Thanks for the love on this video ☺️ if I look tired or my voice sounds hoarse, it’s only because I live close to those massive forest fires you heard about on the news - the air outside was on fire!! Aaahhh!!!

Haven't started the video yet but the reason I'm trans is because my girlfriend, who was actually a radioactive lesbian, bit me. I can live with this superpower

i am trans and i literally have no idea why. i look forward to watching

People always ask "Why are people trans" but they never ask "How are trans people"

The poem that that rabbi wrote is some of the most real, raw and painful piece of historical text of a trans person I've ever read... This was written centuries ago yet the feelings are so alive and present

To sum up being trans in a single experience, imagine going to pee only to be rudely accosted by a stranger who demands you explain the concept of the self and why existence is as it is and not some other way, and if they are not satisfied to the degree with which you explained it to them they have you thrown out. But, forever.

A prominent trans politician here in Brazil made the same point you did, Lily, which stuck to me: conservatives have the idea that "society" is "trying to make our children trans" when in reality they are constantly taught that being cisgender is the "default".

I actually cried when you asked "what if, instead of fighting the unknowable, we embrace it? Just this once" Thank you Lily, for reminding me what's important as a big sister. I do not need to understand, I don't need to fight the fear of the unknown, I just need to love and embrace. Thank you from the bottom of my heart ❤

For around 2 years I said I was "questioning my gender" and "not sure, but probably trans". Realistically, I knew I was trans, but I wasn't ready to accept that label yet. It was all just this jumble of emotions and experiences and thoughts - I was looking for one defining reason to point to. Recently, in coming out to one of my sisters, I found that reason. Being a woman, and being perceived as such, makes me incredibly happy. And that's enough for me :)

I remember about a year ago when I first “accepted” my transness I was constantly wondering… “why me?” It’s kind of frustrating that there really might not be an answer to that question, I just Am, but I also realized that question was basically the summation of the internalized transphobia that I have fought with for several years at this point

I am 74. Nonbinary. For about 65 years I keep switching between feeling male or female. Society is finally starting to deal with people like me. I appreciated your video.

I’m a straight cis guy, but I found this to be amazing. You’re a beautiful thinker. Poetry, philosophy, and plain conversation all in one 🥲

I’m 16 and I am yet to come out to my family. This video was oddly reaffirming, in a time where I felt like I really had no hope. Thank you so much.

As a jewish person, that poem from the Rabbi made me cry. Especially considering that last verse is part of the mode ani, one of the most basic prayers you learn as a child. Every morning, you wake up and do mode ani to thank God for various bodily functions (the act of waking up, the digestive track, sight etc) and this verse is one of three (?) blessings that differs for men and women. Men say "thank you God for not making me a woman" and women say "thank you God for making me the way I am". I (a cis woman) have always understood it as some basic religious misogyny. I never thought there would be another way to interpret it, but it makes sense. My heart aches for this Rabbi, I hope her soul has found peace and healing.

I’m a transfem and recently I’ve been questioning whether I’m really trans or maybe I should just be a crossdresser. This video has helped so much, I cannot thank you enough.

I listen to a lot of trans and queer essayists because, as you point out, they're so actively involved in the process of creating themselves. I'm a cis man and I had a rough childhood, so I had to rebuild myself into adulthood. How do I be a good man? How should I change my body to reflect myself? Trans and queer people have deep and unique insight. It helps me recognize what parts I want to keep and discard. I think everyone should be active in that process.

Honestly hate that KZfaq decided to put an anti lgbtq ad in this pro lgbtq video

I’ll preface this by saying I am cis. Recently, my dad told me how grateful his is that I didn’t succumb to the feelings I felt when I was younger. He told me how afraid I was of being trans. I have various memories of when I asked about being a girl, and did things that my dad viewed as abnormal, like dressing up like female icons. Anyways, he never spent the time to understand how 7 year old me was trying to understand my world. It isn’t that I wanted to be them, but I wanted to live their lives so I could understand them. Anyways, I just sent this video to both of my parents. I hope they don’t kill me; I just want them to have more to draw from to understand their surroundings. Thank you so much for creating content!

I love your comparing transness to an ecologically emergent thing. The more my AMAB body aged, the further I felt from the life around me-that the way I had to act wasn’t of the biotic world. I realized I was mtf trans very recently, and it’s becoming more and more clear to me how much I’ve smothered my vivid love of living creatures, even as I’ve smothered my own life. It’s wild how physically dulled my anatomy has become, and how my body almost has to relearn that it’s dynamic, awake.

