Quote from: Laurie on July 20, 2017, 11:47:00 AMI can however turn the tables on you and pose the question: Do you think that you will treat others differently now that you're on the other side and you are physically who you've always wanted to be? The short answer I am sure is going to be "no" but I pose the question as food for thought. Your world today is different now than what it was before.
OMG, this is such a great question, Laurie. I really had to sit down and think about it.
Yes, the answer is yes. For the better, mostly, in a lot of different ways. Like, just knowing what it's like, first hand, the absolute relief of having it done, there's a sense that I'm kind of waiting and beckoning over here on the other side, like I've crossed a river and now I reach out my hand and help pull to shore those swimming across this river; there's a kinship I had with others who passed over near to when I did, the kinship of having completed a journey more or less together with someone else. It's given me so much more confidence, that surely changes how I treat others, because I'm much less likely to respond and act out of my own need and dysphoria and fear. I was single at the time, and that definitely opened up my sexuality; I could now freely flirt with other people, especially men.
And within a few months I disappeared. Having finished everything in my transition that I needed to finish, it was time to move on. I think this is pretty common in the community -- no longer in the throes of transition, and having different needs to (finally) attend to, there's much less impetus to interact with the community at large, not having this pressing need in common with others still making their journey. When I did check in, it was only with the few women I'd formed life-long friendships with, others who like me had gone on to transsex after transition. For years and years and years, I never even frequented an internet forum like this one.
Now, coming back, my motivation to participate is different. I'm now in the position of paying forward the kind of help I received way back when, at least while I attend to a second sort of transition -- the transition that so many middle-aged women often make to stave off the effects of aging (getting into shape, stepping up my beauty regimen, and looking into things like face lifts and liposuction and skin resurfacing; going back to zap the few pesky hairs I'd previously been content to pluck 10 minutes a day; rebuilding my wardrobe to something more (and less) appropriate for a woman my age; scar revisions; implementing a hormone regimen based on cycling; and quite possibly some other procedures like changing my under-the-muscle implants for over-the-muscle implants, and a BBL, maybe even some minor facial revisions like another lip lift and nose job and so on), which I myself justify based on "lost time" from my proper youth.
So yeah, Laurie, SRS really tends to change people who have it (which is kind of the point), and that necessarily in turns changes or influences how we are with other people. Hopefully, though, it changes us for the better.
