How I know I'm not a transsexual.

[NicholeW.]

I imagine this post will be incredibly unpopular, and I'm sorry to any who it offends.  I just hate when I see posts that encourage people to focus only on themselves and not think anyone else matters, so I decided to speak before they did in favor of humility, meekness, selflessness, and charity.

I think the only things really offensive about it are 1) your sense that you will somehow be alone and that others of us are going to tell her to forget her family and go all out for herself. and 2) Your apparent thought that she or anyone else will inevitably make their children and spouses "avoid" hurt by choosing your path.

I'm not seeing where one is necessarily more appropriate than the other, your plea or the possible pleas others might make to be self-involved to the exclusion of all else.

A transition when one has children and a spouse is a HUGE deal and no, simply considering one's self isn't a very good idea at all. But, then again, neither is ONLY considering all of the others to the exclusion of one's self.

Carefully doing what's necessary to balance interest, understanding, compassion, care for others, healing for one's self and caution when it's required are things that are possible.

What i perceived as your either/or choice is a false dichotomy, I think; just as surely as that other either/or is a false dichotomy.

So, no, I don't take a lot of exception to your post at all. It seems like just another instance of one of us wanting someone else to do what "I have done."

That in your circumstance not transitioning seemed best to you and you followed that conviction definitely proved out for you. Following my conviction, maintaining the care, respect and positive regard of all of my children and the ex was something that proved out for me.

The caveat is well-made, but I think that Lori also has people here who are willing to allow her to make her decisions while still supporting her and helping her as she feels are necessary.

The less loaded "moral" language we speak, on any side, the better she's able to make her own morality speak for her, her own inclinations, drives and actions be the standard she walks with. Not my standard or your standard.

But, that's just me. It's always personal and personal means I don't have a dog in her fight, except the dog of companionship, if she wants it.

Nichole

[Just Kate]

I think the only things really offensive about it are 1) your sense that you will somehow be alone and that others of us are going to tell her to forget her family and go all out for herself. and 2) Your apparent thought that she or anyone else will inevitably make their children and spouses "avoid" hurt by choosing your path.

Wait wait wait. I didn't read any more of your post yet, because if it is related to these two points let me correct you.  1)  There will be others to tell her to focus only on herself - not you, not many other I respect here, but there will be some and it will be tempting to hear.  2)  I told her she had a choice at the beginning.  When she didn't express interest, I didn't press it.  My path is not what I'm advocating now, I'm just saying, no matter WHAT she does, please don't forget her family - no matter what anyone says.

Ok, I'll read the rest.

[MeghanAndrews]

Interalia,
I have a question kind of unrelated. What gender pronoun do you prefer? I saw that you are not transitioning so do you prefer male pronouns? Andro pronouns? I'm not sure but can you let me know? Sincerely, Meghan

[NicholeW.]

Wait wait wait. I didn't read any more of your post yet, because if it is related to these two points let me correct you.  1)  There will be others to tell her to focus only on herself - not you, not many other I respect here, but there will be some and it will be tempting to hear.  2)  I told her she had a choice at the beginning.  When she didn't express interest, I didn't press it.  My path is not what I'm advocating now, I'm just saying, no matter WHAT she does, please don't forget her family - no matter what anyone says.

Ok, I'll read the rest.

O, I think I had that all pretty down pat. There's this lil item in rhetoric which basically says that when you mention something, especially when you say "not" or "I don't mean this" that you actually punch that very thing. So, please, I think the hugest thing about the post now is that you need to "correct a perception of someone else." How do you manage that? Quite a trick, isn't it? Especially when you haven't read the entire post.

That's exactly what you cannot do after the fact. I read your post as being self-laudatory and self-serving just as I would read the same way a "cheerleader" post telling her to forget everyone BUT herself.

The thing is by deciding you needed to "innoculate" the thread before there was any bacterial outbreak simply says that you have a point to make. That's just the fact, Interalia.

