Susan's Place Transgender Resources

I'm debating with myself at the moment how I feel about seeing myself as trans once I get to where I'm going

For me, I have had to decide that once i identified as a woman, i am a woman. For me that is sort of a protection mechanism. Sure, trans describes the process and decision for me to get there, but i sort of see it as a subgroup of womanhood, not a category onto itself. I do though use that descriptor sometimes, usually when i am trying to describe something that is unique or fairly unique to trans women.

Fully transition is different for everyone I think and can mean anything such as various surgeries, living day to day as a woman or changing one's legal status.

I said yes.  While losing the "trans" is a long-term goal, the reality is that it will take me years to unlearn all the male habits and learn female ones.  I won't really be able to say that my transition is complete until that time comes, if it does.  And I won't know how close I get until I am there.

This is such a good question, and something I was just thinking about yesterday myself.  I have not even begun the transition yet other than dressing in my girl clothes at home.

  But here are a couple of my thoughts.   I used to weigh 334 pounds.   Over 7 years ago I had weight loss surgery, and I literally lost half of myself.   I have been hovering around 168-172 pounds for a very long time now and am very happy about that.   Here's how it relates in my mind:   For years my weight was such a huge issue for me.  Every day on top of wishing I had been born into the correct body as far as gender goes, I also wanted so bad to not be so fat anymore.  It consumed my life.  Always wanting to lose weight.  Always being miserable with how fat I was, but unable to find the motivation and things to lose the weight.  So I spent my whole life just about, fighting this weight issue.  Then suddenly when I had the surgery, then my life became about documenting the weight loss via youtube videos.  It was my everything.  Posting updates and buying new clothes that I never could have fit into before.  Once I got down to my lowest weight........I realized something.   I realized, that I no longer wanted my entire life to be consumed by this damn weight issue.  I wanted to just live my life like normal, and not even think about my weight anymore.  And I haven't.  I completely stopped with my YouTube video updates, and stopped posting before and after pictures on Facebook, and just got on with my life as a normal thin person, and it has been amazing!

  So as far as my MTF transition.........I found myself yesterday realizing that I would want the same thing if I were to transition.  I have spent my entire life, wishing I had the female body to match my feelings.  I have spent countless hours reading about GRS and HRT and posting on forums such as this one, and dreaming about being the girl I always felt I was.  And I decided, that if or when I make the transition, I would want from that point on, to forget about the old me, and just embrace the new me, and move on and live my life in happiness the way I was always meant to.  Not constantly thinking about it anymore.  Just get up in the morning, and put on my favorite clothes, and go on with life just the same way I do now in regards to my weight loss.  I don't want it to consume me anymore.  I don't want to think about myself as being "trans".  I just want to think of myself as the woman I am, and try my best to forget all the heartache and sorrow of being stuck in the wrong body.

Yes, being trans made me who I am today. I'm a woman, but I'm also a trans person, and as such have unique experiences most cis people do not have. Just as cis women have things in their life that I do not and cannot understand (periods, pregnancy) I've had experiences they have not and would not understand. Neither is better or more female, just different. While I am usually pretty private about my transition, I do not actively conceal it from friends or when I think it's necessary to speak up.

Honestly no. To me, I'm a woman, I always was, and always shall be. After having SRS there will be virtually no difference between me and a cis-woman who had her uterus removed. To me my transition would be complete. Male mannerisms, they weren't hard to unlearn, to be honest I basically transitioned very smoothly and naturally into all of the female mannerisms. For me, transition is moving from one point to another. I guess in  sense I will always be considered trans-gender, but I feel that my transition, being transgender is only a small chapter of my life. I started thinking about this when I got to my half year mark. To me, I'm just a woman, and that's all I really want. I don't want people to know I transitioned after surgery, and it's not that I'm ashamed, simply put I am a woman and that's all that really matters. The only one who should really be concerned about that would be any doctors who may need that information and whoever I marry. But for me, even if I haven't had surgery yet, I don't see myself as much of being trans as I see myself as just a woman.

