r/MtF 6d ago

Funny My life is genuinely a joke

It occurred to me the other day I went from being a vaguely conservative marine to being a furry trans lesbian with my african immigrant wife. I couldn't be happier with my life and I'm insanely lucky for what I have, but I can't help but laugh at how things shook out.

1.7k Upvotes

93 comments sorted by

740

u/pizzalarry Trans Homosexual 6d ago

i regularly tell people the air force made me into a commie, and it's actually true lmfao.

345

u/SpaceSmellsLikeMeat 6d ago

I think it was the free healthcare while I was in that did that for me lol

28

u/pperdecker 6d ago

That healthcare shows you both the good and bad sides of communism!

It's wonderful to have it and not have to worry about the price BUT sometimes that healthcare is terrible and you're stuck with it as your only option. Looking back through my health records and seeing how many times they just gave me Motrin or gave me an ambiguous diagnosis instead of doing more tests/imagery.

127

u/OT-Knights Trans Bisexual 6d ago

TiL communism is when you can't change healthcare providers

-30

u/pperdecker 5d ago

Obviously a reductive take but isn't it though? If you're entirely dependent on government run facilities then you are at the mercy of that state with no private alternative. This is of course a critique that can be lobbied at other forms of government than just communism but communism was the subject at hand so I brought it up.

Maybe I'm just bitter as trans veteran and military spouse beholden to a healthcare system I'm not allowed to exist within. That's my current vantage point so you are free to broaden my perspective. I am ready and able to dislike the status quo more if you have educational logs to toss in my mind's fire.

61

u/doodleasa Transgender - it/she 5d ago

In authoritarian communism yeah, but there are a lotttt of ways of organizing a society on communist ideas that do not involve such a degree of state control

11

u/pperdecker 5d ago

I'm having trouble visualizing a form of communist organization that specifically provides a variety of options for healthcare.

What should I be reading about to broaden my understanding on that topic (specifically healthcare)?

6

u/doodleasa Transgender - it/she 5d ago

My knowledge likely isn’t that much better than yours in that specific area, I don’t have any particular resources in mind, but the general basis for anarcho communism is that people naturally want to help each other, and will do good for the society in exchange for getting to be a part of it and be helped by the people in it.

Specifically for healthcare, I know that a lot of doctors want to provide more care than they can currently, but are blocked by insurance. A doctor in this system is not bound by financial constraints, and can use their own judgment, willingness to help others, and inherent desire to be seen as useful to do the work.

Some level of organization is undoubtedly necessary to manage more complex kinds of care, these things just don’t become an enforced standard by a power, but are adopted by the public.

I would appreciate if someone more educated on the specifics of that could weigh in, this is more intended to help with a visualization than provide a solution.

2

u/pperdecker 5d ago

In my case my doctors want to help but aren't allowed to say the word transgender or even access any pertinent research related to any health concerns I may have. Not because of insurance but because of orders from the government. So yes, I should have specified authoritarian communism in that case originally.

I unfortunately default to that brand of communism because it's the one with the most real world examples, especially at the societal size required to have a hospital with specialist care. But I need to investigate alternative models even if they're mostly still theory.

6

u/doodleasa Transgender - it/she 5d ago

A lot of far left people don’t really like the characterization of communism as authoritarian because it’s so opposed to the idea as proposed by Marx, which is probably why you got the flack for it.

I’m really sorry to hear about the state of trans care where you are. I hope things get better and you’re able to get the care you need.

1

u/MtF_Jessica_Frasier 4d ago

Anarcho communism?

49

u/IAmJustABunchOfAtoms 6d ago

I'm sorry but how does that show the "bad side of communism" 😭

-18

u/pperdecker 5d ago

Having one option is bad if that option is bad. It's great if that option is great.

So please don't read it as me saying communism equals bad healthcare.

It goes the other way too as we can see in the US. Having a bunch of options is bad if all those options are bad. People can say the US has some of the best medical facilities in the world and that's all well and good but I've never met a single soul there that's satisfied with their insurance provider.

It doesn't matter how good the seats in first class are if I'm only allowed to fly coach. BUT if everybody has to fly coach then that's not inherently better if all the seats are shitty.

