I have actually seen forms where they do something like giving you checkboxes ("pick all of the following that apply to you" - this is how I would prefer they do it) or, if it has to be a radio button menu, having "cis man" "cis woman" "trans man" "trans woman" "nonbinary" "other" listed together as equal options. Progress is slow, but I do believe they're gradually getting better over time, as knowledge of how to do this actually inclusively gradually percolates through different systems. But I'm probably at the forefront of it, living in a very liberal city, and even here it's hit or miss.

All the following are true about me: I absolutely identify as trans, I consider my transness and my masculinity intimately interlinked, I DETEST any form where you are asked "How do you identify your gender" and you get a radio button menu where "man" and "transman" are mutually exclusive options (in this situation, I simply pick "man" because my gender is not "transman"), I do not think my transness is always salient in the same situations where my manhood is salient, and I do not think my manhood is necessarily salient in all the same situation where my transness is salient!

Sort of like being mixed-race, I absolutely agree that I am and think that it is very important in my life, it's a really central context for understanding the history of that life -- but I am not "a mixedraceman" who is fundamentally different from "a man", and there are many, many situations in my life where being mixed-race is just not salient and important.

It's nice to be able to exist sometimes without being marked as Other.

Well, most people say they feel it pretty quickly. But, I'm in the minority that never noticed any difference whatsoever, and I'm a very binary man. However, it is entirely plausible that this is down to poor self-awareness on my part. I'm pretty Cloudcuckoolander re: bodily awareness.

These days I regularly forget my hormones, and if I miss a whole week I don't feel any sign of it at all...

But transitioning was incredibly beneficial for my mental health, and that included the effects of hormones in terms of dysphoria and euphoria. And I think just getting on hormones, even before those effects manifested, made me feel better because I knew those changes were coming.

I'll be here lurking. I'm a US trans man who's even more in my 30s now because today is my birthday 🍰

I've been transitioned about 14 years now and with my husband about that long. I am gay but I feel a little separated from my people, I guess, because I'm very introverted and home-oriented, and I never dated or otherwise played around in that world. My partner (also trans) is the only person I've ever been with, and we went from queerplatonic to queer-not-platonic and, I hope, will be together forevermore. In some ways that makes me extremely privileged, since I didn't have to go through the difficulties of searching for love as a gay trans man, and I guess I'm still just as flamingly gay even if I don't have the scars to prove it. But I would like to listen and learn from others who have had different life paths.

I'm also ace-spec and probably "neurospicy" as I believe the young'uns call it these days. Currently writing a very goofy and stupid queer trans historical adventure story. Also DM a D&D 5e campaign online for younger players (most around 21) who are amazed at how "wise" I am even though I'm just a dumbass who's seen slightly more life than them, hahaha. I have two cats and a dog and now that the dog is feeling her old age they've finally all become best friends.

You say that you would think R is a trans woman if he were AMAB but would you, really? I don't believe that. Do you walk up to femme cis gay man and tell them you think that they're actually trans women? If you see a cis male childcare worker or nurse do you she/her him? If a cis man laughs too much, is he a woman? If a guy wears a pink shirt, welp, that's it, it's transition time for him?

Other people's genders are not up for negotiation. You don't get input. And this is equally true for trans people as cis people. Thinking that trans people are fair game for getting their genders workshopped, while you wouldn't do this to a cis person, is a way of thinking influenced by transphobia.

If cis women can rave about an "inner goddess" unlocked by sexuality, and cis men can deeply intertwine their self-image of manhood and masculinity with their sexuality, and indeed cis sexuality drip with the language of gender euphoria almost everywhere you look, surely it is normal and allowed for trans people to do the same.

You're right. I sure aint a sociologist or an anthropologist, so it's probably way better for OP listen to their actual professors and not me!

