[EnderD_503]

Ok, wow, there is a lot that has been written here that I really touch on and clarify. A few people have made some assumptions about what I wrote, so I want to quote myself to clarify my own words from my original post.

To address weatherboi’s assumptions about my post:

when speaking of the ick factor Ender wasn't talking about his revulsion about his body. he was talking specifically about guys that have learned to have a healthy relationship with there bodies as a"disturbing".

This isn’t what I said nor intended to imply at all, actually. I admitted no such thing as far as my current beliefs. I assume you are referring to this portion of my original post:

enjoying using their female anatomy during sex (something, which I know is a disturbing subject for many of us, myself included, yet I still think we should avoid judging those who do as somehow lesser men/not legitimately trans/maleId)

To clarify, my use of the term “disturbing” here is not saying that I am disturbed by other transmen/male identities using their female anatomy during sex. Within the greater context of my post (honestly, it seems like people saw that one snippet and stopped reading, because I actually clarify this later on), it is meant to say that the notion of using the anatomy I was born with during sex disturbs me, not that others doing so disturbs me. Due to the fact that I feel an extreme disconnect between the anatomy I was born with and the anatomy my mind thinks should have been in its place, I feel a sense of violation or potential violation against my physical self if I am forced to think of my female anatomy being touched during sex.

Even writing this to explain it to you is painful and, yes, disturbing for me (though not because I think it disturbing for others to have that preference, but simply because on a personal level it brings me a lot of psychological turmoil), but I understand that I need to in order to clarify.

I also understand that for many FtMs and MtFs and related identities, anything that acknowledges the anatomy they were born with or using that anatomy that they feel disconnected with is disturbing to them. I am trying to take this feeling (that is familiar among many who experience some kind of disphoria) as an example of what I was trying to combat with my original post.

I realise that a part of my post is me telling my story, and that may be confusing for some people, so let me get to the end conclusion, and one of the primary points of this thread. Again another quotation from my original post (put parts of my response in brackets):

Yet why do we see a transman as less legitimate if he’s given birth? As though somehow his individual expression has a negative impact on the way other transmen are seen? [Which I do not see it to be, but this was brought up in the Kye thread, where there were people who stated that when a transman acts/does such things as give birth or existing in the realm of women/females, he is somehow keeping other transmen from being taken seriously. This was all written in that thread by various posters, this isn’t me making things up off the top of my head] I was watching a youtube video a while back where one guy (biologically female, but identified as a man/male and fully nearly fully "transitioned") in his 20’s was saying that he was upset with the portrayal of the transgender character in the L Word (don't remember the guy's name since I don’t watch the L Word), and more specifically because the writers had the transguy become pregnant. I [/I]understand[/I] why this would upset many transguys, and the idea of such a thing happening to myself disturbs me greatly. Yet I recognise that it disturbs me because of my own identity…yet what does my identity have to do with the many transguys out there who have had children before they began their transition, or even after their transition?

That is really the climax, I guess you could say, of my entire post, and my thoughts on my own evolution, as well as many of the comments made in the Kye thread. That certain things happening to my body disturb me because of the way I personally see myself, identify myself. However, I recognise that this has nothing to do with other people, and only myself. How others identify, and how they choose to present their own bodies, use their own bodies, and interact with their own bodies is separate from what I do. I actually state many times throughout my original post that I hold no negative beliefs, opinions or judgements whatsoever as far as what an individual chooses to do with his/her body. My point is that we should all be overcoming certain objections we have to the way people live their lives, express themselves, identify, the decisions they make and realise that it's not what they're doing, but our own insecurities.

@Bulldog:

But Ender also throws in things like a man playing on a woman's team. When I read transmen's comments on that, I saw them as recognizing the privilege involved and also as a man they would want to play with their peers- not that they saw Kye as less of a man for playing on a woman's team. To me those are two entirely different things.

That you talk about transmen and so on wanting to “play with their peers,” this is, once again, limiting a man to an area that he should, according to a binary, feel he belongs in. That his male sex/gender determines that all men/males are his peers, while women/females are not. A transmen/male identified individual on a female team is not necessarily not playing with his peers. By claiming that a transman/male id is not within his “peer group” by playing on a female team, one continues to divide rather than allow people to unite. Why can a man not feel like he is among his peers when he is among females/women while still considering himself a man? This is where I want to momentarily come back to what I was saying about really feeling and thinking one’s self as male, versus stereotypical masculinity. A male who is born in a female body, yet who can only think of himself as male, does not necessarily need to relate best with other males. He can still be male in mind, “transition” fully to male physically, change his legal status to male, while still feeling he is at home among women. That is what I mean by stripping maleness down to simply the gender/sex one has always considered one’s self to be inside one’s head.

Let’s look at this forum as an example of what I’m talking about. It’s been said before that men who are born biologically male and who identify as men/male are not welcome here, yet FtMs, Transmen, Male identified folks who were born with female bodies in general, MtFs, Transwomen, Female identified folks who were born with male bodies in general, as well as those who lie somewhere in between are welcome here (as far as I’m aware, Medusa/Jack/mods correct me if I’m wrong). How do these spaces differ? Should the male identities here who reject the word “trans” as an identifier and who simply see themselves as male (yet still queer and within the b/f dynamic) leave? Are they less trans/male because they are participating on a forum that is largely female/woman identified? If they feel more at home here than on a forum geared toward heterosexual males?

Also, I wanted to clarify that my statements with regards to how I view my own body are not stating that I believe the female body to be inferior or bad or anything negative. There are MtFs who feel similarly about discussing/recognising their male anatomy. It’s the recognition of certain anatomy that don’t feel right that make a person feel uncomfortable. I’m not sure you realise how painful it is to have to wake up every morning and look at a body that isn’t you. To feel totally trapped by it. To have everyone around you refer to you as a man/woman/opposite of what you are then laugh at you for thinking otherwise, using your own body against you as “proof”, calling you crazy when you tell them you are not what they say you are. When I use the word "disturb," it really is because this kind of existence and the feeling of violation that accompanies it disturbs me, not the way others live or exist.

About the length of my posts, sorry but it’s not a topic I want to risk short general statements about. They’re long because it takes a lot of explaining, and if people don’t want to read them all the way through, please don’t just read a sentence and think it represents the post as a whole.