levels of GID for Androgynes, Bi-gendered, etc

[Fae]

I curse the medical establishment [imagine an emoticon spitting on the ground].  They can turn men into women and are close to turning women into men, but nothing for us.

I curse the rigid binary society that doesn't allow for open expression of who we are! 

Zythyra

Good curse, Z!

*nods*

Definitely.  As for the poll:

mild, it's really not bad at all

Used to be really bad a few months ago.  Right now I'm still on HRT (5 months) and now I'm thinking "Wait a minute..." and my GID isn't so bad...thinking of stopping HRT because I'm pretty content where I am now as just being a feminine person, but I'll always identify as a woman/female whatever my body is/isn't.

~Fae

[no_id]

*yawns and sips coffee*.. send me the flag and t-shirt and I'll go marching.. 

[Laurry]

Dang this topic!!!

Started thinking about this a few days ago when I originally responded and all of the sudden this weekend, BAM!!! It hit harder than ever and I ended up seriously contemplating whether SRS was in my future...sure ruined a light and frivolous weekend of doing nothing.   

Anyway, the dang thought is still rumbling around inside my head, and the desire to live full-time as female (with or without SRS) has been getting stronger by the day...

.....Laurry

[Shana A]

Dang this topic!!!

Sorry about that Laurry!

I know what you mean though, sometimes I'm going along just fine, not thinking about gender at all, and then someone posts a topic like this and I can't stop thinking about it. And yes, being androgyne is definitely a bit of a roller coaster ride Good luck figuring out the right path and just holler if you need to talk!

Zythyra

[RebeccaFog]

Next topic - "Is GID contagious?"

               Get away from from me you sick people.   Oh, it's too late, I've been suffering symptoms for a week.

[Shana A]

Good curse, Z!

Thanks Rebis!

More than that, I curse the stereotypes present in the current incarnations of the DSM, as they prevent any likelihood of us being recognised any time soon.  It will be several more incarnations of DSM, I think, before there is ANY chance of us being recognised.  We're, to put it mildly, f***ed for probably another 15-20 years MINIMUM.  Probably more.

Great curse Tay! Let's hope for quicker change than that. And wow, your dream was intense!

Next topic - "Is GID contagious?"

LOL. According to the fundies, it very well might be. We probably all caught GID from our radical androgyne elementary school teachers.  >

Z

[Laurry]

Next topic - "Is GID contagious?"

LOL. According to the fundies, it very well might be. We probably all caught GID from our radical androgyne elementary school teachers.  >

Z

I, for one, didn't have any radical androgyne elementary school teachers.  Had a couple of CYT female teachers, and couple of "older than dirt" female teachers (who, now that I think about it, may have been men in drag) and a male teacher that was either gay or a pervert (he sure liked those 5-6 grade girls), not sure which....oh well, never mind...forget I said anything...Oops

I'm blaming mine on those wackos in Sunday School.  According to them, Jesus loved everybody unless you were brown..."Red and Yellow, Black and White, they are precious in his sight"...no brown anywhere...maybe I should send a note to Carlos Mencia, eh?

Still, I wonder if a trip to the free clinic could cure my GTD (Gender-Transmitted Disease)?

******* Bad pun warning *******************
So, dude, my GP said I got GID as a GTD from that GQ-andro at the last get-together.
"Groovy, man...does this mean you can now read minds?"

Hey, you were warned

....Laurry

[Kaimialana]

Sometimes intense, but usually not. I'm not unhappy with the sex I was born with, but I wish I could be more of the other. I know that if I was somehow reborn the other sex, I would still feel the same way. If everyone was okay with who I am, I don't think it would matter as much.

[no_id]

******* Bad pun warning *******************
So, dude, my GP said I got GID as a GTD from that GQ-andro at the last get-together.
"Groovy, man...does this mean you can now read minds?"