So be specific. Ask every interviewee what terms they use for themselves. Define terms before you start asking questions using those terms. Ask, "Do you feel that you used to be a [girl/boy], or do you feel that you were always a [boy/girl]?" "Do you feel that you ever 'lived as a [man/woman]', or did you not?" "Do you feel that you were 'socialized [male/female]', or do you feel like this inaccurately describes your experiences?" Trans people are VERY diverse with varied, disagreeing experiences. We've had many decades of arguing these questions within our communities, on the streets and in the ivory tower. Even a naive trans person who hasn't been exposed to theory is an expert on their own life. Ask and listen.

Gently, I think you're coming in with too many assumptions. For the best interview, you need to leave your assumptions about gender and gendered experiences at the door. Do not assume that trans people "know what it's like to live as both", for example. Do we, actually? This is why I'm like, "it's just ethnographic interviewing best practices..." You gotta come in without a theoretical framework that's been devised outside the culture. After the interview you can contemplate how your subjects' reports fit or don't fit into various theories, but you'll get the best data by allowing your subjects to self-define, and by describing the frameworks and language they use for themselves.

I imagine it must be frustrating asking these questions genuinely and getting harsh responses. But trans people are tired. So tired. Check out GLAAD media style guide (more for journalists than academics), review best practices for research on socially disadvantaged populations, read what sociologists have written on a meta level about the study of trans people, etc.

When you're talking to an individual human, you can ask that individual human how they prefer to conceptualize it.

However, virtually all style guides (e.g. for journalists) have long recommended that by default, you use the trans person's current name and pronouns for their entire history including before they came out, you avoid implying that the trans person was ever the wrong gender (e.g. do not use "born as a man"), and you avoid "choice" language.

You should be taking courses on ethnographic interviewing and culturally competent interviewing. They cover this stuff.

I'm sorry you're experiencing this, it sounds like it really sucks and it's so hard when you have a fear/phobia like this and it ends up crippling you from being able to help the people you care about.

You may consider therapy for your fear for the long term, to make your life more comfortable and less anxious in the future. Phobias are treatable! But if he's having his mastectomy TODAY you probably do not have the time to do that kind of desensitization work.

If you love him and your communication is good, honestly and directly communicating, "I have this phobia, I can't help reacting this way even though I hate it, I'm so sorry for the way it's making me it harder for me to care for you" would be good, I think. Making it clear that emotional discomfort you're having is not about a rejection of him or his decisions and that you're not repulsed by his body (you're merely triggered by fresh scars, etc.) You can say things like, "Because of my medical phobia I don't think I'm going to be able to look directly at your chest until it's fully healed. I feel bad about this. I don't want you to feel rejected because I really do support you and I'm so happy for you that you're able to do this."

If it were me getting the surgery, I would NOT want you to try to tough through your phobia and take care of me. The recovery period is exhausting. And if you're there exposing yourself to your triggers and setting your own anxiety off, then he might feel like he's having to emotionally caretake you while also trying to physically recover himself. I would not want you to try to push yourself beyond your limits. If it makes you ill to look at his fresh scars, don't look at them! I would prefer you to be realistic about what you can and can't do, and discuss it explicitly and make a plan. For example:

Can you bring him drinks and pillows, even if you can't help him with bandage changes or showers?

Can you take care of pet care, dishwashing, cooking, cleaning, laundry, etc. for him, so he doesn't have to worry about that?

Can you recruit other trusted friends to be support crew for him? For example, if you can't bear to take him to or from the hospital, who can?

Basically, acknowledge what you realistically cannot do, and do everything that you CAN do to make his life simpler and allow him to focus all his attention on getting well.

Good luck on your journey... I'm so fortunate that I got recommended low FODMAP right at the start and it worked magically for me. I hope you find your solution because it's such hell. 😔

Hey, I'm in this very specific demographic!

