Transsexuals will Transition!

[cindianna_jones]

A eunuch is a castrated man.  My explanation was showing my analytical thought vs my personal feelings. Analytically, I can not say that my corporal body is anything but a eunuch with some enhancements. It is what it is. I've done all I can with it. 

In my mind, I don't really think of gender too much.  I am calm. Screaming calm, roaring silence. I do love myself.  Does that explain my thoughts? 

When it comes to interacting, I do love the female pronouns. I enjoy being treated as a woman. And when it comes time to look nice, mostly when I perform, I do enjoy fixing myself up to look nice.

I do not seek sexual activities but enjoy orgasms very much.  Wierd.

I'm not trying to hurt or attack anyone here.  I'm just trying to be totally honest about the way that Cindi thinks.  My semantic differences did create a bit of confusion with my counselors because I was the first with them to not talk the recurring line.  But they had the opportunity to work with me for some time and knew me.  I was not held back by my different perspective.

Cindi

[DawnL]

I do not seek sexual activities but enjoy orgasms very much.  Wierd.

Then I'm weird too.

Dawn

[grazia]

Hi! 
First of all I want to thank again all of you for let me in and giving me the opportunity to get in contact with you.
I am still in the process of learning and reading all the posts here, so I ask in advance for your forgiveness if I am going to say something obvious (or stupid), but I like to share with you my thoughts about this very interesting thread.
First of all, I do consider myself Transsexual simply because I have always known, from early childhood, I was born in a wrong body and live part of my life as female is just a way to ease my discomfort, not a solution to my problems. My greatest aspiration, my deepest desire is to be an ordinary woman, but the kind of woman that no one will never notice in the crowd. I just can't stand my body and I do not need to tell you how I suffer for the pain this situation gives me constantly.
So, as I consider myself Transsexual (and please correct me if I am wrong)  with a *very* strong desire to transition. I can only agree with thread's subject: Transsexuals will Transition! I really think there are no choices.
But... If I am still here in this position is because I think that there is another important quality a Transsexual person must have to be able to do the transition: the ability and the determination to even write an "End" to his/her own life and to start another one from scratch.
I had never had these talents and I missed the ability to handle my own life at the right time. I often think I have some alibies (the most important one is that I have grown in a small town in South of Italy in pre-internet era and at that time I could never imagine anything like HRT and SRS nor I have never had references or someone could help me), but if I face my personal history seriously, I can only say that I have not been so strong and determined to cut with parents, friends and city but so weak to choose to (just) survive on the edge of depression.
So, from my experience, Transsexual will Transition (if strong and determined)!

Thanks a lot!

[Annwyn]

Grazia,
You're a fool to think that being able to end your own life is a "talent."
A fool.

BUT.
Welcome!
Become a woman!
That is the whole purpose you're here right?

[Hazumu]

Grazia;

I am many lives.  Each one is a different person I know and how they see me.

Some I may never see after transition.  For them, my life has ended.  Even if they believe me still alive, it will be the old 'me' they see.

Some I may meet after I finish transition, and am comfortable in my new role.  For them, my life will have a beginning 'from scratch.'

Some will know me through transition.  Some will let the 'me' they see change, others will have their 'me' frozen at some point in our past.  The ones who let me change will see me transform to a woman before their eyes.

I'm already meeting people who see me as female, so those lives are 'beginning from scratch.'

There can be no hard line -- 'that was male, this is female'.  It is a blending

Karen

[Tippe]

For this reason, it is mandatory that the person with gender issues take total responsibility for their own life. It is required that YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE. You must define YOURSELF, and you must do so honestly.

Hi everyone,

I'm new in here and just stumbled across this very interesting thread.

I mostly agree gender identity is subjective and therefore the clients seeking transition services must assume responsibility for their actions, however I just recently came across a study in which 53% of gender patients had expressed a need for counseling or help in clarifying their identity. In some cases, such as the national gender clinic in my country, the clinicians see themselves strictly as gatekeeps in a year-long observation of the gender incongruent person. Now when it takes a year of psychiatric observation to get a letter in support of a name change it is highly improbable that the gender patients will allow themself to express any doubts.

