Maybe I missed something (I didn’t have time to completely read through) but I’m sure Aaron is a woman (albeit with ovotestes) and lived as one until adulthood when she transitioned to being a man. So she has transitioned back to woman but I think because of the years of testosterone she still has the beard. That’s my understanding.
Yep. Biological woman with a DSD that caused her to lean very heavily male and she didn't outgrow it. Transitioned to becoming a man at 33 and then decided to de-transition what, a few years ago? Not sure. Now decides to go back to being a man, permanently. I let him see the article before I published to make sure I represented him properly, he was okay with all of it. I don't usually do that but I felt it was sort of a professional courtesy as one writer to another, and I subscribe to and engage with his Substack. If he's cool and settled with being a me, I'm happy to treat him that way--it does seem to fit. But yeah, I know he's a bio woman.
I don’t understand how this story indicates that some people need to transition. Aaron DID transition, and now has to handle that however she sees fit. But i think some stuff is going unsaid in this. Anyway….thank you very much for sharing your perspective.
DMed you because i don’t want to seem like i’m publicly examining how another person lives her life — it is up to Aaron and every individual how we handle the day to day in a way we can live with
Long before trans became such a “thing”, and long before my family was affected, I thought that people believing they were the opposite sex was due to society having strict gender roles and stereotypes - if you felt you didn’t or couldn’t conform to what was expected for your sex, you might conclude you should be the opposite sex. In other words, if a little boy is told that the only way to be a boy is to never cry, love rough play and sports, and never have any feelings, but he realizes that he isn’t that way, he might decide that means he’s actually a girl (nevermind the fact that no boys are actually completely that way, they are all just acting, some more than others).
In some cases I still believe this is true. I have a great deal of compassion for Aaron Kimberly, and he or she has the right to live and present however they wish. But if she had been born as a little girl who had some more psychologically masculine traits in a society that didn’t care much about that and accepted her as a little girl who loved sports and trucks, would she have felt the need to modify her body or name? I doubt it.
I still feel that the trans movement, especially for natal females, is self-rejection. It’s not feeling “good enough” at being a girl, at conforming to stereotypes (as if anyone could ever conform to the mess of contradictory gender expectations our society has around women). It’s misogyny - internalizing negative stereotypes about women and then trying not to be that. It’s believing everything the bullies ever said about you. That’s what “gender dysphoria” is - the feeling that people expect this of you but you can’t be that and you wish no one expected it of you.
I still don’t believe there’s such a thing as “true trans”. There are people who may be so traumatized by expectations or violence that transitioning might be their best option. There are people who have DSDs where they may have some traits that are more common in the opposite sex. But there is no gender soul. If these people were able to be accepted, and accept themselves, as they are, they wouldn’t have gender dysphoria. The most favorable outcome for anyone is to love and accept themselves as they are, no body modifications or name changes necessary.
I wouldn’t attempt to tell Kimberly or anyone else how to best move forward - that’s a complex personal decision and I wish him all the best regardless of how he decides to navigate it. But I do wish that no young person would be told that if you’re gender nonconforming it means you are “true trans” and have to transition or you’ll suffer gender dysphoria your whole life.
When society tells you that your brain doesn’t match what’s expected of someone with your body, you have three choices. You can try to modify your behavior to match what’s expected, you can try to change your body to match the type of body that’s expected to act and feel as you do, or you can tell society to fuck off. I wish we’d all get better at telling society to fuck off. We’re all fine just as we are.
"I wish we’d all get better at telling society to fuck off. We’re all fine just as we are." Much agreed. I love this :)
I mostly agree with what you say, I think most "GDs" aren't, they're just really mixed-up people, and yeah, what if we could just be who we are without having to change anything? I think that applies to 95%+ of so-called 'trans' people today, but Aaron's story really made me think about what we *don't* know about DSDs. They're becoming more commonly known after the Olympics fusses last summer, and it's clear we have little understanding of them and how much they impact how we 'feel' as male and female. here's the thing, Dee: We live in a sexually dimorphic world. Every single bi-reproducing creature is sexually dimorphics. Hermaphrodites can only exhibit two sexes. Clownfish can only be one of two sexes. So maybe it simply evolved that we are either male or female, and mostly expected to live that. It must have been weird in years past to not conform, like if you were gay. (According to The Transsexual Empire, from the 1970s, and Ray Blanchard, many transsexual women were gay men hoping to become more attractive to straight men they fancied). I know there's no 'gendered soul', and I think young people today mistake a lot of psychological and emotional obstacles as 'being trans', esp when they're fed this nonsense by responsible adults. But I can't blow off the DSD folks who may or may not even know they're DSD. I find Aaron very genuine, as I did Max Valerio Wolf when I read this book this summer. He's a butch lesbian turned male , back in the '80s long before it was cool. He struck me as genuine, too, and those are the trans stories I'm attracted to--the ones who did it for reasons other than the usual ones we here. Although I haven't ruled out that Wolf may have been an autoandrophile (yes, they exist...)
Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure that they are very nice and genuine people, and they believe that their gender is innate. And I wish them all the best. That said, I don’t believe that a “feeling” of being male or female exists in the absence of gender stereotypes. Even for people with DSDs. We all just are who we are, and our sense of whether that’s appropriate or not comes from other people, absorbed every second of our lives since birth. No one who spent their life on a deserted island could have gender dysphoria.
I hope it doesn’t seem like I’m being too nitpicky. I do think we reach the same conclusion, which is that some small number of people may be better off transitioning. But it’s an important distinction whether that’s due to some innate trait versus being due to trauma and life experiences. Because if it’s innate, anyone can say they are trans and no one can refute it. As soon as you accept that there are some people who are “true trans”, it leads to disallowing gatekeeping, making insurance companies pay for transition, medically transitioning children, allowing males in female spaces - all the demands of trans activists.
I will admit this is important to me because I have a young adult daughter caught up in the ROGD thing. And it’s really obvious to me that there’s no innate trait, only brainwashing and self-rejection of the type that’s plagued teenage girls forever.
I know I’m female because I factually know what the biological definition of female is. I don’t “feel” female, in fact I spent a lot of my life not fitting in and not conforming to stereotypes and generally feeling out of place and different and awkward and preferring the company of men because they didn’t judge me as much for being weird. But now that I’m older I recognize that I do actually have a lot more in common with other women, that I had a serious case of “not like other girls” when I was young, which was actually just internalized misogyny, and that most women feel this way to some degree because the image of women that society presents to us isn’t real.
Maybe I missed something (I didn’t have time to completely read through) but I’m sure Aaron is a woman (albeit with ovotestes) and lived as one until adulthood when she transitioned to being a man. So she has transitioned back to woman but I think because of the years of testosterone she still has the beard. That’s my understanding.
Yep. Biological woman with a DSD that caused her to lean very heavily male and she didn't outgrow it. Transitioned to becoming a man at 33 and then decided to de-transition what, a few years ago? Not sure. Now decides to go back to being a man, permanently. I let him see the article before I published to make sure I represented him properly, he was okay with all of it. I don't usually do that but I felt it was sort of a professional courtesy as one writer to another, and I subscribe to and engage with his Substack. If he's cool and settled with being a me, I'm happy to treat him that way--it does seem to fit. But yeah, I know he's a bio woman.
I don’t understand how this story indicates that some people need to transition. Aaron DID transition, and now has to handle that however she sees fit. But i think some stuff is going unsaid in this. Anyway….thank you very much for sharing your perspective.
Well, what do you think I left out? Or missed? I'm curious!
DMed you because i don’t want to seem like i’m publicly examining how another person lives her life — it is up to Aaron and every individual how we handle the day to day in a way we can live with
Long before trans became such a “thing”, and long before my family was affected, I thought that people believing they were the opposite sex was due to society having strict gender roles and stereotypes - if you felt you didn’t or couldn’t conform to what was expected for your sex, you might conclude you should be the opposite sex. In other words, if a little boy is told that the only way to be a boy is to never cry, love rough play and sports, and never have any feelings, but he realizes that he isn’t that way, he might decide that means he’s actually a girl (nevermind the fact that no boys are actually completely that way, they are all just acting, some more than others).
In some cases I still believe this is true. I have a great deal of compassion for Aaron Kimberly, and he or she has the right to live and present however they wish. But if she had been born as a little girl who had some more psychologically masculine traits in a society that didn’t care much about that and accepted her as a little girl who loved sports and trucks, would she have felt the need to modify her body or name? I doubt it.
