Susan's Place Transgender Resources

Not gonna bore you with my life story as at the end of the day, we have all been there and done it in some shape or form, but will condense it as short as possible just so you got a rough idea where i am coming from. Born normal boy(burn ants with magnify glass and wreck sisters dolls..did i say normal!) got the urge to try on sisters and mums underwear when i was about 7 or 8 or so, got more into wearing girls clothes when i was in my teens and after a many disatrous relationships i decided i must be TS and after many visits with gender specialists i got put on hormones with a view to having SRS, however after about 6 months something inside me just clicked and i realised i was not 100% sure i was TS and i ended all treatment, since then ive been searching for what exactly i am.

Took the congiati test a while back and result was Andro, now i know this test is nothing more than a bit of light entertainment, but it opened my mind up to some sort of middle ground between being male and TS, trouble is trying to get someone to listen is near on impossible, in the past ive been told im anything from ya normal run of the mill ->-bleeped-<- right up to being a TS in denial. A couple of years back i had an appointment with a NHS shrink nurse who told me there was nothing wrong with me that anger management and lessons on low self esteem wouldnt put right, like i said just feel like know one understands where i am coming from. Several times a year i go down with depression ranging from slight to severe i try to explain these times as when "she" moves in, sometimes she just stays for a few weeks other times it can be months, its kinda hard to explain what mixed emotions i feel during these times, but i start wondering why my wife stays with me and if my kids would be better off without me

Anyway found this site yesterday and what a refreshing change found it almost eerie reading about how some of you on here mention about being 60/40, this is exactly the term i use to describe myself,reason being i feel is because i am very protective of my female side, mainly due i feel cos society states i am male, which i hate being labelled with, im just very greatfull that i have something to turn to to help my wife understand that im not the only one around like me.

Hi Shelly.

Great to see you.

Spacial, you cant see me untill ive done another 12 posts lol ........now just 11 to go.

It's great to meet you, Shelly! I self identify as a bigender and so much of what you said in your post rings true for me.

Welcome to Suzan's. This is a great place with very many kind and wonderful people. They are smart and have allot of experience with gender issues and answers to your questions.  Erocse and I will look forward to reading  your posts and hearing from your wife as well.

~Hugs~

Mrs Erocse

Hi Shelly!

I too took the COGIATI when i was searching for what I am, and like you it opened my eyes to the possibility of a middle ground, somewhere between boy and girl. Like Virginia, i also consider myself bi-gender.

Your experience is much like what we have all experienced. I hope you'll stay around!

Everyone's different.  As I read your post I saw a lot of the same emotions I felt "back then."  I did the COGIATI too, knowing full well it wasn't medically recognized.  My first time it came up "probable" TS.  I cried because I knew what that meant.  But I also knew I tried to skew the results so it would come up TS.  Don't ask me why.  Later I took the test again only this time answering completely honestly.  It came up class Five - Transsexual.  Yeah, by being honest, I scored higher.

Still, I wasn't about to let some online test influence me.  Problem was I knew it was right.  And that caused me to take a deep look into myself.  Over the next several years I struggled with the issue.  I went from identifying as a CD to identifying as a TG.  I refused to identify TS.  I wasn't ready for the life change.

I hadn't been happy in my marriage for a long time.  My youngest was about to go off to college.  I decided it was time to address these issues so I allowed myself to go out as "her" and have some fun.  I was 54 at the time.

It was like being freed from a long imprisonment.  I had never had so much fun or felt so free.  I told my wife about each and every outing, both before and after.  I invited her to join me.  She always said she would but never did.  I started to see I was headed in a different direction than where she was and realized I had long ago hated the life she wanted me to lead.

She told the kids I was TS.  The boys stopped talking to me.  My daughter hung in there.  I got divorced then my daughter left.  I was alone, the kids had walked out of my life so I decided it was time to run a test.  How long could I live full time before wanting to go back?

I'm still waiting for that answer.

Ok, whats the meaning of this bi-gender term i keep on seeing, how does it differ from Andro? Been searching high and low for a website like this, so dont intend leaving in a hurry, left loads of replies today to various threads today, feel like a kid in a sweet shop!!

Quote from: shelly on December 15, 2010, 09:25:25 AM
Ok, whats the meaning of this bi-gender term i keep on seeing

In what context?

You'll find that a whole lot of people 'round these parts pretty much define words using a self-created dictionary, so what they mean depends a lot on who is using it in the first place.

