Quote from: Pinkfluff on August 29, 2011, 12:01:57 AM
That's... simply not true...
I've personally never have been called fat, because I weigh 115lbs. However, I know many people who have both been called fat and have been fired for being fat, because they are in the 185-285lbs range. However, because of my severely masculine face and female personality, I've been called names like ogre, ugly, monster, gargoyle, loser, pimple-face, grease monkey, baboon, cave man, gorilla, nerd, "ew!", "why does your face look so deformed?", barbarian, ect ect. Many employers have told me I'm not suited for various jobs despite having an ACT score higher than 93% of the people in the entire country, despite having an absolutely perfect credit rating (never have once been in debt or have taken out a loan), and despite not having a single legal or divorce record (not even a driving or parking ticket.) Most often, I've had family members, friends, and again, employers, who have told me that I'm too ugly and manly to pass as female, especially for the professional and non-disruptive image that the job position requires. (I'm talking about professional, stimulating jobs, not Walmart, a Pawn Shop, or McDonald's.)
Discrimination exists, and it's certainly much deeper than simply being Transsexual or a variant of it. Sure, many people here probably do not get discriminated against every day, but then again, I would bet most people here have very low standards of what jobs they work, most of them being jobs that probably hide them behind a computer or kitchen, even jobs they work at from the home. People who do not believe in their self-image often subconciously set low bars for jobs (that often follow patterns, [ex. jobs that do not require appearance]). If everyone here took the chance to put themselves out in the world as much as I used to (something that's essential for most people to achieve happiness), there truly are people here who'd learn very fast how the world works, and then there's those who well, because they're very pretty and do pass perfectly, wouldn't nor still haven't experienced extreme discrimination to this day. And as always, there's people who refuse to stick their head outside their front door unless it's do go to a Trans meeting, Best Freind's House, or Antique Shop, and well, you know....look at me, look at this forum, being a hermit never amounts to happiness.
It all brings one back to and answers the question of "Why does someone's
GID get all triggered and up in a wad?" If someone's happy, they're happy, and if they're not, then either something in the real world is causing it (or a lack of something [ex. excitement, romance, adventure, creativity, confidence, beauty, passability, money, ect ect], which I find to be the cause of 99% of the depression out there) or they plain out have a chemical imbalance specific to depression, which is not the case if the person can describe, to some extent,
why they are stressed. Even if someone doesn't know why they are stressed, it just takes a little digging, and because I've been a consultant for so long (concerning primarily plastic surgery), and have counseled and interviewed so many patients and people (2000+), it's still always shocking to me just how much physical self-image always ties to the psyche and subconcious actions. We all here simply would not be Transsexual if we were
born of the sex and image we want to be. At the very, very least, everyone here wants to have a different genitalia. It's what it having GID
is. It's a self-image issue, and so far, I believe the only way it can be cured is by physical surgery or otherwise such a enormous lifestyle (being a millionaire, being president, being famous) that its takes the mind totally off transitioning. People
cannot be hermits and expect GID to fade.
I mean look at all the posts above, most professionals (and users) would tell those people "Golly gee, you sound suicidal about your self-image, it is absolutely not realistic nor right in any one case to want to change the appearance surgically or hormonally, so you need to be put on 12 pills for depression and you need to pay me $120 to see me once a week, and you have to wait a year on RLE because I need to earn more than $2,000 off you." (most therapists say this) while I say "Get hormones, get surgery (on whatever you want to), get out of the house more, get a much livelier job, get happy." I personally think mine sounds like a better plan. In the end, both paths costs just about the same thing. 15 years of therapy could have paid for a brow-bossing procedure or a jaw-shave, hormones, hair laser, or even SRS. Why conform one's self to a body or face that makes one constantly think "I'll never pass". Either that person hasn't found the right wig, or they plain out need some "medical rearrangements".
And then of coarse, everyone here probably has other problems that are bothering them too, primarily deaths, debt, confidence issues (non-Trans specific), and health issues, but those things don't really trigger
GID self-image depression, which really is what this thread's about.
