The bad news is you're transgender. The good news is...

[Taka]

the good new is that i'm transgender. the bad news is that my society still is all to insistent on keeping people in the most unnatural boxes for ease of control.

there are so many perspectives on life, the world, myself and others that i'd have never known if i weren't trans. and as i've analyzed my fears in regards to transness, i've realized that they're all related to how other people will take it. i myself would be perfectly fine with being who i am at any and all times.

my problems are that it's so much harder to get a hormone prescription when not unambiguously transsexual, and i still can't decide on whether i want to keep my boobs or not. i'm sure i can convince the rest of my society that i'm still me even if i have odd gender presentations at times, but the health care system and my parents are quite a different issue.

but i'll survive. it's the majority who are in the wrong in this. they should all try being transgender for a while, might help them get some perspective as well. umm, that is, if transgender was something you could be for only a while. but if that was the case, we wouldn't have any problems, would we...

[Ciara]

What a great question.........well for me since I accepted that I am a woman.......
1. I am discovering myself
2. I am learning to love myself for the first time in 54 years
3. I have learned to love my wife, family and friends in a way I never before understood.

Thank you for asking.......
Love
Ciara

[D0LL]

The good news? I'll have to get back to you on that one. :/

[Cosi555]

- being happy with life and most importantly MYSELF
- having everything ive ever been conflicted with finally make sense
- better relationships with others - no longer feeling awkward when talking to others/interacting
- most importantly, being able to dance like a maniac to awesome pop songs in killer hot stilettos (yep, sucker for punishment right here ;-))

[Jennygirl]

- being happy with life and most importantly MYSELF
- having everything ive ever been conflicted with finally make sense
- better relationships with others - no longer feeling awkward when talking to others/interacting
- most importantly, being able to dance like a maniac to awesome pop songs in killer hot stilettos (yep, sucker for punishment right here ;-))

Um, let's hang out?

Maybe we better not, actually. Don't want to risk disrupting the trans space continuum.

[Rachel85]

The bad news is it took this long for me to figure myself out.

The good news? I figured myself out! Also add in all the positive things that everyone else who posted before me has said, great minds think alike!

[Kelly J. P.]

 The downside is the negative impact it's had on my self-esteem, appearance, and mentality.

The upside is the fact that I get to experience and understand more of life than most humans can.

[kelly_aus]

I am me. I learnt to love myself again - which led another to love me, as I love her.

[JennX]

I don't have to live a lie anymore. I can simply be me.

[Cosi555]

Um, let's hang out?

Maybe we better not, actually. Don't want to risk disrupting the trans space continuum.

Stuff the space continuum ;-)
Id love to hang out :-) tho its been a while since ive had a friend :-/ but im super keen to make lots of them now

[SaskiaB.]

The good news is a lifetime of memories of of girlish moments I once tried to suppress, but that now are treasures - and self-acceptance!

[Carrie Liz]

Since when is being transgender bad news? If you ask me, I felt 100% better when I finally got that therapist letter that officially designated me as transgender. It was the years that came before it, of running from that label, of feeling dysphoria but never having the guts to admit to others or myself that I wanted to transition, which were the hellish part.

So yeah... the way you describe it, it's like a doctor sitting down with you in this grim voice and telling you "I'm sorry... but you have......... ->-bleeped-<-!" (*cue Castle-thunder sound effect and melodramatic "NOOOO!!!!"*) Where in reality, that moment where a professional finally did tell me that she agreed that I was transsexual, it was more like "So I really am? After all those years of uncertainty and fear and feeling like I was transgender but never knowing for sure, I really am? And I really am going to be able to be a girl? In real life? Oh, thank God!!! YAY!!!"

[Jennygirl]

So yeah... the way you describe it, it's like a doctor sitting down with you in this grim voice and telling you "I'm sorry... but you have......... ->-bleeped-<-!" (*cue Castle-thunder sound effect and melodramatic "NOOOO!!!!"*) Where in reality, that moment where a professional finally did tell me that she agreed that I was transsexual, it was more like "So I really am? After all those years of uncertainty and fear and feeling like I was transgender but never knowing for sure, I really am? And I really am going to be able to be a girl? In real life? Oh, thank God!!! YAY!!!"

Omg the way you describe this moment is just perfect. I had exactly the same feeling. Reading this made me smile so wide that I teared up. Thanks Carrie

[Taka]

the good news would be that it's curable. it's a birth defect that can be fixed, and it's luckily not detectable before birth. just suddenly came to think of all those children with downs who're never born because the parents don't want a child who's "different", and can't stand the thought of having to deal with the social stigma. we're all an enrichment to society, it's just modern western society that doesn't get it yet.

in some cultures, ->-bleeped-<- wouldn't even be something you had to cure, because they have a place for our kind as well. the ability to go between the genders, cross the borders of birth sex, is in many cultures regarded as a trait that identifies a possible shaman. makes you more likely to have the ability to go between this world and the other.

