A Tale of Two Transsexuals

[joannatsf]

For your consideration.

Mary - Was born male and given the name of Michael.  As far back as she can remember Mary believed she was female.  Her parents of course discouraged this belief and Mary tried to fit in with the other boys.  At adolescence Mary longed for the body changes she saw in her cisgendered female friends.  Mary found she was attracted to men and considered the possibility that she was gay.  Once she heard about transsexual people, she knew right away that was what she was.  Mary went into therapy and soon after started HRT.  Her family was supportive of her decision and after 2 years RLE she was approved for GRS.   She was soon on her way to Montreal.

Dorothy - Was born male and given the name of Donald.  By the time he reached puberty he knew he was different than his friends.  He thought he may be gay but worked to become a "normal" heterosexual male.  To that end he became über male and played sports and was promiscuous with women.  He took up cross-dressing in private.  After a week at a cross-dresser hotel Donald decided that Dorothy was the person she was meant to be.  She got on HRT, self-medicating at first.  She then decided to complete transition and was soon off to Thailand.

I don't think there it makes any difference how one finds their path.  I see no reason that deciding to transition makes makes Dorothy any less a woman than Mary.  What do you think?  Why?

[Shana A]

Everyone has a different life and process to figuring out who they are. I'm not a professional, just another gender variant person dealing with being who I am. To me, what matters is that each person is being honest with themselves so that can make the right choices for their situation. I could care less whether they are considered primary or secondary TS.

Z

[Ali Noir]

As long as someone is happy, I believe they are living their lives right (you know, as long as no one is getting harmed). :]
But, I can relate to both of them, in different ways.
xoxo
Ali

[le_joli_papillon]

Excuse me, but what is Cisgendered? 

[Ali Noir]

Csigendered is a genetic female :]
xoxo
Ali

[le_joli_papillon]

oh
lol
THANKSS alot!

[Nero]

Mary is obviously so much more woman than Dorothy cause everyone knows all real women are straight.
lol

[pennyjane]

if one believes herself a woman, she is.  however she arrives at that belief is irrelevant.  some hbs women transition as soon as they realize they are, some plan and co-ordiante their transiton and some never get to transition at all.  they are all women.  i would though, offer up a semantical, although important, point in the language of your presentation of these cases.  rather then saying these women were born male i would say they were women born with male biology. <harry benjamin syndrome>

it has not been my experience that people become transsexual.  i don't think you can catch it, or grow into it or transform yourself into it, i believe it's just the way we were born.  it certainly can take us some time to realize it, to sort it out and come to terms with it, but if it's truly harry benjamin syndrome it's been there since birth.  just my opinion. 

[Janet_Girl]

Each of us travels the same path thru the forest, but the path changes for each of us as our life changes.  Each will arrive at the same point eventually.  None of us is more of a woman, or man ( for our FtM Brothers ) than anyone else.  We are just another woman.

Janet

[Kate]

It reminds me of the old joke about a lawyer grilling the defendent with, "so... have you stopped beating your wife yet?"

By answering the question in ANY way, you validate the (questionable) assumption

~Kate~

[joannatsf]

if one believes herself a woman, she is.  however she arrives at that belief is irrelevant.  i would though, offer up a semantical, although important, point in the language of your presentation of these cases.  rather then saying these women were born male i would say they were women born with male biology. <harry benjamin syndrome>

it has not been my experience that people become transsexual.  i don't think you can catch it, or grow into it or transform yourself into it, i believe it's just the way we were born.  it certainly can take us some time to realize it, to sort it out and come to terms with it, but if it's truly harry benjamin syndrome it's been there since birth.  just my opinion. 

I don't believe in Harry Benhamine Syndrome.  You'll note that it seems to be a condition of white MtFs in higher socio-economic groups.  Rarely do you here a person of color make such a claim.  I can't think of any transmen that claim it either.  The key word in my description of Dorothy's transition is decided.  She excercised free will.

Posted on: 11 July 2008, 07:22:02

It reminds me of the old joke about a lawyer grilling the defendent with, "so... have you stopped beating your wife yet?"

By answering the question in ANY way, you validate the (questionable) assumption

~Kate~

What assumption is that?

