Like, did your actual center of gravity or muscular attributes change over time to make you pass or fail where previously you had the other outcome of one of these alleged “men can’t do this but women can” type challenges?
hi! just so we’re clear, there’s no “the” surgery, there’s a number of surgeries that trans people get: phalloplasty, vaginoplasty, mastectomy, breast implants, FFS, the lot of them. generally, most of these surgical interventions don’t do too much to whole body musculature and are more localized, although having/not having a pair of boobies that you weren’t/were used to can do a lot to your balance, but that’s not the main thing that causes posture, center of gravity, etc.
possibly more relevant to the question, one of the most common medical interventions is hormone therapy, and this will absolutely change your musculature, flexibility, strength, and more. Transfems on E will see dramatic changes in their strength, muscle mass, and flexibility to be much more in line with cisfems, and transmascs will see similar but opposite. Transmascs often report gaining an inch or two of height on T, transfems often report losing an inch or two of height on E, with no other interventions. Some people see shoe size changes, postural changes, more. it’s a super common meme among transfems who are dating cis women that they have to hand over jars to their cis girlfriends to open after starting E. Anterior Pelvic Tilt is probably the largest cause of changes in postural change in trans people (and it’s caused exclusively by GAHT), so if you’re looking to learn more, that’s probably the first thing you may want to read up on!
i’m super comfy with good faith questions btw so if you have more, feel free to ask me!
That’s so interesting, thanks for the learning!
This is exactly like the time I found out vaginal lubrication from arousal was a hormonally dictated thing. Even though I have an endocrine disorder and very personally understand how much hormones do around the body (or should be doing, but sometimes don’t…), it blew my tiny little mind. I just sort of assumed the surgery wouldn’t be able to address that functionality.
Hormones are hugely underestimated, they wield a lot of power over us. The fact we can reliably tinker with some of them with science is a little awe-inspiring and slightly terrifying.
The anterior pelvic tilt thing is wild, I never would have expected that change. Is it a documented change for transmascs too?
“documented” is tricky because very little of this is super well documented, seeing as trans people are a super small and, even proportionately to their small numbers, understudied minority in medical science. this is largely a community communication effort and a lot of the knowledge is not done through academic study. that being said, it does seem like it’s talked about a lot less in the transmasc community, so possibly? on paper, the mechanism of action (tendon/ligament/muscle changes) goes both ways, but I haven’t really seen many transmascs talk about it, so I don’t know for sure!
I imagine FFS is very common among trans people. I know I say it a lot whenever I hear certain people talk about the trans community.
I’m not sure of the rates although I know a huge number, probably a very large majority, of transfems only take E and sometimes a T blocker. I can also tell you that after a while on E, facial fat and muscle will redistribute to create a more feminine face. Many people are happy at that but some more want additional feminization and that’s where FFS comes in!
(statistics are very poor because us trans folks are an extremely under-studied minority as well as a moving target because of changing culture and treatment modalities, so I wouldn’t trust most studies purporting to know statistics on things like how many transfems get FFS besides being a ballpark range)
Sorry, your post is very informative and I was just making a dumb joke. I find that very interesting and I would imagine, especially based on the other person’s response, that FFS is significantly less common.
The point on pelvic tilt is especially fascinating to me!
I am a cis male who’s been getting a lot more into latin styles of partner dancing these past years, a focus of the level I’ve been getting into lately is body-movement generally but including hip position / pelvic tilt. As I’ve gained more awareness of my own body in everyday life I’ve come to assume that fem people must have a “more tilted” pelvis when in a neutral position because of non-specific societal pressures.
If I’m understanding your statement correctly though, the neutral angle of one’s pelvis has a strong correlation with the hormone balance or, perhaps more directly, the muscle/fat distribution around their body. Is that right?
It seems these challenges are more about technique than biology https://www.vice.com/en/article/qjp5gd/this-is-why-men-cant-seem-to-ace-the-viral-tiktok-centre-of-gravity-challenge
That’s not what it says? There is a little bit of speculation about technique, with no evidence. But most of it is about differences in centre of gravity. Which is a biological (average) difference and suggests that trans people might indeed reverse their ability to do/not do these challenges after gender-affirming hormones.
It’d be very easy to test the various theories offered. Fuck knows why Vice didn’t instead of just quoting speculation.
yeahhh the video example in this article clearly shows the woman pull back before going to her knees, whereas the man just pulls his arms up from a pushup position.
idk, i feel gender has nothing to do with this. I had a good sense of balance before I transitioned.
Idk but my center of gravity changes after taco bell
An interesting question. I would assume no change, center of gravity is set based on birth gender. Hormones or psychological changes later in life won’t change it.
Leaving aside for a moment that it’s not quite clear that these challenges are a result of AGAB physiology, centre of gravity changes with body fat changes, which changes with HRT.
I welcome a demonstration to prove as much.
