Hi from Alsace France

[NotThereYet]

Ich freuhe mich sehr beinahe alles hier zu verstehen. Schreiben und sprechen is schwerer fur mich weil ich spreche meistens English und Franzosich. Jedoch, eine Frage habe ich nach diese Lesen. Hast du denn etwas gegen die Turken?    Ebenfalls, wohin kommst du, eine ganz kleine Stadt?
Viele Grusse.
Donna

Wie meinst du es jetzt? Warum sollte ich was gegen die Türken haben? Wie kommst du denn darauf? :-)
Seit Jahen lebe ich ja auf dem Land und bin ebenfalls in einem Weiler aufgewachsen. :-) Irgendwie kriege ich Angst, also in großen Städten... :-( Noch dazu bin ich ja ein bisschen klaustrophobisch...

[Shantel]

Wie meinst du es jetzt? Warum sollte ich was gegen die Türken haben? Wie kommst du denn darauf? :-)
Seit Jahen lebe ich ja auf dem Land und bin ebenfalls in einem Weiler aufgewachsen. :-) Irgendwie kriege ich Angst, also in großen Städten... :-( Noch dazu bin ich ja ein bisschen klaustrophobisch...

Uh-huh right! Sprekenzie English you two, you're leaving out 11000 of the rest of us from this conversation! 

[Donna Elvira]

Uh-huh right! Sprekenzie English you two, you're leaving out 11000 of the rest of us from this conversation! 

No problem Shan,
I was simply pleasantly surprised by how much German I still understand as, while I hear quite a lot of the language since arriving here in Alsace 2 years ago,  I haven't really used German since I was a student, mnay, many years ago...
Don't worry by the way, we didn't say anything disagreable about you or anyone else...
Bises
Donna

[Donna Elvira]

Wie meinst du es jetzt? Warum sollte ich was gegen die Türken haben? Wie kommst du denn darauf? :-)
Seit Jahen lebe ich ja auf dem Land und bin ebenfalls in einem Weiler aufgewachsen. :-) Irgendwie kriege ich Angst, also in großen Städten... :-( Noch dazu bin ich ja ein bisschen klaustrophobisch...

Hi,
My inquiry was in reaction to your remark about enjoying life in Berlin,  "the 3rd biggest Turkish city in the world",  but let's leave it at that. I understand that deep down you are a country girl and that big cities in general "freak you out" as people say in the US. 
Warm regards.
Donna

[NotThereYet]

Oops!! Sorry!! My, our apologies! Donna speaks very good German and we were enjoying a little, German culture specific, side conversation. :-)

Donna, I see what you mean, now, and  no, that is not a sign of dislike: it is part of German pop-culture: Berlin has many Turkish Gastarbeiter and, population wise, is the third biggest Turkish city in the world. It is kind of like the "Soup Nazi" in America: nothing against soup.

Concerning me, yes, I am indeed a country girl, but I do love big cities, the energy they have, and I love everything multi cultural (Immigrants do not bother me in the least). It is just that I somehow get panic attacks when I am around so many people and so much hustle and bustle. I am working on it, though. Does it make sense?

I know it might be hard to understand how somebody would say that they like San Francisco and then become claustrophic after only a few days/hours visiting it... :-(

[Shantel]

Oops!! Sorry!! My, our apologies! Donna speaks very good German and we were enjoying a little, German culture specific, side conversation. :-)

No apologies necessary but thanks! I think it's wonderful that you both are multi-linguistic and can enjoy a chat in German, but there are so many of us here that are missing out of the conversation that it might be more polite to PM one another so the rest don't feel left out! Being left out is one of the feelings that dovetails into some people's dysphoria.

It is just that I somehow get panic attacks when I am around so many people and so much hustle and bustle. I am working on it, though. Does it make sense?

Yes it does, I love people but big crowds make me become claustrophobic and anxiety sets in, I'm sure that many others here can relate as well!