TL;DR No once, I have SRS I won't see myself as trans because I'll be no different than any cis-woman who had her uterus removed.

at first I was sure that my goal was to pass and be seen as a female, after some hard life lessons ( divorce unemployed and homeless ) I decided to embrace my past and use all of my life experience to help others understand me and see that I am not bad, and have a good deal to offer everyone. in those steps I have found that I am very proud of facing my fears and allowing me to live my life to its fullest possibility as a transgendered person. so my answer is yes although I am far from being done with my process I am very proud to say and be transgendered. it is not for the weak nor faint at least not the path I have found.

I've considered this quite a bit as well.  My feeling is we will always be trans ....it's just the facts we have to deal with for our entire life.  However, after all is "complete", I hope to just be seen and treated as a woman and nothing more/less once all is said and done.  Some like to outwardly identify as trans first, woman second...or a "transgender woman".....that's not me.  I'm just a woman and wish to be remembered as simply that.

Trans all the way. Exotic hybrid, specifically.   :)

Hugs, Devlyn

I am a transexual woman, and as such I will always see myself as being "trans".  I have fully transitioned, whatever that actually means.....  I have undergone (and continue to) HRT.  I have legally changed my name and gender pretty much everywhere except maybe my high school.  My drivers license, Social Security records, College records, passport and birth certificate all say my name is Jessie and I am female. I am now almost 9 months post op. 

I have a past that I am in no way ashamed of.  I accomplished so much that I don't want to ignore that part of me and pretend it didn't exist.  I have a career that I am still working at and I don't want to give up all of those years that I worked so hard to succeed at. 

Maybe after I retire and move to another state and establish myself into a new community I will feel different.  But I want to fight for equality for people in transition and by not identifying as being trans I lose a little credibility.  I want to be visible so that people will not be so afraid of trans people.   

Yes, I would see myself that way, since I wouldn't forget my past experiences. And that's been a part of me since I was a child.


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I'm a woman with complications from birth that were remedied in my early 20's.

Quote from: RavenMoon on May 15, 2017, 09:05:58 PM
Yes, I would see myself that way, since I wouldn't forget my past experiences. And that's been a part of me since I was a child.


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That's how I feel, I don't want to forget who I have been or where I came from because that makes me the person I am.

That's the same reason I hate the term "deadname" it's more of "my original name" to me (if that makes sense)


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Yes I agree. I'll always be the same person. Just with a different name. And a prettier face. Lol

That's why when people talk about "living authentic lives" I get annoyed. I'm always authentic. Just as a guy. Lol. But I'm still me.


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I will always consider myself trans. When I first transitioned I absolutely hated the term transgender. For me it felt like a hateful slur and being referred to as transgender highly offended me. My parents even stopped using the word transgender around me. They would say "my situation".  When I was 16 my mother told me something that has stuck with me. And it is true of every transwoman. She said:  "being transgender does not make you less female than biological women. It makes you more female because you were willing to endure so much to get there "

I could say that my past has made me what I am. But that part that defined me is all linked to childhood trauma that is more like a history lesson than any kind of memory. Thankfully. I remember pieces, still frames, of my early life. The good mostly, I can't find the bad even though I know it is there. Maybe because my brother is older or because he fought back early or really it just could be that his memory is better than mine, but he remembers everything.

I don't want to keep that. I don't want it to be part of me and I am glad that I don't remember much.

My teen years I was angry, hated myself and the world. I attacked first and often. People began to fear me and it made me hate myself more. You know though, no one ever connected that fact that while I fought all the time, I never hurt anyone. Maybe my brother and his reputation had something to do with that. It was unsustainable though for me, that level of anger. I began to hide. Then eventually ran, joined the army. I had a death wish, lived on the edge. But I did live those 4 years though. Wish I could remember it.

Quit drinking after getting out of the military. Wow, was that a mistake. Everything that I had hidden from the last 4 years came crashing in.

I survived and found a friend, with her help I could look normal anyway. I was locked inside myself though, she was my only link to the world. Anyway, also unsustainable and monumentally unfair to her.

Which part? Which part of my life before should I be proud Of? Which part should I keep? My brother? He is still there and has called me Michelle since I was little. My best friend? She is still there and has always known.

