Am I Transgender or a Tomboy?

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Many trans people wish there were some magic pill that could cure gender dysphoria too It would save the bother of discrimination trans people have to face.

The problem with recommending 'psychological treatment' is that it was tried over decades and proven to have a very poor response rate^, resulting in doctors increasingly being more open to prescribing hormones as, compared with psychotherapy, they actually work*. There is increasing evidence that people with gender dysphoria have genetic differences**, and that it's not just "all in the mind". Conversion therapy for trans people is therefore just as unethical as for gay people.

According to (Psychiatry) Professor Richard Green, "Severe Gender Dysphoria cannot be alleviated by any conventional psychiatric treatment, whether it be psychoanalytic therapy, eclectic psychiatric treatment, aversion treatment, or by any standard psychiatric drugs".

Comparing the treatment for gender dysphoria with diabetes type 2 is a terrible analogy. Trans women swallow one oestrogen pill daily (just like the contraceptive pill), and trans men take one testosterone injection every 12 - 14 weeks. It's actually rather non-invasive and is nothing like the constant blood tests and insulin injections taken by diabetics.

As for surgery: a few hours on an operating table is nothing compared to the horrifying alternative of suffering from gender dysphoria***.

References:

^ Julia Serano, 2007, 'Whipping Girl'

* https://genderanalysis.net/2018/01/evid ... y-of-life/

** https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3402034/

https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... anssexuals

*** https://www.bmj.com/content/352/bmj.i1694

I think it does because you can't just claim to be transgender since it's a medical condition but for tomboy it wouldn't matter.

You can't change the brain and science has proven there are male and female brains. You cannot change that but you can change the body so they have created that treatment. I do understand your point with body dysphoria. Sadly I think transgender is accepted more than with body dysphoria. But trans used top be treated the same way as people with body dysphoria are being treated. Don't get me wrong, there are still people out there that feel the same way about gender dysphoria.

But at least with transgender, they can still live normal lives and do anything like a normal person vs people with body dysphoria who want to make themselves disabled. We don't need to pay taxes on trans like we would have to for someone with body dysphoria after they make themselves blind or deaf or missing a arm or leg because they would then need to be on social security and no one wants to pay to support them if they did it to themselves. So that is why body dysphoria isn't treated well and why many doctors will not do it.

I've known many "normal" woman like Zeromancer. Who are not even "tomboys."

Into more "gender-neutral" things than "feminine" things (though Zeromancer is into "feminine" things, too).

These days, truly, there isn't as much a demarcation into "masculine" and "feminine" interests as there used to be.

I've known quite "feminine" women, for one, can analyze a football play better than some macho bar guy.

Actually neuroscience is now finding there is no such thing as a pure male brain or a pure female brain

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/11/brains-men-and-women-aren-t-really-different-study-finds

If you are genuinely interested there is a very interesting book on the subject called The Gender Delusion.

You also have to bear in mind the influence social conditioning has on the development of the brain from birth

The science is certainly showing that sex is more ambiguous, and less clear cut, than was previously thought. Subclinical chromosomal abnormalities (i.e. conditions not considered "intersex") are way more common than most people think, and very often go unnoticed.

Social conditioning is unlikely to have much of an effect though. It didn't make David Reimer feel female, nor the numerous boys like him who had a female upbringing since they were babies/toddlers. People aren't socially conditioned into being trans, or otherwise gender-non-conforming, either (trans people often face terrible bullying) but trans people still exist. Likewise, no one is socialised into being gay or bisexual (if anything, society conditions people into being hetero) but LGB people keep existing. Contrast this with experiments where they injected pregnant mice with hormones and found that the babies consistently exhibited gender-bending behaviour.*

* Steven Pinker, 2002, 'The Blank Slate'

Thanks for the information, and your patience with my ignorance!

I was coming from a place of wanting to make things easier for trans folks, because they have such a rough time (I think you understood that). I wasn't intending to propose conversion therapy, just hoping there might be a way of making it easier for trans folks to accept themselves and for society to accept them.

Sort of like learning to accept and live with one's autism instead of seeking a cure. (But I'm guessing you might think that a terrible analogy, too).

I take your point, though, you're obviously better informed than I. If psychotherapy has been tried and didn't help... And if surgery and hormones can be, if not exactly a 'cure' but the most effective treatment...

Well, yeah, I see what you mean.
Just wishing there was an easier way, I guess.

Thanks, MrsPeel! I really appreciate that you read, and replied so thoughtfully, to my post

Yeah, woman doesn't equate to "feminine", even though there's correlations, social and probably otherwise, if you're not 100% feminine you're an average woman, cis or otherwise, chickadee!

As others have said, trans is more about dysphoria.

In a society that does equate woman = femininity, it is common and logical for cis women to feel "well maybe I'm not a woman then!?" when experiencing non-traditionally-feminine thoughts and interests and attractions. Trans women/genderqueer AFABs have to work through that too, and go "nup, it's something more".

Gender labels are wicked. Imagine a society that did not hand children a life sentence based on their genitals.

I can relate. I used to dress like a boy, didn't wear a bra and trained hard to develop muscles. I also wasn't interested in guys and had multiple girlfriends. Absolutely despised anything romantic. My parents were so relieved when I married my husband. They weren't too keen about him, but said "at least he's a guy". But things changed a lot when I got older. I've become a more typical looking lady. I will never be a girly girl at heart, but people probably can't tell.

I think most people are a bit unisex. I can't count with all my fingers and toes all the ladies I've met who hate pink. glitter or other girly stuff. They're quite womanly, just not into typical girly things.