Susan's Place Transgender Resources

what did you say before you decided that transition is the right thing to do? did you say "i am a woman, i have to transition" or did you say "i want to be a woman, i have to transition"?
i hope you understand the (in my opinion) huge difference. or maybe there is no difference between them, then please tell me  :)

I haven't transitioned medically yet .. but when I admitted I wasn't genderqueer that I was trans .. I started saying "I am a man & I will be transitioning out of my female body"

but at first you identified as genderqueer? why? what was it that made you say "i'm genderqueer" and what was it that made you feel that there is more?

I always knew I wasn't female...saying your genderqueer seemed to be easier than saying I was transqendered.  I think it was easier to say I was a bit mixed male and female .. people seem to take that better ... I don't know .. just the road I took

I said, so many times, this isn't right, I shouldn't be like this, this is wrong, I'm living a lie, I don't know how to live like this. I'd sooner be completely alone than have to live like this any more.

Hope this helps.

Sadly, for me, I fell big time and ended up alone anyway.

i know that it is easier to say that you are genderqueer, but do you knwo why in the end you said "i'm transgendered" and not "just" genderqueer

I first identified as genderqueer because I guess society had taught me that vagina = woman so it took me about a month to fully get rid of that idea and accept that i'm a man.

I said the former to my self, I'm a woman/girl. Then I sometimes still use the latter but little differently, like "I need to be a woman" meaning to better be able to live that reality because I know who I am.. So maybe the two implied each other.

I realize that may be different than saying "I want to be a woman/man" as being in point A and getting to point B.
The period before transition is intensely turmoil-ful ( ::) ), things aren't really clear and we can say something to mean the other.

Well, thinking back, I've gone by a bunch of different labels until I realized I was trans, so it was always "I want to be a man" because I thought, you know, girls had vaginas, and since I had one, that meant I was a girl.

Honestly, I went from depressed bisexual female, to depressed tomboy lesbian that didn't feel that she was a lesbian, to depressed bisexual female again, to bisexual uncomfortable genderqueer (fff, I was two people in one perhaps? A boy and a girl? SURE! I still had to be a girl, right?), to confused questioning transman, to genderqueer again because I decided that I was too feminine to be a boy, and then finally back to being a transguy. And that's the way it's going to stay because I'm quite happy as a boy.

Anyway, I have yet to medically transition, but it was always "I want to be a man" because I thought, "I want to be a boy, but I'm a girl, so I can't be, right? Besides, I'm not that masculine."

Well first it was 'I'm a man; I must transition'. But now I'm fully transitioned, much of the emphaticness of that statement is gone. The dysphoria's gone and now I'm just me.

for me it was always "I want to be a girl" i never questioned the possibility that My mind might be female and that was the reason. I didn't care for the reason all I knew was that I wanted it, my sex was male, and I didnt see it coming true.

Hence what I'm sorting out now, i think its all perspective really. 

@ ekuryua

so you never tought that your mind is female or you always knew that our mind is female and because of that you didn't questioned it?

 i think when i was younger it was "i am a girl", then my body kept reminding me that i was born male so it became "i want to be a girl". nowadays it's both. i am a woman and want to be a woman, though with "i want to be a woman" i just mean i want to live my life openly as a woman and have a female body

Quote from: lucaluca on December 12, 2010, 01:09:15 PM
@ ekuryua

so you never tought that your mind is female or you always knew that our mind is female and because of that you didn't questioned it?

I just always thought that since I had male parts I was a male. i didn't challenge that questioning untill recently, so It was natural for me to say i wanted to be a girl, i wanted to keep my mind exactly how ti was but with the embodiment of a girl.

whether i could say my mind is female or not is something I think I'll never truly know.

I think you are getting too wrapped up in language... 'I am a woman', and 'I want to be a woman' or even 'I will be a woman' or 'I am becoming a woman' are really all just a series of words that you can say to a thousand different people and get a thousand different impressions of what you meant. Many people say things differently than you might say them, although they mean the same thing when they say it. The person that it has the most meaning to is the speaker, and their hope is that you understand what they are saying in the same way they mean or are feeling it. For example, you could say "I love you" to ten different people and they might get different impressions of what you meant with those words.

So really, asking us all to give you our own definitions of a specific phrase is going to get you as many different ideas of what it means as there are people who respond.

