Why TS's say that those with a choice aren't really TS

[tinkerbell]

Personally, I think transition is a *beautiful* thing. It's not some awful death sentence, though these people do their best to paint it as some horrific experience in order to make themselves look like martyred, reluctant heroes.

Transition is not horrific per se.  I viewed it as my bridge to freedom if you will.  It is the many obstacles you encounter along the way which make it seem impossible to accomplish at times.  Crossing that bridge is NOT easy (in fact, it is one of the most difficult things anyone can do) and anyone who says otherwise is merely denying the truth.  Setting your foot on that bridge for the very first time takes courage, determination, and a great deal of strength.  Making your first step is knowing that this is what you have to do for there is no other way.  The third step is more painful than the second, the fourth even more so than the one before (for you feel as dying every time you advance an inch more), but as you go through it, you become stronger, wiser, and when you see yourself at the end of the bridge, you realize that it was all worth it, but most importantly, you made it, you  survived.  So yes, we are winners, we are survivors, we are lucky, we are heroes indeed.

tink

[karmatic1110]

Why TS's say that those with a choice aren't really TS

Because some people build an identity based on being victimized and martyred. Choice = responsibility, and they need to avoid responsibility at all costs lest they not be passive, helpless victims anymore. Plus it destroys the whole, "Don't transition! It's the most terrible thing you'll ever go through and only people like me could do it!" bragging. Some people are self-destructive, and it manifests in both thought and action. Endless suicide "attempts," self-mutilations, drug addictions...

My guess is these people have never worked through their own internalized shame and guilt, so it HAS to be "no choice" so they and others can't "blame" them for the things they feel shameful about.

Personally, I think transition is a *beautiful* thing. It's not some awful death sentence, though these people do their best to paint it as some horrific experience in order to make themselves look like martyred, reluctant heroes.

Here's some thoughts:

1) Transition itself has it's risks and troubles. But it CAN be relatively easy to do IF IF IF you can get through your own guilt and shame about doing it. If I could go back and transition again, knowing what I know now and not needing to get over myself so much... aside from the damage to my marriage, it would pretty much be a non-event.

2) You don't have to "be a woman inside" to justify transitioning. All that stuff it political wackiness thrown about by people trying to justify something they feel insecure about themselves, IMHO. Needs > Reasons.

3) Just do what YOU need to do to "transition." Everyone's needs are unique, as is everyone's transition. For God's sake, don't get caught up in all the endless battles of what makes a "Real TS" and "Real Woman." Don't do something because some insecure person tells you "All real TSs would..." Do you want to be a Real TS? Or a real YOU? Figure YOURSELF out, and let them have their pointless battles while you go off and fix what you gotta fix to be happy. You don't need to please THEM or fit someone's definitions to be happy... you just gotta be YOU.

~Kate~

Honestly I think that this post says it all.  Since coming here I have seen a progression of divides that really are disturbing.  It's a shame that people think that thier experience is automatically "How it is". 

Imagine for a second that two people were at the same party.  One focused on a couple arguing the entire night and the other focused on this group of people having a bunch of fun.  Because the human brain can only intake so much, neither persons' perception is entirely true. 

Opinions based on experiences may be true, however they are not fact.  One couldn't possibly get the whole experience and so people's experiences differ and the sad part is we are arguing over something so MINOR. 

Transition and live your life, and stop arguing over how people phrase their experience.   

Charlotte

[Sophia]

I feel the same way about this.

Saying that I didn't have a choice would imply to me personally that I don't take responsiblity for my actions and that I am unable to control my life at all.

Nice to know I'm not the only one .

Megan

You definately aren't the only one. It really is a choice for me. I'm weighing the costs (emotional, physical, health related, financial, and social) of pursuing transition with the costs (emotional, health related and mental) of not pursuing transition.

I pride myself on being a person that can take a lot of emotional and mental punishment so it remains to be seen if I can make due with just dressing as me and such. Day by day however the choice is starting to look like a choice between being a transitioned woman and being almost completely nonfunctional or even dead.

But that's still a choice.

And really, a transsexual is someone who has Gender Identity Disorder, not someone who believes they are fated to get surgery. Feeling that I do have a choice (even if its a really awful choice) doesn't make my GID any less real. It just means I'm willing to see my own responsibility for my actions as real.

Just because someone wants to play the victim or martyr card so they don't have to take responsibility for their life doesn't mean they ought run around telling people that their gender identity is invalid.

Posted on: August 04, 2007, 01:22:07 PM

get a second opinion, even a third a fourth a fifth.  You got a choice.  what do you want to do this for? 

