bucket full of privilege, and for others, the pirates are an existencial threat - that's why we should all stick together and fight those fuckers, and fighting them can be done even through little things - I think, our mere existence is weakening them because as Ativan said, we are many. And we came to stay.

[Ativan Prescribed]

We have always been here through time, we never left and the sad fact that they want to make it an issue is on them not us.
Sometimes you just have to tell people to move or get out of the way, sit down and shut up, let the adults take care of it because obviously they can't.
Estimates of who is LGBTQ has always been rising, and look at the long list of whos who who have been not just coming out of the closet, but telling the world they have for the sake of being able to.
I still remember not that long ago that the trans of the time simply said that NB was just the beginning of the journey to full transition, and to declare that you are Nb was simply brushed off as you don't know what you are talking about.
Its pretty obvious to most people that Nb far outnumber trans, and that overall, LGBTQ is not growing, its just not being silent, if people want to regulate LGBTQ, then they need to be regulated, and told to sit down and shut up, because everyone is sick of their whining about it.
It's like Ted Cruz, that idiot senator from TX who called for regulation of sex toys, because people shouldn't be having orgasms by themselves, seriously, its against the law to own more than six sex toys by an individual in TX, which is odd because isn't Cruz just a dildo himself for the republican party?

[Trinity]

Jun 22, 2021 10:07:00 GMT 8 Ativan Prescribed said:

I still remember not that long ago that the trans of the time simply said that NB was just the beginning of the journey to full transition, and to declare that you are Nb was simply brushed off as you don't know what you are talking about.

In the old forest, it was this that started the fire, and I was the one that started that thread, because I honestly wanted to know.  It was in the then androgyne section, and it led to a spirited discussion, if I remember it was a decent one, but the binaries and specifically the monitors were into it,  but I don't remember very much.  But what I think I remember is that it was the core of it, because it was that attitude that burned it all down.

They were feeding that to me, forcefully, and at one point a certain person was seriously trying to get me to go to an ER for psyche eval, because I was insisting on my nonbinary identity, and also maybe because I was so pissed.  I think Ativan had been banned at that point, most of us did get banned at one time or another, I did.

Censorship, anger, it was a mess.

Nah it wasn't just brushed off.  And it fed the fear many of us who are nb had that it was inevitable that it would go all the way and that we would follow the standard trans narrative, losing everything and everyone and starting over from scratch.

I paid one hell of a price for being nb trans and I still do, but its nothing compared to the price I would have paid if I had binary transitioned, and would that have been right for me?  Not given what I would lose.

This is why I keep pushing learning who we are at the core, knowing ourselves.  I think from a spiritual perspective that is imperative anyway.  Truth is so important, at least it is to me.

I am so tired of being told I need to be cured, that I need to want to be cured.  First thing my shrink said was that this is incurable, you simply are, what you do with that is up to you.  Yet there are others that insist it can and should be cured.

I lived that lie for over 50 years and it cost me more than I can ever begin to tell you.  The pain and rage of it is just beyond.....

And yet, because so many pound it into you, into me, that we are somehow defective, that we need to be cured, that we are going to hell, all that programming even though it is wrong imo just gets into your mind and your spirit and it eats you out from the inside.

I'm glad we have this little place to be real.  And it did get into my head, big time, but was it inevitable for me?

I live any way I like, sure its full hrt transition, but its not binary trans the way I live this out.  And I am not putting on the wrong underwear, period.  Frankly the idea disgusts me.

[Ativan Prescribed]

I have always known myself to be as I am, I never ever gave it any thought about being trans, I called it all sorts of things, but the truth is NB as it is defined now.
I see it in others as well and always have, whether they want to admit it or not, there is no such a thing as truly a man or woman, its even up in the air as to how many people are actually intersex, the only way to know for sure is checking chromosomes and even then does it matter?
If you believe in yourself, then whatever anyone else thinks is just heir opinion, you are who you think you are and everyone has doubts about everything that makes them who they are gender aside, but doubts are just the result of overthinking the simple things, like who we are, truly are.
Gender is a social construct just like so much of everything that makes up who people think they are or wonder if they are, but given all of the things in life, gender is just one small thing that is who we think we are, there is no guarantees about any of us as to who we really are.
By being as honest as we can be about ourselves, it gives us that opportunity to make ourselves better as we understand ourselves more, otherwise, what's the point?
The thing about aging isn't about getting older, its about becoming wiser.
And thats the point, we are not born knowing everything, it is taught to us and we learn, we learn from our mistakes and the mistakes of others, how we deal with those is how we grow to become wiser and better people, thats the point of it all, to be able to say we did our best.

[Leena]

Jun 22, 2021 10:34:38 GMT 8 Trinity said:

Nah it wasn't just brushed off.  And it fed the fear many of us who are nb had that it was inevitable that it would go all the way and that we would follow the standard trans narrative, losing everything and everyone and starting over from scratch.

I paid one hell of a price for being nb trans and I still do, but its nothing compared to the price I would have paid if I had binary transitioned, and would that have been right for me?  Not given what I would lose.

This is why I keep pushing learning who we are at the core, knowing ourselves.  I think from a spiritual perspective that is imperative anyway.  Truth is so important, at least it is to me.

That inevitable narrative may have been right for me, but isn't for everyone. My issues with that place were mainly them pushing me to do things I wasn't ready for. I needed to do things at my own pace, and in the order I did them.

Genderfluid seemed to fit before, but doesn't really now. I kind of always just see this journey as the scenic route heading towards full transition, and had hoped I found a nonbinary spot that didn't require social transition especially. It turns out that I do want social transition, just didn't want to do that until I was far enough along in my physical transition that I could go out without feeling uncomfortable.

There's no real reason why you can't continue doing what you are doing.

[Ativan Prescribed]

Klinefelter syndrome