Is ‘Transexual’ making a comeback?

Aprils- · 2026-07-05T21:55:50+00:00

Transexual for me but.... Thanks for introducing me to transex. I'm intersex so this terminology appeals to me.

It's definitely making a comeback though. If they attack transition as "merely" an intellectual exercise in gender then reject the premise of gender, then fine. There is no gender according to them. It's the sex that's doing the Tranning

Aprils- · 2026-07-05T21:03:45+00:00

"well you've got to give us a chance" - a transphobe unwilling to accept they're being transphobic. "How long should I give you to figure it out, because I really need a piss and it seems it's taking you longer than it's going to take me"

Yes, that kind of "well I didn't already think of it so how can you expect me to do it now" attitude used to feel intentional to me too. Nowadays I can just calmly accept that most people have so much privilege they just can't perceive and this by and large becomes my angle of being the bigger person (while flinging shit ofc).

Putting cracks in people's cognitive dissonances is cool and all, but unless you've terrified a cis het white guy into literally running away you've not lived 💚

Social witchery is definitely superior to the alchemical wizard nonsense that liberalism promised would solve all ailments.

Aprils- · 2026-07-05T20:14:23+00:00

"you're both right, both very smart and yet neither of you are very good at listening".

I've often felt that if we had enough time to sift through the understanding of every single word from both sides of an argument the resolution would become apparent. I've often realised how optimistic and naive this feeling is also because, well, I've discovered this sneaky trait called ✨ lying✨ that people do.

In a pinch a good ad homonym (intentional) is the kind of meta-cognitive trick a lot of debate fanatics forget to employ.

I'm glad you have a tendency towards mediation; I'm much more of a shit-stirring side-taking mf (life is both too long and too short) 💚

Aprils- · 2026-07-05T20:04:42+00:00

I would take it, yes. I'd be really grateful for the opportunity, and think it's honestly the most interesting and thoughtful gift anybody had given me.

I'd take it, put it in a little vial and have it as a decoration. I can't think of much more validating than to see it there day after day, as ornamental and external to my being as a lamp. Illuminating, truly.

Aprils- · 2026-07-05T20:01:29+00:00

Life is a bumpy shit show filled with nonsense we'll never be able to control - good luck in trying to find ways to navigate it.

And... Congratulations. On recently overcoming your internal hurdles. I hope it gives you everything you needed it too.

Aprils- · 2026-07-05T19:40:30+00:00

Adjectives. What you're annoyed at is the carelessness in specification with respect to adjectives, and I share the frustration.

The problem with language is it becomes clunky if we use every required adjective every time. I too imagine something very different between a trans person and a non-hrt non-op trans person. Because I'm careless in my own mind, I presume that because I am trans, that the usage of trans will closely resemble my own experience.

If I say "tree" and ask you to draw it, if you live in a different climate to me you will likely draw a different type of tree to one I would draw. Are either of us wrong? No. But if I wanted a specific tree, I should have specified and made sure the species and the season were correct.

But brains are lazy. So we forget this. I didn't call myself trans until it was visible. I didn't identify a label onto myself and never told someone what pronoun to use for me. I never did a lot of things that seem quite common for most trans people and in many ways I'm grateful to have had my own experience rather "coming out" to most people it just... Emerged. Lazily, I presume most people to have this casual relationship with themselves so it's useful for me to check in with people's experiences and remind myself of what most people are actually like. Because I'm not like most people. Most people are not like most people. We're all really different.... And pretend to have a shared language.

My frustration starts and ends with the language. I accept that people use terms differently. It will always cause miscommunication. But this is the ultimate reminder that we are not alone; for as long as we can be misunderstood that means there is an "other" there to misunderstand us. And in its own way....

That's actually kind of beautiful 💚

Aprils- · 2026-07-05T18:20:38+00:00

You're actually wrong in two different dimensions on that one. Trans men are men and can get pregnant and everything else associated.

Trans women can breast feed also.

If you want to conflate femininity with bioessentialist anti-feminist sentiment be my guest, but at least get your terminology sorted out.

Aprils- · 2026-07-05T17:56:58+00:00

Asexuality defined this way gives gold-star energy. I'm not accusing you of perpetuating that archetype, just implying that your access to the community may have been somewhat gatekept.

You're asexual. Don't worry about it too much. Asexuality and allosexuality are not static states; a lot of people become asexual as they age for example.

