What are cis and trans alternate types of? I don’t think it’s “gender identity” because wouldn’t that just be man, woman or nonbinary regardless of whether they’re cis or trans? Cis/trans just being a qualifier?
If the answer is “I am cis” or “I am trans”, what is the question?
Edit: Someone came up with the term “gender congruity” and (after looking up the definition of “congruity”) I think this describes what I’m talking about perfectly.
To a first approximation, they describe the match or mismatch between a person’s gender identity and their assigned gender at birth (AGAB).
“Cis” = “my gender identity matches my assigned gender at birth”
“Trans” = “my gender identity does not match my assigned gender at birth”The question being asked is, “Given that when you were born they thought of you as a (boy/girl); are you now expressing or experiencing a (male/female) gender, or a (female/male) one?”
Logically speaking, this is an
xoroperation; it asks if two things are the same or different. If boolean variablearepresents your AGAB and boolean variablebrepresents your gender identity, then “are you trans?” isa xor b— is your AGAB different from your gender identity?Again, this is to a first approximation. There are people who don’t fit binary labels, and so an
xoroperation on binary labels doesn’t fit them either.I like the way you express this. “Cis / Trans” isn’t about your gender, it’s about whether your gender has CHANGED. (Although it may not be your GENDER that changed, but what people THOUGHT your gender was.)
In a similar way, I (a cis male) usually call myself “straight”, but that’s not really accurate. I don’t feel like I’m attracted to whatever gender is different from mine (which happens to be women); I feel like I am attracted to women (which happens to be the gender that’s different from mine).
Putting it differently, if some magical spell were to transform me into a woman, I don’t imagine that I would then be attracted to men, I imagine that I would be attracted to women. So instead of calling myself “straight”, I should probably be saying that I am “gynosexual” (attracted to women).
I really really love the way you phrased that. Just thought I would let you know. Bookmarking your comment as a discussion point for the future as well.
Thank you. It’s a thought that has been rolling around in my head for some time and this was my attempt to put it in words.
Finally a “down to earth” explanation I can fully understand, thank you!
I appreciate the use of formal logic here, I don’t see this enough!!!
Hahaha. A nice and appropriately nerdy explanation. Very nice.
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No, the gender assigned at birth does not always match the sex.
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The way somebody is socialized and raised isn’t inextricably linked with their sex. Also, intersex people are routinely assigned a gender, although thankfully that’s changing.
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I think the confusion is coming from the fact that
cisandtransreally only have context of an expectation. In this case, it would be the expectation of society.You are correct that if you identify as a woman or a man, you are a woman or man. If you have a penis, or a vagina, or some mix or lack of those, then those are just parts of your body and that isn’t really up to interpretation.
In broad strokes, society expects your body parts (penis, vagina) to correspond to how you identify (man, woman). Humans are kind of just built this way. Our brains take a lot of shortcuts and categorize the world around us. It is statistically likely that if you have a penis, you identify as a man.
As we’ve evolved as a society, we have come to understand and recognize that these statistically likely correlations not always hold up (it’s just likely, not a guarantee, after all). So
cisandtransare descriptors of whether or not the correlation between your gender identity and your physical characteristics match (cis) or don’t match (trans) society’s expectations.Cis and trans are terms that came before their application to gender identity. I learned themin organic chemistry in reference to chemical isomers.
Wikipedia: The prefixes “cis” and “trans” are from Latin: “this side of” and “the other side of”, respectively.
As applied to gender, “this side of” you are the gender of the sex you were born as. “The other side of” means you have switched your gender to the other side of the sex from which you were born.
Edit: to answer your question more directly, your gender is cis or trans of the sex you were born as. The question you ask for is: “is your gender cis or trans of your sex?”
This is the correct answer to the question that was asked by OP.
Well said.
Please note I’m typing this as a trans man. Being “cis” or “trans” stems from someone’s gender.
Basically, do you identify as your birth gender (not sex, gender and sex are different)? If the answer is yes, you are “cis”. If the answer is no, like I my case, I was born female, I identify as a male, then you are are trans.
I hope this answers your question.
Basically, do you identify as your birth gender (not sex, gender and sex are different)?
