meower wrote: 




I guess what I am saying is that I do not have an identity at all, I just happen to have a penis, but could just as easily have a vagina if I were born that way. I don't see the problem either way. I suppose this is some type of physiological cross up in the brain that causes this phenomenon that is the best I can make sense of.

 sirdroseph wrote:

 
we're talking about a person looking at their penis and hating it

we're talking about an 11 year old beginning to grow breasts and hearing about a period and becoming suicidal.

you're lucky. Those of us who's parts match up with their identity don't ever have to think about what we "feel" like bc what we are and who we know ourselves to be is congruent.

 Lazy8 wrote: 





Ok first of all I did not say that I feel male, I actually said that I don't feel male or female and that is the crux of why I cannot comprehend how one "feels" gender at all. I do not even understand the concept of feeling an identity at all. If I have an internal identity, it is externally placed upon me socially by the fact I have male anatomy, but I do not "feel" like a male anymore than I "feel" like I have brown eyes. My lack of understanding is much deeper than I think you are gathering here, it is not that I do not have empathy with their struggle, I am saying that I intellectually do not understand the struggle at all and have no basis of my own human experience to go on to grasp the concept. Secondly is I brought no context at all into this discussion other than my own lack of understanding of what someone who struggles with their anatomy goes through. If you arrived at Trump banning transgenders, you did not arrive there by anything that I said. Bottom line for me is that internally I have no identity, I am myself and let others worry about what classification they place upon me, none of my business. I just happen to be a white male, but do not internally identify as one, I am just me.

sirdroseph wrote:
The context I'm talking about.

We've also just lived thru a wave of bathroom bills and the like.

What you're describing is that you are male and feel male, and have never questioned that. Now imagine you looked down in the shower and your body didn't match that identity. That's gender dysphoria, the feeling of body not matching identity.

In your case it would stem from a change (an imaginary one), but most trans people don't have that. Most have felt that way as long as they've been thinking about their gender.

Yeah, for most of us it's hard to imagine, but for those who face that every day it is probably the central conflict of their lives. There are a number of memoirs of people who've lived this; one you might connect with is Deidre McClosky's Crossing: a Memoir.

If it's any comfort you aren't the first person to struggle with understanding this. If you approach it with empathy you can see past your own experience and get some insight. Trans people aren't the punchline of a joke to me, but that wasn't always the case.

Well done, perfectly titled. I think I have already exhausted my opinions on the matter though! lol You should post some of what you have learned, I am genuinely curious and maybe you can help me to understand.

Here it is