[NotThereYet]

Well, this is truly not really related to Transsexualism, but it is indeed one of my struggles. I mean, I love the idea of being around so many people and be exposed to all these different cultures, and therefore, I feel like I miss out a bit because of my "claustrophobia". I feel that if I were not "socially claustrophobic", I would enjoy life more, I would experience life more "to the fullest".

That is why I try to openly talk about it: you never know who might help you look at things differently and, with that, help you overcome challenges.

On a positive note, since my transitioning, I have been able to overcome a lot of my OCD related problems, and I am indeed starting to not let my fears control what I do and, especially, what I don't do. Make sense?

[Shantel]

On a positive note, since my transitioning, I have been able to overcome a lot of my OCD related problems, and I am indeed starting to not let my fears control what I do and, especially, what I don't do. Make sense?

Definitely does!

[angelats]

Berlin, Berlin, wir fahren nach Berlin!!! :-)
Und wie gefällt dir das Leben in der drittgrößten Türkischen Stadt? hihihi

Ach ... Berlin... Das Reichstagsgebäude, Karl Marx Allee, Unter den Linden Straße, Bahnhof Zoo... Leider war ich noch nicht da... Eines Tages, vielleicht... Werden mal sehen...

Also, in Bayern aufgewachsen (Nicht Oberbayern, gell???), 12 Jahre in BaWü, und nun seit 1998 in Berlin... Ne Welt Vagabundin bist du!!!! :-)  Du musst ja sehr stark sein, in so ner Großstadt wie Berlin würde ich nicht mal ein ganzes Jahr überleben, viel zu groß und chaotisch, und so, also Respekt!! Sag mal, was hat dich nach Berlin verschlagen wenn man fragen darf?

Bis denne,
Andrea

Hello Andrea,

a word of advice: some topics i discuss may trigger ...

"Und wie gefällt dir das Leben in der drittgrößten Türkischen Stadt? hihihi "

You asked how i like to live in Berlin and i answer as follows:
I like to live in Berlin. Its a vibrant city these days and very interesting things are happening here.


"Also, in Bayern aufgewachsen (Nicht Oberbayern, gell???), "

You wrote that i grew up in Bavaria but suggested that i did not grow up in Upper Bavaria.
You are right , i grew up in Lower Bavaria, close to the town where pope Ratzinger was born.
But as a boy i went to secondary school (Gymnasium) in Upper Bavaria and later in Lower Bavaria.

"Du musst ja sehr stark sein, in so ner Großstadt wie Berlin würde ich nicht mal ein ganzes Jahr überleben, viel zu groß und chaotisch, und so, also Respekt!! Sag mal, was hat dich nach Berlin verschlagen wenn man fragen darf? "

You write about that it takes strength to live in a big city and that you doubt to survive living more than one year in a city. And then you ask why i came to Berlin.

Actually i grew up as a country pumpkin on a remote farm. As a boy at the age of twelve i was sent to a city with secondary school in Upper Bavaria. So i already learned as a boy to live in a city. In the city i was the boy from the countryside and in my home i was called the boy from the city.
I went to Berlin to become a material girl and to transition.
I thought: If you can make it there 
you can make it every where.
I had then a not so competent gender therapist who told me:
You will be unhappy and alone if you are mtf post-op,
which scared me a lot.
And i tried to exclude sexual abuse
as a possible cause for my transsexualism
before going on hormones.
And after talking to a few family members i had to recognize
that i somehow - to survive - have forgotten
that i was emotionally and sexually abused.
This pushed me for many years in a different mental space and
problem horizon and delayed transition.
I am way better now
and now the gender dysphoria knocks again my life.

Greetings
Angelats

[angelats]

Hi,
My inquiry was in reaction to your remark about enjoying life in Berlin,  "the 3rd biggest Turkish city in the world",  but let's leave it at that. I understand that deep down you are a country girl and that big cities in general "freak you out" as people say in the US. 
Warm regards.
Donna

Hi Donna,

about enjoying life in Berlin,  "the 3rd biggest Turkish city in the world".