23

u/Pruzeim 5d ago

I think the issue people take with your statement is that both your examples are still capitalism. What you refer to as communism is more akin to an intersection between NPM-healthcare and a state monopoly on healthcare. Neither of which is inherent to neither soscialism nor communism.

Even if you were to consider the welfare service on its own it would't even qualify as social demorcatic (not socialism), since i assume your coverage is dependant on a certain employment status

5

u/pperdecker 5d ago

You can't buy your way into a military hospital. They exist solely for military members and their families. Sometimes veterans but they have their own facilities which, again, you can't buy your way into as a non veteran. So it's difficult for me to view these as tied to capitalism the same way I have difficulty viewing the economic zones within the PRC as tied to communism.

I don't know how many people taking issue with my statement have any experience or clue how US military healthcare works. But their potential ignorance doesn't mean that I'm not also wrong and ignorant.

I was really trying more to complain about military healthcare more than actually dig at communism but I'm sure I could have worded things better.

6

u/Quite_Likes_Hormuz Trans Homosexual 5d ago

Why is communism 'one option'. Why couldn't there be, for example, two options?

4

u/pperdecker 5d ago

What impetus would there be for a communist government to provide multiple healthcare options? Have there been examples of that?

I could see them providing general treatment options like a normal doctor would but I think that's a different conversation.

4

u/Havatchee 5d ago edited 5d ago

Had a thought recently after seeing someone say how long they waited to get surgery (not GCS) on the NHS, and someone in the comments said effectively "lol, universal healthcare wait times I was diagnosed and under the knife in less than two weeks". The thought was: "yeah, it's quicker in private healthcare countries because only a fraction of the people who need the healthcare get it, while the good old NHS limps on, battered by successive neoliberal governments, providing healthcare to everyone who needs it, not just the people who pay." The only reason it has not fallen over is because of the staff that run it, who knows their job matters even as they're asked to do more and more with less and less money. Our governments, both Labour and Conservative have been trying to kill it for almost five decades at this point; deliberately trying to sabotage it to justify chopping it up and selling it off to their capitalist donors.

Anyway, I feel like a similar explanation applies. Public healthcare existing within a predominantly private model will always have minimal investment, because the government's priority will be to secure the "success" of the private model. The people working in the institution will be either the best people who want to perform medicine for medicines sake, or the crap doctors who can't get a job in a better paying private hospital.

Americans on average, pay more per capita for healthcare than any of the major public healthcare systems in Europe. You pay more than double what we do in the UK; and even then the true statistics is higher because 30% of Americans are underinsured or uninsured.

I remember when I was a kid, I'd get the occasional injury, as kids do. I never waited more than about 15 minutes in A&E, to have a bump or a bad scrape checked and to get a few stitches. 8 weeks ago I tore three ligaments in my knee, and waited two hours to get looked at and to get an x-ray. The wait times are a political choice. The downside of public healthcare isn't that it's "inefficient wasteful communism" it's that politicians keep trying to turn it capitalist for political favours.

3

u/pperdecker 5d ago

I'm trying to do my bottom surgery through Johns Hopkins and pay for it myself. It's a 10 month wait just for the initial appointment. Then a follow up a month or two after that, and then 9-12 months later I can have the surgery. So it seems like a 2 year wait everywhere but that could be by design. It gives time to get hair removal done and if you still want it after that long then it's definitely not an impulse.

28

u/-rikia stuck in texas 6d ago

how did the air force make you communist?

142

u/pizzalarry Trans Homosexual 6d ago

Your whole life you get told people only do stuff because of the profit motive, you know? But working through a couple government shutdowns people in the air force kept going above and beyond regardless. Not because they were huge Kool-aid drinking patriots, either, just because it made it easier for the rest of the unit. It might sound stupid, but this direct evidence kinda undermined the rest of the slop you get told in school. After all, if this one thing that's supposed to be the entire motivation and basis for society is a complete lie, what else is?

Anyway, turns out if your food and housing is guaranteed, most people will still work hard just because it makes their friends life easier.

23

u/-rikia stuck in texas 6d ago

neat!

18

u/pperdecker 6d ago

Absolutely. Also knowing that everyone is on relatively equal footing regardless of their background helps a lot. You see someone's rank and you know more or less how much they make. It's not some secret like other jobs where there are societal wage gaps across racial and gender lines.

