Transfem

That's the funny thing, I never doubted women's accounts about temperature - and yet, I somehow had discounted or downplayed the severity of it (it makes me cringe to say this, I hate fitting the profile of a sexist stereotypical man that way).

Transitioning has really opened my eyes to how much of my mentality and expectations I have for the world and others is rooted in my own narrow experience in the world. It makes me feel alarmed about my lack of understanding of other minority / oppressed lived experiences. Despite all the effort I have put into reading and understanding disability, race, etc. I still really don't understand it in the most fundamental and important ways I need to.

Re men and women being similar, I have had this thought too - while all the differences are being highlighted and are on display as well for me, I'm shocked at how much of a woman I can be biologically, having been born with a male body.

It really turns out the body is a lot more flexible about sex than I realized, and estrogen dominance can really change the body and brain in ways I never expected. For example, the idea that trans women can experience PMS seemed very unlikely to me before I transitioned, and yet it is a real thing! (For clarity, some trans women experience something like a menstrual cycle, but they obviously don't bleed or menstruate - the PMS symptoms might be caused by estrogen sensitivity and changes in the hormone levels, just like in cis women.)

The idea that the hormones regulate practically everything: temperature, drug tolerance, fat composition, and brain composition is fascinating.

What I am left wondering is what fundamental differences are left between me and a cis woman, biologically?

What relevance is having XY chromosomes to my physiology and biology, when injecting estrogen and having removed testes?

When you focus on functionality and practical differences, the bio-essentialist mindset starts to weaken. The main medical differences between me and the average cis woman are that I don't need a pap smear, I can't get pregnant, and I might eventually need prostate exams. That's about the extent of it - otherwise, I'm medically / biologically like any other woman, and that blows my mind.

OK, but I have to ask - what do you mean about women being boob-obsessed?

And no worries, it doesn't have to be trans-specific, just something you wish cis people knew based on your experiences as a trans person (could be anything, for example when I first transitioned and was a visible trans woman, I was shocked at how women were so tolerant and polite, and how it was primarily men who stared at me aggressively - there were shitty, transphobic women, but mostly they were not confrontational; I didn't expect women to be so tolerant and accepting).