This is a tough question.
Because there are many good things in multicultural Berlin like for example
the carnival of cultures, a "proud expression of hybrid cultural identities".
But there are also problems with integration and parallel societies.
For example a young Turkish woman was shot to death by a brother,
because she wanted to live a modern life on her own and not a life of traditional life style,
in which first her father, then her man and then her son tells her what to do.
So there are pros and cons to this topic.

Just my two cents.

With warm regards
Angelats

[angelats]

Well, this is truly not really related to Transsexualism, but it is indeed one of my struggles. I mean, I love the idea of being around so many people and be exposed to all these different cultures, and therefore, I feel like I miss out a bit because of my "claustrophobia". I feel that if I were not "socially claustrophobic", I would enjoy life more, I would experience life more "to the fullest".

That is why I try to openly talk about it: you never know who might help you look at things differently and, with that, help you overcome challenges.

On a positive note, since my transitioning, I have been able to overcome a lot of my OCD related problems, and I am indeed starting to not let my fears control what I do and, especially, what I don't do. Make sense?

Hello Andrea,

makes perfect sense.

I experience my gender dysphoria as a dysphoria, as not being able to enjoy being a man to the fullest, but feeling instead alienated by being in a wrong body, life and so on.

For me transsexualism is not only being born in the wrong body, its like shining in to the otherness of a female being. Why am i not her? why am i not like this woman there?  Its like an envy.
A feeling like i would swap my body with every woman.

This is a experience of absence, what should be there. There should be a full man. Or a full woman. But there is only me: Me with my disruption, my inner conflict. Being in a male body feeling not male. Maybe even feeling i should not even be male. Maybe even feeling i should be a female.
We all struggle with the experience of being born into bondage, of being not free, of not being who we are destined to be.
We all experience absence, nothingness, its some kind experience of of dying, death, life not at all at the fullest.
But i believe this all belongs to life, not only experience of the fullest, but also experience of lacking.

I try to handle my transsexualism by thinking about it, studying my feelings, raise my gender awareness, try to learn from others, try to learn to be human, free myself, face my fears.

Many little steps, many little steps to free yourself,
to become who and what you are destined to be.


"This above all: to thine ownself be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man." (Shakespeare)

Or as Churchill once put it :
"Never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, give up.
Never give up. Never give up. Never give up."

With kind regards
Angelats

[NotThereYet]

Hi Donna,

about enjoying life in Berlin,  "the 3rd biggest Turkish city in the world".

This is a tough question.
Because there are many good things in multicultural Berlin like for example
the carnival of cultures, a "proud expression of hybrid cultural identities".
But there are also problems with integration and parallel societies.
For example a young Turkish woman was shot to death by a brother,
because she wanted to live a modern life on her own and not a life of traditional life style,
in which first her father, then her man and then her son tells her what to do.
So there are pros and cons to this topic.

Just my two cents.

With warm regards
Angelats

Ich danke dir, Angela, thank you Angela: those are my thoughts exactly. Very well put together! :-)

Andrea

[NotThereYet]

Hi AngelaTS,

First and foremost, I would like to tell you how sorry I am to read that you were sexually abused... :-( I am indeed speechless and I offer you my sympathy (das, also "Sympathy", heißt ja "Mitleid" auf Englisch, und nicht "Sympathie", gell!! Das ist ja einer von den sogenannten "falschen Freunden", so zu sagen, aber das war dir schon bekannt, oder?), which, of course is not really much but it is truly all I can do. :-( One word of advice, though: transsexuality is usually a genetic thing, meaning you were born with it, and no trauma in the world can usually cause it. If I am wrong about this, please, anybody, correct me.

Thanks for quick explanation of your whereabouts, and, once again, thanks for giving Donna Elvira a very good answer, an answer that totally represents my feelings exactly.