Nichole

[Lori]

You are correct, and that's makes this decision so important.  I apologize if what I say is in any way offensive, but please understand, I wish the best for you and your family.  In the pain you are in, it will be tempting, if it is not already, to think only of the pain, to think mostly of yourself and doing whatever it takes to make it go away.  There will be some here that will tell you that only you matter, and anyone who disagrees with you does not.  I am here to say the opposite.

You are not your own.  You belong to your children and (presumably) your wife.  As you make the choices you make, please consider them - transition will cause them unavoidable pain.  You did not choose to have GID, but you do choose what you do with it and how you affect the people around you.  If the choice is truly between transition or die, as it is for many, justifying that choosing to transition rather than being a dead does NOT a noble act of fatherhood make (as some make it out to be) - it takes more than choosing to live to be a noble father.  Please do not leave their potential pain out of your equation no matter how hard they take it if you tell them, no matter how tempting it is to focus on your pain.

Best of luck to you, I don't envy your position.  Many make transition about not having a choice, so I will put it this way.  You didn't choose to have GID; they didn't choose to have a father/husband who transitioned.  I pray for happiness for you all.

I imagine this post will be incredibly unpopular, and I'm sorry to any who it offends.  I just hate when I see posts that encourage people to focus only on themselves and not think anyone else matters, so I decided to speak before they did in favor of humility, meekness, selflessness, and charity.

You have a strong religious overtone to your post.

You know, God made Eve from Adam. So the way I see it...God was the first to turn a man into a woman. I'm just doing what he did.

[Just Kate]

O, I think I had that all pretty down pat. There's this lil item in rhetoric which basically says that when you mention something, especially when you say "not" or "I don't mean this" that you actually punch that very thing. So, please, I think the hugest thing about the post now is that you need to "correct a perception of someone else." How do you manage that? Quite a trick, isn't it? Especially when you haven't read the entire post.

I assume I didn't manage to change your opinion that I assumed I was alone in telling her not to forget her family or that I was trying to advocate my position.  But truthfully, I was not in fact stating either, nor being coercive, nor self-lauding, nor using rhetoric to push any agenda excepting that the OP not to forget her family.

I've said what I can say; people will read it for what it says, or read it for what they think it says.  It's no longer in my control.  I hope it helps someone.
Post Merge: April 28, 2009, 10:57:00 PM

Interalia,
I have a question kind of unrelated. What gender pronoun do you prefer? I saw that you are not transitioning so do you prefer male pronouns? Andro pronouns? I'm not sure but can you let me know? Sincerely, Meghan

Man, its tough to say this but I think the masculine form is the most appropriate.  It is how I live now.

[MeghanAndrews]

I don't want to take away from the focus on you Lori, but I hadn't really understood where Interalia was coming from. Interalia, I read through your blog and I think the reason that your approach sounded different to me was in the way you approach your issues. From your blog's mission statement you said:

My Mission Statement
...(beginning part left out for brevity) I'm doing my best to provide an example so people who deal with GID won't feel the hopelessness fostered by attitudes like those who tell me I cannot make it. I want to show that for some, transition isn't the only option, but that is gonna take, research, work, and a ton of trial and error. People can support me in my quest or get out of the way. I hope to find others who are undertaking the same path - that we might be able to support each other and learn how to deal with this together.

My rallying cry? "One less ruined family."

The posts I was reading from you seemed to take this approach too and you've been pretty open about it. Your approach on gay marriage seems similar. It seems as if your place here is to be an advocate for a different approach, one supposedly rooted in "humility, meekness, selflessness, and charity." Very noble pursuits but pretty transparent (forgive the pun.) I think it's fine for anyone to take whatever approach they want to transition, just realize that coming into a transsexual transitioning topic with the self-admitted personal rallying cry of "one less ruined family" is, I don't know...it feels very judgmental.

You seem to think quite a bit and I think that's great. I'm curious if you make the assumption that Lori and others with children don't think of others, if it's just "me me me" like you assume. Do you think that you are one of the few who actually think of the family and that other people couldn't have possibly transitioned successfully and continued to have loving relationship with their kids and exes? Does transition with kids necessarily have to be a miserable existence devoid of "humility, meekness, selflessness, and charity?" Can't people with a wife and kids successfully transition with the tacit approval and encouragement of a spouse and, if old enough, children?

