Do you ever stop being 'trans'?

[SoupSarah]

I am reading some news stories, about trans legislation.. and just wondering.. do you ever move past the 'trans' label?..

humour me here.. I am 'trying' to be naive about this..   

I mean, if you have lived in a gender, name and identity for a number of years.. are you still 'trans'?..

as one accepted definition of trans* is "denoting or relating to a person whose gender identity does not correspond with the sex registered for them at birth;"  - but once you have had your birth certificate corrected.. is that then the essential definition of cis.. you are living in the gender assigned at birth (assigned on your birth certificate)...  and so, that means all this legislation is only relevant for a few small years of someone's actual transition?

The whole thing with words that start with trans.. is about moving from one to another.. or 'transition'. (like transport, transmission etc.) so, that would adequately describe the process we go through, but not the end result. If I send a package, it is being transported.. but it is not a trans-package when it gets to the destination. If I use my philosophers stone and transmute lead into gold.. it transmutes, and could be called trans-lead. or trans gold.. in the process.. but the end result (I promise you) is pure gold..

I will add a nod to non-binary folk here.. sorry, I am not including you and your struggles in all this and I realise trans* is a big umbrella - I guess I am really talking about transsexual, binary, people. People who go through a process to emerge at the other end, better for their journey. Happier and more fulfilled. Those people for which the 'process' stops... and life just continues on.

Interested to hear peoples views on this.

[LoriDee]

This is interesting and something I have thought about.

I have no intention of changing my birth certificate, school records, military records, college transcripts, etc. I see those as historical documents that were accurate at that time. I was that person, but I am not now.

Since I am still transitioning I identify as trans. But I wonder if post-op me would still identify that way or would I just be a woman? I honestly don't know! I suspect that I will still identify as trans because there is always something more to do. Since I started late in life, I doubt I will get it all "done" in this lifetime.

[ChrissyRyan]

Probably always transgender.  We would hope we would continue to grow in many ways.

[Faith]

assuming all outwardly things changed, all aspects point to the 'cis' nomenclature, I would likely still be trans to myself. I don't think I'll ever be done. My head is always holding back, seeing myself as different and other. My goal, as possibly unrealistic as it may be, is never be pointed at and told "That's a man" or "She used to be a man" or any other variation thereof. However, in my head, I cannot forget who I was or what I went through to get where I am now.

Perhaps that's part and parcel to my life since I've never felt that I fit anywhere.

and so, I am still going to therapy, to help get those little brain nigglers under control.

[Devlyn]

I'm always going to be transgender. I'm not switching from "one to another". I'm existing in my halfway in between spot...quite happily. 

Hugs, Devlyn

[Sarah B]

Hi SoupSarah

You mentioned in your post above:

I am reading some news stories, about trans legislation.. and just wondering.. do you ever move past the 'trans' label?..

Where do I begin to address this, I suppose a little history about myself, which I hope will explain where I'm coming from.  In actual fact I cannot answer that question per se.

For as long as I can remember, I always wanted or longed to be a female and when I changed my life around, when I was 30 years old.  I stopped thinking about wanting or longing to be a female.  Why? Because I was living and breathing as a female and I did not know it at that time that I was a female.  Although I would answer the appropriate question on the forms, 'male or female' correctly.

I would not know that piece of information (gender) until I was 51, 19 years after having my surgery and I found out that I had always been a female and always will be.  Why? Because I found that piece of information from Susan's Place.  In addition I know that nature stuffed up and I accept that unconditionally and without any reservations.  If that makes any sense.

So how does that relate to what you say; "do you ever move past the 'trans' label?" No I never moved past the 'trans label', because I never transitioned period.  I was always a female.  When I changed my life around, I was working and living as a female within 3 months after leaving family and friends behind, who did not know what I was going to do.

humour me here.. I am 'trying' to be naive about this..   

Well as you can gather from what I have already written you know that I was extremely naive.  University educated,  but dumb about life in general, which is so ironic.

I mean, if you have lived in a gender, name and identity for a number of years.. are you still 'trans'?..

No I'm not 'trans' anything, never have been and I will never will be.  Those terms that exist today did not really exist when I changed my life around or they did, but I was unaware of them, again that naive nature showing itself about me.  They come up with all these 'trans' words so that 'they' pigeon hole us, target us like lambs and then slaughter us with their 'treatments' and amusement.  The only 'trans' word that I knew for sure was transsexual and I sort of related to it very early on.  However, I do not use it at all these days unless I'm talking to doctors who know about my 'medical condition'.

as one accepted definition of trans* is "denoting or relating to a person whose gender identity does not correspond with the sex registered for them at birth;"  - but once you have had your birth certificate corrected.. is that then the essential definition of cis.. you are living in the gender assigned at birth (assigned on your birth certificate)...  and so, that means all this legislation is only relevant for a few small years of someone's actual transition?

Your original birth certificate information is never going to be altered, destroyed or even misplaced.  Lori mentioned, she does not want her birth certificate changed, it will never will be changed per se.  The only thing that will happen is that you will have a new birth certificate with the appropriate gender maker on it.  So in essence you will have two birth certificates.

In regards to the legislation you mentioned, you will need to provide a citation or link so that I and others can read it to understand what they intend to do with that legislation.  However without reading it, I will lay odds on it they it will be used to control and label 'us' in some way.

As I have said I did not 'transition', all I did was, I changed my clothes, styled my hair, put some makeup on and then continued living my life as a female or as me and had some medical treatments along the way.

The whole thing with words that start with trans.. is about moving from one to another.. or 'transition'. (like transport, transmission etc.) so, that would adequately describe the process we go through, but not the end result. If I send a package, it is being transported.. but it is not a trans-package when it gets to the destination. If I use my philosophers stone and transmute lead into gold.. it transmutes, and could be called trans-lead. or trans gold.. in the process.. but the end result (I promise you) is pure gold..

What can I say, I have already said it and that is I have always been female and there has never been any transition for me whatsoever.

As for the rest of the comment one can talk about it forever and no satisfactory answer will ever be achieved.

I will add a nod to non-binary folk here.. sorry, I am not including you and your struggles in all this and I realise trans* is a big umbrella - I guess I am really talking about transsexual, binary, people. People who go through a process to emerge at the other end, better for their journey. Happier and more fulfilled. Those people for which the 'process' stops... and life just continues on.

I'm not under that umbrella and never will be and life will continue on regardless of who you are, what you do and how you choose to live your life and only stops when you die.

Interested to hear peoples views on this.

I hope I have given you some food for your thoughts.  Take care and I hope your dreams come true.

Love and Hugs
Sarah B
Official Greeter
@SoupSarah

[KathyLauren]

It's a semantic question.  I go with the most common definition: a person is transgender if their sex as identified at birth is different from their experienced gender.  My sex was identified as male at birth.  My experienced gender is female.  Hence I am transgender and always will be, since that history will never change.

I am done with transitioning and all my documents have been updated, so I am not actively "trans-ing".  My being trans is not relevant to my daily life.  I present as female and am treated as female.  If people have questions about my gender identity, they keep them to themselves.

However, if politics here go the way that they have in about half the US, I may have to change the definition I live by.  If they start implementing fascist restrictions on what trans people are allowed to do, then I will have to deny being trans.  I will, in that situation, lie about the circumstances of my birth.  No, I was never identified as male at birth.  The reason my birth certificate is obviously a reprint is because the old one got destroyed and I had to get it replaced.  It will become very, very important to me to remember at all times that I am trans and to actively deny it at every opportunity.

[Asche]

I have transitioned and gotten HRT and SRS and don't plan to get anything more.  I have changed pretty much all my records, including birth certificate (it's kind of rewriting history, but with all those laws saying "the gender on your birth certificate...")

But I spent 60+ years living as a man, and they have left their mark on me.  There are things I have experienced that have bent me in ways that cis women don't get bent and vice versa.  I try to understand cis women's experiences and the point of view they create, but it will always be a second-hand experience.

I sometimes think of myself as a refugee, a refugee from Manistan who has fled to Femininia.  I have done what I can to fit in, but like any immigrant, I will be different from someone who was born here.

[titan]

In my opinion, you will only stop being trans if you decide to detransition.

[LoriDee]

In my opinion, you will only stop being trans if you decide to detransition.

Hello Titan,

Welcome to Susan's Place.

Thanks for contributing to the discussions here.

Your opinions are welcome and valid, but I must disagree with you on this one. By definition, being transgender means that your gender identity (how you perceive yourself) does not align with your sex assigned at birth.

Detransitioning does not change that. Sure, you can stop transitioning and go back to playing the role assigned at birth. But that does not stop you from being transgender. And doing such, for most of us, just creates more problems in that detransitioning does not "cure" gender dysphoria. The only way to treat gender dysphoria is to bring the alignment closer together to where dysphoria becomes less of a problem.

Many transgender people do not transition at all because they do not experience gender dysphoria. That is to say, their gender identity does not align with their sex assigned at birth, but that incongruence does not disrupt their lives and they do not feel the need to change the way that gender dysphorics do.

[ChrissyRyan]

I still think no.

[Robbyv213]

I feel you can but I feel it's more so something that is self-imposed than anything else. I guess it most likely comes with finally accepting truly accepting oneself and no longer use being transgendered as something that describes you just like being gay or lesbian or bisexual or one of the many other orientations I feel that we including myself use this as something that mainly describes us as a person even though it is just one small aspect of our whole entirety as an individual.

So I don't know if any of that is making sense but I feel that once we get to a point of truly accepting be that a moment of clarity or finally getting to a point where you look in the mirror and see the person you've always been I'm not sure which I'm sure it's different for everyone but I feel once we get to that moment that specific moment of clarity we no longer use that one aspect of ourselves that we have used to describe ourselves or help describe ourself and it's just something that's there in the background.

Like for instance if I said I was a United States Marine I use that very largely for a long time of my life to describe who I am and who I was instead of saying hi I'm Robbie I'm loving I'm carrying them an optimist or I'm a pessimist or I like doing x y and z for fun no instead I typically say I'm a United States Marine I'm an amateur bodybuilder I'm trans on bisexual instead of granted those things are very large aspects that have made up my entire life but they aren't what make me who I am if that makes sense I feel eventually everyone stops being trans at a certain point of acceptance and I don't mean acceptance like when you initially accepted that your gender was not what you were born biologically with or even acceptance of getting over the doubt and the lingering thoughts that what you were feeling and thinking isn't true or real that you were playing games on yourself created by your mind.

Again I don't know if any of this is making sense but yes I do feel at some point everyone stops being trans because they just become themselves and being trans is something that goes into the background it is a part of them but it's not the whole part or the main part or even a big part anymore because you're living your life in the gender that you knew you were and as time goes on as your world and relationships rebuild as your work life and finances get better again I feel you just become the man or woman or whatever gender you align with you just become it if that makes sense