Studies of diabetics have shown that they some times plain make up results because they fear disapproval from their physicians if they are not in range. Now what do you think a transsexual would do when they don't risk just disapproval and medication change, but risk being shut out from the chance to transition?

Although in the end the responsibility is on the gender client there certainly is a responsibility upon the clinicians for providing information and an environment, which allows the client to express and explore all aspects of their gender management.


--
Tippe

[Asfsd4214]

I don't care much for labels and exactly what qualifies you as a 'transexual' vs something else.

I don't care if some people feel that they don't need to transition, and I only mildly care that some people are arrogant enough to believe that nobody needs to transition.

What I know for certain is that I personally needed to transition, and that I knew it well before I saw my first therapist.

[Carlita]

I don't care much for labels and exactly what qualifies you as a 'transexual' vs something else.

I don't care if some people feel that they don't need to transition, and I only mildly care that some people are arrogant enough to believe that nobody needs to transition.

What I know for certain is that I personally needed to transition, and that I knew it well before I saw my first therapist.

Thanks - I guess! - for reawakening this thread. (None of what I have to say, BTW, is directed at you, Ashley)!! I must say that I found it shocking. I hate the idea that there are 'real' transsexuals and - what? - unreal ones, fake one, phoney ones, whatever.

The fact is that gender, like sexuality, is not polarized in the way that many people - both straight and LGBT - would like. We do not all fit into handy little boxes. We each sit somewhere on an incredibly complex spectrum of personal identity that combines our sense of gender-identity, our sexuality, our culture and our personal circumstances.

I, like most people here, I guess, knew I was 'different' at an early age. By my mid-teens, I knew what that difference was. But my Gender Incongruity (as the new DSM-V will define it) was never so severe that it made me suicidal, or self-hating/self-mutilating ... in a way, I wish it had. My choices would have been starker and my life simpler. Instead, I have been able to function as a male well enough that the outside world has no idea of how I really feel - function well enough that I fool myself sometimes. I can't fool people so easily once I get into bed with them, of course ... that's the point where truth will out (though no one knew the reasons why I found it so difficult to 'be a man') ... But along the way I've acquired a wife and family and I have responsibilities to those people. If I can't get work, it's not just me that starves, it's my wife and children. If I lose my house, they lose their house, too ..

So I really, really found it hard to read people pontificating so self-righteously about what a person had to do to be a real transsexual ... and announcing that a true TS would transition, no matter what the consequences. I have not transitioned, but I am a true TS. Thing is, I am also a spouse and a parent with a profound moral duty to those people who have placed their love and trust to me. I'm trying to figure out a way to to this without wrecking their lives. In the meantime, I am trying to stand by the vows I made at the altar. To me, being a decent human being is more important than conforming to someone else's standards of transsexual purity. And I would hope that here, of all places, we could embrace people who need support, comfort and guidance, without making them feel like second-class citizens. The world does a perfectly good job of that already ...

[kimberrrly]

I have noticed that there is presently a huge amount of self analyzing going on for those who have doubts, regrets, and/or fears to do with transitioning.   There are even those who have said that they have "toyed" with the idea of transitioning and I find that in itself a little odd to say the least.  It is interesting that there are many different life situations being discussed that have contributed to those doubts, regrets and fears, and it seems that this is being done  in order to rationalize reasons not to transition.

Personally I believe that if you are a transsexual then you must, and will transition no matter what or die trying.  A transsexual would not doubt this or not transition because of fear, or the the fear of regret.  I believe that to not transition would be a death sentence to a transsexual, as that person would be condemned to live their life of misery.

Steph

I absolutely dont agree with you. It is perfectly human AND safe to have doubts over every step you take in your transition. I think it is foolish and unwise not to doubt yourself and your situation in a post op life. Only in this way can you rule out every other option you might have and eventually be sure about every step you take in your life. I know of many transwoman that got depressed and even committed suicide post op.

I know its a matter of life and death. I was born a boy but live as a woman now and I can never go back and I would not know how. Of this I have no doubt whatsoever.

But I had them in the beginning. Would I be able to make it? Will people accept me? I even have had doubts about my gender identity.

To have doubt is very normal and healthy and we should encourage it and not hit eachother over the head with what you believe is a TS or not.