[Lori]

I don't want to take away from the focus on you Lori, but I hadn't really understood where Interalia was coming from.

Don't fret dear. I find your posts fascinating and revealing. I'll take a back seat to you any day. I may learn something.

[NicholeW.]

Don't fret dear. I find your posts fascinating and revealing. I'll take a back seat to you any day. I may learn something.

I agree with Lori, Meghan, especially after reading the same blog posts. I've been thinking how does one not grind an axe when they admit that grinding that particular axe is their "mission."

Nice summation, Meg. Although perhaps we are all misconstruing this as an extension of the blog mission. I dunno. I can be pretty fair at having mistaken notions.

Nichole

[Just Kate]

You seem to think quite a bit and I think that's great. I'm curious if you make the assumption that Lori and others with children don't think of others, if it's just "me me me" like you assume. Do you think that you are one of the few who actually think of the family and that other people couldn't have possibly transitioned successfully and continued to have loving relationship with their kids and exes? Does transition with kids necessarily have to be a miserable existence devoid of "humility, meekness, selflessness, and charity?" Can't people with a wife and kids successfully transition with the tacit approval and encouragement of a spouse and, if old enough, children?

Thank you very much for taking a look at my blog - I know it is lengthy and there is a lot of stuff to weed through.  I do perfectly believe that people can transition successfully with their family relationships in tact, but that requires a GREAT deal of selflessness on the part of the one suffering from GID as well as the family who might or might not accept him/her.  I firmly believe we, in the end, cannot control the actions of others.  A transitioning father cannot make his wife or children accept him - but, the one who is transitioning CAN set a precedent of behavior, accepting that their choice will have consequences and willing to ride those consequences out and mourn with those who mourn, and help those in their families to deal with the pain of what appears to be losing someone they dearly love.  This doesn't guarantee acceptance, but it goes a long way toward helping them realize your situation and that you never ever ever wanted to hurt them.  The worst thing you can do, in my experience, is to treat them like the enemy, make yourself out to be the only victim, and marginalize their feelings.  I have seen this repeatedly having been involved in the community now for over 10 years.

I hate seeing families torn apart.  Sometimes it is inevitable, and not because of the transitioner, but because of the other members.  I want very much to act as a positive influence to keep families together, especially for those with members who deal with GID.  I feel so strongly for them because they are hurting, they are alone generally, and it can be so tempting to just say, "screw it all!" but I'm saying it doesn't have to be that way, and I don't just mean by not transitioning. 

And to the point of non-transitioning.  I will express it just to show another point of view, but will not press it if the other party shows no interest.  This path is mine - others have chosen theirs.  Transition is recognized as a viable path to fix the symptoms of GID, non-transition is not - at least, not yet.

[MeghanAndrews]

Thanks Lori and Nichole. Interralia, I respect your stance and I like that you don't just throw something out there without REALLY thinking about it. Your blog is detailed but I like reading other peoples' thoughts on things so it was a good read for me, keep it up

[NicholeW.]

  Transition is recognized as a viable path to fix the symptoms of GID, non-transition is not - at least, not yet.

Actually, Jerry Leach, Focus on the Family and Dr. Kenneth Zucker among others not only recognize that as a viable path to fix GID symptomology, they extol it and practice it on people who seek them out or who have parents who seek them out.

Nichole

[Just Kate]

Actually, Jerry Leach, Focus on the Family and Dr. Kenneth Zucker among others not only recognize that as a viable path to fix GID symptomology, they extol it and practice it on people who seek them out or who have parents who seek them out.

Nichole

Ugh...  I really don't want to be associated with that - but I realize it will happen.  They think they can "fix" you, I just want to learn how to cope.  I don't know if GID can be fixed per se, and I'm certainly not a fan of the "pray out the gay" ideals often extolled by Christian Evangelical groups.

[NicholeW.]

OK, Interalia, but aren't Mormons evangelicals as well as Christians? How do you square all of that? And I am truly curious. The question isn't meant as a foil.