Thanks also for your continuous words of encouragement! I Really appreciate your advice! :-)

Last, but not least: der Sepp, also der Deutsche Papst, is scho a waschechter Bayer, gell, der is jo in Marktl am Inn geboren, Oberbayern, ned Niederbayern!!!! :-) :-)
(For the non German speakers: Last but not least: the Sepp, i.e. the German Pope, is a bona fide Bayer, he was born in Marktl am Inn, Upper Bavaria, not Lower Bavaria)

Take care,
Andrea

[angelats]

Hi AngelaTS,

First and foremost, I would like to tell you how sorry I am to read that you were sexually abused... :-( I am indeed speechless and I offer you my sympathy (das, also "Sympathy", heißt ja "Mitleid" auf Englisch, und nicht "Sympathie", gell!! Das ist ja einer von den sogenannten "falschen Freunden", so zu sagen, aber das war dir schon bekannt, oder?), which, of course is not really much but it is truly all I can do. :-( One word of advice, though: transsexuality is usually a genetic thing, meaning you were born with it, and no trauma in the world can usually cause it. If I am wrong about this, please, anybody, correct me.

Thanks for quick explanation of your whereabouts, and, once again, thanks for giving Donna Elvira a very good answer, an answer that totally represents my feelings exactly.

Thanks also for your continuous words of encouragement! I Really appreciate your advice! :-)

Last, but not least: der Sepp, also der Deutsche Papst, is scho a waschechter Bayer, gell, der is jo in Marktl am Inn geboren, Oberbayern, ned Niederbayern!!!! :-) :-)
(For the non German speakers: Last but not least: the Sepp, i.e. the German Pope, is a bona fide Bayer, he was born in Marktl am Inn, Upper Bavaria, not Lower Bavaria)

Take care,
Andrea

Thank you, dear Andrea for your kind words.
We all have to live with what happened to us. I just told this to tell truly what delayed my transition then. Now i think different about my feelings, self perception and even about gender dysphoria.

IMHO to be true i really do not know what causes transsexuality. I have opinions, experiences, thoughts, theories about this topic, but i have no convincing theory about transsexuality at all. All this biological stuff like genetics, although its very important to consider, does not convince me at all.
I have had a good education in philosophy and religion and parapsychology and so i have an alternative, different viewpoint to biology. Culture and meaning play a great role for me in thinking and experience of the differences of gender, not only genetics.

For example there is a very interesting documentation about the newest scientific theories about male and female brains...sadly only in German:

http://www.3sat.de/mediathek/index.php?display=1&mode=play&obj=36544


"transsexuality is usually a genetic thing, meaning you were born with it, and no trauma in the world can usually cause it. If I am wrong about this, please, anybody, correct me."
To be true i do not know. And i doubt the genetic explanation. For example I have met two persons with klinefelter  syndrome. Their genetic disposition was the same, but their lives and their choices concerning sex and gender and how to live their lives were quite different.
I do not know, whether i was born with transsexuality. I only know i can describe my earliest childhood memories similar to those that call themselves transsexual. In my opinion i do have memories and experiences of a mtf transsexual. But i do draw a different conclusion.
For example i am  not sure at all, that i will be a happy post op woman, after everything settles after - lets say -  five years. As long i am not sure, i am happy for the rest of my life with transition, i try with all my might to resist.
I take the topic of srs regrets very serious, for example:

http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/TS/Warning.html

But i truly think there are ts that transition and it seems the best for them, but i am not sure it is for me, that is all, i know.


Abuse is just a different topic that has at first nothing to do with transsexuality. But when i had gender therapy then, it was a topic discussed, that it could cause transsexuality.

I truly think you are a wonderful person, very brave in facing your fears and trying to free yourself, but also a very loving and caring person.

The same i think of Donna, who has gone a remarkable way.

When i did wrote: " i grew up in Lower Bavaria, close to the town where pope Ratzinger was born.",
i referred my growing up to Lower Bavaria, but did not want to suggest, that the pope was born in Lower Bavaria too. Only that his birthplace is close to mine. (Less than 15 miles away).

with kind regards
Angelats

[Donna Elvira]

Don't know if this is the best place to post this but since it is another very significant milestone for me, I guess putting in my personal introduction is as good a place as any.