There are as many different transgenders as there are people... and there is no "one size fits all" when it comes to this.

I even dare say I dont identify with most transsexuals, just a small few. I have accepted that I feel different then most and that they are different from me.

We dont have to be alike, and we dont have to agree. I can easely rule out anyone that was able to live a fairly normal life as a man as not a real transsexual. Its tempting, but useless to do so. It is also disrespectfull.

I am me. That should be enough. And we are all different.

[Tippe]

I think it is foolish and unwise not to doubt yourself and your situation in a post op life. Only in this way can you rule out every other option you might have and eventually be sure about every step you take in your life.

I agree with you Kimberly. We should never forget that each of us are individuals. To me transition is a process of liberating myself from expectations that didn't fit me and becoming able to live a life that ressonates with my inner sense of self on a deeper level. If we pressure people who don't comply with either of the usual gender norms to transition from one to the other then they might end up just as unfree and unhappy as before their transition.

For this reason, when people ask me about where to get HRT etc. my first response usually is to suggest they go ahead with some gender play and get in touch with a bunch of differently gendered people before they start their transition. It is a huge problem, however, that some gender therapists seem to think that persons who allow themselves to have doubts are not sincerely transsexed. They may well just be early in their discovery. That belief has some very unfortunate consequences I think.


--
Tippe

[Carlita]

Thank you to Kimberrrly and Tippe for your comments. Another issue I think is whether we can be defined by our gender issues. For me - and this is entirely personal - I am equally defined by my status as a parent and my work as a writer. Right now, for example, I feel as though I'm finally getting a shot at reaching the level I've always dreamed of, both in professional/commercial and artistic terms. So if someone said to me, 'You can transition successfully, but only if you abandon your publishing career ... Or you can have worldwide success as an author, but you will never be able to transition,' I'm genuinely not sure which option I would take. Ideaaly, of course, I'd love both. If some passing fairy godmother said, you can be a happy, fulfilled woman who also tops the bestsellers, I'd give her a big kiss and say, 'Yes, yes, YES!!' but in the real world we have to make choices, and that sometimes means giving up one set of dreams in order to fulfil another. Any woman knows that. Think of the agonizing choices millions of women make between fulfilling themselves in business or fulfilling themselves as mothers. We can't have it all ... But what matters to me us that those choices are made with honesty, self-knowledge, responsibility and a willing acceptance of the consequences ... Whatever they may be.

[Just Kate]

So I really, really found it hard to read people pontificating so self-righteously about what a person had to do to be a real transsexual ... and announcing that a true TS would transition, no matter what the consequences. I have not transitioned, but I am a true TS. Thing is, I am also a spouse and a parent with a profound moral duty to those people who have placed their love and trust to me. I'm trying to figure out a way to to this without wrecking their lives. In the meantime, I am trying to stand by the vows I made at the altar. To me, being a decent human being is more important than conforming to someone else's standards of transsexual purity. And I would hope that here, of all places, we could embrace people who need support, comfort and guidance, without making them feel like second-class citizens. The world does a perfectly good job of that already ...

It is people like you that make me realize how important it is to find coping tools for those of us with GID who cannot for whatever reason transition.  You are obviously living with GID without transitioning now and I assume have no plans to.  There are growing numbers of us beginning to show ourselves from out of the woodwork no longer afraid of having our authenticity questioned because we won't leave behind everything we feel committed to in order to transition.

I'd love to compare notes.  I frequent the Non-op boards on this website and would love to hear more about how you deal with your dysphoria.  I have a blog linked in my signature if you'd like to see more of how I've dealt with my own issues.

[Natalie3174]

Well you all have a lot to say about transition. I personally was forced by a PREDATOR to transition.
I was walking through the jungle when I noticed three little red dots on my chest. I ran as fast as I could with blasts of some sought destroying the jungle around me. Then I was caught in a net and hung upside down in a tree. Then I heard a weird voice say 'I have you now young Skywalker!' I screamed "Noooooo!" But nobody could here me! Then I saw a Predator decloak in front of me laughing. After a while of chatting we became good friends and went to have a cup of tea at a nearby village. First I had to wait until the Predator slaughtered evreybody there and hung them upside down in tree's.
To this day my invisible friend is still with me and is protecting me through my transition. Im so lucky to have a Predator as a friend. The doctor says Im crazy and there arnt any Predators. But they dont understand that Predators have good relationships with us transsexuals and they are really hard to see.