My transition? People have called me brave. When? I have been terrified the whole time. Been beat up, groped, laughed at and called names more times than I can count. Nearly lost it and offed myself when a batch of patches were bad and my hormone levels went back to higher T and lower E before my endo caught it and got me straightened out. Only in the last year and a half, two years since going full time has transition been good.

Sorry, my therapist and I are working on me and not transition now. It's on my mind and it just pops out.

But really, what would be the point of holding on to that? There is so much I missed, wasn't present for or just plain sucked. I can do better the second half of my life.

Michelle

I am a woman.

I am a lesbian, blue jean femme.

I am transgender.

These are all components of myself.  I can no more deny these components than I can deny my arms or legs.  They are all part of me, part of what makes me who I am today.

I can live my life as my true, authentic self, no longer denying components of myself, and feeling tremendous relief because of that.  This is all I wanted, all I needed.

I plan to complete my transition, with tracheal shave, FFS, and GCS, because these medical treatments bring my physical presence into better alignment with my identity.  I'll be more comfortable, and can be my authentic self more readily, without having to worry about personal discomfort, or risks of 'discovery' by those likely to misinterpret physicality and identity.

Stefanie, thank you so much for your question... It made me reflect about from where I come, where I am and where I want to go. Thanks, really... 💐

I will always see myself as a trans woman, BUT I hope people will look at me and see simply a woman and treat me as such. These are two very different things and OP specifically asks how one expects to see HERSELF (as trans or not) when reaching her goal, not how she wishes to be seen by others.

It would be impossible for me to totally dissociate myself from 44 years of growth, experiences (good and bad), and a myriad of truly magical moments as a physical male... Unless I suffered from some bizarre form of amnesia. But I wouldn't even want that. It's certainly not a goal for me. I AM what I experienced along my life... By wanting to forget about what I experienced and how I experienced it, I'd be letting go of who I am... I cherish those memories. Not "because" I was physically a male, but "despite" the fact that I was physically a male. And those memories are often visual. And my visual was definitely male. I can't just portray myself getting married to my beloved wife as a woman, or becoming father of my two beautiful boys as a woman... No, no, no... No matter how much wishful thinking, that's not what happened.

Now, how I see MYSELF... Despite feeling definitely female, I still don't see me as a woman. Not yet anyways. And for me that's an important goal. I want to see myself as a woman. To look like a woman. To be seen as a woman. Because that will be congruent with my inner feeling, gender-wise. Thanks to hormones, voice training, demeanour training, surgeries, make-up, clothing, etc... I hope to achieve that goal. But how I see myself physically is different from how I see myself biographically, historically. My physical outlook, I can change. My biography, no. I'm no revisionist.

Even if in a very remote future we find a way to replace those damn Y chromosomes with a X's, our very first footsteps in this universe will remain as males. If someone invented a time machine and returned to that moment of our birth, he wouldn't see a female... He would see a male. And I accept that fact. I am 100% comfortable with it. No offense, but denying it would be dellusional. And I am a very rational woman.

This guy, "old physical me", existed. Inside him was a woman who longed for recognition, but her interaction with the world was irrevocably as a male. I don't feel a little bit of shame about it. I'm proud of it. It's something that relatively very few in the history of mankind have experienced. Living both as a man and as a woman, that is. I've always been a very pragmatic and ecclectic person. If something feels right and is objectively not wrong, why not? Does the fact of being proud of my past, as a physical male (no matter how much painful it was, at times) makes me less of a woman? I don't think so. If anything, it makes a very special kind of woman.

So... In MY eyes, I am and will always proudly be a woman, who for biographical reasons also happens to be trans.

My two cents.... Hugs, Sarah

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I thing age in this question is a factor. For the older transitioners who have lived their formative as a male and a life as a mature male it would be difficult to forget our past life as a male. I personally will always see mysrlf as a trans female and ever so proud to be that. However, for many younger transitioners This may be possible and desired by many of the very young transitioners.