I've just recently realized i'm trans, haven't come out yet. I'm in my 30's and my elderly parents are both staunch, fundamentalist baptist republicans. I'm hoping to be able to use some of this when I try to explain it all to them when I visit for Christmas. Please keep me in your thoughts.

As a white heterosexual cismale gen-x’er, I guess I would be in the key demographic for being transphobic. But I honestly can’t think of a single reason for it. What the hell business is it of mine how other people view and express their identity? Life is hard, please be as happy as possible, and if that means being trans then more power to you. I guess I only half understand all the issues but I support you. Thanks for the informative video.

Holly bananas I was not ready to hear the poem from the Rabi. Made me cry so hard. You’re doing beautiful work on this channel

I'm a cis Bi guy, but every time i see a trans folk i be like "be you and be happy dude, you got it!" I have trans friends and i just want to see them happy being who they are

According to my family, I started acting differently from my biological gender when I was only 4 years old. Unfortunately, when I was little, I was subjected to harassment and psychological violence due to this condition, and I was excluded a lot. Even my teacher made fun of me in public. Then I tried to behave in accordance with my biological gender, but my situation started to get worse and I was adapting to my biological gender. Finally, I started my gender transition process. I'm currently studying medicine and I really want to do a big research on transsexuality, I hope I succeed.

As a cis woman raised with feminist ideals, I definitely got a few steps down the “gender critical” rabbit hole, but the thing that really pulled me out was the realization that the political goal of abolishing gender so the sexes can have equity is utopian, so as long as gender is something other people are going to treat as real; we should have absolute freedom over our gender. Recently, I’ve questioned myself a lot on why I don’t identify as non-binary, now that I believe that’s valid thing to be; and while fear of social exclusion plays a role, I’ve come to realize my problem was never being a woman, it was being discriminated against for being a woman. In anonymous online spaces when people assumed I was male, it’s always pissed me off, I want to be recognized and respected as a woman; and like, that feeling has nothing to do with my sex organs, or the clothes I wear, or the people I love. I don’t delude myself that everyone experiences their gender the same way I experience mine, and I think it’s important to just listen to people and trust that they know themselves better than I ever will. At the end of the day, we gain more from solidarity despite our differences than we do from quibbling over those differences. (Oh also I learned that intersex people existed IN UNIVERSITY and like, any theory of gender that doesn’t have a way for intersex people to exist as themselves is as absurd as a theory of hair color that separate the world into “blonde” and “brunette” with no category for redheads; except there are more intersex people than there are redheads. Wack.)

Personally I transitioned for larger pants pockets. Can't speak for anyone else.

I am a person who tends to intellectualise things a lot, and being trans has been a major paradigm shift for me and my mindset as i suddenly had something so integral to be be so unexplainable. Thank you for the story

Because skirt go spinny

I beat Celeste and that was about as much explanation as I needed.

I've found a quote from Marsha P. Johnson kinda going along with the term "preoperative transsexual". By her definitions - based on one's physical appearance -she was a transvestite who said she was planning on becoming a transsexual in the near future. And transvestite meant someone who lived in drag, not just dressing to go to a ball.

People can accept eyesight issues, organ issues, and brain issues but they can not accept hormone issues. IT''S DUMB.

I’m a pyro main but sometimes I transition into a heavy, I need answers.

For me I grew up with four sisters and was always comfortable experimenting with “girly” things. I wore women’s clothes, experimented with make up and long hairstyles in high school, and of course I was perceived to just be gay all throughout my life. It never deterred me, I just found that those kinds of things made me happy and I felt like myself when I indulged in them. Transitioning has felt like the natural continuation of something I’ve been moving towards my whole life. I don’t know if I’ve always been trans, whatever that means, but I am now and life is good y’all.

I used to think that I was somewhere on the "intersex spectrum". And I suppose it is comforting to tell yourself there is a biological reason for being trans. "Born this way" is a nice sentiment, and maybe an affirmation that works when we look at ourselves. However, when it comes to defending the idea of being trans, or non-conforming, in society, in order to be absolutely inclusive, our behavior needs no excuses, but must be affirmed by our human right to freedom of expression, and self-determination, which are basic tenets of happiness. The kind of happiness that goes along with certain other enshrined rights like life and liberty.