Lol

As for GID being contagious...
... Hell YES

If it hadn't been for these forums I never would have discovered GID and realised it the reason for why I wondered my breasts wouldn't fall off and considered myself a mental nuttcase that belonged in an institution right next to Angelina Jolie receiving EST(!) rather than figuring I was normal and small adjustments could make me happy!

FAREWELL O MY FUTURE LOVES OF ZANEX, PROZAC AND ZOLOFT!........ may thou rest in peace.

(and this is where the dude goes "Amen"...)

[Doc]

     I think the same is happening to me.  It's different than it was before, though, because this time I know what my problem is.  Right now, it's not so devastating, but I am wary. I'm going to be careful about monitoring my feelings for a while so that I don't allow myself to crash.

I'm rooting for you.

I used to feel like I was pretty damn cool, and pretty damn brave, going around being a transgender person and not trying to modify my body, but the last like five months it's just been hellish. I was always afraid that I'd have some kinda freak-out like this, having heard that "GID never goes away, it just gets worse with age," and I wonder if I'll ever be able to get stable again like I was, or if my fear was totally well-founded. And if I never was brave or cool, just too wimpy to transition. I still don't know.

I wonder if it would make no difference what body we have?  I think I'd be better off female bodied  and you think you'd be better of male bodied.  It sure would be nice to know. I'm beginning to suspect it makes no difference.

I think for me, it would make a difference. The question is, would it be enough of a difference to be worth it?

I am sure that getting rid of my breasts would make a big positive difference in my comfort. They are a pain. Binding is physically uncomfortable (in the summer, miserably so) and reminds me that they are there, but is better than having them brush against things or just be hanging there on my chest or jiggling and reminding me that they're there in a visual as well as tactile way. Given that the necessity of seeing a gatekeeper-shrink to get permission (dammit, I am a frickin' adult!) to get them removed doesn't inflate the cost ridiculously, getting ftm chest-reconstruction surgery would be well worth it.

But I also know that I'm driven to distraction and rage by my social-status as a woman. HRT would (probably) make me look like (and thus be treated as) well, the just the androgynous guy I feel myself to be. Some small, bookish-lookin' unmasculine guy. I'd like to wear some fruity girly-boy clothes and would do so if I were male, and don't now because they make me seem more female and I'm already more female than I can stand. But I suppose it's just possible that HRT would change my character and appearance to be more masculine than I want or feel now, and right now inside I feel exactly who I want to be. I just wish that little andro-guy wasn't buried in the externally-created woman-persona and so rendered a non-existant person. And HRT isn't a one-shot deal like a surgery, it's an ongoing life-long thing, needing hormone supplements is a handicap and I don't want a handicap I don't need to have. Add to that all these mentioned but ill-studied health risks that go with it -- potential need for hysterectomy, shortened life-span. Plus the risk that it would alienate the people I love most and destroy my marriage. All that cost, just for the sake of being socially 'read' as a weird, androgynous man rather than a weird androgynous woman? Logically, I can't fathom how that would be worth it. And yet it is soooo tempting.

[deviousxen]

I chose extreme. I hate my body very much, except the face, which isn't very masculine. I hate the body hair so much (which for some reason, is SO over-masculinized, that It scares me) and I hate how I have more of it than some middle aged men. Most actually. It genuinely disgusts me.

I'm really skinny, but my muscles are pretty ripped in some places. I don't mind this as much because I don't have any bulk. This is a curse however, mixed with allergies, because putting weight on is an effort. I'm trying to herbally feminize, and I seem to have hit a rut.

I would, however, question surgery at the moment. I know it makes you happier often, but I've seen the videos of it, and heard of keeping it healthy, and that scares me a ot. I want to be a girl, but not the binary stereotype, I'm way too weird. I'm constantly on the side of a coin, which can flip between waiting on science, or getting it as soon as possible. I really don't want to live stuck in-between, even if I am slightly androgynous anyway. I want science to make it much cleaner. If there were fully body transplants, I'd prefer that over anything. That way, I'd feel comfortable in my body, and not have such a damaged shell which depresses and hinders me. I can dream, or hope. I guess If I don't see some new ideas besides the gory reality of modern SRS, I may go for it one day, but I am young and still tend to have dreams. I guess Science has deeply interested me over the years because it has a relevance to my own life's struggles. Its the thought that something advanced like that may one day be possible.

