Susan's Place Transgender Resources

When I was about 18 my girlfriend at the time said, 'You're the only boy I'd ever invite to a hen-party.' The moment she said it, a look of horror crossed her face at the fear that she might have insulted my masculinity and she started telling me, 'I mean that in a good way. I wasn't trying to be rude ...' and so on.

Of course, I was thrilled. I've always loved female company. I'm totally happy having a girly conversation and although I've learned over the years how to behave in a way that seems appropriately masculine, I've never, ever been one of the guys.

So for me, transition is as much as anything about becoming one of the girls, being able to socialise with women in an entirely non-sexual way, as friends, sharing experiences and emotions.

But I wonder: is this possible? Can cis-females ever truly accept a MTF transsexual as one of their own? Or are we, not being "real women" doomed to be outsiders?

Tell me, ladies ... what are your experiences of friendship, companionship and acceptance with other women? Are you one of the girls? Or have you felt the cold shoulder once they know you weren't born in a girl's body?

I'm only full-time at home so things might be different if they knew me as me, but I'm more likely to get the cold shoulder from the guys than the ladies. The types of things most guys talk about just don't interest me. I try to use some buzzwords to stay in the conversation, but it gets over my head quickly. It's pretty rare that I run into situations like that with women.

I think it depends on the person or group but I hold there are many times the answer is yes.

Like I recently admitted in another post, here I am, MTF myself and I'm in group therapy listening to this other woman talk about her life and the thought goes through my head, "Oh my!  She really IS a woman!"  I doubt she, or anyone, knew of my previous misunderstanding.  Or suspected it for that matter, given that I'm trans and all.

I have come to have a lot of faith in that experience.  If there are people around you who see you as a trans-woman, instead of a woman, be yourself.  I really believe other people can have that same epiphany I did.  I still dress like a dude at work (Till Jan 14th), but after I came out last week the next thing I knew I was talking about shoe shopping with the women there and the next day one of the women asked if she could help me with my makeup.  It's like I'm in an ocean, and these women are pulling me onto the boat of womanhood, and I wanna say they're even eager for me to get on board!

Quote from: Misato33 on December 18, 2012, 06:15:54 AM
I think it depends on the person or group but I hold there are many times the answer is yes.

... after I came out last week the next thing I knew I was talking about shoe shopping with the women there and the next day one of the women asked if she could help me with my makeup.  It's like I'm in an ocean, and these women are pulling me onto the boat of womanhood, and I wanna say they're even eager for me to get on board!

Good luck on the voyage! The boat of womanhood is one vessel I've always wanted to sail on :)

I have found women very supportive even when they know I am trans. Most women seem to have no problems with it. Men, OTOH....

Quote from: bev2 on December 18, 2012, 07:21:59 AM
I have found women very supportive even when they know I am trans. Most women seem to have no problems with it. Men, OTOH....

Personally, I'd willingly accept the inadequacies of insecure men if I had the friendship and support of women in return ...

Lol...I am sorry but I do not understand that comment at all.  Why would you accept the inadequacies of insecure men if you had the support of women?  Why would anyone need the support of women to justify some man with low self esteem?  If a man is just a loser id just ditch him..I wouldnt need the affirmation of a woman to realize that.  Ive never needed the support of women to make myself feel whole or to make a qualified decision .  I mean yeah, I do have women in my life and yes, I have asked advice from time to time but I do not think I am beneath them as a gendered woman.  It is nice to be accepted, but common now lol

Quote from: Michelle Hayden on December 18, 2012, 07:43:53 AM
Lol...I am sorry but I do not understand that comment at all.  Why would you accept the inadequacies of insecure men if you had the support of women?  Why would anyone need the support of women to justify some man with low self esteem?  If a man is just a loser id just ditch him..I wouldnt need the affirmation of a woman to realize that.  Ive never needed the support of women to make myself feel whole or to make a qualified decision .  I mean yeah, I do have women in my life and yes, I have asked advice from time to time but I do not think I am beneath them as a gendered woman.  It is nice to be accepted, but common now lol

Sorry ... I didn't make myself clear. I didn't mean that bad male behaviour is acceptable as a matter of principle. I was just suggesting - quite light-heartedly - that if I had to choose, I would rather put up with a few jerks, if it meant I could have true friendships with other women, than not have female friendships at all.

Nor do I need women to make me feel whole and help me make decisions. I would just love to have true, deep woman-to-woman friendships.

Obviously, in an ideal world, I want to be accepted by men and women alike, and all of us have the right to expect that we will be treated with respect by anyone we meet.

Absolutely. My sister proudly calls me her sister and she always telling me details a girl would never tell their brother (feminine problems). My mother loves going on girly shopping sprees with me and all of a sudden is sending me pictures of her garden any chance she gets. Girls (what few cis female friends I have) are always telling me about their boyfriends, dragging me into womens bathrooms, "girl let me tell you!"-ing me (in a totally non-chalant way), telling me about THEIR feminine problems, trade clothes with me (not in a omg he he cute guy wants to dress up as a woman way), heck, half of my wardrobe comes from cis women and have never even seen me in them. My future sister in law keeps trying to get me interested in her ex husband, as if she forgets I'm trans and that he's a cop (i'm sure that'll work out well). Even my brother does stuff like helps me step down from steep areas and is very gentlemanly towards me.

I'm actually surprised how I'm treated completely as a cis girl who was born without ovaries. I would've figured I'd still be excluded from the girls club somehow.

However I'll just say that having cis gendered female friends is overrated. I used to really want some to have more of a feminine influence but in the end many my age don't like each other (including me - and I'm guilty of the same thing) because they're jealous of something or another. I have my few and they're hundreds of miles away. And I'd never thought I'd say this but  that's fine by me :P -  Except Tara and Heather! I miss those girls!

My trans sisters on the other hand... I love them with all my heart :) We have a bond no other people could ever have!

I would agree.  My answer is yes, I feel like the women I have worked with at different offices have totally accepted me.  I have been included in their inner circle.  Been invited to their shopping shows,  Stood at the sink in the restroom and talked about whatever.

I have never felt excluded.

I will say there's a few girls that have NOT accepted me into the circle, but they don't matter because they were never my friends anyways. They're probably just scared I'll steal any male attention away from them they might get, anyways. Like I hinted at... women are too jealous / competitive and will say / do some underhanded BS to make themselves feel better (which I've been guilty of from time to time).

My answer is yes. I have a few cis female friends that have known me both as a man and now as a woman. When I told them I was trans, even though I presented male, they instantly started treating me like one of the girls. They fully accepted me without a doubt. 

I went full time at work on December 4th. I thought I would always be seen as a man by the women here. But, now they talk to me just like I am one of the girls. I am even included on topics such as periods, menopause, boyfriends/husbands, and sex talk. It is great!

Quote from: Alainaluvsu on December 18, 2012, 10:29:21 AM
I will say there's a few girls that have NOT accepted me into the circle, but they don't matter because they were never my friends anyways. They're probably just scared I'll steal any male attention away from them they might get, anyways. Like I hinted at... women are too jealous / competitive and will say / do some underhanded BS to make themselves feel better (which I've been guilty of from time to time).

Oh, don't I know it! I have two sisters and two daughters. I've worked in strongly female office environments and observed the way that my wife and her circle still play the same games of who's in and who's out that girls start learning when they're in their very first years at kindergarten. Women are judgemental about all sorts of things that men don't even think about, and their judgements are incredibly personal ... In fact, that's one of the reasons I asked the question, because I know how women can be. And, yes, like you I have my bitchy side as well!  ;)

On the other hand, women are also much more supportive, more thoughtful, more active in maintaining relationships and more fun to be around. So that's why it matters so much to me to be considered part of that female-only club ...

How does passability affect acceptance? Will cis woman be just as likely to accept a Trans woman who doesn't completely pass as one who does?

I can't answer that one.

Quote from: agfrommd on December 18, 2012, 10:57:30 AM
How does passability affect acceptance? Will cis woman be just as likely to accept a Trans woman who doesn't completely pass as one who does?

I'm sure that visal passability counts for something, but my guess is that what you might call emotional passability - coming across like someone who's sympathetic, empathetic and genuinely wants to be a friend - matters even more.

I can say yes, I am seen as "one of the girls".

In one case I was at a party for several hours and only one person there knew I was trans. At another event I wasn't at this person -slipped- that "Stephe used to be ______ husband" and the other women were like O.O. They said "You mean she used to be a guy????" They had no clue. I was later at an event these same women were at and I didn't notice them treating me any different, still girl talk conversations etc. So I really feel if they see woman, most will accept you as "one of the girls" even if they know you are trans. At least that has been my experience with -most- women.

Guys on the other hand can be extremely homophobic and if they know you are trans have a harder time seeing past this fact when they are in a group. I have discovered when you are one on one without other people around, they act differently. I guess they don't want anyone to think they are gay or something? Who knows what they are thinking.

The other thing I have found is many women are shallow and don't like any woman who are more attractive than they are. Don't confuse this with not "Being one of the girls".

Quote from: agfrommd on December 18, 2012, 10:57:30 AM
How does passability affect acceptance? Will cis woman be just as likely to accept a Trans woman who doesn't completely pass as one who does?

I don't think I pass too well. So, I don't think passability has too large of an affect on it.

ive been stealth for 3 years now so those girls only conversations just happens when im around. And i agree the conversations are  a lot different when theyre only girls in the room

I'd say yes. It's normal/possible to be accepted as "one of the girls" I get invited to hen nights, shoe shopping, lunches all the typically "female" things that girls do together. A few of my girlfriends knew me when I was a boy, a few of them didn't. Same goes for guy friends. The vast majority treat me as one of the girls. Only two of my guy friends knew me as a boy and they do treat me a little different but I have very good friendships with them so I just don't care. I do think physical passability has an impact on it. It's horrible to say but I think it might be true. That's not to say people don't want to form friendships with visibly trans people, that's not what I mean at all.

Even being pre-everything my female friends treat me just like any girl. Before coming out my friends were already very confident.

My male friends didn't have any problem.

I'm proud of my friends, I've always keep the list small, but full of quality :)


A friend that treats you bad is a false friend. Better to say goodbye.

I'd like to point out that gay men are included in womens circles too. It's not a physically passing thing, or even a girls only thing, it's a trust thing.  Now if you don't pass then you're probably not going to be asked to go Even for me (and this may sound off), if a trans girl doesn't act feminine in any kind of way I'm not going to talk to her about things I normally talk to girls about. It's not that I'm prejudiced, it's more of a "well she probably doesn't wanna hear this anyways" kinda thing. That's not to say I won't offer advice to a trans girl if she asks for it...

My ex sister in law never accepted me as one of the girls until I transitioned and saw my brother, 5 months after I transitioned. Once I saw him, all of a sudden she's been completely "you're the girl you were always meant to be"... yet we haven't even seen each other since I transitioned.  Honestly I think she got the hint from my sister and my brother that I'm the real deal and not just some dude in a dress.

Quote from: Stephe on December 18, 2012, 11:36:14 AM
Guys on the other hand can be extremely homophobic and if they know you are trans have a harder time seeing past this fact when they are in a group. I have discovered when you are one on one without other people around, they act differently. I guess they don't want anyone to think they are gay or something? Who knows what they are thinking.

The other thing I have found is many women are shallow and don't like any woman who are more attractive than they are. Don't confuse this with not "Being one of the girls".

I haven't really experienced that much with men. Even the men that know hold doors open for me and smile politely at me. They may not make a move on me but I don't really see that as homophobic, just that I'm not their type. It's harder for them to turn the pronouns around when they knew you before though... but every guy I've had to correct apologized and does try. Even my brother, a big ol macho body builder that used to make fun of gay guys with me before he knew, calls me his sister, she, her and slips up even less than my mother. I think with men, the visual aspect is MUCH more important.

And girl, don't I know that girls are shallow that way. I can't say how many times even I have looked at a girl and was like "I hate that bitch" just because she's prettier than me. What's weird is trans girls are different for me (and many cis gendered women as well I've seen). If a girl is trans and prettier than me, I'm jealous but I'm every bit as inclined to be her friend. One of my best girl friends even hated me until I told her I was trans. Her exact words were  "I didn't know who the f*** you were, all I knew was my gusband (gay hubby) brought some pretty girl over to my house. I thought you were stealing him!" ... she's a weird one though :D

Quote from: Alainaluvsu on December 18, 2012, 02:50:20 PM
all I knew was my gusband (gay hubby) brought some pretty girl over to my house. I thought you were stealing him!" ... she's a weird one though :D

Been there (the couple are straight tho) and was outright accused of trying to steal her husband! O.o

On the guys being homophobic, I don't mean they won't hold doors etc, more like -some- are hesitant to give a hello hug or other times when a girl would touch a guy in any way other than a hand shake. I noticed this in my small church (most of them know my past) when we have "passing the peace" where we share hugs. I have found over time most have gotten over this.

There are so many little clues like how women sit extra close, touch your arm etc when talking to you. Things like this they would no do if they saw you as a guy.

Quote from: Stephe on December 18, 2012, 04:27:03 PM
There are so many little clues like how women sit extra close, touch your arm etc when talking to you. Things like this they would no do if they saw you as a guy.

Yeah, like treat you like you're a nobody. Usually if you aren't passing they're much nicer... Strangers that is. When women are nice to me I always wonder if my shadow is showing or my voice broke or something. Being nice is not to be confused with making small talk like "My husband made me late because" ... it's more like "Heyyyyy!!"" *cheesy smile*

Quote from: Stephe on December 18, 2012, 04:27:03 PM
Been there (the couple are straight tho) and was outright accused of trying to steal her husband! O.o

Hmmm ... just thinking about my best female friends ... Now I'm thinking about their husbands. Can I imagine wanting to steal a single one of them? Nope ... I definitely plead, 'Not guilty, sister!'  :)

If they don't know you're trans - easily.
If they do know... it's different. Often there's some kind of polite acceptance but you can never be cis and never the same.

In my personal experience, it often seems to come down to experiencing that shared oppression of women in society. If you have the face the multitude of BS that routinely screws over ALL women, you get a ton of womanhood validity points. I can definitely understand that.

Quote from: Eve87 on December 19, 2012, 05:03:47 AM
If they don't know you're trans - easily.
If they do know... it's different. Often there's some kind of polite acceptance but you can never be cis and never the same.

This is my experience also.

It is interesting because back when I first began transitioning I would have said that everyone accepted me as female but I would have been wrong because I was ignorant.  The truth was that I had been living as a male all my life so I didn't have a clue what it was like to be accepted as female.  I knew that people were generally okay with me so I just filled in the blanks and assumed they were accepting me as female.

After I had actually begun to pass as female I began to realize there was a huge difference between being accepted as trans and being accepted as female.  Gradually interactions became less superficial, I mean... I was sexually active and I had sex with guys who knew I was trans and they accepted me, often times in a sort of clinically detached manner like, "Oh and is that what passes for your clitioris?" (kinda way)  At first I thought the ultimate acceptance was having someone put their penis in me.  later by accident I had sex with someone who didn't know I had transitioned and it was a life changing experience.  An experience that actually caused me to begin to believe in myself.

And really if you think about it, what is the difference between an accomplished football player with years of discipline under his shoulder pads and some guy who just dresses up as a football player and mingles at parties in a football jersey.  Does someone who dresses up as a football player (who has never played a day of football in his life) and goes around dressed like that... does he believe in himself as being a professional athlete?

I would say, "No, he does not."

Because our ideas about ourselves are a byproduct of our experiences.  People who talk about being STEALTH are experienced at "passing as their target gender".  But they haven't had any experiences that have changed their belief about themselves.  People who talk about how you always have to tell everyone who might be romantically interested in you or any "true" friends that you transitioned are speaking from their own experience, one that is lacking in authenticity, therefore such a person does not believe in him or herself as being their true gender and often feels guilty or like a confession is always warranted.  Conversely they will come to despise being seen as their target gender (when it seems unobtainable) and will instead talk about trans shame and how anyone who is comfortable as their true sex is suffering from trans shame.  See Aesop's Fables and the Fox and the Grapes or Cognitive Dissonance.

But it is like the Matrix (from the movie, 'The Matrix'.  No one can tell you what it is.  You can't communicate an experience or the life-changing effects of an experience with words.  It is something one has to experience for him or her self.  And often times people insulate themselves from having any experiences like that by introducing themselves as what they believe themselves to be, (or by remaining enmeshed in the past, same friends, same coworkers, same partner...) thus they are regarded as what they have confessed about themselves and those opportunities are missed, their ideas about what they are become circular, self-fulfilling prophecies.  They begin to redefine the experience of being female or male from their own perspective as a way of coping with what would otherwise be dissonance.  Perhaps some people don't care.  Obviously different people transition for different reasons.

Anyway, it is a life ahead of you or life behind you kinda thing also.  If you feel like everything important you have ever done is behind you instead of ahead of you and if the past occupies most of your thinking then the present will most likely continue to be an extension of the past.

Of course this is just my own observations and opinions and I am sure it only translates when others can relate from similar experiences but I agree that when one is perceived as his or her true sex and is comfortable in that situation then that M2F can just be one of the girls or that F2M can just be one of the boys.

Quote from: O_O on December 19, 2012, 08:50:56 AM

This is my experience also.

It is interesting because back when I first began transitioning I would have said that everyone accepted me as female but I would have been wrong because I was ignorant.  The truth was that I had been living as a male all my life so I didn't have a clue what it was like to be accepted as female.  I knew that people were generally okay with me so I just filled in the blanks and assumed they were accepting me as female.

After I had actually begun to pass as female I began to realize there was a huge difference between being accepted as trans and being accepted as female.  Gradually interactions became less superficial, I mean... I was sexually active and I had sex with guys who knew I was trans and they accepted me, often times in a sort of clinically detached manner like, "Oh and is that what passes for your clitioris?" (kinda way)  At first I thought the ultimate acceptance was having someone put their penis in me.  later by accident I had sex with someone who didn't know I had transitioned and it was a life changing experience.  An experience that actually caused me to begin to believe in myself.

And really if you think about it, what is the difference between an accomplished football player with years of discipline under his shoulder pads and some guy who just dresses up as a football player and mingles at parties in a football jersey.  Does someone who dresses up as a football player (who has never played a day of football in his life) and goes around dressed like that... does he believe in himself as being a professional athlete?

I would say, "No, he does not."

Because our ideas about ourselves are a byproduct of our experiences.  People who talk about being STEALTH are experienced at "passing as their target gender".  But they haven't had any experiences that have changed their belief about themselves.  People who talk about how you always have to tell everyone who might be romantically interested in you or any "true" friends that you transitioned are speaking from their own experience, one that is lacking in authenticity, therefore such a person does not believe in him or herself as being their true gender and often feels guilty or like a confession is always warranted.  Conversely they will come to despise being seen as their target gender (when it seems unobtainable) and will instead talk about trans shame and how anyone who is comfortable as their true sex is suffering from trans shame.  See Aesop's Fables and the Fox and the Grapes or Cognitive Dissonance.

But it is like the Matrix (from the movie, 'The Matrix'.  No one can tell you what it is.  You can't communicate an experience or the life-changing effects of an experience with words.  It is something one has to experience for him or her self.  And often times people insulate themselves from having any experiences like that by introducing themselves as what they believe themselves to be, thus they are regarded as what they have confessed about themselves and those opportunities are missed, their ideas about what they are become circular, self-fulfilling prophecies.

Anyway, it is a life ahead of you or life behind you kinda thing also.  If you feel like everything important you have ever done is behind you instead of ahead of you and if the past occupies most of your thinking then the present will most likely be a continuation of the past.

Of course this is just my own observations and opinions and I am sure it only translates when others can relate from similar experiences but I agree that when one is perceived as his or her true sex and is comfortable in that situation then that M2F can just be one of the girls or that F2M can just be one of the boys.

That is SUCH an interesting and insightful perspective. It's really given me something to think about ...

... as have all you ladies who are sharing your experiences. It's so great to have a place where something that matters to you - something that no one who doesn't share our condition could possibly understand - can be discussed. It makes SUCH a difference to hear from people who REALLY know what they're talking about xx

And I just finished modifying it, again O_o  But I am seriously done this time ^_^

Thank you.

 It's entirely feasible for a trans-woman to be "one of the girls". It happens every day, and it's really quite common... Whether it happens or not depends on a few different factors. Physical passability is one, and those who don't pass will have a harder time fitting in so seamlessly. The character of the women you want to hang out with is another major consideration, because if you don't pass... how insightful, accepting, intuitive, or compassionate they are will determine how you are treated.

The ultimate decider, though, is how well your own character resonates with theirs. If they see that who you are as a person is female, by their own standards, that will hugely affect how they treat you. Usually, this alone - in the right degree - will cause that true level of acceptance.

It's all about how they see your soul. The second-biggest factor in how acceptance is made is likely to be your voice, since one's voice is often perceived as a physical reflection of one's soul. This is most apparently portrayed in movies and video games, where possession is possible. The demon, or whatever else, can take over a person's body... and if the difference in how the body behaves and acts is somehow not clue enough, the voice decides.

So, a person with a good voice and feminine personality will be difficult to not accept in personal encounters.

In casual encounters with people, though, how the body appears will still be the primary decision-maker in how one will accept someone. Every part of transition is significant, but the significance of each part is variable based on the scenario.

My thoughts.

That's kind of what I meant when I talked earlier about 'emotional passability' - coming across as empathetic and female in ones' character ... and I agree, ones voice is really important to that.

Quote from: Kelly J. P. on December 19, 2012, 10:12:05 AM

The ultimate decider, though, is how well your own character resonates with theirs. If they see that who you are as a person is female, by their own standards, that will hugely affect how they treat you. Usually, this alone - in the right degree - will cause that true level of acceptance.

It's all about how they see your soul. The second-biggest factor in how acceptance is made is likely to be your voice, since one's voice is often perceived as a physical reflection of one's soul. This is most apparently portrayed in movies and video games, where possession is possible. The demon, or whatever else, can take over a person's body... and if the difference in how the body behaves and acts is somehow not clue enough, the voice decides.

So, a person with a good voice and feminine personality will be difficult to not accept in personal encounters.

+1 for this. Even if people "know" (I transitioned in place) if they can look in your eyes and see woman + your voice is female, most then usually will accept "Yes this is a woman". As I said, I have been in with groups of women (that I had never met) for hours where I was clearly passing (their reaction when they were later told shows this) and being around these same women later and how I was treated was absolutely no different.  I do believe part of this is related to living full time as a woman for a while. It probably has a lot to do with how open minded the women are as well. Most of my friends are very open minded people. But I honestly don't believe being totally stealth is a prerequisite to being accepted as "one of the girls".

And I don't agree with O_O post at all about all people who aren't stealth are "sour grapes" etc. Just because I don't live in fear of someone finding out my past doesn't mean "Conversely they will come to despise being seen as their target gender". It just means I am OK with who I am. Clearly I'd just as soon they not know and don't go around with a sign on my back either. I don't walk into a group of people I've never met and introduce myself as -Hi, I'm Stephe and I'm transgendered-. I have had the " experiences that have changed their belief about themselves" and know I am a woman.

Maybe for some people they have to be stealth to feel that way? But please don't tell me how I feel about myself and I won't tell you how to live your life.

Quote from: Isabelle on December 18, 2012, 02:15:43 PM
I'd say yes. It's normal/possible to be accepted as "one of the girls" I get invited to hen nights, shoe shopping, lunches all the typically "female" things that girls do together.

Thats my experience, Im now totally ''one of the girls'' but I am stealt, when I got married 2years ago, I had about 20girls at my hen night, we drank cocktails, we giggled, we discussed my wedding dress and my big day, and what color nightie and knickers I would wear on my wedding night, first night as a married woman, and not a man in sight. It was totally girly night, we hugged and kissed when it was all over, guys would just never do that. But its normal for girls.

Quote from: Stephe on December 19, 2012, 11:56:57 AM
Maybe for some people they have to be stealth to feel that way? But please don't tell me how I feel about myself and I won't tell you how to live your life.

