How did you explain being transgender?
- Thread starter Crystal Bacon
- Start date
It isn’t that hard. Being transgender means that a person’s gender doesn’t (entirely) match the gender they were assigned at birth. That’s all there is to it.
It’s hard for people with no experience of being transgender to understand what that is like, and many people have a hard time believing it’s possible to feel that way. Or they might think it’s possible but not understand the nuances of that experience in someone’s life.
How do you describe colors to someone who has been blind since birth? How do you describe the sound of a baby crying to someone who has been deaf since birth? It’s tough for someone who hasn’t experienced even the primary sensations of gender incongruence (or even sensed their gender) to grasp the concept, much less how it must feel to live with those feelings all the time.
This is a case where language fails us. We don’t have good language to share what gender feels like, much less what it feels like when it conflicts with one’s sex and/or how others perceive them. So, we do our best to muddle along and give our best effort but ultimately inadequate metaphors and analogies.
If you need to see proof of this in real life, watch two trans people talk to each other about how they’re feeling - when one says they’re feeling dysphoria, the other is immediately receptive and comforting. In contrast, when I share that I’m feeling dysphoria with even the most loving and well-meaning cisgender people, I often get blank stares or questioning looks. It must be experienced to be understood, and once it’s experienced, no explanation is necessary.
It’s hard for people with no experience of being transgender to understand what that is like, and many people have a hard time believing it’s possible to feel that way. Or they might think it’s possible but not understand the nuances of that experience in someone’s life.
How do you describe colors to someone who has been blind since birth? How do you describe the sound of a baby crying to someone who has been deaf since birth? It’s tough for someone who hasn’t experienced even the primary sensations of gender incongruence (or even sensed their gender) to grasp the concept, much less how it must feel to live with those feelings all the time.
This is a case where language fails us. We don’t have good language to share what gender feels like, much less what it feels like when it conflicts with one’s sex and/or how others perceive them. So, we do our best to muddle along and give our best effort but ultimately inadequate metaphors and analogies.
If you need to see proof of this in real life, watch two trans people talk to each other about how they’re feeling - when one says they’re feeling dysphoria, the other is immediately receptive and comforting. In contrast, when I share that I’m feeling dysphoria with even the most loving and well-meaning cisgender people, I often get blank stares or questioning looks. It must be experienced to be understood, and once it’s experienced, no explanation is necessary.
It is not. But out there are many people with an agenda. Christians who want to go to heaven, not to hell. And conservatives need followers for their ideology and voters for their parties.
They had already made up their lies. And whatever you try to explain, it is like talking to a wall. A wall is more responsive. I don't have a problem with them. They can believe what they want.
The problem I see is that this person is seeding the seeds of hate. And the sheer amount of repetition grows these seeds until they get fruits. And these fruits are swallowed by people who cannot identify the agenda of the haters and the so-called facts they are spreading as lies because they have never experienced and thought open-mindedly about the topics. So, they are a multiplier of hate. That horrifies me extremely.