I consider SRS, the extreme, because I seriously feel not right in my own body. I wish it were flat and smooth down there. I wish I had boobs. I prefer to not be ruled by pure-testosterone, which makes my body feel unclean, which hinders my ambition with the sex drive, which makes me more like the monkeys I hate the most...The ones we came from.

The permanent quality of it all really scares me, but what are you gonna do?

As for it being contagious, I thought so for a while...That I was just making new pathways in my brain to be pre-disposed to thinking that way. I did look at a lot of weird TG stuff growing up in puberty early on. However, I've thought lately that all those cartoon things which made me question it in the first place are WAY too obscure for me to have just picked up on it. I think I remember wishing I were the villain of Dragon Ball Z way before puberty (who was pretty androgynous, but was more feminine than anything), but the only reason I remember is imagining having the same crotch. The fantasies were way too obscure. As puberty went through more, I questioned my orientation more than gender, but I started realizing that I still liked girls. I just didn't like my own role in the relationship. I didn't want to be the male side, but I still liked girls. So I guess how I came to this. Not through brainwash really, or contagion, but by random things shedding light on that part of my mind.

I myself am probably sounding really obscure and weird right now. Ha...

[Pica Pica]

This topic is so interesting when casting it in the light of the previous topics about whether androgyny is real.

It would seem from these responses that androgyny is the hiding or resting place of the indecisive or the cowardly. Maybe sometimes it is...but those who said that androgyny does not exist would have a lot of points to make based on this thread.

Yet even Doc, who seems to say that they would actually like to transition FtM, says that they want to become a male bodied androgyne Seems interesting that the mind is still androgyne, but the body wants to change. Seems to be something in that to tease out on a train journey or walk.

Deviousxen on the other hand seems to me to be an MtF, just an MtF that wants to become an androgynous female, and is confusing physical with psychological androgyny. I may be very, very wrong....It seems strange to me that they would be happiest with a full body swap - that being in a body with which they have absolutely no history with is better than the one that has followed their whole life. That they would feel more authentic in a body that is not theirs at all...meh.

Seems to be something to think about.

[Shana A]

This topic is so interesting when casting it in the light of the previous topics about whether androgyny is real.

It would seem from these responses that androgyny is the hiding or resting place of the indecisive or the cowardly. Maybe sometimes it is...but those who said that androgyny does not exist would have a lot of points to make based on this thread.

Yet even Doc, who seems to say that they would actually like to transition FtM, says that they want to become a male bodied androgyne Seems interesting that the mind is still androgyne, but the body wants to change. Seems to be something in that to tease out on a train journey or walk.

Yes, the responses are really interesting. Speaking for myself, I believe I'd prefer living w/ a female body, or at least the body I have w/ female secondary characteristics. I'm unwilling to do hrt though, due to long term health risks and having to be tethered to the medical establishment for the rest of my life. So I make do and live w/ the body I have. The aging part sucks though, in my mid 30s I could pass more easily without hrt, now I'm losing my hair. Oh well, I'll have to wear a hat 

Also, unlike TS folks who emphatically feel that they're their target gender, I know I'm not a man, however that doesn't automatically mean I'm a woman. I believe that many places in between exist. If I were to decide transition physically, I'd simply be a person who externally appeared to be a woman, w/ an altered male body and a deep voice, and I wouldn't deny my past. It is what it is.

Zythyra

[Seshatneferw]

One way to look at it is that we are the ones who really talk about gender identity, separate from sex: it seems that for a large number of us (myself included), the goal is not to have an androgyne sex but rather an androgyne gender, and quite a few have already got there. Looking at things this way, I don't really have any gender identity dysphoria at all, although I do have a moderate-to-severe body image dysphoria.