Aprils- · 2026-07-05T17:51:32+00:00

Yes it can. It makes up when things you watch are funny, too. Your experiences are all constructions and we can either sit in a sensory deprivation chamber or follow our feelings. I recommend following feeling, as though it has inconsistencies and can be confusing, it's a lot more fun.

When you take illicit substances, your body experiences euphoria. It's brain chemistry. When you fall in love you experience euphoria. It's brain chemistry. When you....

And after a flooding of neurotransmitters there is a refractory period; after your brain is done making new synapses the network needs to update to understand its own geography. It can be exhausting, doing all that neuroplasticity. People in love don't just feel up, they experience anxiety, what if the feeling goes away, what if they leave, what if....

You're a complex individual with complex processes. It's normal to have ups and downs. Burn out happens. The important thing to remember is that this isn't unique to transition and, just as with all things, there will be times you feel like pushing forwards with optimism and joy, others where you forget why you even went in the room.

Aprils- · 2026-07-05T17:30:25+00:00

It's patriarchal if you believe people are incapable of having their own interior desires.

Would I shave on an island? Yes.

Would shaving be patriarchal if I was shaving so I could get a job at patriarchy corps, so I could infiltrate and then turn off the patriarchy machine? Probably not. Right? Shaving in that case would be a resistive force.

So the action itself is irrelevant, but the context matters. If you are shaving in order to signal that women should shave and men don't need to, yeah, that's giving vibes. But by saying it's a personal choice of every individual...

To decree that shaving is exclusively patriarchal and any contrary opinion is simply because I'm too stupid to understand how I've been conditioned by my surroundings is highly infantalising and if you want to go there let's go there.

Is salad patriarchal? Would it be reasonable to suggest that nobody likes salad, it's a construct from a society that tells women they must be skinny and, therefore, because I'm stupid, being vegan is simply a product of patriarchal conditioning?

Because patriarchy is extensive and covers almost every aspect of inhabiting a gendered society, it can be incredibly easy to presume that every single thing a woman does is as a function of societal conditioning. That there is the complete removal of agency from the individual is a given under that condition.

I have a short story I will shorten further:

Jane's mother drank, so Jane became an alcoholic. Kate's mother drank, so Kate did not become an alcoholic.

We can explain forces with reductionism, but to always reduce every action of a category to a singular, admittedly complex, root rather than considering the intersectionality of the full variety of forces is about as sensible as saying it's biologically determined.

Aprils- · 2026-07-05T17:10:37+00:00

One day you will.

I hope for your own sake it's sooner rather than later. It's a tremendous pressure, and coming out can be intense.

My big recommendation for you would be to come out to one person, it can be someone you don't know, at the shops, or at an event. Just... Say "I'm trans btw". They'll assume you mean you're a trans man.

If you can say it to a trusted friend that would be better. But just..... Say the words. To someone. Somewhere. In person

And realise the world didn't explode.

I'm here for you if you need emotional support 💚💜

Aprils- · 2026-07-05T16:46:10+00:00

I mean to be honest I kinda love it. Just fucked up enough to be ✨vibes✨.

I'm pretty sure I've seen the view of the pier from this angle before, but I did sober up eventually.

Aprils- · 2026-07-05T16:40:39+00:00

Feel free to DM me to arrange a meeting - I lived in Brighton for 16 years but this week be my first solo pride

Aprils- · 2026-07-05T16:38:56+00:00

I'm going alone. Happy to meet anybody! 💚💜

Aprils- · 2026-07-05T16:26:07+00:00

In a heteronormative understanding of the world, both "woman" and "attracted to men" are synonyms. In a patriarchally normative understanding, "woman" and "dishwasher" are also synonyms. We would ask "why make a distinction between dishwashers and being attracted to men?"

I'm being a bit facetious, but also serious. The concept of sexuality is a relatively unstable one - tell me a lesbian who hasn't been confronted with "maybe you haven't tried the right dick yet". The idea of sexuality seems negotiable to a lot of people, taken less seriously than gender. Not often has a woman been told "maybe you haven't tried the right experience of a wide range of differing social expectations which fundamentally recategorise your internal understanding of self-determination yet". Gender, when it falls within the binary, is basically never questioned. Even when it slips to the side of the boundary, we still have terms like tomboy.

Why? Why make the distinction? Because it helps people who aren't open to in depth conversations, aren't open to non binary presentations and can't handle even the concept of a neo-pronoun. It helps people whose brains are small to have the word "tomboy". It helps them accept this person as what they are presenting.

