Susan's Place Transgender Resources

The question should be:  Why should anyone have the right to tell someone else how to live their life when the only "harm" that someone does to others is get bigots, snobs, and social dictators angry? 

Most often its the religious conservatives the ones that make up these wild fears about the "consequences" of "deviant behavior" that turn out to be unfounded, look at what they accused everyone from rock n roll bands in the 50s to gay people nowadays of, that turn out to be BS / baloney.

People that hate transgender people have a problem with themselves and most likely are often irritating / annoying  / judgemental ->-bleeped-<- type people in general,   In other words, its their problem, not ours.

I couldn't agree more!

yep and that's why I don't explain to people why I'm trans. Its not really important anyway. What you do about it and how you go about it is what matters.

Quote from: Katelyn on June 26, 2013, 08:24:09 PM
The question should be:  Why should anyone have the right to tell someone else how to live their life when the only "harm" that someone does to others is get bigots, snobs, and social dictators angry? 

Most often its the religious conservatives the ones that make up these wild fears about the "consequences" of "deviant behavior" that turn out to be unfounded, look at what they accused everyone from rock n roll bands in the 50s to gay people nowadays of, that turn out to be BS / baloney.

People that hate transgender people have a problem with themselves and most likely are often irritating / annoying  / judgemental ->-bleeped-<- type people in general,   In other words, its their problem, not ours.

Absolutly spot on. People need to focus more on themselves and worry less about others.

Hear, hear! The only people who need to know are the people whom you chose to tell.  It shouldn't be mandatory for everyone and their brother to know.  Being TG/TS/GF, etc does not have any impact on your ability to do your job nor does it have any impact on the person sitting next to you on the train.  Focus on yourself and making yourself a better person.

As a progressive who is far from a religious conservative, I don't think anti-trans views are exclusive to those in groups.  I can't tell you how many liberals or open minded people don't understand what it's like to be transgender and even go out of their way to promote hate and bigotry against us.  There is a lot of ignorance about who we are, and we need to start speaking up and educating the populace more.  The enemy of ignorance is knowledge.  You can't win against everyone, but you can with most.  I don't think it will be productive for us to adopt a we vs them mentality.  That only gets people worked up and more hostile.  We need to get everyone we can on our side by trying to educate and help them see who we are.  Perhaps I'm a bit naive, but I believe people can be reasoned with in all different camps and walks of life.  You can't win everyone over, but you can get a majority.  We are slowly seeing this is the case with gay rights. 

It depends on who you are and what your comfortable with. Some people love being controlled. Now I know in the USA most people don't but some do love being told what to do and think. Kinda like a robot with ought the cool robot dance

It's not a choice... it just happens. If someone doesn't agree with it... to bad. That's most definitely their issue... not yours. Life is too short. Be happy.

I never said that it was exclusive to religious conservatives, but they are in general notoriously anti-trans as well as anti-gay.  They are just one of the best examples.

I don't like this thing that both gay and transgender people have to keep telling people that it's "not our choice" to be gay or trans as if its a shameful thing if it were a choice.  This country is not a Christian nation, it was founded by people of the enlightenment, which was an era of pushback against the power of religion in society.  What I feel like is If you have to keep on claiming that its not your choice, you are playing into the game of especially religious conservatives because your keeping it within the frame of "Willingly doing or wanting to be the opposite sex is wrong and ungodly and if for sexual purposes is sinful and immoral." the same way as it would be said for gay/lesbian people.  All your really telling other people is "don't target me/us because we are not really who you are looking to oppress."

The only people in the LGBT community that have claimed it to be a choice are some lesbians including Cynthia Nixon. 

Just made a training dvd for transitioning at work with the LGBT centre. and i basically said as much. While we make the decision to transition. Being transgendered itself is not a choice its who we are.

No, it is a choice!

I hate using an excuse like this! I think its a copout for shortening the reason why one feels they needs to change their gender.

If it wasn't a choice then that would mean I am being forced. Yes in a way I am, because I feel this is the only chance I have to feel like a normal person....huh that's an oxymoron if I ever heard one!! mainly cause even if I do feel normal there are people in society that now view me as abnormal if they knew my born gender...reason why I am stealth 90% of time

I had to decide to do this not someone or something else...even if I was born this way!!! As far as everyone else was concerned I was a normal man...that was the problem!! I needed to be a normal women....Isn't that what everyone wants....just to feel normal....why get married, why loose weight, why brush your teeth, why.......

I've always wondered how it felt to be a normal woman or a normal man...I have probably wished to be both many times through my life. I am getting close to feeling what it feels like to be a normal women...more so then I felt as a normal man....probably because I always had gender issues throughout my male life.

I'm not sure I will never feel like an ordinary normal female...even after GRS...I can't ignore my past,  but at least I will know who I am much more then before.