I agree completely. I wouldn't go so far as to say I like being trans, because I don't - but I'm comfortable enough with myself and confident enough with who I am to be able to tell people I am trans if I want. I'm not ashamed of where I came from - in fact I'm pretty proud of myself. Not a whole lot of people can live as the opposite sex so seemlessly, and I'm confident enough that the people who aren't shallow will accept me as female. How is it in order to be happy with my target gender, I have to hide my past? I've lived nearly 30 years as a male so living as one is a huge part of my experiences with life.

Plus I'd rather just be flat out honest with people. Anybody who is proud of themselves and who doesn't regret their decisions will have no problem discussing them. It's the ones that make up lie after lie about themselves that are ashamed of themselves.

And for the record I'm happier than I ever have been living as a girl. Every day since I hit puberty I've had a suicidal thought, until about a week into HRT. Now that I'm full time I have NOTHING to hide. My personality is no longer suppressed. Heck, with my friends, I'll go so far as to joke about my gender identity. I am just that comfortable with myself :)

Being trans does suck, but at least we all get to experience things nobody, and I mean nobody gets to experience first hand. I think my knowledge of how the world works due to living as a male, and then as a female is valuable to the world.

I'll also add that I'm stealth in casual contact and will remain stealth at work as long as possible. But with friends and in relationships, I'll be up front and honest with people because friends, family, and lovers deserve that much in my opinion.

Quote from: Alainaluvsu on December 19, 2012, 01:37:29 PM
I'll also add that I'm stealth in casual contact and will remain stealth at work as long as possible. But with friends and in relationships, I'll be up front and honest with people because friends, family, and lovers deserve that much in my opinion.

Same here. I'm a normal lady in my daily life, no one needs to know my business. But when it come to people whom I have emotional connection with, I never hide the fact that I'm trans...

Quote from: mintra on December 19, 2012, 02:49:21 PM
Same here. I'm a normal lady in my daily life, no one needs to know my business. But when it come to people whom I have emotional connection with, I never hide the fact that I'm trans...

agreed. When it comes to dating that is the only time I am not in stealth. I just do not think it's right to not share that big of a past with someone I am involved with sexually. Just my opinion tho

Yeah, I am one of the girls not only with the girls but also with the boys.

So, when I enter the room with only boys on it, they suddenly they  go silent and change the conversation! I am like, yeah, I know what they were talking about. And this boys knew me pre transition!!!

Quote from: Carlita on December 18, 2012, 10:51:03 AM
On the other hand, women are also much more supportive, more thoughtful, more active in maintaining relationships and more fun to be around. So that's why it matters so much to me to be considered part of that female-only club ...

Wait, so are women catty or are they supportive? Make up your mind, woman!  ???

I for one wholeheartedly believe that people can accept you as one of the girls. However, in my case, I don't anywhere nearly pass yet, so they treat me more like their gay guy friend. I go shopping sometimes, and women even ask me for opinions about their wardrobes.

However, sometimes I think women are annoying. I don't want to hear about their boyfriends (mostly griping or talking some lovey-dovey nonsense), their makeup (I never want to touch the stuff), or their petty girl-on-girl quarrels. When I hear that stuff, it feels like my ears will start bleeding. I do enjoy the benefits of girl time, though.

PS--> I think that guys are more fun. Then again, I'm a video-game-playing, science-talking, comic book-reading nerd girl.  :P

My best girlfriend started talking to me about period pains or something, and half way through she recalled I still had a penis at that time. I think that counts.

My experience is that women in Australia have treated me as one of the girls since I started passing, or maybe not....I don't know; I went and had a whole lot of girl talk with people who I had never met me before, can't tell if I was passing or simply a fun person to talk to who was not a threat. Anyway, i felt pretty much like one of the girls. I didn't mention anything about being trans. Sometimes i will ask "you know about me, right?" But still no change. Guess i'm just lucky with where I live. 

to be onhest it actually really irks me when i hear people say stuff like " im going for a night out with the boy " or " im going for a night out with the girls " . its shows how heteronormative society is , i personally don't choose friends on the basis of if they genitals are internal or external

Well in this day and age (at least in most of the metro areas) 'the girls' tend to have a couple of guys along, and 'the boys' almost always have at least one girl who made the club.  But they are different kinds of nights with different activities to be sure.

Quote from: DianaP on December 19, 2012, 08:41:08 PM
Wait, so are women catty or are they supportive? Make up your mind, woman!  ???

I hope that anyone who reads my posts on here will recognise that i try my best to be as positive, supportive and kind as possible. But, sweetie, if you're going to attack me, then I may just have to get my claws out.

The reason that women are catty AND supportive is very simple. Both those things are two sides of the same coin. Women's relationships with one another are much more emotionally involved than male friendships. Sometimes that's great, because women will support one another in ways men don't. Other times it's terrible, because women are judgemental about all sorts of things - looks, weight, clothes, life choices, parenting skills, etc - that men couldn't give a damn about. Both approaches have good and bad points, much like men and women themselves: that's why the world needs a balance between yin and yang.

My advice to you is to lift up your eyes from all those games, those comics and those science-talks on which you are currently wasting your time and do what women do, which is pay attention to real people and how they relate to one another. Try getting a life. And then, when you've learned a little bit about actual, live, breathing human beings, about whom you now appear to understand precisely nothing - not least that humans don't work like computers: they're not binary and they're frequently contradictory - THEN come and tell me I don't know what I'm talking about.

And now that I've got that out of my system, my normal, sweet-natured service will be resumed ... ! ;)

'Catty' and 'supportive' are not two sides of the same coin.  And while relationships might trend one way or the other (though I'm not sold on it) it's pretty easy to find (without looking too far), men who are very emotional, and women who are as emotionally distant and detached as the best of men every had to offer.  And while men are not as picky about clothes perhaps they tend not to like or respect men who are crappy parents and are not wild about other guys who are way out of shape either.  It's just that they don't talk it all over, or hash it out - they just exclude the ones they don't wish to have around.

Quote from: Carlita on December 20, 2012, 02:21:50 AM
I hope that anyone who reads my posts on here will recognise that i try my best to be as positive, supportive and kind as possible. But, sweetie, if you're going to attack me, then I may just have to get my claws out.

I wasn't attacking you. Plus, I have connections with my guy friends. I'm just saying that we have HOBBIES in common.

Quote from: Carlita on December 20, 2012, 02:21:50 AM
My advice to you is to lift up your eyes from all those games, those comics and those science-talks on which you are currently wasting your time and do what women do, which is pay attention to real people and how they relate to one another. Try getting a life. And then, when you've learned a little bit about actual, live, breathing human beings, about whom you now appear to understand precisely nothing - not least that humans don't work like computers: they're not binary and they're frequently contradictory - THEN come and tell me I don't know what I'm talking about.

I hope that was just you prove your point about contradictory natures, because that was mean.  :'(

Quote from: tekla on December 20, 2012, 02:33:51 AM
'Catty' and 'supportive' are not two sides of the same coin.  And while relationships might trend one way or the other (though I'm not sold on it) it's pretty easy to find (without looking too far), men who are very emotional, and women who are as emotionally distant and detached as the best of men every had to offer.  And while men are not as picky about clothes perhaps they tend not to like or respect men who are crappy parents and are not wild about other guys who are way out of shape either.  It's just that they don't talk it all over, or hash it out - they just exclude the ones they don't wish to have around.

Hmm ... I don't want to have a big fight about this, and of course it's true that any generalisation is always open to counter-examples, but I don't think you would find too many people who would dispute the following propositions, all of which I would qualify with the preface 'on the whole' and the caveat that plenty of people diverge from them - like me, for instance. But anyway ...

Women are more interested in and take more time, care, trouble and money over their own appearance than men.

Women are extremely aware of how other women look - it is a cliché, but true to say that women dress for other women. They will notice the details of one another's appearance in a way that most men can't begin to grasp (an instant, forensically detailed analysis of hair, clothes, accessories, shoes, weight, etc. And they will comment on it, often very flatteringly, sometimes very cuttingly - and will see it as an area of competition in a way that most men don't.

When two female friends, acquaintances or colleagues see one another, especially at a social event, they will almost always make a nice comment about the other's appearance - noticing and complimenting a new haircut, asking, 'I love your dress/shoes/whatever, where did you get it/them?', or just saying how slim they look. Straight men are much, much less likely to do this, (a) because they often don't notice what their friends look like from one day to the next, (b) because they don't really care and (c) because they don't want to sound gay. [Personal note: I once forgot my 'act like a man' mantra and told the guy I was buying a car from that his shirt matched his eyes ... the look of pure horror on his face has been etched on my memory ever since!!]

Women exchange personal details when they meet, about themselves, their menfolk, their children, medical problems, the works. Men tend to assume that if the other guy seems OK and he's not volunteering information then he's fine, so there's no need to go into details. A basic scenario: guy comes back home after a drink with an old pal, let's call him Frank. His wife/girlfriend knows Frank and Frank's partner and kids. When her man gets home she asks him how they all are, expecting a proper answer. The guy shrugs his shoulders, 'Fine, I guess.' The women sighs at the absolute idiocy of men. The guy thinks, 'We had a good time. We drank some beers, saw the game. What's the problem?'

As it happens, men are perfectly capable of opening up about their emotions. I know, because that's what my conversations with my male friends are like. But as an old, old friend of mine, who knows about my dysphoria said (affectionately) when we were talking, 'Most of my friends aren't like you.'

Women's relationships, from their earliest girlhood are filled with very complex emotional and almost political undercurrents. The Byzantine intrigues that go on within girls' friendship groups - who's in, who's out: who isn't talking to whom; who's not been invited to whose sleepover, etc - have no real parallel in the much more straightforward interactions of boys. If you don't believe me, go talk to some women, particularly mothers who have daughters and sons and ask them how different the two are. Even in adulthood, women will 'drop' a friend in a much more active way than men will, just as they will rally round, support and reinforce their friends much more actively than men do.

As for the cattiness, women are just as competitive as men, albeit about different things. But they are powerfully socialised - not least by their mothers and female peers - to be nice, to affiliate with other girls/women and not to be overt in their ambitions. As a result, the very obvious fights and the ritualised sporting contests that are such a huge part of male lives are matched by much more subtle, underhand and, yes, bitchy interractions between women.

Plenty of people find these kinds of generalisations offensive on political grounds. Plenty of others think they're just obvious common sense. Either way, I would say that the sense that there are both biological (brain-chemistry, physiology, etc) and social/developmental differences in the way men and women think, behave and interact is becoming more, not less accepted within the scientific community.

And as a writer, I'd say it was the basis of a huge amount of the drama I see all around me and try to describe on the page.

Hi Carlita,

In answer to your initial question. The answer is unequivocally "Yes".

By the time HRT has taken hold and the aftermath of surgery is but a distant memory, you'll be just one of women in any group. Holding our own. Nobody any the wiser of your origin. Once all that intellect in your brain as traveled the necessary 6", from your brain to your heart, the rest is so easy, it's just so natural.

Develop your intuition and nothing can go wrong.

Be safe, well and happy
Lotsa Huggs
Catherine

Quote from: Catherine Sarah on December 20, 2012, 09:36:52 AM
Hi Carlita,

In answer to your initial question. The answer is unequivocally "Yes".

By the time HRT has taken hold and the aftermath of surgery is but a distant memory, you'll be just one of women in any group. Holding our own. Nobody any the wiser of your origin. Once all that intellect in your brain as traveled the necessary 6", from your brain to your heart, the rest is so easy, it's just so natural.

Develop your intuition and nothing can go wrong.

Be safe, well and happy
Lotsa Huggs
Catherine

What a lovely post! Thank you X

Women are more interested in and take more time, care, trouble and money over their own appearance than men.

While that seems true on the surface, it's only because it's based on the superficial most of the time.  That's your basic hair, clothes, accessories, shoes, - but men do notice the physical stuff, weight gain/loss, muscle tone, general health and fitness in particular because such a high value is placed (at least in American society - certain segments much more than others) on physical health, strength and stamina.  And they do put a lot of time, care, trouble and money into it, it's just done at a gym/sporting goods store more than a department store or hair salon.  It's not about 'the shoes', it is about how many miles you ran in them, how many points you put up in them, how healthy you are when you wear them.

Men are not socialized to exhibit less emotion, but rather to control it, channel it, and master it.  Emotion is a powerful force, if you work it right, otherwise it's useless, and in many cases dangerous and destructive.  Girls in your way of thinking hurt each others feelings with emotions, men tend to start wars with theirs if left unchecked.  I think it's that drive to use it that fuels so much of what men do in a physical/creative sense - building, making, creating.  Perhaps it's why there are quite a few other male 'Mozarts' but as of yet no outstanding female Mozart.  Civilization does seem to ebb and flow based more upon what men are doing with their emotions as opposed to what women are doing with theirs.

So, yeah guys tend not to play the political/emotional games - who's up and who's down in popularity - it's more straightforward - are you in, or are you out?  And once that decision is made it tends to stick.  You say that women rally round, support and reinforce their friends much more actively than men do, but the group - as opposed to women who tend far more to the individual - does that for men, frequently in some pretty remarkable ways.

And the never ending alpha dog game takes the place of all those girl games, and it's true blood sport.  And the entire competition basis never really stops which is why so many fatal teenage male accidents begin with "hey look what I can do' and even when they get smart enough to cut that crap out the 'last one down buys' never fades away.  Or the power of the bet, which seems to sway men far more then women.  It's not the 'thing' you win, it's the winning, the 'thing' is just proof/reward.

But I'd submit that it's every bit as emotionally devastating for the boys who are left out, excluded, culled from the herd and that.  (its' also often physically dangerous, something most girls don't face)  For the boys (who become men) who don't 'fit in' and find that group/gang/crew/tribe^* they really belong to it not only isolates them, but I think it has an incredible power to also cut them adrift mentally and morally.  Those guys who do the school/theater/mall shootings, whats' the first thing you know you can say about them?  Yeah, they were loners.  And rarely is that by choice, it's far more due to popular acclaim - it's not that one person really dislikes that person (unless it's the Alpha, and even then...) it's that no one in that group likes that person.  It really does a number to their heads, as almost any newscast will demonstrate.  Even the guys who might join up with the more marginal crews - the stoners, the bikers - don't seem to exhibit that anti-social behavior later.  The totally unpopular girls don't seem to end up with a rifle in their hands like the males do, though I have no theory as to why, I just know it's worse for boys.

And, socialization depends on society, ie. your socio-economic group as well as geography.  So not all girls and boys grow up in that way.  Upper class women seem to have no problem in being highly ambitious, nor do poor ones.  That seems a very narrow middle class deal.  And I guess that's my problem with most of these kinds of posts and threads, they tend to be almost hysterically stereotypical and retro at that.  They deal only in the vaguest of generalizations missing any and all nuances that fall outside the confines of the stereotype.  Yet, if you look at the world you find very few who fall into that retro stereotype anymore.  I think most of that comes from the scripted universe, not the real one.

That transfers to the issue of being 'one of the girls' as if all groups of girls are somehow interchangeable and uniform.  I do very well with professional women because I don't have an issue with smart ambitious women, (who BTW, exhibit very few of the behavior patterns you describe).  And I also do very well with women who are more at the margins in terms of lives and lifestyles (biker babes, construction worker girls, others seen as more on the fringe than mainstream like artists, rockers, people engaged in illegal activities and those like my friend Polly Pandemonium who are just natural born boundary pushers - the outlaw girls), they have no issues or problems with me, nor I with them.  We go shopping together because we have similar tastes and budgets, and because I'm pretty good at shopping in that way - more of a general hunt for everyone then the 'we're going to buy one thing, and one thing only' shopping style that lots of men often idolize.   Either way, it's about adapting yourself to the group first and foremost.

Groups of people, be they men, women or mixed tend to accept people like them, and exclude those who are not.  And that's not as much 'look like us' (though to a degree that's also true), but act like us, value the same thing we value and play by the same set of rules and guidelines we like to play by.  So if the group is into 'sharing conversations' then you'll be accepted if you share along with everyone else, and excluded if you seem to be stepping on it - or worse, trying to solve everything.  You know if winning ain't all that much to you, if its' something you don't personally prize then it's highly unlikely that the jocks (male or female) are going to like you, and/or vice-versa.




* - I do think that men have it better in that they have more options, I think for girls (pre-college) it's "The Popular Girls" or "Not Popular Girls" they don't have a huge range of groups/gangs/crews/teams to choose from.

"Can we ever be "one of the girls"?

No probably not OP, if they know we're trans then they might be nice and treat us like other women but will never truely see us as "one of the girls" but tbh I don't care if they do or not.  :D

Quote from: Carlita on December 20, 2012, 02:21:50 AM
I hope that anyone who reads my posts on here will recognise that i try my best to be as positive, supportive and kind as possible. But, sweetie, if you're going to attack me, then I may just have to get my claws out.

The reason that women are catty AND supportive is very simple. Both those things are two sides of the same coin. Women's relationships with one another are much more emotionally involved than male friendships. Sometimes that's great, because women will support one another in ways men don't. Other times it's terrible, because women are judgemental about all sorts of things - looks, weight, clothes, life choices, parenting skills, etc - that men couldn't give a damn about. Both approaches have good and bad points, much like men and women themselves: that's why the world needs a balance between yin and yang.

My advice to you is to lift up your eyes from all those games, those comics and those science-talks on which you are currently wasting your time and do what women do, which is pay attention to real people and how they relate to one another. Try getting a life. And then, when you've learned a little bit about actual, live, breathing human beings, about whom you now appear to understand precisely nothing - not least that humans don't work like computers: they're not binary and they're frequently contradictory - THEN come and tell me I don't know what I'm talking about.

And now that I've got that out of my system, my normal, sweet-natured service will be resumed ... ! ;)

I sympathize with much of what was said in this post and agree with the overall message in it. 

Much of what trans people believe about males and females comes from the perspective of existing as the wrong sex and hypothesizing or by observation and speculation.  The only way to know how females experience life is to actively 'be' one of them, not by redefining the female experience to fit a GD or gender dysphoric model. 

I remember back when I was early in transition, I believed that because I had always been female "M2F", therefore I already knew everything about being female.  There was nothing anyone could tell me about being female because I believed I had always been one.  Later on I realized I was suffering from a type of narcissism caused by ignorance and necessity, i.e. the experience of not being female or GD, gender dysphoria.  I have noticed that same experience in others, one of rejecting a more active experience of being female (or the mere idea of it) and of taking insult, based upon the supposition that one has always been female, therefore her experience is already perfect.

What I later realized was that I had the seed of "female" planted deep inside of me but I was like a seed that had never tasted water or earth (was not growing) and as time went on I was withering away (dying) - being denied all the experiences of a female life.  Women who transition often spend vast amounts of time and effort trying to legitimize their desire for transition by claiming to already be female.  They remember the past and use events in the past to demonstrate how they have always been female, i.e. supposition - they already are female.

What happens in my own experience and in what I have observed of other M2Fs (friends I have known in the past) is that they spend so much time telling themselves that they have always been female that they begin to believe it and it begins to take the place of actually being female.  Eventually they tend to get to the point where they believe they are so female that the experience of actually being female becomes ludicrous to them, i.e. "How dare you insult me I have always been female!" When in fact being female 'is' an experience (not an assertion) and in fact an experience they have been denied all their lives.

Claiming to have the experience of being female and actually experiencing being female tend to be two entirely different things when it comes to M2Fs yet the distinction is seldom ever made or even recognized which is especially ironic since claiming the experience of being female typically comes in the form of a protest, i.e. "I need to be female, recognize me as such!" Or "This is why I need to transition!" And "How dare you be skeptical of my experience of being female!" But because through repetition we come to believe whatever we assert is true ignorance tends to become reinforced.  In my own experience the only way to overcome such emptiness is through actual experience because the actual experience of being female causes the more typical experience of one's asserting she is female to pale by comparison so that it can be recognized as the substitute it is.

Also transition is really simple stuff.  And transition is easy to do step by step.  But getting up in one's own head can be an endless can of worms.  To someone who is in the process of transition I would say feel free to completely ignore everything I say, but maybe keep it in the back of your mind for later.  To those who feel accomplished yet are uncomfortable with what I am saying I would suggest asking questions of yourself.  As in why does what so and so says upset me?  What is it about my own experience that seems to have a volatile reaction when it comes into contact with O_O's statements?  Or you can simply dismiss what I say, either choice is yours.  ^_^ 

There are two ways to achieve success, one way is to create a harmonious system.  The other way is to live in harmony with the way a system already is.  Typically we tend to fall somewhere between the two points but on average most people tend to underachieve and only move slightly past their point of origin.

Quote from: girl you look fierce on December 21, 2012, 05:11:51 AM
I don't really understand, of course an MTF woman can be one of the girls, it's not like they have a chromosome detector :)

This is undoubtedly true, but remember this famous quote made about women in general

"Women are not born, they are made." - Simone de Beauvoir

Even GGs have to work at it.

Quote from: O_O on December 20, 2012, 09:00:33 PM

I sympathize with much of what was said in this post and agree with the overall message in it. 

Much of what trans people believe about males and females comes from the perspective of existing as the wrong sex and hypothesizing or by observation and speculation.  The only way to know how females experience life is to actively 'be' one of them, not by redefining the female experience to fit a GD or gender dysphoric model. 

I remember back when I was early in transition, I believed that because I had always been female "M2F", therefore I already knew everything about being female.  There was nothing anyone could tell me about being female because I believed I had always been one.  Later on I realized I was suffering from a type of narcissism caused by ignorance and necessity, i.e. the experience of not being female or GD, gender dysphoria.  I have noticed that same experience in others, one of rejecting a more active experience of being female (or the mere idea of it) and of taking insult, based upon the supposition that one has always been female, therefore her experience is already perfect.

What I later realized was that I had the seed of "female" planted deep inside of me but I was like a seed that had never tasted water or earth (was not growing) and as time went on I was withering away (dying) - being denied all the experiences of a female life.  Women who transition often spend vast amounts of time and effort trying to legitimize their desire for transition by claiming to already be female.  They remember the past and use events in the past to demonstrate how they have always been female, i.e. supposition - they already are female.

What happens in my own experience and in what I have observed of other M2Fs (friends I have known in the past) is that they spend so much time telling themselves that they have always been female that they begin to believe it and it begins to take the place of actually being female.  Eventually they tend to get to the point where they believe they are so female that the experience of actually being female becomes ludicrous to them, i.e. "How dare you insult me I have always been female!" When in fact being female 'is' an experience (not an assertion) and in fact an experience they have been denied all their lives.

Claiming to have the experience of being female and actually experiencing being female tend to be two entirely different things when it comes to M2Fs yet the distinction is seldom ever made or even recognized which is especially ironic since claiming the experience of being female typically comes in the form of a protest, i.e. "I need to be female, recognize me as such!" Or "This is why I need to transition!" And "How dare you be skeptical of my experience of being female!" But because through repetition we come to believe whatever we assert is true ignorance tends to become reinforced.  In my own experience the only way to overcome such emptiness is through actual experience because the actual experience of being female causes the more typical experience of one's asserting she is female to pale by comparison so that it can be recognized as the substitute it is.

Also transition is really simple stuff.  And transition is easy to do step by step.  But getting up in one's own head can be an endless can of worms.  To someone who is in the process of transition I would say feel free to completely ignore everything I say, but maybe keep it in the back of your mind for later.  To those who feel accomplished yet are uncomfortable with what I am saying I would suggest asking questions of yourself.  As in why does what so and so says upset me?  What is it about my own experience that seems to have a volatile reaction when it comes into contact with O_O's statements?  Or you can simply dismiss what I say, either choice is yours.  ^_^ 

There are two ways to achieve success, one way is to create a harmonious system.  The other way is to live in harmony with the way a system already is.  Typically we tend to fall somewhere between the two points but on average most people tend to underachieve and only move slightly past their point of origin.

I, too, have always found it hard to accept the idea that we are already female prior to transition. If you have the body of a male, are raised and socialised as a male and treated as a male by everyone around you, then your entire life experience is markedly different from a cis-woman, who is raised as a girl. And when you're principally being affected by testosterone rather than oestrogen, your behaviour, as well as your body is bound to be masculinised. To me, much of the pain of dysphoria comes exactly from the fact that I'm not the female I profoundly know I should be.

To put it another way, I do not believe that I am currently a woman trapped in a man's body. But I can absolutely imagine becoming a woman freed from a man's body.

The seed analogy works pretty well for me.  It is like the seed of being female was planted in me.  Eventually after suffering for many years I realized the seed was withering away and it was going to die, leaving me with nothing to live for.  So I transitioned.  The seed could also be thought of as my soul perhaps or my essence.  Something I had to turn against in order to survive, something I had to deny and repress. The reality was I had been a dead husk for many years, the precious seed laying dormant inside of me was my only hope for a life.

Even when I tried to nurture the seed in private the overall picture was that I kept it locked away and denied it.  For a while I thought simply having SRS would be the answer but it was the experience of female socialization that I was starving for.  The living experience of being female.  SRS was easy, going full-time was terrifying.  I thought I would die but the truth was I had already been dead for many years.  The seed planted deep inside of me was what I had been holding onto.  It was the only part of me that had the potential for living.

I am familiar with the quote

Quote"Women are not born, they are made." - Simone de Beauvoir

but we aren't so much talking about the experience of being a woman as we are talking about the experience of being female.  And when I say 'experience' it is a word that is easily glossed over, unread.  But what I am talking about is profound, the 'experience' of being female.  What the transsexual woman has been denied all her life.  The motions of the female organism as she moves through life, body, soul and spirit.

(Nothing left out).

Being regarded as female on a sexual level, as a potential mother, as a girlfriend, as a wife or the opposite sex... (and all that stuff that we were denied).  All that stuff that other humans completely take for granted.

Sure, women are made as in, "Great women who have triumphed over adversity and given their lives for the good of others, mothers, grandmothers, pinnacles of virtue."  But if you want to prove to Society that females can be made from males... my experience has not proven that case in any way shape or form.  I have been accepted as female by many people, however none of them ever knew me as anything other than a female.  No one who ever knew me prior to transition has ever accepted me as female and I went full-time in 2005.

I have accomplished some amazing things considering I transitioned but those very accomplishments that have allowed me the living, breathing, body, mind and soul experience of being female on a sexual level would be used as evidence by those who knew me from before transition that I am just a man.  Funny how that works.

I keep remembering my last trip to Thailand.  I went there for a revision and some body sculpting.  I considered becoming an English teacher, really looked into it.  I will never forget the guy who was helping me by introducing me to someone who could hire me.  He kept telling me, "Be careful what you tell him, don't tell him anything." Like this guy was my friend and I could trust him completely but the guy he was introducing me to, I had to be cautious and not say too much."  It was a set up, then he worked into the conversation very smoothly... "So what is your real name?"  I was so used to people just realizing (by that point) that I was female.  I wasn't used to being torn apart by someone who viewed me as a lie or as a costume or as an act.  I thought that was only for people who knew me from before transition. 

But in my experience, the experience of being female will give you strength.  It will confirm for you that you are indeed female.  It will get you past difficult times and hard experiences.  Experience is how we come to know ourselves.  For average men and women it is about becoming men and women, for us it is about becoming male and female.

You most definitely can just be one of the girls after transition, I know this for a fact but it has never happened for me around people who knew I transitioned and I have no reason to believe it ever will but there was a time when I kept believing anyway, kept hoping, kept forgiving pronoun slips.  Not any more, life is too short to believe in such things.  I will leave faith in the hands of those who have the acquired taste.

Quote from: O_O on December 21, 2012, 10:34:54 AM
Sure, women are made.  But if you want to prove to Society that females can be made from males... my experience has not proven that case in any way shape or form.  I have been accepted as female by many people, however none of them ever knew me as anything other than a female.  No one who ever knew me prior to transition has ever accepted me as female and I went full-time in 2005.

Speak for yourself... my mother, my brother, and my sister have all accepted me as female. My mom has changed COMPLETELY in how she handles me. When I got emotional before, she didn't give a crap ("Ah you'll get over it"). Now, she is much more comforting ("No!! Honey you are very pretty!"). She apologized to me for the first time EVER (literally) for talking to me in a certain way, but when I was a boy, it was ALWAYS my fault. My brother holds doors open for me, helps me jump down from places so I don't hurt myself, along with other very subtle things like hugging lightly instead of man hugging me that men only do to other men. My sister will talk about all sorts of things under the sun to me with feminine issues, child raising, bad mouths men with me... etc. None of them give me the vibe that they're doing it just to humor me. I would think if they were, they'd probably avoid talking to me altogether to avoid hurting my feelings by accident (I know my family). Instead, they're always trying to get in touch with me, instead of the other way around.

I think being accepted as female isn't a result of being born with a vagina, it's just being accepted for who you are personally. When I saw my sister for the first time in 5 years, she told me "You make it so easy to see you as a girl. I was expecting it to be much harder than this." When I prodded her about it a little, she said "You just are (female). You aren't putting on an act. You aren't doing it for attention. You aren't over doing it. You just... are". She also said the voice helped too. From a mans perspective (my brother), it was tangible. "It's not like you changed much, you look and talk different. You're still pretty much the same person. But at least you aren't one of those annoying gay men dressing up like a girl." (and yes he know's I'm into men only). And this comes from a guy that once told me "I'm not going to let you (as a girl) around my children. I'm gonna raise them to be good ol' southern boys!" My mom is a little more awesome, she was like "I like you better as a girl!" And to be honest she doesn't really comment on it nearly as much. She is a very anything-goes kind of person.

I'll also add that none of them knew the slightest thing about what transsexuality is before I came out to them. I think that's significant to point out because it's not like they had an advantage of dealing with it before me. Yes, it took some time for all of them to come around, but in less than a years time (for all of them) they were completely accepting of me as a girl. A girl that can't give birth because she doesn't have ovaries.

It's seriously presentation. Presentation will get you further with acceptance than any advocacy, insistence (although that is a little necessary), surgery, or anything else. If you're overdoing it, people will see it as an act (which technically it is). If you're "not feminine enough", people will think you're not serious about it (unfairly and ignorantly).

And btw, I'm not saying men will automatically start going for you even if they weren't into trans women before. That's another social aspect entirely. I've found their big hangup with not sexually going for it is "How am I going to tell those around me". However, they still treat and talk to me as a girl even after knowing.

Here is a subtle example that I am accepted as one of the girls. I was talking with this woman I work with about random stuff (hormones, menopause, breasts, what men like) anyway, we got on the subject of hair. I mentioned that I have been growing my hair out for about 10 months and she said it should be longer. I told her it was very short, and pulled out my work ID that still has my old picture on it. She gasped! She said that she had completely forgotten that I was ever a boy. I have only been out at work since December 4th of this year.

Each and every woman and each and every man is a unique individual with unique experiences of what it means to be an individual woman or man.   In experiencing my identity as a woman, I am just one more individual woman in the mass of humanity who are women.   I really know only my experiences as a women which includes spending much of my life having been identified in that huge mass of humanity identified as men.

I feel, as a woman, in all reality there is no special way that life dictates that I need to feel to be a woman.   I am just a mixture of feelings struggling day by day to be more and more my female self, what ever that is.   Emotionally I feel that I jump from pillar to post emotionally and I grasp at this stereo type of femininity and then at some other stereo type of femininity.   But at 66 I am an older bitty, who just becomes, within the context of my place in the human life cycle, more effeminate in relationship to the stereo types formed from my life's experience.   

Has God appointed a gender inspection committee whose main duty is to define and determine who is a male and who is a female?   The Heavenly committee in charge of Common Sense has been labeling individuals male and female without any Divine Guidance.   For some reason the Soul Assignment committee has been assigning some female souls to male physical bodies and male souls to female physical bodies.

Then free will has been made one of the Divine Qualities of each and every soul.   Each soul has been assigned a physical body in the physical world and set free on their own unique 'Walk about' of self discovery and destined on a journey to get closer to God.   

Is this a realistic construct of our reality?   Who knows.    Are male and female self defining and every developing realities?

In the end we either define ourselves or we allow our fears, the depiction's of Hollywood, and the whispers in the  wind of "It's Common Sense!!!!" define us.   Or are we defined by a combination of both our selves and our society.

Who or what determines if we are accepted or not????

Quote from: O_O on December 21, 2012, 10:34:54 AM

Sure, women are made as in, "Great women who have triumphed over adversity and given their lives for the good of others, mothers, grandmothers, pinnacles of virtue."  But if you want to prove to Society that females can be made from males... my experience has not proven that case in any way shape or form.  I have been accepted as female by many people, however none of them ever knew me as anything other than a female.  No one who ever knew me prior to transition has ever accepted me as female and I went full-time in 2005.

Interesting you continue to totally discount the experiences of others here.

Clearly if someone is totally stealth and they hide their past from everyone by whatever means necessary (made up stories about their past etc), then of course they will be accepted as female. My experience and others here agree, being stealth, throwing away everything and created some fake past life isn't required to be accepted as "one of the girls". Clearly you imagine this not to be true given you have -committed- your life to being stealth.

As to why your position upsets people, how about if people said to you "you are just kidding yourself, no one really believes you are a woman"? Because that is exactly what you posted here to anyone who didn't follow your path. I have zero interest in doing what you did, making up some fake childhood, pretending my life before transition didn't happen etc.

I am not ashamed of who I am, but I really do get tired of this same elitist nonsense that stealth post-ops present on every trans forum I have ever been on.

Quote from: O_O on December 21, 2012, 10:34:54 AM

I wasn't used to being torn apart by someone who viewed me as a lie or as a costume or as an act.  I thought that was only for people who knew me from before transition. 

I'm speechless. I'm just glad my mind doesn't work like this..

Quote from: Carlita on December 18, 2012, 10:51:03 AM
Oh, don't I know it! I have two sisters and two daughters. I've worked in strongly female office environments and observed the way that my wife and her circle still play the same games of who's in and who's out that girls start learning when they're in their very first years at kindergarten. Women are judgemental about all sorts of things that men don't even think about, and their judgements are incredibly personal ... In fact, that's one of the reasons I asked the question, because I know how women can be. And, yes, like you I have my bitchy side as well!  ;)

On the other hand, women are also much more supportive, more thoughtful, more active in maintaining relationships and more fun to be around. So that's why it matters so much to me to be considered part of that female-only club ...

You can have meaningful relationships with woman even as a man.

Idk why but I feel like there's a crapload of sex-based stereotypes in this thread, stereotypes that are made out to be oh so "cute" and frilly when in reality they speak volumes about the second class status females hold.

Quote from: Ave on December 21, 2012, 05:05:41 PM
You can have meaningful relationships with woman even as a man.

Thank you!

Quote from: Ave on December 21, 2012, 05:13:12 PM
Idk why but I feel like there's a crapload of sex-based stereotypes in this thread, stereotypes that are made out to be oh so "cute" and frilly when in reality they speak volumes about the second class status females hold.

I don't know about everyone else, but I was only speaking of the women within my own realm of experience.

Trans people in support groups accept one another as male and female because they can relate from their own experiences.  People who cannot relate cannot "accept".  Someone who has never had the experience of being trans can't appreciate what a trans person can, cannot accept what a trans person can (in my experience of roughly 12 years since I started this process this has been my experience.

You have to explain what you mean by 'accept', you have to define the word or rather the words you are using.  If 'acceptance' means someone is okay with you or okay with your transition then that is 'acceptance'.  'Experiencing' you as female is different from accepting you as a trans woman.  Being okay with your transition, being okay with your wearing female clothing, being okay with how you act or talk or dress yourself is 'acceptance' but 'experiencing' you as female is not the same thing.

Accepting you into the group is 'acceptance', it does not equal 'experiencing' you as female.  "Accepting you as one of the girls is acceptance but experiencing you as female is not a conscious choice.  Human beings cannot make a conscious choice on how to experience you.  They either know you on a subconscious level of female based on gender cues or they know you based upon conflicting information.

If you watch a YouTube video of a UFO and then someone shows you evidence that it was faked you can't experience that video the same way ever again, no matter how much you choose to "accept" it you won't look at it the same way, you can't.  It isn't a conscious choice you can make.  Instead when you find out the video was faked when you see it again you will pick out details that confirm for you it was faked.

When trans women find out some other woman transitioned they are able to 'accept' her because they know what it is to be trans, they know what it is to be female even when one's body is male.  Trans women can therefore view transition as a way of manifesting what is already there, as a way of overcoming a disability or revealing the truth, non-trans people experience it altogether differently!  Non-trans people cannot relate from an experience they have never had, the experience of being female even when one's body is male so to them when they find out a woman transitioned they garner an entirely different "truth" and how they experience that trans woman is permanently changed.  Non-trans people experience male body as male mind, female body as female mind.  You can tell them there is a world where up is down but it won't make any practical sense to them and it won't allow them to experience being another gender.

Transsexualism was once referred to as a conundrum.  A conundrum is something that cannot be understood, a riddle.  Because in order to understand it you have to experience it for yourself.  Otherwise male is body and mind, female is body and mind and there is no separation of the body and mind because no one else (the majority of people) have never experienced life that way and it is inconceivable to them.  Most people don't want to bother with something they cannot grasp (especially when there is no reward in it for them), they have their own lives to live so they will casually 'accept' you.  But how they 'experience' you is not a conscious choice they are even remotely capable of making.  And think about it, lots of people experience GD (gender dysphoria) but how many of those people are willing to make the effort to change their lives and yet we expect others to change how they relate to us?  Education and continuing education allow people to accept us as trans, how they experience us can never be an issue of 'education' rather it is an unconscious choice based either upon subconsciously recognized gender cues or conflicting information.

Trans women can accept another woman when it is revealed that she is trans because their truth is that she has always been female and this is the conundrum, non-trans people cannot accept that she has always been female because they 'know' she was male and that changes how non-trans people see her.  Sure non-trans people can choose to "accept" her but how they will 'experience' her is not a conscious choice they are even remotely capable of making.

Could someone be so intoxicatingly female that the gender cues she gives off could over-ride any conflicting information that people have heard about her?  This isn't an all-black or all-white world, different people experience things differently and have different motivations.  My parents accept me as female but they don't experience me as female.  They are kind - out of their love for me and have made changes to incorporate me into their lives, pronouns and such...  Lots of people are willing to do that because we tend to live in a polite Society or at least one where most people want to avoid offense.  I was in a very sexual relationship with a guy who was super into me and he probably knows I transitioned.  He never said anything about knowing I transitioned probably because he didn't want to loose me.  But it got too creepy for me because we have mutual friends and really he wasn't a good guy anyway.  And my mutual friends talk, lord do they talk, there was no way he hadn't heard about me but did that stop him from having sex with me, no.

Would he have been happy to stay in a relationship with me for the rest of my life?  Yes.  Very much so.  And I think his penis accepted me as female but his mind probably had some conflicting chatter in it.  If his sexuality had ever been questioned because of his relationship with me he would have had to ask himself questions that other men will never be posed with.

Quote from: O_O on December 21, 2012, 10:28:09 PM
Trans people in support groups accept one another as male and female because they can relate blah blah blah. Experiencing and accepting  are different blah blah blah.

What does all that even matter? Honestly it sounds to me like you're making big deal out of nothing and speaking your worst fears as knowledge. I don't give a good gosh damn about if somebody knows my struggle. Nor do I care if somebody "casually accepts" me... whatever that means. I don't want anything out of people but to see me as my gender, which as far as I see, is happening.

From what it seems, you word "experiencing" as code for "what they secretly think" ... which is projecting. Not everybody has a narrow view that cannot be changed over time. In fact most peoples minds, in my experience, do evolve. Maybe yours doesn't, though. Maybe when somebody transitions in your mind, they're forever their original sex, so therefore you think everybody else is incapable of switching perceptions over time.

If you want to be 100% stealth, go ahead. Good luck with that. But it seems like you're fabricating views that are extremely cynical and then expressing them to justify it. Honestly I bet there are tons of significant others, family members, and allies out there that would take drastic offense to some of the stuff you're saying.

Quote from: Alainaluvsu on December 21, 2012, 11:33:44 PM
What does all that even matter? Honestly it sounds to me like you're making big deal out of nothing and speaking your worst fears as knowledge. I don't give a good gosh damn about if somebody knows my struggle. Nor do I care if somebody "casually accepts" me... whatever that means. I don't want anything out of people but to see me as my gender, which as far as I see, is happening.

From what it seems, you word "experiencing" as code for "what they secretly think" ... which is projecting. Not everybody has a narrow view that cannot be changed over time. In fact most peoples minds, in my experience, do evolve. Maybe yours doesn't, though. Maybe when somebody transitions in your mind, they're forever their original sex, so therefore you think everybody else is incapable of switching perceptions over time.

If you want to be 100% stealth, go ahead. Good luck with that. But it seems like you're fabricating views that are extremely cynical and then expressing them to justify it. Honestly I bet there are tons of significant others, family members, and allies out there that would take drastic offense to some of the stuff you're saying.

Thank you for posting this. I've had this stuff shoveled on me so many times in the past from the stealth crowd I could puke.

Just this line here is so insulting to the majority of humans alive on this planet....

"Sure non-trans people can choose to "accept" her but how they will 'experience' her is not a conscious choice they are even remotely capable of making."

It speaks volumes about the person who wrote this. As you said, if someone feels like -living a lie- in total stealth because they don't trust others, have at it. I KNOW too many people who aren't like this. But then again I hang out with mostly liberal open minded people not narrow minded conservative bigots. The vile spewed her in the thread is as bad or worse than the garbage the hard core religious nuts dish out. Sounds like to me a reason to be stealth would be to hide my past from people like O_O...

Quote from: Stephe on December 22, 2012, 12:10:33 AM
But then again I hang out with mostly liberal open minded people not narrow minded conservative bigots. The vile spewed her in the thread is as bad or worse than the garbage the hard core religious nuts dish out. Sounds like to me a reason to be stealth would be to hide my past from people like O_O...

Girl... I know plenty of conservative people that don't act like jerks enough that I would feel uncomfortable with them knowing...

Quote from: Alainaluvsu on December 21, 2012, 11:33:44 PM
If you want to be 100% stealth, go ahead. Good luck with that. But it seems like you're fabricating views that are extremely cynical and then expressing them to justify it. Honestly I bet there are tons of significant others, family members, and allies out there that would take drastic offense to some of the stuff you're saying.

My mother, for one, would be hugely offended by some of the things O_O has said. I'm sure some of my friends and other family would be the same.

Quote from: Stephe on December 22, 2012, 12:10:33 AM
It speaks volumes about the person who wrote this. As you said, if someone feels like -living a lie- in total stealth because they don't trust others, have at it. I KNOW too many people who aren't like this. But then again I hang out with mostly liberal open minded people not narrow minded conservative bigots. The vile spewed her in the thread is as bad or worse than the garbage the hard core religious nuts dish out. Sounds like to me a reason to be stealth would be to hide my past from people like O_O...

It does speak volumes, Stephe..

I've found trans people to be more 'judgemental' than any one else. I don't hide my past, but I also don't have 'I'm a trans person!' tattooed on my forehead. Most people seem to see me as no more or less than I really am - a woman.

Trans people, however, will tell me I need to do or say all sorts of things in order to 'pass' better.. Funny, my experience in life tells me I'm doing just fine without any of that 'stuff'.. When you out yourself mid-convo and the person you are speaking to has an incredulous look on their face, it means they don't believe you..

Quote from: kelly_aus on December 22, 2012, 12:37:22 AM
When you out yourself mid-convo and the person you are speaking to has an incredulous look on their face, it means they don't believe you..

lol I love that look!

Hi O_O,

Quote from: O_O on December 21, 2012, 10:28:09 PM
Could someone be so intoxicatingly female that the gender cues she gives off could over-ride any conflicting information that people have heard about her?

In answer to that question, the answer is unequivocally, Absolutely Yes!!

For clarity of your post, could you define your term "experience". I understood your interpretation of "accept(ance)", but I'm not clear on what you mean by experiencing someone. Thank you in advance.

Be safe, well and happy
Lotsa Huggs
Catherine

Quote from: Ave on December 21, 2012, 05:05:41 PM
You can have meaningful relationships with woman even as a man.

Absolutely, and I have done ... and still do. But they are conducted on the basis that the woman sees me as a man - hopefully a nice man, who is maybe more empathetic and more interested in the female condition than the average male, but a man nonetheless.

My whole question was based on my concern that it would not be possible for women to relate to me as easily, or comfortably after transition ... whether they could alter our relationship from the friendship that a man and woman can have to the friendship that exists between two women. And those relationships are NOT the same thing.

Quote from: Catherine Sarah on December 22, 2012, 01:30:26 AM
Hi O_O,

In answer to that question, the answer is unequivocally, Absolutely Yes!!

For clarity of your post, could you define your term "experience". I understood your interpretation of "accept(ance)", but I'm not clear on what you mean by experiencing someone. Thank you in advance.

Be safe, well and happy
Lotsa Huggs
Catherine

That's an interesting question.  I mean it in it's simplest sense but I can see how it is open to interpretation, as long as the one who is having the experience is in fact experiencing the individual in question as female.

This discussion is not to me about absolutes, I can see the yin and yang of it.  There is the positive space effect coexisting with the negative space, somewhere they find harmony.  Where you find harmony, only you can know for certain.

Quote from: Alainaluvsu on December 21, 2012, 11:33:44 PM
What does all that even matter?

It only matters if it matters to you.  Remember how I suggested that people should probably completely ignore what I was saying in my earlier post?

Transition is an amazing thing and an individual can really blossom and change, I found that transition was profound in that it changed how I experienced life, the world and social interactions, it also changed how I experience myself.  Some people say they are the same person after transition.  Neither experience is right or wrong but I do cherish my experiences.

You sounded a bit upset at me so I tried to clarify what I was saying, for you.

Now I am making a big deal out of nothing?  I doubt anything I can say will ever satisfy you so you are right, I am wrong.  You win.  Problem solved ^_^ .

Quote from: Carlita on December 22, 2012, 02:09:11 AM
Absolutely, and I have done ... and still do. But they are conducted on the basis that the woman sees me as a man - hopefully a nice man, who is maybe more empathetic and more interested in the female condition than the average male, but a man nonetheless.

My whole question was based on my concern that it would not be possible for women to relate to me as easily, or comfortably after transition ... whether they could alter our relationship from the friendship that a man and woman can have to the friendship that exists between two women. And those relationships are NOT the same thing.

Of course they're not, but why do you need to become a woman and have that relationship? Even if there are exclusive women's spaces and relationships that's their thing...

Quote from: Ave on December 22, 2012, 08:02:38 AM
Of course they're not, but why do you need to become a woman and have that relationship? Even if there are exclusive women's spaces and relationships that's their thing...

Two reasons for me. First, it seems like something the female part of me needs in a powerful way. Second, it's an important part of the experience of being a woman and I don't want to miss out on it.

 Sometimes, it's important to simplify your perspective and see people as people, and relationships as relationships. No more.

All anyone can or should do is to just be themselves. If you live honestly, then what happens as a result should be experienced when it happens. This is because, as long as you are true to yourself, there's no point in being anxious about how people will treat you in the future.

These sorts of worries are signs that you may care a little too much about what others think of you. Acceptance should primarily come from within. Acceptance from without is secondary, and while it feels good, it is a reflection of who you are relating to far more-so than it is of yourself.

Quote from: TessaM on December 22, 2012, 08:43:37 AM
This topic is starting to get a little bit... heated.

Can you be accepted as one of the girls?

YES OMG!!!

Like Kelly J.P. Has just posted, acceptance comes from within. Accept yourself first and then others will follow your "lead."

Are some people biggoted jerks? Sure they exist somewhere, but I doubt they will say anything to your face. Also, they are such a minority not only would I not worry about such people but if they gave their opinion out in public im sure they would be faced with open oposition and they would end up looking stupid.

So true. All of it :)

Quote from: O_O on December 22, 2012, 04:35:43 AM
I found that transition was profound in that it changed how I experienced life, the world and social interactions, it also changed how I experience myself.  Some people say they are the same person after transition.

I've NEVER heard anyone say their life or how they see themselves was the same post transition. That just isn't possible and finding that " transition was profound in that it changed how I experienced life, the world and social interactions, it also changed how I experience myself" doesn't require being stealth or fabricating a false past live to cover the real one up. Anyone who lives full time as the opposite of their birth gender will find this same thing you posted to be true. It's the whole purpose of transition to experience life from that other point of view.