[rejennyrated]

I have to say that I don't really care whether other people have doubts or not, or transition or not. That is their life and they have a right to do things their way without me sitting in judegment on them telling them how or how not to do it.

All I know is that I personally had no doubts probably mainly because I was so young and therefore gripped by the confident certainty of youth. That I first transitioned in childhood does not make me any more real than someone who does things differently, because who knows what I might have done if I were in their shoes and had lived their life.

I think it must be left up to each individual here how they self define. Let's not place any more arbitrary barriers than are needed. I self define as a woman with a Trans and Intersex past and I do so irrespective of what anyone else here may think I am, others must similarly be free to decide for themselves.

I also think perhaps we should ALL let this thread die quietly again, because whatever you may believe in private, there really is nothing much to be gained, by way of self respect, from bolstering your own ego by effectively attacking other people, who have done you no harm, and whose only "crime" was to live their lives in a different way from you.

[kimberrrly]

It is a huge problem, however, that some gender therapists seem to think that persons who allow themselves to have doubts are not sincerely transsexed. They may well just be early in their discovery. That belief has some very unfortunate consequences I think.
--
Tippe

That is very true. I experienced this first hand. You want to ask yourself difficult questions, but when you do some therapists sometimes get confused.

[Tippe]

All I know is that I personally had no doubts probably mainly because I was so young and therefore gripped by the confident certainty of youth.

I won't share my full story in this post yet, but I will admit that when I was seventeen I had the courage to tell my high school class that I felt I should've been born a girl and that I deeply wished myself to be in an all-girls school for a feeling of belonging there. Yet I didn't have the knowledge, courage or support to move on with transition until ten years later. So far it has been an amazing ride and I've went through an enormous personal and social development in the process, which by the way ended up getting me into an all-girls study program recently

I also think perhaps we should ALL let this thread die quietly again, because whatever you may believe in private, there really is nothing much to be gained, by way of self respect, from bolstering your own ego by effectively attacking other people, who have done you no harm, and whose only "crime" was to live their lives in a different way from you.

I found it very interesting to read your individual stories with quite different perspectives and to hear from people who underwent surgery as well as those who haven't done so. I certainly don't want to judge anyone. I just want to listen to other peoples experiences and learn from them as I might, whether they are simmilar to mine or not.

You want to ask yourself difficult questions, but when you do some therapists sometimes get confused.

Do they get confused, do they just want to give us more time figuring out ourselves or are we just too afraid to tell them that we see both positive and negative consequences of transition?
In my country only 2-3 people are allowed to have SRS each year, which provokes a hell of a lot of fear of rejection and anger among the transsexuals. From my point of view this is not helping anyone not the ones hiding sincere doubts, nor the ones rejected by the system without feeling personally involved in the decision. The latter eventually finds another threatment route, which means some people who might not benefit from HRT etc. continues on that path regardless of the professional opinion.

I have a blog linked in my signature if you'd like to see more of how I've dealt with my own issues.

That was a very interesting blog read. You certainly have not had an easy ride. The blog reminded me of a question I saw on a reality program some years ago: "What, as a man, have you learned from being a woman?"

Although people decidedly claiming androgynous identities - see for instance norrie mAy-wellby (http://www.thescavenger.net/glbsgdq/my-journey-to-getting-a-sex-not-specified-document-86598.html) and some people even get surgeries to make their body congruent with an androgynous identity (http://www.whatisgender.net/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=144&t=1091&start=0) - something did strike me in your blogs. I hope you won't mind me asking a couple of questions?

1. You write in your entry about Transition that you discovered that you were really a gay too afraid of admitting that rather than a transsexual, yet in your recent entries you write about being married with children? How do that piece together?

2. In your entry about transition you wrote about an encounter with a bisexual woman. I understand the circumstances surrounding that encounter was very unfortunate. Given that you are apparently together with a woman now how would you imagine life had been if you had found another transpositive woman?

3. Why do you think of GID as a disorder? Isn't it rather the society, which sanctionizes a certain behaviour in one person and not another solely on the basis of their genitalia, which is disordered?