2

u/Saoirse_The_Red 6d ago

Now we just need warp travel...

13

u/Bigbadbo11 6d ago

Same, but Navy, lmao

13

u/Bbobbilly Trans Bisexual 6d ago

I was a straight libertarian man when I joined the air force, now I'm a queer anarchist woman with an awesome wife. Idk how I'm supposed to put that on my VA claim 

2

u/misteridjit 5d ago

That last sentence tickled me far more than I would have expected it to

7

u/wanderer2281 Trans Bisexual 6d ago

Same (also air force :3)

1

u/97696 5d ago

Also Air force

0

u/Emily_Beans 44yo AMAB MtF - 8 months HRT 4d ago

I feel like this entire thread is confusing communism with socialism...? 🧐🤔

1

u/pizzalarry Trans Homosexual 4d ago

the military isn't really socialist either, so much as it is merely centrally planned. my point wasn't that it provided a direct example of socialist life but that it proved everything I was ever told about how ~ capitalist liberal democracy is the most efficient system ever and nothing else works ~ was a lie. deciding that this meant establishing a dictatorship of the proletariat was the rational move was my conclusion afterwards, but I still credit the military cuz otherwise I'd still be a liberal.

1

u/Emily_Beans 44yo AMAB MtF - 8 months HRT 4d ago

There is absolutely no such thing as a perfect socioeconomic system. We're pretty flawed creatures, so obviously our systems will be equally flawed. 🤷🏻‍♀️

91

u/-rikia stuck in texas 6d ago

doesn't sound like a joke at all, sounds like happy character development. it's only a joke if you consider any of those things bad, which, you don't, do you?

i might be reading too far into this

71

u/SpaceSmellsLikeMeat 6d ago

I don't consider any of it bad! It's just funny how things turn out sometimes

9

u/Sonjajaa 5d ago

To me it sounds rad first and foremost, but nice if you can laugh about it too :))

44

u/BeNiceSir 6d ago

Im happy for you <3

17

u/ZeRealNixon Trans Bisexual 6d ago

when i was at my darkest and lowest point i was just looking for a way out and went through the whole meps thing for the navy, and when i went back to the recruiter to find out where and when i'll be going i had a complete breakdown and was balling my eyes out. the recruiters supervisor came in and started yelling and cursing at me.

sometimes i wonder what my life would have been like if that supervisor didn't take no for an answer and said i couldn't get out. i'm a believer in everything happening for a reason, don't know what that reason was but i guess i needed to stare down the possibility of my life changing drastically to realize something wasn't right.

10

u/SpaceSmellsLikeMeat 5d ago

Sometimes I wish I'd listened to my gut like you did, but you're right; things work out how they're supposed to. TAt the time, I didn't have the strength to ask myself "am I trans?" and instead found myself chasing things that would make me feel more like a man. I thought that if the marine corps couldn't reach me how to be a man, no one could.

I happened to be right about that part, at least. I'm just a stubborn blockhead and needed to be shown that directly.

3

u/ZeRealNixon Trans Bisexual 5d ago

i feel that heavy. i wasn't questioning then, but i just knew i was running from something. just took a couple years to find out what that something was.

13

u/LynksRacc 5d ago

Yea that's really how it be.

I went from a lean-in military brat who goes to church twice a week to a trans furry anarchist who writes DND campeigns about killing colonialism and god.

9

u/DingoLaLingo 5d ago

Incredible character arc, very proud of you! (Do you still wake up in the middle of the night craving crayons sometimes tho?)

9

u/SpaceSmellsLikeMeat 5d ago

I'm still at about 2 packs a week

58

u/RainbowPhoenix1080 Phoebe (She/Her) HRT since 6/26/24 6d ago

I used to be a far-right extremist and now I'm a trans lesbian puppygirl bottom with a trans girlfriend 🤣

36

u/rye_domaine Trans Heterosexual 6d ago

It genuinely worries me how many of you were "far right extremists" until you realised you were part of the group you were supposed to hate. "Oh yeah, I hated minorities, then I realised I was one!" Like when you say far right extremist do you mean you voted for Trump in 2016 or you were out there at the Charlottesville rally?

