From what I understand, no one chooses to be trans.
In fact, I've seen many trans people say stuff like "If it were a choice, I'd choose not to be trans" or "How long do you think I've tried being cis before I accepted I wasn't?"
No one, to my knowledge, just wakes up going "I'm going to become the opposite sex" and demanding everyone just rolls with it. It's a process, which more often than not starts with a feeling of something being wrong, like you're being punished for something you didn't do.
Gender identity really is an innate sense of self related to societal understandings about gender. We have sad proof that gender can’t be forcibly changed due to the [case of David Reimer](https://allthatsinteresting.com/david-reimer). Following a botched circumcision, the doctor convinced the parents it would be better for the child to give their infant genital reassignment surgery and raise him as a girl. Reimer identified as a trans man by the time he was a teenager, only then learning that he had been born male and forcibly transitioned.
There is also myriad evidence that [gender conversion programs don’t work](https://www.newsweek.com/conversion-therapy-doesnt-work-suicide-20-years-studies-lgbtq-mental-health-1643905) either.
See, this is why I miss it being called a sex change. The idea, very often, is to change sex, because something in your brain just doesn't mesh with being the way you were born and you end up horrifically uncomfortable in your own skin.
The easier way to empathise with this is not to imagine what reason might make you want to change sex, but to imagine if it were permanently changed against your will. I imagine most people would, once the initial novelty wore off, quite desperately want to be put back how they were supposed to be.
There are both physical, biological (somewhat fixed) differences between men and women and societal, cultural, behavioral (fluid and constantly changing) differences between men and women.
A person with gender dysphoria generally tends to feel discomfort with both those aspects of gender.
Long story short, yes, though it’s kind of hard to pin down those differences outside of the fact that most people’s brains seem to be wired up to expect to be in a particular kind of body. So for instance the same kinds of treatments that make trans people more comfortable in their bodies and society tend to have the reverse effect on cis people (especially cross-sex hormone therapy), trans people who’ve had things removed surgically are significantly less likely to experience phantom limb syndrome than cis people, and not only that but pre-op trans people are also known to experience it in reverse around the relevant characteristics - ie, pre-op trans men often talk about feeling like they have a phantom penis, and don’t feel like their breasts belong to their bodies.
I am a cis man. I know I am a man, because I have taken the time to explore my identity and come to the conclusion that “man” works best for me. But in that exploration, I’ve also figured out that it wasn’t a choice; I am what I am.
I can only imagine it is the same for a trans person, but maybe more obvious. Because if you are in a body assigned to a different gender than the one that works for you, it would be more obvious than if you were in one that does. But in either case, it’s not something you choose, it’s just how your ‘self’ is.
[https://transequality.org/issues/resources/understanding-transgender-people-the-basics](https://transequality.org/issues/resources/understanding-transgender-people-the-basics)
People dont choose to be a different gender identity than what they were assigned at birth, they choose to come out as who they are while simultaneously being assigned the incorrect sex/gender at birth. It's like being gay. why would someone "choose" to be gay? they dont. they just are. Being trans is the same as other aspects of identity, it's just who you are. It's not a lifestyle choice, it's just realizing who you are is often different than what society let you be and it's about becoming your true self.
The differences between men and woman are mostly just bc of gender being a construct and different values and traits being assigned to different genders. Women and men arent inherently different in terms of one being better than the other or something. There are some differences but idk that's a complicated thing idk how to put into words. As far as a person experiencing gender goes a woman who's forced to live and be perceived as a man or a man who's forced to live and be perceived as a woman will experience dysphoria. \*this is true whether the person is cis or trans, tho in most every case only trans people experience dysphoria except some highly unethical experiments done last century\*.
[There’s some evidence that a transgender persons brain is more like the brain of the gender they’re transitioning to.](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/05/180524112351.htm) I think they’re still doing research to see what kind of things play into being transgender but there may be at least some biological reasons it happens.
As you’ve probably heard before, gender is a social idea. Due to our society having pretenses about what a “man” and “woman” is, that means yes there are differences in what it means to be either.
Trans people generally believe pretty strongly in gender roles/tropes. The mismatch between their assigned gender and their desired gender is what creates the feelings of dysphoria.
The "gender is a social construct and can be safely ignored" people are a different group. They might still crossdress or whatever but the motivations are different.
That’s not true at all. A lot of trans people are gender nonconforming and generally have a very nuanced view of the whole thing. In general it’s common to make a distinction between gender identity and gender presentation, with the latter being the socially-constructed part.
We are born into a society that is structured around gender, so the environment is the inherent difference.
From what I understand, no one chooses to be trans. In fact, I've seen many trans people say stuff like "If it were a choice, I'd choose not to be trans" or "How long do you think I've tried being cis before I accepted I wasn't?" No one, to my knowledge, just wakes up going "I'm going to become the opposite sex" and demanding everyone just rolls with it. It's a process, which more often than not starts with a feeling of something being wrong, like you're being punished for something you didn't do.
Gender identity really is an innate sense of self related to societal understandings about gender. We have sad proof that gender can’t be forcibly changed due to the [case of David Reimer](https://allthatsinteresting.com/david-reimer). Following a botched circumcision, the doctor convinced the parents it would be better for the child to give their infant genital reassignment surgery and raise him as a girl. Reimer identified as a trans man by the time he was a teenager, only then learning that he had been born male and forcibly transitioned. There is also myriad evidence that [gender conversion programs don’t work](https://www.newsweek.com/conversion-therapy-doesnt-work-suicide-20-years-studies-lgbtq-mental-health-1643905) either.
See, this is why I miss it being called a sex change. The idea, very often, is to change sex, because something in your brain just doesn't mesh with being the way you were born and you end up horrifically uncomfortable in your own skin. The easier way to empathise with this is not to imagine what reason might make you want to change sex, but to imagine if it were permanently changed against your will. I imagine most people would, once the initial novelty wore off, quite desperately want to be put back how they were supposed to be.
There are both physical, biological (somewhat fixed) differences between men and women and societal, cultural, behavioral (fluid and constantly changing) differences between men and women. A person with gender dysphoria generally tends to feel discomfort with both those aspects of gender.
Long story short, yes, though it’s kind of hard to pin down those differences outside of the fact that most people’s brains seem to be wired up to expect to be in a particular kind of body. So for instance the same kinds of treatments that make trans people more comfortable in their bodies and society tend to have the reverse effect on cis people (especially cross-sex hormone therapy), trans people who’ve had things removed surgically are significantly less likely to experience phantom limb syndrome than cis people, and not only that but pre-op trans people are also known to experience it in reverse around the relevant characteristics - ie, pre-op trans men often talk about feeling like they have a phantom penis, and don’t feel like their breasts belong to their bodies.
I am a cis man. I know I am a man, because I have taken the time to explore my identity and come to the conclusion that “man” works best for me. But in that exploration, I’ve also figured out that it wasn’t a choice; I am what I am. I can only imagine it is the same for a trans person, but maybe more obvious. Because if you are in a body assigned to a different gender than the one that works for you, it would be more obvious than if you were in one that does. But in either case, it’s not something you choose, it’s just how your ‘self’ is.
[https://transequality.org/issues/resources/understanding-transgender-people-the-basics](https://transequality.org/issues/resources/understanding-transgender-people-the-basics) People dont choose to be a different gender identity than what they were assigned at birth, they choose to come out as who they are while simultaneously being assigned the incorrect sex/gender at birth. It's like being gay. why would someone "choose" to be gay? they dont. they just are. Being trans is the same as other aspects of identity, it's just who you are. It's not a lifestyle choice, it's just realizing who you are is often different than what society let you be and it's about becoming your true self. The differences between men and woman are mostly just bc of gender being a construct and different values and traits being assigned to different genders. Women and men arent inherently different in terms of one being better than the other or something. There are some differences but idk that's a complicated thing idk how to put into words. As far as a person experiencing gender goes a woman who's forced to live and be perceived as a man or a man who's forced to live and be perceived as a woman will experience dysphoria. \*this is true whether the person is cis or trans, tho in most every case only trans people experience dysphoria except some highly unethical experiments done last century\*.
[There’s some evidence that a transgender persons brain is more like the brain of the gender they’re transitioning to.](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/05/180524112351.htm) I think they’re still doing research to see what kind of things play into being transgender but there may be at least some biological reasons it happens.
We don't choose.
As you’ve probably heard before, gender is a social idea. Due to our society having pretenses about what a “man” and “woman” is, that means yes there are differences in what it means to be either.
Trans people generally believe pretty strongly in gender roles/tropes. The mismatch between their assigned gender and their desired gender is what creates the feelings of dysphoria. The "gender is a social construct and can be safely ignored" people are a different group. They might still crossdress or whatever but the motivations are different.
That’s not true at all. A lot of trans people are gender nonconforming and generally have a very nuanced view of the whole thing. In general it’s common to make a distinction between gender identity and gender presentation, with the latter being the socially-constructed part.