Quote from: shelly on December 15, 2010, 09:25:25 AM
Ok, whats the meaning of this bi-gender term i keep on seeing, how does it differ from Andro? Been searching high and low for a website like this, so dont intend leaving in a hurry, left loads of replies today to various threads today, feel like a kid in a sweet shop!!

Starting out with the easy questions i see LOL.....

Using the wiki from susans: (www.susans.org/wiki/):

Bigender (bi+gender) is a tendency to move between masculine and feminine gender-typed behavior depending on context, expressing a distinctly male persona and a distinctly female persona. It is recognized by the APA as a subset of the transgendered group. While an androgynous person retains the same gender-typed behavior across situations, the bigendered person consciously or unconsciously changes their gender-role behavior between primarily masculine and primarily feminine, depending on the situation.

Whereas an androgyne is defined as (from the same wiki):

An androgyne is a person who does not fit cleanly into the typical masculine and feminine gender roles of their society. Much in the same way as androgyny, androgyne can be used in two related ways: on the one hand, to refer to someone whose gender role or presentation is not typically masculine or feminine, and on the other hand to someone who claims a gender identity outside male and female.

Many androgynes identify as being mentally "between" male and female, or as entirely genderless or the Third Gender. The former may also use the term ambigender or intergender, the latter null gendered, non-gendered or agender. They may experience mental swings between genders, sometimes referred to as being bigender or gender fluid. Some experience severe enough gender dysphoria that they seek HRT or surgery to bring their body more in line with their internal gender, or lack thereof.

Welcome Shelly!

Z

I took COGIATI test once and was classified as an androgyne. The strange thing is I seem to be closer to transsexual side.
I'm happy with my male appearance except my genitalia. I want to have a vagina. Well, let me correct what I have just said.
What I mean is that I want my penis to be completely removed and become a vaginal entrance. I don't want a clitoris and labia minora.

I feel like that's the only way that my feminine side can live in peace with my masculine side. At the same time, I don't want hormone replacement therapy. I only want a vagina-like sexual organ in a body that I was born with. Is what I want abnormal?

Welcome, Shelly. I agree that this is an amazing and exciting place. I can write things here I've never told anyone, and no one tells me I'm weird or evil. And, I've found people here I love and respect, whose story, always a little like mine, always a little different from mine, I can relate to. Here you can be yourself. Here you can learn about yourself. Here you can express yourself. And don't worry that your life story will bore us. We just hope you and your wife find yourselves in a better place for having visited the Unicorn forest.

Oh, I also took COGIATI multiple times and other other tests online and off. I've scored andro a couple of times. That's the closest I can get to being a man, but I role play well.

S

Quote from: shelly on December 15, 2010, 06:42:48 AM
Spacial, you cant see me untill ive done another 12 posts lol ........now just 11 to go.

:laugh:

My path has actually been eerily similar to yours - including the reccurent bouts of depression.  I've reached a point in my life where I've decided that I need to make peace with whatever this is that I can't get out of my head.  Either I'll transition or I won't, but like I said I need to make peace with whatever "this" is.

Read, write, think (lots) and you will find the answer you seek.

Blimey, i have never come across such a welcoming commitee and know one yet has asked me to leave lol but  could i ask if you enter my thread room could you take your litter with you as not even the removal men have turned up yet lol lol yeah ok i am in a very jollity Jane mood at the moment, but this wont last. I spent a lot of yesterday leaving various replies on here as like a lot of you i have experienced many different things during the last 40 years or so, so it is easy to be able to relate to a lot of you, with the exception of Julie, did find your reply quite upsetting. When i was doing the real life test i was living with my mum at the time (yeah i know you are ment to live your life in your own place, but her gravy was so much better than mine lol) and although i had 3 children i never saw them. When the news sank in with my mum she was ok about it, but told me if i ever got off with a man then she would want nothing to do with me anymore, which wouldnt of been a problem as i have never fancied blokes anyway and the only other family i had was a sister who i have never been that close too, but during my time on hormones we did become really close, i think she was looking forward to having a sister.

My life at work was hell, according to the toilet walls half the people i worked with wanted to kill me and the other wanted to sleep with me????I did spend many nights crying myself to sleep with the cries of "thats where the ******* ->-bleeped-<-got lives" but apart from that and having not one single friend that was about as bad as it got. What i will say though Julie is if i thought i would be happier living my life 24/7 as female whever by having SRS or not, then i would leave my wife and kids tomorrow, of course it wouldnt be easy, but niether is living a lie and i would love one day to be happy with the skin im in and get rid of these bloody awfull depressive spells i sometimes experience, the last one was so bad that looking bottles of paracetamols looked attractive.