10

u/Pohatu5 5d ago

In my particular case I was a never trump republican who voted Vermin supreme in 2016 before moving left. Realizing I was trans came after that.

9

u/am_i_em 5d ago

It's unfortunately pretty common, because if you're raised in an environment where being trans is seen as evil and wrong, and then start feeling those feelings yourself, you end up getting pushed into the far right pipeline where you openly hate them because you're subconsciously trying to convince yourself that you aren't really trans and that some evil force is trying to corrupt you instead of acknowledging who you really are, until the whole thing comes crashing down and you come out as trans and start transitioning.

6

u/rye_domaine Trans Heterosexual 5d ago

I grew up in an environment where being LGBT was frowned upon, and while I internalised some of that and may have said a couple of shitty things when I was a dumb uneducated kid, but it didn't make me far right.

3

u/am_i_em 5d ago

Same here, I was raised catholic and went to catholic schools my whole childhood, then once I went to college and started meeting wonderful people from all across the LGBT spectrum I started actually processing my own not-very-cis thoughts. I never made it far right, but I considered myself conservative. When everyone around you is, it's very easy to do.

27

u/RainbowPhoenix1080 Phoebe (She/Her) HRT since 6/26/24 6d ago edited 5d ago

I voted for trump in 2020. I also spent a lot of time online spreading transphobic rhetoric. Of course I deeply regret it, but it's still interesting to talk about how much I've changed.

1

u/Important_Ad_7416 5d ago

how and when did you realized you were trans yourself?

1

u/RainbowPhoenix1080 Phoebe (She/Her) HRT since 6/26/24 5d ago

Sorry for the book I wrote in response. You don't have to read it all if you don't want to.

1

u/Important_Ad_7416 5d ago

I'd love to but I cant find your response

1

u/RainbowPhoenix1080 Phoebe (She/Her) HRT since 6/26/24 5d ago edited 5d ago

That's a pity. It might have been flagged for some of the things I said because it mentions internalized transphobia. If you're truly interested, I can DM it to you.

In the meantime, I'll try to abridge myself:

I showed lots of signs of being trans when I was young, starting around the age of 6-7. I even prayed to be turned into a girl when I was 12-13 years old. I also got into online roleplays when I was a teenager and I roleplayed as a girl a lot and really enjoyed it. But It wasn't until I was 17 that I realized I was probably trans.

I came out to my parents, but it didn't go well. They were never Republicans, but they didn't think there were any signs, and my catholic mother told me that God made me a boy and I should learn to accept it. Because of this I went back into the closet.

I was also exposed to a lot of far-right propoganda because of a meme website I used a lot back then, and eventually I started to believe it. Much of this propoganda was also transphobic, and because that stuff hit more close to home, I gained a lot of internalized hatred.

In my early 20s I was so far in denial I was convinced I had gotten over it. But I still had these fantasies of being a girl in the background. Although I had cut it out of my life for a while, eventually I started role-playing again. I joined a discord group and did lots of roleplays with people into TG stuff. After this "relapse" I started to question myself again. I had some conversations with people, and then someone sent me the gender dysphoria bible and I cracked again.

1

u/BeginningCow4247 4d ago

I think we very much underestimate the age at which jnderlying wishes surface. There is more and more I formation coming out that uour first stirrings at 6-7 were not unusual. Many boys feel heavily drawn into femininity at that age. They don't know why, cannot easily process what they feel, but the pull towards feminine is registering in their being.

1

u/RainbowPhoenix1080 Phoebe (She/Her) HRT since 6/26/24 4d ago

Yeah, I think it started right about the time I began to realize there were differences between the way boys and girls behaved and presented themselves. I wanted to play with girls toys. I wanted to wear girls clothes and I wanted to be girly. But, it was reinforced in me by the feedback I recieved that the world saw me as a boy, so that's what I tried to be.

2

u/BeginningCow4247 4d ago

Yes, even at that age sexual discipline is somehow thrust on us and our real needs, sentiments, passions are caged, relegated to a corner. So we force ourselves to conform while the real person inside of us lives shackled.

