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[Great Order]

Question for people:

Spoiler: A bit NSFW (click to show/hide)

Anyone else get worsening dysphoria as their transition continued on? It didn't used to bother me too much, just being present as a sort of "Wish I was a girl", but it's steadily getting worse. My genital dysphoria especially, I'm finding myself actively uncomfortable with it. Not with the equipment I *do* have, but rather the equipment I'm lacking.

[alway]

Question for people:

Spoiler: A bit NSFW (click to show/hide)

Anyone else get worsening dysphoria as their transition continued on? It didn't used to bother me too much, just being present as a sort of "Wish I was a girl", but it's steadily getting worse. My genital dysphoria especially, I'm finding myself actively uncomfortable with it. Not with the equipment I *do* have, but rather the equipment I'm lacking.

Oh, yeah, that can be pretty common. Everything that bothers you which your brain previously was suppressing as something impossible which couldn't be dealt with is now back to the realm of things you can do something about and thus much more at the forefront.

Spoiler: NSFW, a bit of sex ed (click to show/hide)

As for down below, it may or may not help to consider, but for recreational purposes, the stuff down below is basically the same structures, but rearranged a bit. It initially develops based on hormones earlier in life; and after swapping those out now, the physical sensations and response to stimuli will start to change. This, by the way, is the how and why of bottom surgery: after time on hormones, you can simply surgically rearrange things and suddenly you've genitals which are in a different configuration and still functional. You aren't actually lacking any bits, they're just inconveniently located at the moment, and figuring out how to get around that fact is a matter of knowing where to look. There are some guides on this; the zine "Fucking Trans Women" by Mira Bellwether is probably the most well-known packet of trans woman sex ed info all in one place. The most concise approximation of homologous features is that the tip of the penis corresponds to the clitoris, the shaft more or less corresponds to the back walls of the vagina, and some of the vaginal nerves can be found up in the inguinal canals on either side of the scrotum (tricky to describe without diagrams). This sort of info is used for things like the mechanics of how bottom surgery is done.

For reproductive purposes... yeah, that bit is a lot harder for folks who care about it. Not much modern medicine can do about it.

[Tiruin]

First off: this thread has excellent gender, this'll go nicely in my entropy pool. Gendernoise here.

Power to all those who use it/its and more c:

but also the art people linked is such Good(TM)

alway always has great points on that note.

[Imic]

Meant to ask this ages and ages ago, but Tiruin, has your avatar always had the trans pride flag in it, or did I just fail to notice it until after I found out what the trans pride flag looked like?

[Great Order]

Pretty sure it used to be a sort of leather-brown.

EDIT: I think the hormones are having a minor emotional effect. I'm feeling things a little bit more. When I'm thankful it feels more genuine. Not that it wasn't before, but it feels even moreso now. Some things make me feel a little sad that didn't make me feel anything before. Little bits like that.

[Tiruin]

Meant to ask this ages and ages ago, but Tiruin, has your avatar always had the trans pride flag in it, or did I just fail to notice it until after I found out what the trans pride flag looked like?

I love you noticing this, and no! I edited it in subtly just this year (or was it last year?)
It was originally some light tan color until I realized (given being friends with the artist who spliced it waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay before the program that made splicing accessible was made) that I can edit it myself.

[Strongpoint]

Being into fitness, I can't overlook the biological differences in muscle mass and bone density living as a man for your entire teenage and most of your adult life has versus someone who was born biologically female. That muscle doesn't simple disappear overnight, the bone mass doesn't return to any level because as far as the body is concerned, you developed with male levels of hormones and that's what it should be. If someone has trained their whole life as a man, the differences magnify. If they trained their whole life as a man and used Performance Enhancing Drugs, the advantage magnifies even more.

A life-long male in their early 30s who is untrained will, statistically, be stronger in most metrics that matter to professional sports than an untrained woman of the same age. So if they transition to female with no hormone therapy, then they will by the numbers have strength and performance above the female standard. It's why we even have gender separated sports in the first place.

(slight necromancy but I just like this particular topic )

The bolded part is not entirely correct. The main reason why we have separate male and female leagues\tournaments\chapmpionships is that we want to see meaningful competition. We don't ban people simply because their build gives them advantages.

But we do separate athletes when there is simply no chance to compete. Male\Female division is one of them. Using weight categories in martial arts or weightlifting is another. No 50 kg guy would have a chance to become a boxing champion if weight categories wouldn't exist. He wouldn't even have a slightest chance to become top 50 or top 100 or top 1000... But there are no weight categories in, lets say, basketball even if it is obvious that weight offers an advantage there. It is just not big enough to make it impossible to overcome the gap.

So, if post-hormonal-therapy transwomen still have, on average, a slight advantage that doesn't mean they should be banned because, evidently, that advantage is not nearly enough to make them dominate female leagues.

[EuchreJack]

I mostly see Gender Separation of Sports as a relic of "Separate but Equal", another failed idea that has thankfully also died out.