I’ve just found your content and love how thoughtful and introspective it is. I personally struggled with my own identity for over 30 yrs. Back then we didn’t have resources like this to help organize our feelings into thoughts. Thank you for taking the time to do this content

I'm trans MTF. I have by experiment. And seizures stress factors etc. I'm happier now. I found out this journey on hormones has led me to be calmer individual. And never married had a GF before no kids etc. It's keeping me alive otherwise it would of ended a year or more ago. Raised Christian but , just trying to be me. Yet you find whom truly loves you as they find out. And make it their problem not mine that I'm doing this.

I grew up having constantly internalizing myself, looking at my emotions and thoughts like a second outside person. I think being trans for me is about not being known. Someone looking at me and saying ‘she’ always felt like someone looking through me like a window and talking to someone behind me. It made me falter and retreat into myself and books, because it was so unnerving to feel like that. “Girlhood” and later “womenhood” was a culture shock, something that I scrambled to keep up with. I was constantly marching off beat, and when I hit puberty it felt like the end of days. My mom tried to gently support me, but i dont think anyone expected my extreme reaction, i clawed at my body and pulled out huge chunks of my hair, fighting every bodily change like a feral screaming cat. While some of my friends became woman, I came to school with a patchy bleeding head, bruises on my chest, and a missing eyebrow, every follicle ripped out. I was just so pissed and upset, nearly getting heatstroke several times from wearing blankets in public outside to hide my chest. It genuinely sucked so bad, but my parents didnt know how to help me. I only found out about trans people my junior year of high school, and it was an absolute game changer. When someone used he for me for the first time it felt like trying on fitting cloths for the first time in my life. Womanhood was ill fitting shoes and I could finally just have a label that didnt feel painful to be in. Manhood wasnt an escape, if anything ive inherited the anxieties. I know exactly what I got into. You dont have to be born male to know how goddamn lonely and stressful it is. They expect so much from you. But i can finally feel like im present and there when someone talks to me. Im louder and more confident with friends. I work out and care about my body, health. I just feel like a person for the first time in years. I have all these new pressures and stresses from being trans in 2023, but holy shit being forced back into ‘womenhood’ would be horrible. I just want to be alive and make friends and feel real and alive as a dude. I just want to be a father someday, with my own little plot of land, and buddies to go out drinking with. I dont want to be some freak of nature, im just some guy.

Your comparisons to attempts at understanding the causes of autism really hit home for me as a cis-male autistic. No amount of trying to mask or change has ever actually changed me. I'm happier just accepting me. Cheers!

KZfaq recommended this to me a couple weeks ago, and those three weeks have been some of the craziest and best of my life as I finally overcame all my flimsy arguments against my own transness. Thank you, universe, for dropping this particular "it's gone forever" file into my lap.

When I came out as trans, I remember desperately needing there to be a reason. I needed some narrative that explained my transness, some cohesive throughline I could use to give people the understanding that this wasn't a frivolous fad or a psychological break, but a real and joyous embracing of my truest self. A lot of this stemmed from my antitheist parents, who adamantly demand cold, factual explanations for anything they cannot easily understand before they'll accept it. Back then, hearing things like "gender is a social construct," "we shouldn't look for an origin for transness," and "born this way narratives are inherently flawed" was deeply frightening to me, because having no concrete answers threatened to invalidate my experience. I've grown a lot since then, and broken away from my parents. I'm glad I found your video now, at this point in my life, where it can give me a sense of peace in the unknown. Thank you for the work that you do.

I had a rather interesting discussion with some of my conservative friends over the weekend. When I brought up kids being trans and transitioning it felt like they stonewalled me. However I don't think I did the discussion justice, I am just a cis white guy. When doing more research I found that puberdy blockers are actually used more to give the adolescence time to decide if they want to transition or not. I think there is a lot of misunderstanding and misinformation on the topic. Witch makes sense since I don't think many people in my circles personally know a trans person. To even where someone who is more left leaning like I am is uneducated on the topic. The internet doesn't do any favors either.

i'm a transwoman. My first episode of gender dysphoria was when I was 3 and was probably in 1958. I buried this for most of my life, but it wouldn't stay buried. when I first read about trans people and knew that was what I was.

I’m a trans neuroendocrinologist studying how hormones interact with your genome and I find the question “what causes transes” is such a LAZY and scientifically unanswerable question. You could (and cisscientists-studying-transgender-people almost ALWAYS) assign ANY correlative sex difference to “cause” transness. Except almost every “sex difference” is itself complex and intricate.

if i can in anyway be of help in a study, I was raised christian with absolutly zero knowledge of what being trans even was. Yet my feelings remained that I wanted to be a girl.

Thank you so much for making this. The leg work you did here is still changing lives seven months later. I found this exactly when I needed it.

This is a lovely essay. For myself, finding a plausible scientific pathway for my transness was absolutely essential for my sanity. It was necessary because I had to cut through all the toxic cultural framings which attempted to invalidate my identity. Science has been my friend on this journey.

As someone who occasionally catches themselves thinking " I can't really call myself trans, my experience has so little in common with binary trans people. ", this video was very comforting to watch (at least starting from the 2nd part at around 10:00). Thank you.

"Forced cissification" 😭This has got to be a parody

this is an amazing video, but I want to remind people in the comments not to respond to the transphobes. they're never gonna change their views just off of one or two people and it'll only drag your mood down. remember that no matter your agab or gender identity you are valid 100%.

I identify as a trans woman because I want to be a woman. I attempted for so long to find a scientific reason, a physical or psychological cause, mainly to convince my family that I'm not crazy, but also to convince myself that it's okay to be trans. But really, there doesn't need to be a cause. We shouldn't need to prove that we're *really* trans. All people should be allowed to be any gender they feel they are and express it in any way they please. Edit: If any more conservatives want to argue against me existence, go ahead. I won't argue against you, because I really don't care.

I have been thinking this for years! I’m a trans woman, and I’m very scientifically minded. I want to know why and understand everything. But the self? As I have aged, the more I have thought that not merely that we shouldn’t we understand the self, but we simply cannot.

Heyo! I would like to say that the “Cause of autism” argument, at least for me, is a fantastic example. I am cis (at least I think) but I do have autism. That really helps. Thank you.

ow this was way too real i was looking for a concrete answer and i got an existential crisis instead. great video!!

for me, when i very recently found out I was trans mtf, I realized how I already subconsciously made decisions consistently to forgo masculinity, in a holiday instead of fishing with the boys I ended up weaving grass skirts when I was like 10. but not acknowledging who i was lead to the world being way more bleak as if I was a brain in a jar floating down a river I have no control over, but these videos, others and your channel showed me otherwise, so thank you.

This is so beautiful. It's so painfully human to both desperately seek authority and a definite answer while thriving in their absence. Humanity needs uncertainty, it needs the space between what is and what could be to drive it forward.

What a fantastic and thoughtful video. I realized i was trans probably about a year and a half or so ago, and I'm only out to a couple people (mostly online) and I still struggle with doubts and they may it scary to come out (what if I'm wrong actually, sort of thoughts). And you know, sitting with my thoughts after having watched your video, I think I may just start coming out to more people in my real life too, and maybe I can start acting more as my authentic self Thanks for the video, and much love from the Imps

you reading that prayer made me tear up a bit. i looked it up and read the whole thing, and started crying. some bits hit way too close to home.

"The process isn't ordained by a higher power, it's a shared effort by all living things, causing one another with each interaction" Beautiful line, bravo!

You put out a very important aspect about the way the world perceives transgender people, and I love the introspection. I think people genuinely fear the loss of control that would entail the destruction of gender binary, because if you cannot tie people's roles to what sexual organs they're born with, you cannot enforce a hierarchy based on them. Their fear of 'transgenderism' is fear of true social equity among sexes.

Sorting comments by new was a mistake 😭

I finally got to watch this, sitting in my studio, and I'm gonna cry❤

“What is sex? It’s mostly 6 different things. What is a woman? Yes.” This such a mood speaking as a college student lol. The more I learn in my classes (I’m majoring in psychology and communication studies) the more I realize just how complicated a lot of concepts and topics are, especially when it comes to identity, gender, mental health, etc.

Here is another example of the courage it takes to be trans and out. I admire your intelligence and beauty. My troubles are so common, as a 72 year old white guy catholic, married 46 years with 4 grown children. still looking for answers. My favorite KZfaq creators are are trans women like you, who help me see life differently. Thank you

Thank you for sharing. That was lovely and so well done. I wish you well with good health and happiness. Live long and prosper!

Just like the file that suddenly appeared, I feel as this video got to me right when I needed it. Thanks for the amazing quality content

I mean, you had the choice between being normal and being cis.

