"It's not a single process, it's 1,095 days of little decisions."

January 23, 2016 12:24 PM

What It's Really Like to Transition, via Cosmopolitan

also from October, Jodie Patterson is a mother of five — including one 8-year-old transgender boy.

posted by roomthreeseventeen (34 comments total)

Here's the FTM companion piece: What It's Really Like to Transition From Female to Male
posted by blue suede stockings at 12:36 PM on January 23, 2016 [1 favorite]

Ah, thanks for posting that companion piece. I didn't see it there.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 12:37 PM on January 23, 2016

What did she mean about smelling differently?
posted by Joe in Australia at 1:08 PM on January 23, 2016

I am assuming she meant smelling different? like her own body odor changed (which would make sense, re hormones etc) vs. her sense of smell functioning in a new way???
posted by supermedusa at 1:27 PM on January 23, 2016 [1 favorite]

You do start to smell differently. I have been on testosterone for a while now and I do smell different, as in body odor especially. Kind of a neat change.
posted by beanytacos at 1:55 PM on January 23, 2016 [5 favorites]

I wish cis people were as fascinated with trans rights as they are with the minutia of medical transition.
posted by Juliet Banana at 1:56 PM on January 23, 2016 [26 favorites]

I wish cis people were as fascinated with trans rights as they are with the minutia of medical transition.

I don't disagree with this, but I also don't think these articles are too harmful. If it prevents someone from asking a personal question that a trans person doesn't want to answer, then it does some good.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 2:05 PM on January 23, 2016 [6 favorites]

I wish the fascination with medical transition translated to insurance coverage for said medical transition.
posted by (Over) Thinking at 2:18 PM on January 23, 2016 [20 favorites]

If it prevents someone from asking a personal question that a trans person doesn't want to answer, then it does some good.

On the flip side, there's an argument to be made that it feeds the notion that people's transitions are public property and up for discussion. There's an awful lot of information available to anyone interested in doing a little research (be that reading things or finding an appropriate venue to ask someone). The people who have enough sense of decorum to not randomly ask trans people prying personal questions are exactly the people most likely to be able to find information for themselves.

I'll grant that they're making some effort frame these articles as "this feature talks about sex and people and some people are trans" not "we're doing a random feature piece". But then they thought it was appropriate to be all "Some trans people don't want surgery, but we couldn't be bothered to find any and we're just going to talk about surgery a bunch". Not cool.
posted by hoyland at 2:21 PM on January 23, 2016 [6 favorites]

I don't disagree with this, but I also don't think these articles are too harmful. If it prevents someone from asking a personal question that a trans person doesn't want to answer, then it does some good.

I'm torn about whether to post this comment, but I'm not okay with this sentiment. Allies don't get to decide when something is "too harmful". If that's the best answer you can come up with, it should be setting off alarm bells. You shouldn't be posting things that you think could be construed as harmful.
posted by hoyland at 2:30 PM on January 23, 2016 [4 favorites]

roomthreeseventeen, I really like your posts and I hope my comment didn't come off on shitting on you for posting this here. I searched "transgender" on Cosmo to see if everything they cover is voyeuristic "tell us all about your medical history!!!! pleeeeeaaaasseee satisfy our burning curiosity about your genitals" and I was pleasantly surprised - most of it is about the stuff I wish people were more interested in (the plight of incarcerated trans women, the epidemic of violence against trans women, the struggle to get proper medical care).
posted by Juliet Banana at 2:41 PM on January 23, 2016 [3 favorites]

No, I get it... thank you for the input.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 2:47 PM on January 23, 2016

I'm not going to nitpick the FTM article to death and I'm not going to comment on MTF transition because I'm not one, but I do agree with others that the focus on medical transition is unfortunate. I definitely get questions like "so when are you having surgery" and "how long have you been on T." They are hurtful because I have no way to afford surgery right now, and T has been problematic due to side effects so I'm on a very low dose. It's also hurtful for non-trans people to comment on changes or lack thereof. "Are you growing facial hair yet?" is like asking someone who deeply wants a baby whether they're pregnant yet.

Back to the FTM article, I feel like referring to the men as "A, B, and C" is dehumanizing; just give them pseudonyms like most articles do. I am glad that they let the guys speak for themselves instead of ally-splaining. We need allies if only because we don't have the numbers to sway public opinion on our own but they really, really need to amplify our voices and let us tell our own stories.
posted by desjardins at 3:01 PM on January 23, 2016 [8 favorites]

(I'm probably going to have a lot of random thoughts/realizations, sorry.)