Personally, before I began to transition, I didn't "feel" like a woman, although I knew that was where I wanted to end up, so I usually said I wanted or needed to become one... once my transition got underway and I became more comfortable and confident my thinking and feeling shifted more to "I AM a woman."

Now that I'm almost 9 months into HRT I definitely FEEL like a woman, and I KNOW that I am one and that transition was the right decision because I'm a world happier now than ever before when trying to muddle through as a man.

~April Dawne <3

Yes, it is easy to get wrapped up in semantics and word meanings but I think this really boils down to intention.

Do you intend to become a woman because you're not? Are you a woman but don't physically match most women?


In my case I was told repeatedly and emphatically that I was not female and that I will never be. I was supposed to be male. I still have problems being told that I'm female and thinking of myself that way.

I just know that mentally, emotionally and spiritually I'm not male. So I'm moving away from being male and hope that other women can see me as something other than male and treat me more like one of their own.

That's the distinction I missed, and it's important. We often will say things in a way that doesn't match what we feel, but what really matters is our intention and what we do to put our intentions into motion. It doesn't really matter if you say "I am a woman" or "I want to be a woman", in the end, if your intention is to transition then that is what matters, not how you describe it.

Quote from: lucaluca on December 12, 2010, 09:47:11 AM
what did you say before you decided that transition is the right thing to do? did you say "i am a woman, i have to transition" or did you say "i want to be a woman, i have to transition"?

I realized that all I know for sure is that I fit better on the female side of the world. I am not genetically a woman, and I am not sure if I am a woman in my brain. I cannot say I want to be a woman because I am not sure I can actually be a woman because I cannot honestly say I know what it means to be a woman. I decided to transition following my own logic and my own path.

So when I decided to transition socially (non-op) along with a small dose of estrogen, I did not answer either of your questions. The only question I answered is whether I fit better on the female side of the world or on the male side of the world. The rest is TBD and might always remain TBD.

Now that my gender dysphoria is mostly dissolved away, the relevance of the questions have significantly reduced. I find the concepts of man and woman too superficially constructed by humans, and quite irrelevant. I am just me at this point. The issues I am trying to solve now are with relationships, possibilities of having a family of my own, and my future.

QuoteI find the concepts of man and woman too superficially constructed by humans, and quite irrelevant.

Except, perhaps, for the biological matters of reproduction I agree completely. However, early on it doesn't feel that way, at least for me it doesn't.

I think one of the huge hurdles to get past in transition is this barrier between the genders. A man in a dress has crossed a line that feels very real and has social implications. A woman in pants hasn't crossed that line but it hasn't always been that way. Gender roles are a group consensus and are therefore fluid.

The big battle for me being early in my transition is to overcome the gender barriers and beliefs that I hold that I may not even be aware of. My fears of external things aren't nearly as great as my fear of internal things.

Sorry if I'm a bit off topic or philosophical, it just one of those days.

My transgendered behavior started when I was 15.  At first I was just a crossdresser and that is all I knew I wanted to be.  As time went on, clothes just were not enough anymore.  When I was in school and looked at other girls, I wanted what they had.  I wanted to seen as a girl.  I became a little jealous of girls but wanted to hang around them.  I guess I felt I wanted to somehow absorb their femininity because there was no way I could be viewed as a girl.  I used to read nonsexual TG stories and imagine myself as the character becoming a girl.  The way I perceived it, my Transgendered behavior developed into full Transsexuality.  Most people say that the transsexuality is always inside the individual but I didn't feel anything until 15.  It just seems weird that something so core in someone could lie dormant for years before showing itself.  I don't know how it came to be that I once felt like a man and then started to shift into becoming a girl, but that is how it went.  My feelings for being a girl will never cease. 

thanks for all your answers
and special thanks to marissak. i really like your answer  :)

When I was a child I actually thought "I am a girl" and that I'd grow up to be like my mom... I was completely crushed when my mom and sisters pointed out that I was different

So then I went for several years with "I want to be a woman"... When I finally came to grips with it and decided to transition I returned to the "I am a woman" school of thought

It was more like "I am a woman dammit!!!"  :laugh:

I started off as "I am a girl" but lately I've come to realise nothing is black and white and decided "I am an Ellie".

I've never thought "I want to be an x" because, quite honestly, who wants to be a transsexual? It's a horrible affliction!

I am a woman.  I am transitioning from the birth defect to my true body form.

I said I want to be a woman... I can recognize that while my brain soul or whatever maybe feminized to the point that it's female and I recognize myself as a woman, My body was not and I can recognize that my body was a fully functional male one.