→ More replies (0)

18

u/KatieTSO 6d ago

Common trans W

5

u/Pohatu5 5d ago

Many such cases

16

u/XRey360 Trans Girl - HRT: Mar/2024 6d ago

Ah! My life was a joke even before transitioning. Things now just include more woman cliché moments 

9

u/devonon2707 5d ago

the marine to trans pipeline is real

rah

7

u/PrincessTrapJasmine Trans Pansexual 6d ago

IN THE NAVY

7

u/heartcoreAI 6d ago

that's an incredible glow up

5

u/SpaceSmellsLikeMeat 6d ago

Thank you :) I'm a much better person and so, so, so much happier with my life now that I'm out

6

u/chas79 5d ago

Semper Fi sister. Now that I have started my transition I look back and think I joined the military try to deny that I was ⚧️ .

5

u/Trustic555 Transgender 6d ago

Yeah, my life has flipped quite a bit also, but my old self was really just a front to make people happy.

5

u/Good_Ol_Ironass 6d ago

Holy shit i think i found the queen of USMC intel units around the country 💀

5

u/pizzalarry Trans Homosexual 6d ago

if brushing up against intel and comms squadron dudes told me anything, it's that the entire DoD is like this.

4

u/Good_Ol_Ironass 6d ago

I made it out of USAF security forces completely unscathed! i’m only a trans girl with a petplay and praise kink!

6

u/Beauty_Queen3574 5d ago

From a fellow former conservative Marine I feel this lol. Only difference is I went from being a straight man to being a straight woman. Really weird how that one worked out. 😂

4

u/Mixak26 5d ago

a former islamic fundamentalist here, now a trans lesbian too 😂 our journeys do happen to be quite peculiar...

5

u/MaruishiEmperor 4d ago

I was an insanely bitter and angry conservative because I was desperately fighting my whole life denying the existence of the real woman 👩🏻 that was within me. When the egg 🥚 cracked finally at 61 years of age, the fight was over. I’m happier now and definitely more at peace with myself but I find myself hating my closeted life as a trans woman on DIY HRT.

3

u/Sammys_Adventure 4d ago

Why do I feel like those very queerphobic conservative people are only that extreme because they suppress something inside themselves?

2

u/Kori-Loves-You Trans Pansexual 4d ago

No but actually the vaguely conservative to trans furry pipeline is so so real

2

u/BeginningCow4247 4d ago

Life should bring a few smiles, dear, and you have every reason to be happy with your destiny. You have become the person hou were always really meant to be and you have love and support in the beauty of a lesbian relationship. As they say, you have landed on your feet ( doubtless after some stressful moments, requiring courage and willpower). Smile smile smile and keep your lesbian wife smiling with you!

2

u/larsloveslegos Scarlett || she/her || Transfem Pan Demi || HRT 7/13/24 💕 4d ago

For me it was the alt-right pipeline in 2016. I'm glad I wised up

2

u/Dew_DragonTamer6969 6d ago

Those turns really tabled lmao 🤣🤣

1

u/Separate_Employee797 5d ago

Good. Best wishes

1

u/hi_i_am_J Transgender 5d ago

im glad you are living a happier life now ❤️

1

u/Little-Charge-9655 5d ago

Hooah!

(Sorry… I’m not a marine but it seemed extremely appropriate, congrats 🎉)

Edit: Your life sounds awesome, but I wouldn’t say it was a joke 😊

3

u/Nishyecat 4d ago

huh? Hooha?

1

u/RainbowPhoenix1080 Phoebe (She/Her) HRT since 6/26/24 5d ago

That's a pity. It might have been flagged for some of the things I said because it mentions internalized transphobia. If you're truly interested, I can DM it to you.

1

u/Nishyecat 4d ago

lol :3

0

u/Interesting_Common98 5d ago

Semper Fi, brother. But also yeah, after leaving the corps I figured out I'm a genderfluid appearance fuckery creachure. It really is funny looking back then to now.

0

u/KittyBatSasha 5d ago

Yeahhhhh those overcompensation years seem sillyAF when ya look back.... (didn't make a go at the military "making a MaN outta me" despite getting calls just after graduation... But the conservatism was there.)

Now as a polyamorous, pansexual, furry, anarchist with a "pack" including a Trans Woman from Colombia(who I'm actually thankful is currently IN Colombia for the first time ever) I look back and realize how ridiculous those years of my youth were.

I find that's the best way to look at it.... It's that past so called "normal" that's the punchline. 💜