Quote from: unpassable on April 02, 2013, 12:39:37 AM
It surprises me that some posters here feel that you can still have a good life being unpassable.
Life is what YOU make it. Plenty of people out there are "different" from what others perceive is normal. People who ridicule others for those differences are the ones with the real problems. Hormones and plastic surgery aren't golden tickets to cross over to the gender you are inside rather than outside. They work for some, but not all. The fact that they're standard treatment protocol for trans* people is something I personally don't agree with, but every individual should be able to make a choice on how they manage their dysphoria (because I think you were right when you mentioned that hormones and surgery aren't just for passing, they're also for dysphoria).
I believe that this particular reason is why most (again, not all) therapists advocate going "full time" for x-amount of time before having surgeries to test the waters.
Society has it so ingrained what is male and what is female, that it's difficult if there's something you can't change about yourself that "says" one or the other to the outside world. I won't say MtFs have it harder than FTMs or vice versa because it doesn't really matter. Everyone is an individual and making that choice to transition has consequences for everyone that vary a great deal. To say one particular group has it worse is really inaccurate. But no matter what other people think of you (or your gender) it doesn't change the facts. The fact is you're female, whether or not the outside matches up perfectly with society's narrow viewpoint. If you've gone so far in your transition to have a name change and gender marker change then society will just have to deal, it's not your burden unless you make it one (and having to mention something to a manager at a gym shouldn't be seen as a burden, but just a new task that you need to occasionally undertake).
What I've come to learn (the hard way) over time is that money can not buy happiness. I consider myself lucky in that I haven't transitioned and I don't plan to. Because I learned that even if I spent thousands of dollars on therapy, hormones, surgeries, that wouldn't solve some core issues for me. I'm on the flip side of the coin from you in that I'm actually male, but the large portion of the world still sees me as female (sometimes I can pull off androgynous or a younger guy, but that's about all I can get). But I've got priorities in my life and a lot of them have nothing to do with gender. Also, I didn't choose my gender. I came into this world with it. What the doctors wrote on my birth certificate is just something I've chosen to live with. Luckily I have some friends and a spouse who know the real me. That helps if you can have people in your life who understand and accept you, regardless of what you look like. Others have mentioned support groups ... surly there's something like that in Vegas that you could get involved with? Begin to bring people into your life who support you, regardless.
What helps in my own situation is not trying to "pass", but just being myself. I don't have a checklist anymore that I'm always mentally trying to make sure I'm conforming to. I have my off days where dysphoria is a problem, but I have my own coping mechanisms now as well. I don't put on an act for anyone though. They get the real me whether they know what's actually in my pants or not. If I'm out and about where no one knows me and someone calls me "ma'am" I have occasionally corrected them if I feel so inclined (and if I don't have to show my ID or pay with a credit card somewhere). Even tiny efforts like that have made me feel more comfortable in my own skin.
I had to change my perspective on a number of things in order for any happiness to happen to me. Notice I say that it
happened, because I don't believe you can "find" happiness either. It's like one of those things that the harder you try to obtain it, the farther it slips away from your grasp. The more you try to focus on it, the more you build up your definition of it and therefore make it that much harder to attain. "I'll be happy when I can have the face of a women". You're not only imposing demands on yourself, but you're putting qualifiers on happiness itself and if you don't meet those qualifiers then you assume you can never be happy and like all good self-fulfilling prophecies, you won't be.
It's not just trans* people who struggle with this. People with illnesses, people who are disabled, regular "average" people who have imposed things onto themselves, all struggle with "finding happiness" or being happy with themselves or their bodies. Everyone seems to be striving so hard to be happy. They try to get it through a therapist, they try to get it through pills, they try to get it through other people, objects, actions, and obsessions. But I truly believe that in order for happiness to happen, you have to change your perspective. You have to embrace the "now" and life "as-is" with all its quirks and nuances. You have to be open to the possibility that happiness can happen. Don't struggle so hard to find it.
The body is just a vessel and all of us are stuck in the very same bodies that we were born with no matter how we try to change them on the outside. We're all seeking to be comfortable in our body, but comfortable is variable as well. I believe when you embrace things as they are, a small spark is ignited deep inside of you and that spark is confidence. That in turn can help you to let go of all these grandiose definitions and crazy demands you've put on yourself.
Also, once that confidence is sparked, you may find that you can eloquently confront people who snicker or point fingers and turn the tables on them ... let them know you're a confident and secure WOMAN who doesn't resort to violence to get her point across, but rises above pettiness. People who point and snicker and say hurtful things usually continue to do so because they can sense there will be no repercussions for their actions and they feed off the reactions they cause in people (they probably have a lot of issues of their own as well). You may also find over time that things like that just roll on by you because confidence can build an inner strength that can ground you like a large boulder in a mountain stream. Things can flow easily and calmly around you while you remain securely rooted. If you don't react the way the taunters want you to, then they weaken, not you (and who knows, they might also learn over time that that's not appropriate behavior).
Even if someone is transitioning, at any given moment they can still embrace things as they are. We're all on a journey, whether that journey includes HRT and surgeries is up to the individual, but there really is no point at all that I've found in the 40 years I've been on this rock so far, to hating yourself and hating the body you currently have (unless you just want to be miserable). Life is all about ups and downs, no matter what path you're on and I also believe that no matter whether you feel you've made a "bad" choice in life (we all make so-called bad choices), it's not something to fixate on, beat yourself up about, or create insurmountable obstacles over. You learn, and you move forward, perhaps in a different and better direction than before.
All of this is not "easy". One day you can't just declare, "I'm going to be more confident!" and have it magically happen. It takes work and it takes a genuine effort to make very small steps in a different direction. But I've become a bit of an optimist over the years and I'm hear to say that it
is possible to be transsexual, not "passable" and still live a fruitful, exciting, full and happy life.