How do you keep making videos that wind up in my "watch when needed" list? Like, I've rewatched "girls own the void" so many times and it's given me such support and helpful ways to reframe and think, similar to that document you talk about. I think this video is going to be another one. Just...know that what you're doing is amazing and powerful.

There is something, many things, beautiful about the way you think, about the way you write, enjoy the way you create and live. Thank you for being you, and sharing that YOU.❤

I remember finding this video while i was being brainwashed by the right. I don't remember if i commented, and if I did, im sorry. I'm now, trans (mtf), ace, and bi 😊

Just came over from watching the video on Nebula and wanted to say it was truly inspiring. It made me think much more expansively about my own gender and what it means to me. ❤

Before I knew trans people existed I just kinda felt neutral about myself. Didn't care much about what I wore or how people saw me. The moment I realized that I'm not cis I was suddenly able to recognize that what I was feeling was dysphoria. Something that I didn't have to feel. It was such a strange time. I felt "okay" before and then put of nowhere I felt uncomfortable but also glad. And now I am mostly doing well with dysphoria only sometimes making me feel bad. The difference in how I was and am now feeling is really interesting to me.

Everytime I date someone they transition gender. Its me. Im the reason

Beautiful video! Love from the Imps xo

that "forced cissification" joke was perfectly delivered I'm rolling on the flooooorrr

Thanks for sharing your story and perspective. I've a trans daughter and adopted trans son. It's very confusing to look at someone you raised from a child as one gender and watch them struggle and transition. I still misgender them occasionally accidently, and feel bad about it every time. I don't get it but honestly as a cis male, I don't understand what cis women see as attractive in men. My mind just can rap around it. Anyway, thanks again for taking the time to make this video. I've forwarded to some others who might be interested. Cheers!

I'm trans, but not left-handed. Peculiarly enough, I have three brothers. All of them are left-handed. Always thought that odd. I've know I was trans since childhood. But made me really decide I was because I just LOVED the idea of society in general hated me, being disowned by my family, and be denied medical care. Who wouldn't want any of that? Seriously, though, love this video. Keep it up.

This video was just what I needed. Finding an answer to why I felt the way I felt was one of the things that most pushed me back from acceptance. After 7 years of deep search and frustration, I just did it. I started testosterone yesterday. And I am so happy to just be.

I didn’t really go into this video with much enthusiasm because every single video from a cis or trans person on this topic just made me feel so belittled, talking about what caused us feels so dehumanising. But everything you said, and challenged felt like my own brain projected in a KZfaq video! I absolutely hate talking to people about gender, because they expect a definitive answer. Thank you so much for not coming to a conclusion ❤

I’m trans, and I’ve known since I was little that I didn’t fit with the boys and relate to things like they did. There’s probably a variety of reasons why but I don’t think that I’m broken or have a defect. I’ve developed from before I was born until now in a different way to the typical person. That doesn’t make me wrong or defective or anything like that. I’d love to understand in a deeper way what causes the developmental differences between people, sex, gender, facial features, skin tone, hight, intelligence, everything. Just because I’m different doesn’t make me wrong, understanding why we are all different, cis, trans, or any other category I find interesting and I think will help the majority of people accept that we are all different and should be treated as people. The majority of people are like that with race and are getting that way with sexuality.

Saw this on Demon Mama's stream. This video is wonderful

I’m here cus someone recently asked me “why are you trans?” And I was stumped lol

coming from a teen trans-femme that's planning on coming out soon, this was so reassuring. i've been questioning the validity of my gender ever since i've realized that i was trans, but sometimes i forget that im not alone, that im not the only one living, or who once lived their life feeling contradicted by their very existence. thank you for making this video. also your framework and composition of this entire video essay is so immaculate like omg.

"If you're open to learning, transition can teach you just how many things can be dismantled if you don't serve the world" is such a cool way of looking at it, like transitioning is an opportunity to learn things you wouldn't otherwise ever be able to by dismantling something people saw as indestructible, seems almost freeing in a way

You presented a very open and honest search, a reflection to date I’d prefer to say! I could sit with you for hours I truly believe! Your search for answers has afforded you with a guarded balance that is commendable and that is more apt to build a bridge than to destroy a generation, however it will take a long time to see the masses come to terms but the choir that you’re reaching needs to hear you! Can you imagine anyone that could never know personal love? So many are blowing this driving desire off and creating greater confusion. What am I saying you might ask, someone must understand you to embrace you and at that point it truly isn’t the whole world’s problem to figure out. I understand it’s much deeper and broader but the basics is self peace and then joint peace and that goes a long way towards reaching whole peace.

