Would you rather be TS/TG or just plain "normal"?

[Mister]

Thanks Jaimey, I'm fed up with everyone being so uptight and po-faced about all this gender business. Let's all just make the most of it and enjoy ourselves

No point in being miserable when there are friends to be made, good times, laughs, and hopefully plenty of sex!
Post Merge: April 22, 2009, 06:54:06 PM
Stop being so boring and ruining my thread...

Haven't you got anything else better to do?

I'm sorry if trying to get you to clarify yourself is too boring.  Not exactly sure how I 'ruined' your thread since I replied to your topic.

[Mr. Fox]

Really, I kind of wonder what imaz meant, too.  But it might be more fun to try to guess than to know.

[imaz]

I'm sorry if trying to get you to clarify yourself is too boring.  Not exactly sure how I 'ruined' your thread since I replied to your topic.

You really are boring me to death, no wonder you get into so much trouble here.

If I wasn't so sweet and feminine I tell you to go do one... but then you would probably ask me what I meant by that...

Why am I even bothering to reply to you?

[Nicky]

In the interests of harmony it would be good if you two, Mister and Imaz just stop replying to each others posts. I like the topic. Would be a shame to have to stop it.

(actually I would like to know what you meant by the comment "probably means I'm right"  Imaz....I'm a bit slow in the brain pan department, I'm assuming it was a little dig at Mister, if that is the case maybe just apologise. You don't have to like them, but their opinion was good and valid)

Thanks
Nicki

[Mr. Fox]

Sometimes things that make perfect sense in one's own head do not make sense in other people's heads; happens to me an embarassing amount.

[Zelane]

I would like to be "normal" I have wanted it all my life. Being in the middle kind of annoys me. But I guess its just different.

[Seshatneferw]

Sigh. I've never been "normal", so I wouldn't even know what that's like.

So true. Last autumn, after some four decades, it finally dawned on me that cisgendered people really exist -- that apparently some people may in fact feel completely comfortable with the sex of their body. The next step, of course, was realising that I don't (or cannot) really imagine what that feels like. In that sense I haven't got a need to be 'normal', much as I'd prefer to have the kind of body my mind expects to have.

On the other hand, there are some aspects of being trans that I really like. Looking back, it's been a major reason why I've been able to make choices that go against traditional gender roles, and in a lot of ways it's been good to find my own way, although one result is that the 'I'm not really this and not quite that either' kind of identity crisis applies to much more than just my gender. All in all, though, I think it balances out; being this way is not inherently better or worse than being 'normal', but by now there are a few things that have happened in my past that I wouldn't trade.

  Nfr

[imaz]

So true. Last autumn, after some four decades, it finally dawned on me that cisgendered people really exist -- that apparently some people may in fact feel completely comfortable with the sex of their body. The next step, of course, was realising that I don't (or cannot) really imagine what that feels like. In that sense I haven't got a need to be 'normal', much as I'd prefer to have the kind of body my mind expects to have.

On the other hand, there are some aspects of being trans that I really like. Looking back, it's been a major reason why I've been able to make choices that go against traditional gender roles, and in a lot of ways it's been good to find my own way, although one result is that the 'I'm not really this and not quite that either' kind of identity crisis applies to much more than just my gender. All in all, though, I think it balances out; being this way is not inherently better or worse than being 'normal', but by now there are a few things that have happened in my past that I wouldn't trade.

  Nfr

Indeed, as you say, in the end it all probably balances out.

Your point about how we are 'obliged" to make different choices in life, which subsequently take us down different paths to different places is a very interesting one. Personally, I think this is the hardest thing to accept when one is young, a time in which the pressure to conform is perhaps greatest.

When I talk to friends about my life they tell me how great it must have been to have lived "outside the box" although at the time all I wished for was a steady job and so-called normality. Only in the last few years have I really come to appreciate my situation, and the life it has made me lead. Without my gender situation I would never have been to the places I've been, made the friends I have, and have had, married the people I married, and even come back to Islam.

It's a very acquired taste to be TS/TG both for ourselves and others, but once one learns to appreciate it for what it is it can bring great happiness to oneself and those that surround us. I don't believe in taking it very seriously on a personal level anymore, no more guilt, shame etc. It's a blessing for what it teaches us, and while we may be a despised minority by many, we are also a sought after one by others. If I was a 56 year old straight or Gay man I doubt very much that I would have the interesting and wonderful friends I have, be able to pull the good looking girls and men that I can, and be married to my gorgeous wife. i simply would never have met her.

So let's all be positive and enjoy this wonderful chance to live an unusual life and make the most of it for what it is with gratitude and patience in our hearts.

