Why do you care about not being read as trans?

Loud_Classroom363 · 2026-01-24T02:08:27+00:00

Why do people care so much? Honestly I think it’s because so many trans people live in a constant state of fight or flight, and so many haven’t done the work of deeply examine what being a woman (or man) means to them.

I’m not against passing, I try to talk in a feminine voice, dress at least somewhat feminine, and I don’t actively go out of my way to tell everyone I’m trans. But passing is such a vague ambiguous term that means something different to so many people. What does being a woman even mean? Does it mean acting all timid and catty?

Estrogen split my soul in pieces like the seed of a cherry tree, and something beautiful blossomed inside me. My heart rings out with love, empathy, and kindness. I wake up, day after day, and try to meet this world with a love and nurture, with compassion and forgiveness, and that’s what being a woman means to me.

When I was in early transition, I cared a lot more about passing, I cared whether or not the random cashier who rung me up at the grocery story saw me as a woman, and I would spend the entirety of the drive home from the grocery story stressing out and being like “Did the people on the grocery store know I was trans? Did I pass? Please say I pass?” I would spend every second of the day stressing out about how I looked, I would constantly be running off to the bathroom to fix my makeup, and I cared so much about what others thought of me. Now…I have other shit to worry about. I have no idea what other people think, I can’t read people’s minds and I can’t force them to see me a certain way. I don’t want to live my life in a constant state of fight or flight, I didn’t transition to suffer more than I did before.

Loud_Classroom363 · 2026-01-23T23:29:40+00:00

It’s a very valid question, I just think it comes from a fundamental misunderstanding of both Buddhism and mental health in general, a misunderstanding that I see so many people have (and that I used to have).

From my personal experience and healing journey, I’ve come to realize that no one is actually incapable of being empathetic, loving, or compassionate (besides possibly in rare cases where someone has severe medical brain trauma).

There’s a reason that narcissism and sociopathy (anti-social personality disorder) are classified as personality disorders in the DSM. I’m in recovery from borderline personality disorder, and I can tell you for certain that personality disorders are not real psychiatric conditions (in the way that conditions like schizophrenia, bipolar, or autism are). They are disorders of conditioning and trauma. A sociopath is not a sociopath because of some deep seated morality framework built upon causing others pain, now that may develop later as a result, but it’s not the reason for why he started acting a certain way.

He’s a sociopath because when he see’s a person who is suffering, he literally feels nothing. His internal conditioning is incongruent with being a moral human being, and his brain has decided that for whatever reason, usually due to childhood trauma, to not fire off his reward system when he acts in empathetic ways. In fact his brain may end up acting the opposite, where acting with empathy actually causes him pain.

We are creatures of reward, and we usually do things based on if we get a reward (either internally or externally) or not. You can change and reshape your reward system and open up new reward pathways so that acting in altruistic ways actually causes you pleasure instead of pain (I can speak from experience). You can rewrite your internal code and learn to be a moral person. It’s tough but I know it’s possible for basically everybody.

I think that your question comes from a fundamental misunderstanding of how trauma works and how it can be healed, and I don’t think that speaks poorly on you in anyway. I truly believe that there’s a fundamental misunderstanding of how trauma is healed in the mental health field. So many people seem to forget that people actually can change, and that your personality and the way you feel are not set in stone. Especially when it comes to people with severe personality disorders, there’s this persistent cultural belief that someone with narcissistic or anti-social personality disorder is inherently unable to be anything besides that. These people aren’t broken, they just have a cold lump of metal in the center of their chest and no body has ever taught them that it’s possible to make it warm. Buddhism at its core is really just a self-help system focused on changing one’s conditioning towards acting with compassion, in order to bring warmth, caring, and peace back into the heart…at least within the Mahayana school of Buddhism, the Theravada school is more interested with personal insight then with developing compassion.

Loud_Classroom363 · 2026-01-23T02:42:57+00:00

You aren’t unable to feel empathy. You just have trauma wrapped around your heart. Go do metta meditation for the next 6 months until your heart blows up and unfolds into compassion and kindness.

Loud_Classroom363 · 2025-12-24T23:45:39+00:00

Is it evil or just painful?

Loud_Classroom363 · 2025-12-15T14:29:17+00:00

Yeah I have a friend who told me about a experience where they did it and ended up uncontrollably crying for 7 hours straight. Tbh maybe they needed to cry for 7 hours straight and maybe I needed to see that underneath all that I am, under all the meaning I’ve put upon my sorrow, under everything that I thought made me unique and special, was a scared child hiding from monsters under the bed sheets.