The additional explanation actually confused me. Let’s compare the two sentences:
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A) Basically, do you identify as your birth gender?
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B) Basically, do you identify as your birth sex?
I assume biological sex can be identified by looking at your body as a new born baby, and gender is usually inferred accordingly. So I would assume new borns are being assigned a gender which mathes their biology, although they probably don’t have any opinions themselves on the topic.
Anyways, what’s the difference between A and B? I feel you felt it was important to point it out, and I just can’t see any.
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Shouldn’t it be that you identify with your birth sex? If gender is a social construct you don’t have a gender at birth. When the doctor says “It’s a boy” they’re referring to the genitalia you have, not assigning you a social position.
You might not believe in the social construct at birth, but the social construct believes in you. Children are treated differently based on assigned gender from birth.
Now that I think about it, you’re right. If you’re a male, you get swaddled and handed to your mother, but if you’re female, you get swaddled and handed to your mother.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literal_and_figurative_language
Since we’re just linking wikipedia articles that have nothing to do with the topic at hand.
Explain to me how being killed at birth depending on sex is not a valid response to your completely incorrect and ignorant statement that babies are treated the same irrespective of sex.
Explain to me how you saw a link covering literal and figurative language and still decided to ask such an ignorant question.
And either way, your mother starts treating you differently based on apparent sex.
When does your mother start treating you differently based on sex?
Typically before you even leave the womb, these days.
So not at birth?
Depending on the country, really really early. e.g. - in India its illegal to disclose the sex of the fetus to the parents/family because of high female infanticide.
In-laws, the father, and many times even the mother will want a son to carry on the family name instead of a daughter who will be married off to some other family (with the cost of marriage and dowry). And it was quiet common for the fetus to be aborted if it was female. The situation has improved a bit today, but gerl children are still treated very poorly is many parts of the country.
Of course, girls here are treated a million times better than trans folk here. 90% of them (hijra community) are beggars on the streets/trains.
So not at birth then?
I’m sorry what? That is not a thing
You’re right. No one has ever swaddled a baby, certainly not often enough that we have a specific word for it. It stands to reason no one has ever handed a baby to their mother either.
I’m like 80% certain that you’re trolling and no one could be this thick, but just in case: I’m talking about the sex of the baby determining which parent the baby is handed to. That is what is not a thing.
No, gender is a social construct and the doctor is assigning a gender to you when you are born based on what he sees as your genital configuration. This is then used to determine nearly everything about you through the social framework of gender.
What colors you’re allowed to like, what games you can play, what names you can have, what words are acceptable to refer to you with, who you’re allowed to be friends with, what foods your supposed to like, what clothes you’re allowed to wear, how people should speak to you, how people should praise you, how people should scold you, whether or not misogyny should be applied to you, and so on and so forth.
Those things are determined based on the gender you are assigned at birth. Those things are enforced across all society at all social levels and in all settings. Parents are the first people to enforce gender onto their children, intentionally or not. Then every single other adult and child they meet or interact with throughout their childhood will continue to enforce gender upon them until they themselves become adults and repeat the cycle with their own kids. Media perpetuates gender, government laws enforce gender, education systems are filled with people who systematically enforce gender upon children.
Thats what we mean when we say gender is a social construct. And you’re assigned one at birth.
No, sex is a biological characteristic and the doctor is describing your phenotypic sex based on observable characteristics. This really isn’t that complicated. There are two* combinations of chromosomes that determine sex, so there are two sexes. This is basic biology and has absolutely fuckall to do with gender as a social construct.
* Really there are around a half dozen sex chromosome combinations because they occasionally get duplicated. Functionally there are two because all of the combinations except 1 have a y chromosome and are male
Nope. They don’t even check your chromosomes when you’re born. There are also at least 30 different possible genital configurations at birth. Odd that we don’t treat every one of those possibilities uniquely and instead force them to get surgery so the doctor can assign a gender to them. You’d think if it was all basic biology we would just have a unique gender for every one wouldn’t you?
There are also many, many more possible configurations of your chromosomes than half a dozen lol. You can also have XY and be assigned female at birth. And vice versa.