My love and hugs to you all

-imaz-

[Jay]

I would rather be just plain normal as then I wouldn't had to go through all the surgery and the like.

I don't hate being trans. I am trans, I got over it a long time ago.

The only thing with being trans is like I said all the hurdles you have to go through.

So all in all I would rather be a bio-boy.

Jay

[imaz]

Fair enough

[Cindy]

Damn
I wrote a big reply and hit the wrong button. Shows I'm female

Anyhow hi Imaz . Hope you are OK. I'll PM you soon.
Interesting thread. I would not be what I am today, career wise etc if I was born a bio-female. I have been forged in a cruel cruicible. I can withstand many things that bio-males have problems with. I would love to be bio-female. I can never be that physically. I can be altered to look more like my brain gender but I can never function as I want to. I want(ed) to have babies, besides the fact I'm now too old I'll never get the equipment.
I do enjoy the reaction I make to
people. I mainly pass and am increasingly confident, and starting to not care when I don't.

I'm increasingly accepting myself and enjoying my uniqueness. And I think that's what you meant?

LoL
Cindy James
(and if this is not what you meant, I suppose I need a spank )

[imaz]

Hi Cindy, I'm fine thanks, just sitting waiting for the plumber for the second day in a row!

Yes, it was about enjoying and appreciating one's "uniqueness" that this thread was meant to be about.

[Cindy]

So I don't get a spank?

Hate to think what's wrong with your plumbing if you need a guy for two days

[imaz]

Steady there girl!

This is a real plumber for better or worse with all the waiting, expense and bad workmanship that entails... The siphon in the cistern has died and now he's moaning that he cant find a replacement and it's all got to be replaced.

Not really into all that pain stuff to be honest, just like dressing up with my friends and having a crazy time with dancing and getting out of it

[Cindy]

I know that, I'm definitlty never into pain. Just winding you up in a fun way 

I've had to have plumbers in Aus and they are sooo expensive. You can always tell them when the arrive, the mercedes stops and the chauffuer lets them out.

I hope you are flushed with success soon.
BTW it's raining for the first time since december.
Sorry this has got nothing to do with your thread
Cindy

[noeleena]

hi... Cindy ..  yeap . not having your own womb is a hard one ... most women have one .. yet some cant have baby.s ... so yea we know what it.s like . some thing incommon with our sister.s .
...noeleena...

[imaz]

No worries

This plumber really does arrive in a Mercedes, a van but still a Mercedes

[Alyssa M.]

My answer to this is always the same:

1) Dr. Pangloss is wrong, whether in the guise of Leibniz or Aquinas or whoever our favorite optimist is. Felix culpa is bad theology. The tapestry of gendered experience and greater empathy for the struggles of others or whatever sugar-coating you choose, while real, doesn't make up for the hell that GID has caused in my life.

2) If "normal" means "normal male," then the question doesn't make sense. Struggling with GID is an experience. Being female is who I am. I can imagine a hypothetical life in which I have different experiences, but not in which I'm a different person entirely.

To be honest, for years I tried to "cure" myself of my gender, because it's what all the feedback I got from society told me. It took a while to figure out that society was wrong, and to realize how self-hating and self-destructive my attempts to "cure" myself were.

By and large, I am certain I would have had a happier and more fulfilled life had I been born and raised a girl.

[Linda]

I don't believe in taking it very seriously on a personal level anymore, no more guilt, shame etc. It's a blessing for what it teaches us,

I'm really trying to overcome this part, because I think as soon as I do, I feel others will be more accepting. In my younger days I was always dancing with one foot on either side "normal", (my creedo used to be always keep 'em wondering, maybe I should dust it off). It was wonderfully fun. But most of the people around me then did not seem to take me seriously about most things. I guess I didn't take myself serious enough either, or else I wouldn't have cared what they thought. I think I'm trying to say I wish I could feel normal about being TG. lol

But it's in threads such as these which I find encouragement, strength even, to got forth and just be me with out hangups about being me.

[imaz]

Thanks Kiera and Linda for your positivity. The idea behind this thread was to generate some happiness and positive thoughts around our situations, to create a safe and happy space for those of us who don't fall into a traditional binary model.

In all seriousness I believe that our own self acceptance and enjoyment of our difference is a giant step towards the acceptance of society at large.

Just a few hours ago I noticed that the young Chinese kid who lives in my little street has come out as apparently very gender different. He's only probably about 14 but he was wearing about 20 pink and yellow and bracelets and pink earings! It's great that he has the courage to do this in our neighbourhood and perhaps the significant LGBT presence in our street has helped him in this.

Lots of love to you all