Nichole

[Just Kate]

OK, Interalia, but aren't Mormons evangelicals as well as Christians? How do you square all of that? And I am truly curious. The question isn't meant as a foil.

Nichole

If a Mormon group advocated reparative therapy as these Evangelical groups are, I'd hold them under the same scrutiny.  Reparative therapy isn't my goal for myself or for anyone else who wishes to find paths other than transitioning.

Like I said, this path is my own, and while I feel guided to do so, it is in no way endorsed by my specific brand of faith.

[NicholeW.]

If a Mormon group advocated reparative therapy as these Evangelical groups are, I'd hold them under the same scrutiny.  Reparative therapy isn't my goal for myself or for anyone else who wishes to find paths other than transitioning.

Like I said, this path is my own, and while I feel guided to do so, it is in no way endorsed by my specific brand of faith.

Thank you. I don't like trying to mash someone into a group and then make them take, in my mind, the beliefs and attitudes of that group.

Nichole

[Just Kate]

Thank you. I don't like trying to mash someone into a group and then make them take, in my mind, the beliefs and attitudes of that group.

Nichole

And I absolutely adore and thank you and others like you for that.

[tekla]

There is a road, no simple highway,
Between the dawn and the dark of night,
And if you go no one may follow,
That path is for your steps alone.

Always cried when Jerry sang that, because it always struck me as being such a just-so truth.

All of us can not, and perhaps, must not, walk the same path.  Roads that some prosper on are death traps for other people.  And, at some level, every life is a blind-folded walk through a mine field.  Through a glass, and darkly.

I guess that's what's always bothered me so much about the entire debate about who is and who is not what, and people telling others 'your not' while other who are, are yelling 'I'm not' - and gee it gets confusing.

Any person who would state that 'for X, Y is the only solution for everyone' is a complete and total moron, who, at the very least, needs to get out more.  There are all sorts of degrees of difference, shadings of realities, and perhaps separate realities in this world.  So many factors, variables, and luck, chance, and change that it gets hard to say what is the right or wrong choice for any given person at any given time.

Some might choose not to transition because of family, others because they have found a way to work it out in their life in some other manner.  Others for perhaps even other reasons.  On the whole, no reason is more valid than the others, no solution better.  That depends on a case by case deal, and how knows the heart of another well enough to say?

Still...

I agree with interalia in that many would seem to be honest to the point of recklessness, self-centered in the extreme.  I'm shocked at times that "Mimi" isn't the trans fem name of choice, because it sure fits a lot of people.  And what strikes me most about them is that they seem to be the same people who demand the most from others, while giving of themselves the least.  But that's not just a trans deal is it - more like the human condition. 

There does however seem to be something in repression that brings it out more - the making up for lost time, or feeling that 'Hey, I've suffered for my life, now it's your turn' to a lot of it.  And that's sad.

Its really sad when in a headlong rush to 'get what you want' (which, by the way, is often the worst thing for you) you wind up alienating people only to wake up one day in the middle of an emotional desert, without anyone around when you really need them.

[Lori]

interalia;

Your blog said you had transitioned. For Two full years. You then, transitioned back. Was it because of guilt? Did a preacher show you the errors of your ways? Was it just not for you? Did your spouse stick by you during the two years?  I'm really curious to know.

Not everybody is you, or like you. If you had to put all ts on a line and say that line went from 1-10, I'd be a 7. You may be a -3. I'm not you, you are not me. What works for you won't work for me.

I'm am in no way saying transition is right, wrong, or the answer. I've spent too many sleepless nights, hours, days and minutes toiling over it. I'm tired. It wore me down. Its the only thing I have not tried. You assume so much in your first post, you made me feel like I was new to this scene and about to transition with no regard or thought to my family. You know what happens when you assume? It was crass and had a huge religious overtone to it.

I've had to face whether it would be better for my son if 1) I was alive as a woman to help raise him or 2) Just end it and spare him the embarrassment.

Death sounds like the really selfish way to me. Most children I know don't care. They are taught hate, prejudice, to shun, and treat others with disdain because they are different.