Quote from: Carlita on December 22, 2012, 02:09:11 AM
My whole question was based on my concern that it would not be possible for women to relate to me as easily, or comfortably after transition ... whether they could alter our relationship from the friendship that a man and woman can have to the friendship that exists between two women. And those relationships are NOT the same thing.

I can answer this using the relationship between myself and my ex-wife. We divorced 20 years ago for unrelated to my gender issues. Today post transition we are BFF girl friends. I do understand the difference between the friendship between a man-woman and two women and if my ex wife can get past my transition to see and relate to me as a woman, I think anyone can.

Just wanted to add I've met some awesome conservative people since I came out.  They're even responsible for some of the best moments I've had since!  This does include moments where they treated me like one of the girls and I ain't even full time yet.

One of the things I'm most thankful for about transition is it's blown away a lot of my misconceptions and prejudices about others.  Indeed transition, I think, is helping me become the better person I sought to become.

Quote from: Stephe on December 22, 2012, 11:01:11 AM
I've NEVER heard anyone say their life or how they see themselves was the same post transition. That just isn't possible and finding that " transition was profound in that it changed how I experienced life, the world and social interactions, it also changed how I experience myself" doesn't require being stealth or fabricating a false past live to cover the real one up. Anyone who lives full time as the opposite of their birth gender will find this same thing you posted to be true. It's the whole purpose of transition to experience life from that other point of view.

Got to agree and say I don't want to be the same person post transition as I have conciously and sub consciously 'invented' aspects to fit into the gender role.
My personality will be the same but I want to be my complete self as a woman and not a shell of a man.

the kind of people I have been around in the hospital where I work and town yes they do treat me as one of the girls. now some who are jealous will try not to treat you like one of the girls. but since that's what jealous woman do anyways in reality they are still treating you like just one of the girls.haha
but yeah the basic answer is yes you can....esp if you pass ok men cant help but treat someone like a lady who looks like a lady to them.

I wouldn't know any of this. My anxiety has made it almost impossible for me to talk to anyone ( even over the phone).

Quote from: Stephe on December 22, 2012, 11:07:06 AM
I can answer this using the relationship between myself and my ex-wife. We divorced 20 years ago for unrelated to my gender issues. Today post transition we are BFF girl friends. I do understand the difference between the friendship between a man-woman and two women and if my ex wife can get past my transition to see and relate to me as a woman, I think anyone can.

That's wonderful to hear!  :)

Quote from: Tristan on December 22, 2012, 02:54:47 PM
esp if you pass ok men cant help but treat someone like a lady who looks like a lady to them.

Isn't that the truth. They still do stuff for your attention even when they know. They may not ask you out or really flirt with you if they know (even though sometimes they do too), but they'll still act dumber than normal around you.

This sort of thing depends upon the level of interaction, especially when sex becomes an issue.  For example, if you are considered competition or not.  Whether as a lesbian or a straight woman.  Because outing a trans woman is pretty much always a derp win in cases of competition.

Casual acceptance happens all the time, either because people love you or they consider you their friend or they don't want to create conflict or more typically because they have their own lives to live and they just really don't care.  Actually that last one is quite a blessing.

But once competition becomes involved things can get ugly fast.  And I have found that people talk, people spread rumors.  It is like lighting a fire and expecting that fire to know when to go out.  But the fire won't go out until everything is consumed.  Still *yay* for casual acceptance and our polite Society. ^_^

If you are dating a straight guy and you reveal to him that you transitioned and then he gets turned off and never wants to see you again, then perhaps you will begin to understand the difference between 'acceptance' and 'experience'.  Having people use the right pronouns and be nice to you is what I refer to as casual acceptance.  Working some place where no one gives you a difficult time because you transitioned and where they use your name and the right pronouns is casual acceptance.

Casual acceptance is nice but I need more than casual acceptance. ^_^

Quote from: O_O on December 22, 2012, 08:27:17 PM
If you are dating a straight guy and you reveal to him that you transitioned and then he gets turned off and never wants to see you again, then perhaps you will begin to understand the difference between 'acceptance' and 'experience'.  Having people use the right pronouns and be nice to you is what I refer to as casual acceptance.  Working some place where no one gives you a difficult time because you transitioned and where they use your name and the right pronouns is casual acceptance.

Casual acceptance is nice but I need more than casual acceptance. ^_^

If you are dating a guy, you should be honest with him completely. Not just about transition but about everything. TBH if you aren't honest about yourself you do not deserve a good guy. Besides, all it takes is one thing to stick out at him... literally or figuratively... and your chances of being assaulted or murdered increase by a billion. But whatever, live how you want. If you want to be underhanded with men, go ahead. When they find you out they'll be looking at every, girl, cis or not, as a trans girl anyways. Many men are simply turned off because you can't have kids. It's the same as lying about that and then they marry you and find out they'll never have a child. That's messed up.

And your description of casual acceptance is bull ****. Just because people know doesn't mean they're humoring you. Your trust in people is pretty low if you think that, and like I said before, I have quite a few friends and family that would take offense to you putting them in that category.

But go stealth. Lie about your past. Keep anybody important away from any of your past, including your best friends, family, experiences... everything. It'll bite you in the end. The holes in your stories, how odd it is you have no family, or maybe your family finding out where you are and contacting you with your boyfriend is around... it'll surface, and you'll look like the worlds biggest liar. And for what? So people can "Experience" you as a female? How the hell do you know your voice didn't crack one day, your jawline hit them in the wrong way, your nose or adams apple stuck out too far, your mannerisms hinted something, whatever... and they clocked you, and instead you're being "casually accepted" and "talked about"? Don't think you can't get clocked. You can. And men are usually much better at it than women. So good luck!

And when you wind up on the news as "John Tricked by a ->-bleeped-<-!" - thanks for making us all look like deceptive whores.

Quote from: Alainaluvsu on December 22, 2012, 08:50:43 PM
If you are dating a guy, you should be honest with him completely. Not just about transition but about everything. TBH if you aren't honest about yourself you do not deserve a good guy. Besides, all it takes is one thing to stick out at him... literally or figuratively... and your chances of being assaulted or murdered increase by a billion. But whatever, live how you want. If you want to be underhanded with men, go ahead. When they find you out they'll be looking at every, girl, cis or not, as a trans girl anyways. Many men are simply turned off because you can't have kids. It's the same as lying about that and then they marry you and find out they'll never have a child. That's messed up.

And your description of casual acceptance is bull ****. Just because people know doesn't mean they're humoring you. Your trust in people is pretty low if you think that, and like I said before, I have quite a few friends and family that would take offense to you putting them in that category.

But go stealth. Lie about your past. Keep anybody important away from any of your past, including your best friends, family, experiences... everything. It'll bite you in the end. The holes in your stories, how odd it is you have no family, or maybe your family finding out where you are and contacting you with your boyfriend is around... it'll surface, and you'll look like the worlds biggest liar. And for what? So people can "Experience" you as a female? How the hell do you know your voice didn't crack one day, your jawline hit them in the wrong way, your nose or adams apple stuck out too far, your mannerisms hinted something, whatever... and they clocked you, and instead you're being "casually accepted" and "talked about"? Don't think you can't get clocked. You can. And men are usually much better at it than women. So good luck!

And when you wind up on the news as "John Tricked by a ->-bleeped-<-!" - thanks for making us all look like deceptive whores.

Strong overreaction itt

That's not to say there is not a lot of 'humoring' going around.  It's so much easier than trying to work at it.  And people can (and are) very good at hiding things when they need to.  I've always said there are just as many racists and/or homophobic types in the entertainment industry as in any other industry, it's just that they know if they let that be known they will be out of a job.  So they smile, nod their head and don't really change their views.

Quote from: Alainaluvsu on December 22, 2012, 08:50:43 PM
If you are dating a guy, you should be honest with him completely. Not just about transition but about everything. TBH if you aren't honest about yourself you do not deserve a good guy.

Your statements are startlingly judgmental.

Your 'Truth' is 'Your Truth', your "truth" is not everyone's truth.

My truth is different than your truth.

What you choose to focus on is your choice.
What you place importance upon is your choice.
How you live your life is your choice.

What other people choose to place focus on is their choice.
What other people deem important or trivial is their choice.
How others choose to live  their lives is their choice.

You are not God Alainaluvsu.

And no one deserves to suffer because they don't live up to your rules.

Save the morality for a thread on religion.

I will not bow down to you or obey your laws.

^_^

(Your "truth" is not Universal).
Have fun with your truth, enjoy.

Quote from: O_O on December 22, 2012, 08:27:17 PM
If you are dating a straight guy and you reveal to him that you transitioned and then he gets turned off and never wants to see you again, then perhaps you will begin to understand the difference between 'acceptance' and 'experience'.

Actually I would feel relieved that I got rid of the wrong man before investing in my emotion too deep. If he cannot accept me for who I am then let's go separate ways. It's him that miss out on a lot of good things not me. Until the right one came along, I actually don't care if I have to stay single forever. Rather be alone than unhappy. I do have trans friends in Chicago who are in a loving relationship with men and their guys know full well. These men were quite proud of my girlfriends too because they are freaking gorgeous!

Just wanted to elaborate a little before I shower and get ready for work...

What ever you believe to be important about yourself will become important.

If you believe that "trans" is an important "truth" or aspect of yourself then so it is.

You will introduce yourself to others and allow them to get to know what you believe is important about yourself.

If something is trivial to you then it is unlikely that you will share it with anyone.

Some of us are trans, some of us are transitioning.  Transition for some is an identity, it is their core self, it is the most important, most fundamental aspect of their being.  Typically because they are in the midst of transition.  They will heartily give the trans battle cry and demand that the world recognize and accept them as such.  They have a lot of energy often times, so much energy and being trans gives them purpose and direction.

Many of us transition because we are women.  I transitioned M2F because I had the seed of being female planted deep inside of me.  I transitioned to be female.  For a while (during transition) being trans seemed pretty important, it gave my life a sense of direction and I had a lot of energy.

But I transitioned with a purpose and that purpose was to be the female being that I always have been though that experience was previously denied me.  For a time being "trans" was enough.  It was relevant.  It had purpose.  Now I am female.  Being female is my core identity.  I am done with transition.

I know that a strong sense of purpose, a lot of energy and a strong direction seems to give a person all the right answers but typically those answers are only right for you.  There is a phenomenon that occurs with new religious converts and born again Christians whereby they often have this overwhelming sense of needing to right all the wrongs and save the world, an urgency, a fire in their belly!  The same happens with women who are transitioning.

Feel free to focus on what you think is important to you.

Feel free to believe what is important about you.

Live your life Alainaluvsu.

But allow others the same opportunity.

Thank you
^_^

Quote from: O_O on December 22, 2012, 11:21:31 PM
How others choose to live  their lives is their choice.

You are not God Alainaluvsu.

And no one deserves to suffer because they don't live up to your rules.

Yet you come here and "explain" how unless we follow your stealth path, we are only being "casually accepted" and no one really thinks of us as being women.

And honestly she is spot on. You seriously think you can have a long term meaningful relationship with someone you live a lie with? And yes you will have to lie about your past to cover this up. Like the first 20ish (or more) years of your life are trivial and meaningless? A solid relationship is based on being with someone you can tell anything to. Someone you can trust your deepest inner feelings with. Clearly that wouldn't be the case if you can't tell them about something that was, in your own words, a life altering experience. And trust me, when they do discover this, it won't be your past that upsets them, it will be that you felt you couldn't trust them with the truth.

From someone who has had problems with tone her own self, I think Alainaluvsu is right about the need to be open.  Stephe hits the nail on the head with:

Quote from: Stephe on December 23, 2012, 12:54:21 AM
And trust me, when they do discover this, it won't be your past that upsets them, it will be that you felt you couldn't trust them with the truth.

I'm thankful for their comments too.  Sometimes I feel like a minority in a minority because of the stealth crowd.

If/when I have a choice to out myself (that day is not today, today outing just happens and I'm cool with that) I intend to admit my almost 35 years of male life to those that matter to me.  I have ripped apart the trust of...

Crap. 

My mother isn't going to know about her daughter until after the holiday, putting me weeks away from full time.  The idea of her having a daughter going to hit her hard, my not being open with her as I've been in therapy for the last two years is really going to upset her too.  I was originally going to talk about the trust of my SO cause I still have some bridge rebuilding to do there that came from me hiding trans stuff from her but, this thread made me realize what I'm about to do with ma.

Anyway I've been accused of not caring about what other people think of me.  That's not accurate.  It just doesn't matter tons to me but I do care at least somewhat.  Yeah, I want to be included in the activities of the women I work with.  Yeah, I want female pronouns used on me.  But I started transition to make me a better person, to make me feel well.  Because I am a woman.  I am also a trans woman.  I am also a white woman.  I am also an American woman.  These other prefixes do not make me less of a woman, including the trans prefix, they just refine my experience of my womanhood.  At least that's how I look at it.  To be sure haters are going to try to rip out trans women and try to make me something less in their mind but that's their problem not mine.  I know who I am and where I fit in.

Quote from: Carlita on December 18, 2012, 04:10:41 AM
When I was about 18 my girlfriend at the time said, 'You're the only boy I'd ever invite to a hen-party.' The moment she said it, a look of horror crossed her face at the fear that she might have insulted my masculinity and she started telling me, 'I mean that in a good way. I wasn't trying to be rude ...' and so on.

Of course, I was thrilled. I've always loved female company. I'm totally happy having a girly conversation and although I've learned over the years how to behave in a way that seems appropriately masculine, I've never, ever been one of the guys.

So for me, transition is as much as anything about becoming one of the girls, being able to socialise with women in an entirely non-sexual way, as friends, sharing experiences and emotions.

But I wonder: is this possible? Can cis-females ever truly accept a MTF transsexual as one of their own? Or are we, not being "real women" doomed to be outsiders?

Tell me, ladies ... what are your experiences of friendship, companionship and acceptance with other women? Are you one of the girls? Or have you felt the cold shoulder once they know you weren't born in a girl's body?

Totally depends on the group. I have one friend that can't get over the trans thing. She's not insulting in anyway, but she is intensely curious so I get lots of questions. But I have another group of girlfriends who I believe forget I'm trans entirely.

Mileage may vary.

Quote from: TessaM on December 23, 2012, 09:08:23 AM
No matter the prefix, we are all women! Trans, white, american any dam label you put in from of the label does not make you any less of a woman, just a "different flavour" if you know what I mean.

Wow!!! my BFF said something similar to me a few weeks ago!!!

She was like "So what if you're trans? you're still a woman!" She was trying to convince me that I should not allow people to treat me like ****.

PS: she succeeded

All of my friends consider me just "one of the girls" even my male friends do. It's just how you present yourself and who you are. 

Quote from: O_O on December 22, 2012, 08:27:17 PM

If you are dating a straight guy and you reveal to him that you transitioned and then he gets turned off and never wants to see you again, then perhaps you will begin to understand the difference between 'acceptance' and 'experience'.  Having people use the right pronouns and be nice to you is what I refer to as casual acceptance.  Working some place where no one gives you a difficult time because you transitioned and where they use your name and the right pronouns is casual acceptance.

your "explanations" may be genuine to your experience but it isn't even close to mine.

I have told all the guys who asked me out that I am transgender. I am stealth EVERYWHERE but when it comes to matters of relationships I believe it is fair to that person to know.

The fact that I have dated some very wonderful non ->-bleeped-<- ->-bleeped-<- men in the last four years (pre and post srs) invalidates your explanation as being true for everyone.

And it seems you are way too caught up on competition. I just don't even go there. I have no need to "compete" for any man.

The posts of people who think they have all the right answers when it comes to trans not telling their lovers they are trans is very troubling.

Sometimes I even wonder if some of these people even had a relationship during their transitional lifetime ...or they have just been reading so many horror stories on the internet.

This transsexual girl is in a relationship with a very wonderful man who knows my birth gender. I have no need to compete and we both love each other very much. Hell, my own mother loves him like a son...which is a very good sign for me.

Just going back to my original post ... I've always been someone that women would talk to - complete with all the intimate, girly details!  ;) - so I just hope that remains the case.

In the meantime, I certainly feel, in the very best way, like one of the girls here. And so, ladies, let me wish you all ....

A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!!  :-*

Good luck getting a guy that deserves to trust you if you're going to do so much to cover up your history. And good luck keeping those secrets in. Women hate keeping secrets and we love to talk about many details of our lives. Honestly I wonder what kind of guy is going to be okay with a girl that has almost no history. Furthermore IDK how anybody can wake up next to a guy she claims to love and keep something like that from him.

I feel sorry for that guy. Even if he his transphobic...

BTW, for the record - to me this doesn't apply to one night stands. Yeah it's still not something I'd advocate doing, but guys doing one night stands I don't really have much sympathy for.

Hey all I know is I would be pretty upset if a FtM hid their past from me. I'd feel 1) I couldn't trust him anymore, 2) that he felt he couldn't trust me.

Quote from: Alainaluvsu on December 25, 2012, 01:13:53 AM
Good luck getting a guy that deserves to trust you if you're going to do so much to cover up your history. And good luck keeping those secrets in. Women hate keeping secrets and we love to talk about many details of our lives. Honestly I wonder what kind of guy is going to be okay with a girl that has almost no history. Furthermore IDK how anybody can wake up next to a guy she claims to love and keep something like that from him.

I feel sorry for that guy. Even if he his transphobic...

BTW, for the record - to me this doesn't apply to one night stands. Yeah it's still not something I'd advocate doing, but guys doing one night stands I don't really have much sympathy for.

Hey all I know is I would be pretty upset if a FtM hid their past from me. I'd feel 1) I couldn't trust him anymore, 2) that he felt he couldn't trust me.

Yes, but as we know, that's not ever quite going to be as possible with existing technologies (ftm doing stealth relationships vs mtf), whereas with an mtf, if the cards fall just right, then it'll be a possibility.

Quote from: Ave on December 25, 2012, 11:28:00 AM
Yes, but as we know, that's not ever quite going to be as possible with existing technologies (ftm doing stealth relationships vs mtf), whereas with an mtf, if the cards fall just right, then it'll be a possibility.

That is totally missing the point. A solid relationship is built on trust. If you are afraid this person will hate you if they know the truth about your past, how can there ever be real intimacy? You will always have in the back of your mind "OMG if he ever finds out....." Sorry but I'd rather date 10,000 guys looking for the right one, than lie to someone about my past in order for them to love me.

Ave was just raising a valid discrepancy between MTFs and FTMs. An FTM would likely not be able to get away with something like hiding his past from his spouse, unless she maybe never saw an actual penis before.  ???

And, yes, I say "she" because a guy would be able to tell immediately that something is up.

Quote from: DianaP on December 25, 2012, 12:26:41 PM
Ave was just raising a valid discrepancy between MTFs and FTMs. An FTM would likely not be able to get away with something like hiding his past from his spouse, unless she maybe never saw an actual penis before.  ???

And, yes, I say "she" because a guy would be able to tell immediately that something is up.

Exactly this.

Quote from: Ave on December 25, 2012, 03:51:07 PM
Exactly this.

You're welcome.  :P

Anywho, I think anyone can be one of the girls, trans or otherwise. People get so enthralled in what they're doing that they something forget for a second that you're trans.

This is a very interesting topic...being "one of the girls" is something I always wanted and more so something I thought I needed. I can understand why so many MTF"s write a book..

So much of what ends up happening is so far from what I thought or even wanted. My life is a 50/50 mix of stealth and known transgendered but not out and proud. At work I am 100% stealth (I think!!) at home and places where I was known as him I'm transgendered. For the most part I feel I am treated like any other women out their...at times if I know someone knows my past I have a tendency to judge their actions towards me as that of being transgendered.

For my thought on this I base it mostly on being stealth.

I know I am accepted as one of the girls at work...I get this mostly from men, its not just the attention but how I have been referred as and treated...before and through my transition I have always thought of men as something different then me and wasn't keen on being freinds with them...but because I was who I was and not the least bit effeminate most of my freinds pre-transition were men...I look back at the conversations and even my thought processes and wonder.... who was I!!

The thing is I didn't change me!!! Men changed me!! When I first transitioned I was attracted to women for intimacy and for friendship...I looked at guys with disgust and wanted nothing to do with them anymore.... for friendship and definatly not for intimacy...since my transition and going full time almost two years ago my attitude has done a complete 360!! I enjoy my friendship with men more then my friendship with women and I have become attracted sexually as well to men (still need help on this one!!)...this is not something I tried or even wanted...it just happened!! I have been treated as "one of the girls" but from all places it came from "men"

At work it is a 50/50 mixture of men and women...for the most part I get along with all...if I were to pick certain people I felt didn't care for me...they would all be women. I don't know why this is...at first I always thought they suspected something...through the many conversations I know this not to be the case. I have found that other women can be well....bitches!! It seems the worse ones are girls much younger then me...not sure why this is. I do think at times I come across as a stuck up bitch...my children have noticed this in me at times...I don't know what I am doing to cause this!! this is so far from the truth...it seems nothing has changed....when I was a man people thought I was cocky and a know it all...again...far from the truth.

So much has changed with how I view others and how I am viewed...not because I have tried to change but because of how I'm treated...if your treated like a woman and this feels normal then thats how you will act. When I first started transitioning I did try to do things a way a "woman" would...I told myself I need to talk, walk, feel and think like a woman...I must not have NO man thoughts  LOL...after a short time I told myself I cannot "act" out being a woman the rest of my life. I can in all honesty say the only thing I have purposely changed was my voice...this doesn't mean I am always happy about my appearance or the way I may come across...but I can say I rarely get a feeling that I am viewed as anything other then a woman...It may be a woman that is viewed as old, bitchy, funny, motherly, caring, witty, thoughtful or just damn right ugly but none the less...it's a woman. It's not easy being me!!! lol

You can define yourself any way you want but in the end its the others that define you...

Quote from: DianaP on December 25, 2012, 12:26:41 PM
Ave was just raising a valid discrepancy between MTFs and FTMs. An FTM would likely not be able to get away with something like hiding his past from his spouse, unless she maybe never saw an actual penis before.  ???

And, yes, I say "she" because a guy would be able to tell immediately that something is up.

Penises come in all shapes and sizes.  I know I have seen a lot of them up close and personal.

I can't imagine someone telling a man, "Hah! Fake penis, you're really a woman!"  I think that is just ridiculous.  A man isn't someone with a "correct" looking penis.  There are men who have penises that are innies, who were born male.  Trans women are so worried about their neo-vaginae outing them when if a guy says anything about your vagina not being authentic it is because he heard a rumor, saw your picture on SusansForums or because you aren't passing.

There is a trend on this board of telling people what they can't do and what they shouldn't do.  That is why I didn't tell anyone I was transitioning until after I had SRS, I didn't need a lot of people telling me what I couldn't and shouldn't do.

I would like to encourage people, give them hope and tell them what they can do.  Really you can do just about anything if you want it badly enough.

Quote from: Annah on December 23, 2012, 02:49:21 PM
your "explanations" may be genuine to your experience but it isn't even close to mine.

I have told all the guys who asked me out that I am transgender. I am stealth EVERYWHERE but when it comes to matters of relationships I believe it is fair to that person to know.

The fact that I have dated some very wonderful non ->-bleeped-<- ->-bleeped-<- men in the last four years (pre and post srs) invalidates your explanation as being true for everyone.

And it seems you are way too caught up on competition. I just don't even go there. I have no need to "compete" for any man.

The posts of people who think they have all the right answers when it comes to trans not telling their lovers they are trans is very troubling.

Sometimes I even wonder if some of these people even had a relationship during their transitional lifetime ...or they have just been reading so many horror stories on the internet.

This transsexual girl is in a relationship with a very wonderful man who knows my birth gender. I have no need to compete and we both love each other very much. Hell, my own mother loves him like a son...which is a very good sign for me.

Feel free to have your own experience, and as you have your own experience no doubt you will begin to realize that relationships and acceptance tend not to be all-black or all-white either.  Also consider that in a viable relationship if you are accepted you will tend to be accepted as what you believe yourself to be.

People tend to be what they believe about themselves.  You have decided that being trans is important so for you being trans is important, therefore in your experience it is fair that a guy knows your anatomical history.  I would say that you represent the majority of people who date men after transition.  Almost everyone tells because for almost everyone transition is the singular experience that tends to define a person in his or her lifetime, it is a landmark achievement that overshadows all prior and later achievements. Therefore when people transition they tend to identify as trans and being trans tends to be very important to them.  People who identify as trans believe in themselves as trans and in 'being' trans they find their "honesty".

You have the full support of most trans people and the rest of humanity, because the rest of humanity also believes it is very important that you are trans and that for you to pose as female is to one degree or another a form of deception (occasionally viewed as harmless) unless perhaps you deceive the opposite sex into attraction hence the importance of a quick confession.  The Roman army couldn't give you any more support than you already have so what am I by comparison?  Simply disagree with me and you win, rally your troops and they will shout in unison.  Swat me, I am but a gnat, I die easily, think of me as hope.

I talk about not telling and about believing in myself as female because I want people to be aware that there can be an alternative.  You have chosen the easy path and the wide gate, I have chosen the narrow path that seems difficult, crazy even.  People will be critical of me for good reason, my ideas are unpopular therefore the easy assumption is that I am wrong and your way is right.

So you see Annah, in any competition you are assured of the easy win, you serve the popular opinion and you and the many others who are like you will continue to exert a strong influence over those who choose to transition.  Hive think is powerful stuff.

But to me Annah this has never been a completion, rather I transitioned to have the life I need.  I have had a lot of people tell me what I cannot do and I have had a lot of people tell me that what I have done is wrong.  There is a lot of persecution in the trans community.  Supporting the "community" has become more important than transition it self or any individual.  And the trans community is so quick to crucify their own.  But mostly the goal seems to be a sort of Orwellian Society where we only exist to serve the hive mentality,"We are hormonally and surgically altered men before we are women and we must confess this eternal truth to anyone who matters to us or we are causing harm and failing to own our reality."  Feel to pick your own truth apart from hive think.  That is why I like Susan's, this is one of the rare places that allows it's members to have an opinion, even when that opinion isn't popular.  Can't say that much for the alternatives.

I transitioned because I have always been female, it is a seed that was planted in me.  Because I have always been female being female is the only truth I owe anyone.  Chop wood, carry water, that is what I do instead of chopping wood as trans, carrying water as trans.  Feel free to leave your burden at the cross.  And btw, not religion, metaphor.

Quote from: Just Shelly on December 25, 2012, 07:52:21 PM
I enjoy my friendship with men more then my friendship with women and I have become attracted sexually as well to men (still need help on this one!!)...this is not something I tried or even wanted...it just happened!! I have been treated as "one of the girls" but from all places it came from "men"

I may be off base here becaue I've recently found that I am actually attracted to men and haven't realized it because I was never open to it lol, but could it be that you're experiencing this because they are treating you just like one of the girls, like yourself. I'm pretty sure that my past relationship issues were because my partner was with a lie instead of me. I'd bet that if I was with someone that knew me as me, whether male or female, I'd be a lot more into it.

I bleive it depends on the girls, if theyre more open then yes. In the months since I've came out as trans my girl friends have already started to, not completely quite yet, excepting me as one of the girls. I t takes an openness to realize that gender is beyond the physical body and it has to do with the mind and soul, what ever that is lol. Once we realize someone born a man but on the inside is a woman then people can accept you as such and same thing goes for the guys too!

My hope too is to be accepted as part of the lesbian community now that I'm just starting to get into the lgbt+ community, really I'm just taking baby steps lol. It's weird since I always knew that despite being raised a boy I always felt like a lesbian and now I know why!

Quote from: O_O on December 26, 2012, 08:43:32 AM
People tend to be what they believe about themselves.  You have decided that being trans is important so for you being trans is important, therefore in your experience it is fair that a guy knows your anatomical history.  I would say that you represent the majority of people who date men after transition.  Almost everyone tells because for almost everyone transition is the singular experience that tends to define a person in his or her lifetime, it is a landmark achievement that overshadows all prior and later achievements. Therefore when people transition they tend to identify as trans and being trans tends to be very important to them.  People who identify as trans believe in themselves as trans and in 'being' trans they find their "honesty".

While I do sometimes disagree with the group, and I have been known to voice my opinion, I really do agree with them here and here's why. How can you truely love someone if you're holding back such a big part of yourself? We all want to be girls, to be known that way, and to be able to look at our past and say yes, I was born a girl in a girl's body, but it's just not practical. Most of us have experiences that many girls never go through and it will show in our personalities. Lies are hard to maintain, even if you tell the same one to everybody. There's also the internal body stuff that you can never hide. I guess you could try, but your doctor will know the second you get an x-ray. At some point, we all have to realize that we are going to get old and probably find that we need lots of medical attention. Is it reasonable to assume that your spouse wouldn't be told that you're not a girl underneath the skin? What about if you're rendered unable to make your own medical decisions and it's left up to them? I'm not sure and I'd much rather that they find out from me in the beginning than find out 40 or 50 years later when I'm dying in the hospital (if I'm lucky enough to live that long). When I was younger, I would have agreed with the stealth option more, but wisdom has caught up to me and now I think the honesty method is the better choice, at least for long term relationships.

Quote from: Emily_FormerlyKaren on December 26, 2012, 09:21:59 AM
How can you truely love someone if you're holding back such a big part of yourself?

You begin your question with a false premise.

You assume that being trans is a big part of everyone's life.  That is referred to as Psychological Projection.  Essentially it is a matter of trying to base understanding of another person based upon your own experience.

Typically being trans is "a big deal" to people who are transitioning.

Compare it to any other thing and it becomes obvious.  For someone who is in high school, high school is a big deal.  Then again there are the Marines, they say a Marine is a Marine for life but we can't all be "marines".  I didn't transition to be a Marine or a "trans person", I transitioned because I have always been female.

And BTW I never wanted to be "one of the girls", I just wanted my life to stop being wrong.  I did this to be normal, not to be a "modified" human being, not to be a man woman.  A lesbian summed it up pretty good when she began introducing me to all her friends, "This is my friend mangina because he's a man and he has a vagina."  Guys summed it up pretty well when they told me I would always be a man and they couldn't have sex with me because they weren't gay.  What did they sum up so well?  It was never any of their business to begin with.  No one deserves the opportunity to judge whether I am a real human or a modified man woman.  No one deserves to judge me that way. 

I don't care how nice and well-intentioned they are, either you know me as what I am or you heard a rumor from someone.  I am not a story.  I am not a science experiment.  I am a human being and I deserve the right to be a human being without it being put on the barter table to be dissected.  Either you recognize that I am female and you are attracted to me because that is what I am or you are someone who likes to dissect human beings.  Unfortunately almost everyone who is ever given the chance to dissect a human being loves the opportunity, absolutely thrills over it, it's ten times better than the juiciest celebrity gossip and we humans just love to step around in the entrails of what we reduced someone to being after we tore them down and tore them apart, especially when we can relate to them.

Fortunately there are plenty of people who enjoy being dissected and many who consider it an honor since it is their truth and their most defining accomplishment.

Quote from: muuu on December 26, 2012, 09:32:16 AM
Friends though, I'm not sure about, since it's fairly normal (I think) to keep some bad events in life away from them... Because it's very personal, and may not be something you want to share with others, and there isn't the same level of trust.
Yet again :p, I'm just theorizing...

I can partially agree with that. I say partially because if the one you're planning on spending the rest of your life with knows about it, there's a good chance they're going to be spending time with your friends too. Now you have to worry about them accidently outing you as well.

Quote from: Emily52736 on December 26, 2012, 09:44:10 AM
I can partially agree with that. I say partially because if the one you're planning on spending the rest of your life with knows about it, there's a good chance they're going to be spending time with your friends too. Now you have to worry about them accidently outing you as well.

I would say that if you are going to live around and maintain friendships with people who know you from before transition or who know that you transitioned but you aren't sharing that same information with the person you are supposed to love then that is monumentally disrespectful.  But if you aren't out to anyone, nobody needs to know.

You might date someone for four years and then break up with them for non-trans related issues.  Then the person you dated can tell all his friends about you and probably share identifying photos.  Letting a person get to know the real you might mean having to avoid telling them you are trans.  Then again depending on who you are and where your head is at telling someone you are trans might be necessary for you so that they can know the real you.

Many trans people assume that telling someone your biological past is very important, the media likes to make a big deal out of anything unusual so since transition is unusual the assumption is it is very important.  In Thailand anything unusual is lucky, trans people are good luck because they are unusual (or they used to be) turns out that if something is lucky then more people are likely to create luck for themselves.  Children are sometimes encouraged to be trans in Thailand so the family can have good luck.

Transition often times allows the one who transitioned to gain new perspectives.  Like transitioning from a cat to a fish, the experience of being a fish is different from the experience of being a cat.  Many who are considering transition assume that the experience of being a fish will be that of a cat that looks like a fish.  I think it is fair to say that experience happens a lot, especially early in transition.  The cat feels like a cat in a fish disguise.  Add fish hormones, fish surgery and some life-changing experiences that only a fish could have and the cat might begin to believe she is a fish.  That is what happened to me.  I began to realize I actually was a female, except for when I told people I was trans, then I stopped having a really amazing experience and began having a different experience called "acceptance".  Which is like when a fish that used to be a cat tells all the other fish that she used to be a cat.  It is hard for fish to wrap their minds around that so from that point on they make an attempt to consciously accept the cat as a fish instead of very simply experiencing another fish.  I feel like there is a lot more honesty in simply allowing people to experience me as female.  They don't have to make any effort to "accept" me and I don't have to experience every interaction as a cat that looks like a fish except everyone already knows about the cat thing, thing...

O_o

Quote from: O_O on December 26, 2012, 10:16:19 AM
Transition often times allows the one who transitioned to gain new perspectives.  Like transitioning from a cat to a fish, the experience of being a fish is different from the experience of being a cat.  Many who are considering transition assume that the experience of being a fish will be that of a cat that looks like a fish.  I think it is fair to say that experience happens a lot, especially early in transition.  The cat feels like a cat in a fish disguise.  Add fish hormones, fish surgery and some life-changing experiences that only a fish could have and the cat might begin to believe she is a fish.  That is what happened to me.  I began to realize I actually was a female, except for when I told people I was trans, then I stopped having a really amazing experience and began having a different experience called "acceptance".  Which is like when a fish that used to be a cat tells all the other fish that she used to be a cat.  It is hard for fish to wrap their minds around that so from that point on they make an attempt to consciously accept the cat as a fish instead of very simply experiencing another fish.  I feel like there is a lot more honesty in simply allowing people to experience me as female.  They don't have to make any effort to "accept" me and I don't have to experience every interaction as a cat that looks like a fish except everyone already knows about the cat thing, thing...

I can certainly understand that, letting peole make up their own minds based on how you present in the here and now without the past to cloud their judgement. But I do have to continue to disagree merely because the possibility of being outed is so great. I don't particularly want to have to tell people I'm trans, because like you said I'm a woman, but I'd more afraid of being outed at the wrong time by something I didn't even think of than I am of just doing it myself. Your situation may differ. I have an excessive amount of family and that's a lot of opportunity for people to talk. If you don't have a lot of people that knew you in your past life, the risk might not outweigh the benefits.

Quote from: muuu on December 26, 2012, 09:32:16 AM
Friends though, I'm not sure about, since it's fairly normal (I think) to keep some bad events in life away from them... Because it's very personal, and may not be something you want to share with others, and there isn't the same level of trust.

For me it depends on the level of friendship/trust. And of course for people "going stealth" would require dumping any friends you had per-transition. For me, I would lose 3-4 really good friends, people I have known for over 20 years that would do anything for me. I suppose if you don't care about developing these types of extra close friends, you could lie to everyone.

It all boils down to is: are you comfortable lying to people or not. It would eat me up inside knowing I was trying to hide something this big from someone I love. Maybe for some people it wouldn't bother them. And when something weird happens they can make up more lies quickly and be convincing.  But that's just not how I live my life.

And I'm sorry, I don't buy that for anyone being born the wrong sex and growing up as the wrong sex has no bearing on who they are. That just isn't possible.

All these arguments being made for stealth are the same ones gay people use. They assume EVERYONE will hate them etc so stay in their little closet of lies. I would not want to live in a closet like that! I spent too many years lying to myself and others about my gender issues, I'm not going to just move into a different closet.

It is refreshing as times change less people see to be arguing this "You have to be stealth" viewpoint. 10 years ago on a forum like this 90% of the people would agree with O_O. I'm glad that times are changing and people are starting to realize they don't have to live a lie to be accepted as a woman.

Quote from: muuu on December 26, 2012, 12:51:12 PM
Do you have to tell every bad thing you've gone trough to everyone, or even current issues, to not be in a "closet"? Or every medical/psychological issue you have or had?

No, you don't, but they ARE part of who you are. We all hide things about our past, but in my own experience, I'll often bring past experience into a conversation that I suddenly realize was from something I really didn't want to talk about. Next thing I know I'm spilling my guts and feeling horrible about keeping it from them because every time so far, I've been scared to death to talk about it and they just kind of shrugged it off like no big deal. In many cases, they've told me they've gone through the same thing. Obviously telling me they're trans too would be a rare occurance, but you get the drift.

Ugh, once someone brings up the "stealth or not" debate, there's always a cat-fight in the future.  ::)

Quote from: muuu on December 26, 2012, 12:51:12 PM
Do you have to tell every bad thing you've gone trough to everyone, or even current issues, to not be in a "closet"? Or every medical/psychological issue you have or had?

Again no one is saying casual friends. I'm stealth when out in public, around friends of close friends etc.  But to someone you love and you believes loves you, why should you have to lie to them. Who exactly do they love if you have to hide your past from them for them to love you?

Like what sorta lie are you gonna tell them about why you can't have children? Or that you never had a period in your life etc etc. Obviously childhood experiences are talked about with people you are close to, so make up a fake childhood too?

If you are forced to hide something about yourself from -everyone-, that is a closet of your own making.

Quote from: TessaM on December 26, 2012, 01:13:55 PM
And this wasn't even the point of this thread argh!!

Well the question translates to:If I'm not 100% stealth, will people accept me as "one of the girls"? Of course this thread was going to end up with a "Yes you MUST be stealth like I am to be accepted as a woman" post or two..

Quote from: Stephe on December 26, 2012, 06:21:44 PM
Well the question translates to:If I'm not 100% stealth, will people accept me as "one of the girls"? Of course this thread was going to end up with a "Yes you MUST be stealth like I am to be accepted as a woman" post or two..

Stealth is an intermediate phase between passing and assimilating into Society as female.  Stealth is the cat in a fish suit.  The cat experiences life like a cat in a fish suit (instead of experiencing life as a fish), that is Exactly what the Stealth experience is.  We tend to be our experiences, if we never allow ourselves any meaningful social interactions without confessing that we are really a cat in a fish suit then we will never have the experiences necessary in order to begin to believe in ourselves as being fish because we are denying ourselves those experiences by never allowing them to happen.  I used the cat in a fish suit as an analogy, a teaching aid.

Stealth is an idea, the idea that a man can pass as being a female if he looks female and doesn't tell anyone he is really a man.  That is what stealth is.  What an awful idea O_O .  Transition to me is about being who I truly am.  I transitioned as a medical process to fix my body so I could have the life I was previously denied.  I was born with the seed of female planted in me, it was my essence, it was something I had to manifest.  My secret is that I have always been female, not that I am a man passing as a woman.  I am not a cat in a fish suit, I am a fish.  So why should I confess that I am a cat in a fish suit?

Being female after transition is a lot easier than being known as a cat in a fish suit after transition - but it isn't completely necessary (this thing you call Stealth) as long as you don't allow your being a cat to become a discussion.  But once you throw your being female on the bartering table and begin seeking acceptance the playing field is no longer even and it never will be.

Transition is really simple.  I transitioned because I have always been female.  So here is a brief example of how transition worked for me.

Hair
Clothes
Makeup
Voice
Hormones
Surgery
Paperwork
Female Experiences
Belief in one's self as female
Stop saying things women never say
Don't confess to being a man if you are a woman, women never do.  Women aren't guilty, they don't confess.

Everyone transitions for different reasons, this is more true now than it ever was before.  Transition is a thing, someone who doesn't even have a trace of GD might just decide to transition now because it is just another thing people do like cos-play or furries or Gaters.

Someone who transitioned for reasons other than mine should ignore everything I say because perhaps for them being trans is the end goal.  Maybe they just like wearing women's clothes?  Maybe they like the extra attention?  Maybe they enjoy being spectacular and amazing.

I just wanted to fix what was wrong in my life, my body and my social experiences.  I need authentic female social experiences.  If you don't need that then you are way ahead of me and it will be a lot easier for you than it has been for me.  So celebrate, don't argue with someone like me, just enjoy your life! ^_^

Quote from: Emily52736 on December 26, 2012, 11:01:31 AM
I can certainly understand that, letting peole make up their own minds based on how you present in the here and now without the past to cloud their judgement. But I do have to continue to disagree merely because the possibility of being outed is so great. I don't particularly want to have to tell people I'm trans, because like you said I'm a woman, but I'd more afraid of being outed at the wrong time by something I didn't even think of than I am of just doing it myself. Your situation may differ. I have an excessive amount of family and that's a lot of opportunity for people to talk. If you don't have a lot of people that knew you in your past life, the risk might not outweigh the benefits.

So what is the alternative to this fear you are experiencing, outing yourself as a way to deny other people the experience of outing you? 

Before transition I was a very fearful person.  I had never done anything except allow my fears to prevent me from doing things.  After transition I had a realization, I realized that for the first time in my life I had a reason to live.  The reason I had a reason to live was because I finally managed to overcome my fears, the fears that had been preventing me from transitioning.

Before transition my life was worthless.  After I overcame my fears my life was worth living.

Fears tend to be a way to prevent ourselves from doing things we want to do.  Fear is the lazy part of us making excuses for why we shouldn't change anything.  In my experience overcoming fears is rewarding and amazing.  Living under the oppression of fear is slavery.  Fear is an idea, typically circular, our fear ideas go round and round and imprison us, our own thoughts become our master and we become the slave.

A good book to read is Don Miguel Ruiz, 'The Four Agreements'.

I agree that fear is a major problem, but I also see that we're both looking at that problem as being two different sides of the same coin and will probably never agree. To you, the fear seems to be about letting people know you're trans. I know you're not going to agree that that's a fear for you, but from where I'm sitting that's what it looks like. To me the fear is more about people finding out through the rumor mill instead of from my own mouth. The way I confront my fear is to just out myself and not have to worry about it anymore. The way you confront it is going stealth. Is there a right way or a wrong way? Maybe, maybe not. It's your life, not ours. We've all spent enough time living someone else's idea of our own lives to know that the decision is ours alone. All we can say is what we would do and move on. Whether or not you agree, listen, or do the same thing is entirely up to you.

Quote from: O_O on December 26, 2012, 10:16:19 AM
In Thailand anything unusual is lucky, trans people are good luck because they are unusual (or they used to be) turns out that if something is lucky then more people are likely to create luck for themselves.  Children are sometimes encouraged to be trans in Thailand so the family can have good luck.

O_O,  I do respect your belief on being stealth even though it's different than mine and I admire your way with words and beautiful language but I'm just curious how you came up with that about transexual culture in Thailand. Do you have any reference to support that because but I think you are losing credibility here.

Quote from: mintra on December 26, 2012, 11:00:16 PM
O_O,  I do respect your belief on being stealth even though it's different than mine and I admire your way with words and beautiful language but I'm just curious how you came up with that about transexual culture in Thailand. Do you have any reference to support that because but I think you are losing credibility here.

I lived in Thailand for three months and visited with people there.  I got this information from people I visited with while I was in Thailand.  I had a sixty day visa that I extended to ninety days. It isn't something I read on Wikipedia or in any book, it was first hand experience, talking to locals. 

Quote from: Emily52736 on December 26, 2012, 10:57:44 PM
The way you confront it is going stealth. Is there a right way or a wrong way? Maybe, maybe not. It's your life, not ours. We've all spent enough time living someone else's idea of our own lives to know that the decision is ours alone. All we can say is what we would do and move on. Whether or not you agree, listen, or do the same thing is entirely up to you.

You haven't been processing what I have said.  Stealth is an intermediate phase between passing and assimilation.  I am not a cat living in a bird suit, I am a bird.  Feel free to tell people that you are a cat living in a bird suit if it seems safer to you.  Birds don't fly because they are afraid of the ground, they fly because they can.

Oh and the decision is absolutely yours to make.  I support you in whatever decision you choose to make.  I don't want to influence anyone, I just want for people to know that there is an alternative.  But whenever I try to encourage people a conspiracy of trans people begin to feel like it's a tug-of-war.  Since I am only one person on this forum and one with a very unpopular point of view I don't feel like being dragged around the school yard anymore.

You are very in style, very popular and you have a huge support base on this forum who believes exactly as you do.  Even non-trans people share your beliefs, that you are not a real woman and therefore must confess to anyone who might be interested in you.  I only come here to share an unpopular idea because my concern is that it may be relevant for someone, I am not trying to convert an entire website.  All I am saying is there is a road less traveled by and all I am suggesting is that one consider it.

I am suggesting that authenticity isn't measured by birth genitals.

I am suggesting that people will treat you the way you believe you deserve to be treated.

I am suggesting that acceptance begins with you.

What you believe about yourself will become a self-fulfilling prophecy. 

Feel free to believe whatever you like.

Quote from: muuu on December 27, 2012, 03:15:46 AM


@O_O
What do you do if your partner asks about your childhood? I'm not sure if "I don't want to talk about it" would work for too long, because they'd probably get worried and want to know about it... or something.

The guys I have been with have never asked me about my childhood.  The last guy I was with, all he was ever interested in was having sex with me.  He took me to movies, restaurants and we hung out together and all he was concerned about was having sex with me, that was the only thing on his mind.

As trans women who are transitioning we tend to come up with a lot of hypotheticals that are designed to keep us from stepping out of our comfort zones.  Fear,

Quotefear 
/fi(ə)r/
Noun
An unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain, or a threat.

Almost all fears only exist in our imaginations.

But also, a situation that may seem inconceivable during transition may begin to seem entirely plausible after transition.  Transition usually happens gradually over time.  Ideas tend to change gradually.  We may be completely against something one day and then gradually over time our ideas may soften until one day we find ourselves on the opposite side of an opinion.  You can't change what people believe.  Beliefs come from experience.  If you transition to female and pass as female and begin having experiences that only a female can have, you may begin to see yourself differently.  Most people will never allow themselves to have any experiences that will cause them to change.  It is like their beliefs about themselves become them and if their ideas were proved wrong, they would react instinctively as though their very life was in danger (because they believe they are their ideas).  They believe life the world and everything are their ideas, how narcissistic and ignorant is that?  It is called ego, our ideas about our self = ego and ego will fight to the death to stay alive.

So I know I am not going to change anyone's ideas.  But it was never my goal to change anyone's ideas.  Rather it is my goal to cause people to begin to realize that they can be the co-creator of their own life, destiny, etc.  What you believe about yourself has power, the power to transform you and the power to prevent transformation.  Some day you may have an experience that changes how you think and because of that experience you may recall an idea I shared with you, even if only subliminally and you may begin to realize that you have the power to be whatever you believe yourself to be, mostly by not believing things about yourself.  The way it typically happens is by having something you previously believed to be impossible actually happen, it is the experience of being proven wrong that was so profound for me.  So prove me wrong, I would love to have another experience like that.

So about a boyfriend (or whomever) asking you a question about your childhood...  Is someone who is dating you going to ask you a question that you can't answer because you grew up with the wrong genitals?  This has never happened to me.  The only time it even came close to happening was when people had heard rumors about me and a coworker told me with a smirk on her face that she wanted to see a picture of me from my childhood, "Implication you are really just a man and a photo from the past will prove it!"

Lots of trans people like to suggest that if you don't tell people you transitioned that you will have to lie all the time and that you will end up digging a giant hole for yourself.  That has never been the case for me either.  The people who have heard rumors about me that imply I am not really a woman don't deserve any kind of answer at all.  And the only honesty they are interested in is an "honesty" that will satisfy all the juicy gossip they have heard.  Screw them.  If it really came down to it and my partner asked me if I was really a woman the only thing I would say to him is, "Are you saying you no longer love me?" Because if he has decided that what and who I am is a complete lie based on some conflicting information he heard or found and if it is an issue to him then he doesn't love me and it's over.  If you want to keep something or someone you have to overcome your attachment to it.  Attachment will make you a slave.  Also the experience of being in a relationship with another person will cause you to know them more than words or rumors, if someone told you that your wife was really just a man in disguise and you believed it and it changed your partner forever in your mind then you were never really in a relationship with them to begin with.  The bible says something about how you will know people not by what they say about themselves but rather by what they do and I have found this to be absolutely true (I am agnostic btw).