I chose to be happy. Why is that so confusing?

It really shouldn't be. For some reason people are refusing to see that even a very negative or awful choice is still a choice. There's no magical SRS fairy that sprinkles us with mind control dust and makes us go under the knife.

And our GID doesn't just teleport into the Abyss if we decide we can't afford the surgery or we decide that we can handle the pain of being in the wrong body structure. Its still alive and kicking no matter what you do.

[Rachael]

personally, i had no choice to transition, but i had my choices in HOW i transitioned... i couldnt live as male, im a girl. end of.
BUT there is choice, as much as we try to claim were ->-bleeped-<-er or more female, and that there isnt. one could very well die a male, you could comit suicide, many have. the choice is to live, and to live is to be yourself.

R

[Nero]

This is all just semantics here. A choice to transition or commit suicide is still a choice.

[Rachael]

yarrp


R

[Melissa]

Agreed.  I don't think it's a choice to transition or live unhappily as a male, but rather a choice to transition now or later for the transsexual.  Choices yes, but transition (perhaps later) or suicide are the two inevitable results.

I started another controversial topic.

[Rachael]

hehe, wellcome to the contraversial club! good topic, make more like it!
R

[Kate]

So yes, we are winners, we are survivors, we are lucky, we are heroes indeed.

Quite so, and let me say that I DO realize that you, Cindy, Keira and many others DID go through hades to get where you are. I'd never want to dismiss your struggle and pain and the courage it took to forge through all that regardless of the cost.

BUT, I just think it's important to note that it's not always that way. Transitions are unique to the individual, their particular environment, and *especially* to their particular inner struggle within themselves to come to terms with this. THAT'S the main battleground it seems... how we decide to explain to ourselves who we are, what we need to do, and why we need to do it.

Yes, I too got to a "transition or death" point in my life. But transitioning was STILL a choice I made. I chose to accept my fate, I chose to accept this as my challenge for this lifetime. Taking that choice away from me takes away my self-esteem, as I'm unbelievably proud of myself for doing this in spite of all the dire warnings I received, both from others AND my own insecurities.

But looking back now, aside from my marital problems, all the battles and trauma and worries I went through were pretty much ONLY in my own head. THAT was my struggle, that was the only real problem. *I* was the problem, the hell, the torture... my own insecurities and fears which seem a natural consequence of bottling something like this up for four decades. Aside from that, nothing bad happened to me while transitioning. Strangers congratulated me, told me I'm brave, and even THANKED me for doing it.. saying it's inspired them to pursue THEIR needs.

I once asked my muse, "This is just too good to be true... are you telling me I can do ANYTHING?"

She just smiled that mischevious smile of hers, and said, "No... but you can do THIS."

And so I did. I DID it. My choice. And no one can take that away from me now: no "read" from strangers, no xy chromosomes test, no one telling me I'm not "real" because I'm not like them. If someone asks you, "why did you transition?" and you reply with anything other than "because I CHOSE to," then you're going to spend the rest of your life chasing a ghost and looking over your shoulder. If it was "because I had no choice," you're going to spend decades defending that by being suicidal and self-destructive to prove it. If it's "because I'm a woman inside," you're going to be locked in endless battles to defend your idea of what a "real woman" is. If it's "because I'm a transsexual," then you're going to be constantly defining to people what a "real transsexual" is.

But if you just say, "because I chose to," the debate stops. That's it. Done. What's to attack? People can tell you they think it's a stupid choice, but so what? They're not me. Right or wrong, good idea or bad, I CHOSE TO DO THIS, and I stand by that choice the best way I know how...

By LIVING it as best I can.

~Kate~

[Robyn]

True it was a choice for me. Transition or kill myself eventually.So yes it was a choice and I chose life!

When I out myself (happens a lot on cruise ships), I try to make it a teachable moment.  The way you describe choice is also the way I do it, Jonni.  The choice is whether or not to pull the trigger or to swallow the pills.  I too chose life.

Once diagnosed as TS, I didn't really consider 'choice.'  I listened to the still quiet voice and took a next step when it felt right.  Was I ever scared or nervous?  Of course.  If someone isn't doing some soul searching as the surgery date looms, that's a person I'd be worried about.

"On the gurney, Doctor?  Mmmmm.  Nice warm blanket.  Count???   100, 99, 98, ,,,,, 97,,,,,......____________"

Robyn

[cindianna_jones]

Tink,

Thanks for posting those links.  I will always tell someone to turn away from this and never come back to it if they can.  If you can make a choice to stay away, please do so.  None of this is a happy path.  There are many problems to deal with for the rest of your life. 

