Susan's Place Transgender Resources

One of the things that I have resented most in the past 5 years is not feeling like I have anyone supporting me, at the very least emotionally.  I've known quite a bit of transgender people, yet noone seems to know how to be emotionally supportive.  Maybe my problems are too complex?  What have I done to deserve this though.  Am I just unlucky to not have capable enough tg friends? 

   I hate it that being transgender is very hard and yet I don't feel like there's a support base for transgender people.  Why the heck does it seem like you, as a discriminated class, somehow have to be on your own?   When I was little, I was bullied for years and when I changed schools, the bullying stopped.  I felt like I was on my own back then, and I feel like I'm going to have to be like that again.  But why should it be like this?  What I went through when I was young was traumatic, and that has kind of hindered my ability to go forward with transitioning. 

    I wish I had the support of people around me.  It's so depressing and makes me feel angry towards people sometimes that I have to feel rejected.  Yes, other people deserve support, but not me.  I'm not a bad person, I don't treat others badly, and I try to keep myself with high ethical standards.  I helped other transgender people when I had the power to, years ago (one by just hearing them out and another by helping her get temporary housing with a friend of mine).  Is it that I'm not good enough?  Not desirable enough to other people?  I had all these dreams of the woman that I wanted to be, I wanted to help others, I wanted to pretty much be the ideal girl/woman in terms of personality (joyful, sweet, nice, lovely).  It's so heartbreaking that I've felt it slip away and am stuck in this f****** male life.  It's also sad that I've had to hold my feelings and suck it up and put my female self in a cage just to survive.   Am I a worthless person?  I don't think I am, but it seems like I am, because I have noone to support me, because noone cares about me.  My mom cares about me until we talk about gender issues.  My parent's love is only conditional.  How many times I have to keep myself from feeling like I don't want to live.  I've felt so cynical about things within the past few years, but that's not my nature.  I wish I could trust and fully believe other people.  I have a lot of potential to help people, but that potential will never be reached if I never can get support from others around me, and I'm going to have to feel like I'm alone "on my own" in this cold and harsh world.  Do I deserve this?  If only I had some help, if only there was someone out there that could help me and at least be emotionally supportive.  I'm not a needy person and I'm not a dependent person, It's just that we all need some support around us.  I see so many communities rally to support someone going through something harsh.  Why them and not us?

    Why do we not deserve support?  What we do is not easy.  Changing your public identity and your life and coming out and letting everyone know that you intend to do something controversial is not easy.  For me, letting go of the "protective layer" of a persona I have had for pretty much all my life and feeling the world much more dangerous and unpredictable with potential problems with cisgendered people is not easy.  It's not easy feeling rejected by your parents and friends.  It's not easy having to deal with all the potential problems, including finding work, as well as many people you deal with having to know you are transgender and having to be under the mercy of whatever they think of transgender people.  This is one of the hardest things anyone can do in their life, why can't someone like me have at least some support?

Hi Katlyn,

I think this post is the very first step in you moving forward to get some support. If you were to take what you've said here to your circle of influence and openly and honestly put it on the table, you might open up others to giving you reasons.

If you'll pardon me for expressing my initial thoughts. And I do this in as constructive manner as possible; I felt your post was expressing a personality that subliminally projected a person not willing to put themselves "out there" in expressing their good, bad, happy, sad, everyday feelings. But projecting a closed, I'm hurt, don't talk to me attitude. You may be thinking other stuff when you interact, but subliminally you are projecting this other more negative attitude.

You need to remember when I make this perception, I make it in the form of a snap shot of your daily life, not in a dynamic way that  I would otherwise express if I was with you and could be with you as you interact on a broader scale. More or less. living in real time with you. Minute by minute.

I hope this may have helped you along the way.

Huggs
Catherine

Quote from: Katelyn on January 17, 2013, 01:56:37 AM

   I hate it that being transgender is very hard and yet I don't feel like there's a support base for transgender people.  Why the heck does it seem like you, as a discriminated class, somehow have to be on your own?   When I was little, I was bullied for years and when I changed schools, the bullying stopped.  I felt like I was on my own back then, and I feel like I'm going to have to be like that again.  But why should it be like this?  What I went through when I was young was traumatic, and that has kind of hindered my ability to go forward with transitioning. 

Being a trangender person and living the life of a transgender person is not hard. Accepting yourself and knowing every morning that you are a transgender person IS hard though. Living my life and being me is the easiest thing in the universe. I don't have to do any thing I just have to be me.

If you don't like discrimination then welcome to the world. Blacks, women, gays,trans people are all treated unfairly and to my observation for no good reason whatsoever. If you want to live in this world as a female you live with earning less money for doing the same job as a man, fear of rape, being ignored simply for the crime of being female. That's not even being trans, that's just female. Trans adds even more stuff. I conquer discrimination one person at a time. There was a time years ago when I transitioned and was treated like crap at job interviews. I walked away thinking, you know, I probably don't want to work there anyways. I could have been a black man and they could have been uncomfortable with that. What would the black man say?

It's hard to let go of a survival mechanism, it was for me too. As long as I did everything that everyone expected of me, then I survived, well physically but mentally I was dying a little every day. Letting go of the crutches can be hard if one is used to them. It required me to walk away from my family and go live a new life to finally realize that I no longer had to do what was expected of, instead I only had to do what I expected of myself.

Best wishes in whatever direction your journey takes you.

Hi Katelyn.

Thank you for your post. I completely understand and totally sympathise.

I can't even think of the numbers of reasons I empathise with every single word of what you're said.

I haven't got solutions or answers. I took the cowards way out and I don't believe it was in any way, better. Same crap, same guilt.

The best I can say is, it will be crap either way, so you may as well go through it with some a little less self loathing.