Say you had a choice

[kyril]

I'd do it in a heartbeat.

It might help that I'm gay. So I don't have to think about that "what if I had never been part of a marginalized group?" thing, because I'd just be trading one for another.

I might not be exactly the same person, but I'd be pretty damn close. All those 'masculine' things I did to sort of compensate - playing baseball, being a firefighter, joining the military - I think there's a fairly good chance I'd have done those as a cis gay guy too, because the motivation was more internalized homophobia/sissyphobia than it was "I don't have a penis so I have to prove myself."

What would be different? I don't really know. Obviously I would never have married my husband, and I probably wouldn't have dated the other guys that I did. But I don't think they as individuals really had a profound effect on who I am. I would have found other guys to date/sleep with, and the cumulative effect would have been pretty much the same.

Yeah, I'd do it, and I wouldn't feel the slightest bit guilty.

[pebbles]

Yes I would. While I can laugh at some of the more absurd elements of my existence and my unusual position has given me unique insight and talents.

It's just not worth so much pain.

[Tammy Hope]

absolutely yes!

I wouldn't be the same person?

Totally works for me!

the kids I have now wouldn't have existed?

Meh - it's metaphysical - if I was a fertile female I'd almost certainly be the mom of a couple of kids anyway, genetics aside I'm enough of a believer in the spiritual to think it would be all the same - a difference which makes no difference is no difference.

[King Malachite]

VERY interesting question. I would do it in a heartbeat.

It would save me a lot money and agony.  I wouldn't care about losing the friends I have made as female.  If I were born a biological male then my life would be waaay better.  I would be more inspired to exercise and take care of my body and I could "enjoy" my body to myself like most other teenage males do.  If I could be a biolgical male then I could care less about what experiences have shaped me since dealing with my trans issues.  I personally feel it's just a by-product of the cards I am dealt with. 

[Felix]

If I could go back in time and be born into a healthy loving family, or be born into money and health insurance, or be born into a culture that isn't viciously bigoted...it's all the same. I wish life wasn't so hard. Yes I am probably a kinder person for having suffered in all these specific ways, and yes I would make it never have happened if I had a choice. I don't care what kind of person that makes me.

[Artemis]

You could go back in time and make it so you are born the gender you were supposed to be, would you do it or not?

That was a huge fantasy of mine all through my teenage years!

Personally my first answer was YES DUH COURSE I WOULD but then i got to thinking. If i was born male from the very beginning would i be the same person i am now? the answer for me is a definate no.

true... Perhaps I could explain to my new self what, why and how I did what I did? Give her my diaries and notes on making the time machine, how I changed how I/she developed? Telling her to invest all her money in Apple Computer, Inc in 1996? Maybe even going back further and make sure that my parents do immigrate to the west coast of Canada in the 50s (but then I would risk never being born...)

[luna nyan]

For me, GID sucks.  Big time.
I would have chosen to have been born female.
I'd still have the same screwy experience growing up in my crazy family, but some of the things that happened would not have had I been born female.  If I had memories of past life so to speak, I'd miss the kids, but as a PP said, I would have had a few anyway.

[Sephirah]

No.

For the sole reason that if I did, I would never have met someone I love more than any thoughts of my own state of being. It would evoke a cascade reaction that would lead to never having met this person. In my view life is what it is, everything happens for a reason, and is made up partly of the lives of those you touch, and whose touch you. I wouldn't change that.

[Biscuit_Stix]

No, not on my life. 2 reasons, one my husband and child mean far too much to me. and 2, I have a 'I've come too far to give up now' mentality. I feel like if I could just go back and change it would be giving up on this long arduous journey. I've learned too much and come too far to leave now :-)

[MacKenzie]

Yes - being trans sucks.

[Jam]

I dont remember starting this at all and I still don't know what i'd do.

[Kitty_Babe]

It's very easy to wish for a different beginning, but then, everything in life that has made you what you are, would never of happened, or the effects you had on other people that were good things. We probably all want to 'erase' things in our past, but those things give us experiences and knowledge too. I think its fair to say we all have unique experiences of things in life, that made us who we are, good or bad for it. I have often thought I could go back to the very first moment of conception, and my mother to give birth to a child not transgendered or anything else but 'normal'. But I am what I am, and it lead me to some very odd and unusual decisions in my life, and I may well of been born as some one I would equally dislike as this persona I am now anyway.

[JoanneB]

Give me a Do-Over anytime!

Sure, no way can I assume I'll be the same person or have the exact same joys I do now nor the miseries. I would welcome a more conventional set of both. As another poster said "being trans sucks".

[Artemis]

Yes - being trans sucks.

Truth.

[sonopoly]

Nowadays, life is really tough for almost everyone, not just the transgendered and other minorities.  That's all I'm going to say.

[wheat thins are delicious]

Yes.  Would I still be the same person?  No, probably not, our experiences mold us to a certain extent.  Would it matter to me that I wasn't the same person?  No, because I wouldn't even know that that other self existed.  We are talking about going back and being born as a different birth sex, we are splitting a new branch off in our time line, thus making a whole new life for ourselves (from conception) and the people in our lives so no one would know anything about the "others".

[Felix]

I love how sci-fi we're getting with this one.

[JoanneB]

I love how sci-fi we're getting with this one.

I thought we were being Trans-cendental   

[Ms. OBrien CVT]

Well at first blush, YES.  But would I really.  Would I give up my children, grandchildren and great grandchild?  No.  If they could all be here and I was born female then maybe.  But it would mean changing who I am now.

In reality, No I would not want to go back and change.  It is a bitch to be Trans, and I would not wish it on anyone, but it makes me, ME.

[Catherine Sarah]

You could go back in time and make it so you are born the gender you were supposed to be, would you do it or not?

YUP!!!  in a heartbeat.

And I've thought long and hard on the matter. I know in my own mind, that if I had of had congruency of mind and body from that first moment I perceived the in-congruency, I would be 'streets' ahead of where I am now. The last 50 odd years have been like driving a car on 3 wheels. Sure it gets you around, but the inconvenience of not being able to reach it's full potential as a car, having to constantly adjust your driving technique to compensate, the additional stress placed on other components trying to compensate for the lost wheel; are just some of the time wasting, energy robbing and psychological inhibiting trauma that goes with in-congruency.

I don't want to change my past, because it is that which spurs me on with great alacrity to change my future to what it should be. That's the BURN.

Be safe, well and happy
Lotsa huggs
Catherine