Does this really make you "not transgender" anymore?

[ChrissyRyan]

After a while, when you realize that you are doing much of what you wanted prior to starting transitioning, you mostly live your life and try to deal with its issues and to enjoy each day.  Sure, there can be future milestones but those milestones are what you as an individual believe is a milestone for yourself.  At least, that is how I see it. 

I would like to have my female voice so naturally feminine.  Is my transitioning not over until at least that is done?  Will it ever be done? 

I will just continue to be me.

Sometimes I think I do not have much of value posting here and wonder if I should stop.
I cannot make almost every post about transitioning in some way and I know people visit to learn more about transitioning.  So I post on a variety of topics.  Some are trivial but that is okay.  No one has to take her time actually reading any!

Chrissy

[Lori Dee]

Chrissy, your input is always valuable!

Sometimes you just make a small comment, but that is just as important. It keeps topic threads alive, shows people that someone is reading their posts, and encourages others to get involved.
You are more valuable than you realize, dear.

[MaryT]

After a while, when you realize that you are doing much of what you wanted prior to starting transitioning, you mostly live your life and try to deal with its issues and to enjoy each day.  Sure, there can be future milestones but those milestones are what you as an individual believe is a milestone for yourself.  At least, that is how I see it. 

I would like to have my female voice so naturally feminine.  Is my transitioning not over until at least that is done?  Will it ever be done? 

I will just continue to be me.

Sometimes I think I do not have much of value posting here and wonder if I should stop.
I cannot make almost every post about transitioning in some way and I know people visit to learn more about transitioning.  So I post on a variety of topics.  Some are trivial but that is okay.  No one has to take her time actually reading any!

Chrissy

It would break my heart if you stopped posting.
Over the years there have been occasional tensions that have rocked Susan's Place but your patience and pleasantness and insights have been a constant that I am sure has played an important part in the continued existence of Susan's Place.

[Sephirah]

Sometimes I think I do not have much of value posting here and wonder if I should stop.
I cannot make almost every post about transitioning in some way and I know people visit to learn more about transitioning.  So I post on a variety of topics.  Some are trivial but that is okay.  No one has to take her time actually reading any!

Chrissy

Value, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. You never know if that one thing you say, however small or insignificant it may seem, will be the one thing that makes someone smile just for a moment amid an otherwise bleak day.

Susan's has never just been about transitioning. It's a safe space for people who may be going through life questioning themselves, dealing with others questioning them... feeling lost, confused... sometimes just in need of a cyberhug. It's a place for people to come together to feel around and a part of something when sometimes they don't feel it where they are. Where the dark doesn't feel so dark, and the light can shine that little bit brighter.

And in that, what you do is utterly priceless. Never stop being you, Chrissy. You are a light in the dark for a lot of people, whatever you say. <3

[Lori Dee]

I totally agree with Mary and Sephirah.

We have many members with varying personalities and attitudes. Then we have a few who, despite their own troubles, still come here and spread sunshine. You are sunshine, Chrissy. Never stop.

[Sephirah]

Agreed. Honey, if I thought I had to talk about transition and stuff that probably most people here know more about than I do, I'd have been gone like 10 years ago. Instead, you're stuck with me like that patch of mould on the wallpaper in the living room that never seems to go away.

Just be and do you. Susan's needs everyone. However messed up or not they may or may not be.

<--Queen of messed up.

[Mariah]

Same here. I have stayed in contact with many who are no longer on here while lost track of many others over the years too. At the end of the day, as has been mentioned already, we along decide what is and isn't of value to us. Hugs
Mariah

This place provides a service that people need... until they don't. Then they move on. I've lost count of the number of people I've seen come and go through here. Is why I rarely get attached to people.

I agree though, Chrissy, I hope everyone is doing well, wherever they are and whatever they're doing.

