This was informative for me. One of my best friends from elementary school got back in touch last year after 30+ years, and is currently in the process of mtf transition. I don’t think that her reasons for transitioning match or parallel yours, but I don’t fully know what her reasons are in the level of detail you’ve shared about yours—I feel like now is not the time to ask questions that might come across the wrong way if I’m not careful. And your explanation of how things are for you makes me go “OK, that makes sense”, which transitioning hadn’t for me up until this point.
Re: “Famously, trans people tend not to have great introspective clarity into their own motivations for transition.”… I did not know that. My friend is pretty introspective, and she’s the only trans person with whom I have enough direct experience to assess level of introspective ability. Although my model of “trans people in general” won’t get a strong update from your description of your motives and thought process (I figure your experience is that of one subgroup of mtf trans people), this fact that you who are in a position to know claim is famously generally true, will update my general model.
I would personally have been hesitant to speculate about motives along these lines, because the generic line of reasoning speculation “people are doing a thing I don’t understand because they’re <insert something with negative connotations, like mental illness or being socially ostracized>” is an easy answer to jump to that makes one feel superior, but is often wrong. So hearing your reasons were rooted in finding social acceptance is extra useful, because I would have just not allowed myself to put much probability on that unless I’d heard from someone directly that it was true for them.
I see below that some people on twitter have apparently pushed you to delete links to this essay or the essay itself. I vote you keep it up.
This was informative for me. One of my best friends from elementary school got back in touch last year after 30+ years, and is currently in the process of mtf transition. I don’t think that her reasons for transitioning match or parallel yours, but I don’t fully know what her reasons are in the level of detail you’ve shared about yours—I feel like now is not the time to ask questions that might come across the wrong way if I’m not careful. And your explanation of how things are for you makes me go “OK, that makes sense”, which transitioning hadn’t for me up until this point.
Re: “Famously, trans people tend not to have great introspective clarity into their own motivations for transition.”… I did not know that. My friend is pretty introspective, and she’s the only trans person with whom I have enough direct experience to assess level of introspective ability. Although my model of “trans people in general” won’t get a strong update from your description of your motives and thought process (I figure your experience is that of one subgroup of mtf trans people), this fact that you who are in a position to know claim is famously generally true, will update my general model.
I would personally have been hesitant to speculate about motives along these lines, because the generic line of
reasoningspeculation “people are doing a thing I don’t understand because they’re <insert something with negative connotations, like mental illness or being socially ostracized>” is an easy answer to jump to that makes one feel superior, but is often wrong. So hearing your reasons were rooted in finding social acceptance is extra useful, because I would have just not allowed myself to put much probability on that unless I’d heard from someone directly that it was true for them.I see below that some people on twitter have apparently pushed you to delete links to this essay or the essay itself. I vote you keep it up.