sirdroseph wrote: 
You live in a society, and that society has gender norms. It should be rather obvious that we are to some extent shaped by those norms (often starting with blue and pink). It doesn't matter whether you yourself accept it or not, it will be impressed upon you or even forced if needed.

To give you a simple example of how these things come into play. If you were to take your lady to town during a sunny day, nobody would think twice if you walked through town in shorts and bare-breasted while your lady is dressed. Now reverse that.

As meower already pointed out (via an appeal to equal rights), in some ways the cards are stacked against one gender (let alone more complicated forms). That's why there is such a thing as feminism. To break barriers and tear down some privileges that one side has, while the other(s) has/have (not).

 sirdroseph wrote:
Our nature is more than the hardware we were born with.

You have accepted the gender your body has, and have never questioned it. That just means that you don't have a conflict with your gender identity, not that you don't have one. That process of acceptance wasn't conscious for most of us, as we never saw (or needed) an option. It's one of those things we don't notice until it doesn't happen.

 meower wrote: 





Yea I guess we are getting our signals crossed. lol I have just never been one big on identity or culture, I guess it stems from my intense individualism. I think we are all too caught up in our geographical backgrounds, ethnicity, gender, sexuality and so forth. I don't love being a man anymore than I were a woman, I just happen to be one so I go through life as such and as for myself feel that way about all the labels. I am a big believer in nature whether it be natural herbs as opposed to pharmaceuticals or being able to freely express in all ways who you truly are and were born as and it seems contraindicated to freely express your natural born sexuality, but not accepting your natural born gender. Struggle with it, but I guarantee you this I have never treated anybody I come in contact any different than anyone else regardless of their gender real or perceived or anything else for that matter and that is far more important than whether I understand it or not.

 sirdroseph wrote:

 
honestly, I think that you are the one with the phenomenon. No offense

I'm a woman. I love being a woman. I've struggled with what my body looks like, but I've never ever wanted a penis () I want the rights that men have, but I sure as SHIT don't want to be one. I appreciate my estrogen and everything else that keeps me from being a man.

 sirdroseph wrote: 
It's far more complicated than that, so again some biology:

Caitlyn Jenner and Our Cognitive Dissonance
While biology shows us gender can be fluid, our brains struggle to see it that way.

 meower wrote: 




I guess what I am saying is that I do not have an identity at all, I just happen to have a penis, but could just as easily have a vagina if I were born that way. I don't see the problem either way. I suppose this is some type of physiological cross up in the brain that causes this phenomenon that is the best I can make sense of.

 sirdroseph wrote:

 
we're talking about a person looking at their penis and hating it

we're talking about an 11 year old beginning to grow breasts and hearing about a period and becoming suicidal.

you're lucky. Those of us who's parts match up with their identity don't ever have to think about what we "feel" like bc what we are and who we know ourselves to be is congruent.

 Lazy8 wrote: 





Ok first of all I did not say that I feel male, I actually said that I don't feel male or female and that is the crux of why I cannot comprehend how one "feels" gender at all. I do not even understand the concept of feeling an identity at all. If I have an internal identity, it is externally placed upon me socially by the fact I have male anatomy, but I do not "feel" like a male anymore than I "feel" like I have brown eyes. My lack of understanding is much deeper than I think you are gathering here, it is not that I do not have empathy with their struggle, I am saying that I intellectually do not understand the struggle at all and have no basis of my own human experience to go on to grasp the concept. Secondly is I brought no context at all into this discussion other than my own lack of understanding of what someone who struggles with their anatomy goes through. If you arrived at Trump banning transgenders, you did not arrive there by anything that I said. Bottom line for me is that internally I have no identity, I am myself and let others worry about what classification they place upon me, none of my business. I just happen to be a white male, but do not internally identify as one, I am just me.

sirdroseph wrote:
The context I'm talking about.

We've also just lived thru a wave of bathroom bills and the like.

What you're describing is that you are male and feel male, and have never questioned that. Now imagine you looked down in the shower and your body didn't match that identity. That's gender dysphoria, the feeling of body not matching identity.

In your case it would stem from a change (an imaginary one), but most trans people don't have that. Most have felt that way as long as they've been thinking about their gender.

Yeah, for most of us it's hard to imagine, but for those who face that every day it is probably the central conflict of their lives. There are a number of memoirs of people who've lived this; one you might connect with is Deidre McClosky's Crossing: a Memoir.

If it's any comfort you aren't the first person to struggle with understanding this. If you approach it with empathy you can see past your own experience and get some insight. Trans people aren't the punchline of a joke to me, but that wasn't always the case.

Well done, perfectly titled. I think I have already exhausted my opinions on the matter though! lol You should post some of what you have learned, I am genuinely curious and maybe you can help me to understand.

Here it is