Last night I was triggered pretty hard by the presence of a woman in the chat room who would not go to the Friends & Family room when asked. She happens to be a pre-operative transgender woman. Meaning she was not a boy and is not yet a man.

I have been triggered by the presence of women in the chat room before but never to this extent and it's left me soul-searching within myself to find out the cause.

I would like to be more tolerant of women in the chat room and in fact have had several deep and meaningful discussions with wives of men who were abused. They sought understanding of their husbands and this is the best resource for them to do that. I do not have a problem with that at all, but it seems when it comes to a woman actually declaring herself to be a male survivor, and mingling and commiserating with us as if she herself was an abused boy, I cannot seem to accept this.

I realize I may sound insensitive here as there are probably precious few resources for those types of individuals, but if we allow one in and accept her then we must allow them all in. In the long term this site will no longer be a site strictly for male survivors but also for those who simply claim to be male.

I would also like to apologize to that person, she knows who she is. I did not intend for the discussion to become heated, but I did ask her politely to go to the F&F room.

The discussion board has a place for the transgender.
Gay/Bi/Trans Survivors

This resource is for biological males at the time of the abuse. The Moderators are reviewing the Chat response.

Sam

I don't know if you have noticed this before but if you look in the forum list you will find that there is a forum Gay/Bi/Trans so to me that means any question on this issue has already been answered.


At the time of the abuse she was physically a boy and identified as a boy. And since we are here trying to work through issues in our past I don't see a problem. Was the individual disrespectful to you?


edit: I see Sam posted after I saw the the OP's post but before my post.

Candu,

I think you misunderstood somewhere. This person was born a female and is still a female. I do not agree that simply identifying as a man makes one a male survivor.

Yes I misunderstood then. Sorry.

I've dealt with this in real life, as my ex is a female to male CSA survivor. And from knowing him intimately, it caused me great distress because I knew he was not like a guy mentally. I want to be completely supportive of transgendered individuals, but from my personal experience, a transgendered male is not the same as a biological male, especially so before they have gone into treatment. There is just a hugely different dynamic between biological men and women as to how they process things emotionally. Sometimes very very minute differences, yet very distinct. Something only intuition picks up on. Again, this is only from my experience knowing transgendered people and I've only known 3 in life, so I am by no mean an expert. But there is one thing I do believe, and that is that human biology plays into human psychology so whether or not they identify as a male or female, their psychology is affected by their biological anatomy until they change it.

*

Saying that a person felt like they were a boy during the abuse is different from demanding to be accepted as such, for something that was physically impossible.

Worse, saying that people deserved abuse that happened to them in a survivor site of any kind is not acceptable or appropriate. Comments like that raise other questions about a person's motive for even being here.