I still feel that the trans movement, especially for natal females, is self-rejection. It’s not feeling “good enough” at being a girl, at conforming to stereotypes (as if anyone could ever conform to the mess of contradictory gender expectations our society has around women). It’s misogyny - internalizing negative stereotypes about women and then trying not to be that. It’s believing everything the bullies ever said about you. That’s what “gender dysphoria” is - the feeling that people expect this of you but you can’t be that and you wish no one expected it of you.
I still don’t believe there’s such a thing as “true trans”. There are people who may be so traumatized by expectations or violence that transitioning might be their best option. There are people who have DSDs where they may have some traits that are more common in the opposite sex. But there is no gender soul. If these people were able to be accepted, and accept themselves, as they are, they wouldn’t have gender dysphoria. The most favorable outcome for anyone is to love and accept themselves as they are, no body modifications or name changes necessary.
I wouldn’t attempt to tell Kimberly or anyone else how to best move forward - that’s a complex personal decision and I wish him all the best regardless of how he decides to navigate it. But I do wish that no young person would be told that if you’re gender nonconforming it means you are “true trans” and have to transition or you’ll suffer gender dysphoria your whole life.
When society tells you that your brain doesn’t match what’s expected of someone with your body, you have three choices. You can try to modify your behavior to match what’s expected, you can try to change your body to match the type of body that’s expected to act and feel as you do, or you can tell society to fuck off. I wish we’d all get better at telling society to fuck off. We’re all fine just as we are.
"I wish we’d all get better at telling society to fuck off. We’re all fine just as we are." Much agreed. I love this :)
I mostly agree with what you say, I think most "GDs" aren't, they're just really mixed-up people, and yeah, what if we could just be who we are without having to change anything? I think that applies to 95%+ of so-called 'trans' people today, but Aaron's story really made me think about what we *don't* know about DSDs. They're becoming more commonly known after the Olympics fusses last summer, and it's clear we have little understanding of them and how much they impact how we 'feel' as male and female. here's the thing, Dee: We live in a sexually dimorphic world. Every single bi-reproducing creature is sexually dimorphics. Hermaphrodites can only exhibit two sexes. Clownfish can only be one of two sexes. So maybe it simply evolved that we are either male or female, and mostly expected to live that. It must have been weird in years past to not conform, like if you were gay. (According to The Transsexual Empire, from the 1970s, and Ray Blanchard, many transsexual women were gay men hoping to become more attractive to straight men they fancied). I know there's no 'gendered soul', and I think young people today mistake a lot of psychological and emotional obstacles as 'being trans', esp when they're fed this nonsense by responsible adults. But I can't blow off the DSD folks who may or may not even know they're DSD. I find Aaron very genuine, as I did Max Valerio Wolf when I read this book this summer. He's a butch lesbian turned male , back in the '80s long before it was cool. He struck me as genuine, too, and those are the trans stories I'm attracted to--the ones who did it for reasons other than the usual ones we here. Although I haven't ruled out that Wolf may have been an autoandrophile (yes, they exist...)
Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure that they are very nice and genuine people, and they believe that their gender is innate. And I wish them all the best. That said, I don’t believe that a “feeling” of being male or female exists in the absence of gender stereotypes. Even for people with DSDs. We all just are who we are, and our sense of whether that’s appropriate or not comes from other people, absorbed every second of our lives since birth. No one who spent their life on a deserted island could have gender dysphoria.
I hope it doesn’t seem like I’m being too nitpicky. I do think we reach the same conclusion, which is that some small number of people may be better off transitioning. But it’s an important distinction whether that’s due to some innate trait versus being due to trauma and life experiences. Because if it’s innate, anyone can say they are trans and no one can refute it. As soon as you accept that there are some people who are “true trans”, it leads to disallowing gatekeeping, making insurance companies pay for transition, medically transitioning children, allowing males in female spaces - all the demands of trans activists.
I will admit this is important to me because I have a young adult daughter caught up in the ROGD thing. And it’s really obvious to me that there’s no innate trait, only brainwashing and self-rejection of the type that’s plagued teenage girls forever.
I know I’m female because I factually know what the biological definition of female is. I don’t “feel” female, in fact I spent a lot of my life not fitting in and not conforming to stereotypes and generally feeling out of place and different and awkward and preferring the company of men because they didn’t judge me as much for being weird. But now that I’m older I recognize that I do actually have a lot more in common with other women, that I had a serious case of “not like other girls” when I was young, which was actually just internalized misogyny, and that most women feel this way to some degree because the image of women that society presents to us isn’t real.