No matter where someone is on the transgender spectrum, whatever they decide to do with themselves and their body is not the business of other people, and its most likely that that person is making decisions that if they don't, they will suffer greatly emotionally/mentally/spiritually and not even have anywhere as much satisfaction out of life as most of the rest of society. 

I'm not a "traditional" transsexual yet I've been suffering greatly in terms of spirit, self confidence, freedom, etc... especially the past few years because the part that I show to other people (because I'm not out) is only a small part of who I am, I cant show people the assertive bubbly feminine woman that I fantasize being and have been in the past when with other transwomen.

For me it's the same type of "choice" as breathing. I can choose not to breath but then I'll die; likewise I can choose not to have my body make the transition to match my mind & heart but I will die much the same way as if I chose not to breath.

I was a shell.  I filled it with myself.

I left behind a desiccating husk.

I didn't look back.  I don't miss it.

My loved ones do.

I was a shell.  I am a woman.  In order to live I had to die.

Did I make a choice?  Does the pupa choose to become a butterfly?                                 

Quote from: Naomi on June 27, 2013, 07:50:40 PM
For me it's the same type of "choice" as breathing. I can choose not to breath but then I'll die; likewise I can choose not to have my body make the transition to match my mind & heart but I will die much the same way as if I chose not to breath.

Naomi breathing is your choice and I respect that ;) lol
Like that ?

Quote from: Just Shelly on June 27, 2013, 06:58:00 PM
No, it is a choice!

I hate using an excuse like this! I think its a copout for shortening the reason why one feels they needs to change their gender.

Like everything else I think 'choice' runs the full spectrum . . . you have the fact of being ts ( like 'gay' no clear choice perhaps ) and then you have what you choose to do about it which, for a gay person, is a total non-issue, given free god right of 'birds of feather flocking together'? :o  Can 'we' say same? It's the idea of 'stealth', how you express it, the difference between 'private' and 'public' demonstration.

Found a very old thread here on this topic (https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,16274.0.html); does it really just come down to, lying if necessary, wanting to garner more "benefits"? Why is it 'we' constantly feel the need to 'validate' ourselves in other people's eyes?

We, unlike 'gay', seem to need and are dependent upon social/public "affirmation".

Quote from: Naomi on June 27, 2013, 07:50:40 PM. . . but I will die much the same way as if I chose not to breath.

lol Naomi you won't 'die' unless you indeed choose too  :police:

Quote from: Kiera on June 28, 2013, 08:10:20 AM
lol Naomi you won't 'die' unless you indeed choose too  :police:

I thought I was choosing to live, but that shell of a person was already a goner.  The choice I made (if you would call it that) was, after everything disintegrated, to rise from the ashes rather than mix with the dirt.

So in light of the California thing and the new federal law this came up at work. Alot of people seemed to really feel this is a choice for a but load of reasons. I had no idea so many people had opinions about us and what our psychological origins are. Like many of them claim it's cuz we are crazy and we all have large psychological issues?
It's funny to hear this considering most of them have issues I know about too ;)

Quote from: Tristan on June 28, 2013, 02:49:24 PM
So in light of the California thing and the new federal law this came up at work. Alot of people seemed to really feel this is a choice for a but load of reasons. I had no idea so many people had opinions about us and what our psychological origins are. Like many of them claim it's cuz we are crazy and we all have large psychological issues?
It's funny to hear this considering most of them have issues I know about too ;)

I think it's funny how when people think it's a choice it always just so happens to line up exactly with whatever their agenda is.  They have no experience with it, they've never thought about it for more than 12 seconds, but boy are they ever sure they are right!

I'm kinda having the same issue- though he said he'd support me no matter what he keeps pressing that he thinks this whole thing is going to do me no good, as if it's just a thought I clinged on to....for the past 9 years of my life. In the end it doesn't matter how many times I say it he doesn't seem to be the least bit convinced that I'm dependent on going through with it.

I'd rather not identify the he, but they're a major part of my life. I've already held off on taking my E for 2 weeks to appease him, but it doesn't seem to be enough.

Quote from: Jen on June 28, 2013, 03:05:09 PM
I think it's funny how when people think it's a choice it always just so happens to line up exactly with whatever their agenda is.  They have no experience with it, they've never thought about it for more than 12 seconds, but boy are they ever sure they are right!

That's what I call a snob, and I mentioned it before.  The snob believes that whatever they think the world is IS the way it is and that if others don't conform to it, that they have the right to go and tell them what the "right" way to do and be is.  They can be "knowitalls" and very assured of their own opinions (may even think of them as facts.)  The snob doesn't respect other people, and wants to impose their views on things on other people if the other person's ways irritates them too much or they are not afraid of.  The snob is very stubborn with their view.  There are all types of snobs, liberal snobs, conservative snobs, libertarian snobs, religious snobs (evangelicals / fundamentalists for example), etc...