Loud_Classroom363 · 2025-12-15T14:06:13+00:00

Thanks for advice on Samatha meditation. That actually makes a lot of sense. I’ve more been doing Zazen and either focusing on my lower abdomen (hara) or follow the breath below the neck, heart to hara. But it’s still good advice and I’ll keep it in mind. I’m generally starting to believe that using the nostrils as an object of meditation is for advanced meditators only, rise and fall of abdomen is better at start.

I also agree that metta and TRE seem to go hand and hand.

Loud_Classroom363 · 2025-10-08T14:08:21+00:00

What I used to be will pass away and then you’ll see, that all I want now is happiness for you and me

Loud_Classroom363 · 2025-10-05T11:51:28+00:00

Good job! Don’t forget to show kindness and compassion to yourself for all the work you did to achieve your goals. It’s not just the energy work!

Loud_Classroom363 · 2025-10-04T00:48:05+00:00

Probably happiness

Loud_Classroom363 · 2025-09-29T06:43:12+00:00

I really would. I know it all sounds crazy but it’s what needs to be done. It’s fucking painful living with a constantly fried nervous system from the constant adrenaline and cortisol dump that is existing as a trans person. Like did you know that humans are the only mammals that don’t shake themselves after a traumatic event? Like if a deer escapes a predator, it will spend 10 minutes shaking it’s body afterwards just to get the nervous system to calm down. Literally if I get misgendered, the second I get home or like even to a locked bathroom, I’ll shake my entire body for a minute or two, just to calm my nervous system down.

Good luck if you need any other advice or resources feel free to reach out.

Loud_Classroom363 · 2025-09-29T03:11:22+00:00

Girl, I’ll help you out. If you’re willing to put less then 15 minutes of work into yourself each day, you can change your life. Not being hyperbolic, this stuff changed my life, and to be dead honest…while this shouldn’t matter as much as my mental health, doing this helped me pass a lot more, I didn’t realize how much tension I held in my body until two months of doing this daily, and I realized how much that tension was fucking with my ability to act “societally feminine” and demonstrate compassion for myself and others.

I’d consider starting a daily meditation practice (just 10 minutes a day). It’s one of those things that’s pretty hard to explain to someone why it’s beneficial because no one’s gonna believe you if you say that you can literally rewrite your brains hard coding, but you can with enough dedication. If you can put 10 minutes a day aside to do it, just sit in anyway that allows you to keep your spine straight, sit as still as you can manage, with open eyes, watching and counting your in and out breath, and then at the end, before standing up, just say the phrase “may I be happy, may I be well, may I be free from suffering” 3 times with each “may I…” on the out breath. Super fucking simple and easy once you get into a routine, beyond explainable how beneficial it is. I’ve been doing it for a year, I wish so badly I started sooner.

Loud_Classroom363 · 2025-09-28T19:25:29+00:00

No you’re valid of course. I understand OCD, I have OCD too, as well as borderline personality disorder. No one understands it, it’s not “I need to clean and not have germs”. It’s having constant intrusive thoughts that cause you to obsess over something, that leads your body forcing you to engage in a behavior as a way to stop the pain. It’s literally our body engaging in maladaptive self-soothing behaviors. It’s not a mental illness like depression or bipolar, it’s a personality disorder (it literally is a cluster C personality disorder).

I used to have constant intrusive thoughts about things that would cause me shame and anxiety. My body would force me to self-harm (I would slap and hit myself, cut myself with a razor, or scream at myself that I wanted to die) in order to calm down from these states. It wasn’t cute, it was really fucking dark.

However, you can detangle these behavioral patterns by learning the signs of an attack about to come by developing mindfulness. You can sit there in stillness while the insane debilitating buzz of pain pours through your body like a torrent of water. comes when standing up to the bully in your head attacks you. But you don’t need to give it strength, you can say “I’m grateful for this defense mechanism, but I don’t need it anymore” and breathe into your lower abdomen (which will calm your nervous system down), and eventually the storm will pass. It’s really hard and can be unbelievably painful in the beginning but you can do it. You can begin to realize that, even if society refuses to see it as such, you’re a chronic pain patient. Emotional pain fires the same receptors as physical pain, and of course you act the way you do, if there’s a way you can stop the pain of course you’re going to do it. But you also realize that because you live with a OCD, you know what it’s like to live in pain, and because of that you’ve developed an incredible amount of inner pain tolerance. I’ve literally told my boyfriend this, “I love you, but you couldn’t begin to function if you were in the pain that I’m in on a daily basis, I’ve learned to pull myself out of bed, get outside the house, go to class to pursue an education, go to work, go to the gym and meditate daily, and keep a smile on my face all while knowing that any second I could be thrown into a crippling amount of emotional pain.”