Things I wish someone had told me (obviously these are not universal, but others have told me they've experienced similar things):

Coming out is a much longer process than I thought it would be. I have to constantly deal with it because I'm not consistently read as male, and I live where I grew up so I run into a lot of people who knew me in the Before Time. I wish it were like flipping a light switch but it's not like that at all.

It relieves anxiety because you no longer have to pretend you're the "wrong" gender, but it creates new anxieties - what will people think, am I going to be called out, is that person looking at me because I'm trans, are people just busy or have they distanced themselves now that I'm out to them? If I'm attracted to someone, or vice versa, at what point do I disclose I'm trans, and are they rejecting me because of that?

You're hyper conscious of your own gender and others' behavior, at least for awhile until you begin to find yourself. I watch how men walk, how they take up space, how they interact with each other when women aren't around, the details of how they dress. I constantly questioned myself for months: am I masculine enough? What does it mean to be a man, to be masculine? Why couldn't I just be a tomboy?

I was not prepared to become invisible as a man. Fewer people make small talk, and people rarely offer help when I'm struggling with something heavy or I can't reach something. I was never especially feminine so I didn't get a lot of catcalls (thankfully), but I get zero attention now (except from lesbians, who assume I'm one of them). On the other hand, I've lost all fear of being sexually assaulted and I didn't know how anxiety-producing that was until it was gone.

Finally, men's bathrooms are grossssss. So much grosser. Someone mentioned smells and testosterone definitely makes your pee and poop stink worse. Between the grossness and the anxiety that I'll be called out as an "imposter," bathrooms are my least favorite thing about transitioning.
posted by desjardins at 3:16 PM on January 23, 2016 [21 favorites]

I am assuming she meant smelling different? like her own body odor changed (which would make sense, re hormones etc) vs. her sense of smell functioning in a new way???

FWIW, when I started estrogen, both happened. My body odor changed a great deal, and my sense of smell changed a bit, such that I spent a few weeks asking my partner "Does this smell like it's gone bad to you?" because everything in the fridge was subtly… different. (My theory about the second one is — well, we know hormonal changes in pregnancy can change the palatability of smells and tastes, right? So it makes sense that other hormonal changes could too. But that's just a theory.)
posted by nebulawindphone at 3:27 PM on January 23, 2016 [3 favorites]

Finally, men's bathrooms are grossssss.

A trans man I know looked at me one day and said "using the men's room makes me really not want to shake hands with men." I invited them down to see the men's room on campus closest to my office (which gets a lot of student traffic) just for comparison, but my friend wisely opted out.
posted by GenjiandProust at 3:30 PM on January 23, 2016

I hear the criticisms, but I was pleasantly surprised that Cosmopolitan took a "there is no one transition story" approach. I mean, obviously, they could do better, but I was braced for a lot worse.

I'm a little torn about the "Man A" "Woman C" thing, desjardins. I think I also would have preferred pseudonyms, if only because the letters made it really hard for me to attach each statement to the person who said it to get a fuller idea of their experience (so dehumanizing is right), but I wonder if the writers weren't trying to lead with "Man" and "Woman" to make the point that these are men and women speaking, not some weird third class.
posted by GenjiandProust at 3:43 PM on January 23, 2016 [3 favorites]

Sure but you could do that with names that are almost always male or female. I chose my own name, Kevin, in part because there is no ambiguity.
posted by desjardins at 3:58 PM on January 23, 2016 [1 favorite]

desjardins, I would subscribe to your newsletter, so to speak. And that's the state of available narratives right now, especially with less visible (culturally and literally) FTM individuals: there are blogs and first person accounts scattershot everywhere, but there isn't a lot of solid, everyday mainstream media journalism yet. And this is to the detriment of readers in general, but also individuals who are transitioning, pre-transition, questioning, etc.

That being said, I remember when Cosmo was just "how to not look so fat and please your man while you're giving him a BJ using a doughnut as a cockring" articles, so it's mindblowing progress to see something even like this.
posted by blue suede stockings at 4:21 PM on January 23, 2016 [5 favorites]

The invisibility of FTMs literally kills people. I did not know that transition was even an option when I was a teenager, I just knew something was Wrong. By the time I knew about it, I was not ready to totally upend my life. I can't remember seeing a single FTM on national TV besides Chaz Bono until Google ran this ad during the ESPY awards last summer. (I was full-on sobbing/excitedly yelling when I saw it and I'm getting choked up again now.)

