I find that when I get involved here with anybodies problems I tend to be autobiographical because I want to present alternative ways to relate to the problem, but what I am really doing is integrating my female personality and working out who I am.
I guess I am at the stage in this process of acceptance of my transgenderness. That is what I am is a transgender grandma of 65 years old who lives on Social Security and has a partner and children in my life who has worked as a male (butch female) elementary teacher and middle school teacher most of her life.
I have gone through many of the struggles that younger transgenders are now going through and I have become the light at the end of the tunnel. The end of the tunnel being the message to younger transgenders that you can live to be old. Death because you are a transgender is not a certainty. Do what you can to survive. I would have done better by self if at the time I was struggling with life if I would have identified myself as a butch female from the being or as a female with male hormone problems. All the rest of my life could have been lived out the same, but how I felt about life and who I was would have been different. After all emotionally all these years from when I was born I was a butch female. Being a butch female I would have been more accepting of when I came up short in the male world and I would not have stressed my self out less. Also my expectations of myself would have been different when I tried to fix things. Of course butch females can not do everything a male did, but I did it any way. Go, girl! I could have gotten feelings of accomplishment when I succeed.
Now context, I am talking about a rural small town country girl from the Dakotas who was born in 1946. She deferred to her man, but was expected to be able to do any physical work her man needed her to do and she had been brought up to do. A butch female could push herself into male jobs which the male became bored with and considered routine while they went on to more challenging tasks. People were still even milking cows by hand and chopping wood and stoking their coal furnaces.
My mother's were the I Love Lucy of fashion and expected female life style put in a comic way. And I also have a Masters in Elementary education.
Why does this matter, well it forms my point of view, and helps me sort out my life and gives me a story line, and not a series of chaotic irrational incidences. Also I need to do this. If it helps others, to gain some understanding, good, but I don't need to know. It also allows me to free myself and come out of my shell. And if I am really falling off the edge of the know world some one can say, " Just where do you think you are wandering off to girl?" And I can also let you know that many of my fears about what might happen, were unreal for me. Fears concerning me being female and other things.
When I put I was a transgender female on Facebook, and the picture above, heads did not explode and all of my friends did not just disappear including people I had taught and known for a long time as well as former students. A few people said they liked my picture. My one son chatted and said what is this pink thing occupying my site. He latter cooled down and said he wasn't judging me. He said that he had work concerns and I told him if he needed to he could defriend me or block me out and I would understand. My world did not come to an end. Now I am not physically in most of their lives and I am not likely to be, but this is because our paths have gone different ways. And the longer they see me as female the more likely if we ever meet in person I will be accepted as such.
What am I doing here, now? Just letting people here know me, and how I am coping, and being Michelle.
My monologue now endith. I know too much grandma, too much teacher. But that's who I am.
What am I doing here? If anybody figures it out let me know.
Thank you for this post.
"...you can live to be old. Death because you are a transgender is not a certainty."
I have done some volunteer work in suicide prevention with trans people, and I gotta say, not everyone has gotten this message. Keep putting it out there.
Welcome to Susan's, Michelle. I enjoyed reading your post. I'M a 63 year old grandparent. I have been out as transgender for seven years. It's really been wonderful because I am liberated and complete. When we decide to live life on our own terms many opportuniities open up to us. My spouse is accepting om though she' s still trying to understand what being transgender is. Michelle, you are a seeker like me. You see that there's more out there and are pursuing it. I wish you the best in your future endeavors. I pray that year 8 will be even better for me.
I wonder sometimes why I post here. I feel my life is sorted so don't really -need- help. Maybe I just want to try to help others dealing with this giving some of my experience? Or maybe find it interesting reading other people's experiences.
Quote from: Stephe on April 23, 2012, 01:33:13 AM
I wonder sometimes why I post here. I feel my life is sorted so don't really -need- help. Maybe I just want to try to help others dealing with this giving some of my experience? Or maybe find it interesting reading other people's experiences.
Sorted today is sordid tomorrow luv. Best to get all the info we can!
Quote from: michelleWhen I put I was a transgender female on Facebook, and the picture above, heads did not explode and all of my friends did not just disappear including people I had taught and known for a long time as well as former students.
Oh I really like that one...and I know the feeling!
Hi it is me again. Just checkin' in. The old grandma a fadin' away. Went clothes shopping at Target with the family yesterday. Women's section only, no use for the men's. Nobody seems to notice me, as I pick through the dresses. I bought the sun hat in the picture above. I like the colors when its not on my head. I am not sure that it looks good on me. The color and the shape of the hat. Its funny even if people call me sir, they seem to accept the way I dress, or maybe in some weird way they just accept me as I am. I have to think about that one. Get hit on by some dirty old men, just ignore them. They must think I am a lesbian. Went to the beach the other day in my new bathing suit covered over by a long pink pac man tee shirt. Some nice young teenage boys treat me respectfully as an old grandma. Just fading away. I feel like I am in a Salvador Dali picture blending into the otherness of it all. Its very hard to figure. Some people are standoffish, but that's ok. Sitting at the bus stop and being just another little old lady talking to another little old lady. Just fading away.
Sometimes life is what I think it is, but mostly not and a lot of times whatever it is just doesn't figure. I just have to be who ever I am. Mostly a little old granny fading away.