Thank you Stephanie, I was just thinking about this in another post I left yesterday.  I answered your question "yes," but it made me think about why I felt that way.  As much as I don't like the idea of a gender binary, I still feel rather constrained by it.  When I think about those of us who describe themselves as non-binary, I think how much braver you are, daring not only to challenge traditional definitions of man and woman, but choosing something that didn't even exist.  How pretentious of me!  To think that because it's not one of the two gender choices currently "permitted" on most documents and systems that it's somehow "new."

So it seems I have a ways to go in order to truly accept and appreciate the full and wonderful spectrum of gender diversity.  There's probably a generational aspect to it, but I don't want to be limited by where I came from, that certainly doesn't define me.  But it does, in part, describe me.  Perhaps I can reach some point where the idea that I was assigned male at birth is inconsequential to me with regard to how I see myself. Meanwhile, I do feel some sense of pride at the tag of "transgender." 

Erin

I don't want to forget my past, good and bad and the journey i have been on. I'm the same person that I have always been, i just changed my expression to reflect what i was inside. The name change and all of that is part of that.

I answered no.

I have felt like a woman ever since I can remember. To me the mental is more important than the physical. I feel I was born female with a physical birth defect that medical science has now corrected.

For me transitioning has always been a journey with an end goal. I have reached that goal, I'm still working on some refinements but I consider myself a woman and will leave the transgender label behind as much as possible.

I don't see myself as trans. In fact at certain times my brain even forgets I am trans altogether, and "tricks" me into thinking I was born a cis woman. But viewing myself as the latter is usually extremely damaging to my mental health, as I incur intense dysphoria upon the realization I am not cis, if that makes sense.

That is why I feel it is important to not forget your past. For me personally I believe it is much healthier to view myself as a trans woman. It is an identity I am building on and know will be better for me to classify myself as in the long run.

Ive just lived too long presenting male to forget or ignore that chunk of my life even though the undertow of all those years was the yearning to present female.

Interesting thoughts.  I am a woman.  I am also trans, but the transition is losing importance as time passes.  It surprises me how quickly the inconceivable becomes mundane.  Two months after GRS and changing in the shared locker room at work is normal. 
I've lived my truth for years.  Now it seems that truth is just ho hum.  I'm still having some minor discharge and borrowed a panty liner yesterday and used it at once.  Imagine that a few months ago.
But I'm still trans, it is just that very few people remember that this was once important.   Kind of a comfortable result.
Peace
JB

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I think I would say no. I look at being a Trans women as just that, transitioning into becoming a women. Once the journey is complete I will no longer be transitioning into a women I will be a women for the rest of my time on this blue planet.

Huggs Niki Marie

Is it possible we're answering two different questions?

One group says, "Our femininity is real/legit/innate."

The other says, "So is the journey."

I think these ideas are compatible.

It is not the goal for me to go through everything and be seen as a person who transitioned. The goal is not for that to be seen or felt. The past is gone; only the present matters.

I would say that I wouldn't think about as much but still would have to contend with being trans. 

I'm just me really. I see transitioning more of a clinical procedure to correct something much like any other clinical procedure does. Once everything's sorted I'll always have a history but how I relate to that past is hard for me to say. Life is a transition from birth to death all the stuff in between is what makes us who we are.

Peace and love and all that good stuff,

Sadie

I have always been female. 

It was in transition (a ritual of temporary duration) that I came to believe that, and through transsexing that I came to know it absolutely to be true.   So, no, I don't carry the trans label as part of my essential identity.  I privilege my core truth -- I am female -- first and foremost. 

That doesn't mean I deny the journey; as rmaddy points out, the ideas are compatible.  Well, to an extent.  They're compatible in certain ritual spaces, like these boards (and so it's here and with a couple of very dear friends with similar experience that I give space to the journey if I ever need to talk about it).  They are not, in general, in my opinion, terribly compatible in the mundane world, at least in America. 

I don't put myself in that label.  But more power to you if that isn't the case.

Quote from: Chenji on May 17, 2017, 08:28:49 AM
I don't put myself in that label.  But more power to you if that isn't the case.

  Hi    Chenji,

  I see that you are new here, I'm Laurie. Welcomes to Susan's Place. I'd like to invite you to jump on over to introductions and create a thread to introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about you so that we can welcome you properly and get to know you.