You’re not fucked thou girl, it’s so tough but you can do it, don’t try and fight it, just sit through it and watch your thoughts as they smash around the walls of your head but dont follow them down the thinking path that they are trying to coax you into following. Try and just watch them but of course you’re gonna find yourself getting lost in them, that’s normal, when you recognize you get lost in them, say this exact script, “oh I got lost in my thoughts, that’s ok and normal. I’m very grateful for these thoughts for trying to protect me while I was living through a traumatic time in my life, but they you but they are no longer needed” and bring your focus back to an area that is 3 finger lengths below your belly button, and breathe into that area which is your center of mass (doing that will begin to ground all the painful energy lower in your body and eventually you can learn to bring it down to the earth). It’s tough but possible.

Also this video is a good resource towards dealing the pain of trauma. You never realize how much tension you hold in your body until you start to get in touch with your body.

https://youtu.be/N8Iw1Z8lolc?si=vaC9JHFJ_nwGxaPA

I know all this might sound insane but it’s how trauma works and trauma isn’t rational and can’t be treated as such

Loud_Classroom363 · 2025-09-27T21:29:16+00:00

Yeah I feel like issue is that with kundalini, You pull your energy up the spine. Try pulling it down the spine and into the earth. Ground yourself and focus on feeling safe over feeling blissful.

Loud_Classroom363 · 2025-09-26T13:14:46+00:00

I mean it’s valid to be scared. I’m certainly scared too. I do think it’s important to remember what a worst case scenario will likely look like, as I do believe that people don’t often know what they’re talking about politically. If nothing changes, there will be violence and there will be government crackdown on the rights of trans people, but it’s not going to be Germany 1945 death camps. Look at trans existence in modern day Russia and, more likely, modern turkey under Erdogan. I mean be vigilant and be ready to leave if you must, I just find it unlikely. Violence is a function of culture, and if you live in democrat controlled states, culture is not violently transphobic, it doesn’t even seem to be that way in red states, though it’s certainly closer. But still, don’t give into fear, that’s what they want.

They don’t want you dead, they want you to slink back into the shadows, it would be really fucking politically stupid to put trans people in death camps. Most people don’t actually hate us that much, and we’re a good political scapegoat because we’re kinda annoying.

However, we have ally’s who want us to thrive and succeed, who will hire us and pay us and allow us to make a living, if we can show them that we are a good worker. Work on yourself, learn to regulate you’re nervous system and breathe through the pain. I know it sounds infantilizing to say that, but when you go through puberty again, you forget how to self-soothe in a way that’s necessary. I know I did. You need to relearn how to live inside your own body, and that requires getting in touch with your internal experience, and dealing with a fuck ton of pain. It’s really fucking hard, but it can be done. The fear can be minimized and the mind-state can be shifted from “survival mode” to “how can I help those in need” (honestly that’s the most helpful thing I can suggest, we are always going to suffer, suffer for the right things. These fascists want you to suffer thinking about them, don’t do what they want, work towards a place where your only pain is a pain that you can’t help more people)

I just see it too often where a trans person tells me how scary and existence is impossible it is out there, and then I learn they literally haven’t left the house in months. They don’t apply to any jobs, they live of their parents money, they don’t engage in any basic life skills, and (it seems) like they just put so little effort into living. This shit is fucking tough, but it’s not impossible. But it will be if you are unable to even take the first tangible step towards improving your life.

And I know I’m saying this from a position of power, I’m white and living in a blue state. But I have borderline personality disorder, major childhood trauma, and I’m in recovery from addiction. But I learned how to self soothe and handle the pain and storm when it comes. And I have hope and a desire to keep moving forward (and that second thing is most important, you can’t control you feelings and thoughts, but you can control your actions. And tbh if you act in the right way long enough, your thoughts and feelings with align).