[Kate]

What assumption is that?

That someone CAN be "more of a woman" than the other.

~Kate~

[sneakersjay]

As one who took the more tortuous path, I'd say there's no difference either.  I know that on some level I always knew; the evidence starts at age 4, and was most obvious through puberty and anorexia nervosa.  My family being religious and my initial choice of college (religious) also put being trans the furthest thought from my mind. 

There was still evidence throughout adulthood but it was dismissed as weird fantasies (those of me wanting to be a male, and me missing my male anatomy during intimacy, etc).

I also had married, had kids, owned a business, and the stress of all that didn't leave me time to think about things much.  Feelings started surfaceing a few years before my divorce, when I started writing novels from a man's POV and nailed it according to male writing instructors who found it unusual for a woman to do that.  I used to joke that I must have been male in a previous life, not really guessing I was trans.

After my divorce I tried dating men again very unsuccessfully and gave up.  That's when I started searching for answers, but not knowing what the questions were.  It finally all clicked back in March '08 and here I am over 3 full months into transition.  There was no doubt at all that I was transsexual; just the usual OMG!  What!?

Does that make me any less than other girls & guys who, even growing up in the 70s, transitioned decades ago when it was far less socially acceptable and totally freakish?  I don't think so.  I applaud them for seeking answers sooner in an era where there was no internet and blazing the trail for the rest of us to follow.

Jay

[joannatsf]

What assumption is that?

That someone CAN be "more of a woman" than the other.

~Kate~

I had lunch with a therapist (MFT) friend of mine.  A large part of her practice is treating transgender people.  In her many years of doing so she observed little or no psycho-pathology associated with transgender clients.  The dysphoria we experience is externally generated.  Societies lack of acceptance our problem is the root of the depression (a separate issue) that many of us suffer.  She asked me the question "what difference does it make if someone knows from early on they are TG or if they DECIDE later in life that this is the path they choose to walk?  What is wrong with someone doing that?"  My answer is nothing is wrong with it.

[Sandy]

The key word in my description of Dorothy's transition is decided.  She excercised free will.

I'm afraid I have to disagree with you on that one, Clair.  At least for me, in my own personal experience, I didn't decide to become transsexual.  I had feelings all through my life, from the earliest ages, that while I was envious of those things female, I felt that I was a ->-bleeped-<- and not a transsexual.

After all, girls like boys, which I certainly did not.  And all the transsexuals I had heard about from the sixties through to the time of the INTERNET, lost everything and became sex workers and drug addicts.

When I finally came out to myself, my life finally made sense.  All the feelings I had were because I really *was* female.  I didn't *decide* to become transsexual because it was the next step after being a lifelong cross-dresser. 

If there was an exercise of free will, for me, it was that I stopped lying to myself.  Not that I decided to become transsexual.

And from everything I've heard from other transsexuals, they too have always had those feminine feelings.  And how they came to accept those feelings determined the path that they walked.  That was the free will part.

Claire, apologize if I have misinterpreted the meaning of your post and responses.  If I have, please clarify.

-Sandy

[Kate]

Societies lack of acceptance our problem is the root of the depression (a separate issue) that many of us suffer.  She asked me the question "what difference does it make if someone knows from early on they are TG or if they DECIDE later in life that this is the path they choose to walk?  What is wrong with someone doing that?"  My answer is nothing is wrong with it.

Oh I agree. What I'm constantly trying to tell people is that changing your sex is just not a big deal. The only reason there exists all this GID theory and scientific research and brain dissections and psychotherapy and web sites and all is because people think it IS a big, shameful deal.

But seriously, is it ANY different than changing your hair color?

The only thing I'd argue with is that it's not (just) *society* that doesn't accept us, it's US. 99% of the posts on this forum are people looking for justification, some way to "make this OK" with themselves.

Which is why I say that transitioning really isn't about the hormones and name changes and all, it's about getting over that internalized shame... a shame and guilt which drives us to all these ridiculous extremes to justify and explain all this. People get lost in the attempt to explain it to themselves, and never think to step back and ask WHY they're doing it.

~Kate~

[NicholeW.]