There is more awareness of the existence of MTFs, which is also a terrible double-edged sword because they have mostly been portrayed as jokes/perverts/dangerous/victims etc. I'd guess this makes it both easier to come to an earlier awareness of one's gender non-conformity, and harder to accept it due to transmisogyny. But I'd rather that a transfeminine person comment on that.

Anyway, I hope we can all be portrayed as the complex human beings that we are, and that young people have early access to resources.
posted by desjardins at 5:31 PM on January 23, 2016 [9 favorites]

I agree with the point about the FTM article focusing too much on the medical aspects of transitioning, but then I remembered that there isn't a lot of writing or media about the more mental and emotional aspects of transitioning even amongst trans men. I am not sure what things are like for trans women, but the tumblr blogs, YouTube channels, and message board posts are all basically "hey, I'm 6 months on T, no beard yet, my voice is a little deeper, etc. etc."

Personally, I felt a little lost at times, as I encountered the more challenging emotional things. No one ever talks about the strange stares you get from people when you are in the in-between phase, what sometimes feels like constant romantic/sexual rejection, what it's like to suddenly find yourself a minority, the tension of being a normal dude to most people, and finally living your life as the dude you are, but still feeling like you are harboring some dark secret. I remember a time when I was overwhelmed with these things and thinking to myself "what kind of PR campaign are the trans guys out there on social media running?" That isn't to say I regret anything about transitioning, but I really underestimated the realities, mostly because those realities are just never discussed.
posted by sevenofspades at 5:51 PM on January 23, 2016 [6 favorites]

My friend Emmett was one of the editors for an essay book on FTM transitions. So proud!
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 5:54 PM on January 23, 2016 [1 favorite]

There is more awareness of the existence of MTFs, which is also a terrible double-edged sword because they have mostly been portrayed as jokes/perverts/dangerous/victims etc. I'd guess this makes it both easier to come to an earlier awareness of one's gender non-conformity, and harder to accept it due to transmisogyny.

Thing is, particularly historically, what you're describing really isn't "awareness of the existence" of trans women (which I use instead of the medicalising and pathologising term "MTF" and I would encourage anyone to use when talking about trans women in general). Up until recently popular culture made no distinction between trans women and crossdressers or transvestites, and viewed the whole group as unnatural, which meant that the "trans women" onscreen were usually explicitly dressed up as women to accomplish a goal: a pursuit of erotic pleasure so all-consuming that it became selfish, dangerous, self-destructive, and deceptive; or else more explicitly to deceive, to be the wolf in sheep's clothing. These "trans women" were liars, murderers, rapists, and either so deep in their own fantasies as to be unreachable by anyone armed with the "facts" -- that they were really men, that they were harming people with their selfishness -- or such accomplished liars and manipulators that no-one discovered the "truth" until it is too late. Sometimes, the unmasking of the deceptive tr*nny was even the triumphant resolution of the plot.

So, no, growing up as a child nothing I saw onscreen told me that trans women existed. I was told, repeatedly, that predatory men who preyed on the weaknesses of others, and sick men who needed kind and loving help, dressed up as women. But trans women weren't a thing.

I didn't want to be a monster.

Things are so much better now. But there is absolutely no way that I am comfortable drawing comparisons between the historical portrayals of trans women onscreen and the lack of trans men.

Awareness of trans women and trans men alike has begun only relatively recently. Don't make the mistake of assuming that something that looked like representation, even bad, negative representation, actually functioned as such for trans women at the time.
posted by these are science wands at 6:20 PM on January 23, 2016 [15 favorites]

a pursuit of erotic pleasure so all-consuming that it became selfish, dangerous, self-destructive, and deceptive; or else more explicitly to deceive, to be the wolf in sheep's clothing.