4. I get you perfectly, when you write about a need to express yourself regardless of your genital sex. I too believe a greater freedom of expression would to some extent relieve some body disphoria, however it seems to me that while the two persons I referred to beforehand decidedly expressed an androgynous identity as the identity, which fit them best you are suffering from depression and maybe OCD to contain yourself within oppressive societal norms, which do not fit you well?

5. I get you too, when you write that identity is coupled with a need to or a feeling of belonging. In fact identity is said to always develop in relation to others, the very word actually means 'same as'. I would say my gender identity is strongly coupled with the third level in Maslow's pyramid: loving and belonging. I've found female friends outside the LGBT community to be very important to me and my college activities have helped me integrate well in this regard.
I wonder which role your female friendships outside church and LGBT communities played in your life while you lived as a woman and while you decided to de-transition?



I hope I am not being too direct? Otherwise feel free to skip some of the questions. I am just eager to hear from you to get different perspectives on how people deals with gender incongruencies.

Thanks
--
Tippe

[Just Kate]

That was a very interesting blog read. You certainly have not had an easy ride. The blog reminded me of a question I saw on a reality program some years ago: "What, as a man, have you learned from being a woman?"

Although people decidedly claiming androgynous identities - see for instance norrie mAy-wellby (http://www.thescavenger.net/glbsgdq/my-journey-to-getting-a-sex-not-specified-document-86598.html) and some people even get surgeries to make their body congruent with an androgynous identity (http://www.whatisgender.net/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=144&t=1091&start=0) - something did strike me in your blogs. I hope you won't mind me asking a couple of questions?

1. You write in your entry about Transition that you discovered that you were really a gay too afraid of admitting that rather than a transsexual, yet in your recent entries you write about being married with children? How do that piece together?

I don't ever remember explicitly saying I was gay and not trans.  I did toy with the idea that perhaps I was a gay male who, due to social pressures changed to be a female, but I was just brainstorming.  You know from my blog I spend a lot of time in introspection.

I am married to my best friend.  I wasn't looking for love, instead, we found that we were extremely compatible.  It was difficult for me to develop the necessary physical attraction with sex being difficult, but I knew I loved her regardless.

2. In your entry about transition you wrote about an encounter with a bisexual woman. I understand the circumstances surrounding that encounter was very unfortunate. Given that you are apparently together with a woman now how would you imagine life had been if you had found another transpositive woman?

I'm not sure what you are asking.  That was a very very stupid thing I did in an attempt at vile rebellion.  Nothing about the experience was enjoyable and is quite atypical of my normal personality and activities.  It really cannot be used to judge anything else in my life past or present.

3. Why do you think of GID as a disorder? Isn't it rather the society, which sanctionizes a certain behaviour in one person and not another solely on the basis of their genitalia, which is disordered?

The condition is 1) persistent, 2) causes distress, 3) cannot be explained as a societal norm - ergo mental disorder according to the way we currently define them.

4. I get you perfectly, when you write about a need to express yourself regardless of your genital sex. I too believe a greater freedom of expression would to some extent relieve some body disphoria, however it seems to me that while the two persons I referred to beforehand decidedly expressed an androgynous identity as the identity, which fit them best you are suffering from depression and maybe OCD to contain yourself within oppressive societal norms, which do not fit you well?

As a kid living in the south, I was expected to follow societal norms even to my extreme detriment.  I've since shirked them for the most part, but it has taken time and training to allow myself the freedom to do so when it seems to go against the culture in which I was raised.

5. I get you too, when you write that identity is coupled with a need to or a feeling of belonging. In fact identity is said to always develop in relation to others, the very word actually means 'same as'. I would say my gender identity is strongly coupled with the third level in Maslow's pyramid: loving and belonging. I've found female friends outside the LGBT community to be very important to me and my college activities have helped me integrate well in this regard.
I wonder which role your female friendships outside church and LGBT communities played in your life while you lived as a woman and while you decided to de-transition?

I wonder too.  During transition I had friends in my college classes and friends at work that were females.  I also had a few male friends during this time.  I don't know that they made any specific impact on me - or at least not one worthy of note.