Merriam Webster Definition, definition 3B of snob:

"one who has an offensive air of superiority in matters of knowledge or taste"

Quote from: Katelyn on June 26, 2013, 08:24:09 PM
The question should be:  Why should anyone have the right to tell someone else how to live their life when the only "harm" that someone does to others is get bigots, snobs, and social dictators angry?  Most often its the religious conservatives the ones that make up these wild fears about the "consequences" of "deviant behavior" that turn out to be unfounded, look at what they accused everyone from rock n roll bands in the 50s to gay people nowadays of, that turn out to be BS / baloney.

People that hate transgender people have a problem with themselves and most likely are often irritating / annoying  / judgemental ->-bleeped-<- type people in general,   In other words, its their problem, not ours.

I believe the best answer to that is people have the incessant need to feel good about themselves and stroke their own ego and the best way to do that is to belittle others that they think are not like themselves.

For me, the only reason I care about friends or family's opinions is because I don't really have much of a choice, in that I don't have a "trans family" or group of good accepting friends I can rely on to be able to replace the "cis-friends" or family that I know.  And I do need some people in my life at least for whatever happens, as I've been in situations where if I didn't have the help of a friend or a family member, I'd be seriously screwed.

Quote from: Jess42 on June 28, 2013, 04:07:31 PM
I believe the best answer to that is people have the incessant need to feel good about themselves and stroke their own ego and the best way to do that is to belittle others that they think are not like themselves.

I think it is devotion to order that makes people behave that way.  In order to categorize and create order from chaos, you must draw a dividing line between all gradients.  On this side, black on that side white, put them on their shelf.  Good and evil, right and wrong, the world is separated into absolutes.

Artists turning a world of vibrant color into 2-bit black and white.  They shape existence with verve and flair.  Partitioning, apportioning, separating—radiant sunsets become blotches of ink on paper.  They constrain the whole of existence and fit it in a manageable box.  Now they understand the entire universe and it's every nuance.  Now nothing is unknown.  Now they are truly in control.  Now they are safe.

Quote from: Jess42 on June 28, 2013, 04:07:31 PM
I believe the best answer to that is people have the incessant need to feel good about themselves and stroke their own ego and the best way to do that is to belittle others that they think are not like themselves.

The whole point though is that especially with civil rights movements, its about not judging people based on stereotypes, differences, and other preconceived notions, and not reducing people's identity to certain categories, as such thinking is what has made men to judge women, white people to judge black people, Americans to muslims, etc...   

Quote from: Jen on June 28, 2013, 04:57:41 PM
I think it is devotion to order that makes people behave that way.  In order to categorize and create order from chaos, you must draw a dividing line between all gradients.  On this side, black on that side white, put them on their shelf.  Good and evil, right and wrong, the world is separated into absolutes.

Artists turning a world of vibrant color into 2-bit black and white.  With unbound creativity they shape existence with verve and flair.  Partitioning, apportioning, separating—radiant sunsets become blotches of ink on paper.  They constrain the whole of existence and fit it in a manageable box.  Now they understand the entire universe and it's every nuance.  Now nothing is unknown.  Now they are truly in control.  Now they are safe.

Thus, these are people that are fearful of life, fearful of the world, and often fearful of change.  They look for any model that simplifies life, whether it is religion, or an ideology, and try to fit life into that box.

The way that one reacts can often give away what they think or are trying to hide.

You know all people want to be liked or loved unconditionally....

Everyone has conditions they either are attracted too or need....children seem to be the only ones that can love unconditionally....by being trans it automatically asks others to like or love you as long as they accept you.

This is one reason I like to remain stealth...I am not putting anymore conditions on someone to either like or love me....they either like or dislike me for reasons that may be vein or personal...but at least I know its not for "what" I am!! Eventually a time will come where new friends will need to know....at least they will know who I am before they find out "what" I am!

The friends and family that remain friends and still love you the same are truly the ones that like or love you unconditionally....for some it seems you have put too many conditions for them to continue on with their friendship....no biggie...they never were a friend to begin with!

This is also why I try to make some friendships with similar people as I....There are no conditions I need to hide!!

I have only a few people that know of my trans tendencies, a couple of them are totally accepting and don't see it as a "choice". One very close GG friend is sort  of accepting, but from her questions over the last several months about how I identify or perceive myself, I get the impression that she totally believes it is a choice. And I'm OK with that, in her instance because she is overall very supportive of me and helped me immensely in the aftermath of my wife's death last year (and the fact that I'm immensely attracted to her and think I would love to have a LTR with her), perhaps I overlook some things because of that attraction. My attempts to become the female I sometimes think I want to be have been difficult, I spent many years trying to be the man society/family wanted me to be, repressing the female thoughts time after time until they would burst through again and at age 64 I'm not sure I want to go through the upheaval that totally coming out might involve. Choice? My female side is not a choice, it is there in spite of whatever I do, the only choice I see is what to do with it in my remaining years, at this point in time I'm comfortable in simply knowing what was behind so many issues in my life, now I can live more peacefully since I can acknowledge to myself what was happening.