Relationships, at best, are strained.  My husband has to put up with all the old crap my family manages to come up with the dig up every few months.  He's a sweetheart... somehow it makes our relationship stronger.... I don't know why.  Still, I know it is very difficult for him.

In regards to transition, I did make choices.  In my case, it would have been better I had made those choices much earlier in my life.  I may have prevented much unhappiness for so many people.  Still, I have no regrets.  I know that I did the best that I could.  Had I to live my life over, I doubt that my choices would have been much different.

I wonder for those who do manage to write of their regrets in transition, if a simple castration would have helped clear their head for a time.  My best friend and I have discussed this at length.  She wonders this for herself.  She does not regret transition but she wonders about the influences of testosterone and the fetishes on people's choices to transition.

Certainly if you tend to sit on the fence and suddenly come to a realization that this is the thing to do, you might consider an orchiectomy first.  After all, you probably don't want to have children being so messed up in the first place.  If you can free yourself from the testosterone, perhaps it may help.  I am not a physician and I'm just throwing this out as an idea to help prevent someone from falling into transition  where they might not belong.  Please don't consider this sound advice by any means!

Cindi

[Yvonne]

Transition can be thought as a form of choice when you're still undecided of what you are.  Agree with Robyn.  Once you know it isn't a choice anymore.  Other peeps like me always knew we didnt have alternatives so it was never a question of choice.  If I had had a choice, I would have decided to forget about transition.  Nobody in their right mind and having a choice would want to subject themselves to this horrid struggle.

[Kate]

Transition can be thought as a form of choice when you're still undecided of what you are.  Agree with Robyn.  Once you know it isn't a choice anymore.

I do agree with this... sorta.

Seeing The Truth inside ourselves reveals what must be done. And sometimes, people take it backwards and try to do things in order to make something true... which is when people get into trouble.

Still though, even though I only had one path before me, I still chose to take that first step... and the next.. and...

Nobody in their right mind and having a choice would want to subject themselves to this horrid struggle.

Why not? It's certainly a gamble, but nowhere it is written in stone that ALL transitions are a horrid struggle or that "None of this is a happy path". Maybe for some people, yes it is that way. But not always, not for everyone. Is it possible that it's our own internalized transphobia that makes us say it's not a choice? That only insane people would choose this?

Think about it: imagine someone coming here and saying, "Hey, I was thinking... I'm curious what living as the other sex would be like, so I decided to transition and find out. Life is short, and I want to experience it from both sides."

Can you IMAGINE the responses they'd get? I sure can. They'd be roasted alive. But WHY? Is changing one's sex THAT shameful, that "wrong" that it's only OK to do if we can justify it somehow through "no choice," or "I'm a REAL woman inside!" or whatever?

This whole thing is just one big ocean of shame and guilt... to the point I don't think people even SEE it anymore, just like birds don't notice the air or fish the sea. We're so USED to it, everyone has grown up IN it... it's like we're so used to thrashing around, trying to avoid drowning, we don't realize that we're in the shallow end and all we have to do is just... stand up.

~Kate~

[MeganRose]

I don't really appreciate it being alluded to that those who see themselves as having a choice are not in their "right minds" if they go ahead with their transition. Calling someone crazy because they made a decision to make their life better, instead of just feeling like they just had to do it and had no other option, is in no way a fair judgement to be making and it hurts me when people start to throw it out there.

There is still a decent part of the population who would say that we are all crazy for trying to change our sex, that we should just cop what we were dealt and just live with it. It doesn't help when the same sentiments start echoing around between TS people for what really seems to be the most petty of reasons. If you know you aren't crazy for transitioning, you know it would hurt if people started to think you were and make off-hand remarks about it. Please have some consideration before you keep posting things like this.

Megan

[Sophia]

I don't really appreciate it being alluded to that those who see themselves as having a choice are not in their "right minds" if they go ahead with their transition. Calling someone crazy because they made a decision to make their life better, instead of just feeling like they just had to do it and had no other option, is in no way a fair judgement to be making and it hurts me when people start to throw it out there.

*gives Megan hugs*

Personally I think its the strangest bit of irony that they allude to such a thing. Those of us that recognize that we're responsible for our decisions and that this is a choice (no matter how nasty of a choice it may admittedly be) are the ones that are in our right mind. Mainly because we are capable of actually admitting to reality.

Those that delude themselves into thinking that its fate, or make themselves think that they're so freaking crazy they don't have a choice because of they need some kind of ridiculous justification for something that shouldn't be such a huge social issue, those are the ones that frighten me. Its so horrifically self destructive to act as though "real transsexuals" have no choice at all and attach this specter of insanity to our actions just so one can justify it to one's own shame or the social judgments of others.

