Post #1236509

2026-03-28 03:00 UTC

@Tattie I'm a cis guy. I've always been in favor of trans rights since I learned trans people were a thing, but I did spend a number of years not really getting why someone would be trans. Then one day I just had the thought, "What if I woke up tomorrow with a female body?" And after the obvious jokes that immediately came to mind, I actually thought about being stuck in the wrong body, unable to get back, and I had to stop because I almost gave myself a panic attack. I'm an on-again-off-again recreational author, so I frequently find myself in unusual thought experiments. Which is to say, I hadn't intended to have a moment of profound empathy for trans people, but as soon as I calmed down I thought, Oh, this must be how a lot of trans people feel all time. All of that to say: I see you. It's real. I think most cis people, if they put just a few minutes into the activity, would be forced to admit that if they were suddenly body swapped, they'd be desperate to get back to their correct body. Most cis people just never seriously confront the thought.

Replies (6)

@KatS@chaosfem.tw 2026-03-28 08:47

@Azuaron Nailed it. @Tattie

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@Tattie@eldritch.cafe 2026-03-28 09:00

@Azuaron do you know? You're the first cis person I've spoken to willing to seriously entertain this thought experiment. Most cis men make jokes about boobs, and most cis women focus on the privilege aspect. But almost everyone seems to falter at the deep imaginative act of their body being wrong for them. I'm really glad you commented, because it's heartening to know that this sort of empathy is in fact possible— and that it plays out exactly as I would imagine, panic and all. Thank you.

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@Nikkileah@mendeddrum.org 2026-03-28 09:20

@Azuaron @Tattie permission to share this as I feel it's worded so well and might help others understand a bit better

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@alberto_cottica@mastodon.green 2026-03-28 09:35

@Azuaron @Tattie "same self, différent body" is a trope in #sciencefiction . Have you read "Call me Joe"? by Poul Anderson (1957!). In sci-fi that can go in different way. In Anderson's story, having an alien body suits the protagonist just fine. Either way, if you read a lot of it you are almost bound to come across though thought experiments like yours. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Story_of_Your_Life?wprov=sfla1

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@saxifraga@lgbtqia.space 2026-03-28 09:56

@Azuaron @Tattie Hear, hear, Azuaron. Absolutely (as a fellow cis man).

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@courtcan@mastodon.social 2026-03-30 06:49

@Azuaron @Tattie This feels so relatable! What finally opened my eyes to the desperate need for trans rights to be encoded (is that the correct verb?) permanently into law was my one and only full-term pregnancy. Long story short, my body did not like being pregnant. It was not a pleasant experience. And then my tailbone fractured during delivery. For the next few years, I felt like I'd been ripped from my true body & transplanted into someone else's. Wholly surreal, dysmorphic experience.

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