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I appreciate her making the effort to tell her story. I struggle sometimes to understand what it means when people say they feel born in the wrong gender. The

I appreciate her making the effort to tell her story. I struggle sometimes to understand what it means when people say they feel born in the wrong gender. They way she describes it - not just about wanting to do 'girl' things but wanting to be soft and round and feminine - is eye-opening for me.

PartiallyTyped 2y ago
I read around reddit of experiences of people who wore VR headsets and played a character of the other gender. The NPCs treated them as such, but they themselves experienced gender incongruence. Their internal identity was at mismatch with how the NPCs treated them, and that helped them understand what gender dysphoria means.
- skeeter2020 2y ago
  if the NPCs can do this in a non trivial way it could be a really powerful experience.
- chroma 2y ago
  Can you link to the post about that? Because I’m guessing there’s a selection effect where only those who had profound experiences commented. I’ve done similar things in VR and found it wasn’t any different than when I had a robot body or a cartoon carrot body. Yes the new body is strange and interesting in some ways, but on an emotional level it’s like driving a different car.
  - PartiallyTyped 2y ago
    It's not about the body itself but about how the universe treated the player. Unfortunately I don't think VR will ever have enough bandwidth to provide an experience equivalent to Sword Art Online, ie full body immersion. I will see if I can find them again.
  - pseudalopex 2y ago
    > Can you link to the post about that? Because I’m guessing there’s a selection effect where only those who had profound experiences commented. They didn't say everyone experienced it. > I’ve done similar things in VR and found it wasn’t any different than when I had a robot body or a cartoon carrot body. Did characters treat you as not man and not woman? And not in the way most English is gender neutral? It seems not similar otherwise.
sterlind 2y ago
As much as "trapped in the wrong body" is a cliché, the physical aspect of gender dysphoria is profound, and often overlooked. I don't care about competing in women's sports, or what locker room I had to use. I cared about my body becoming grotesque and alien to me, and became overwhelmed with how profoundly wrong it felt. It's not that I want to look like a girl so I can be treated like one - I want to look like a girl, regardless of how I'm treated. My dysphoria is actually worse when I'm alone, because I can't distract myself with socializing. It's hard to empathize with physical dysphoria if you've never felt it, but I appreciate your struggle.
- siloso 2y ago
  [flagged]
- 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 2y ago
  > It's not that I want to look like a girl so I can be treated like one - I want to look like a girl, regardless of how I'm treated. Same, I figured if I was on a desert island with nobody around and a machine that magically dispensed estrogen, it would actually be easier to transition, since I wouldn't have to justify my decision to anyone. That was part of how I convinced myself to start, way back before COVID.
delecti 2y ago
I think that many struggle to understand because they think something like "how would it feel to want to be a woman", rather than flip it to their gender. So if you're a cis man, try to imagine you were a trans man; born female, raised a girl, expected to conform to your local female beauty norms, be expected to bear children, less body hair and muscle mass, curves in places unfamiliar to you, flirted with by men, etc. It's always hard to truly understand how another person views the world, but I've heard that approach work for others in the past.
- autoexec 2y ago
  > So if you're a cis man, try to imagine you were a trans man; born female, raised a girl, expected to conform to your local female beauty norms, be expected to bear children, less body hair and muscle mass, curves in places unfamiliar to you, flirted with by men, etc. Is it weird if I suspect that it wouldn't bother me? I'd have been raised from birth to expect those things so they wouldn't be surprising to girl-me, and the experience of having more body hair and muscle mass would be entirely foreign to me. If men flirting with me was off-putting I'd probably just assume I was gay, and I'm lucky enough to live in an environment where I don't have to buy into or perform traditional gender roles any more than I want to. It's probably easy for me to say, having never a experienced a mismatch, but any intrinsic sense of inner maleness that wasn't 'nurtured' into me ranks pretty low on the list of things that comprise my self-identity.
  - houseplant 2y ago
    You have to understand that until extremely recently- and still, not everywhere, as politics is any indication- people very seriously and genuinely believe that being gay or trans is tantamount to being a pedophile in terms of wrongness. It isn't so much about how you feel, but how others are making you feel. Imagine if you felt fine in your body... but people around you stared and turned up their nose at you wherever you went because there was some kind of rumour that said you were a pedo. Imagine how incredibly harmful that would be, day in and day out, to your psyche, to your mental health, unable to escape it. Imagine if everyone avoided you because- even if they didn't believe you were one- they didn't want to be seen associating with someone everyone thought was one. Imagine if your family believed that. Imagine, no matter how much you tried to say you weren't and prove you weren't, they still believed it, because that's what the culture you're in says it's equal a crime to. It's no doubt that the people who persist because they know their personal truth are unfathomably strong people. And for those who don't make it, you can understand why. Once you realize this injustice, it's hard not to be on their side and be incensed against that prejudice, seeing the laws being passed in the US specifically to harm them, as ludicrous.