And I think we can all agree that belittling people that don't share our views and claiming their GID is not as valid or needs to be checked out because they view their responsibilities for their life in a different way is just vicious and wrong.

I may think that the people that are making all these nasty implications about me, and Megan and others may not have a firm grasp on reality and are setting themselves up for a fall long after transition, but I would never make the claim that their GID isn't valid.

Very shameful.

[Kimberly]

Know? No no, once I realized that being in the state that I was was the thing that was causing so SO much of the pain, I made a choice. But yes I did still have a choice, I think... it is not like there was much debate

^*shrug* Perhaps it is just differing perceptions.
Actually it probably is perception all in all. I know I was a girl in my last life, four footed and furred. An I know I almost was a girl in this life. What I did not realize until I decided to transition that in this life what was causing me so much pain is that I still am a girl and that mismatch of self, SELF and body was causing me a great deal of hurt.  Mind, When I was still in grade school and realized that I would "swap sexes if I could have a proper body" I really, REALLY should have got a clue from that, lol.

But all in all I believe tolerances run differently. I, personally, am not going to try and judge how trans someone is, at the very least because I know I do not have enough information and frankly it isn't my business anyway. If someone hurts I am sorry, I do what I can and I CARE...

So, differing perceptions or differences of opinion not withstanding, does it matter?

[Fer]

If I had had a choice, I would have decided to forget about transition.  Nobody in their right mind and having a choice would want to subject themselves to this horrid struggle.

I wholeheartedly agree with this.  Its harsh to grasp but its the truth.  Only someone who is a masochist or mental would choose to lose family, friends, jobs, spouses, children, and finances over all this.  I did all that because there wasnt another option.  Death was one but I didnt want to kill myself so I guess I made a decision at the end, I chose to live and be me.
I may be trying to come across as a martyr .  Dunno what makes me more of a martyr; to say that I hadnt a choice or to say that I did have a choice and that all that I cry over for what happens in my life now is because of that choice I made.

Moreover, if I had a choice and chose to transition, why shall I cry over the hardships of transition then?  Its what I have chosen, innit?

[MeganRose]

I wholeheartedly agree with this.  Its harsh to grasp but its the truth.  Only someone who is a masochist or mental would choose to lose family, friends, jobs, spouses, children, and finances over all this.  I did all that because there wasnt another option.  Death was one but I didnt want to kill myself so I guess I made a decision at the end, I chose to live and be me.

Well, I didn't lose any friends, didn't have a partner, don't have any children, haven't lost a job, and my family are slowly coming to accept me. Sure I've had to spend a fair amount of money on the process, I've had to face a lot of ignorance as far as the general public goes, and there was a while where my family and I weren't on speaking terms, but that's it. Can you please explain why am I mental or a masochist FOR CHOOSING TO TRY AND MAKE MY LIFE BETTER?

I'm sorry, but no-one here has a right to call me crazy and it's really getting to me. I'm sure those who don't believe they had a choice, or a choice only between transition or suicide, would not appreciate being called insane for feeling that way, can you PLEASE step back and try and see that you are really offending quite a few people here who in no way deserve that type of treatment? Try and have some compassion, as human beings we all deserve that.

Megan

[Fer]

Try and have some compassion, as human beings we all deserve that.

Megan

To ask for compassion, peeps have to learn how to give it first.  Have you considered the possibility that I might have been offended and hurt when you and others call transition a choice? 

[MeganRose]

To ask for compassion, peeps have to learn how to give it first.  Have you considered the possibility that I might have been offended and hurt when you and others call transition a choice? 

I'm in no way making universal claims. I stated that I saw MY transition as MY choice. And I specifically stated that this was my opinion, which I was only applying to myself. I have no issue with you if you feel that you had no choice, and I have in no way tried to devalue your feelings or your beliefs. Why you would feel hurt by what I believe about myself and no other individual I cannot understand. I'm sorry if others HAVE tried to do this, it's not fair and I would apologise on their behalf if I could.

But calling anyone who sees transition as a choice insane is NOT talking about the individual. You are labelling a lot of people in an offensive way because they have experienced things in a different way from you. I'm sorry, but I don't appreciate it. I find this to be directly insulting, to be devalued in this way for what seems like no rational reason. I can understand why you might be uncomfortable with the idea that some people can see transition as a choice, but that is no reason to make comments implying they are crazy.

Really, I'm offended because in my eyes you should know better.

Megan