If I ever find myself married to a guy and after many years of marriage he brings up the issue of my having transitioned I am just going to say what is true already. "I thought you already knew and you were being respectful of me by not saying anything because you love me."  I always assume that everyone knows I transitioned and that they are okay with it.  So for me saying this would be the truth.

However I don't have a problem with lying.  There have been times I lied to people to save my ass.  I never lied to create a false image or to make myself feel good.  Stupid lying is stupid.  Women who transition seldom ever have to lie if they believe they have always been female.  And lying by omission is only lying to people who object to you getting away with it.  Refer to Ferris Bueller's day off, too many people are too much like Ferris Bueller's sister and need to get over themselves.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H19uKs99vIw (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H19uKs99vIw)

This thread reminded me of some good YouTubes, they aren't perfect but they are the best I have seen so far.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xD_1pBiwaeQ&list=UUamaea05bOJ0q42F9iyaFMA&index=106 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xD_1pBiwaeQ&list=UUamaea05bOJ0q42F9iyaFMA&index=106)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOElBSbRSS0 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOElBSbRSS0)


This video explains how to transition to one of two sexes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzm8kTIj_0M (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzm8kTIj_0M)

We tend to define a thing by looking at it instead of looking inside ourselves.  As long as woman or man = some pre-determined/pre-defined thing that is separate from us - we will never have any connection to it and we will never experience it as an aspect of our being.  Rather we will tend to adapt it to suit our needs, modify it, adopt some aspects of it, toss out others and overlook still others.

You cannot think of woman as a pre-defined thing and experience a M2F transition that leads to "just being one of the girls." Unless you can realize there is no spoon.  Woman is not a thing, she is an experience.  This is my answer to the OP.  One has to realize that one's ideas about an experience do not equal the experience, the only thing that equals the experience is the experience.  Believing that an experience is a thing sets it apart as being separate from us and causes it to be so inflexible that we can never experience it for ourselves.

Transition is a platform for experience, that is all transition is.  Many who transition get SRS and then are like, "WTF, I finally had SRS and I don't feel any different."  They haven't had the experiences of being female yet.  SRS is not a female experience, it only paves the way for the experience of being female.  Life prior to transition creates a system of beliefs about everything, what it means to be male, what it means to be female.  Both typically from the standpoint of never really experiencing either.  In order to experience being female, in order to just be one of the girls one must have 'experiences' after transition, experiences that change previously held ideas about life, about ourselves, about being male or female, ideas we formed prior to or during transition.

Enlightenment is something that many people have sought and they always wanted someone to explain it to them so they could know it, but enlightenment cannot be explained because enlightenment is an experience, it is not an idea.  So instead people would pose riddles for the student so that the student could have the experience of realization.  Realization is an interesting word, it basically means to make real.  To real-ize, it is when an idea is no longer an idea, it is real.  The most real thing we can have in this life is an experience.  When we realize something it becomes more than an idea, it becomes an experience.  Ideas are two dimensional, they exist in the mind and on paper.  An idea won't change anything unless it is implemented.  Existing as an idea was something I did before I started passing as female.  It was not the best of times.

Having ideas about being female is more of a deterrent than it is helpful, unless those ideas arise out of the experience of being female.  Not what we believe being female is, what we experience as female after a successful M2F transition with people who only know us as female.  That is the only way to bend the spoon.

Does it matter?  No, it doesn't matter to me.  I already transitioned and I have had many incredible experiences.  This isn't about me anymore and I don't have any investment in what you choose to do with your life.  I am just here to tell you to forget what you know and believe in yourself and since it is only advice you can take it or leave it.  Whatever you choose will be the right thing to for you to do because you chose it.  Is one experience any better than the other?  That's for you to decide and it depends upon what you want to get out of transition.  You will know success when you experience success, not when you live up to someone else's expectations.

Just wanted to say I was sorry for leaving you with an ambiguous argument.  I mentioned in a previous post that the most amazing experience I ever had was being proven wrong.  But I am left thinking, how much more easy would transition have been if I hadn't been believing things that were wrong.  And it is our experience that give us our ideas, to avoid wrong ideas I think I may have had to avoid being alive before transition.

So since I feel like my post lacked the clarity I wanted to provide you with I am going to explain what led to me being proven wrong.  When I began transitioning I believed that I would always be trans and I believed that I would only ever be able to have sex with or date guys who were okay with trans women.  I considered myself a trans woman because that was my experience and because our ideas come out of our experiences.  My experience was transition and being a M2F and I just believed I would always be trans.

There was someone named Kate Grimaldi on the Interwebz and she used to talk about how we could just be women after transition.  What she said made me angry.  I believed that it would be deception to engage in romantic activity with a man after transition without first confessing to him that I was actually a trans woman. I argued with Kate Grimaldi and told her how dishonest she was to pose as a female without disclosing she was trans.

Then I went to a bar and I had ridden my motorcycle to this bar and it got so cold with the wind-chill that I could no longer feel my hands or forearms.  I knew there was no way I was going to be able to ride home that night and that I was going to have to find someone in the bar that I could spend the night with.  I met this guy who was at the bar with his two gay coworkers, but the guy who was interested in me was straight, married even.

I just assumed that since he was in a gay bar that he realized I was trans, it seemed like everyone else did so it wasn't much of a stretch.  He paid for a hotel and in exchange for sex he was going to allow me a warm place to spend the night.  After sex he got really angry and really serious, he demanded to know if I was on birth control.  He told me that if I tried to ruin his life and his marriage by getting pregnant that he was going to kill me.  He made this statement several times that he would kill me to save his marriage. And he demanded assurance that I was taking birth control.  I told him I was, I was doing depot provera shots which is considered birth control.  I wasn't taking it as birth control but I didn't want to further upset a very agitated man.

I didn't have an orgasm and the sex wasn't good in that it felt good, but I was being experienced by a straight man as a woman, not as a trans woman as a Cis woman.  Previous to this I believed that I would always be trans and that I would have to always confess before any sex but I was duped into having sex with someone who I thought for certain knew I was trans, when he hadn't any clue whatsoever.

I had never had the experience of being accepted as female.  Oh I had sex with guys who knew but they had always experienced me as a trans woman, not as a cis woman.  Something impossible had happened, I had an experience that only a Cis female could have and that experience shaped my mind, perhaps not right away but I had learned that something completely impossible had become possible.  I had been proven wrong.  And I knew what it was like to be experienced by a straight man as a cis female and I never wanted to ever go back to having sex with guys who knew I transitioned.  Plus I had the added experience of experiencing a cis male as a cis female.  I wasn't up in my head narrating my experience because I thought he already knew and I thought it was a non issue. Handsome English man picks up trans girl in gay bar.  By the time I begun to realize what was happening there was no way to stop it (safely).

Once I realized that my ideas about being trans after transition were now in question I softened my ideas around such things and my humility allowed me to begin to have an open mind.  I began to realize there was a lot I didn't know and I wrote Kate Grimaldi telling her about my experience and about how the things she had been saying were beginning to make sense to me.  Once I had that experience I wanted more and I was beginning to believe in and accept myself as female.  I wanted desperately to continue along this amazing journey.

If that means anything to you then it does. If that doesn't mean anything to you then it doesn't.  I can try to share an experience with you but I am limited to words and ideas which are two dimensional.  My experience was so much more than words or an idea.  The things you believe are a product of your experiences.  Are you having the experiences that you want to have.  If anything that is what you should be asking?

Fortunately life kept proving to me that I was wrong and I had to continue changing my ideas about myself and life.  Really that is my legacy, being proven wrong and I am very grateful for that experience.

Quote from: O_O on December 27, 2012, 01:59:10 AM
You haven't been processing what I have said.  Stealth is an intermediate phase between passing and assimilation.  I am not a cat living in a bird suit, I am a bird.  Feel free to tell people that you are a cat living in a bird suit if it seems safer to you.  Birds don't fly because they are afraid of the ground, they fly because they can.

Actually I do get what you're saying, that a complete transition means a total change to the target sex. I get that. I really do. I just don't get that your past is no longer a part of you, so that's why I used the word stealth. I didn't mean to offend you or anybody else. It's just how I see it.   

Quote from: O_O on December 27, 2012, 01:59:10 AM
You are very in style, very popular and you have a huge support base on this forum who believes exactly as you do.  Even non-trans people share your beliefs, that you are not a real woman and therefore must confess to anyone who might be interested in you.  I only come here to share an unpopular idea because my concern is that it may be relevant for someone, I am not trying to convert an entire website.  All I am saying is there is a road less traveled by and all I am suggesting is that one consider it.

I'm not trying to bash you. It's almost impossible to prove when almost everybody else has the same viewpoint as me, but I do have some very strong opinions on things and if I didn't agree with the group I would be just as vocal about it. It just happens that I agree with them on this point. I did also like your story about how you came to your conclusions though. It really helped me to understand the why.

Quote from: O_O on December 27, 2012, 01:45:45 AM
I lived in Thailand for three months and visited with people there.  I got this information from people I visited with while I was in Thailand.  I had a sixty day visa that I extended to ninety days. It isn't something I read on Wikipedia or in any book, it was first hand experience, talking to locals.

O_O, you were significantly misinformed during your short stay there. Being trans is never considered lucky in Thai culture. Just wanted to correct you on that particular statement. I don't want to steer off topic so please continue further with the discussion on being one of the girls.

Quote from: O_O on December 27, 2012, 03:50:40 AM

The guys I have been with have never asked me about my childhood.  The last guy I was with, all he was ever interested in was having sex with me.  He took me to movies, restaurants and we hung out together and all he was concerned about was having sex with me, that was the only thing on his mind.

I would suggest stop dating men who only wants sex.

The men I date wants to know me. We go out and spend time together and I even visited his family and he visited my family this Christmas. Sex is just one part that we share together and no..he doesn't date me because he wants sex. We didnt have sex until after a few months of dating.

He dates me because we have things in common, we share the same passions, he finds me intelligent and I find him intelligent, and he loves me.  Sex is just one small piece of the puzzle for us.

Part of our relationship together is exploring each other and knowing their pasts, the passions, the foods they like, the movies they like, their joys and their concerns.

I personally would never date a guy who just wants sex. That to me is no way to share a life together (or even a dating time together). There are men out there who would give anything to be loved back. There are plenty of men who are out there that don't want to date a woman just for sex...they date a woman for companionship.

QuoteBut also, a situation that may seem inconceivable during transition may begin to seem entirely plausible after transition.  Transition usually happens gradually over time.  Ideas tend to change gradually.  We may be completely against something one day and then gradually over time our ideas may soften until one day we find ourselves on the opposite side of an opinion.  You can't change what people believe.  Beliefs come from experience.  If you transition to female and pass as female and begin having experiences that only a female can have, you may begin to see yourself differently.  Most people will never allow themselves to have any experiences that will cause them to change.  It is like their beliefs about themselves become them and if their ideas were proved wrong, they would react instinctively as though their very life was in danger (because they believe they are their ideas).  They believe life the world and everything are their ideas, how narcissistic and ignorant is that?  It is called ego, our ideas about our self = ego and ego will fight to the death to stay alive.

Again, as I stated earlier this is not entirely true. I am the same person I was before I transitioned. Some may have changed in their transition but not everyone.

QuoteLots of trans people like to suggest that if you don't tell people you transitioned that you will have to lie all the time and that you will end up digging a giant hole for yourself. 

Yes. Me included. And so do half of the girls on that transgender day of remembrance.

You can try to rational it away with paragraphs and paragraphs of statements but at the end of the day...yes you are keeping your past from someone who wants to share yours and his paths together.

If you date men who only wants sex and don't want to know your past then that is a relationship situation that only you can figure out. Your relationship history is not the foundational laywork of a transgender relationship. You are basing your past dating experiences as absolute truths. The simple fact that my dating experience is the opposite of yours shows me (and I pray) others that your experience is not the truth.

I will always say this and always will. A relationship that is build around trust with no skeletons in the closet is MUCH more rewarding than keeping things from those who are in a relationship with others.

I can see your point tho. If you date men just for the sex there is no need to sharing a past because those relationships never lasts long. Again, if this is the type of companionship you enjoy then that is awesome. My point is, stop assuming your philosophies, viewpoints, and truths are for transgender people in general.

QuoteHowever I don't have a problem with lying.

I noticed lol 

yes when we start taking hormones it is like a teenager but we are not teenagers.

We are adults.

When I first started transitioning I did not revert to a teenager status. Yes, the hormones were raging and it was at times unpleasant, but I didn't slip on a uber tight mini, stiletto heels and slept with every Tom, Dick, and Harry because I "felt like a teenager." Not every teenager acts like that..whether its a real teenager or someone going through it again.

Also, you may think it's not lying. And it's not lying in an outward sense but the truth is you are withholding some pretty damn important specifics of your past with someone that you are currently sharing your life with.

To me, that isn't very fair for the person who wants to share their lives with.

And I am sorry if this sounds harsh but when someone doesn't share something that important about themselves to someone they are dating then that tells me they are more afraid about loosing the man and it hardly has anything to do with 9 paragraphs of trans philosophical thought.

To me, not being honest about yourself just screams insecurity. Also, it continues the negative stereotypes that many of us are facing, (IE they just do it to trick men into being gay!!)

Quote from: muuu on December 27, 2012, 01:43:39 PM
So, in other words, you don't think somebody who started living as a girl at 6 can ever live their life without telling their partner? What exactly is so important?

I don't see any reason they should hide it either. I think it'd be messed up for them to lead men they're having a long term relationship with to believe they could have children together when she knows she can't. It's also kinda wrong because, let's face it, some men are completely objectionable due to whatever reason (religion more than likely). I think it's pretty messed up (no matter how much I might disagree with their views) to put someone in that kind of situation.

And I can totally respect that a guy might not wanna date me because I'm trans. This may be unpopular to say, but I have a friend that is HIV positive that thinks it's wrong for people to avoid sexual encounters with him (because there is a very low chance of transmission from somebody on medications). I think it's kind of the same. Not in the sense that we are some sort of contagious disease, but because he gets offended if he is seen for his condition in a way that isn't advantageous to him.

Part of loving yourself and accepting yourself is that you be proud of yourself.

Quote from: Annah on December 27, 2012, 11:40:59 AM
Quote O_O: "However I don't have a problem with lying."

I noticed lol

I find your comment here very telling (I'm feeling a bit POed right now so bear with me), seems to me you are attempting to employ master suppression techniques.

The way you quote O_O you try to make it seem as if O_O has made a blanket statement about how she feels about lying and dishonesty, however in reading what she wrote it is painfully obvious that conditions were given. Ie. what she said was that she don't have a problem with lying to save her ass, in fact she says so explicitly, yet you find it appropriate to squeeze in a cheap shot by quoting her out of context. Very nice.

interesting.

you are using the same "suppression technique" you accused me of doing.

You should take the time to read my entire post (like I did with 0_0)

Quote from: Alainaluvsu on December 27, 2012, 01:55:18 PM
To me, not being honest about yourself just screams insecurity. Also, it continues the negative stereotypes that many of us are facing, (IE they just do it to trick men into being gay!!)

I don't see any reason they should hide it either. I think it'd be messed up for them to lead men they're having a long term relationship with to believe they could have children together when she knows she can't. It's also kinda wrong because, let's face it, some men are completely objectionable due to whatever reason (religion more than likely). I think it's pretty messed up (no matter how much I might disagree with their views) to put someone in that kind of situation.

And I can totally respect that a guy might not wanna date me because I'm trans. This may be unpopular to say, but I have a friend that is HIV positive that thinks it's wrong for people to avoid sexual encounters with him (because there is a very low chance of transmission from somebody on medications). I think it's kind of the same. Not in the sense that we are some sort of contagious disease, but because he gets offended if he is seen for his condition in a way that isn't advantageous to him.

Part of loving yourself and accepting yourself is that you be proud of yourself.

I agree with this 100%.

Thank you for bringing some sanity to this discussion

Quote from: muuu on December 27, 2012, 01:16:02 PM
I assume part of why O_O is dating those guys is to catch up with experience, and I personally think it's a necessary step to actually start functioning well as a person.

I think you are jumping to conclusions and it is totally inappropriate to assume that all the guys O_O date are like that. She said "The last guy I was with", not "All the guys I'm with". I've had misfortune of running into a dud or two as well, just like many women before and after me.

Maria, it's not assumption when 0_0 states the men she dates just want to have sex. It's black and white....there was no assuming anything.

Also, we certainly aren't going to convince each other in this thread.

You continue to not tell the men you date and further the stereotype that transgender women "trick" men.

I will continue to tell the truth to the men I date.

And let bygones be bygones. I wont be one of those transgender people who keeps secrets.

Quote from: Annah on December 27, 2012, 02:13:17 PM
I agree with this 100%.

Thank you for bringing some sanity to this discussion

Ditto

Quote from: muuu on December 27, 2012, 03:15:46 AM
@Stephe
Is childhood/teenage really that common of a topic? Like, there isn't that much to talk about, just "I sat in my room or slept all day, went to school and really didn't do anything there", it's not very interesting for others to hear about...
And, I think there are certain things you really have a right to not tell anyone about, no matter how close your friendship is. Not telling isn't exactly lying.

Well I know me and my BF have talked a lot about different things we did as children. And like I've had even casual friends talk about being in the girl scouts or being a brownie or other childhood stories. I was in the boy scouts and enjoyed going camping etc. I guess then I should never be able to share that experience with my life partner? Maybe some people had a very boring childhood and there isn't anything to talk about. And for me being able to share my childhood or things I did as a young adult with my life partner is important. Many of these things would out me as they are thing women rarely would do. You put too many check marks in those boxes and "questions are raised".

Quote from: Annah on December 27, 2012, 02:12:15 PM
interesting.

you are using the same "suppression technique" you accused me of doing.

You should take the time to read my entire post (like I did with 0_0)

Err, no. I merely pointed it out. You quote mined her for a cheap shot.

Quote from: MariaMx on December 27, 2012, 02:23:42 PM
Err, no. I merely pointed it out. You quote mined her for a cheap shot.

err no. As I said in my first response to you, reread my entire post before you used this cheap "suppression" thing against me.

Lets move on folks.

Quote from: Stephe on December 27, 2012, 02:23:34 PM
Well I know me and my BF have talked a lot about different things we did as children. And like I've had even casual friends talk about being in the girl scouts or being a brownie or other childhood stories. I was in the boy scouts and enjoyed going camping etc. I guess then I should never be able to share that experience with my life partner? Maybe some people had a very boring childhood and there isn't anything to talk about. And for me being able to share my childhood or things I did as a young adult with my life partner is important. Many of these things would out me as they are thing women rarely would do. You put too many check marks in those boxes and "questions are raised".

exactly,

When transwomen hide this from their partners then they hide SO MUCH more.

They have to hide their families, their entire lives prior to transition, their friends. Everything.

That's not a relationship. That's employment level B-3 and above at the Central Intelligence Agency.

Quote from: Annah on December 27, 2012, 02:27:28 PM
exactly,

When transwomen hide this from their partners then they hide SO MUCH more.

They have to hide their families, their entire lives prior to transition, their friends. Everything.

That's not a relationship. That's employment level B-3 and above at the Central Intelligence Agency.

So what if they want? It's not anyone else's problem...

And I'd love to work for the CIA

Quote from: Annah on December 27, 2012, 02:19:13 PM
You continue to not tell the men you date and further the stereotype that transgender women "trick" men.
I will continue to tell the truth to the men I date.

That is it in a nutshell. Thank you for making the point clear and concise.

Like you said earlier,  9 paragraphs of transgender theory doesn't change this.

Quote from: Ave on December 27, 2012, 02:31:53 PM
So what if they want? It's not anyone else's problem...

And I'd love to work for the CIA

it may work for a one night stand.

it doesn't work in a relationship. Keeping secrets of that magnitude  never work in a relationship.

I've led enough pre marital counseling to know this type of behavior will kill a relationship faster than infidelity.

After this, I'm done with this thread, because like Annah says, we will never all agree and need to just agree to disagree.

Quote from: muuu on December 27, 2012, 02:16:11 PM
In a serious relationship sooner or later thoughts about children would maybe come up

This is very age dependent and is also a slippery slope. At younger ages in my own experience, people tend to not talk about it up front and they just kind of assume it will eventually happen. How would you feel if you were with someone for a long time and when it came time to talk about kids, they told you they couldn't have any without a word about being trans? I'm sure you wouldn't like it. I know a lot of people that were married for 5-15 years before deciding on whether or not to have kids. It's not uncommon.

When you're dating in the 30s, it's always one of the first questions brought to the table. Some people don't want kids and want to know if you do right away. Some are dying to have kids and want to know if you want them too. Time's running out for a woman to safely have kids at that age and they don't want to waste any time on someone that doesn't share their views.

Quote from: muuu on December 27, 2012, 02:16:11 PM
It shouldn't be a big deal to them, because it's just social stigma, and if they do want to be serious with you and do really love you... Such a minor thing shouldn't be world ending. If it isn't serious, then they don't really need to know you that well anyway.
What's so horrible for them to have had sex with a trans-woman? Because she isn't a real woman? That's just degrading... There's been no real harm done what so ever.

Kids are a different animal. A a lot of people want to have their own kids and do not want to adopt. But kids aside, what you stated is the way it should be. It just isn't. People are brought up on the stereotypes and prejudices that their parents have and react badly when they are trampled on. It takes a LONG time to get that out of the system. Hell I AM trans and it took me 38 years to be okay with it. Look at racism. It's been 200 years since slavery and while racism has declined, it's still present. The trans phenomenon is very new to the mainstream public and their first encounters with it was from movies and media that blew it completely out of proportion.

Quote from: muuu on December 27, 2012, 02:35:12 PM
This is assuming there has been a life prior to transition, a 6 year old haven't really had much to call an "entire life".

the odds of a person fully transitioning prior to the age of six has yet to happen and probably will not happen.

That argument is moot.

Quote from: Annah on December 27, 2012, 02:19:13 PM
Maria, it's not assumption when 0_0 states the men she dates just want to have sex. It's black and white....there was no assuming anything.

Did she say that? Then it must have been in a previous post somewhere because the post you quoted in reply #139 she says "The last guy I dated".

Quote
You continue to not tell the men you date and further the stereotype that transgender women "trick" men.

Who? Me? I'm married to a guy who knows and I've been so for almost 7 years now. His family doesn't know though and I have no plans to inform them.

but you told him didn't you?

mhm

Quote from: Annah on December 27, 2012, 02:48:43 PM
but you told him didn't you?

mhm

Not really. He already knew as we first became friends while I was still fairly early in my transition.

Quote from: MariaMx on December 27, 2012, 03:00:05 PM
Not really. He already knew as we first became friends while I was still fairly early in my transition.

So he knew. Interesting

Quote from: muuu on December 27, 2012, 03:16:36 PM
There are early transitioners nowadays, the world does actually change. Besides, there's really nothing to change at that age, no hormones have kicked in etc. Obviously they won't be done with their transition until later, but they'll always live as girls prior to that.
Well, yes, I guess it's very age dependent...
I don't really want kids...


I'm still curious what that "important information" is, why being trans is such a big deal... Oh well...

1. I'm sure you would be an excellant parent. You showing concern already puts you ahead of many other parents

2. No doctor would give a five year old srs surgery

Quote from: muuu on December 27, 2012, 02:35:12 PM
This is assuming there has been a life prior to transition, a 6 year old haven't really had much to call an "entire life".

Who transitions at 6 years old? Is this some hypothetical and even if not, I would venture to guess 0.1% of stealth TS's transitioned before the age of 20 and some much later.

Quote from: TessaM on December 27, 2012, 07:51:46 PM
Plenty of children transition at a young age.

We are still talking about a tiny percentage of trans people who would have been "transitioned" at the age of 6. Clearly only a moron would assume then they had a childhood of a boy. No one is saying that but again, this example of why it's OK to not tell  A: Does not apply to anyone posting in this thread.  B: if in the future society is so OK with people being trans, why any need to be stealth?

Kia Ora

Re: Can we ever be "one of the girls"? If you are 'out of the closet and proud' then the simple answer is no....

::) However if one goes from one closet to another=[stealth or semi-stealth] then it's possible....

Metta Zenda AKA "Just one of the girls"  ;)

Quote from: TessaM on December 27, 2012, 08:27:18 PM
Im not quite sure what your trying to say here, I really don't want to come off as stupid or rude but were you calling me a moron?  I don't quite understand what you mean by claiming to have had a childhood of a boy (I suppose I agree because I do not believe I had a boys childhood since...I AM A GIRL!)

I dont think anyone should be stealth BECAUSE the future where everyone is completely accepted will come sooner rather than later, but to each their own.

She wasn't calling you a moron.

She is saying that there are hardly no people who transitioned at the age of 6. And she is right. As of today there has been 0 people who has transitioned at the age 6.

And 19 years old is a way bigger difference than 6. Also, if you were taking hormones illegally at 19 I would not call that having transitioned. I would call that experimenting with your transgender self and starting that process.

Now, if you said, you live as a girl, had everything switched over legally as female with your legal name as your female one, HRT, and completed transition at age 19, then I would say you transitioned at 19.

And since you fully transitioned at 19/20 (I am assuming you are non op) then that is still a big difference than 6.

And yes, I know Jazzy. I brought her and her family to my church one year. They even stayed in my home for a weekend. Even she will tell you she has not finished her journey to be a girl yet. She will be the first one to tell you she still has a long way to go. If anything, yes, Jazzy can get away with this.

But I know Jazzy. Jazzy would also be the first one to tell her boyfriend about her past too.

That little girl has more wisdom than most of my fellow transisters three or four or five times her age.

I feel people should handle their own relationships however they feel is best, and when, why and to whom they tell somebody that, in the distant past, they had to pretend to be male should be their own business.  That seems pretty simple.

Just because a lot of present day society wants to tell us we used to be men doesn't make it true.  Our consciousnesses are tied to our minds, not to the bodies we were born with, not to how we were raised, or to how we made ourselves act in the past out of fear.  We are our minds and our minds were born female.  Even science is bearing that out.  It is never a lie to say otherwise, unless when you were in the male role it wasn't an act, I guess.

As long as society is going to see women with our history as "previously men," when we reveal those little, almost always unnecessary, details about our past that cause them think of us that way, we have corrupted the truth.  Doing so causes them think of us, and treat us, as though we are (or were) something we never could be.  The truth is we have always been female, the lie is that we ever were men.

I'm not saying you should never tell anybody.  I personally would not be with a man that couldn't handle knowing about my past.  I'm just saying that, in my opinion, it should be up to you when and whether you do, and that you should never feel guilty for not doing so.

Regarding the original subject, act like a woman, be a woman, and people will treat you as such.  For reals.

Quoteif one goes from one closet to another=[stealth or semi-stealth] then it's possible....

Not necessarily in reply to the person who wrote this, but in reply to the people who believe just being male or female without disclosing teh tranz after transition is a lie, a deception or a half-truth, a masquerading, a hiding, a pretending or dishonesty...


If you have always been female, if you were born with GD and transition to having a female body and a female life then what kind of closet is that?  Is a closet a wide-open space where you can truthfully and honestly be who you really are?  If so the World is my Closet and it is Wonderful, I have never experienced such Liberty and Freedom.  Doesn't seem like a "closet" in any sense of the word to me, doesn't feel like a prison, I left my prison behind.

^_^

Feel free to test out my "closet" to see if it makes you feel claustrophobic, if it does then you and I are very different and I find it impossible to relate to you because your description of transition sounds way too much like my life prior to transition and I really don't know what happened or didn't happen to cause you to feel that way.

O_o

Quote from: Annah on December 27, 2012, 02:19:13 PM
Maria, it's not assumption when 0_0 states the men she dates just want to have sex. It's black and white....there was no assuming anything.

Quote from: O_O on December 27, 2012, 03:50:40 AM

The last guy I was with, all he was ever interested in was having sex with me.  He took me to movies, restaurants and we hung out together and all he was concerned about was having sex with me, that was the only thing on his mind.

Anyone who is willing to do even just a little research will find that you are flagrantly lying about what I have said in this thread Annah.

Why don't you address things I have actually said instead of making up BS for the sake or proving me wrong?

O_o

And you accuse me of lying?  Shame on you Annah.

Quote from: O_O on December 28, 2012, 01:20:13 AM
If you have always been female, if you were born with GD and transition to having a female body and a female life then what kind of closet is that?  Is a closet a wide-open space where you can truthfully and honestly be who you really are?  If so the World is my Closet and it is Wonderful, I have never experienced such Liberty and Freedom.  Doesn't seem like a "closet" in any sense of the word to me, doesn't feel like a prison, I left my prison behind.

I'll venture to guess what the poster meant by "in the closet". "In the closet" or "being closeted" refers to hiding a piece of yourself out of shame or fear of something. I think you're a strong believer in that it's best for you to live your life without telling ANYBODY that you are trans for any reason. So for that, you're totally in the closet in every context of that post if I am correct. You are actively not sharing a part of your life with somebody. You may think it's the same as "well it's none of your business... kinda like my health records" ... well if you're ashamed of your health records then you're in the closet about that.

And if your closet is all nice and open and stuff... cool. I feel sorry for the guy that trusts you if he is not cool with being with a trans woman.

Quote from: mintra on December 27, 2012, 10:23:44 AM
O_O, you were significantly misinformed during your short stay there. Being trans is never considered lucky in Thai culture. Just wanted to correct you on that particular statement. I don't want to steer off topic so please continue further with the discussion on being one of the girls.

I just know what Thai people and a woman (who transitioned) who has been living in Thailand for seven years told me.  Perhaps you weren't just trying to take a dig at me.  Perhaps you misunderstood me or perhaps I didn't state the situation clearly enough for you.  Trans people (according to what I was told) are considered lucky, not in that they are lucky to be trans, rather because they bring good luck to the people around them. 

Maybe you live in Thailand and are your own personal expert on this issue.  I am not claiming to be an expert, I am just sharing what I was told, okay?  I do find it interesting that you are able to speak for all Thai people and that every Thai person agrees with you because in the USA people have trouble agreeing on anything let alone so unanimously.

Quote from: Alainaluvsu on December 27, 2012, 01:55:18 PM
To me, not being honest about yourself just screams insecurity.

Nice of you to decide for people who transition what "honesty" is.

So what are we really Alainaluvsu if just being our target sex after transition is dishonest?

Please, say what you really mean.

I know this may be difficult to imagine but people in different situations tend to have different ideas about things.  And rabid psychological projection is real and I am seeing a lot of it in this thread.

Quote from: O_O on December 28, 2012, 02:02:19 AM
So what are we really Alainaluvsu if just being our target sex after transition is dishonest?

Please, say what you really mean.

I know this may be difficult to imagine but people in different situations tend to have different ideas about things.  And psychological projection is real and I am seeing a lot of it in the things you say.

We are transsexual, silly. It's a condition where our brains don't match our body. Most (if not all) of us spent a significant portion of our lives living as the opposite sex. ALL of us were born with the wrong genitalia, and for many men seeking women only - that is not okay with them.

That's what I really mean. Not too sure why you do not understand that... or care for the people you date enough to make sure they respect the situation they are investing their love in.

BTW, "just being our target sex after transition is dishonest?" isn't what I meant. Don't go twisting my words around like you accuse Annah of doing. If so, all of us that have transitioned are dishonest, including me. I understand my history is of nobodies concern 95% of the time, but when I know it could concern somebody I care about - yeah you're damn right I'll be upfront about my past.

Didn't I say that somewhere and you decided to leave that out?

Quote from: Alainaluvsu on December 28, 2012, 02:10:35 AM
We are transsexual, silly. It's a condition where our brains don't match our body. Most (if not all) of us spent a significant portion of our lives living as the opposite sex. ALL of us were born with the wrong genitalia, and for many men seeking women only - that is not okay with them.

That's what I really mean. Not too sure why you do not understand that... or care for the people you date enough to make sure they respect the situation they are investing their love in.

So you are saying that Trans is for life. 

Do you feel that referring to me as "silly" adds validity to what you say?

People who are actively transitioning often identify as trans.  Believe it or not some people who finish transition actually identify as male and female and find that the trans label causes other people to be less able to relate to them.  It may seem "silly" to you but not everyone identifies as trans.  And to have you say that we have to identify as trans for life in order to be "honest" goes beyond simple rudeness and ventures into hostility.

Quote from: Annah on December 27, 2012, 02:12:15 PM
interesting.

you are using the same "suppression technique" you accused me of doing.

You should take the time to read my entire post (like I did with 0_0)

LOL !

Yes, you actually made me laugh out loud ^_^ .

Quote from: O_O on December 28, 2012, 02:18:51 AM

So you are saying that Trans is for life. 

People who are actively transitioning often identify as trans.  Believe it or not some people who finish transition actually identify as male and female and find that the trans label causes other people to be less able to relate to them.  It may seem "silly" to you but not everyone identifies as trans.  And to have you say that we have to identify as trans for life in order to be "honest" goes beyond simple rudeness and ventures into hostility.

Well I guess I just disagree with that. Trans is another word for change. So to say you're transsexual, it means you intend to, are in the process of, or have changed your gender / sex at some point in your life. I'll end what you call "projecting" right now and just flat out say it. Yup, you're trans for life. How incredibly hostile of me. I guess I'm such a horrible human being.

But I don't hide what I have been or lie to to people I love (or may potentially love) that may actually be completely disgusted with me otherwise. I do have some sensitivity to how the outside world views us. Maybe that makes me a horrible human being too.

Quote from: O_O on December 28, 2012, 02:18:51 AM
Do you feel that referring to me as "silly" adds validity to what you say?

No. lol. Wow you're testy now!!! Lighten the flip up :P

Quote from: Annah on December 27, 2012, 02:27:28 PM
exactly,

When transwomen hide this from their partners then they hide SO MUCH more.

They have to hide their families, their entire lives prior to transition, their friends. Everything.

That's not a relationship. That's employment level B-3 and above at the Central Intelligence Agency.

You assume that everyone who transitions is close to their "family" and that because they are so close to their family they have to hide their family O_o .  Not everyone is close to or even maintains contact with their family, in fact some people are shunned by their families for transitioning in the first place. Have you ever seen someone hide their family?  Hey look, I just hid my family (not really). Also some people for one reason or another don't have families, whether they were orphans, grew up in a foster home. Maybe a deadbeat father and a drug addict mother, not everyone experiences life as you have so your blanket statements and assumptions don't always apply to everyone.  Not realizing this is called psychological projection.

QuoteWhen transwomen hide this from their partners then they hide SO MUCH more.

Oh really?  How much more Annah?  YOu used caps so it must be a lot huh?  You are making assumptions and blanket statements.

Quote
They have to hide their families, their entire lives prior to transition, their friends. Everything.

I've never seen anyone hide their entire life before transition Annah.  How do they do it, do they spray paint their entire life black or do they cover it with camo netting? Are mirrors involved or maybe state-of-the-art technology?  You make statements that sound good on the surface (for the sake of argument) but your statements are all based upon assumptions and some of your assumptions sound preposterous.  Really, people hide their entire lives?  Is that how it works Annah?  Or are you misrepresenting what actually happens?  Does a person's "entire past life" actually need to be hidden or do people get a new driver's license with a new name and a new gender on it?  Where is this HUGE hidden life you talk about?

I found that as I transitioned I let go of things that no longer served me.  I didn't "hide" anything.  I have always been female (had the seed or essence of female planted in me) so I am just me.  Transition was a way to finally be me.  The past was a sham, a bad place where I tried to fit in but never did.  I don't have friends from the past.  I had to save myself before I was able to form meaningful friendships.  Contrary to your assertions I am not hiding anything.  I am having a terrible time attempting to relate to you Annah, or the things you say.  It is like we are two very different people.  I find honesty in being who I am and you find honesty in the past and in confessions and not allowing people to think you are a Cis female.

I get it Annah, I felt the same way when I was early in transition.  Now that I have been done with transition for some time I don't experience life as trans.  I don't find my truth in the past.  I don't find relevance in the past, rather I have made a life for myself as a female.  When I look back I see a history of having been female.  I had SRS in 2004.  Given time you may get over being trans too, anything is possible.

Quote from: Alainaluvsu on December 28, 2012, 02:28:00 AM

No. lol. Wow you're testy now!!! Lighten the flip up :P

Pointing me out as being "testy" and "silly" is a way to drag me through the mud.

Except saying it doesn't make it true and having to resort to such things is lame.

http://www.memes.at/faces/troll_face.jpg (http://www.memes.at/faces/troll_face.jpg)

What Annah said I said

Quote from: Annah on December 27, 2012, 11:40:59 AM

QuoteHowever I don't have a problem with lying.

I noticed lol

What I actually said...

Quote
However I don't have a problem with lying.  There have been times I lied to people to save my ass. I never lied to create a false image or to make myself feel good.  Stupid lying is stupid.  Women who transition seldom ever have to lie if they believe they have always been female.  And lying by omission is only lying to people who object to you getting away with it.  Refer to Ferris Bueller's day off, too many people are too much like Ferris Bueller's sister and need to get over themselves.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H19uKs99vIw (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H19uKs99vIw)

Quote
Fallacy of quoting out of context
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


The practice of quoting out of context, sometimes referred to as "contextomy" or "quote mining", is a logical fallacy and a type of false attribution in which a passage is removed from its surrounding matter in such a way as to distort its intended meaning.[1]

Arguments based on this fallacy typically take two forms. As a straw man argument, which is frequently found in politics, it involves quoting an opponent out of context in order to misrepresent their position (typically to make it seem more simplistic or extreme) in order to make it easier to refute. As an appeal to authority, it involves quoting an authority on the subject out of context, in order to misrepresent that authority as supporting some position.[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_quoting_out_of_context (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_quoting_out_of_context)

I mention the Logical Fallacy because it is a recurring theme in this thread, along with psychological projection.

QuotePsychological projection
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search

Psychological projection or projection bias is a psychological defense mechanism where a person subconsciously denies his or her own attributes, thoughts, and emotions, which are then ascribed to the outside world, usually to other people. Thus, projection involves imagining or projecting the belief that others originate those feelings.[1]

Projection reduces anxiety by allowing the expression of the unwanted unconscious impulses or desires without letting the conscious mind recognize them.

An example of this behavior might be blaming another for self failure. The mind may avoid the discomfort of consciously admitting personal faults by keeping those feelings unconscious, and by redirecting libidinal satisfaction by attaching, or "projecting," those same faults onto another person or object.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_projection (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_projection)

Often times transitioning people feel like they have to tell other transitioning and transitioned people how they must live their lives.  Their favorite assertion seems to be telling transitioning and transitioned people that they can never be in a meaningful or honest relationship without confessing teh tranz. 

I have never told anyone what they must or must not do.  I haven't told anyone to do anything.

The only thing I have done is share my own experience and to try to let people know that they don't have to obey these trans people who are telling them what they have to do.  There is an alternative.  That is all I have ever said.  I never told anyone what was right or what was wrong, I have told people what was right for me and why.  And for this I am opposed and taken out of context.

So if this is about being right on the Internet and if you must be right then fine, just be right.  But you don't have to prove I am wrong because I never said what was right, I only said what was and is right for me.  And I think that telling people they have to confess to a partner that they are trans is wrong.  I think telling anyone what they have to do is wrong.

If you have to prove me wrong to be right then that says more about you than me.



Audioslave - I Am The Highway (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cy2ZUGc2mSs#)

QuoteI'm still wondering why it's so important to tell people you're trans. Is anyone going to get hurt? Are you ruining somebodies life? Is being trans a horrible crime and disease that everyone needs to know about?
Yes, telling your partner after you've been together for awhile, and things start getting serious, might be good... But that's beside the point, because it isn't a necessity.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xD_1pBiwaeQ (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xD_1pBiwaeQ)

As far as I can tell, trans women who sympathize with non-trans people - who do not consider trans women to be women - and therefore place a lot of importance upon disclosure, tend to do so because they haven't yet accepted themselves as women.  That was my experience early in transition, and I have found it to be a common experience that many transsexual women share.  Whether or not one continues with that mind-set depends a lot upon the individual and her experiences during and after transition.  I have found this to be true for me and others have shared this experience with me, having experienced it for themselves. Motivation seems to come from lack of acceptance and fear or "If I can't do it, you sure as Hell aren't going to do it." 

As far as I can tell people tend to moralize based upon the supposition that trans women will always be different from so-called "real" women.  What (in my opinion) these well-meaning moralists don't realize is that woman is not a thing, she is an experience and no amount of posting will ever change their minds (as far as I can tell).  Some people will deny themselves an experience because they don't believe in it or they believe it is wrong, they create their own "reality" in this way and they mine for data that substantiates their opinion or belief.  In my experience it is like choosing to remain in The Matrix because it is safe and certain and fear is a powerful demotivator.

And for some people being openly trans is what works best for them and no experience is more right but one experience works better (for me).  The ego is ideas about one's self. Ideas of one's self are formed out of experiences.  Our dominant experiences make us who we are and become our truth, our "reality".  The experiences we have are just as powerful as the experiences we do not have, in that what we never experience will never change us.

Also being trans is a big deal to people who are transitioning.

Being trans is less of a deal, the farther you go after transition.

But I am repeating myself for a couple of people who haven't processed anything I have said and now I am beginning to feel a bit idiotic.

Also my experience was the experience of a transsexual woman and I transitioned to experience a female life replete with female life experiences incorporating body, mind and socialization.  I am not bigender and I don't identify as transgender so my experience and my needs are not the same as everyone else and I respect that.  That is why I have never told anyone what they should or should not do and that is why I never say what is right or wrong unless I am talking specifically about my own needs or about what I consider to be petty tyrants wanting to govern my life and the lives of others.  As someone else stated, "We have lived under the rule of others for too long and transition is about personal freedom and doing what is right for you."  Or something like that.

Cheers

Uhh ... did I post a thread that said: 'Should we tell our partners that we're trans?" No ... I posted a thread about an issue that matters an awful lot to me and as much as the male part of me is delighted to have had thousands of views and 10 pages of replies, the part that just wants to know about interacting as a woman with other women is feeling frustrated and a little bit put out ...

But for what it's worth ...

I think O_O has a very valid point when she says that there is a difference between the fact that people accept you and the way that they experience being with you. if a really close friend that you thought was straight tells you that he's gay, you'd still accept him, and like him and take his side (at least, I damn well hope anyone on here would), but you couldn't help but see him and think of him in a slightly different way. Not necessarily worse: but difference. You've had a significant piece of new data and it's bound to have an effect.

Ironically, the very people who are attacking O_O for her view that it's not necessary to tell partners that one is trans are implicitly accepting that the information changes the way that the other person in the relationship might experience them. Clearly, if it made no difference whether or not anyone knew you had once been male, it would not be necessary to say so. But precisely because it DOES make a difference, then you either say, 'It's only right and fair and honest, for everyone's sake, to be explicit about being trans as early as possible in any serious - or potentially serious - relationship. Or you say: 'You know, I don't want him to think of me as a transsexual, because I know it will change things. I want him to treat me and love me and ->-bleeped-<- me like a woman. So I'm going to stay a 'normal' woman in his eyes if I possibly can.

Personally, I think either choice is valid. If there's one thing I've learned about relationships - ones own and other people's - it's that generalisations, rules and value judgements are pretty much irrelevant. Every single relationship is different and has its own rules and it is entirely up to the people in that relationship to conduct it as they see fit and either reap the rewards or suffer the consequences. And there's no damn point anyone else sticking their noses in.

On the question of transitioning at six. No, no one has completely transitioned at that age yet. But yes, kids that young certainly are being diagnosed with GID, allowed to live in their chosen gender, rather than their assigned one, and are later given puberty-blocking drugs so that they have not suffered from the physical changes that would occur if they allowed their birth gender to take its course. In the UK there is at least one post-operative MTF who had SRS at 16, and the trend is towards recognising gender identity issues as early as possible. Of course, doctors still have to wait until the patient is ol enough to be able to make an informed decision about whether to transition. But the road that leads to transition can certainly start as young as six.

And now, CAN WE PLEASE GET BACK ON-TOPIC???

I dream of a day when I can go shopping with a girlfriend, have lunch together and just be her girlfriend too ... I'd love to go to a Pilates class and have the other women treat me exactly the same way (good or bad) as they would any of the other women there ... I want to be able to join my village's all-female book club (or one like it in another town or village), go on a girls' holiday ... bump into another woman in the street or at the store and go off for a cup of coffee and a gossip together.

And all I ever wanted to know from this thread is: can my dreams ever possibly come true?

Quote from: O_O on December 28, 2012, 01:56:32 AM

I just know what Thai people and a woman (who transitioned) who has been living in Thailand for seven years told me. 

Either the woman lied to you or she had no idea what she was talking about. Living there 7 years is more or less a visitor, hon.

Quote from: O_O on December 28, 2012, 01:56:32 AM

Perhaps you misunderstood me or perhaps I didn't state the situation clearly enough for you. Trans people (according to what I was told) are considered lucky, not in that they are lucky to be trans, rather because they bring good luck to the people around them. 

I'm clear on that O_O. Transexual are never considered a good luck charm. You were misinformed BIG TIME. I'm just trying to correct you here.

Quote from: O_O on December 28, 2012, 01:56:32 AM

Maybe you live in Thailand and are your own personal expert on this issue.

I was born and raised there until I moved to US in my 20's my dear. I still have friends and family members there. I am the expert on my culture, my heritage. You are never gonna win if you continue to argue with me on my culture.

Quote from: O_O on December 28, 2012, 01:56:32 AM

I am not claiming to be an expert, I am just sharing what I was told, okay?

I know you are not an expert otherwise you would know better. What you shared was wrong. I was just trying to correct you so other Susans Member would know the fact. No need to be offensive.

Quote from: O_O on December 28, 2012, 01:56:32 AM

I do find it interesting that you are able to speak for all Thai people and that every Thai person agrees with you because in the USA people have trouble agreeing on anything let alone so unanimously.

If you have no idea, Thailand is smaller than Texas. There maybe some cultural diversity on different regions but overall we are not as diverse compared to USA.

I know what I'm talking about here darling. You can go to the nearest Thai restaurants if there is one in your area and ask people there if being 'Katoey' brings good luck to people around them and 100% of them would scratch their heads.


Now I'm beginning to think that you just make stuff up and presented it as a fact to support your argument on being stealth. I would make a fool out of myself if I'm trying to argue with an Italian about their pizza, don't you think?

I will happen, Carlita.  If you live your life as a woman, and you don't put out man vibes, people will see you as a woman.  That is not always true when the people in question know about your past, especially in some small towns, certainly villages, but if where you live makes it impossible, hopefully you have enough freedom to move somewhere else.

Thank you Jen and TessaM!!

And yes, Tessa, you're right that I haven't yet started transition - still trying to find a way of resolving the conflict between my longing to transition and my responsibilities towards (and deep love for) the family I've created as a man. But I've never had any trouble getting on with girls or women as a man ... I just want to keep it that way as a woman!

Quote from: muuu on December 28, 2012, 04:44:48 AM
Since your body has been corrected... Are you really a transsexual?
I do understand that you don't regard yourself as a woman... But I don't think everyone who's been trans should still consider themselves as transsexuals, not the real thing.

I think disconnection from self is quite common for trans people, since nothing they do have any value in their life at all. Time spent when you're basically living because you have to is hard to remember, and it's really hard to make attachment to anyone.

If you don't regard yourself as a woman, and tell everyone about your past, I think it's hard to just be "one of the girls"... Because well... Since you don't see yourself as that, how could they?

I'm still wondering why it's so important to tell people you're trans. Is anyone going to get hurt? Are you ruining somebodies life? Is being trans a horrible crime and disease that everyone needs to know about?
Yes, telling your partner after you've been together for awhile, and things start getting serious, might be good... But that's beside the point, because it isn't a necessity.