[ChrissyRyan]

The thing I think some of you are missing here is that after you erase your gender dysphoria, then life takes over. If social change, surgical change or some mix or combination of both gives you relief from the dysphoria you have been experiencing, then you are sort of just living life now, as any other person is..
I have compared it to a cancer survivor - there is a point when you realize you have cancer, it might be childhood, or later in life - you then live with that knowledge, a fact that could potentially kill you. You plan on what needs to be done to combat this problem.. and then for a few, tortuous years, fighting the cancer is all you can think about and deal with - then you get a clear.. a pass.. a good sign that the worst is over.. shakily, you start to rebuild your life.. a year goes by and nothing else seems to rear it's head.. another year and life.. stuff happening is more important than the fact you survived.. you will always be a survivor.. it will always be there in the back of your mind - but how you deal with that for the rest of your life is personal. some will want to stand on stage, talk about their heroics, write books and column inches giving advice on 'how to survive'.. others, will just breathe a sigh of relief, maybe in some quiet moment of reflection, shed a tear for all the pain they have endured and say a small prayer to their God in thanks for the happiness they have been, at last, given.. Their's is not to inform or wave banners or march in parades. They are content to just live... and so, a forum of people, who are either going through the pain, deciding on going through the pain or here for other reasons that are best left to them.. is not that appealing.

Personally, I am a people person. I like people. But, dealing with my GD was something I felt I could not trust anyone with - the anonymity of a forum like this allowed me to talk to people about what crisis I was facing. Help them too if I could.. Now I don't need to talk about such things to me, and when offering advice on here, it seems to come from an ivory tower as I was one of 'them that made it'.. people with less experience on the matter at hand, belittle and shout louder... and as such I prefer my friends in real life now. They don't know who I was, they don't really care. I am Sarah to them, we talk about everything, politics, babies, clothes, religion, science and music and all the things that interest us.. now I do not have to deal with my cancer, with my crisis - I have this freedom.. and it feels good.

And so.. it is not so much 'we no longer identify'.. it is more we have bigger issues than what we survived to deal with now.. and I am sure you don't want to hear about how my new tires cost me an arm and a leg or what I am planning on crocheting next?.  Transition was big in our life and at the time, the biggest thing ever.. but it isn't and shouldn't be that way for ever..

Thank you for sharing out.

Chrissy

[Tills]

Unfortunately, we can't make the decision of how others see us.

Love always -- Jessica Rose

I love everything about what you replied on this. I simply want to add to your final comment. Which is this:

Unfortunately, we can't make the decision of how others see us. No, but we can decide to walk away from them.

I gave an old 'friend' so many chances not to mis-gender me but in the end when he admitted that he didn't think someone born into a male body could be a woman and then addressed me by my old male assigned name ... I blocked him and wiped him entirely from my life.

Ruthless? Maybe. But it felt right and feels good.

[Lori Dee]

I gave an old 'friend' so many chances not to mis-gender me but in the end when he admitted that he didn't think someone born into a male body could be a woman and then addressed me by my old male assigned name ... I blocked him and wiped him entirely from my life.

Ruthless? Maybe. But it felt right and feels good.

I have had to do that with close family members. I have never regretted it. And my life has not changed one bit because of it.

"When your absence doesn't matter, then your presence didn't matter."

[Sephirah]

Ruthless? Maybe. But it felt right and feels good.

No, it isn't ruthless.

A friend is someone who accepts you for you. Loves you for you. In bad times and good times. A friend is someone you would have their back and expect them to have yours. Whatever their own prejudices... a friend is someone who has your back. If they don't... then get someone who does. It's that simple.

Life is too short to be surrounded by people who make you feel it isn't worth living.

[Tills]

And so.. it is not so much 'we no longer identify'.. it is more we have bigger issues than what we survived to deal with now.. and I am sure you don't want to hear about how my new tires cost me an arm and a leg or what I am planning on crocheting next?.  Transition was big in our life and at the time, the biggest thing ever.. but it isn't and shouldn't be that way for ever..

Love this so much

I've a good friend who completed her transition decades ago. She was something of a pioneer. But when we meet up we rarely talk about it. We chat about hiking and health and nature and food and travel.

You kick out the cancer (Sarah's metaphor) and then you get on and live your life.

xx