This thread is wooooonderful and oh-so-heartwarming.
I clicked it and didn't leave my laptop until I had read every single reply.
I'm pre-surgery and hormones, but I'm so immensely in love with my life at the moment, and for all the hassles of being stuck in the wrong body, I still often feel like I'm the luckiest girl in the whole world. Allow me to rant for a moment about things I like:
- The amazing absence of intolerance among people in my city. Save for once being laughed at by a couple of kids who didn't know any better, and being asked by a genuinely curious waiter at a restaurant why I was wearing a dress (his response on hearing I was transgendered was 'good for you!'
), I have
never had a bad reaction from strangers anywhere for wearing women's clothes. Perhaps I'm just lucky enough to not look especially masculine, but I don't even really get stares. And even
had I received bad reactions, I've also received some really good ones. I've been taken as a woman a couple of times despite not really trying, I sometimes get 'Miss', 'Dear' or 'Sweetie' from smiling store clerks despite making no effort yet to disguise my male voice, and when I was buying my first female clothes, the girls at the counter didn't bat an eyelid, and simply chatted cheerily to me about how what I had picked out was really cute. Having read scary stories about the intolerance faced by transgender girls and boys all around the world, the last five or six months have raised my respect for my hometown tenfold.
- Being dealt a relatively good hand biologically. I'm tall, but not too tall to be female. My feet aren't small, but they're small enough that every female shoe rack has shoes in my size. My facial features and frame have always been relatively androgynous, I have very little in the way of body hair, and my voice isn't very deep, with my singing voice within quite a natural female range. And my limbs are already very feminine, with long shapely fingers and legs that some of my female friends seem to be jealous of. XD Of course there are things about myself that I'm not satisfied with, but I know I'm still relatively lucky as far as people in my position go. I was never handsome as a boy and it's unlikely I'll be an especially pretty girl, but I think it's only the
pretty part that will elude me, and I should hopefully pass fine as a girl in time. Which is all I really want anyway. I can take looking like a socially maladjusted shut-in as long as it's a socially maladjusted
female shut-in.
- The total acceptance of my friends and family. I've yet to get a bad reaction from
anyone close to me. It was enough of a shock to my family that we didn't talk a whole lot for a number of days, which was completely understandable, but they were supportive, if distant, from the off, and as the dust has settled things have gradually gone back to just the way they were, except now my name is Elly and I'm 'she', a daughter, and a sister.
And for those who haven't had to deal with adjusting to the idea of someone they saw growing up as a boy now being a girl? Everyone's been amazing. People in my university classes who I have hardly spoken to before have sent me messages on Facebook telling me they really admire me, that they think I'll be a beautiful girl, and that they'd like to help in any way they can. My friends threw a big coming out party for me, and a whole bunch of people I barely knew turned up and brought me flowers, presents, and words of support. Both my tutors and the university administration have rallied behind me: I get to be Elly every day in class now, and one of my tutors bought me a handbag as a coming out present, and regularly tells me how pretty I'm looking on any given day. XD People tell me I'm strong, and inspiring, and all sorts of other things, but beyond the stress of actually opening my mouth and getting the initial words out, coming out as a girl simply hasn't been difficult for me because everyone has been so wonderful. As far as I can see it's the people around me who are amazing and inspiring.
- The NHS. I've rarely been very nationalistic, but since deciding to transition I've realised how incredibly proud I am of my country's health service. Sure I've had to wait three months on a waiting list for a gender clinic, but my SRS is free, my counseling is free, my hormones only cost pocket change compared to what people from other countries pay... When I read about people abroad having to spend sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars just to be who they are, I can't help but feel amazingly lucky to have been born where I have.
- How easy it was to change my name and title. I drew up a deed poll, got a friend and a tutor to sign it, and that was that. At first it seemed so easy that I was convinced it couldn't be a legally binding document, but then I took it to the bank, to my doctor's, to the university... I'm Eleanor now on everything save my birth certificate, and changing that would be just as easy - I'm just waiting until my gender is officially changed too, as it costs a bit of money, and it's not something important to change until I graduate and start searching for work anyway.
- Being able to do clothes shopping that
isn't horribly depressing. Clothes shopping for me used to entail staring wistfully at the women's section for a long time before picking anything out of the men's section that was suitably cheap and the right size, and leaving the shop thoroughly upset. Of course I don't quite have the figure yet for
some of the stuff I want to wear, but that will come in time, and I already have a closet full of stuff that's really cute!
It's exciting to wake up in the morning and actually
care about what I'm going to wear. Of course this has the adverse effect of life suddenly costing a whole lot more. And some of the stuff I wear probably looks a little bit ridiculous. But when I'm having to drag myself away from the mirror because I'm smiling and posing too much, I have trouble caring. XD I guess clothes are a comparatively small thing, but it's exciting suddenly feeling something about the way I look that isn't abject hate.
- The knowledge that very few of the things I dislike about myself now are going to be around for long. I think for the first time in my life I love my penis, my facial hair and all the rest because everytime I look at them I think 'Hah! I win! Enjoy what time you have left, because you won't be here for long!', and my heart swells.
Before, being in a man's body used to depress me. Now it's exciting because I know there will come a time when I can wake up and realise that I'm
not, and that with every passing day that I feel a little more like a girl, that time edges closer. ^^
- Gradually coming to terms with the idea that someday I might fall in love with someone. I've never had much of an interest in sex or romance, and at twenty-five I've never been in nor desired a relationship or sex. I think I must have a relatively low sex drive, as it isn't really something you can just turn off at will even if it conflicts with your gender identity, but as I said to my doctor, I can't believe that my feelings about gender didn't play at least
some part. And while I know that so long as I'm physically a man my feelings aren't going to change, I can't count out the possibility that when my physical and mental genders match and my hormones are the way they ought to be, I might suddenly start feeling things for people that go beyond friendship. This one is kind of a double-edged sword because it's also
so terrifying. XD I don't know how to carry myself in a relationship. I don't even know if I like girls or boys. :'D And the idea of losing my virginity as a girl is still frightening even if it's not repulsive like the idea of having sex as a boy. Buuuuut...sex and romance are such a huge part of life for lots of people, and I can't say I'm not curious. Of course I'd be happy enough to transition and realise that I just want to go on being the way I have been 'til now too.
I've just resolved to keep an open mind and see what happens.
- Being
amazingly happy, and having hardly the slightest worry on my mind. I spent most of my teenage years trying to be a boy I simply wasn't, and it drove me to the brink of suicide. After leaving school I met wonderful friends and tutors who simply let me be myself and put no pressure on me to act my biological gender, which helped a lot, but whatever happiness I had then was happiness punctuated by hundreds of moments where something around me would remind me of my gender dysphoria, and I'd feel awful again. Now everything is out in the open, and I don't think I've been really upset in months. I actually came off my antidepressants, and I'm still happier than I've ever been. I know we're encouraged not to view transition as a fix-all to everything that's wrong in our lives, but in my case...I can't help but feel like it
is.
I'm really quite a cheerful person. I love my life, I love my friends, family and tutors, and there are enough things that I love about myself now that living with me isn't such an unattractive prospect anymore.
Even before deciding to go through with transition I was nowhere near the depression I went through during high school, and honestly, not being a girl on the outside was often the only thing that stopped me from bouncing off the walls like a Teletubby on Prozac. Now that I know that in time I
will be, I actually find it hard to stop smiling. Like seriously, it's painful. I feel like The Joker. D:
