I want a pussy more than clothes

[A]

tekla, you're understanding it wrong. People do not mean they would have had a perfect life were they born with the right gender. They just mean they would have had a better life, and that is probably true for most transsexuals, and probably for most transgenders, too. The idealization, I think, comes from the fact that it's such an hindrance. It's like, uh, say, someone who is missing their legs. With them, they would surely not have had a perfect life, but no one would contest their idealizing it.

[Kendall]

What an interesting series of comments, what an interesting topic. It got me thinking about my own life -

First, about going back in time and being born a girl biologically - I do not think that would have been good. My mother told my sisters they did not have to do well in school, because they would marry and a man would support them. I kid not. Doing well in school as a male was my ticket out of my dysfunctional family starting with boarding school for ninth grade. And college away from home. Being male was the best way out of there. I never thought I was a girl in a male body, but I never thought about being male either. I just focused on surviving.

Two years ago, at 58, I started to review my life and make sense of things - like my feeling that I never "fit" and was always playing a (male) role. Sometimes role-playing is serious and in service of survival. I got into therapy, joined support groups and son on. I also started (partial) cross-dressing. I experimented with women's clothes, not to "look like a woman," or to be in drag , or even "feel like a woman." I just wanted to find out what I liked. I learned that I like "pretty" things, I like color, I like variety, and I like compliments. I also liked being called "mam." Some part of me I had never before acknowledged sat up and preened, and felt validated.

Since this shift in my awareness, I have become more aware that what I want is to be female physically and socially because I identify with women. I identify with women's concerns as well as wanting to wear women's clothes and look good doing so. And I have delayed dating for some time because I do not want to be seen or treated as a conventional heterosexual man. I do not feel like or identify as one. It does not fit. and I am too early in the process to be seen as a woman or a very androgynous person of ambiguous sex. I am attracted to both men and women - or either I guess - but I do not know how to present myself or be myself. I am still learning.

Reading all the different comments helps me look at things in different ways.

One last comment - more than a vagina, if I could go back in time I would want a womb. More than a man, I would want a baby. And that is what made my sisters lives so hard - babies way too soon. But to give birth, the wish brings tears to my eyes. I am grateful for my son, and the privilege of raising him, and I was there for the labor, but I was not his mother. Oh well, I cannot have that. I am grateful for what I can have.

There are so many different facets of this - feeling "I am a woman," dressing in womens' clothes, wanting to be seen and treated as a woman, wanting a woman-body, wanting to have vaginal intercourse, wanting to see a woman in the mirror, and more. And it seems everyone comes at it differently. And each person's experience is valid.

Thank you Robertine for posing the question.

Kendall

[Northern Jane]

On the topic of changing one thing in the past, for me it would be to be born female. I know my life would have been radically different and not in a good way. Assuming I had the same genes and same inherent personality (which is identical to my mother's) I would have gotten by but I would have faced different challenges and different problems. I would not (I don't think) have come as close to suicide nor would I have had to invest so much effort in simply becoming me.

On the original topic I can understand the deep desire to BE "normal female". As one who identified as female from earliest childhood I didn't grasp the magnitude of the problem until I was 8 and I never could do "boy act" worth a damn. By my early teens (1960) I was living part time en femme and that was my only taste of normality. As I got older, all the girls my age were becoming more sexually active and I was "stuck" because of my physical state - they were growing up and I didn't have that option. I may have had the rest of a 'normal life' but there was no way I was ever going to get physically involved with a guy the way I was. All I wanted was a normal body so I could get on with life as a whole and complete person - so yes, it wasn't about the clothes, it wasn't about the social part, it was all about BEING totally and completely female - I would even have taken periods, PMS, and the risk of pregnancy if it was possible!

(I had SRS at the age of 24 (1974) and it was indeed the end of my transition - after that was just normal life and, yes, I did put the "new equipment" to good use LOL!.)

[Rosa]

Two years ago, at 58, I started to review my life and make sense of things - like my feeling that I never "fit" and was always playing a (male) role. Sometimes role-playing is serious and in service of survival. I got into therapy, joined support groups and son on. I also started (partial) cross-dressing. I experimented with women's clothes, not to "look like a woman," or to be in drag , or even "feel like a woman." I just wanted to find out what I liked. I learned that I like "pretty" things, I like color, I like variety, and I like compliments. I also liked being called "mam." Some part of me I had never before acknowledged sat up and preened, and felt validated.

Since this shift in my awareness, I have become more aware that what I want is to be female physically and socially because I identify with women. I identify with women's concerns as well as wanting to wear women's clothes and look good doing so.

There are so many different facets of this - feeling "I am a woman," dressing in womens' clothes, wanting to be seen and treated as a woman, wanting a woman-body, wanting to have vaginal intercourse, wanting to see a woman in the mirror, and more. And it seems everyone comes at it differently. And each person's experience is valid.

Thanks for your reply, Kendall (and sorry for my late response).  I have never felt like I fit in all of my life. This process of exploring my true gender is allowing me to see who I really am inside - something I never allowed myself to do in total honesty.  I like pretty things too, bright colors, and to receive compliments.  I want to feel pretty.  Saying it sounds vain to my ears, but it makes me feel good.  On the few occasions when someone thought I was a woman, it made me feel good too. 

I just wish that I could have allowed myself to be honest about these things when I was younger, which would have made transition much, much easier.  I look at all the pretty young women around me and think how I will never be able to look like that. Yet, there are some very attractive women my age, and I need to remember that. 

Anyway, I really identified with your comments and wanted to thank you for sharing. 

[regan]

I just wish that I could have allowed myself to be honest about these things when I was younger, which would have made transition much, much easier.  I look at all the pretty young women around me and think how I will never be able to look like that. Yet, there are some very attractive women my age, and I need to remember that. 

The ease of transition is relative.  There is a vast assumption that a younger transition equates to being more physically passable, that however is not always true.  Even the child that transitions in pre-puberty still fears being read as their birth genders, still has to come to terms with a past life different from their current gender.  Looks have nothing to do with that.  Young transitioners may have the benfit of youth, but they lack the benefit of money and transition is very, very expensive.

I have come to believe that whereever you are in transition, while you are busy envying someone you wish you could be, someone is feeling the same way about you.

[Maddie Secutura]

Sometimes I wish I had waited to start so that I would have been better off financially.  Alas that wasn't the case.

[Double_Rainbow]

Sometimes I wish I had waited to start so that I would have been better off financially.  Alas that wasn't the case.

I'm using my extra student loans and tax return to help with mine...and even that wont be enough!  In total about $13,000...and according to the budget I made, that's barely scratching the surface!  So yeah, a transitioning person better want this a lot cause its going to drain them like a vampire bat!    

You almost have to get real creative with things like clothes, make-up, etc to make up for surgeries.  Still...I find myself buying higher-end items for a boost now and then!  ^_^

[regan]

Sometimes I wish I had waited to start so that I would have been better off financially.  Alas that wasn't the case.

I'm realizing the (re)transition bug hit me after I realized all that I had achieved in my life, yet I still wasn't happy.  As I related it to my therapist, I realized I was feeling alot more comfortable about my transition plans knowing all of the things it wasn't going to take away from me or possibly keep me from achieving.

[sarahla]

There are a lot of positives to being born in the exact body that your mind is, e.g. a female body for a female mind, but being born trans is not all that bad either.  There are positives for being born transgendered, at least for me.

I know my family and more importantly myself.  I know without a doubt that I would not be as accepting of people and their differences had I not been born this way.  I know for a fact that I would have taken gender for granted.  I would have bitched and moaned about my period.  I would probably not have considered being bisexual or truly open.  More than likely, I would have followed the pack and be anti-LGBT.  I definitely would not have considered having LGBT friends.  Okay, I do not have any now, but I almost did, just this gay guy did not want to be friends. :-(

More importantly, I do not think that I would have been as sensitive as I am, gone into computers, liked Star Trek, or even just stayed a girl.  I would have become a woman and be someone totally else.

In many ways being trans has helped my soul to grow and to see life as a spectrum.

Okay, I am not happy about all the lost years or should I saw decades.  I am still ticked for not being able to go to my prom.  I always imagined wearing a beautiful dress and having someone ask me out.  I miss all the girl experiences, although I would have taken them for granted.  I am big enough to say that I know myself, and I would have sad to say.

Yes, I would love a natal vulva and plumbing, not to mention a G-spot.  Medical science cannot give transgirls a g-spot as far as I understand, or can it?  They can put parts of the penile gland woven into the vaginal wall, or at least one SRS surgeon did, but that is something different.  Maybe one day.  Yes, there was this other thread and the consensus was 30-years. That is truly a double ho hum.

The point that I am trying to make is that going back in time and changing the past also changes events, emotions, and may other things.  It is not a sure thing that changing the past would make the alternate reality better.  One person here wrote that they would go back and have their mother take something extra to ensure a female child.  That change could have resulted in God knows what changes, maybe for the best but maybe for the worse.

By the way, I am not saying that I would wish to be trans or anyone else to.  I would want my own children, etc.  To my knowledge, I did not ask to be trans, or at least I sure hope that I was not that stupid, but as long as I am here, there is good that came of it.

[Rebekah with a K-A-H]

Yes, I would love a natal vulva and plumbing, not to mention a G-spot.  Medical science cannot give transgirls a g-spot as far as I understand, or can it?  They can put parts of the penile gland woven into the vaginal wall, or at least one SRS surgeon did, but that is something different.  Maybe one day.  Yes, there was this other thread and the consensus was 30-years. That is truly a double ho hum.

The best answer I can give is "kind of". The G-spot is part of the female prostate (the analogue, at least), and prolonged exposure to estrogen will make the homologous male prostate gland take on some similar characteristics.  There's no way for sure to say just how similar it is, obviously, but I've heard anecdotally that some trans women are able to achieve orgasms from stimulation of the prostate through the vagina. As always, YMMV.

[JenAtLast]

For me it would be the final validation.  Yes I know, why do I need that validation?  Because I do.  I don't have to explain that to anyone.

It is like the keystone to an archway.  Yes, no one would know any different, from now til then.  But I do and that is what makes the difference.

The sex is not even a consideration.  If that happens then great otherwise I already am treated like a woman, good and bad.  I am seen as a woman in every eye, including my own.  I am blessed in that my journey has only had a few bumps.

I feel the part about validation.  For me too, it's also about finality.  They can take everything else away from me, but once the SRS is done, they can't take it back.
While I like clothes and being girly, it's not even in the same ballpark.  I would rather be physically female dressed in sackcloth than a have male anatomy dressed in the prettiest things.