Your doctor is assigning you a gender. Thats what he’s doing. He calls you either a boy or a girl based on your genital configuration and then as I said in my previous comment that assigned gender goes on to affect every single aspect of your life for the rest of your life.
You don’t seem to know what we’re even talking about. Sex is not binary and is not enshrined in biology. If we wanted to talk about biology, if the point was biology, if the doctor assigning genders to babies primary concern was biology, then he would assign a unique gender to every single possible genital configuration at birth. All of them would be unique. Instead he’s assigning you a gender so that society can treat you a certain way. It’s that simple.
You’d think if it was all basic biology we would just have a unique gender for every one wouldn’t you?
Nothing in biology is exactly identical between individuums. A common eye color is brown, although there are as many shades of brown as there are people.
It is just practical and how language, or even perception works, that we tend to categorize similarities, and strongly favor common occurrances over outliers.
the doctor is describing your phenotypic sex based on observable characteristics.
Your doctor is assigning you a gender.
Maybe you two aren’t even disagreeing?
I’d say the doctor tries to assign the new born into male or female according to biological sex, and gender is inferred from that.
He calls you either a boy or a girl based on your genital configuration
Yes, that’s what I mean. A two-step process. First, biological expression is assessed. Next, based on #1, social gender is inferred.
Youre right, we do just use language to describe things in a convenient manner that is not actually universally true. Do you think language just springs out of the ground or something? Humans make it. We make it socially. One might say we socially construct these concepts.
Biological sex is not a thing. There are people with dicks and people with vaginas and people with neither and people with both and people with stuff that isn’t even classifiable in terms of the terms dick and vagina. Why is there not a sex for each possible genital configuration? Why not one for each possible chromosomal configuration? Because sex is a concept we as humans created that does not map 1 to 1 with biological reality. Biological sex is not a thing, there is biology and then there is the human made concept of sex. They are 2 different things.
Your doctor assigns you a gender at birth. In most countries he is legally required to mark down one at the time of your birth. That gender is used for all the reasons I listed in a previous comment. Your mother then picks you up and affirms that gender assessment. From then on your gender is assigned until you yourself revoke it.
Is this some type of competition to see who can know the least about biology? Because you’re definitely acting like it’s a competition to know the least about biology. I think the walrus is still edging you out slightly. Maybe up your game a bit.
We do have a unique gender for everyone, we just don’t have words for each specific position on the spectrum because it’s so variable. That’s why we have umbrella terms like nonbinary or gender fluid.
Sex is binary. It is “enshrined in biology”. There are exactly two sexes. Female (x only) and male (x and y). The doctor classifies your phenotypic sex (what genitalia you have) at birth because it’s the same as your genotypic sex (whether you have a y chromosome) 99.99% (before you waste your time claiming it’s AkShEwAlLy 99.98%, Google hyperbole) of the time. You can be a genotype male and present as a phenotype female. Your sex in this case is male, but your doctor would have filled out your birth certificate as female.
You just do not have any idea what you are talking about about but seem unwilling to let that stop you. It’s that simple.
Tell me you don’t understand biology and genetics without telling me you don’t understand biology and genetics. You’ve succeeded.
Also biology hates binaries. Nature hates binaries. They’re exceedingly rare.
Use a stupid meme to cover up your lack of point or even basic understanding without using a stupid meme to cover up your lack of point or even basic understanding.
30 different genital configurations? Do you happen to have a good resource I can learn more from?
I have a feeling trying to search for it is going to give me a lot of not helpful information.
There are many more than 30, since chimerism is possible in humans there are an essentially endless number of possible ways your genitals could look at birth. I’d recommend looking into intersex disorders if you’re curious.
I appreciate it, I’ll do some research. Thank you!
Sexing in humans isn’t phenotypic though. It is chromosomal.
It’s both. Phenotyping sex is the common method of determining it because it’s really easy and it’s accurate enough in 99% of cases.
Sexing through genotyping is 100% accurate, but it’s time consuming, comparatively expensive, and only relevant in a tiny handful of cases.
Phenotype doesn’t determine sex. It’s a function of it. You literally agreed with me on this.
I’m terribly sorry that I’ve had to dumb down my point so far for people to understand it that you now think it’s yours.
Good day.
Sex is also a social construct btw.
No it’s not. Unless you’re suggesting you collectively thought my dick into existence.
Genitals aren’t sex though. They are part of what society uses to create the category of sex. But sex is no more real than gender or race.
Society does not create sex. Society creates gender. Gender is a social construct. Sex is an expression of your sex chromosomes. The genitalia you have at birth weren’t decided upon arbitrarily by everyone in the room, they’re a direct consequence of whether you have or lack a y chromosome.
Money is a social construct. That doesn’t mean coins and dollar bills don’t exist. Sex is made up by society. Genitals are a physical thing. But they’re not the same thing. Just like coins and money are not the same thing.
You’re confusing sex and gender. Sex is a function of biology. It is binary. There are two sexes, and which sex you are is wholly determined by presence or absence of a y chromosome.
Gender is a social construct.
This is the entire reason that the term transgender is used now instead of transsexual.
Also, your whole analogy is shit. The concept of money didn’t spring into existence because people already had coins. The coins spring forth from the concept of money. By your logic, we only have genitals because society got together and decided that we should all have a sex.
That is the stupidest idea I have ever heard in my life, and Ive read several tweets from Donald Trump.
I understand what they are, I’m asking if there is a name for the category of characteristic that they both belong to.
I’m not entirely sure there is a word for it. If not, maybe there should be.
I understand what they are, I’m asking if there is a name for the category of characteristic that they both belong to.
You’re not getting an answer to your question because the question, as stated, is incomprehensible. You’re asking for a “category of characteristic” that a pair of antonym adjectives “belong to”? That doesn’t make sense. They apply to a whole host of characteristics, because they’re not describing a specific characteristic, but how a characteristic relates to the whole. Just like “homo” and “hetero”; homozygous, heterogenous, homocystine, and heterophony are all words that use the “homo” or “hetero” prefix to describe how those words relate to other concepts in their category. It’s the same with “cis” and “trans”. The prefixes don’t “belong” to a category of characteristics, they explicitly exist outside of the characteristics of the words their modifying.
That’s the best I can do with the way you’ve chosen to phrase your question, and I admit it’s a reach, but your question is gibberish.
Male, female or nonbinary are a person’s gender.
White, black, asian (nonexclusively) are a person’s race.
Right, left are a person’s handedness.
Gay, straight, bi are a person’s sexual orientation.
Cis, trans are a person’s ________.We could call it “gender metadata” ;p
I’m not actually sure if there’s a real term for this. If nothing else, “trans status” works but there should be a better term I think ^.^
Maybe “genderdivergence”?
Gender prefixes?
Cis and trans are like homo and hetero - they are a part of the English language.
You can have homogenized milk; you can have trans fats.
You can also have homosexual, transexual, cisexual and heterosexual animals.
Cis and trans don’t really describe a person in the same way as the others. They describe a relationship between characteristics, which none of the other descriptors you list do. You could argue, almost correctly, that cis and trans are part of a person’s gender, but neither one of them is a person’s anything.
Hetero and homo describe a relationship between characteristics. Sexual preference and gender are both characteristics.
“Relationships between gender identity and birth sex.”
Cisgender means the person has a gender identity that matches the sex they were assigned at birth.
If you are a man and you were assigned male at birth, you are cis.
If you are a man and you were assigned female at birth, you are trans.
Non-binary can mean anything from not having a strong specifically male or female identity to closer to switching identities (bi-gender falls closer into this) to just having a lot of serious fluidity, but typically speaking at least part of the time the identity doesn’t match the assigned sex at birth.
I don’t think any of you read his question.
It’s possible I didn’t make it clear enough what I was asking.
I thought it was pretty obvious what you meant. Even the title alone was enough IMO. But I guess this is something most people don’t even consider. And even if they had put some thought into it. And a lot of transphobes don’t think women are women or men are men.
I’m a firm believer in having a wide enough vocabulary available to discuss issues.
Btw, if you want more opinions on the topic, threads talking about demographic survey design in trans communities have discussed this issue. Not sure how easy it would be to find threads that focus on it, but r/asktransgender has almost certainly had this topic come up occasionally.