[Shantel]

the good news would be that it's curable. it's a birth defect that can be fixed, and it's luckily not detectable before birth. just suddenly came to think of all those children with downs who're never born because the parents don't want a child who's "different", and can't stand the thought of having to deal with the social stigma. we're all an enrichment to society, it's just modern western society that doesn't get it yet.

in some cultures, ->-bleeped-<- wouldn't even be something you had to cure, because they have a place for our kind as well. the ability to go between the genders, cross the borders of birth sex, is in many cultures regarded as a trait that identifies a possible shaman. makes you more likely to have the ability to go between this world and the other.

I have been told that by a native American friend who was from a southwest indian tribe that in an earlier time I would probably be revered as the tribal shaman. And though I am what church goers would classify as a closet Christian I would be the first to agree that the missionaries have ruined indigenous native cultures around the world making them feel that they had to cover their "sinful"body parts. Anything that the missionaries didn't understand was somehow attributed to the devil. I think western culture has been both blessed and cursed by religious zealots on many levels.

[ChristyB]

 Carrie Liz, I read and reread your response. The castle thunder and the resonating NOOOO! struck a chord with me. I feel that to be 'transgender' is a diagnosis that is to be feared as if the diagnosis was of in-operable cancer. Feared and dreaded, but we must endure. That no matter what, we must adapt and improvise if we are to transcend 'who' we thought we are. If we are to become 'who' we were meant to be. Your description reflects my own journey in that being TG was no better than having a death sentence. In reality it was, being a death of who I thought I was supposed to be. In the same breath, a freedom to be who I feel I was meant to be.

THANK YOU,
ChristyB.

[Liminal Stranger]

The good news? Let's see:

-Passing. If you're cis, you never worry about passing, and you never get to go through that initial excitement of "HOLY FLYING PURPLE BANANAS THAT GUY CALLED ME SIR!", or the nice glow of confidence you get when you grow a bit more used to those moments.

-Picking your own name if you change yours. C'mon, that's pretty cool. You now have a legitimate reason to choose your own moniker that actually fits you.

-Support. Good news, you aren't alone out there in the big bad world! There are support groups in person, and communities like oh, I don't know...this brilliant, bustling one called Susan's. It's such an inspirational place 

-Educating yourself. Maybe it was an early manifestation of being trans, but in my younger years I was highly cissexist and thought the idea of people not being the gender that fit their body was terrible. I was even upset by androgynous people! So hey, maybe it was karma, or life trying to teach me a lesson in acceptance. But I'm really glad for that aspect of it.

-The community, in general. There are some amazing people here and in other places- while I don't like being defined by how I wasn't born, being a part of the same community and having it in common with others makes me proud in a way.

-Ego boost. I've found that coming out has made me so much happier and taken a lot of weight off my shoulders, though being pre-everything means I've only now gone into the woods. To be bold and correct people on my name and pronouns starts an upward cycle in my self-confidence, lots of times I feel ready to take on the world to fight for equality and understanding for myself and my trans brothers and sisters.

-Being yourself! I haven't had the chance to watch myself transform (lol, transform ) over time yet, but I will in a matter of years and hopefully the world won't end by then because it's going to be one of the most exciting things ever. I'll probably be so impatient with it at first but even now every little thing that brings out the boy looking back at me in the mirror is a victory over being born in the wrong model of body.

Really, there's so many things cispeople take for granted about just living life without fear of being misgendered and clocked, or the stress of not being accepted as the gender you are instead of what some scrap of paper says you should be, or your body fighting against who you are. I've learned a great deal from it so far, and I've only just begun my own journey.

[Lanalicious34]

I have to agree with Kyh about being a fem gay guy. My life before transition was hell and parts of my transition in the gay scene was also hell. I could not walk down the street with out someone yelling ->-bleeped-<-. Or staring at me at the gay clubs thinking I could be my self there when first transitioning.

You could not pay me any amount of money to go back to the way i was before I transitioned.

Sure their are hard times but life is not easy for anyone.

[Kade1985]

Upside? I finally know why I've always felt more... er well more like a dude than a girl. That I don't have to feel like the weird outsider because I don't conform to social feminine norms... I don't have to wonder why I've always been different anymore... That I can finally be who I was meant to be.

On the weird for an upside I eventually won't have to shave my legs anymore, though I'm already somewhat lazy about it lol.

Though if there is a downside it's I'm going to be "stuck" in a physically female body for a number of years still and having to... I guess in a way readjust to who I am... Or at least in ways I never felt I could before. Such as wearing boxer shorts now vs being too afraid to for fear of being picked at or something.

[Nov413]

I hate forgetting this sometimes, but it really is not bad news that I am trans. There are inconveniences, yes, but it really is a blessing.

For one, being able to think beyond what I was told, I was able to focus on the things that actually mattered, which is one of the main reasons I've been able to go to college and pursue a better life. This has been a pivotal point in my life, for there is so much hope for the future now. The friends I've made, the things I've learned, and finding my faith are all unforgettable experience.

But, the most important one is that it forced me to think outside of my own head, to think that others are actually different from me, and we are all really, in the end, just people. I am able to realise that our appearances are much less important than our hearts and our character. Really, it was taught me to appreciate everyone.