extending this site to our trans brothers

[Adrian]

Those who have been watching will note that the membership of the site is NOT restricted to those born male. That is just an assumption that some existing members have.

There are a few “trans brothers” and I actively encourage others….
BUT… whilst the culture of the majority is that “we are all girls” then it isn’t going to be a level playing field for the minority.

Last year I tried to discourage everyone greeting each other as a girl , as if that was the only acceptable thing to be round here. The resistance to dropping that convinced me that we have some way to go before the majority of TgR members empathise with the minority.

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what they go through isn’t it much the same?

Of course it is – that is why it is so silly to consider ourselves different.

[June]

Is it resistance Amanda or is it when you come into chat and all those chatting have female names, you naturally say “Hello Ladies”. If there is a boy name there, obviously someone who wants to be thought of as male, then you would not that or add gentlemen or something similar,

[Anonymous]

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Is it resistance Amanda or is it when you come into chat and all those chatting have female names, you naturally say “Hello Ladies”. If there is a boy name there, obviously someone who wants to be thought of as male, then you would not that or add gentlemen or something similar,

Yes, you’d think that would be obvious, wouldn’t you.

[Adrian]

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Is it resistance Amanda

No, I think it is understandable ignorance leading to insensitive behaviour. Certainly some of the responses I got to clarifying that I do not see my gender matching a 100% male-boy Adrian or 100% female-girl Amanda were anything but supportive.

Ignorance calls out for eductaion – so this is my take on it:

In the older generations the standard pathway for a gender diverse person born male to “come out” of the closet was though Crossdressing support groups. The conservative gender model these groups grew out of was based on models of male maleness and a sort of idealised female woman (the CWA stereotype). One of the first things we used to do is to adopt a female name – a first step towards projecting a more congruent gender identity.

My observation is that the pathway for the gender diverse born female is more fluid. They find themselves exploring their gender moving through lesbian relationships, identifying as gender queer, and so on. In this process there is no obvious watershed where they have to take out a boy name. As a result they don’t – or at least they don’t have obviously “boy” names. Names seem to be much less of an issue in their lives.

This observation is backed up by the small sample of those “born female” on this website and those I meet socially. Very few have what you would regard as an obvious “boy” name.

So that is why the assertion that:

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all those chatting have female names, you naturally say “Hello Ladies”

is so insensitive to our gender expression.

I look to a time when more people have an opportunity to meet and understand better our “trans brothers” (a rather suspect classification but you know what I mean). I encourage this by trying to grow TgR and TransFormal in that direction, and I look for your active support.

I know it will be uncomfortable in the short term for those who think girls have girls names and blokes boy names and everything in between is not real. But in the longer term, understanding and consequent uniting will I think drive much greater acceptance of each other, and acceptance of the gender diverse within society.

[Anonymous]

I would have thought that the very title of this web forum would have covered MtF and FtM TRANSGENDERED people equally without any bias.

Perhaps the way in which we all arrive at the conclusion that we are transgendered is different, but Transgendered we all are.

I have to admit though that a group with a predominant MtF membership may not be all that appealing to a FtM prospective member. After all its support that many people come here for and how supportive can a large group of MtF’s be to someone wanting to go in the opposite direction. Their needs would be totally different to the MtF’s, similar but definitely different.

Having said all that though I would welcome any FtM Transgendered people that wanted to come here and continue to offer my support equally to all members.

[Anonymous]

I was going to bite my tongue and say nothing… and that would have achieved exactly that… nothing!!
There is an ELEPHANT in the room here… and I mentioned it in passing last time I posted…. We have a number of ‘Gender’ issues here and I have no issue with the increasing volume of both m2f and f2m, as previously stated I believe this is evolution in progress… the ‘Elephant’ is the group of men who use crossdressing as simply a way of achieving sexual gratification. I don’t doubt for 1 second their desire to’dress’ as female and many do with remarkable success…. (yes I’ve been very jealous of a few!!)… But…. proceed to TRANSITION….. not on your life!!! The journeys are similar… the destinations are worlds apart. So as long as the appropriate safeguards/filtering are securely in place then I don’t see an issue with welcoming our sisters and brothers… and besides.. from what I’ve seen there is not greater flood of f2m than our own m2f… its a steady gradual flow… xoxo Samantha

[Adrian]

I’ll skip discussing elephants – as that would be off-topic when we are discussing “extend this site to our trans brothers” (who are not remotely elephantine!)

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The journeys are similar… the destinations are worlds apart.

That is the type of thinking that I would hope would change if there was greater communication between the groups.

Having transitioned to a gender expression that is between the Male/female binary – I find that the destination is shared by many who were born female. So whilst our bodies have a different starting point, our chosen gender expression is undoubtedly similar.

[Anonymous]

To answer the original post, what changes to the site would you propose to make if more FtM friendly?

One thing may be the graphic for reputations being in reverse order

Moderator

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This has already been discussed here:
http://forum.tgr.net.au/cms/forum/F145/4968-968

But at the time my view that something less “girly” was needed didn’t seem to get much traction – well certainly not to the point that someone provided me with a usable image set.