I wonder who teaches them those things. Maybe children could be taught to love, share, understand, and learn about those with differences instead? Most children are innocent. It is the adults and their beliefs pushed and passed onto the children that warp and twist their brains and make them believe.

Maybe daddy will get hit by a train and there will be a funeral and everything and then Lori will just show up and start helping one day? I don't know. It's a thought. I do know if I am not in his life, I cannot help him. I cannot help him if I am so weak, tired, and ripped inside out from GID either. I have to fix myself before I can help and truly love anybody. I have several issues. OCD, Body Dysmorphia, paranoia, and I'm TS to boot. I have an intro here. You may have to dig back to 2006 to find it. Use the little search feature. You and I are not in the same boat, we are not going to live by the same rules because we are not the same people.

I am not bound or confined by religion and their beliefs. I'll put my faith in science any day. You can come at me with religion and the fear of god but it would be more prudent to come at somebody like me with something that is more tangible and real.

Religion and money are the roots of all evil and most wars. People have been killing with love in the name of god for years. There are mormons, christians, lutherins, buhdists, muslims, catholics, and the list goes on. Funny thing is, they all think they are the ones that are right.

In Japan, suicide is an honorable act to save face. In the USA it is wrong and sure ride to hell. It is what you are raised to believe that makes you the person you are. The stronger you believe it, the more it rules your life.

There are some things that just won't go away like cancer or gid. They are real. Religion is a belief and it can be unlearned. That is true freedom.

[NicholeW.]

There is a road, no simple highway,
Between the dawn and the dark of night,
And if you go no one may follow,
That path is for your steps alone.

... And what strikes me most about them is that they seem to be the same people who demand the most from others, while giving of themselves the least.  But that's not just a trans deal is it - more like the human condition.  ...

Its really sad when in a headlong rush to 'get what you want' (which, by the way, is often the worst thing for you) you wind up alienating people only to wake up one day in the middle of an emotional desert, without anyone around when you really need them.

OK, you started well with Ripple and I feel ya about always kinda wellin' up when you heard Jerry sing it.

And I disagree with neither of you that those around us, including those on BBs like this, often enough get short shrift when "your value for me is over. Bye." But, yes, the condition is rather "modern American commercialist human" in the ways it plays out. And you and I have talked enough for you to know that I actually agree that too often transsexual make their lives these "scaled down to just me emotionally" hell-holes.

Although I have to admit that lone-rangerness is often enough the defining characteristic of those of us who have maintained "secrets" and "secret-lives" all of our lives and that anomie such as human populations may have never before known are the defining memes of our lives in our modern age. Marx was everso on-point with that in the 1850s.

But, there are times when people should also take stock of their own misery with living the ways they have lived and realize that there are other ways and being one's self isn't an overly poor way to start that.

Balance and poise are the keys and often enough the last things we consider in making decisions about transition. And far too often, imo, "transition or die" becomes just another poor excuse for riding roughshod over people who love one and who maybe need a few thoughts as we go through our processes.

I also find it terribly telling that often enough some of the largest purveyors of those memes are those who scream loudest that they are lonely and alienated and cannot find "love." Quite a conundrum, no?

Interalia's thoughts that there are more irons in this fire than many of us are willing to see I agree with. The presumption that he is maybe the only one able to see that was where I disagreed.

The only thing I should expect if I disregard the well-being of others in my pursuit of me is the eternal fact of my own loneliness and alienation from people who might provide me with a very normal, prolly the deepest, human craving: society (of some sort.)   

There's far too much of that I read daily in here and even more in other places on the net. But, I don't get the notion at all that Lori is deeply embedded in those memes. So, the application, like everything else, should have context and nuance and be applied where it rears it's pointy little head, not in a scatter-shot fashion.

You've been very good at pointing that out previously in more than one context, Kat. And you've been dismissed and harangued for doing so. And, lo, turns out you were exactly spot-on in your analysis when things have played out and shown what was truly at the base of the matter.

She says while listening to her son trying to learn Gimme Shelter on his Rock Band guitar.

Nichole