I've always made the distinction between male/female and man/woman.  I saw that I was male but never believed that I was a man.  I thought that made me something in-between - both and neither male/female.  Because I had trouble trying to live as a man, I thought I would try living as a woman.  As the hormones worked on my body and psyche, and as my social role changed, I found that I really am a woman.  I used to be male and now am female.  I used to live as a man (even though I wasn't one) but now am a woman.

I used to believe that gender was primarily a social construct.  Now that I am physically female and with female hormones in my system, I know that gender is a lot more complex than just a social constuct.  I am a woman regardless of my social role.

This may all seem like an exercise in semantics, but the distinctions are very meaningful to me.

- Kate

I never really associated myself with my body, and I didn't consider my gender until well into my teens.  I guess I don't really think of it as either "am" or "want to be" male.  It's more like my body just doesn't fit right, and it feels like a male one would. 

I knew something was wrong. I felt that I was hiding something from myself, but I could never figure out what it was. Then I saw a transition video and immediately identified with the process. I then identified as transgender, and genderqueer. Soon thereafter, my research brain took over, and I assimilated as much knowledge on the subject as possible. I suspect that my brain is morphologically female, and has mapped certain parts of my body in ways that conflict with other "mapping" regions of the brain. I now still identify as transgender, and always will. I will live my life as female in the near future.

I have propriception in my genitals- they have been mapped by years of having them there. In other words, if I needed to touch my pecks, I'd know exactly where to find them, and my hand could grab them on command. Yet there is dysphoria- I feel that I should be a girl, and that I should have the parts of a girl. There has always been something distinctly uncomfortable about my chest area, and my penis/testes. I never though- "oh boy I want these gone" until I had fully identified as transgender.

Perhaps the parietal cortex maps the body during the endochrine cascade during week three of pregnancy- commonly cited as the mechanism for "sexing" the embryo, outliers of which cause sexual, gender, and orientation diversity in human beings- so that trans people have "maps" of what our bodies "should" be hard-wired into our awareness. Then, we develop as human beings that have certain parts- propriception develops, and we function somewhat normally in a strictly physical sense (the caveat being the great diversity in body sexual morphology and functionality).

Personally I've always felt "top heavy"... like my center of gravity should be lower than it is. My joints have always been insanely tight as well. I suspect that these things will change after a long while on HRT.

I most excitedly await the changes that will occur within my brain. To exist so long without the proper accompanying hormones. It will certainly be a relief when the correct ones take over.

Quote from: My Name Is Ellie on December 12, 2010, 04:31:01 PM
I started off as "I am a girl" but lately I've come to realise nothing is black and white and decided "I am an Ellie".

I love this. The uniqueness of the human experience.

I think 'I am a woman' is a bit of an arrogant statement to make when one hasn't lived as and been perceived as a cis woman for a decent length of time. 'I want to be a woman'  was far more accurate pre-transition, when the only experiences I'd had were cis male ones.

Hi lucaluca
In my opinion it's not that difficult.
Your genderidentity is hiding between your ears, not your legs.
So, you're a woman without the nessecay female parts.
Does this make you not a woman?
I don't think so, coz there are woman born without ovaries or uterus, does this make them less woman?
No, the only difference is they are raised as a girl and we had the bad luck raised as a boy.
But the good news is, that doctors ar able to restore the fault of nature.
So I think you're not wanted to be a woman but you are a woman who needs medical attention.
If you where n't a woman you didn't need transition, isn't it?

I started with it isn't that difficult but now I've read it back it sonds quite difficult, anyway I hope you know what I mean.

love
ánnette

I started fighting all this long before anybody had any idea what the hxll I was talking about and my childhood protest was "I am a girl, NOT a boy silly!" It took to age 8 for anybody to put a dent in that conviction and, in my teens, it became "I  AM a girl, I NEED to be a girl!" - a statement that was seen (at that time) as delusional, almost to the point of having me committed. I never did accept my body as anything but 'deformed female'. Having such a strong gender identity was no doubt a major factor in finding surgery and transitioning so early (1974). After SRS/transition I found out that I had been right all along. Nobody ever bought 'the boy act' but nobody gave me a second glance as a girl.

So, for me, I WAS a girl all along - it became perfectly clear in hindsight - and in the years since, I am just a woman - no asterisk, no "T", just a woman.