  Hugs,
   Laurie

No.
Transition is transitory.  I have transitioned to female.  Transgender is not applicable to me now.  I am female inside and out, and on paper in all places of legal record.  I was trans*.  I am female now.  I am not ashamed of where I came from, or what I went thru (transition), but transition is not a permanent status.  It is transitory.

My 0.02¢

Quote from: Charley on May 16, 2017, 12:28:40 PM
I answered no.

I have felt like a woman ever since I can remember. To me the mental is more important than the physical. I feel I was born female with a physical birth defect that medical science has now corrected.

For me transitioning has always been a journey with an end goal. I have reached that goal, I'm still working on some refinements but I consider myself a woman and will leave the transgender label behind as much as possible.

Great post, couldn't put it better myself, I voted no, trans is a transition journey, my journey is complete a long time ago, all the surgeries have been done, I'm now all woman, I have a trans history but I'm now a WOMAN!

Quote from: JB_Girl on May 16, 2017, 05:16:19 PM
but the transition is losing importance as time passes.  It surprises me how quickly the inconceivable becomes mundane. 

Transition just drifts into the past and into history, life can become ''mundane'' the normality of it all, but very normal woman's life, going to women's groups, socialising and just being 1 of the girls, and being a wife to my husband, I never think about being trans, all in the past.

Quote from: Cimara on May 15, 2017, 10:34:12 PM
I will always consider myself trans. When I first transitioned I absolutely hated the term transgender. For me it felt like a hateful slur and being referred to as transgender highly offended me. My parents even stopped using the word transgender around me. They would say "my situation".  When I was 16 my mother told me something that has stuck with me. And it is true of every transwoman. She said:  "being transgender does not make you less female than biological women. It makes you more female because you were willing to endure so much to get there "

^^ Totally this.

Has been almost a decade since I began HRT/etc and nowadays I feel more comfortable than ever with my "transness". To me being trans is that I was just born assigned the wrong way, that simple.

Quote from: pretty pauline on May 17, 2017, 10:49:28 AM
...I never think about being trans, all in the past.

Please help me understand what you mean by this.  The fact that you are posting on a transgender board seems to indicate at least some ongoing thought about being trans.

I am a woman first and foremost that just so happens to be trans... But I am proud to be in such a great and open community fwiw <3

I am trans but that doesnt mean im not a woman.

Quote from: SailorMars1994 on May 17, 2017, 07:11:51 PM
I am a woman first and foremost that just so happens to be trans... But I am proud to be in such a great and open community fwiw <3

Its pretty much that for me to.

No, I see myself as a woman. I completed my transition, therefore I am a woman.

Quote from: rmaddy on May 17, 2017, 07:05:10 PM
Please help me understand what you mean by this.  The fact that you are posting on a transgender board seems to indicate at least some ongoing thought about being trans.

The best way to explain it, these days I live in stealth, I live my life as normal as I can just like any other woman, yet I do have a trans history, that's something none of us can change, I consider myself lucky I can do that, I've no involement these days in LGBT groups, I've moved on with my life, the only connection I have these days now is my occassional visits to this board, it gives me some anonymity and yet acknowledging my past without wearing it on my sleeve. Susan's Place is a place were sometimes I can read situations about women in similar situations as my own. My husband knows about my past but we never discussion it, one time I had left my browser open and hubby saw susan's place website, but he thought it was just some girl group and didn't even ask. No man wants to look at a woman's group, typical man, just left it at that.

Personally I answered "other"

My reasoning for this is this...
Im extremely close to going for grs. Im actually told I should expect a call today with my surgery date options!!! YAY ME!
But without even having had grs yet I already plain and simply to me am woman.
I also truly believe in never regreting my actions, states of being etc. Our experiences are what make us who we are.

So I will always recognize that I had to transition to get to the mental state im at. But I AM WOMAN!

This is a tricky topic for me and often one that causes a rift between me and some others. I approach things through a more ontological relativistic and postmodern sense and as such I take it upon myself to define the world from the ground up, redefining terms and labels as I see fit if i do not agree with how the greater social narrative has defined them as.

