Submitted by edmund_the_destroyer in traaaaaaannnnnnnnnns (edited )

(Edit: To be clear, I make this point or ask this question out of curiosity. I'm not trying to assert or establish any standards or ethical positions. It's just something I've never explored before, and I'd like to know a bit more.)

What I'm about to write may be wrong, it may be pointless, it may be both. It's just an idle though I've had.

I've read a few articles in a few different places making the case that viewing breasts as sexually alluring is a construct of modern society and not intrinsic to the human race. For example, Men Aren't Hard Wired to Find Breasts Attractive

I think accepting GLBTQ+ in general means rejecting conventional views on sex, gender, and sexuality and that would include moving away from a focus on breasts in sexual terms. But my very limited understanding of trans people is that most people transitioning to female consider the presence of breasts important and most people transitioning to male consider their absence important.

I'm not criticizing that. I just find it fascinating that the presence of breasts seems to be important to the female identity in the trans community even as - ideally - we as a society should move away from making a fetish of them. I guess it means the presence of breasts are important to women regardless of sex and sexual attraction? I'm a cis+het guy, I have trouble separating "breasts are feminine" and "breasts are sexy". I guess I've got to work on that.

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wild_liger wrote

I'm gonna let you in on a dangerous little secret that I think most cis people (and even a lot of people who consider themselves trans or simply question their gender identity) don't realize, and that's that most of the popular narrative about transgender identity is total fucking hogwash, either made up by and for a cis-normative, gatekeeping medical establishment, or else cobbled together by trans people in an effort to try to explain some very complex, visceral feelings in terms that people who have never felt them might possibly be able to understand.

When was the last time you saw a trans person excited to transition because they felt like they were doing some universal good by correcting the "error" of "being born in the wrong body"? And while some of us may feel that way and it's a perfectly valid feeling, it's not the desire to balance out the universal gender scorecard that drives us to transition. I want tits because I want tits, and I don't give a shit if you think science says I shouldn't.

Transition is not about conforming to and reinforcing some natural model of binary gender; that's the same bullshit thinking that drives doctors to mutilate intersex babies, and the same sticking point that TERFs get utterly wrong. It's a process of personal desire and fulfillment, whatever that may entail.

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edmund_the_destroyer OP wrote

I have no say in what you want or don't want and no preference, either. As I responded to martasultan, I was just puzzling over "I want tits because they're a common focus in sex acts involving women" vs "I want tits because women have tits". Or as you put it, "I want tits because I want tits".

I'm not trying to judge, condemn, or second-guess any of this. I'm not trans, I can't read anyone's mind, and I have no right to judge anyone's preferences. It was just a distinction I never encountered before.

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2145 wrote

Breasts are usually important to trans women because not having them causes visceral discomfort, not because "men like them" or whatever you're implying. Trans people caring about the presence or absence of breasts on their body is "focusing on them in sexual terms" to about the same degree that caring about the pitch of your voice or the hair on your body/face or the width of your shoulders is "sexual".

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GaldraChevaliere wrote

If you're a cishet guy maybe you shouldn't be weighing in on trans issues?

While there's definitely an element of sexual gratification/validation in the sense that because many men and women find breasts attractive, having breasts must help make one attractive, it's as much a marker of progress and growth on a maturity level. When you have to go through puberty twice and the first one is a deeply unpleasant and alienating experience, seeing your body morph into something that actually resonates with you is a validating and powerful experience.

My breasts maturing from the underdeveloped buds I had as a kid to full (though likely still small given my frame) breasts with mass and soft tissue and function has been an important indicator of the transition to adulthood for me. I don't give a shit whether you like my breasts or not. I like them because they're the proof of my progress as a fully realized person and not a perpetual child.

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edmund_the_destroyer OP wrote

I'm not trying to weigh in, sorry. I'm just asking because I'm curious.

What you and others wrote all makes sense. Again, I'm sorry if I caused distress with the question.

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GaldraChevaliere wrote

You didn't cause distress, it's just The Annoying Thing that cis people do where instead of just asking us what we think about something, they make a harmful assumption based in their feelings about something and run with it like it's fact. You certainly don't mean any harm, but a lot of the dangers and barriers we face come from nearly every cis person in the world, including our LG 'allies', overreaching and trying to speak for us or about us and stifling our voices when we contradict them. Also, from this point out I'm going to clarify that any 'you' is the royal you, directed at cis people and especially cishet men.

There's also a lovely bit of freudian psuedopsychology that TERFs especially like to push called 'autogynephilia', which is a way for them to try to further pathologize trans women while still getting to paint us as dangerous to cis women (which I've always found hysterical, I've been with exactly one cis lesbian or bisexual who didn't use me for sex or try to physically or emotionally harm me on a routine basis) under the guise of 'science' to make it palatable to spineless liberals. The argument goes that trans women are just males who have sexualized female secondary characteristics to the extent of physically altering themselves to adopt them for sexual gratification, or as a mating strategy to attract either unsuspecting straight men or lesbians.

Essentially, whether breeders or fags or dykes, cis people make everything about themselves and that means at best we're pushed to the margins economically and socially. At worst, and in the current state of things, we're regularly murdered, starved, evicted, mutilated or raped without any kind of recourse because ultimately your kind secretly want to fuck us and can't deal with it like adults. So you make up shit to justify your simultaneous revulsion and obsession with our bodies that lets you have your cake and eat it too, and we exist in this liminal space where our worth in society is determined solely by how much we resemble you and if your desire to fuck us outweighs your desire to exterminate us.

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edmund_the_destroyer OP wrote

Thanks again for explaining.

I should have phrased my original question more carefully. I wasn't trying to establish any standards or "shoulds", so to speak. I was just curious, without an agenda to advance.

My partner and I have told our kids we accept their sexual identity no matter what it is, and we expect them to do the same for others. But I guess I should take things further and teach them about the specific persecutions trans people face, some even from within the GLB community, and why they are incorrect.

As a former spineless liberal - though never allied with the TERFs - my only defense is "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity".

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GaldraChevaliere wrote

The best thing to teach your kids is to just treat us how they'd want to be treated. If there's a trans kid in their class or that they play with, teach them to be kind and to ask them how they feel about it. It would've meant a lot to me as a kid if someone ever just wanted to hang out without pushing me to fit their expectations. I probably would've gotten to keep my long hair.

I appreciate that you're genuinely trying to learn, and I'm not trying to jump down your throat personally for it. If you want to ask questions, absolutely go for it. Just keep in mind that most of us are very, very tired.

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2145 wrote

There's no question that your intention here was good, I think it's primarily your approach people take issue with. This might not be what you meant by it, but the initial post kind of came off like you thought you had come up with the cure for dysphoria and that cure was "boobs are a social construct", which feels kind of akin to telling a gay person that orientation is a spook and that if they just start being straight all their problems would be solved.

That being said, your openness to criticism both in the OP and the replies goes a long way.

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martasultan wrote

I want tits because otherwise I hate myself and don't feel feminine. Notice that cis women have breasts. That is the reason. Nothing more or less.

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edmund_the_destroyer OP wrote

I'm not against that. I was just puzzling over "I want tits because they're a common focus in sex acts involving women" vs "I want tits because women have tits".

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transhumancom wrote

next time, "I'm a cis+het guy" should be the first sentence, it would have saved us all a lot of time.

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