There is gaydar but is there transdar?

I personally don't like either term and I think it's crazy to say that some people have a "sixth sense" for recognising gay or trans people. I think those people are just, for some reason, obsessed with figuring out the sexuality/gender of people around them and so analyze the people to try and figure out. Which is a really bizarre thing to do and I can't understand why it would be so important to someone.

I also don't really think it's fair to try to figure out whether someone is trans or not... I'd consider it an invasion of privacy, kind of along the lines of forcing a person to out themself against their will (though I don't think you are actually going up to them and forcing them to reveal their trans status to you - in which case though, how would you even know they are trans?). Some people like to live stealth without the intention of telling anyone that they are trans since it's a private part of someone's medical history that could cause intense distress/alienation from others in society if it came out, and that should be respected; especially as a big fear of a lot of trans people is that they will never look like the cis people of their gender, will always be "noticably trans", and will always be "different".

 

Nope, a transdar with all likelihood doesn't exist, you can notice signs that indicate that a person is trans but ultimately, it is a hit or miss as many ciswomen or men have those same signs and it can be misleading. You are making the mistake of generalizing using a very small sample size, I'll give you an example from science, what does it mean if you learn that three cancer patients have blond hair, does this prove that there is a correlation between blond hair and having cancer? The answer is obviously no, because the sample size is much too small to come to any conclusion and those that you haven't included in your study are pretty much invisible in context of it. How does this connect to your question, you are assuming that you have an ability to recognize people who are trans by giving an example of you being able to recognize that some people are trans. However, you are ignoring the fact that you cannot actually know that a person is trans if you fail to recognize that they are trans. The only way you could know is if they came out to you and that would only happen in very specific circumstances like if you were dating them. So all those that you don't recognize as trans, are pretty much invisible to you and wouldn't be included in your sample of trans people.

A second point is that trans women who are in the process of transitioning are typically those that would identify publicly as trans. This means that they haven't been long enough on HRT to pass perfectly. Many who identify as such on dating sites haven't even started HRT. So in other words, you figured out that the people are trans because they didn't pass well, not because you have some special power to recognize whether a person is trans or not. You did something, that most people can do, you responded to visible gender markers that people use to differentiate men from women, however, many of those markers are byproducts of testosterone and Estrogen and in time will fade away as the hormones are blocked and others are taken instead and at some point you won't be able to use those markers to tell that they are trans and those people will become effectively invisible to you in context of being trans.

 

There have been a few occasions I was able to tell or at least had some reason to suspect someone was trans based on some subtle/obvious cues I was getting, but it's been pretty rare. Maybe two or three times. So I'm assuming outside of these isolated incidences I haven't picked up on any other people I've met/seen who could have possibly been trans.

So no, I don't think there's such thing as a transdar just obvious/subtle cues to go off of that might lead to suspicion someone is trans.

 

I wanted to add something, lets say, as a ciswoman, you were given Testosterone shots. After a while you would grow a beard and maybe an Adam's apple. How would people perceive you? Would they instinctively know that you were cisgender or would you be perceived as a trans man or a trans woman? Think about it, a simple shot of testosterone once a month for a few months would lead you to having people reject you, hurt you and make you feel like less of a person. In such a case, you would also look in the mirror and see a trans person, you will feel some of the pain we do of your bodies not reflecting who you are inside and need to learn to live with the prejudice and dysphoria or find the money to pay for painful surgeries and treatments.

 

Honestly the large majority of trans-people are indistinguishable from cis-people. The only way it'd be possible to know is if someone was early in transition or if they came out to you.

Checking people out in that way can be rather humiliating to a trans-person. I know you don't mean harm, but with gender I think it is a different arena than sexuality. It is best to either ask someone their preferred pronouns or go off how they present. And not to come off as harsh, but what is the purpose in "figuring out" someone's biological sex?

 

Yeah it often really jumps out at me to be completely honest. I can usually tell from the facial features or often even just signs of socialization in writing and stuff. I have a very honed transdar from my own low self-esteem and looking at flaws too much. :icon_sad: so I don't think it's a good thing and I want to clarify I never out anyone or indicate that I can tell.

 

Yeah... I doesn't mean it has 100% accuracy, but it's there.

 

Frankly, I think both gaydar and "transdar" are both super gross and creepy, except in the case of LGBT people trying to look for and recognize other LGBT people. The idea that cis people are going to be looking at me my entire life and trying to guess whether I'm a trans person is frankly terrifying, especially given that in some areas it can be genuinely unsafe for people to know you're trans. Stop trying to guess whether or not people are trans, and definitely don't tell a trans person that you spotted them with your "transdar".

Also keep in mind that for every trans person you spotted on your "transdar" you probably met or saw a bunch of trans people you didn't know were trans. You might think you've got a great "transdar" because you figured out a few people were trans, but trans people are everywhere, and in a lot of cases you'll never find out if someone you met is trans or not.

 

for me transdar and gaydar are just mere based on gender roles and stereotypes. let's say if a guys is feminine it doesn't mean that they're gay or a trans woman, there's a little chance that they could be but gender is more complex than that.