So, today I had lunch with my boss who also happens to be the GM of the company I work for. There were a few work issues to discuss but the conversation quickly moved to more personal subjects, as much about him as about me as it happens.  We are both very fond of the author John Irving and he is presently reading J.I's latest book, "In one person" and, since he knows about my personal situation, (I came out to him early March) he said it made him think about me. BTW, I have not yet read the book in question but, in thanks to J.I. for what followed, I have just ordered it this evening   

I asked him to explain and he told me a bit about the story which is about a bisexual guy and he associated this with my own quest to accept my gender identity.

The conversation wandered from one subject to another through most of the lunch, all about books, John Irving's but quite a few others too and what they had meant to us. The discussion brought is into some quite personal territory and finally, in a completely unexpected manner, got back to me.

Almost out of the blue, he told me that he had thought about my situation quite a bit since I came out and finally was OK to support my transition on the job, that it was my decision when to go but once I made it he would use all his power and influence to insure that I faced no discrimination.

Outwardly I stayed very calm but inside I was bubbling so much I could have either squealed for joy or burst out crying, maybe even both!

His only concern was about my presentation as a woman, his fear that I might show up at work like a drag queen...    I reassured him about this and suggested that we have dinner together sometime so that he saw what I was like presenting as a woman.  Not only did he think it was a great idea, he proposed we do it together with our respective spouses. (Afterthought: Maybe he wants her to provide him with an opinion on my credibility as a woman??) 

After that we even got into some of the practical issues like timing and we agreed that first step should be with my immediate colleagues when I get back from vacation mid-november.  The reason for this date is I will be doing a face lift late October which will add the finishing touches to the FFS I did summers 2011 & 2012. By highlighting the work that was done on my chin and jaw, this final step should make my face that much more obviously feminine as to make the subject pretty well unavoidable no matter what.

Overall, for me the moral of this story is that patience and focus on  first doing the job we are hired to do really does pay. I had hoped to get to this point by the autumn but finally  it has arrived earlier than expected without any need to force the issue.

If that wasn't enough for one day, the sun was shining brighly and totally energized by this turn of events, I had a really productive afternoon at work.

Vive la vie!
Donna

[Ciara]

Donna,
What wonderful news that is. You must be really happy about this. Things are really coming together now.
I am so happy for you.

Love,
Ciara.

[Shantel]

Donna, I knew that it was an unsettling  concern lurking in the back of your mind, so you can breathe freely now. As for his bringing his wife, I would want to bring my wife if I was invited to dinner by another woman. He's seeing you as a woman and this is a surefire acknowledgement of that, so naturally he would be concerned about how things would look if he went to dine with two women and left her at home alone. You will have to see yourself through his eyes and accept what he is seeing. What a huge blessing, I am so pleased for you Donna!

[Donna Elvira]

Ciara & Shantel,
Thank you for your kind messages. Yes I am delighted and yes, even if I was optimistic about the final outcome,  the issue was always wrankling at the back of my mind. As it happens, I believe my boss may have received some feedback about how I am perceived by others as when I said I doubted anyone would be surprised by my coming out, he agreed immediately.

So, a few more months of patience and an interesting session with my mostly male colleagues in perspective. Even in this area though, to date all of my male friends have been very understanding and even supportive about what I am doing and if anything, my opinion of men in general has improved quite a bit through this whole experience. Actually, my feelings about people in general have improved, maybe just because I am that much more at peace with myself.
Warm regards.
Donna

P.S. Shantel, you interpretation is very kind but I really don't believe my boss pereceives me as a woman yet... However he said one thing yesterday that blew me over, he said he simply couldn't see himself getting in the way of me being myself....

[Jamie D]

No problem Shan,
I was simply pleasantly surprised by how much German I still understand as, while I hear quite a lot of the language since arriving here in Alsace 2 years ago,  I haven't really used German since I was a student, mnay, many years ago...
Don't worry by the way, we didn't say anything disagreable about you or anyone else...
Bises
Donna

No, no, no.  We are an international site and we have Google Translate ...  up there ^

If members want to converse or post in a language other than English - that's great.  Our Aussies do it all the time. 

[Shantel]

No, no, no.  We are an international site and we have Google Translate ...  up there ^

If members want to converse or post in a language other than English - that's great.  Our Aussies do it all the time. 

LOL!!!