I loved the story arc about the file on the desktop. great story telling.

I realized I was trans through the /eggirl route on reddit, just seeing all the signs that everyone shared and realizing that many of them applied to me. Over my transition, however, I have encountered some deeper aspects about the nature of this "trans self" that really throw the entire conversation into a whole new light for me - doubly so for those close to me who used to see it as "just a choice". I could go into a tirade, that's dumb, so here's an example that redefined my entire life when I went through it AND later when I finally figured it out. When I was eleven, I had a "vision" of a little girl my age. She was wearing a white dress, she was pale. Her lips were white. She looked so profoundly sad. I felt her sadness. There was a connection between us. I cried for, oh god, I don't even know how long. Maybe half an hour? Maybe ten minutes? I was lost in that sadness. She must have been a ghost or something, trying to communicate with me. So for the first time in my life, I prayed to this God everyone was talking about. I prayed that she get what she need, that she may be okay, that she might find happiness. There was no inclination that I was trans, there was no idea - I hadn't even begun the 'I wish I was a girl' thoughts until late high school. This was some extremely subconscious part of me which was in tune enough to recognize my nature far before I could ever consciously recognize it myself. The only other time I ever interacted with this vision of her was in a dream a month after I started hormones. When I had finally begun to explore the deeper parts of myself that were still so scarred from everything, I had a dream about holding her dying body, and just screaming with no respite at the tragedy of this beautiful part of myself becoming emaciated skin and bones from the simply unlucky circumstance of not having found out I was trans sooner. That's the only nightmare I've ever had. I can deal with monsters of the dark, faces coming out of walls to haunt you, being chased by wild beasts of unimaginable power. I learned long ago how to render their inspiration of fear impotent. But this? It was horrific beyond comprehension. I think, in the time since that dream, that I have not just healed her, but re-integrated with the part of myself which that vision represented. Telling that to bigots and the ignorant alike, that one story - that's been my superpower in this fight against this so called 'reason' that everybody likes to find for us being trans. 'Reason' which is, in reality, nothing more than a pathetic, mendacious excuse to save themselves from the inscrutability of this life. It's usually able to be ignored, looked past, hidden. It's an invisible thing - we can convince ourselves that this life is as solid as we'd like to believe. But being trans throws a wrench into it. It makes the truth crystal clear, bright neon which one cannot ignore; that there's some stuff which can't be figured out, which resides in such a complex and profoundly deep place that it cannot be accessed or boxed in by our intellect, and thus it is outside the purveyance of our total control. That really scares them. It threatens their worldview, which emphasizes that they must, or already do, completely know how everything works. So they want to find a reason. And telling them that story almost always seems to corner that instinct to protect themselves from the unknown with pinpoint accuracy, and wash it away. It almost always seems to force them to come to terms with the fact that we have within us all a truly inscrutable nature, and that being trans resides somewhere within it. I've turned a lot of people into allies with it.

As a transgender woman, the number one thing I want is just to be left alone. That's it. That's all I want. I grew up in a small town, and was so ostracized (for a variety of different things) that just being ignored was such a relief, something I was so grateful for. I didn't hope for friends, allies, companionship. To someday fit in. To be accepted. To be part of a group. Nope. Being left alone was the most I could imagine and hope for. And it's still all I want. Just to live and let live. Just to not be actively sought out and hurt.

This was a beautiful essay. It moved me in a way I’ve scarcely experienced since becoming an atheist. Thank you for your human soul.

I loved that this was a philosophical video. What you said mattered to me. Thank you