I guess my difficulty in answering though is that I started T at about the same time that we tried dietary intervention for my IBS-D. I went on a low FODMAP diet ( r/FODMAPS exists if you're curious) and ever since my symptoms have been almost totally controlled. A couple times I had to discontinue T for access reasons and that didn't really coincide with IBS symptom increase. Nowadays I get symptoms when I eat garlic, onion, etc. by accident, forget to take a lactaid with dairy, etc. etc.

However, it's plausible that settling your E fluctuations via T could be helpful, the mechanism makes sense.

Others have already said this, but: are you actually sure that trans men and AFAB non-women are at elevated risk of this condition? Has there been research done? Or has all research been done on cis women, and the medical establishment has simply decided that all AFAB people are medically equivalent to cis women?

I hope this doesn't come across as too harsh or like I'm villainizing you. But you said that it's important to be aware of risk factors regardless of "what we identify as", as if the risk factors are real ("biologically real", perhaps one might say) and our identification is just made up fluff on top. Except, the state of research on the real risks in trans populations is generally pretty poor. Are the risk factors real?

Maybe XX people are more likely to experience this condition (though not all XX people are AFAB...) but maybe they're not. And what about trans women? Are you sure that for this specific condition, AMAB women aren't the ones with risk profiles more similar to cis women? Make sure you're confident before just making a declaration.

Honestly, in this situation, I would actually prefer the phrasing "women's health" because that's how it likely has been researched.

I also feel like "gender health gap" may be an appropriate phrase as-is, when talking about disparities between cis men and everyone else. There's tiny niggles (like, trans men and cis men are the same gender) but it correctly evokes that gender is the salient issue.

There's various tacks he could take depending on how neutral/deflecting versus assertive he wants to be...

Pure deflection/lie: "I don't know, that's his business."

"Uhh, that's awfully personal, don't you think?"

"That's his private business." + optional, if the person is worth educating, "It's not really appropriate to ask about that."

Again, if the person is worth bothering trying to educate, "Why do you want to know?" followed by "Sorry, but I don't think [insert reason here, almost certainly just curiosity] is a good reason to discuss other people's private medical information."

"Someone else's body parts aren't really an appropriate subject for gossip."

"Uhhh, why would you think that's an appropriate question to ask?"

My husband and I use "niblings" as a gender-neutral collective term, and that also works as the singular "nibling"

I'm sorry you went through that. I've had a similar experience, I think. It's so hurtful when your caretakers seem to act like this moment of triumph and growth is somehow worse than moments when you were ACTUALLY in immense struggle and pain and much closer to really dying. I don't know if "internalized transphobia" is the right term for it, either, though. "Internalized transphobia" to me specifically means transphobia that has been internalized by a trans person and is self-directed. In a cis person's case it might simply be transphobia, not active hate but unconscious transphobia absorbed from the culture.

I actually wonder if maybe you might be able to use this to help your mom get it? Since you say that she's otherwise loving and supportive. I would be very delicate with it, because you do NOT want to accidentally lay a guilt trip on of "Why didn't you support me when I was suicidal!?", that sort of thing would be unproductive and hurtful and probably not help. I also wouldn't throw the word "transphobia" around because cis people can be brittle and defensive.

Rather, something like, "I understand you're sad and scared and maybe grieving for the son you thought you had. But to me, this is not something to grieve. I'm finally coming alive and excited about the future ahead of me. I'm not dying and you're not losing me. I'm happy, hopeful, full of life. Compared to that time when I had severe depression, when I was actually hopeless and struggling with life, this is a completely different situation. Even though I understand your grief, it hurts me that you're not able to join me in the celebration yet."

Tried to phrase it carefully to avoid blame or accusations or guilt tripping over the past.

Grief is an emotion and you can't reason other people (or yourself) into or out of emotions. But maybe something like this would provide a scaffold to help your mom climb out of the grief sooner. Because you did have an experience where she was in danger of losing her child, and right now is totally different from that and so much better. Maybe she'll be able to open her eyes sooner if you point that out in a gentle way.