Throughout most of the last Century, the folks that watch, and more importantly, the folks that FUND, Sport have traditionally had ZERO interest in Female Athletes, so they were banned from playing with the Men.

Most of the crap still keeping the genders separate is the junk science that was made up to justify Female Exclusion. And it's now being weaponized against Trans Athletes, explicitly to keep THEM out of Sport.

[Strongpoint]

Throughout most of the last Century, the folks that watch, and more importantly, the folks that FUND, Sport have traditionally had ZERO interest in Female Athletes, so they were banned from playing with the Men.

Or... no one wanted to watch no contests and witness gruesome injuries of females in contact sports. Mixed sport doesn't work. In many sports, 16-year-old boys with adequate training will completely destroy female world champions.

Sure, there was serious resistance against female sports. But separation is not the consequence of this resistance. If anything, having no separation would be the easiest way to ensure that there are no women in sports beyond amateurs.

[Great Order]

There's a number of sports where sex/gender-based leagues are pointless, generally being skill/dexterity based sports where fitness plays minimal to no part in it. Competitive shooting, for example, has no difference between the sexes.

Interestingly, one of the sports that also shows no difference is extreme long distance running, which is probably because after a certain point being stronger or fitter doesn't really mean much because any advantages they give you collapse in the face of 1000 miles of running. Instead, it's all about psychological resilience.

[Starver]

Slightly ninjaed, whilst trying to phrase this post to my satisfaction, but... In a (very much) non-contact sport, that I'm involved in, various competitions didn't even allow women for quite a while... and there were separate membership bodies even after that[1].

Recently it's been posited that women's and men's results in events that they have for decades been co-mingled (performances excepting) should be separated again!

That there have been women who have outperformed the men, rarely but notably, and that the prizes have been equalised (by value and extent) with the prize-listings often side-by side-by-side, doesn't seem to matter. The stated aim is that the first women, overall, might be dispirited to be found down beyond the first dozen or so men in the combined result-order list. But then there are age-classes in which the young and old categories only win out against those in more traditionally prime age-ranges in a very few exceptional circumstances. All I can see is an attempt to resegregate everyone again. (Perhaps even with a crafty eye over seperately listing trans competitors... it has that kind of smell to it. And, given that this bit is at least relevent to the thread subject, I might as well mention that.)



Of course, there are many subtle complications to all these issues. And historical inertia combines with any reactionary counterpush, either for or against what any given somebody might think is the proper natural situation....



[1] Related: Reading about the history of bowling the other day, apropos of nothing much else to do with this subject, it seems the Professional Women's Bowling Association only merged with/filtered into the PBA in 2003, but has re-established itself as a separate body in again in 2015 (IIRC). Though this seemed to be more for financial/sponsorship reasons.

[EuchreJack]

One fundamental problem with merging segregated sports is that the parallel organizations have parallel leaders and supporters.

This is relevant to Trans Athletes, since it means there are twice as many people vested in clearly dividing Sport by Gender.

[Strongpoint]

Interestingly, one of the sports that also shows no difference is extreme long distance running, which is probably because after a certain point being stronger or fitter doesn't really mean much because any advantages they give you collapse in the face of 1000 miles of running. Instead, it's all about psychological resilience.

You shouldn't present one of several competing hypotheses as a fact. It may be that females have better fat-to-energy conversion, better muscle protection from damage, etc. And those advantages outweigh male advantages.

But why is not really important. If the results are close enough, separating sexes is not really necessary but...

What we should have is open competitions and then separate competitions for whatever groups of people may find it necessary to have their own competitions. For whatever reasons they may want: to have a chance to actually win, cultural reasons, or simply desire to have a shared activity with other members of the group.

[Vector]

Feeling miserable today. I finished reading Detransition, Baby last night and followed it up with one last futile search to watch the 4th Department Q movie. It is the most queer-baiting film both in terms of how it was advertised and the actual content of the movie that I have seen in years.

What the hell am I doing? I'm about to turn 33 in a country that hates me and it feels like I have nothing for myself. I've fucked this up.


I gotta believe in myself, remember that I'm being treated for anemia, and also that the past three years have been nonstop gutpunches, this past year especially. And that I haven't been to therapy for three weeks because of the "holiday" season. Maybe it's OK to cry.

[Tiruin]

Hugs Vec :<

It's fully okay to cry ESPECIALLY especially especially just because. That one is in a country where a ton of (recycled, hateful) rhetoric is repeated by supported platforms that push complete fabrication is also a thing independent of that. x~x You can feel!

Also I don't see anything wrong in realizing stuff with media at any age? A good adage that struck me from found family was the note of "We age non-linearly" especially given how trauma or other factors (even developmental) don't necessarily readily apply in how many contexts, especially in neurodivergence/neurodiversity, and furthermore especially when it comes to whatever standards of age-related success there is.

It's going to be a process. Connection/Organization has helped tons, because wow individual power will be strained if not within collective care.