The one thing I thirst more for than the attention of my peers is validation.

As a self-proclaimed narcissist, I want to delve into my story certainly not for context. Last year, roughly around the time of writing this, I came out to my Alt-Right Southern Baptist Mom as transgender. It’s up to you to decide whether that was incredibly brave or stupid. As one would expect, she didn’t take this well, and threatened to kick me out of the house and fly me to Texas to live with my emotionally abusive father (she left him for a reason).

Here is where I want to circle around my point like a vulture and some roadkill, Mom, who in no doubt in my mind loves me, she tries to show it in a way that doesn’t garner a good reaction out of me. The best way to explain this is through her favorite saying: “God created you a girl, and it goes against him to try to be a boy.” Poking about I wanted to find out why she didn’t/couldn’t/wouldn’t accept me, because there’s science to back “Transgendersim” up! surly she can’t deny me now!

To almost insanity, I did research, started debates, and kept pushing buttons to see where I could find a “reasonable” reason other than “God created you a girl, blah, blah, blah.” I was dumbfounded by her stubbornness, but mainly hurt. That hurt is like a bruise that wells up deep inside my chest and throbs. She thinks that by not catering to “The Emperor’s New Cloths” mindset she would be of help to prevent me from going to Hell. Needless to say the worst place for your child to be if you’re a concerned Christian mother.

I kept falling farther and farther down the Trans-Medicalist or TransMed or Truscum mindset/rabbithole for validation. And the validation of my “trans-ness”. Transmed is the belief that you need gender dysphoria to be trans, and that anyone without explicit dysphoria isn’t trans and shouldn’t be in trans spaces. The people who are more “outlandish” with their gender expression; a trans-woman with a full beard who makes no attempt to fit most of the social rules of being a woman, for example, is faking it, and would be (sometimes jokingly, though mainly seriously) called a “TransTrender”. The fact that she could easily shave her beard and have the opportunity to present more feminine, and hasn’t taken it, must mean that she’s doing it for attention. Most “Transtrensers” are AFAB (Assigned Female At Birth), and are in their teens to mid-twenties. Stereotypical “Trenders” have short brightly colored hair, wear attention grabbing clothing, and reside on Tumblr.

All of us can agree that in your teens and twenties you are exploring your sexuality, gender identity, and whether or not you still want to listen to MCR. Now days online and in certain areas it’s allowed, at times encouraged, to explore these things publicly. As it should be. So… What’s the problem? That maybe not all of these kids (rich coming from a 14 year-old) have dysphoria?

The only problem that I see is young teens rushing into medically transitioning, when they may have just been exploring, and something felt good for a little while, then they decided to go further. They start on hormones, and when the changes start to happen, they get extremely uncomfortable and want to get off. Sadly, most changes, and some of the most noticeable changes are permanent. Granted, this is if their parents are accepting, and willing/able to start, and that after they are able to see an endocrinologist after that insane wait time that they still want to go through with it. Transmeds blame Tucute people for glorifying medically transitioning, thus it’s all their fault for this young trans kids ruining their bodies. I also want to note that there’s this paranoia with trans people my age (in which I partook/partake in) about if they’re “faking it”. One would know if they’re faking it… right?

Tucute is the thought that you don’t need gender dysphoria to be trans, and that whatever you say you identify as is as so. These folks are the most infamous when it comes to media coverage on the Trans Community. Often shown as extremist SJW’s that think that being cis or gendered is bad. DoWn wItH tHe PaTrIaRcHy!!!! Spoilers, most often they aren’t… that.

Here’s the tea so to speak, at least for me. I saw a video recently by ContraPoints on YouTube simply titled “Transtrenders”. There’s Natalie looking stunning as always (so I may be a bit of a fanboy… Just be ready for that).

She’s a trans woman who makes political videos surrounding trans topics. I enjoyed videos before, and decided to watch this one when it popped up in my recommendations. Whilst watching I couldn’t help but to get sucked into the discussion at hand: Is it truly validating to be presenting exactly how our society tells us to? At the start I felt the answer was an obvious yes, passing (being perceived as your gender by strangers) is the best thing in the world. But that wasn’t all that she was arguing. It became clear that the character, Tiffany Tumbles, representing the Transmed side was extremely insecure about her identity, clinging to the argument that her her gender dysphoria is what makes her a “valid” trans person. Keep in mind that there was so much more nuance, and it goes so much further than my limited vocabulary can handle. Just watch the damned video.

It shocked me how much I saw myself reflected back from Tiffany. I always had a surface level acceptance towards the folks who are Non-Binary (and those who are more atypical with their identities), sure, I respected their pronouns, but at the heart of the matter I thought that somehow I was superior to them because I’m comfortably sitting in the binary. I was happy thinking that gender couldn’t be more complex than pink and blue. All those outside are just attention seekers and trenders. The ironic (or is it hypercritical?) thing is that when I first started exploring my gender I thought I was a Demiboy. I remember thinking similarly about gay people when I was younger… they were deliberately being gay for attention, and that they had full control, and were doing it to spite God. Feels weird typing that out.

It came from a place of bitterness. Why should I accept those who don’t have “”scientific reasoning”” for why they do the things they do, when I have to fight tooth and nail for my own Mother to look at the science that there is to prove my existence. For her to accept me. Then it stuck me harder than my depression at 3:00 am:

I don’t need to rest my very existence and feelings on being trans by some studies.

I’m perfectly real. My feelings are perfectly real.

My dysphoria isn’t a prize for winning some pity points.

The video brought up the analogy that a mother deeply loves her child, and would do anything for it, but there isn’t science that explicitly proves that that love exists. But it does. Human feelings, gender, and sexuality are so very complex that modern science can barely cover the tip of the iceberg.

There is no satisfying answer, a true or false to any of this. Of course there are people who fake it for attention, the bisexuality craze existed to some extent, there are girls who sexualize gay men to the point where they want to be one (so on and so forth) but they’re the minority in a minority! It’s okay to just take some people at face value, and not psychoanalyze their identities and beliefs. Do you enjoy being around them? Yes? Good. That’s all that matters. At the end of the day we’re all humans (and by humans I mean lizard people, get bamboozled, fool!).

Love, this ass-hat.

P.S. Mind my spelling, spell check can’t fix everything, and I need everything fixed.