Quote from: Zoetrope on August 17, 2017, 02:00:44 AM
Coming from the other side of the tracks, I find it hard to understand how somebody can 'know' who they are at age 4,5 or 6 ... when we are just taking our first steps into self-discovery!
It's one of those things we will have to agree to disagree about. What does it mean to truly know something ... what standard is acceptable for us? It's very personal!
I don't understand what it is we have to disagree about unless you're trying to tell my my own mind? When you started kindergarten or 1st grade, didn't you know what you were then? Haven't 99.4% of people figured out what gender they are by the time they are 6 or 7 and for most folks, doesn't that stay stable and consistent throughout their lives? Go ask 500 3rd graders if they're boys or girls and see how few question or have the least bit of doubt of what they are. Gender is the foundation cornerstone of personality and identity as any child development book will tell you. I just happened to know that I wasn't a boy. What's so hard to understand about that and what is there to debate or disagree about unless you're suggesting I was too young to know which is a pretty common theme among anti-trans detractors and the poorly informed.
Quote from: amandam on August 17, 2017, 02:08:31 AM
Lisa_K, maybe you're just braver than some. Maybe the circumstances around you made it easier, there was someone you could count on, like a mom or aunt. It's hard to say... God, I wish I was like you, young now, living in a home where it could be okay, where I could cry in my mom's lap and she'd help me be happy.
There was nothing brave involved in this at all with maybe the exception of facing all the crap in school that I did. As far as a supportive home environment, I was encouraged toward masculinity and given every opportunity to express that but it was never forced after my parents divorced when I was six. Before then was a different story. It was also very obvious this inclination was ill suited to my personality and who I was, what I wanted to do, what I wanted to play with and who my friends were. It didn't take a rocket scientist to pick up on my vibe and one of the reasons, against all conventions of the early 1960's I was able to grow my hair out after the 2nd grade because I was so damned miserable and why I had dolls and Barbies and tea party sets and EZ Bake ovens growing up. Locking me in a cage or beating the crap out of me wouldn't have made any difference in who or how I was. Nothing could have or ever has.
As a very young child, my exclamations about being a girl were suppressed, often times physically or with other punishment and all that taught me was that I couldn't talk about it but that didn't stop me from acting the way I naturally was which was never perceived by anyone as being anything like a "normal boy". As I got older, my personality, looks and innate, un-practiced femininity branded me as a queer fairy homo ->-bleeped-<- resulting in a few incidents of extreme violence and terror beyond the routine harassment and bullying. It wasn't until I was nearly beaten to death when I was 15 that I was again able to say the words out loud to someone else that "I
am a girl". As I posted before, my mother's response was that she had always known who I was and was just waiting to hear me say it. With all cards on the table, things changed significantly for me after that.
I never had any doubts or questioned any of this. There was never some long process of self-discovery and awareness. I had always been aware and painfully so. What I didn't understand was why I had to have a boy's body. That took longer to figure out and I still can't say I have it figured out completely other than it was just some fluke of nature. I spent most of my childhood thinking I was a mistake or broken.
Quote from: FinallyMichelle on August 17, 2017, 03:18:58 AM
Lol, Do people feel superior or more trans, more a girl because they did it this way and others didn't? They were brave enough to be themselves and others were not? They learned what others did not? Really?
... I am more than ready to accept inferiority to everyone, that's on me. If someone tries to push their superiority on me, that just makes me sad.
And now we've come full circle. People wishing they had a life like mine thinking things were so much easier for me which can come across as jealousy or envy or develops into it if history is any indication while others are projecting their illusions of superiority on me when I've done nothing to insinuate such a thing. This is so typical of the things that most trans kids hear and why most avoid communities like this one like the plague.
My intentions in posting my thoughts and story in this thread wasn't to throw my differences in anyone's face, to be hurtful or somehow claim my experience was better than anyone else's and I apologize for interrupting your little party with a different perspective. The point was not to be better or "more trans" (Jeezus!) just that some of us have a very different narrative and a different life experience. Not that I would have wanted things to be any different in the way I grew up because I did have advantages and the opportunity to just be myself but how do you all think coming at me with attitude makes me feel? Amazed at how tribal we all are for one thing which has only reinforced for me that in spite of some of our similarities, we are all very much not the same. Again, not better. Just different. Just as some of you have a hard time imagining what it would have been like to have walked in my shoes, I have an equally hard time imagining what it would be like to walk in yours. In fact personally, I can't even fathom ever being a man. I would have much rather have died than to have grown up and tried to be one.