Quote from: CaitJ on December 13, 2010, 02:10:34 AM
I think 'I am a woman' is a bit of an arrogant statement to make when one hasn't lived as and been perceived as a cis woman for a decent length of time. 'I want to be a woman'  was far more accurate pre-transition, when the only experiences I'd had were cis male ones.

As much as I agree with what your saying, I would add that saying "I want to be a woman" endorses it a little too much as a choice.  Of course its a choice, a choice to live, love and be happy but ask the other letters (GLB) what happens when they phrase it as a choice and you get my point.

As for the term woman, my mom is a woman (she's 66) and I'm a bit old to run around calling myself a girl.  Its not about being a woman, for me at least, its about being a female, rather being female bodied.  I liked what the hormones did to my body, I like the kind of people that like those kind of bodies.  Everything thing else is just window dressing.

I don't need to prove myself to anyone.  I'm not doing this becuase I'm a woman or becuase I want to be a woman or even because I need to be a woman.  I'm tired of being alone, I'm tired of relationships that only confuse me even more.  I just want a chance at true, honest happiness.

Quote from: CaitJ on December 13, 2010, 02:10:34 AM
I think 'I am a woman' is a bit of an arrogant statement to make when one hasn't lived as and been perceived as a cis woman for a decent length of time. 'I want to be a woman'  was far more accurate pre-transition, when the only experiences I'd had were cis male ones.

hmm... what i am thinking of is, how do you know that you are a female in the wrong body, so that you could say "i am a woman, but sadly with the body of a man". how do you know it? because we all live our own life and have no other to compare. you can't switch from your mind to the mind of your sister or female friend and say "ah okay, this is how it feels to be a woman (not phisically, just the mind of a woman). so how should someone know that he is a woman in a male body and not a male who wants a female body?
thats the reason why i postet the answer above... 
i hope you understand what i mean... i just try to sort some things out

Quote from: lucaluca on December 13, 2010, 11:38:36 AM
hmm... what i am thinking of is, how do you know that you are a female in the wrong body, so that you could say "i am a woman, but sadly with the body of a man". how do you know it? because we all live our own life and have no other to compare. you can't switch from your mind to the mind of your sister or female friend and say "ah okay, this is how it feels to be a woman (not phisically, just the mind of a woman). so how should someone know that he is a woman in a male body and not a male who wants a female body?
thats the reason why i postet the answer above... 
i hope you understand what i mean... i just try to sort some things out

At a very basic level, non-transgendered people don't spend the time, energy and emotion we do on obsessing about their gender and the discomfort it brings them.  We all start from that point and determine our path from there.  So do you wake up one day and declare you are or want to be a woman?  I don't think so, but as you travel down your own pathway the answer reveals itself to you.  So, yes, its oversimplistic to say, still very visibily male, "I am a woman" or "I want to be a woman", but as you proceed in your journey it becomes the only answer.

For that matter, IRL its too complicated to say much else most of the time anways.

Circa late 1988/early 1989, upon reading the intro to the ONLY medical/professional book on FTMs:
"Omigosh, this is me. I'm a female-to-male transsexual."

Fifteen minutes later, upon reading the last two bulleted points in that intro, where it was written that transition does not improve these "women's" lives and that we are all mentally ill:
"Uh, I am a female cross dresser."

Early 1994, after a course in queer theory and a Leslie Feinberg lecture:
"That's it! I am transgender! Gender is constructed. I'm just a woman who wants to be a man. I don't need to transition. I can be happy like this. Really. (Oh, god.)"

Early 1994-early 1996:
Insomnia, more depression, and panic attacks. "Please, I don't want to be a transsexual. I am just transgender. I am just a girl. Really I am. Okay, a really really butch girl who thinks he, er, she is a boy and wants to be a gay man and live as a gay man and make love as a gay man...but I don't want to be a transsexual. I'm just a woman who wants to be a man. Please."

1996, after the insomnia, depression, and panic attacks had worn me down:
Started antidepressants. Refused therapy.

January 1998:
"I have to do something or I will die. I have to transition." Saw a gender specialist once at the LGBT center.

January 1998:
"I have to do something or I will die. I can't face transition." Back into the closet, but only partway. "I am transgender, not transsexual."

Late 2000/early 2001:
"I have to do something or I will die. This is literally killing me, from the inside out." Back into the closet. All the way. Complete denial.

2001-2008:
Death by degrees.

July 2008:
"I AM A GAY MAN."

August 2008:
Started therapy.

