QuoteI've read or at least skimmed over two-thirds of the articles in the reference library here, and have ordered several books from the IFGE bookstore:
Hazumu, It is good to read the experience and ideas of others and to learn what you can from it, but just for your own good, keep such things out of the terapysts office.
the therapyst wants to hear about you, and how you feel, in the actual sense, not about how you perceive you should be from others have said. In fact, should you get in contact with one of the better specialist, they will likely be familiar with most of those books and if they think you are simply quoting from them in order to sound more "real" will catch and trap you easily and quickly and all that will do is make it harder for you to make yourself belieavable rather then just someone who has cheated on a test trying to get a score they could not otherwise have achieved.
From a lot of what I have read in a lot of writings on many TS/TG boards, there is all to much that comes across like so much is simply a lot of quoting from such books to make themselves sound good. It is who you are, how you relate and what you really want out of life in the future that matters and that can only come from you and if you try or seem to try for any reason to make it somewhere you would really not want to go, all you can do is hurt yourself, so easy on the books, just be introspective about yourself and what you really want and what that will mean to you some years from now when what you are and what you have is all you will have.
I know that there is always concern about how masculine one may have become over life simply because that is the way they have lived, but that is not a bad thing, nor is it unusuall. MY own psychologiyst and my two psychiatrists have never once seen me in dresses or skirts or in full makeup or with carefully styled hair etc. They always see me just as I am on any day of the week and I never get fancy about anything unless it is special and none of them have a problem with that.
I remember one day when my psychologist asked me about my voice. There are times when I have to change an appointment or can't make it on a particular day and when that happens I call him to explain it and ask for a new date.
what confused him was that I always answered or talked on the phone with a much closer feminine voice then I normally talk to people who i know well, and he asked about it one day after I had phoned to change an appointment and saw him a few days later.
I simply explained to him that I simply am not as careful with such things in person when I know who I am talking to and it didn't matter to me much if I lost a little of sounding fem to them as genderally in such a case the person I would be talking to perfectly well knew my status anyway. I most always sounded more fem on phone though out of habit unless again, I knew who I was talking to knew and even if they did, I would still do it anyway, again, out of habit. He was perfectly satisphied with that. It was just that in his office I would often gravitate to my more normal masculine voice which is most often a little soft anyway.
All I'm saying is that from reading books and material from others you can easily obtain ideas of what psychs expect to hear and if those things aren't quite like that in your natural person it can work the wrong way for you or set you up for a verbal trap.
I would hope you wouldn't fall for doing such things, but I only mention it as a precaution as this is new to you and you don't know what to expect. Be honest with everything you must answer and you won't have a problem. good luck with it all.
spend your time thinking about the realities of it all, like why do you want to be a woman, how would that be different to you from being a man and what do you expect your life to be like as a woman and how will you handle or think you will handle problems with people who know about you or reject you because of the change. The simple REAL things in life, not just simple wants and desires.
Terri