In the charitable takes it's about the grief-like emotions that arise when plans and expectations for a beloved child's life suddenly change. They say that such parents don't really feel like their child has actually died, but it's more that the happy future they were picturing and had invested years and years of effort into supporting, with all its cisgender (often heterosexual) assumptions, has suddenly been proved impossible. That future is what the parents are grieving. The more introspective and healthy parents will then follow that up with "Later, I realized that we were silly to have been so attached to that image of the future anyway. We were never guaranteed any particular future for our child; they're their own being with their own life and don't owe us anything. But it was still hard to have to give up that picture of the future we'd imagined."

I understand that. But I'm also kinda "ehhn" towards it.

Because if a parent talked about needing time to grieve the fact that their child became an artist and not a lawyer and talked about feeling like their beautiful lawyer child had died and been replaced with a stranger, I think most people at least in my country would react with "Uh, what? Get over yourself." If a child turned out to be a maths genius and became a professor and won a Nobel Prize, who's gonna be sympathetic to the crying parent saying "But I decided he would play football when he was 3 months old :(:(:( This stranger killed my baby." If a child's hair color turned brown from blond at puberty I think people would look askance at the parent mourning their child's blond future with their blond career and blond babies. If a parent talked about grieving their unborn future grandchildren because their kid decided instead to adopt some step-children...ok actually that's a bad example because a ton of parents really do feel entitled to grandchildren and it's not yet fully culturally acceptable to let adult children decide their own fertility. Sure, in any of these situations, a bit of wistfulness and mourning could make sense. But not that much.

Yes, I understand a parent mourning the image of their child in their gender assigned at birth. That's a sort of loss and the emotions are sort of like grief. It's a natural reaction and they can't help it. I've grieved impossible futures, too. But I think the fact that "death" language is used so much for trans kids in particular, and trans kids get told over and over to be patient with their parents' feelings of grief and to patiently comfort their parents through grieving FOR THEM, and we're asked not to take offense at the suggestion that we're dead zombies/ghosts now or that our emergence from the chrysalis -- something that is necessary for us to LIVE -- is in any way equivalent to death, and something to which tears and grief and sorrow is an appropriate response... Hot take but IMO that's transphobic, and linked to the idea that trans status is inherently bad.

Change is scary. Losing the familiar hurts. But change is inevitable. It makes some sense to be scared of losing the beloved child of today, because the child of tomorrow is unknown. But nobody can stop time. And all of us will change, whether we're cis or trans, and the people we loved yesterday are gone forever. Crying over those lost yesterdays is understandable, but it seems to me the wrong choice to waste time crying and crying over those lost loved ones of yesterdays, when the loved ones of today are right here to be loved right now, and so many loved ones of tomorrow are waiting for us to meet them.

That's my long stupid ramble just to say, I understand your mom's feelings, I understand yours better, I don't think you're wrong to be upset, and you're not dead. I hope that with time she'll get it.

I feel like it would be very stressful to a trans child to be grouped with the wrong gender, especially for sex ed. Being the only boy sat amongst a group of girls in such a charged space, being taught "this is what 'your' sex needs to know, the boys' class is not for you, don't forget how cisessentialist the world is"... even if the culture of the school is great and this doesn't mark him out for bullying, it just seems like a miserable time.

Yes, your kid needs a thorough education in periods, pregnancy, etc., but also I feel like everybody should be given a thorough education about all the anatomical configurations, anyway. Maybe better to do it at home?

You may want to check out r/cisparenttranskid, since that community has practical experience and advice.

They just linked this article called "The Transgender Family Handbook" which has specific suggestions and logistical advice. Even though you won't be making primary decisions for him it could still be useful to learn about what stores are out there, common school and extracurricular issues, etc.

Train yourself to use correct name and pronouns if it's not already second-nature for you, learn about that medical stuff and be on top of keeping prescriptions filled and appointments made, work on your trans education bit by bit, but I feel like overall it's probably most important just to be a loving, patient, and accepting adult who listens to him. He's a teenager and it sounds like he's going through a complicated patch... any kid will probably struggle or lack grace at times. If you can be a stable and supportive adult for him I'm sure you will make a huge difference for him for the rest of his life.