February 2009:
Started hormones.

Etc.

Glad you made it eventually Arch!

For me (circa age 12) it was more, "I am not a girl." Since I wasn't a girl, but I had a girl's body, I said "I want to be a boy." I was very literal, I wouldn't say "I am a boy" because I would need male genitals for that to be true. So instead I would say things like "I have a boy's mind, so I want to be a boy (physically)."

After too long of "I hate being a girl, I'm not meant to be a girl, this is WRONG," I moved on to, "Screw it, boobs or not I'm a boy. I'm a boy I'm a boy I'm a boy...."

That meant I was a boy stuck in a girl's body. Couldn't do anything about it. Didn't know about transition. I was just a boy who for the rest of my life would have to live as a girl. Cue "oh crap" moment. Had to go into denial to save my sanity. Therefore, "I want to be a boy, but I have a girl's body, therefore I'm a girl. I'm a girl I'm a girl...."

Chanting the same damn thing over and over just made me feel like crap until I found out about transition, snapped out of denial, and declared myself male. And it's the truth.

Quote from: Lee on December 13, 2010, 12:47:43 PM
Glad you made it eventually Arch!

Thanks. I'm getting there.

Am, am, am!!!

I think that much of my hurt and confusion both in the past and currently has stemmed from me trying to convince myself that I really WAS what the accident of my flesh told everyone around me that I am. Once I just accepted that I AM female, and not someone who "wanted" to be female, my hurt got a bit less. It helped me, at least, to realize that what I really wanted is for me to match inside and out. If that makes sense.

hugs,

--Tina

I am a Woman. nature played a cruel trick on me at conception leaving me in a male body. 
I will, I must, I am going to persist until this is rectified. With the help and support of those like me.

love you all so much.

Simone.

Quote from: MissTina on December 13, 2010, 05:10:37 PM
I think that much of my hurt and confusion both in the past and currently has stemmed from me trying to convince myself that I really WAS what the accident of my flesh told everyone around me that I am. Once I just accepted that I AM female, and not someone who "wanted" to be female, my hurt got a bit [lot] less. It helped me, at least, to realize that what I really wanted is for me to match inside and out. If that makes sense.

Amen, sister. :icon_flower:

*hugs*
Kate

Quote from: lucaluca on December 13, 2010, 11:38:36 AM
hmm... what i am thinking of is, how do you know that you are a female in the wrong body, so that you could say "i am a woman, but sadly with the body of a man". how do you know it?

I didn't know it. However, I strongly suspected it.
Living as a woman was test that verified for me that the female paradigm fit much better than the male one. If the test had failed, then I would have gone back to my assigned birth gender.
Having a rational approach is important, I think.

Quote from: CaitJ on December 13, 2010, 11:21:55 PM
I didn't know it. However, I strongly suspected it.
Living as a woman was test that verified for me that the female paradigm fit much better than the male one. If the test had failed, then I would have gone back to my assigned birth gender.
Having a rational approach is important, I think.

This is a good point.  In the beginning I knew only that I had always thought I should be a woman and that I had trouble living as a man.  Transition was an experiment, to see if living as a woman would suit me better.  In the beginning I did only those things I could undo if need-be and return to trying to live as a man.

As the experiment progressed, I found that living as a woman suited me so well that I knew I could never go back.  Living as a woman was a real pleasure and for the first time I could just relax and be me, not worrying about how I presented myself.  My biggest fear was that I would be forced back to living as a man.

When I had GRS, the effects on my feelings and how I thought were so profound that I was at last certain that I am and have always been a woman, regardless of my birth anatomy.

So it was, to paraphrase the Little Engine That Could: I think I am, I think I can, I am I am I am. :)

- Kate

Kate --

love that paraphrase!!!

hugs,

--Tina

Well said Tamaki,

QuoteI just know that mentally, emotionally and spiritually I'm not male. So I'm moving away from being male and hope that other women can see me as something other than male and treat me more like one of their own.

And Marrisak, I related to what you said, "I fit better on the female side of the world".

Still, feeling this way and looking in the mirror and seeing a male face is confusing.

Kendall

I am a girl and I want the world to see me as who I am and not this shell ...

I am tired of being a girl trapped in a guy and am more happier than I have ever been since I have stopped trying to  be "normal" and accepted that I am not a guy trying/wanting to be a woman but girl stuck in a guy's body and wanting to change my body to that of a woman to match who I am on the inside....