  Nfr

[RebeccaFog]

But I also know that I'm driven to distraction and rage by my social-status as a woman. HRT would (probably) make me look like (and thus be treated as) well, the just the androgynous guy I feel myself to be. Some small, bookish-lookin' unmasculine guy. I'd like to wear some fruity girly-boy clothes and would do so if I were male, and don't now because they make me seem more female and I'm already more female than I can stand. But I suppose it's just possible that HRT would change my character and appearance to be more masculine than I want or feel now, and right now inside I feel exactly who I want to be. I just wish that little andro-guy wasn't buried in the externally-created woman-persona and so rendered a non-existant person. And HRT isn't a one-shot deal like a surgery, it's an ongoing life-long thing, needing hormone supplements is a handicap and I don't want a handicap I don't need to have. Add to that all these mentioned but ill-studied health risks that go with it -- potential need for hysterectomy, shortened life-span. Plus the risk that it would alienate the people I love most and destroy my marriage. All that cost, just for the sake of being socially 'read' as a weird, androgynous man rather than a weird androgynous woman? Logically, I can't fathom how that would be worth it. And yet it is soooo tempting.

Isn't it possible to do HRT for a time period.  After achieving some of the desired effects, you just quit.  I don't think your facial changes will reverse.

[Shana A]

One way to look at it is that we are the ones who really talk about gender identity, separate from sex: it seems that for a large number of us (myself included), the goal is not to have an androgyne sex but rather an androgyne gender, and quite a few have already got there. Looking at things this way, I don't really have any gender identity dysphoria at all, although I do have a moderate-to-severe body image dysphoria.

That's a great point Nfr. It does seem that many of us here don't have any problem with our identity, the question is more about how to express that outwardly, including whether to modify body to match our inner awareness. When I posted this poll, I was hesitant to use the term GID, but couldn't think of another way to write it so I left it as is.

Zythyra

[Caroline]

Isn't it possible to do HRT for a time period.  After achieving some of the desired effects, you just quit.  I don't think your facial changes will reverse.

I'm pretty much certain that fat redistribution will reverse as soon as you get back on your natural hormones.

[Kaimialana]

One way to look at it is that we are the ones who really talk about gender identity, separate from sex: it seems that for a large number of us (myself included), the goal is not to have an androgyne sex but rather an androgyne gender, and quite a few have already got there. Looking at things this way, I don't really have any gender identity dysphoria at all, although I do have a moderate-to-severe body image dysphoria.

  Nfr

Thats actually how I always look at it. I have a certain sex, but gender is something appart from it, and when I talk about being an androgyne, I mean that I am both male and female genders. I try to get to the point where I feel right as an androgyne, which means allowing all aspects of my gender to show, both male and female, and it won't matter if I have HRT to the ability to achieve that. If I get HRT, it will only be as a enhancement to the recognition of that gender identity, but will be focused on how my physical body looks, so yes, a body image dysphoria seems more correct.

[chillin]

I am happy with my body except for my face at times I mean its cute but I look at photo shots at women newspaper columnists or business women and I feel like I should have a female face at times.  I really really want to grow out my hair and start wearing a female hairstyle ASAP so maybe getting a female hiarstyle may clear my mind off of having a female face. If I were to have female face yes I would want my voice to obviuosly to have a more female sound to it. I used to feel uncomfortable about my chest since I am male but it looks angryounous since I am flat chested and it my chest matches me as identifying as an angrogyne perfectly I think. I have no interest in changing my genitalia.

[no_id]

The lament of wonderment...

I realised that the chances I will ever see a GID-specialist/therapist are mere since Androgyny remains rather unidentified and I fear that a psychologist will attribute my present being to past misfortunes, and explain my behaviour, my feelings, to logical trails of recognition.

How is that for others?