Being Transsexual is Like ...

[Naturally Blonde]

I will acknowledge that I may have been seen as trans at some point in later childhood but that was cured a LONG time ago. If I had once had cancer, I would not say I am cancer just that it is old news, medically speaking. Whatever the medical state of my body so long ago has long been irrelevant.

That was really my point as well. Thanks Jane for putting it across much better than I could.

[rejennyrated]

That was really my point as well. Thanks Jane for putting it across much better than I could.

Ditto! We shouldn't forget that we three all had the benefit of early treatment though. Which puts us in a very small and lucky minority for our time.

I still think my original comment about it being like a ghost is a reasonable description of the feeling prior to getting things sorted.

[Fer]

I have never felt like a "boy" or like a "transsexual" either.  In my mind I've always been female just like any other female born with a birth defect other than transsexualism.  Of course, to the world, I was something entirely different because of my anatomy, but that goes without saying.

During the almost two decades that I suffered from this devastating disease (yes, I call it a disease because that's exactly what it is, a disease that is curable by correcting one's body to fit one's mind)

That's the way I see it too.  A destructive, debilitating, fatal illness if left untreated.  An illness that doesn't change the fact that I'm a woman.  An illness that doesn't define me. An illness that isn't my identity.  It only lasts forever or until it kills you if you don't take care of it.  But once you do, that's the end of it (transsexualism).

-Fer (cured by Dr. Suporn)

[Naturally Blonde]

Ditto! We shouldn't forget that we three all had the benefit of early treatment though. Which puts us in a very small and lucky minority for our time.

Early treatment? not in my case! where did you get that idea from Jenny. I might have been in the GD bubble for many years but in my particular case treatment wasn't and still hasn't been very early. My extensive legal cases against the NHS are legendary and I had to fight tooth and nail for any form of treatment, so I don't think I come under the lucky banner!

[rejennyrated]

Early treatment? not in my case! where did you get that idea from Jenny. I might have been in the GD bubble for a long time but in my particular case treatment wasn't and still hasn't been very early.

Ah - my sincere apologies. I stand corrected  I must have got the wrong end of the stick from one of the threads somewhere. Put that down to a senior moment on my part then. Sorry. 

[Pippa]

I feel out of phase with the rest of the world, the preverbial square peg in a round hole.   I feel like I send out the wrong kind of signals which others don't quite get.   I live in a bubble of deceit always living a lie.   I feel that I am always having to act as others expect rather than being the real me.   I therefore coast through life rather than living it to my full potential.   I feel like I am lying to myself every single day.

My decision to transition came at a point where I could no longer stand the deception.   Now that the real me has a chance to shine I am more content and free.   This was a decision I should have made years ago, I just didn't have the courage until now.

[Sandy]

My life, being born in the body of the wrong gender, has been like ...

- Kate

That's just it, Kate, there is no way to explain it.  There is no way to make someone understand the angst and the agony we face(d) each day.

I think it is the term trans-sexual that throws people off.  It sounds like it is a sexual thing.  An erotic thing.  Something done for enjoyment.  Though it is farthest from the truth.  I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy.

I try to convey the feeling by telling them to imagine, not if they woke up as the opposite gender, but as something completely alien.  I tell them to imagine themselves waking up as an aardvark.  It takes the sexual/erotic overtones out of the conversation.

I tell them to imagine what it would be like to find yourself as an aardvark.  You look like an aardvark, you smell like an aardvark, and all the other aardvarks say you are an aardvark.  And that you should aardvark up and start acting like an aardvark!  But inside, you know you are not.  Inside, to your core, you know that you are not an aardvark.  And you would do anything to become what you are.

My therapists have all explained that while they have compassion for our plight, since they were not trans themselves, they could not truly understand.

Many of us take on the image of the caterpillar to butterfly.  We imagine ourselves going through transition, a chrysalis, to emerge changed.  To become what we truly are.

But if the caterpillar is kept from creating its chrysalis, its transition, it will die.  It will expend all its energy trying to change.

This is what I have felt.

Sorry, Kate, for such a long-winded answer (like I have anything else), but I don't think it can be conveyed in one sentence.  Much like trying to describe the color orange to a blind person, it cannot be described to one who does not have sight.

-Sandy



cnat spel

[Natasha]

OOPS.  Sorry I wasn't clear. 

I am seeing people who knew me for many years pretending to be a man and who assumed I was a man.  I want to be able to describe to them what it is to be transsexual - to be born a girl with a boy's body (or vice versa).  I don't want to get into an argument about how much of a girl I am.  I want to help people who knew me before know what it has been like for me.

OK.  Assuming you are talking to people who knew you when you presented in the opposite gender and who assumed you were that gender, how can you help them understand what your experience was like?

My life, being born in the body of the wrong gender, has been like ...

- Kate

well if you want to educate people, you have to start by letting them know that you're a 100% female, woman & how much of a girl you are. (not "kind of a female")  that's the reason why you're transitioning in the first place, isn't it?

being "transsexual" was a temporary ailment.  something that had a beginning and an end. 

[K8]

well if you want to educate people, you have to start by letting them know that you're a 100% female, woman & how much of a girl you are. (not "kind of a female")  that's the reason why you're transitioning in the first place, isn't it?

being "transsexual" was a temporary ailment.  something that had a beginning and an end.