Sorry what I wrote was upsetting.  It was simply the truth.  Too often we sugarcoat gender transition (to whatever degree) and the inexperienced get sucked into the illusion.  Fact is, almost every society on this earth treats gender change as a major, major, MAJOR! life change.  The myth that anyone can dilute the almost inevitable fallout is often times the cause of a personal crash.

But the idea we have to leave the life we have in order to transition is also untrue.  You don't have to leave your kids.  Your wife?  Maybe.  But your kids you can at least stick around and fight for, even in the worst situations.  You do have a choice as to how to respond. always.

You already got a taste of how people around you are going to react.  Your mother threatened you and your co-workers either wanted you dead or in bed.  So you are ahead of the curve.  BTW, the RLT only requires you life full time.  Who you live with doesn't matter as long as you show you can be self sufficient if needed.  Some therapists are SOC Nazis and some are willing to work with their patients on an individual basis, understanding we all have different circumstances.

But if you lived full time (once that knowledge is out there it can't be taken back) what did you do after you returned to a male life?  Get a new job?  Move?  Just curious.

Julie, i found what you put upsetting as it all to a common occurrence of being TS dont know what the ratio is, but for every one TS who transitions and manages to keep their family intact there must be thousands who lose part or all of their family. I found the one of the hardest things was finding out who you could trust and who just wanted to get to know you just to spread round gossip, even my  first wife, who at first seemed to be every trans ideal woman when it came to help and support ended up sobbing to her mother saying "ive just found out that Lester (me) wears my clothes" all this just to hide the fact she was having an affair with her sister boyfriend.

Can remember as clear as a day the time when i decided to end my treatment, it was when the council came knocking to say they had found me a flat to move in to, i just told my step dad to say i no longer needed it and that was that. Mum was over the moon and she thinks to this day it was because of her why i didnt go through with it, but like i said i just wasnt 110% sure i was TS. Going back to my life was easy for the simple reason that i guess i never left it, stayed living at home and same employment which was in a warehouse and 25 years later there are still people around who remember me as "Tara" which dont bother me its just the fall out that my wife and kids have to put up with sometimes that pees me off.

Yo, Shelly!  I'll be honest and admit that I haven't read everyone else's responses (I am super drunk at the moment and lack the attention span to read or comprehend much), but welcome.  I thought I was trans until I learned that there were alternatives to the binary.

:)  We're a great big happy family and I believe that we are all far more normal than we think. :icon_flower:

Quote from: Jaimey on December 18, 2010, 12:37:51 AM:)  We're a great big happy family and I believe that we are all far more normal than we think. :icon_flower:

Unfortunately, we are normal in our feelings, but we are not so normal in biology. I sometimes doubt that I am fighting the nature by trying to modify my body part to match my feelings, which are natural themselves. Then I believe that we should follow our heart because that is the most natural place where we can reach.

Quote from: Jaimey on December 18, 2010, 12:37:51 AM
(I am super drunk at the moment and lack the attention span to read or comprehend much)
:)  We're a great big happy family and I believe that we are all far more normal than we think. :icon_flower:

Drunk or sober, you say the darndest smart things.
Here's one of those big drunken hugs, you deserve one!

there are comments about us being "Normal" personally I hate being defined as normal.
"Normal" is a washing machine setting - I am not a washing machine.
Most people want to be seen as Normal like it is some kind of security blanket.
for me it is a prison with all the forced manliness I've had to endure being the cell I have escaped from

Quote from: Kinkly on December 18, 2010, 07:23:54 PM
there are comments about us being "Normal" personally I hate being defined as normal.
"Normal" is a washing machine setting - I am not a washing machine.
Most peoplI e want to be seen as Normal like it is some kind of security blanket.
for me it is a prison with all the forced manliness I've had to endure being the cell I have escaped from

To the extent that people want to be normal, I think they don't want to be percieved as their gender pre-transition.  However they define, I do think most people would be happy to just blend in.

Quote from: regan on December 18, 2010, 10:50:35 PM
To the extent that people want to be normal, I think they don't want to be percieved as their gender pre-transition.  However they define, I do think most people would be happy to just blend in.