One might call this philosophical posturing but I see myself as a woman and having always been female. To be the terms are relative and I have defined them in such a way that I have always been a woman and female in my mind. This isn't to say that I'm unaware of my anatomical dissonance, I'm more than aware, but more so that the terms themselves and their accepted criterion in the greater view is something I hold in contention.


For instance, if you were to ask someone 'what is it mean to be female?' you might get a variety of answers. One the most common might be genital configuration but you might also hear something about chromosomes or hormones or secondary sex characteristics or how you were raised or etc. I choose to define it as mental sex or in a spiritual sense the characteristics of my ethereal self. As such my mental sex has always been female so under this definition I have created for myself I have always been female.

I understand quite clearly how the world sees me and might label me as well as the social and legal challenges associated with the label of 'trans' that is assigned to me.

Where I come into conflict with others is that some people believe that I am betraying the trans-community or running from it, but that's not true. Yes, I may not identify as a member of it in a sense but there are obviously physical issue similarities as well as experiences that we overlap with. Some believe that I'm casting aside the label to run in fear to a haven of a more socially accepted gender but this is untrue as well. I truly just don't feel trans, I'm not sure what it means to feel trans. I never have though and some of my trans friends said they never thought of me as part o the trans community really anyways.

I suppose like how Voltarine de Cleyre called herself an 'Anarchist without adjectives' in contrast to anarco-communist, anarcho-syndicalists, etc I see myself as a 'woman without adjectives' in a way. I don't feel a need to attach a trans label to it. It doesn't feel right. If it's brought up I don't lie about my anatomy or my experiences.

Perhaps part of this is because I didn't go through many of the same experiences in transitioning that others may have gone through. I dodged discrimination in almost its entirety as I 'passed' before hormones and was full-time shortly before starting them. I didn't have issues with many things, a blessing that I don't take or granted but maybe this creates a divide between me and the 'trans' label as that label, in my mind, is not only attributable to a set of physical aspects but experiential ones as well.

Part of it too could be that I have been on hormones for almost 10 years, I started when I was around 18 years old. Although I haven't had surgery yet I am very distanced from that initial period of beginning transitioning so perhaps things have changed over time.

Pardon my rambling and I'll try to close out my thoughts. I won't think of myself as trans after surgery because I don't think of myself as trans now. I understand that some people might put me in that category and accept that as the case, however that's not where I put myself. In my mind I was born a woman and I've always been a woman. I may have been born with an anatomical configuration issue at birth but that in itself doesn't make me feel as if I need to attach an adjective to 'woman'. I'll still work to better trans rights and the community because those things do apply to me even if I consider myself as an ally and not a member.

I apologize if this ruffles any feathers. I've been attacked many times over my thoughts on the matter. It's usually why I've grown to avoid trans-oriented spaces, however I hope that this experience turns to be more positive.

Hi Sapphire, one of the beautiful things about being tg is that we are free to choose how we see ourselves. Some like you see themselves as female and other as the third gender or other options. The most important is that you are at peace and content. You seem to have found your choice and no one has the right to challenge this.

Thank you warlockmaker, I appreciate that. I meant a lot to me to read that.

Quote from: SapphireLotus on May 22, 2017, 11:58:20 PM
This is a tricky topic for me and often one that causes a rift between me and some others. I approach things through a more ontological relativistic and postmodern sense and as such I take it upon myself to define the world from the ground up, redefining terms and labels as I see fit if i do not agree with how the greater social narrative has defined them as.

Jeez...

*puts an evil smile*

I just read "ontological relativistic and postmodern" in the same line and got excited :D Such a worthy opponent!  :D Democritus big fan here.

Feel free to ramble whenever you want!

