Transition vs Decision

[Lesley_Roberta]

I see a lot of commentary, and it is likely semantics here for me.

But I am not in transition, I did that in one day.

But when I see the word transition, I think of it as 'remodeling' or 'under construction' and it is limited to my body and has nothing to do with the person.

I made a decision one day, I was no longer interested in denial, I was no longer going to support faulty thinking. It began with me thinking I was two people locked in one body till I realized I was just fighting off making a decision.

Now I want to make it clear, I never had a choice about making this choice. I was born this way and I had as much choice as I did being born, or where I was born, or the colour of my skin. But, I had the choice and yes it was a choice, it is for all of us, about what to do about the circumstances I was in.

We all are basically dealing with that choice, and it is a decision process. Do I deny it, suffer from the denial, or do I act on it, and go through the process of having accepted something that will lead to a lot of life changes.

It took me less than a day to go from being what I thought I was, to accepting who I am.
That was my transition.
It might take you a day, it might take you a life time.
But I don't consider any of the physical angle to be 'transition'.

I am not defined by my body. I WANT to not be covered in hair, because I consider that unfeminine. But let's face it, if society thought long hair was only for men, girls probably would have short hair. If breasts were only something a pregnant female wanted anything to do with, then not having breasts would not make me stand out much.

Everything about my appearance, will be a work in progress, but then, it has been the same for my cis female sister. She fusses on her appearance all the time. She benefits from it, but, it is a life long process too for some people. The second I find a skirt I can feel good in and feel great about and be ok with wearing when I walk out the door, I am sure my mind will just find the next target to fuss over. I don't expect to get a lot of rest on the process of fussing over my appearance actually.

I am not sure I will LIKE wearing wigs, but no wig = no hair. I doubt winter will bother me, but I have trouble in the heat without a wig let alone with one. I suppose winter hat head will be a hassle. I like that in the summer (when it is NOT hot), I have less trouble with what hair I do have.

My 'transition process' as I am sure it will be referred to as by anyone in the relevant professions, will not be a 'transition' as I see it.
They likely will take time coming to grips with whether I am truly female, and they will run me through tests and examinations and detailed conversations. But, I transitioned nearly a year ago now. It's already becoming old news, a distant part of my past even. All I expect to get out of any professionals, is training on how to get some of the body work done, and what barriers I will encounter, and news of support apparatus options I might have access to.

I am still learning, but, I haven't been in 'transition' for a long while now.

I don't know what to say to people that refer to pre op and post op when it comes to comments regarding 'transition' and whether a person is planning to or not planning to 'transition'.

I am pre op only because I am also pre rich. Anyone got a few millions they don't need? I and a few friends know how to get some good use out of it

[vegie271]

there is actually a good reason to call it "transition" it is not simply an over night process where you decide one day I will be a womyn - put a dress on and walk out the next day and you are convincing to society - if it was that easy everyonecould do it and there would never be any hate crimes or any need for gender therapists or support groups.

you need time to learn what it is really like to present just like cis gender womyn do, how to walk and talk, do your hair, voice , attitude, how not to walk next to a van in a parking lot, simple things THEY learn when they are 6 years old that we never learned as maab!

there are things that male privilege don't prepare you for in the real female world and transition is what that is for.

yes the decison is instant but the transition must be a process a real life test

[Lesley_Roberta]

Hehe see you illustrate my point

Semantics.

It will take me time to learn some of the remodeling skills, but, that is just a matter of not knowing all there is to buying panties.

But there are no shortage of women out there my age, and it looks almost like they never had mothers in their lives to teach them how to dress decently as women too.

There are a range of things I won't need to learn. Like why some colours of panties are better than others for certain portions of the month. That particular experience is something I won't be in need of mastering.

In some ways I see women that act like nothing like women. But, some cis females do sometimes seem to take for granted that they have the parts to prove they are female in the eyes of the public. But there is more to being a woman, than female parts.

I am plenty woman in plenty of ways already and in plenty of ways, I am simply limited in ways outside of my control. My inability to sit 'lady like' is partially a result of health limitations. It greatly hurts my knees to cross them, it bothers my joints to sit in a variety of positions. It will always be a matter of considerable effort to sit appropriately in a skirt or dress.

There are a whole range of learned experiences of course, but I see cis females all day that clearly haven't learned them either hehe.

Most cis females don't suffer male pattern hair loss, and it plays hell with my looks. Even the more flat like of females tends to be shaped more readily for female attire. And going from a standing stop and possessing nothing but male apparel to a female ward robe, well unless a person is also wealthy, my attire is going to take some time.

I have a sister in law, they have been remodeling their home since I got married into the family hehe. Almost 3 decades now. And they are still no where near finished.
Some remodeling takes a loooooong time.