I have immense geographical privilege and have never had a trans-related negative experience with phlebotomy.

I just went for labs today and people waiting for walk-in phlebotomy were given numbers and were called back by numbers rather than names, which I thought was nice for privacy. I guess getting asked to confirm name and DoB could be dysphoric if you haven't legally changed your name yet, but if that's asked in the chair in the back then at least it's private.

I don't want to mislead you, as these are treacherous waters, and it seems like it'll be very important for you to do more introspection on this matter in order to figure out what this really means for you.

However, in the breadth of mlm experiences, some men describe having an inner feminine erotic self, or temporarily inhabiting a feminized/feminine persona in a sexual context. Think of gay/queer men who might temporarily reach for feminine terms for themselves to describe their sexual persona or role, or describe themselves as "a woman" in bed, even though their basic central everyday life identity is firmly male. This also exists within lesbian experience, with some women having a masculinized erotic self or a phallic erotic persona.

I don't really have evidence to back it up but my intuition that this is fairly uncommon, and was more common historically than nowadays. It's vastly more common nowadays that a man would say "neither of us is the woman in bed, we're both men". However, some probably small number of men do in fact feel themselves to be "women" in bed, without considering themselves trans women.

Sexuality is very weird. Our brains latch onto all sorts of weird stimuli, fantasies, narratives, which are different for everyone. Just think of the 100,000 different human kinks in the world. We all have different erotic orientations and those can include intricate genderplay that is at odds with our everyday identities. So I would not say that just because you prefer to picture yourself as a woman with a man, therefore you are not really a man. Because it's absolutely possible that a man might prefer to picture himself as a woman when with a man.

However, you're correct that it IS also possible that maybe you feel this way because of societal pressure - like a narrative of "I must be attracted to men as a woman" has been pushed on you so hard by culture that you've internalized that sexual/romantic fantasy and it does something for you, even though you don't actually have genuine attraction to real-life men. Sorta like comphet for lesbians, but the trans version? Or, it's possible that these feelings that you have could be evidence that you don't actually have a binary male identity, and you might experience gender fluidity in one specific context. It's impossible for anyone on the outside to say, so it's up to you to explore and figure out.

Nope, trans guys are raised to average cis man testosterone levels for their age. Any more than normal cis man T levels, and the body begins to metabolize excess T to estrogen, so it doesn't do any good. (Oversimplification but that's roughly how it works.) Beard development takes several years of T, so trans men will experience pretty much the exact same beard development timelines as cis men: tends to start wimpy (think high school boys) and then fills out around 2 years, and can take even more time than that to fully mature (some people report their beard didn't really finish developing until 8+ years).

Biologically, trans men who are on T are really similar to cis men, hormonally. Beard growth, ease of muscle development, voice drop, male pattern baldness, all these things will be experienced very similarly by trans men as by cis men, and with the same wide variation that cis men experience due to genetics, lifestyle, etc. etc. I'm a wimpy-ass guy with weak noodle arms, but giant beard, and no balding yet.

Maybe you have a small mental block where you've been thinking of trans men as this different "biological" category to cis men? There are various physical differences, but actually we have a lot in common even "biologically". If you can break down that wall and accept trans men into the category of cis men in your mind, that may help guide you on how to be considerate and not offend by accidentally othering.

I've actually gotten this compliment before, but it was couched in terms of "my testosterone didn't give me a beard at all, qq." That didn't offend me at all. Because to me that emphasizes the commonality of our experiences as men, cis and trans. It's the exact same genetic lottery if we get luscious beard or no, if we go bald early, etc., whether the testosterone is homemade or not.