@Wednesday

I studied philosophy in college and my emphasis was in German Idealism and French Existentialism primarily. So it's not uncommon for me to talk about epistemological relativism or duck-rabbit (haha). I often spend my time sitting at home grappling with some of these questions about the human condition, the construction of meaning, the nature of self and it's relation to the external (a jumping off of the Hegelian Dialectic), truth and the absolute, etc so these topics tend to be on my mind a lot and seep into my conversations :P

Quote from: SapphireLotus on May 23, 2017, 07:38:07 PM
@Wednesday

I studied philosophy in college and my emphasis was in German Idealism and French Existentialism primarily. So it's not uncommon for me to talk about epistemological relativism or duck-rabbit (haha). I often spend my time sitting at home grappling with some of these questions about the human condition, the construction of meaning, the nature of self and it's relation to the external (a jumping off of the Hegelian Dialectic), truth and the absolute, etc so these topics tend to be on my mind a lot and seep into my conversations :P

Gotcha! When in the right mood I can find myself thinking about stuff like metalogic, logic's incompleteness and its boundaries, the (very much to my disgust) disturbing time assymetry... my head can turn to be a really weird place sometimes lol.

I got much respect for Kant, hella insightful guy, and had to take my hat off to his ontological argument criticism (really spot-on). However idealism its not my thing, much less existentialism lol.

@Wednesday

What did one Existentialist say to the other?
Who knows?

What did one Nihilist say to the other?
Who cares?

Quote from: SapphireLotus on May 23, 2017, 08:18:45 PM
@Wednesday

What did one Existentialist say to the other?
Who knows?

What did one Nihilist say to the other?
Who cares?

:D :D :D :D :D :D :D

Pretty glad to have you around here!

I was born boy. In my teens my body transformed to a girl's body. When I'm through transision I am a guy. Not trans. I am trans now when I'm in the wrong body.

Quote from: rmaddy on May 17, 2017, 07:05:10 PMPlease help me understand what you mean by this.  The fact that you are posting on a transgender board seems to indicate at least some ongoing thought about being trans.

Some of us return to these places to help others.

Like, suppose I was born with a cleft palate.  I grow up and get it fixed.  A few years later, I post to an internet forum about my experiences, wanting to help others who are about to get their own palates fixed, but that doesn't mean I'm still cleft-palated. 

For many of us, "being trans" isn't necessarily a permanent condition.  A lot of transitioners may never have considered this. 

How do we describe ourselves and what does fully transitioned mean to us.....hmmmm?

Would we really have only one descriptor per life?  That sounds restrictive and simplistic to me.  I imagine my life will continue to add features, experience and knowledge in a dynamic interplay with cultures and time.  Therefore being transgender is but one of many many adjectives that could apply to my life and not a primary or exclusive label.  We will continue to face transitions in life that may or may not have anything to do with gender.

Your life story or narrative is best told by you, the one who is hopefully still growing, learning and evolving as a person.  I trust people who truly want to know us will allow enough time for more than one word descriptions.

Quote from: rmaddy on May 17, 2017, 07:05:10 PM
Please help me understand what you mean by this.  The fact that you are posting on a transgender board seems to indicate at least some ongoing thought about being trans.

I was searching the web two years ago looking for information on voice surgery. As my GCS was in 1982, I have fully accepted myself many years ago and have lived free of the community almost all of the time post surgical. After placing my post for voice information, I looked at the other activity and saw people with questions that I could answer so I started posting. Up to that point in time I had been getting over the loss of my roommate and to kill my idle time, I was watching the boob tube. The site was so much better that I shut the boob tube off and concentrated on helping others solve the problems that I had needed help with so many years ago.

Most of the members on the site haven't had surgery but there are a fair number of us who have making life better for those still in the process of transitioning. Yes, I have learned about modern HRT and applied it to my treatment as the result of the site. I have looked at FFS which I may never get but my transition is long over and I don't have personal issues that require the site. I considered myself complete 35 years ago and anything I do now would be like a CIS woman getting a face lift. Just a touch up to what I already am.

I am a woman through and through.  What really reinforces that is when others address you as such.  Sure, it might be weird at first but after a while you don't even think about it.

I have never been one to be totally on board with labels, especially when it comes to being trans.  In my case I guess it is kind of like being a Hispanic female except that I am a female who happens to be Hispanic.  So to add to that, I am a female who happens to be transgender.  What I'm getting that is I'm a person; the labels other than your gender are just that; labels.

Be safe and peace,
Marionna