As it stands now the female friends I have who knew me pre and post transition still respond to me as "one of the girls" even if I don't live as one.  Its cool by me.  In fact often when we split into guys vs girls teams in games they pull me over to their side.

I hope I am not being too direct? Otherwise feel free to skip some of the questions. I am just eager to hear from you to get different perspectives on how people deals with gender incongruencies.

Thanks
--
Tippe

[Tippe]

Hi Interalia,

I thought this statement

'The truth behind my reasons to transition would be (...) I feel this option to become a heterosexual female is more socially acceptable than to live as a feminine gay man."' (July 22, 2009)

meant you considered yourself to actually be a repressed gay, but I understand it may be a little unfair of me to analyze your blog as a literary text, because thoughts obviously develop and change over time as we reach a deeper understanding of ourselves.

It's great to have as understanding friends as you describe and I think it's kind of cool to marry your best friend. I actually had a relationship with a "lesbian" woman some time ago myself, but while she was in it for sex I rather wanted to be deep soul mates. After breakup I decided to work through my own gender incongruency and transition before starting another relationship, because I didn't want to complicate transition further.

Regarding GID as a mental disorder it is a little bit more complicated than just classifying it as a disorder, because of the distress it causes, because research have shown that the most likely predictor of mental illness in people with gender incongruencies is how stigmatized they are by their social environment and whether they view the gender incongruency in a negative light (1)(2)(3). If being transgendered was not socially stigmatized it would not cause such distress and the wish to change the body would simply be viewed as any other aspiration for reconstructive plastic surgery, which may by some be considered a reaction to a bad body image, but certainly is not a mental disorder. Similar findings apply to people of color, who have been shown to generally - even the small children - view white skin as desired and privileged and some express bodily dysphoria too. Transcultural psychiatry has shown mental disorders such as skizophrenia to be highly overrepresented among immigrants and successive immigrant generations - contrary to what one would expect - become more ill than the previous generation, which have been suggested to be a direct effect from prejudice faced by society in the country the migrated to.
For this reason many people believe that having a gender identity different from the majority is not a disorder in itself just as having a skin color different from the majority or having an etnicity, which is visually distinguishable from the majority isn't. The conditions however seem - because of societal ostracism - to cause suffering.
One of many more reasons not to think of gender incongruencies as disorders is that by making it a disorder a behaviour, which would be perfectly normal in one person is taken as a symptom of illness in another solely on the basis of their body. That is outright discrimination. (4)


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Tippe



(1) Gender Identity Disorder: Has accepted practice caused harm? Psychiatric Times, 2009 May 19.
http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/display/article/10168/1415037

(2) Collective Self-Esteem as a Coping Resource for Male-to-Female Transsexuals. J Couns Psychol. 2009 Jan 1;56(1):202-209.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20046949

(3) From mental disorder to iatrogenic hypogonadism: Dilemmas in conceptualizing gender identity variants as psychiatric conditions. Archives of Sexual Behavior, doi: 10.1007/s10508-009-9532-4.
http://www.dsm5.org/Documents/Sex%20and%20GID%20Lit%20Reviews/GID/MEYER-BAHLBURG.DSM.pdf

(4) See www.gidreform.org

[Lacey Lynne]

Look, I realize Steph's original post kicking-off this tread is from a few years back.  Some people get upset whenever you comment on an old thread.  This is the first time I'm seeing it, and the topic is timeless and universal to transsexuals, so, kindly let me say that:

That's the plain truth, Steph!

Your GID will NEVER go away.

Transition is the ONLY cure ... for very many of us. 

Today is my 4-month-mark on hormone replacement therapy.  I'm age 54.  I'll do my legal name change this December on the advice of my gender counselor.  I plan to have GRS with Dr. Marci Bowers of Trinidad, Colorado the next year.  All of this ... at my age. 

Younger ones, and that's most of you, be glad you're dealing with your issues at a relatively young age.  You know why.  I don't have to explain a thing.  Finally, believe me when I say it was exponentially harder to transition in the late-1970s/early-1980s when I was the age that many of you are now.  It REALLY was.

Compared to those times, everything is so very much more in your favor regarding transitioning now. 

Steph, as usual, I agree with you one-hundred percent!

Take care all!   

LL