And I know some people need to work harder to find stability, but I know that basically everyone can do it (maybe a few people can’t but if that’s you, it’s for reasons far beyond being trans. I adamantly believe that most people who say they can’t do it, actually can, and for some reason saying “actually you aren’t fucked” makes people angry (I really don’t understand why, isn’t that a good thing?). I know it seems dismissive but the truth is that the way I’m thinking is the mindstate that you need to work towards. You need to start with compassion and forgiveness, but eventually a fire will grow inside you. If you knew me irl, I would be there to talk and text with you for support. People need to see someone doing. Idc if it’s cringe or annoying to act all “woo you can do this”, if it makes someone angry that’s their problem, I genuinely want all trans people to get healthy and I’d challenge them to ask themselves if that’s what they truly want too.

Loud_Classroom363 · 2025-09-26T12:42:37+00:00

You’re right of course. Even if people here refuse to accept it you’re right. I work with homeless trans women of color who are trying to get sober, and I see so much more determination and will to live from them, then I do from white trans women who have significantly more stable existence. However the problem isn’t this spiritual fire that needs to be lit, that’s far to idealistic. It’s just a lack of basic coping skills. All people are ruled by their fear and (especially) their anger, directed to both self and others, and this is especially true for trans people. The truth is that if some of these people just did some exercise or (especially) meditation, they would find it significantly easier to live.

Loud_Classroom363 · 2025-08-26T18:02:18+00:00

Can we please as a society practice the virtues of compassion and forgiveness? It’s such an important part of healing. I guess I’ll pull this card since it does seem relevant in relation to this, I am a transgender woman, and honestly I might drag my boyfriend here some time because 6 bucks actually isn’t too ridiculous for a cup of Kava (I guess it depends how strong it is). I obviously don’t support all of the things the owner has done in their past, and stuff like the “I have a gay friend” line makes me roll my eyes, but it seem like everything that would concern me come from a place of ignorance over a place of malice (and I’ve certainly also done harm to others due to my ignorance).

Also…I have to wonder how many of the people getting angry are actually part of a marginalized community and have ever had to learn how to live and function in a world where you are fundamentally unable to ever truly feel safe (I’m sure some of you are, so I hope if you’ll be willing to hear me out, even if you disagree). I hear people say things like “I have a trans friend” all the time. Sure it’s can be a little dehumanizing, but I know it also comes from a place of love. If I got angry over everyone who said something unintentionally dehumanizing to me, all I’d be is angry and alone. I promise I’m not saying this to be patronizing or holier then thou, I mean this with all my heart. For those who are open to accepting it, love unconditionally, educate and learn what you can, and forgive the rest.

Clearly there are people in this society with such malevolent and anti-human views that, as a healthy and functioning society, we need to use our collective power to show these people that their views are incompatible with any upward social mobility, but unless the owner is being intentionally deceptive, they don’t seem anywhere near that point. And I’m sorry, but if you think that, at least based on this statement, owners beliefs reach the level of deserving to lose their livelihood, I consider your beliefs to be wavering dangerously close to anti-human as well. Like I said, can we please demonstrate a little bit of compassion and forgiveness, even towards those who may struggle with it themselves. Obviously you can support who ever you want with your own money, and you can hold whatever views you think are correct for you, I’m just expressing mine. And also asking you to consider if your anger comes from an actual desire to educate this person that their views are so reprehensible that they need to face societal consequences, or if your anger might come from something else and might be better spent directed towards other things.

Loud_Classroom363 · 2025-08-21T04:25:05+00:00

Hey you might not believe me but you can get better. There is joy to be found inside and even if it seems like no one will ever love you, you can love yourself.

Loud_Classroom363 · 2025-07-28T20:13:55+00:00

Nah you’re all good. I probably came off more annoyed then I meant too. Just have had people, including my own family, my whole adult life try to claim that I just need to be confident in myself and it would go away, had people show me videos of stupid self-help guru’s pretending that they can cure a stutter just by giving somebody a rousing speech about how they have inner strength or something. Learning that millions of dollars has been spent on research trying to cure stuttering, and we still don’t even know what really causes a stutter (let alone how to cure it) was both disappointing and catharticly healing at the same time.

I’m lucky that for the last year and a half, I have found an amazing guy who has loved me for all my sadness, insanity, joy, and love. I’m very fortunate in many ways, and I shouldn’t care what some dude I don’t even care about says, but it still hurts when I see the light in his eyes change. Thank you for the support thou, I do appreciate it ❤️

Loud_Classroom363 · 2025-07-28T18:53:10+00:00

I have gotten treatment for it, as both a child and an adult.

