‘I Ain’t What You Think’: Understanding Gender Dysphoria

(Trigger warning: This article discusses details of situations that cause gender dysphoria.)

Gender Dysphoria: What happens when your gender identity doesn’t align with the one you were assigned at birth?

Being Transgender Is Hard…

Replication of Previous Findings? Comparing Gray Matter Volumes in Transgender Individuals with Gender Incongruence and Cisgender Individuals

Gender identity development is a complex process involving multifactorial interactions among genetic, hormonal, social, and psychological factors. As a result of this complex process, there are different gender identities, including, among others, female, male, nonbinary, agender, gender nonconforming, gender fluid, intersex, pangender, genderqueer, or androgynous. Whereas biological sex (i.e., the sex assigned to an individual at birth on the basis of the anatomy of the reproductive system) and gender identity (i.e., the subjective identification of an individual as male, female, or one of the other gender identities) coincide in most people, there are individuals who do not identify with their biological sex. The phenomenon of gender incongruence (GI) is more widespread and relevant than often thought.

07/27/21

Let me apologize first if this reads as messed up as my thoughts have been today.

For much of this year I have fallen into a state of numbness I haven’t experienced for a very long time. More often than not it seems as though I haven’t had any drive to do more than survive one day to the next. This is something which happened every other time questions regarding my gender arose. I would spend days, sometimes weeks, wondering what it would be like to live my life as female. What it mean to be able to simply walk out the door as the person I felt myself to truly be under the mask I had learned to live with. As my true self, free of the costume I felt compelled to wear in a world I knew would never understand nor accept the truth.

Then I would carefully pack everything away until it faded from consciousness, returning to survival mode until it would unexpectedly rise up and once more leave me reeling with thoughts and fears I didn’t know how to face or reconcile.

It was a cycle which repeated itself over the years until I reached a breaking point I couldn’t recover from.

That was many years ago now. Time and again I have thought I had finally reached a point where going back was impossible, not only because I simply couldn’t but also because I wouldn’t want to.

If only things were so simple.

Today I find myself in a place where I just can’t push past, a place of numbness tinged with a hopelessness I can almost taste. It might be I simply cannot break free of a lifetime of doubt and fear and I will forever be bound by the chains which have bound me for so long.

Gender’s three body problem

Gender’s three body problem

Human beings are taught gender dichotomy as a means of control, to sell more products, and to enforce a patriarchal version of society that benefits the male 49%. If the primary argument about non-cis women entering assigned female at birth spaces is reduced down to its arid basics you find the bare bones of patriarchal control. Indeed, one of the founding myths of TERF ideology is the notion that a man can never understand female experiences because female lived experiences are so alien under patriarchal systems. Thus, when a non-cis woman achieves her apotheosis, she still has a vestigial masculinity about her that taints her very thoughts and actions. Essentially a vanguard agent of rape and misery, the non-cis woman threatens all assigned females at birth by their mere presence. Yet there is no talk of non-cis men, or non-binary folk, polluting the sanctity of masculine spaces, for in this dichotomous world the masculine is power, and to seek the phallus is to chase that dragon.

Transgender medicine – what care looks like, who seeks it out and what’s still unknown

THE CONVERSATION — Transgender people continue to be the focus of political culture wars in the U.S. In the spring of 2021, lawmakers in many states sought to limit or ban transgender youth from accessing gender-affirming care. The laws proposed — and in some cases passed — were written to have a direct effect on transgender people’s ability to access physical and mental health care.

For many people, the medical options available to transgender people may seem foreign or new – unless you know someone who is transgender, you may not know about this type of care. So to better understand who is getting this care and the evidence that supports it, in recent months, The Conversation reached out to three experts who work with and study transgender youth medicine. Here is a roundup of what these experts had to say.

I Was a Trans Kid Once

We should listen to young folks about their gender identity. The risks of not are far higher.

For the best possible outcomes, we should do everything we can to ensure that trans people feel comfortable coming out and transitioning as soon as they are able to understand their gender. This will make the lives of so many people inordinately easier at no real cost to society. Anything else is inhumane.

Feminism, biological fundamentalism and the attack on trans rights

Across Europe, the far Right is mobilizing around sexual difference and for the forced imposition of heterosexual norms by drawing on biological arguments to border the ‘other’. Whilst we are familiar with the ways in which the far Right have long organized against the racialized ‘foreigner’ through anti-migrant and Islamophobic rhetoric, we are now seeing the ‘othering’ of anyone who does not subscribe to the tenets of the heteronormative nuclear family. Issues around reproduction, sexual difference and the family are now a key political battleground. As trans rights in the UK come under attack from powerful government and media voices, as well as ‘gender critical’ feminists, Sophia Siddiqui warns of the multiple dangers ahead when/if we cede territory to far-right ideas on innate biological difference.

Children’s books written to support transgender and nonbinary youth

Children’s books written to support transgender and nonbinary youth

Three new books are aiming to help educate children and adults about nonbinary and transgender youth.

The GenderCool Project, a youth-led movement that works to replace misinformed opinions on transgender and nonbinary youth, has partnered with A Kids Book About to release three children’s books that aim to educate and inspire.