But the semantics of the matter is a lot of people refer to the remodeling as the 'transitioning' when the only part of a person that 'transitions' as I see it, occurs between the ears. And that is all a matter of decision. Even though that decision can take a long time for some persons.

My process was less than a day. Maybe I was lucky, in my resolution.

[E-Brennan]

It's semantics.  Or perception.  Or human diversity.

I agree that the process of learning the ins and outs of being a passable, functioning female in society takes a long time, and it's a work in progress over many years for many people.  That's traditionally a "transition".

But I also agree that the decision to stop being a prisoner in your own body, the decision to take control and live happily instead of miserably, can be instantaneous.  Like the decision to quit smoking, or cut out meat from your diet, some people can almost flick a switch and be done with it while others waver and vacillate and ponder for years before deciding.  Neither is better than the other, although I wish I was someone who was able to make that instant decision, to draw a line beneath the old me and start afresh moving forward.  I'm still on the fence, and I wish I was more like you, Lesley_Roberta, in that you've managed to stop seeing yourself as broken and lost at sea, and you've taken full control and decided that you make the rules when it comes to your own happiness and gender identity.  I admire your strong "this is my life and I'm grabbing it by the horns" attitude!  I'm still in the "why is this happening to me?" mindset, and I'm still a long way from "it's happening - now deal with it".

I suppose for some, the "transition" process is more mental, while for others it's more physical.  It depends on where we define our own boundaries between what is male and what is female.  Are we female when we realize that in our own minds we're truly female, regardless of physical presentation, or are we only female when we step out of the house wearing a dress?  These transition points are highly individual, and we each mark that moment differently.  I don't want to be the person to define someone else's perception of their own gender - that's where the problems start.  But from a practical perspective, a transition should be approached correctly from a mental and from a physical standpoint, simply because while the internal mental transition can be very quick, we can't all just wake up and put on a dress and prance out of the house where we'll be fully accepted as female in society.  The transition process, from a physical standpoint, is as much about us learning how to live as females in society as it is teaching society how to accept us as female.  That takes time.

I've come to realize that it's not so much about what anyone else thinks, but rather it's about what makes you yourself feel "right".  If there's one thing we should all agree on, it's that labels and categories are bad.  (That said, it sometimes helps if we're all on the same page as to what commonly-used words mean!)

[vegie271]

It's semantics.  Or perception.  Or human diversity.

I agree that the process of learning the ins and outs of being a passable, functioning female in society takes a long time, and it's a work in progress over many years for many people.  That's traditionally a "transition".

But I also agree that the decision to stop being a prisoner in your own body, the decision to take control and live happily instead of miserably, can be instantaneous.  Like the decision to quit smoking, or cut out meat from your diet, some people can almost flick a switch and be done with it while others waver and vacillate and ponder for years before deciding.

exactly - and I see her point her decision TO do it was immediate just like when I became Vegan it WAS a snap decision I saw something and it was a moral thing and I did not go back

she has found something in herself and this is something that is resolved and real

I maintain that you are female - but there will still be a process that you have to go through

[Jenna Marie]

I think it's a matter of personal perception, and yours is interesting. I know I got tired of people claiming my transition wasn't over until I had a vagina (to ME, it was finished in 11 months when I had everything legally changed including at work and never presented male again, and it seemed ridiculous to claim that it lasted an extra 2 years because I had to save up the money). So I won't argue with how anyone chooses to define transition for themselves.

[vegie271]

I think it's a matter of personal perception, and yours is interesting. I know I got tired of people claiming my transition wasn't over until I had a vagina (to ME, it was finished in 11 months when I had everything legally changed including at work and never presented male again, and it seemed ridiculous to claim that it lasted an extra 2 years because I had to save up the money). So I won't argue with how anyone chooses to define transition for themselves.

I will be happier once the birth certificate is changed - even though SRS is probably not going to be done ever, maybe an orchi if I can save by stealth

[Lo]

I'm not even sure I could say that the decision was "instantaneous" for me. I went from female, to bigender, to female, to genderfluid, to genderqueer, to nonbinary, to genderless. Being nonbinary is hard in that there is no definitive endgame. There is no passing to aspire to. Every day is its own opportunity to "transition" in a way.

To me, it was very much a choice: after about a solid year of active questioning and wondering, I made the decision to stop ignoring myself. I have a long, detailed history of being able to do just that. I can pretty easily forget to eat, to shower, to stick up for myself, to do what's best for me. I have nearly passed out from bodily pain that I wasn't even aware of, I was ignoring myself so completely. "Why can't I breathe and why am I seeing little white spots everywhere?" I wondered, not even making the connection to the pain. Deciding I was who I thought I was turned out to be a long, arduous process.

So "transition" feels more right than anything to me.