A time before HRT & surgeries

transmanconfessions:

Before all this science and medicine, HRT and surgeries came along, how did trans people in the past deal with this? Did they merely dress up and played the part? How did they deal with body dysphoria?

There are a number of historical accounts of “passing women”[1] [2]. Usually, they are assumed to have cross-lived for some other reason, eg, to make a living in a male profession, join the armed forces, or marry a woman. It’s impossible to know how many of them would have chosen to transition as we understand it, but they elected to live at least parts of their lives as men, under penalty of brutal humiliation at best, if they were discovered. I can’t believe that some of them wouldn’t have identified as FtM and pursued treatment if the option had existed.


The historical accounts only include the ones who were “outed”, or who went back to living as women. I assume there were others who managed to stay under the radar.


Some of it is genetic luck. Here’s a video of author Norah Vincent promoting her 2006 book, “Self-Made Man”, about her year of cross-living without benefit of hormones. She’s 5’10, with a naturally deep voice. I’ve known a few tall, masculine-featured butch women who were consistently read as men by strangers, even though they didn’t want to be.



20 years ago, at the gender center support group, I met a guy in his 60’s who’d been living as a man for 40 years without any medical intervention. He’d managed to get ID with his correct info, back when it was harder for the government to track someone’s identity than it is now. He’d lived with a woman as her husband for decades, and they’d both told her son that he was the father. He lived in a blue-collar suburb, without a community of masculine-looking women for comparison. He was tall and angular, with a cigarette-cured voice. As far as he was concerned, he’d already transitioned on his own. The only reason he was visiting the gender center then was, he wanted to find out how to claim Social Security benefits for himself and his wife.


Musicians Billy Tipton and Willmer Broadnax are two 20th-century DFAB people who lived as men for most of their adult lives, who, as far as I can find out online, never used hormones, although the possibility existed during their lifetimes. Tipton was married to five women over the years, and raised children with at least one. Broadnax began his musical career with his brother, who apparently supported his male identity.


I hadn’t thought about this before, but perhaps a crucial element is having someone else who will vouch for your manhood. Having a third party introduce someone as their husband, brother, etc, and use a male name and pronouns probably went a long way to dispel any gender ambiguity.


I realize, looking back at your question, that you contrast resolving body dysphoria with “dressing up and playing the part”, which I interpret to mean living in the world as a man. I imagine people figured out methods for hiding their breasts and padding their crotches, if they thought they needed to do so to be recognized as men. But the concept of body dysphoria, distinct from gender dysphoria, is something I’ve only recently encountered. I don’t remember it from my own time pre-transition, and I’m having a hard time understanding it as a separate experience.


I don’t know much about the history of MtF transition, but many different cultures have independently come up with social roles for gender-variant DMAB people, so the idea has been out there long before HRT, etc.

- repost from BiggChronos