I think there's this tendency to overstate the objectivity of scientific investigation, even when people are trying real hard to qualify it. We'll see statements like 'Well the scientific method is objective, but the stuff we study isn't.' But even that's giving it too much credit. By and large the notion of a singular scientific method that has developed via pure philosophy and even tangentally applicable to reality, is just a rhetorical myth, that distracts people from looking at the actual messy, complex and political activities and the cultural histories that decided what did and didn't get to count as science, before we even put in the question of specific theories under the microscope. The idea that there's this unified scientific thing, and its professionalised in this way, and that that it has these structures for validity and these processes is an output of this long process of organisation, theorisation and academic punchouts across these long histories of state build, colonialisms, rationalisms etc. Like, twin studies get mentioned here as a low correlation, but they're actually a great case in point, because twin studies become popular increasingly in fields don't have genetic evidence to pull on but think that they should have, and belong this to this very long lineage of assumptions about genetics that are more 'vibes' than actual physical realities (like even the claim that identical twins have 'the same' genetics is a really suspect claim), but even ignoring that they make a political statement by setting this rational of how one should prove something, and how it should be conceptualised, which theorists often use to pull other fields under the orbit of science in truly ridiculous ways (like trying to prove that 'political affiliation' is genetic). Sorry, bit of a tangent. I just finished an article on twin studies and I'm waiting to hear back from a journal so all this stuff is bouncing in through my head. I'm mostly pulling on Latour here, but there are more recent writers who've dug into to the rhetoric of 'science is neutral and apolitical' as well, it's kind of a cottage field if you want to accidentally annoy physicists. (Edit: Just to clarify here I'm not claiming that the processes of science aren't effective, or that they're only effective as flukes. Rather the effective processes that are going on in the real world and the unrelated structures of checks, measurements, structuring and organisation get packaged and bundled together, then obscured and the practices and systems are painted instead as parts of a mythical 'perfect science' which is always possible and arriving and going to provide perfect, ideal knowledge, but always distant enough that if any political stake or ambiguity is pointed out the pronent can retreat to the idea that is 'not real science' or that the issue of funding, distribution, practice are just details layered on top of this perfect science [which of course recedes into the distance so that it's always more abstract than the actual thing being criticised, even when we're criticising things like rationalism or the epistemic privilege of sciencists]. And this move is political itself, because of course it allows deflection of any acknowledgement of the practical outcomes of, funding for, or ideology within science. So the narrative of a scientific method, more abstract and unified than the actual scientific methods practiced both in the real world and within actual theories, is itself part of the ideological apparatus of science which is unavoidably political).

That poem hit me really hard, that was exactly what I thought before I accepted my transness

Really appreciate the captions in this vid, thanks!

I’m a trans man, and before and during my transition I was obsessed with knowing why, because I felt like I had to justify it. Now, I’m at piece with not knowing. Like - why do I not like strawberries? Why do I like to build things? I don’t know. I just know that being a man suits me, that I couldn’t live any other way. I know that life «works» now that I have transitioned. I don’t think about being trans. I’m finally ok with my body, I experienced love for the first time. Life is worth living, now. I don’t think it’s a coping mechanism from childhood. I don’t think it’s my physical brain. I don’t think it’s society. At least none of these alone. I think it’s because human sexuality, psychology, sociology and temperament is complex. For some reason, I don’t, and have never ever been able to picture myself a girl/woman. Every aspect of it felt alien, strange and impossible to me. While every aspect of being a man felt natural, fitting, familiar, expected and comfortable.

I feel so naive. All of my hopes for finding answers on why I am trans and I never once stopped to think that if they find out why we are trans, they would use it to destroy us.

I identify as nonbinary precisely because I see no point in me saying "I am a (wo)man" and basically striving to prove to others that I'm that, by engaging in certain practices that are said to signify (wo)manhood. I just wanna be me: wear any clothes I feel like that day, allow myself to feel attracted to people - or not; my feelings fluctuate - without having to question and relabel by sexuality; using whichever pronouns suit me on a given day and whatnot. I'd LOVE living in a world where does things didn't matter whatsoever and people just did them without fear of being called out (or worse). This video helped strenghten the aforementioned beliefs even more, while teaching me lots of nuance I didn't know. Tysm, Lily! 🥰

THANK YOU! First time I watched a youtube video and didn't get tired with the person talking and thinking.. "just get on with it already". I really enjoyed your video!

Whenever I've heard the question "why are people trans?" the immediate answer that always came to my mind was "why not? why does it matter?"

I literally had my HRT appointment/talk today, I'm so nervous. Can't believe this is coming out on the same dayyy.

you're right. I want so badly to be able to point at a figure on a graph and say to my dad "it's me I'm real can't you see I haven't been faking it I am your daughter" I want nothing more than to prove my transness to him. and to myself as well. I want to know why so I can scream it to the heavens whenever I'm questioned. I want my dad to believe me. to love me as his daughter.

The poem from the rabbi really resonated with me. Thank you ❤