PartiallyTyped 2y ago

I read around reddit of experiences of people who wore VR headsets and played a character of the other gender. The NPCs treated them as such, but they themselves experienced gender incongruence. Their internal identity was at mismatch with how the NPCs treated them, and that helped them understand what gender dysphoria means.

skeeter2020 2y ago
if the NPCs can do this in a non trivial way it could be a really powerful experience.
chroma 2y ago
Can you link to the post about that? Because I’m guessing there’s a selection effect where only those who had profound experiences commented. I’ve done similar things in VR and found it wasn’t any different than when I had a robot body or a cartoon carrot body. Yes the new body is strange and interesting in some ways, but on an emotional level it’s like driving a different car.
- PartiallyTyped 2y ago
  It's not about the body itself but about how the universe treated the player. Unfortunately I don't think VR will ever have enough bandwidth to provide an experience equivalent to Sword Art Online, ie full body immersion. I will see if I can find them again.
- pseudalopex 2y ago
  > Can you link to the post about that? Because I’m guessing there’s a selection effect where only those who had profound experiences commented. They didn't say everyone experienced it. > I’ve done similar things in VR and found it wasn’t any different than when I had a robot body or a cartoon carrot body. Did characters treat you as not man and not woman? And not in the way most English is gender neutral? It seems not similar otherwise.

sterlind 2y ago

As much as "trapped in the wrong body" is a cliché, the physical aspect of gender dysphoria is profound, and often overlooked. I don't care about competing in women's sports, or what locker room I had to use. I cared about my body becoming grotesque and alien to me, and became overwhelmed with how profoundly wrong it felt. It's not that I want to look like a girl so I can be treated like one - I want to look like a girl, regardless of how I'm treated. My dysphoria is actually worse when I'm alone, because I can't distract myself with socializing. It's hard to empathize with physical dysphoria if you've never felt it, but I appreciate your struggle.

siloso 2y ago
[flagged]
01HNNWZ0MV43FF 2y ago
> It's not that I want to look like a girl so I can be treated like one - I want to look like a girl, regardless of how I'm treated. Same, I figured if I was on a desert island with nobody around and a machine that magically dispensed estrogen, it would actually be easier to transition, since I wouldn't have to justify my decision to anyone. That was part of how I convinced myself to start, way back before COVID.

delecti 2y ago

I think that many struggle to understand because they think something like "how would it feel to want to be a woman", rather than flip it to their gender. So if you're a cis man, try to imagine you were a trans man; born female, raised a girl, expected to conform to your local female beauty norms, be expected to bear children, less body hair and muscle mass, curves in places unfamiliar to you, flirted with by men, etc. It's always hard to truly understand how another person views the world, but I've heard that approach work for others in the past.

autoexec 2y ago
> So if you're a cis man, try to imagine you were a trans man; born female, raised a girl, expected to conform to your local female beauty norms, be expected to bear children, less body hair and muscle mass, curves in places unfamiliar to you, flirted with by men, etc. Is it weird if I suspect that it wouldn't bother me? I'd have been raised from birth to expect those things so they wouldn't be surprising to girl-me, and the experience of having more body hair and muscle mass would be entirely foreign to me. If men flirting with me was off-putting I'd probably just assume I was gay, and I'm lucky enough to live in an environment where I don't have to buy into or perform traditional gender roles any more than I want to. It's probably easy for me to say, having never a experienced a mismatch, but any intrinsic sense of inner maleness that wasn't 'nurtured' into me ranks pretty low on the list of things that comprise my self-identity.
- houseplant 2y ago
  You have to understand that until extremely recently- and still, not everywhere, as politics is any indication- people very seriously and genuinely believe that being gay or trans is tantamount to being a pedophile in terms of wrongness. It isn't so much about how you feel, but how others are making you feel. Imagine if you felt fine in your body... but people around you stared and turned up their nose at you wherever you went because there was some kind of rumour that said you were a pedo. Imagine how incredibly harmful that would be, day in and day out, to your psyche, to your mental health, unable to escape it. Imagine if everyone avoided you because- even if they didn't believe you were one- they didn't want to be seen associating with someone everyone thought was one. Imagine if your family believed that. Imagine, no matter how much you tried to say you weren't and prove you weren't, they still believed it, because that's what the culture you're in says it's equal a crime to. It's no doubt that the people who persist because they know their personal truth are unfathomably strong people. And for those who don't make it, you can understand why. Once you realize this injustice, it's hard not to be on their side and be incensed against that prejudice, seeing the laws being passed in the US specifically to harm them, as ludicrous.