Susan's Place Transgender Resources

I love this topic:
How do you view your personnality before & after transitioning or coming out?
Do you seperate your male personna from your female personna?


My answer:
For a time when I first began this journey I seperate the male personnality from the female one. making sure that the things and triats I did has a male where left in the past. I believed that I was no longer that same person. That I was a totally new woman. However after seriously talking to my best friend a few times (another TS) she made me realize that these two entities or personnalities shouldn't be fractured or seperated. They should be merged happily together! :) For where Chynna falls short...Damion Picks-up and vice versa (oh yeah the boy name!)
Damion:
Is extremely smart & cunning, ascertive and can fix anything with a screw and a few things I can't begin to describe!
(the type of guy you like to keep on speed dial for when stuff breaks)
Chynna:
Is extremly helpfull, compassionate, well organized, observant, articulant and so much more
(the type of girl you know will be there when you need her) 

When I finally realized I could merge these two totally seperate personnalities into one personna I came out to be someone I truly love and appreciate.

To know me is to essentially love me.
especially when your PC or car breaks! ;) ;D

soo much more than just a woman'
CHYNNA

"he" was very little more than a mask... just enough to hide behind.

I have always been fascinated by the subject but as far as I know there is just one of me ;)

Hi Chynna,
I'm very intrested in this because I also have seperate personnality.

I have always been a people pleaser to the point that I had become what others wanted and buried my really self compeletly. My reallly self Jillieann finally began to come out when He was too tried to hold me back. It's hard work protecting and hiding the really me fro that long.
I'm bring the following over from a posting that Taylor has going at https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,3241.msg26828.html#msg26828. about transitioning.
Here are Taylor's words. 

Quote
I hear many people talk about having two selves within themselves, and I have a theory on why that may occur,  ( Just a theory of mine) The awareness that the one self was socially created and the self that is fighting within themselves and a need to be set free feels like a separate identity when in fact it is their natural born identity. ( My personal take on this)

I believe that too and that is me.

Until recently I have been trying to get rid of the socially created self. He had mean to me  not wanting me to come out and had keep me lock up for over 50 year. 
Now, I hate to admit it but I find that it's seems to be better if I unite with him. Yucky!!! I am Jillieann and will always be but he has dealt with the world and people and I can use he's help so that I cna become wholed.
I think this makes me sound a little crazy. But I am in therapy already and we have been talking allot about this stuff.

Recently have I been able to make some joint decisions. So far it has made me no less of a female but has given me a peace that I never can not remember ever having before.
So Chynna how did you unite both sides?  How long did it take? At times do you still feel pulled in two direction?

:)
Jillieann

Hi Cynna,

I had a brief experience with this when I first came out.  I felt like I had a split personality.  Like I was trying so hard not to be the person I was, because I was so ashamed of the fact that I had a made up personality that I used to deal with the rest of the world.

The conflict was so great I tried to kill myself, which I viewed as my former personality trying to keep Elizabeth from emerging, which at that point was inevitable. After this attempt I was told by a very wise TS that I was only one person. That if I had behaviors, like pretending to be a man, that I did not like, I could end those behaviors, but it did not change the person I was.

I beleived her and this became my own personal truth.  I am still quintecentially the same person I have always been, I just don't pretend to be a man any more, or any of the behaviors that I had to fake to pull off that pretense.

That is how I see it.

Love always,
Elizabeth

Quote from: Elizabeth on May 31, 2006, 09:06:43 PM
...  I was told by a very wise TS that I was only one person. That if I had behaviors, like pretending to be a man, that I did not like, I could end those behaviors, but it did not change the person I was.

I beleived her and this became my own personal truth.  I am still quintecentially the same person I have always been, I just don't pretend to be a man any more, or any of the behaviors that I had to fake to pull off that pretense.

That is how I see it.

Love always,
Elizabeth

I think this about myself as well.  I am basically the same person.  The difference is that Chaunte is not so limited in how she expresses herself.  I AM finding my true self emerging while in male-mode.  I am sure that I am starting to send mixed gender messages, but that is okay.

I wonder how this will affect my Robin Williams style of teaching...?  It's going to be a lot harder to do Igor when I start teaching in a skirt! :icon_evil_laugh:

Chaunte

Quote from: Kimberly on May 31, 2006, 08:15:40 PM
I have always been fascinated by the subject but as far as I know there is just one of me ;)

And thus a conflict resolves itself at last.

The eye cannot see itself. The tongue cannot taste itself. I've been this way since birth, forever and always. There's no contrast, no split personality to mirror the other. I've been struggling to "know" something I already "am."