Alternatively, there was, and is, media surrounding drag queens, which is harmful to many trans women, I believe, even when it doesn't mean to be.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 6:27 PM on January 23, 2016

Thank you, these are science wands.
posted by desjardins at 6:31 PM on January 23, 2016

You do start to smell differently. I have been on testosterone for a while now and I do smell different, as in body odor especially. Kind of a neat change.
posted by beanytacos

And you're certain it's the testosterone.
posted by MrBadExample at 9:08 PM on January 23, 2016

On the flip side, there's an argument to be made that it feeds the notion that people's transitions are public property and up for discussion. There's an awful lot of information available to anyone interested in doing a little research (be that reading things or finding an appropriate venue to ask someone).

And as part of that research, I'd say it's fine for people to read articles like this one. Whatever you think of the tone or focus of this article, these are transgender people telling their stories in their own words.

Alternatively, there was, and is, media surrounding drag queens, which is harmful to many trans women, I believe, even when it doesn't mean to be.

This is probably one of those comments I can't respond to without getting into a flamewar.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 9:33 PM on January 23, 2016 [2 favorites]

Much media around drag queens probably is pretty harmful to trans women, but drag media does not equal drag culture. (And there is absolutely not only one drag culture.)
posted by these are science wands at 10:18 PM on January 23, 2016

(Also, the article refers to vaginoplasty - a procedure that dramatically alters the function of genitalia - as 'cosmetic' but does not do the same for facial feminisation surgery? What in the actual fuck?)
posted by Dysk at 1:02 AM on January 24, 2016

I appreciate the bravery of these women in sharing their stories and I honestly enjoyed reading them. Nevertheless, as a cis woman of fluid gender identity, I'm uncomfortable with this article.

Gender is a huge pile of social constructs heaped on top of a biological imperative which falls on a very broad spectrum for many people. Women have always been every bit as complicit in policing those norms as men, if not more so, and women's magazines are often the worst offenders. I find the "othering" tone of this feature worrying, the focus on surgical details and the lack of pseudonymous identity (woman A,B,C). It presents the experiential difference of the female body in a way that devalues the trans gender identity as inauthentic compared to the cis community. The whole tone of the piece makes it that bit harder for cis women to accept trans women in the washroom, the changing room, the workplace.

My trans friends are my friends. I try to be sensitive to their situation in the same way as I would any friend dealing with such a uniquely personal challenge, but not hang too much importance on it. I don't need to know the gory details of surgery if they don't want to tell me. I do want to know that they're OK and feel like respected members of the human race.

With regard to gender bias in general, I'd much prefer to live in a world where we could all position ourselves on that spectrum at the point where we feel the most comfortable rather than be lumped into one box or the other. If that entails surgery for some then so be it, but something so personal shouldn't be subject to unnecessary public scrutiny.
posted by Elizabeth the Thirteenth at 5:54 AM on January 24, 2016 [1 favorite]

I don't disagree with this, but I also don't think these articles are too harmful. If it prevents someone from asking a personal question that a trans person doesn't want to answer, then it does some good.

Unless the 'answer' they're gleaning from this article is not pertinent to the trans person in question - not everyone is the same, not all surgical procedures are the same, not all trans people relate in the same way to their identities and possible surgeries, and not everyone has access to or desires the same level of medical intervention. Incorrect assumptions are also bad.
posted by Dysk at 7:05 AM on January 24, 2016

Dysk: Which is something that can be learned from this article, with three women who have three different approaches, lives and experience.
posted by Jilder at 7:59 PM on January 24, 2016

...and their stories also have an awful lot of not-universal similarity on very fundamental points.

It's not like I didn't read the article.
posted by Dysk at 11:57 PM on January 24, 2016 [1 favorite]

I didn't feel represented until I made a point to seek out work by trans women. Avery Edison, Jamie Clayton, and Merritt Kopas literally changed the way I see myself. Monsters, mirrors, etc. For everyone's sake, I'm going to skip the part where I air out the toxic waste left over from decades of self-hatred; just, if they had been accessible to me when I was a confused kid, my life could have been a lot better. This stuff is only bubbling up into cis cultural consciousness, like, now. And even so, I can hardly get anyone who matters to me to pay attention to any of it.

Also, the first changes I noticed when I started HRT (like, in the first week) were clearer skin and better-smelling pits; it's real. My sense of smell has also definitely changed: everything smells different, and stronger, but also more intense. The scent of my wife's hair has always been nice, but now it's like this euphoric high of love and sex that blocks out all my other senses. It's pretty fucking great.
posted by WCWedin at 1:48 PM on January 25, 2016 [3 favorites]