"Trans men's beards are so good, I envy them despite being born male" is weird because (1) a lot of trans men would also consider themselves "born male", just a bit differently than usual. (2) could be heard as condescending like "wow, you're sooo manly for being able to grow hair on your face despite being afab"; like it's surprising that mere trans men are able to achieve that much. (3) it is not true! lots of trans men will have the same crappy beard that you have! it's exactly the same genetics. No amount of T will really help if your genes just don't allow for a big beard. (4) you're making trans men an outgroup different from yourself (someone who was "born male") as opposed to treating them like the same men you are. (5) like any comment on basically uncontrollable aspects of one's body, like being tall, some people might not like it. Trans men don't earn their beards, it just grows on your face on its own (or doesn't). It's not an accomplishment that took effort or skill.

By no means is this wildly transphobic or the worst compliment ever, it's just a bit weird to hear. Although this was an awkward experience I hope that you can learn from it and become more graceful and confident.

Any remark that comes to mind along the lines of "You're so __ for a __ person" is probably a bad idea to say.

Maybe it's the cis who aren't good enough for us trans.

Of course everyone has different opinions, and there's always gonna be someone out there who doesn't like an approach, but your approach seems entirely sensible to me. I don't care about passing in everyday life (granted, I pass easily because I'm very beardy) and certainly wouldn't care in a harrowing spaceship situation!

In a sci fi story, it might also be that the culture no longer particularly cares about the trans or cis status of crew, especially if the environment is one where professionalism, skills, cooperation under pressure is critical. So I would find it plausible that he might not care about how his gender is perceived, but also that the others do not care to police his gender.

My rambling thoughts: I am skeptical there is such a thing, in nature, that can be objectively pinpointed as "a trans person" or "transness". Sort of like race or sex or sexual orientation, there are certainly attributes that people have that are real, and we can create groupings of people who are similar for various reasons, such as needing similar medical care, or going through similar experiences when navigating social power structures. But these categories are all created and culturally defined. Every person's phenotype arises from a unique recombination of zillions of genes, environmental influences, accidents of fate. So I believe that all of us who are trans come to that experience along a unique pathway, and while we have common experiences and common needs, we're all different.

Across the world and through history, there have been people who do trans-ish things and have trans-ish feelings. There is something within us that drives us to do trans things. But I personally wouldn't try to pinpoint any fundamental, shared "something" at the root of that trans-ish-ness. I feel like any definition of what it means to be trans will exclude some experiences, or impose a value judgment when prioritizing certain experiences, etc. Therefore, to me, when I say "trans" I mean "generally resembles the nebulous group of people who we'd call trans, without necessarily matching any specific diagnostic criteria". Though for me the most important thing that decides if someone is trans or not is if they identify as trans, which each person is best able to adjudicate, experiencing their life from the inside. (But at the same time, I don't believe that people who seem really trans from the past, who existed before the "trans" label, aren't trans because the word didn't exist at the time. I believe there is a throughline through history of trans-ish-ness that expresses itself differently in different time and places - fuzzy-edged, shifting, but unbroken for as far back as we can see.)

For me, I just kinda wanted to be a man and so I transitioned and exist as a man in all meaningful ways, so I'm "trans". Why did I want to be a man? I dunno. Just cause. Dysphoria and stuff, euphoria in the vision of myself as masculine, etc. etc., but rather than nail it down to a specific symptom or reason I would characterize it as simply an irresistible drive to be in the way I'm meant to be.

I sometimes do think of my transness as "a birth defect" or "a medical condition", but it's really important for me to note that this comes hand-in-hand with a disability rights orientation and social model of disability perspective. I do not think that "defects" should be stigmatized; really I think of my being trans as more of a "birth quirk" than a negative word like "defect" - it's just an unusual characteristic that I happen to have. The negativity of my condition should be evaluated based on how much it negatively impacts my life, not on how different from the norm it is. With transition care, I experience basically no internal distress. My trans-related distress nowadays comes entirely from societal transphobia. Society is sick, not me.