The people I'm trying to explain this to all knew me when I pretended to be a man.  To them, I was a man.  Convincing them that I am now and always have been a woman is more than I think they are ready for at this time.  That's why I want to describe what this aspect of my life (my gender dysphoria) was like.  I think if I can describe it in a way they can relate to they will be more ready to make the next step of seeing me as a woman (albeit a woman with on odd past). 

Whether I will continue to be transsexual after I transition socially and medically is not the question. 

I am trying to describe what it was like to be born into the body of the wrong gender and to be forced to live in that wrong gender until lately, and to describe the difference between then and now.

I am just trying to help someone who hasn't experienced what we go through to have some understanding of what it has been like.  I have run into this when trying to explain my passion for motorcycling to someone who has never ridden, when I've tried to describe what a career in the military is like to someone who was never in the service, what it was like caring for my dying partner of over 20 years to someone who has never had a long-term partner, etc.

And I agree, Sandy, that at least in the US the term transsexual gets some people off track in their thinking.  That's why I usually say I am transgendered.  (Or was transgendered.)

- Kate

[Alyssa M.]

That's why I just say "trans" if I must say anything at all. "Transgendered" is often used as an umbrella term, and "transsexual" sounds icky, and makes people start thinking about hormones and surgury and other stuff that isn't their business. If they ask me to elaborate, I just say that it means that they need to understand that I am a woman, despite the fact that they used to know me as a man and still see some male physical characteristics, and that's all that should matter to them.

I will acknowledge that I may have been seen as trans at some point in later childhood but that was cured a LONG time ago. If I had once had cancer, I would not say I am cancer just that it is old news, medically speaking. Whatever the medical state of my body so long ago has long been irrelevant.

I would love to get to that point, and seeing people who have gotten there gives me hope. But to extend your analogy, I would say I was blessed if I had survived cancer, and so I will say that you are blessed.

[Silver]

Well I don't have fibromyalgia, but I figure it's a lot like that.

You have a problem, and you know it. But nobody else believes you.

And with transsexualism, you have the nice bonus of groups people just hating you for no real reason other than "they can't relate."

Or maybe like being stuck in a box. In more ways than one.

[Nero]

Re: Being Transsexual is Like ...

Being 11 years old forever (well until treatment is found). When growing up (in the wrong gender) means death.

[Valentina]

Being born transsexual was a cruel joke of nature (God if you believe in him).  Absolute torture.  My spirit was put into a body that wasn't mine.  I was in a constant battle with my body since I could tell the difference between boys & girls, but at the end I won the war & took control of my own flesh.

I'm trans no more.  I'm now the woman I always was.

-Cured by Dr. Sanguan Kunaporn-

[Lachlann]

Re: Being Transsexual is Like ...

Being 11 years old forever (well until treatment is found). When growing up (in the wrong gender) means death.

Going to have to go with this one.

[Ryuu]

I didn't come up with this, and it was probably written better in its original version, but I don't remember where I found it so I can't cut/paste.

Being transgender is like being left-handed. Less common than right handers, but that's not because we are inferior - it's no better or worse than being right handed.
In a classroom, right handed people can sit at right handed desks and be comfortable. (as comfortable as you can be at a desk in a classroom lol) Left handed people can either sit in a right handed desk and be completely uncomfortable, or they can find themselves a left handed desk and be comfortable as anyone else. It might be a little harder for left handed people to be comfortable, but that's because we live in a right-handed dominated world, not because lefties are worse.

[Ender]

"Being a transsexual is Like... "

... Being the only human being on the face of the planet that sees the colour blue and finding yourself forced to explain the colour of the sky to everyone who's remotely involved in your life.

Brilliant.

[Inphyy]

Being transsexual is like...Crimson Butterflies...They may be beautiful and light the way for you but often times these beautiful creatures are taken into an grotesque path which in the long run...Strips the creature of such beauty and leaves it with the outer core of only demise and disgust.

[DamagedChris]

"Being a transsexual is Like... "

... Being the only human being on the face of the planet that sees the colour blue and finding yourself forced to explain the colour of the sky to everyone who's remotely involved in your life.

I used a similar analogy with my ex boyfriend...I told him "it's hard to explain to someone what bubblegum tastes like if they've never tasted it".

For me...

...it's like going through life blind and hearing about all the wonderful sights you're missing, only everyone getting upset that you want your eyes fixed so you can see too.

...it's a constant fear that you could die alone, trapped inside a shell, or you could die by someone who doesn't like what emerges from that shell.

...it's a knowledge that every step you take is earned and well-fought for. Transition has made me stronger in a lot of ways.

...it's knowing how many things people really take for granted in life. Things like a name, a pronoun, the way someone looks at you, friends, relationships, family. I can't say that being trans is 100% sad, because without being trans I wouldn't know how much I fear my family walking away from me.

[Butterfly]

Being transsexual was like trying to look at myself in the mirror but seeing the reflection of somebody else.

A disease, an illness.  I like that very much too.

EDIT: Cured by Marci Bowers

[Jeannette]

Asphyxiation, blindness, paralysis, despair, pain, loneliness.  You're dying inside & nobody seems to give a damn. Nobody believes you.  Nobody wants to free you.  The pain is yours & yours only & nobody can understand it, you can't even explain it, but it's real, too real to ignore.  That's how it felt like.