Exactly, "to just blend in" is what I want. Fortunately, although I'm feminine, I'm not effeminate, flamboyant, or manneristic. Hence, I don't have to have fear of being ridiculed. So far, no body questions my behavior. The only person who has problem is myself. My feminine side cannot get along with my masculine side. Although my inner self has a place for both, my physical self doesn't, and I feel stressed about this. I want my physical femininity to be recognized as much as my mental femininity if you know what I mean.

That's why I want a vagina because that is the strongest feminine recognition, but I don't want big breasts or wide hips. I'm still a male. I simply want my touch of femininity to be recognized.

I know. It sounds simple, yet it is complicated. It took me years to understand myself better. Certainly that doesn't mean I completely understand myself.

Quote from: regan on December 18, 2010, 10:50:35 PM
To the extent that people want to be normal, I think they don't want to be percieved as their gender pre-transition.  However they define, I do think most people would be happy to just blend in.

blending in doesn't work for me blending in would mean being invisable I demand to be seen as my true self I'd rather be seen as a bearded lady then as a "man in a dress" I had a strange experience a couple of months ago where I was called "Jesus in a dress" Long Hair & beard must have been the look everyone thinks Jesus must have had.  I've been called worse.
I guess for most people fitting in is more important then most other things I spent the first 30 years trying to fit with no sucess now I'm being me and have much more luck finding/making friends now
although Love still evades me :(

Quote from: Kinkly on December 19, 2010, 05:50:18 AM
blending in doesn't work for me blending in would mean being invisable I demand to be seen as my true self I'd rather be seen as a bearded lady then as a "man in a dress" I had a strange experience a couple of months ago where I was called "Jesus in a dress" Long Hair & beard must have been the look everyone thinks Jesus must have had.  I've been called worse.
I guess for most people fitting in is more important then most other things I spent the first 30 years trying to fit with no sucess now I'm being me and have much more luck finding/making friends now
although Love still evades me :(

TO ME:
Love is God and God is Love 
I Don't let the superficial relationships between people be seen as love.
When two people know love they know it independent of one another and then they share it with each other because they have it to give.  Yes many think they found love in another person but that puts it on that person to be the love they seek and not just be someone who shares the love they found. Today i have this love and if it is meant to be for me to share it to one person on an intimate situation so be if not so be it but my love is God resting in my heart and God in my heart is love.

The above is just my interpretation of God and love and if it speaks to you so be it.

Quote from: Kinkly on December 18, 2010, 07:23:54 PM
there are comments about us being "Normal" personally I hate being defined as normal.
"Normal" is a washing machine setting - I am not a washing machine.

I am normal and proud of it. Little bit distrustful of those who feel, or wish that they are not. A normal person is someone who wants respect, love and all that as far as I can see. All people want the same things, we just have different ways of getting about it.

By normal, I meant that more people probably identify with us than with what each gender is stereotyped as.  So normal is more of a consensus.  I suppose you could say that more people are moving toward the middle (if we put one binary gender on each end) than are way out on the ends.  It's a number thing, not a concept (or washing machine setting).  I get the need to be different, but in the end, we're all human and probably not so different when you get down to it.

Quote from: ativan on December 18, 2010, 05:06:37 PM
Drunk or sober, you say the darndest smart things.
Here's one of those big drunken hugs, you deserve one!

Why, thank you, dear!  *huggles*   :laugh:

probably not so different when you get down to it
Agreed.  What unites people is huge, what divides them tends to be trivial.  But humans do love their trivia.

You are a very strong person to have lived fulltime, then gone back and still live otherwise the same life. I seriously doubt I could do that. I am curious about one thing. Why the change from Tara to Shelly? Is it a recognition that Tara was not the right answer, and Shelly has it figured out much closer to the truth you see now? A different persona to accompany a different perspective?

Sfem, ive had several aliases, Mandy being the first (first crush)then changed name by deed pole to Tara when i was on the verge of changing. Came up with that name from trying to  picture my life after i had surgery and for some reason Tara fit the bill, god knows why. Shelly came about from my wife, this person only came out originally once in a while in the bedroom, cant believe how things have moved on since those days, used to be quite happy expressing my female side once or twice a month, nowadays its daily.

Quote from: shelly on January 04, 2011, 04:54:30 AM
used to be quite happy expressing my female side once or twice a month, nowadays its daily.

I'm the same but it is more that showing my true self to the world then my female side or maybe it's not hiding my femme side
the more I'm me the more I need to be I just hope that there will not be any more times when I'm forced (for no real reason) to hide who I am