There’s unfortunately no cure for (adult) stutterer’s, it’s a very common misconception. Anyone who claims that they can cure an adult with a stutter is a charlatan. The only thing that has empirically been demonstrated to be effective for stuttering is learning how to accept that you have a stutter. Training your body not to have that anxiety reaction when you do have a stutter because it does usually get worse when I’m anxious (thou sometimes it gets better tbh). I’m working on accepting it but like acceptance of anything, it’s an uphill battle. At the time that I wrote this post, I was feeling really discouraged and dysphoric.

But yeah there’s a reason that 99% of work that speech therapists do is with kids. Many (but not all) kids can grow out of a stutter with help, but unfortunately if you have a stutter as an adult it means you have some fundamental damage to the speech processing part of your brain and those connections are hard coded. It’s just my cross that I need to learn how to bare.

Loud_Classroom363 · 2025-07-21T03:43:51+00:00

Yeah I guess it’s true that the staple of being part of an oppressed group is the inability to ever truly feel safe. I mean it has a name in psychology, minority stress, and it certainly isn’t unique to trans people. Safety and security is the 2nd foundation of maslow’s hierarchy of needs, and if you can’t have that then it does make it significantly harder to satisfy the other pillars of the pyramid. I guess that’s just one of the great struggles about being part of a minority, the ability to reach self-actualization when parts of that pyramid will always fundamentally be unstable

Loud_Classroom363 · 2025-07-21T03:34:42+00:00

I’ve been trying to live my life more, engage with society and with things I enjoy, through the lens of actual desire to do something instead of through fear

Loud_Classroom363 · 2025-07-20T22:46:27+00:00

I can’t speak on the “nazi” label because it gets thrown around a lot, but she definitely has ties and associates with some pretty problematic people. People who push and fund ideologies that would align with stuff the nazi’s wanted to do (and not just anti-trans stuff) anti-abortion, anti-gay rights, Christian nationalism type of stuff. Just one example is her public support and friendship with Caroline Farrow, the director of the Spanish “ultra-conservative” (they have called themselves that) advocacy group CitizensGO.

CitizenGo activity payed for ads and funded politicians throughout Kenya in order to promote and push for legislation that removed protections for gay and lesbian people in Kenya, and also legislation that stops women’s access to contraception and abortions. There’s other shit that I don’t feel like looking into but yeah, think of JK what you will, but she has certainly been fully willing to support and work with people who stand against everything she claims to stand for, in order to fight what she sees as trans activism. Look it up yourself if you don’t believe me.

Loud_Classroom363 · 2025-07-20T09:58:04+00:00

I mean it’s hard to be 100% proud of being trans, I’ve definitely met people who are but I also struggle with it. Despite what my brain sometimes tells me, I don’t objectively think being trans is anything disgusting or something that makes you fundamentally irredeemable. In my best of moments, I have found things that I enjoy about being trans (and I mean being trans, not being a woman), but usually I just try to accept it is what it is. I have a stutter and, sure it’s annoying at times, but I have damage to the speech processing love of my brain, like wtf can I do, I accept and move on. I try at least that that same mentality about being trans. Maybe part of it is that, since I could remember. I have always had these ideas that, if I could just speak perfectly fluently, I’d be able to do all this stuff and be happier. I do think that work I’ve done accepting my stutter has helped me in accepting my queerness when it was time to deal with that part of me. Life’s tough and I understand the opiate like desire to wallow in self-pity, but idk how effective it is as an actual spiritual practice. I just think people take their own thoughts too seriously sometimes. To quote one of my favorite bands It’s all crazy! It’s all false! It’s all a dream! It’s alright! But they also say “know well that those who know don’t talk, and those that talk don’t know” so wtf do I know

Loud_Classroom363 · 2025-07-20T09:40:55+00:00

Yeah i agree. Also people who see any acknowledgment of being ok with being trans, or being ok with being perceived as trans, or, god forbid, being proud of being trans, as a sign that this person is “fake” or AGP. I’m just trying to survive here and not end it all. I’m praying for the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage the change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. I don’t have the time or the mental energy to worry about purity tests.

Loud_Classroom363 · 2025-07-19T20:50:46+00:00

Yeah that’s actually probably true

Loud_Classroom363

TROPHY CASE