What assumption is that?

That someone CAN be "more of a woman" than the other.

~Kate~

I had lunch with a therapist (MFT) friend of mine.  A large part of her practice is treating transgender people.  In her many years of doing so she observed little or no psycho-pathology associated with transgender clients.  The dysphoria we experience is externally generated.  Societies lack of acceptance our problem is the root of the depression (a separate issue) that many of us suffer.  She asked me the question "what difference does it make if someone knows from early on they are TG or if they DECIDE later in life that this is the path they choose to walk?  What is wrong with someone doing that?"  My answer is nothing is wrong with it.

There is nothing wrong with that. And what your therapist has seen is what I see. Plenty of personality and mood disorders develop from transsexual life: constant belittling, hiding away, internalized guilt, sexual, physical abuse etc. But the GID isn't the problem, the treatment is.

And to have that, as Kassandra suggests, from a young age is to exacerbate the problems. People don't commit suicide due to GID, or HBS for the economically-gifted; they want to commit suicide due to other things. An overwhelming loss of consonance with one's own life and the events that make-up that life are the basic kernel of "transition or die" seems to me.

I mean I've known women and men who suicide after transition, not because they couldn't, because they were alone and cut-off. That doesn't come from GID.

Just my own thoughts. And that dissonance with those that make the "community" everyone needs to survive is the killer and why therapy for the deep core problems is important. The "therapy" for transition is a matter of getting approvals. The real work is something else entirely, and I think we as a individuals lose track of that in a very large way.

Nichole   

O, btw, good morning everyone!!

[MaggieB]

Interesting term DECIDE as it certainly says choice. However, is it really Dorothy's choice to become female or is it a matter of her own path to self discovery that she IS female. Deciding at this point seems then to either transition or consciously repress an intrinsic part of her character, her gender. I think that denial under these conditions is highly unstable.

My experience as a late onset TS has been that I really did not know or consider that I was female most of my life. As a child, I was despondent that I was a male and woke up sobbing uncontrollably when I had my first wet dream. I did not consider that it was possible I could be female and as such was constantly in conflict with males. I never fit in, never understood them, never liked them. I became a loner and dedicated to a 24/7 contact with the female girlfriend/spouse that I was with at the time. However, the expectation by all of them was that I was male and I just couldn't fill the bill. I still didn't figure it out even when I started wearing women's underwear. I could not understand why but I escalated this to clothes and self medicated hormones. I lied to myself, big time. It was the fabric or the better fit of the clothes.  I said needed a bra because I had some gynecomastia and needed some support. I said I  took hormones to combat a swollen prostate. This was actually true but estrogens are not the normal treatment.  I went to graduate school in medical biochemistry so I had some idea what the meds were to do. Not having insurance forced me to self medicate.  After a few years, I began to suspect but could not bring myself to seek professional help. In fact, my wife finally told me "You are transgendered" and I said, "What is that?"  so I did some fast research. At first, I still denied I was trans but the inner female in me continued to emerge.  It then snowballed from there to me fully accepting and now I am in transition.

Now reading this , you might say I am stupid or touched in the head. I assure you that I am of above average intelligence and completely sane.  I was trying to be a "good boy" far too long in a lost cause. I wonder if there are any others who needed to discover their true gender, like me?

Maggie

[Nero]

Decided? Ok I missed that in the first reading. What exactly do you mean by that?
I mean I suppose we all decide whether or not to do something about it.

[NicholeW.]

Happens all the time, Maggie. Your story isn't unusual at all. I imagine it mirrors that of most older transitioners.

The worst thing that happened for most older TSes imo is the Blanchard thesis, or rather the reactions to it. The sense, taken within, that someone doesn't want to simply have a fetish: that's as dismissive as all the other dismissals that the person has had to try to cope with throughout their lifetime.

Imo, another good reason for the people who continue to make ->-bleeped-<- a cause celebre to just let it go. I honestly believe that our reactions to it have been more harmful to TSes and TGes than the theory itself. I mean these guys were all alone and discounted until the rancor began. Now they are seen as "experts," when before they were men working at a hospital noted for is trans-misogny. Should have left it that way, imo.

Nichole