You made it perfectly clear. What happened was people who don’t understand that cis and trans are real words with real meanings that weren’t just made up to describe ones relationship to ones gender at birth decided that they would weigh in on the subject.
All word are just made up. And we can make up new ones if there is a hole in our vocabulary that needs to be filled.
I think a lot of people feel like they just learned what those words meant* and therefore everyone must also either have just learned it or don’t know already and therefore dumb down the question to asking for a definition since that’s the only metaphorical hammer they have. Probably would have been better to ask in a trans (or maybe a linguistics?) community since it’s an issue that comes up. Unfortunately, there’s not an asktransgender equivalent on the fediverse yet and a lot of the queer reddit communities who have migrated went to raddle instead.
*in basic definition terms, without really having considered the broader topics, such as the one the OP brings up.
This comment would be relevant if it didn’t ignore the second half of the sentence it references.
I don’t think any of them passed Latin class.
You can think of ‘cis’ and ‘trans’ as meaning roughly ‘this side’ and ‘other side’.
In a gender context the ‘sides’ are male and female and the items are physical gender and mental gender. If both genders are on the same side, both on ‘this side’, that’s ‘cis’. If they are different, one ‘this side’, one ‘other side’, that’s ‘trans’.
So, if the answer is “I am cis/trans” the question is “Is your mental gender the same as your physical gender?” “I am cis” then means “My mental gender is the same as my physical gender” and “I am trans” means “My mental gender is not the same as (or maybe ‘is opposite’) my physical gender”.
Note that ‘physical gender’ is not always clear. Some people are born with ambiguous genitalia and may be surgically altered to make their genitalia more closely resemble the commonly recognized pattern for ‘male’ or ‘female’, and some may be left as-is. In some cases this can be a reason for a trans gender identity.
You can think of ‘cis’ and ‘trans’ as meaning roughly ‘this side’ and ‘other side’.
Before “cisgender” became a widely publicized term, about the only time I ever heard the term “cis” was discussing Cisalpine versus Transalpine Gaul in ancient Rome. (Cisalpine Gaul being northern Italy and Transalpine Gaul southern France, more or less - the parts of Gaul that were on the same side or the opposite side of the Alps from Rome).
Chemistry. Cis-2-n-ene vs Trans-2-n-ene. First one is all carbons on the same side and the latter is carbons on opposite sides.
That is how I remember it as well. A picture for those that wants to understand quickly:
For those not well versed in organic chemistry or needs a refresher, where it is the most likely scenario you would encounter such terms, let me clarify a few points:
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The -ene suffix indicates there is a double bond in the compound
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The -2- indicates that the double bond is on the 2nd carbon, between carbon 2 and 3 (beta position). The placement of the n in the above post is incorrect as the location should be beside the functional group, hence the example should have been “-n-2-ene”
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The -n- is a variable for the length of the carbon (e.g. prop- (3 C), but- (4 C), pent- (5 C), hex- (6 C), etc.).
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Due to symmetry, you do not see the cis/trans-isomers (aka E/Z and syn/anti) unless until there is at least 4 carbons.
Hence, the easiest way to demonstrate this, is to show but-2-ene
Due to priority, the cis/trans is based on the relative position of the alkyl group rather than hydrogen (review the IUPAC naming system if you want THAT refresher)
A cis-but-2-ene has the C1 and C4 (alkyls to the left and right of the beta double bond respectively) are on the same side.
Trans-but-2-ene has C1 and C4 on opposite sides.
Hope that helps clarify matters for people. If not, look up the topic on your favorite search engine. I highly recommend checking out the Wikipedia entry first though as it may resolve it.
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Yep, as a space-fan I mostly heard it as ‘cislunar’ vs ‘translunar’.
I think it’s an alignment, like parallel vs. perpendicular.
If you identify with your sex at birth, whatever it is, your identity is aligned with your biological sex at birth, that is called Cisgender. Parallel.
If your gender identity is not aligned with your biological sex at birth, it is at an angle to it, perhaps perpendicular (you were a boy baby but are a woman) perhaps a different angle (perhaps were born a girl and are non-binary). Anything other than that parallel alignment is thrown into the Trans bucket, but particularly the perpendicular arrangements.