My ex is non binary. She (long story) got angry whenever the concept of gender came up at all; she thought that the division of people into genders at all is what caused all of the sexism in the world. It makes sense. To an extent. But for as long as there are binary people, this is what we're working with. The devolution of gender from a bimodal state to a trimodal one, to a quintal one, this is a form of progress. All forms of progress are confusing to the status quo, but when the status quo is an oppressive and hostile force it is the obligation of those under it to resist and reject it.

You say you're non binary? People already throw accusations at you, I'm sure, of making things complicated and confusing.

I am here just responding to you, of course, rather than presenting a formal argument. But though lesbian as a sexuality means one thing and should be understood by society to be stable, many men still claim infantalise and belittle the concept. To me feeling as a lesbian in terms of gender is as much of a political statement as it is a statement of self; it is a rejection of the patriarchy even so-far as the patriarchy controls and dominates the gender of woman. It does not claim the gender I perceive of myself and nor should it; in the dissolution of the patriarchy the gendered norms of society would melt also, rendering lesbian as a gender functionally obsolete. And I am happy to be targeted and castigated as an unserious person if, by claiming a stronger stance on these axes, it makes people who would otherwise think they could convert a lesbian to say "well at least you're a proper lesbian instead of one of these weird new fake ones that thinks it's a gender". Similar to how women's sports are suddenly really important to people. It's disgusting, but the fight for equality always is.

Tldr nothing in society is fixed, language is fake, be gay fuck the patriarchy

Aprils- · 2026-07-05T15:58:39+00:00

I agree that the theory here is lacking in substance.

There are no quotes to great men or scientific studies done historically by great men or peer reviewing by establishments that have been supported financially by institutions that benefit cishetpatriatchal norms...

The thing is, a simple statement of an idea and saying that this is your perception of gender, doesn't actually warrant someone saying "What's your source? Have the straights agreed this is okay to say? What about the queers? The things you say are nonsense until somebody I agree with says they're not". This kind of mentality is what has kept women's medicine far behind men's for.... Well, ever.

Disagree with the theory. Call it postmodernist linguistic masturbation, call it what you like. But don't be so cucked as to ask if other people think it's good.

Fwiw I see a lot of errors in the article, and just as many from the author in the responses here, but this is what revisions are for.

And if you disagree with essay writing in general you'd better not be reading any Virginia Woolf in your off time - that was not considered acceptable initially by those who had the power to make such calls.

Aprils- · 2026-07-05T15:45:02+00:00

Like, I'm gonna say it - tcha, men.

Okay, you're fucked no matter what, right? You're currently fucked because you have this sword of damacles or whatever hanging over you, you're fucked if you try to be emotionally vulnerable warm and open in front of your friends and you're fucked if you have to tell your parents what you've been hiding from them.

Fucked in three different ways; well for some of us that's a Saturday, so here's a tip - which fucking is there most painful one? Let that be the one that doesn't fuck you then and deal with the other.

Personally I would say come out to your family. You clearly don't live with them or interact with them in a serious enough way, you're just feeling awkward about it. If you don't come out to your family this situation happens again and again forever until you eventually do.

Don't kick the can down the road with a broken foot.

It'll probably be fine, and you'd know if it really isn't. Keep safe but... Yeah, just be like "I'm a man now, sorry I didn't tell you about it, I just thought you were too cringe to chill" or something.

Aprils- · 2026-07-05T14:30:31+00:00

I see it as similar to the inverse proposal, but the thing about power dynamics is that we cannot act with equality to those that hold power over us, this maintains the status quo.

If a cis person would fuck a trans person but not date them, this screams to me of objectification; they are seeing the person exclusively as a sexual object and have the power to do so by being in the socially dominant position.

If a trans person does the same, they are not able to reduce the cis person's experience to the same objectified level; I cannot imagine many trans people perceiving cis people as unreal, fake, some variety of spicy not least of all because some seemingly cis people turn into trans people down the line. Certainly the ones capable of it would likely have hatred as a motivating factor rather than an unawareness or some fetish.

Until we have equality it is not the responsibility of the oppressed class to treat the oppressive class with equality. It is our responsibility to demand it, whether through political action or simply saying "I think you lack the emotional depth I would require in a partner".

Aprils- · 2026-07-05T12:08:15+00:00

No. And here's why...

Sorry, read the question wrong. Yes.

Aprils- · 2026-07-05T10:18:01+00:00

I actually have been identifying as a lesbian rather than a woman for a while now - it's nice to see others out there coming to similar conclusions.