Jillieann & ALL,

QuoteSo Chynna how did you unite both sides?  How long did it take? At times do you still feel pulled in two direction?

On going struggle to keep both my male personna & my female personna in agreeance with one another at times I guess i do fell pulled in two opposite directions and usually end up compromising with myself to please both sides...Funny.. ::) its almost like being in a committed relationship with yourself! LOL Quite a learning experience indeed. But the comprimise generally leans me towards my feminie side with my male personna realizing He had his time...Now he owes itn to Chynna and himself to let her shine so he compliments her well much like a spouse does!! WOW I really am in a commited relationship with myself I wonder if I should tell my boyfriend I been Cheating on him with well myself!?LMAO ??? :P ;D ;)

But both my personna realize they are incomplete living without one another

Making the impossible..possible
CHYNNA  

Boy mode was just a covering.  The main difference is that I do not have to act macho all of the time.  That act was dropped and that is really all there was to it.  It took me a bit to realise that.  Sure enough I found out down the road that many thought the boy me was gay due to whatever cues they thought they were picking up on.  I chalk it up to they figured out that something was not quite right and went with what was popular at the time.

For me, at first it felt as though my emotions were at war with themselves. Then Jennifer emerged^*pop* or something like that. I recognized her not as a seperate personality but as another part of me just slightly out of phase. (kinda like the rest of me, lol) From the moment I recognized that she had a name and a personality I set out to become a whole person. I feel that I have achieved this and now only maintain my maleness as a mask. What is interesting is that it did indeed feel like a split at first. Now I feel more or less whole.  ^-^

Jennifer

Quote from: Chaunte on May 31, 2006, 09:58:14 PM
I think this about myself as well.  I am basically the same person.  The difference is that Chaunte is not so limited in how she expresses herself.  I AM finding my true self emerging while in male-mode.  I am sure that I am starting to send mixed gender messages, but that is okay.

I have to agree with Chaunte here.  I was a more limited version of myself while still in denial.  I now act myself all the time.  It took a little bit of work to not hold back.  I do not think I act male and looking back, I have never really tried that hard to act male, at least not until about 8 years ago and even then.  I also am consciously trying not to act overly female, but just myself.  It seems to work just fine.

Melissa

Chynna,
You said,

QuoteHe had his time...Now he owes itn to Chynna and himself to let her shine so he compliments her well much like a spouse does!!

This I sort of understand, but what I was, was not much more than a performer and a people pleaser. He pushed all my feelings, wants and need down deep and buried them and I'm still trying to bring them out. 
The good news is that he wants to please and make peace with me know. It the only way we can go forward. He seems to be yielding to my wishes like he has done for everyone else.
So now I am not having the problem of feeling pulled in two opposite directions. But I do sometimes look at myself from his perspective, which is really weird. This gives me a third person point of view. I guess on the positive side he has lots of people skills that I can use to my advantage.
I see him in the near future become just a small part of me. Not controlling but just part of my thinking process and not it own persona or what ever.
Although for clarity I have been calling this performer and a people pleaser a "He" I don't really consider it a he. It just a label. We are transgender and I am a female.
This really sounds confusing. And yes this situation is confusing to me too. I am still working through it even as I write.
Thanks for letting me ramble. It helps me to think.
:)
Jillieann

I think what one needs to realize is that there are traits we had as male such as being smart or handy in repairs the is a part of the real self. However, we tried living as our birth gender (male) and learned how to behave from males around us, kind of a scripted role. Once we find our true selves these scripted roles and any traits from them disappear and our real self comes out. So no there is no 2 personnas in any one of us, just a scripted self and the real self. For example, the husbands around me take their wives for granted to a point. Therefore, in order to 'pass' as a male I did the same. Now I am very romantic and show my wife she's special and loved everyday (her words,not mine). There are sites out there that speak of this better than I do though.

Well said, Kim.

And there are life experiences that will remain with you when you transition. 

I still have the engineering mind and can still parallel park.  I still earn the good salary and have retained the respect of my coworkers and seniors.  My husband, on the other hand was an abandoned mom who raised four kids on his own.  He didn't have the opportunity to work as a male and to build up a nest egg. 

I do the shopping and cooking; he does the laundry.  I found the carpet vacuumed when I came home tonight - a birthday present so I don't have to do it this weekend.

I guess what I'm saying is take what you need and leave the rest.  The biggest thing for an MTF to leave behind is the virtual testosterone; i.e., the male assertiveness.

I've run a fair number of news lists, transactivist or otherwise,  and have found that the guys never flame or argue.  It's always the women.  Virtual testosterone.

Robyn