CIS is simply opposite of TRANS - they simply describe someone’s identity in terms of their physiology.
Confusion rises, somewhat, when you factor in masculinity/femininity to the equation - but basically ‘trans’ means that having a dick doesn’t mean you’re a man… ‘cis’ means that being a man means you have a penis.
So this is everything boils down to. My god you western nations have incredible life if you have time to argue over these things.
Half the world is starving and Americans are arguing over peepee.
It’s not a bad thing, isn’t it. I think the goal should be that the whole world is stable enough that no one is worried about their next meal and everyone has the privilege to ruminate about gender.
They’re still arguing over it in the starving nations too, who you sleep with and how you present as your gender is usually a bigger issue in starving nations with gender roles and presentation being very severely enforced. The “hungriest” countries are Yemen, Somalia, South Sudan and Syria, all countries where being gay will get you jailed or killed. Also at last count only 10% of the world’s population is affected by hunger and The World Food Program estimates that 345 million people will be food insecure in 2023. Again these figures have increased since 2020 and it sucks and is not a good thing that anyone is hungry, but it is no where near 50%. Now you know.
So you’re suggesting America should definitely go back to forcing queer people to hide in the closet in desperate fear for their lives? Newsflash, my brilliant little gobstopper, trans people exist in every country. In America they can get the help they need instead of being beheaded. We’re trying to keep it that way. Think before you try to join the grown up’s conversations, mmkay?
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They’re adjectives. Just like “tall” or “smart” or “young”.
The question would just be “are you cis or trans?”, there’s not a specific word or term that you’d use.
Tall or short would be a person’s height.
Smart or dumb would be a person’s intelligence.
Young or old would be a person’s age.Cis or trans would be a person’s gender experience?
There are definitely terms you wouldn’t use, which shows that there are specific terms you would use.
What? That’s not how that works. Some things can be “wrong” even if there’s not a single “right” thing
That’s literally how that works. If some things are wrong, then that means there is a subset of everything that is correct. That’s denoted by the word “specific”.
gender chirality . gender isomerism. gender topology
My topology is a tube with appendages. Ultimately, humans (like all chordates) are convoluted toroids.
What about my nostrils??? 🤔
Gender congruence.
I’m still not sure where the term cis comes from.
It reminds me of sans, as in ‘without’
Sans Serrif means a font without the twiddly bits at the end.
Cis Serrif, a font with the twiddly bits it was born with?
I’m not sure if it is their origin, but in organic chemistry nomenclature, cis refers to a molecule whose interesting bits are on the same side (imagine both of your arms up or both of your arms down), and trans to one whose interesting bits are on opposite sides (like if one of your arms is up and the other is down). In the gender metaphor, the two ‘interesting bits’ are your current identity and your birth identity - cis for when they are the same, and trans for when they are different.
If the answer is “I am cis” or “I am trans”, what is the question?
The question would, to be blunt, be “are you cis or trans?”, because “cis” and “trans” are just shorthand for “cisgender” and “transgender”.
It’s a question of very limited scope – even if you were to reword it – because in modern society, the exact detail of if someone is cis or trans isn’t really practically important. If someone is a man, say, society cares a lot more about them being a man rather than being a cisgender man or a transgender man. (I’d say the same about women, but there’s obviously a subset of society that is in the process of demonising trans women, so…)
I think the core issue you’ve found is that cis/trans-ness is something that only makes sense in the context of something else, the gender identity of the person in question.
I agree with what you’re stating and I hope that that’s where we are headed - there just being man, woman, and non-binary gender identities. For now though, as I see it, cis/trans become relevant in three ways (off the top of my head):
- Medical situations - self explanatory
- In pursuance of romantic/sexual relations - society is still at the stage where the visual perception of a person lead to certain presumptions. Not everyone may be okay with dating/having sex with a person who has different genitalia than they presumed that their partner would have.
- [This point is my personal opinion] The visibility of people openly owning their journey can be a source of information, give courage to others who are undergoing the same journey and are scared or confused. I knew about my orientation way before I realized that there’s a term for it or that their are others like me.
I hope I got your query right.