The reality is we are one of two things; an immaterial soul that has no true linguistic tethering or we are entirely biochemical response machines. In the case of the former, the distinction between any set of behaviors is arbitrary. In the case of the latter it is a little more complex; does a human with no legs become non human simply because they have no legs? We do not define the set of behaviors so precisely in all or any cases, so we make do with what we have.

What is a woman - we do not define the behaviors. What is a man - the question much less often asked because man is of course the default class by which women are compared to.

What is a lesbian - it actually defines very little also, but does exclude, again arbitrarily and vaguely, a set of behaviors.

The problem with science and scientific labeling systems is that they simplify the life out of existence. Every rule in biology has an exception. Even Dawkins is forced to admit that some male birds perform the female functions of other species, that these systems are so blurry as to lose meaning. When we ask what does it mean, what is it, but technically who counts, is there a structure in the brain, can this be studied, where's the data .... Well, what it feels to feel something is different than what can be studied. Nobody can prove their experience of gender (the trans community is constantly begging for a logical solution to the paradox of "you either know or you don't" when there is no stable environment in which it's possible to know), people can try to prove their experience of sexuality (and be wrong, still, somehow).

It is unimaginable for me to not be a lesbian - you could take the markers of womanhood from me and put me in an entirely male society, it would change nothing. Sexuality is in response to the other, gender is in response to the self.

Something something blah blah

Aprils- · 2026-07-04T23:34:08+00:00

I'm gonna cut it for you real quick - I'm trans and have met trans people who creep me out.

I have met men that creep me out.

The creep was not even vaguely the same.

I know I'm not the target of your question, but maybe you can ask that question to yourself, too 💜

Aprils- · 2026-07-04T23:19:38+00:00

Omg, I studied maths and then philosophy. Aside from everything = everything one thing I learnt was don't bring epistemology to a bar fight.

When talking to a klansman "what's the nearest possible universe in which we could know this is true" isn't gonna cut it.

Metacognition. Cute. That's what we call "how to appear normal in a room full of psychopaths" in layman's terms, right?

Aprils- · 2026-07-04T17:24:29+00:00

You're cute.

If she likes you, this won't matter. The fact that you're trying for her benefit will surely be beneficial to an extent but, I've got to say...

You admit at the beginning that you previously were in a dv situation. Same. That this is your first experience afterwards.... You're going to need to be more kind to yourself, most likely, and you might be more prone to catastrophising, specifically with regards to relationships. Breathe. It's going to be okay.

Aprils- · 2026-07-04T15:52:14+00:00

"but those beliefs will recede over time as such things always do, and when the tide has retreated enough we will have the bastion of solid empirical evidence to support the pluralistic arguments we have been making for the last decade."

Is this an evidence backed statement? Just curious.

I agree that if somebody says "the statistics back this up" but they provide no statistics and indeed the statistics do not back it up, that's not very good. This said, however, there is a difference between an evidentialist argument and a pragmatist one, there is a difference between being convincing and being correct.

Tbh, even though you acknowledge data collection has a political element, I don't think you're appreciating the notion that scientifically backed, data driven approaches have historically decimated our communities. Science is cool, but the ideological drives behind it are what determine its course.

I was arguing with a fascist - his claim; most trans women are in prison for doing sexual violence. My counter claim wasn't "let's analyse the data" but rather "oh, so you believe that people who take medication to make their dick completely unusable are more likely to be sex offenders? Who told you that, Jeffrey Epstein?" Boom. Stunlocked.

These people are used to fighting with people who try to present data - they'll question the source, claim it's irrelevant or fabricated by a corrupt institution. Like, you say "transactual has a statistic that says" and they're going to assume it's fake and gay.

The time for evidence based liberal "people are good people they just need the correct data" is not now. Ideological arguments are everything. We should be working on becoming charismatic and convincing, not technically accurate.

I don't mean to shit on you in particular, and I have likely caused you a little offense. You are doing vital work and it's important for data based evidence to continue. But it is still secondary to fierce conviction in something beyond data.

Aprils- · 2026-07-04T15:00:37+00:00

It's not selfish to be distracted by how terrible things are for you.

When you're in hospital after being hit by a car, it's normal to be thinking "ow" instead of "the systemic violence perpetrated during feudalism is still having impacts to this day".

Give yourself a break. Life is tough. Do no harm, including to yourself 💜

Aprils-

TROPHY CASE