I regard myself as a woman. I'm no less a woman than anybody else in here or any cis girl out there. Are you trying to say that those of us pre op or non op are less of, or are simply not a woman? Yeah, I'm trans. So are you. Big deal. It's not a big deal, as you say - so why are you so adamant about dropping the prefix and worried that people might see you as trans? Are you ashamed of it?

I'd also like to point out (again) that I don't go around telling everyone I meet that I'm trans. I'm actually quite stealth. Not even my employer knows that I'm trans (unless they paid attention to my drivers license when they scanned it into their system). But I think out of respect of peoples beliefs or how they perceive their sexual identity (and for my own personal safety), it's important that I tell people that want to be romantically involved with me. I was expressing that to everybody in this thread. But a few of the people in this thread do not care how being involved with us sexually may not agree with their interest if they knew the truth. Sad if you ask me how people can be so reckless.

Also, I think it's a shame that you would try to put words in my mouth that I obviously did not say. You made it sound like we need to disclose it to EVERYBODY. IDC what you tell everybody... but I do think it's absolutely wrong to not tell somebody you're prepared to enter into a long term relationship with. Like I said (for the 3rd time), they may have reasons that they are absolutely against it for THEM to sleep around with a transsexual - pre or post op.

Quote from: TessaM on December 27, 2012, 08:27:18 PM
Im not quite sure what your trying to say here, I really don't want to come off as stupid or rude but were you calling me a moron?  I don't quite understand what you mean by claiming to have had a childhood of a boy (I suppose I agree because I do not believe I had a boys childhood since...I AM A GIRL!)

I dont think anyone should be stealth BECAUSE the future where everyone is completely accepted will come sooner rather than later, but to each their own.

I'm saying I would be a moron if I thought someone whom completely was transitioned at the age of 6 would have enough of their childhood affected by the being trans.

My -point- is, this argument is simply moot given A: no one in this thread was completely transitioned at the age of 6 and B: At this point in time, the number of stealth living adults who transitioned at the age of 6 is likely around 0.001%.

And while your internal gender was that of a girl, did you appear a girl and did society address you as "her" etc though your childhood? Were you treated as a girl? People who had a childhood as a girl were.  Even just being aware of having a gender conflict is a different life experience than non-trans people have.

Quote from: TessaM on December 28, 2012, 07:16:02 AM
I completely disagree with you here, Annah. If Jazz is living full time as female at the age of 6 then she DID transition. Here we now have an example of someone who transitioned at the age of 6.

I am 20 years old right now, and I have still not had my surgery (I sent in my application to my healthcare provider I should get an answer back in 3-4 months as to whether or not I am covered im sure I will be) so hopefully i'll get SRS this summer, at the age of 21. MY NAME IS NOT YET LEGALLY CHANGED EITHER. Have I thus not transitioned, in your opinion?

Also, I wasn't "experimenting" with myself I knew I was a girl and what being trans was all about at age 4. Taking those pills at 19 was the beggining of my transition. Also never leaving the house without makeup, girly clothing, id say at WORST I presented as "androgenous."

you can disagree with me all you want but if Jazzy herself told me she is nowhere near fully transitioned then I will take her word for it over your word of what you think Jazzy feels.

Quote from: muuu on December 28, 2012, 04:44:48 AM
Since stephe mentioned that barely anybody transitioned at 19,

Uh no I didn't. Someone keeps brings up this "what about the people who have transitioned at age 6". THAT is what I said hasn't happened. I said absolutely nothing about late teens. At that point you have lived 20 years of your developing life being treated and seen as a guy.

Maybe today some children are being allowed to grow up as their correct gender but those people are not adults yet living stealth and lying to their life partners about their past. And I have a feeling those kids won't be ashamed of their past and feel any need to cover anything up. The percentage of adults living stealth today who were fully transitioned world wide can't be more than 0.001%. Even bringing that point up is more gender theory trying to make excuses for their behavior.

Quote from: TessaM on December 28, 2012, 07:16:02 AM
I completely disagree with you here, Annah. If Jazz is living full time as female at the age of 6 then she DID transition. Here we now have an example of someone who transitioned at the age of 6.

OK so is Jazz an adult, living 100% total stealth lying to her life partner about her past?  Please lets see this large group of adult stealth people who transitioned at this age you guys kept bringing up.

Quote from: Carlita on December 28, 2012, 07:52:50 AM

I dream of a day when I can go shopping with a girlfriend, have lunch together and just be her girlfriend too ... I'd love to go to a Pilates class and have the other women treat me exactly the same way (good or bad) as they would any of the other women there ... I want to be able to join my village's all-female book club (or one like it in another town or village), go on a girls' holiday ... bump into another woman in the street or at the store and go off for a cup of coffee and a gossip together.

And all I ever wanted to know from this thread is: can my dreams ever possibly come true?

This is my life you described and I'm not 100% stealth. My whole reason for posting in this thread was to debunk this assumption some people have that to live this sort of life you -have to- relocate, dump your friends and family and start living a new life stealth to be accepted as you just described.

Quote from: TessaM on December 28, 2012, 11:46:59 AM
Ok she hasn't "fully" transitioned in her opinion but has she not transitioned? And your language in your reply to me earlier was rather condescending (as is this one) and implied that I had no idea about transitioning when I had first started taking hormones at 19. I replied to your post in an attempt to clear up what you may have assumed.

Im not the only one who felt that way about your earlier post either

Tessa, no offense, but you find anyone who disagrees with you as language that is condescending. I don't know you. I neither like you or dislike you. If I am condescending to you, you would def know it...trust me. You found Stephe's language as condescending too when you thought she called you a moron. You were mistaken with that as well. Just because I disagree with you does not mean i am being condescending.

Back on topic, in Jazzy's mind she has not fully transitioned. That's what I've been trying to tell you. She has informed me and a lot of other people she is nowhere near done in her transition...not even in her mind she feels fully and completely transitioned. Nowhere near close.

Saying you're a girl and taking some birth control may constitute "fully transitioned" to some but to others this is not fully transitioned. You cannot take your experience and interpretation of "fully transitioned" and apply it to other people. What works for you will not work for other people.

Which brings me to the issue of dating. Saying you're a girl, taking some hormones and then dating a guy and not telling him may result in some bad consequences because that guy you are keeping secrets from may not appreciate your definition of what a girl is and there are times when some guys react adversely to that...like the girls on the National Transgender Day of Remembrance Wall..the girls who were murdered because someone told their boyfriends they were dating a trans and the guy flipped out and kill his gf. To that guy, his philosophy of transition and what is a girl was horribly different than the transgender's view. Hence, why ..if you are serious about someone, you tell them and not hide it or lie about it.

Quote from: Stephe on December 28, 2012, 11:49:23 AM
This is my life you described and I'm not 100% stealth. My whole reason for posting in this thread was to debunk this assumption some people have that to live this sort of life you -have to- relocate, dump your friends and family and start living a new life stealth to be accepted as you just described.

Thanks - that's good to know!

Quote from: Annah on December 28, 2012, 11:55:01 AM
To that guy, his philosophy of transition and what is a girl was horribly different than the transgender's view. Hence, why ..if you are serious about someone, you tell them and not hide it or lie about it.

But Annah... if you transition you are no longer a transsexual! To acknowledge your past would apparently make you less of a woman according to some on this thread...

Quote from: Stephe on December 28, 2012, 11:28:06 AM.

And while your internal gender was that of a girl, did you appear a girl and did society address you as "her" etc though your childhood? Were you treated as a girl? People who had a childhood as a girl were.  Even just being aware of having a gender conflict is a different life experience than non-trans people have.

We all have different life experiences, even my sister and brother have had very different lives than me.  The thing that makes this condition we have different from all the other histories that can be had by women, and why some people think we need to disclose every detail of our pasts, however painful some of it may be for us to think of, is that people HATE us for having it.  That's why they think of this condition as being like leprosy.  Eewwww, don't touch it!   It better never trick me into touching it!

Do you get that?  Hate?  If y'all want to talk about things that are wrong, that's wrong.  I really don't care how anything I do makes a monster full of contempt feel.  I'm not going to let anybody's misplaced or misinformed hatred of me dictate how I handle my life and my relationships.  Please don't believe anybody that tells you having our history is contemptible.  It isn't.   We don't have to sew big A's on our shirts, we don't need to wear pink triangles on our sleeves. We don't have to tell anybody anything we don't want to.  We are women, period.

That being said I have no problem talking openly about my past with people who I feel will still see me as being 100% woman.  People I fear would see me as a man or something other than a woman if they knew, I will never tell.  I do not feel bad about it.  I feel it lets them see me for who I am.  To me, that is less dishonest than helping them see me as being something I'm not.  I also would not date such a person, because why would I date a monster?  Being a monster is very unattractive to me.

Quote from: muuu on December 28, 2012, 12:44:59 PM
This is kinda contradicting...

Hmm..

Quote from: muuu on December 28, 2012, 12:44:59 PM
If it isn't a big deal, there's no reason to tell anyone about it, right?
People knowing you are trans WILL change their opinion about you, I would not want to cause unnecessary confusion to whoever I am with (friends mainly). You can't just close your eyes for reality and think that nobody cares about it, because they do and will judge you differently.

Oh.

Quote from: muuu on December 28, 2012, 12:44:59 PM
But I just really don't get it... It's not ok that possibly step on somebodies boundaries (because of social stigma, really nothing else), but it's perfectly ok to constantly discriminate and imposing self-defeat on yourself?

Excuse me? Self-defeat? I didn't know being honest with somebody you may potentially love, and possibly saving your own life by doing so is self-defeating.

Quote from: muuu on December 28, 2012, 12:44:59 PM
It's not wrong to not be stealth. But judging people who are stealth as dishonest liars is wrong.

But calling those of us who are up front with something that generally concerns most people in a sexual relationship is self-defeating. And that's not judgemental at all, is it?

Quote from: muuu on December 28, 2012, 12:44:59 PM
But I just really don't get it... It's not ok that possibly step on somebodies boundaries (because of social stigma, really nothing else), but it's perfectly ok to constantly discriminate and imposing self-defeat on yourself? People should take care of themselves, if there's somebody that has an issue about something, it's their problem to ask/figure out if such an issue is present.

What I really don't get is how somebody can only think of themselves and their beliefs. At least I can respect a guys beliefs that, for example, maybe he is going to hell if he dates me (even though I completely don't agree with that). Oh! "People should take care of themselves, if there's somebody that has an issue about something, it's their problem to ask/figure out if such an issue is present." ... taking care of yourself can't happen when some psycho figures it out and kills you because you "turned him gay" and "now he's going to hell". But take care of yourself while you further the (incorrect) notion that we are dishonest gay people that want to trick other men into being gay.

But what I say is contradicting...

Anyways, I think you'll find as life goes on (and as your transition gets deeper),  you'll realize that being 100% stealth is impossible. Sure, you can get to 99% unclockable, but people will clock you, it might get back to who ever, and you'll have to move to another town. It's funny too, because when people clock you, you may not know. I bet you think you would know because evvvverybody treats us trannies differently, but in reality, they don't. I've surprised friends that thought others to be homophobes, and when word got to them they STILL treated me the same as they did the day before they knew.

But if 100% stealth makes you happy, go ahead. You'll find in the end you're just erasing every step you've taken along the way. Every "mistake" must be covered and not talked about - forgotten. You'll become an enigma that people will just find quirky. The more you hide, the more people will either question you, or just flat out avoid you. But good luck with that 100% normal cis-girl life that you've always wanted. It's totally different than being a very passable, very down to earth and easy to deal with transsexual. Because us transsexuals are just so horrible towards society that we must hide our past at all costs, less we be treated like freaks.

EDIT: Since sarcasm is very hard to detect over the internet, the last few sentences are sarcasm.

Quote from: TessaM on December 28, 2012, 11:51:22 AM
What are you talking about?

Did I EVER once say Jazz was an adult?
That she was living stealth?

NO NO NO NO NO

Honestly while I read your posts, I haven't read the pages and pages of gender theory/excuses O_O wrote. I don't know who brought up this "Well what about someone who transitioned at the age of 6" nonsense but it has absolutely nothing to do with the discussion because that adult doesn't exist.

Quote from: Jen on December 28, 2012, 12:32:35 PM
The thing that makes this condition we have different from all the other histories that can be had by women, and why some people think we need to disclose every detail of our pasts, however painful some of it may be for us to think of, is that people HATE us for having it.

I rarely have experienced this and "every detail" isn't what anyone is talking about.

Quote from: Jen on December 28, 2012, 12:32:35 PM
We don't have to sew big A's on our shirts, we don't need to wear pink triangles on our sleeves. We don't have to tell anybody anything we don't want to.  We are women, period.

That being said I have no problem talking openly about my past with people who I feel will still see me as being 100% woman.  People I fear would see me as a man or something other than a woman if they knew, I will never tell.  I do not feel bad about it.  I feel it lets them see me for who I am.  To me, that is less dishonest than helping them see me as being something I'm not.  I also would not date such a person, because why would I date a monster?  Being a monster is very unattractive to me.

I agree 100% with this. I don't wear a sign on my back and 90% of people I interact with I have no reason to share details about myself anyway.

I just don't understand how someone could plan to spend the rest of their life with someone and think they can become intimately close to them in a loving relationship yet keep this from them because they fear this person would hate them if they knew.

Quote from: Alainaluvsu on December 28, 2012, 01:50:38 PM
But good luck with that 100% normal cis-girl life that you've always wanted. It's totally different than being a very passable, very down to earth and easy to deal with transsexual. Because us transsexuals are just so horrible towards society that we must hide our past at all costs, less we be treated like freaks.

EDIT: Since sarcasm is very hard to detect over the internet, the last few sentences are sarcasm.

You're right, this is what some people believe.

And yes 20 years ago they might have been right. Maybe in some ultra conservative small town full of bigots, they might still be right. Why anyone would want to live somewhere like that is beyond me or want to date someone who "hates transsexuals" is also beyond me. The world is has changed and this whole "You have to be 100% stealth or you will be seen as a freak of nature by everyone" just isn't true anymore.

Quote from: muuu on December 28, 2012, 02:32:11 PM
It is self-defeating, you're making yourself as something less than you actually are. You feel a need to point out that you're not like a normal person, lowering your own value.

I seriously don't see how me pointing out something about myself that may concern somebody singles me out and lowers my value as a normal person. And really, you're belittling us because we actually see a point in telling somebody who is sexually involved with us, something about our sex?

Quote from: muuu on December 28, 2012, 02:32:11 PM
I'm sure there are lots of mentally instable guys who will think they're going to hell for lots of other reasons too... If they're that concerned about it, if they aren't actually making sure they don't make a mistake. Then it's their own fault.
You don't have to date a psycho... It can't be that hard to notice if a guy is a potential murderer or not. And it'd probably be a priority to figure out if he's homophobic, transphobic, racist or completely insecure, I'm pretty sure that will show.

I don't have to date a psycho. But there are plenty of people out there that hide their psychoness pretty well. And he doesn't have to be a potential murderer, he could just freak out when he finds out and he beat the crap out of you.

But that's not the point at all. You seem to think that, since I (or others) respect others wishes, that makes us less than. I might not agree with them but I'm damn sure not going to lead them into thinking I was born as a female when I wasn't for many reasons. For 1, I want a relationship that I can be worry-free about. For 2, I want him to trust me always, and if he finds out - well there goes that trust. For 3 I do respect peoples beliefs. For 4 I'd like to be able to share anything I want about my life without hoping I don't slip up and say something that might unmask me. For 5 love can be violent, and sometimes twisted people get wrapped up in love with good people. I'd rather not end up a statistic. For 6, I would love the world to drop the whole thought that we are doing this to trick men. Get caught doing it, and guess how you'll be seen. Guess how the next trans they come across will be seen.

I'd also like to say that months before I transitioned, I thought it'd be okay to hold the info when I'm post op. But then I transitioned and realized it can be kinda hard to cover up your past! Go ahead, transition and find out for yourself...

Kia Ora,

Re: Can we ever be "one of the girls"?

::) In all honesty 'Only time will tell !' Think about it !

::) Some think 'so' whilst others think 'not'...

:eusa_think: On ones 'individual' journey of self acceptance and self discovery [which it would seem is onging]and the experience one picks up along the way....It would seem the only practical/sensible answer to this gender-identity-forecast conundrum is "Only time will tell !"

Metta Zenda :)

Quote from: muuu on December 28, 2012, 05:03:04 PM
I don't know, If you think you're wrong enough that you need to tell everyone about that issue, I think it's a bit self-defeating. There are so many other things a partner could have issues with...

Wrong? no. There's nothing wrong with who we are. Period. Honest because I don't have a problem with it and if he does... then oh well? That's more my line of thinking. And everybody? No. Like I said earlier, I'm stealth in pretty much every aspect of my life except close friends, family, and relationships. The only reason I'm open to being trans with close friends is because - well - Facebook. "Add me!" "Oh you're trans!" :P ... Wrong? I'd rather just not give a good gosh damn and let people know so I can go along with being myself and not wonder "Do they know? Should I keep my mouth shut about this situation because it might reveal me?" ... believe me, that can get pretty stressful.

On the flip side, IDK why you think it's so wrong that you feel you "don't need to tell anybody". Hell, you're so worried about anybody "thinking" of you like anything less than a girl that you're willing to cut off ties with anybody who does care about you. Why are you going to put yourself through all that headache, danger, etc? Just so people don't think about you differently? That doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. To me you're not disclosing something that, in a relationship, many men consider very important. That's something that many men will end a long term relationship over. Why would you put yourself in a position to go down that road only to have your heart broken over something that you convince yourself (and others) that it's no big deal? And the risks... Honey let me tell you something.  60% of us get assaulted because we are trans. One of us is murdered every 72 hours. You think these are mostly by random people that clock you, or by lovers that found out?

Quote from: muuu on December 28, 2012, 05:03:04 PM
Then I don't know... It's not the TSs fault, just him being not open/rational enough to realize he did enjoy it.

Maybe not, but I still understand that many men do not want to get romantically tied to a trans girl. But look... put yourself in that risk and find out for yourself. The biggest reason I'm against other trans women not disclosing, is because at this time, in our culture, we are STILL seen as the bad ones when we are outed in a relationship. Most of the world still sympathizes with those closed minded, irrational people. Every time something like this comes into the news, guess who looks bad? All of us. Unfairly so, but it's just reality.

Quote from: muuu on December 28, 2012, 05:03:04 PM
1. I don't think a relationship can ever be worry-free.
2. Well, I think if he would find out he would feel you couldn't trust him, not that he couldn't trust you (still not a good thing though)... Assuming he takes it well. If he doesn't it'd be over anyway...
3. You're already assuming them, if they never mentioned that they don't want to date an MtF... then you're not really disrespecting their believes.
4. Yeah...
5. That has nothing to do with trans though >.>
6. The world having one more paranoid guy isn't going to change anything.

1. Yeah well I don't need my mind cluttered with the worry that I don't pass in the morning, either.
2. Either way, trust is compromised.
3. Then just tell them and find out already.
5. Being trans and being found out amplifies the chances of you being a statistic with nut jobs, I'm pretty sure.
6. Well I guess we're just going to disagree then. Fighting misconception is something this community is still struggling with. You seem to think our community needs to be less known and understood. I do not agree.

Quote from: muuu on December 28, 2012, 05:03:04 PM
Still, even as stealth, it'll probably come out sooner or later to somebody who they are in a long term relationship. If he then suddenly feels like he has been cheated and been with a man, not a woman, even though he enjoyed the relationship. Then I don't know... It's not the TSs fault, just him being not open/rational enough to realize he did enjoy it.

In a loving relationship it won't be the "been with a man, not a woman, even though he enjoyed the relationship" that will be the problem. If you don't tell him, you -assume- he would have a problem with this + all the lies he was told along the way that will be the problem. And yes it is the TS's fault when he finds out he was lied to. How is this his fault?

It's no different than lets say some girl wants to date this guy and he is very religious. So she goes to church with him and when they discuss this she explains how she went to church as a child. She lies about being baptized because that would throw up red flags. Then several years after they are living together he finds out she never went to church as a child and when he asks, she admits she made it all up. That she doesn't even believe in God and just made that up too to keep him happy. He would have every right to be pissed that she lied about this and assumed he wouldn't be interested in her unless she had.

A loving relationship is based on honesty and trust, I have told my partner things I have never told anyone and he has back. It's this trust and sharing that creates intimacy. Without that, it's just a sex partner.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cTtq9KPTgs (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cTtq9KPTgs)

Trans Purpose and why some trans identified people won't ever allow you to just be one of the girls.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3nQGiW9VIM (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3nQGiW9VIM)

Protect your Dreams.

People who tell you that you cannot do something and then give you reasons why you cannot do it...

Those are their reasons for why they can't do what you want to do. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFBmzgqNBO0 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFBmzgqNBO0)

Quote from: Stephe on December 28, 2012, 09:20:49 PM
In a loving relationship it won't be the "been with a man, not a woman, even though he enjoyed the relationship" that will be the problem. If you don't tell him, you -assume- he would have a problem with this + all the lies he was told along the way that will be the problem. And yes it is the TS's fault when he finds out he was lied to. How is this his fault?

[/b]

Stephe you are making a lot of assumptions.  Your first assumption is that the trans woman in question is not sharing that she transitioned because she believes her partner would have a problem with her being trans. First of all just because you identify as trans doesn't mean that other people identify as trans.  Trans is very obviously and important aspect about yourself, your assumption is that being trans is something other people experience in the same way that you experience it.  Some of us are women who transitioned and some of us are trans women.  Trans women tend to place much more emphasis on being trans.  Women who transition tend not to adopt or hold onto trans as an identity, they tend to identify as female.  My truth is that I have always been female.  Transition was a way for me to have a female life.  I don't have any reason to hold onto being trans so why would I use being trans as a way to limit myself, so I can be like you?

Your next assumption is that women who transition who do not consider being trans as part of their core identity are liars.  You assume that anyone who doesn't share some aspect of their past is a liar.  You also assume that in all relationships people must share details about their past.  I have found this to absolutely not be the case.  In my own experience sharing details about the past tends to be an attempt to connect when there isn't a good connection.  In the best relationships I have experienced a little mystery was always more interesting than mundane facts from the past.  I realize you consider being trans something that is very important, some of us consider it a mundane fact from the past.  That doesn't make us liars, it just means that our truths are different.  You choose to believe you are trans for life and that it is an important aspect of your self that absolutely must be shared with a partner.  No one is trying to deprive you of your truth so why are you attempting to force others to be like you and deny what is true for them?

You stated that it is the TSs fault when a man finds out he has been lied to.  This exposes your personal truth about yourself and your truth is that a TS is not a real woman and must confess to being something other than a Cis female or she deserves to be a victim.  You also absolve the man of any guilt by saying that not accepting the TS woman as female is the TSs fault, not his fault.  You side with people who view TS women as not actually being women.  You are welcome to believe as you choose but forcing others to adopt your moralistic reasoning and victim blaming don't belong on any "support" forum, at least not in my own opinion.

Quote from: Stephe on December 28, 2012, 09:20:49 PMIt's no different than lets say some girl wants to date this guy and he is very religious. So she goes to church with him and when they discuss this she explains how she went to church as a child. She lies about being baptized because that would throw up red flags. Then several years after they are living together he finds out she never went to church as a child and when he asks, she admits she made it all up. That she doesn't even believe in God and just made that up too to keep him happy. He would have every right to be pissed that she lied about this and assumed he wouldn't be interested in her unless she had.

I realize that meant something to you.  It didn't mean anything to me, it wasn't the same thing as being my true sex after transition, not by a long shot.  It only supports what you believe and your assumptions.  It serves to support your opinions but that doesn't make it right.

Quote from: Stephe on December 28, 2012, 09:20:49 PMA loving relationship is based on honesty and trust, I have told my partner things I have never told anyone and he has back. It's this trust and sharing that creates intimacy. Without that, it's just a sex partner.

Your model for a relationship works for you and that's great.  But forcing your model of a "loving relationship" on others who do not share your values or beliefs is not the right thing to do.  Telling your partner things you have never told anyone else may work for you, that does not mean it will work for everyone.  Not everyone wants to hear it.  Sharing details from your past may equal "intimacy" to you, for others sharing the present may seem more meaningful.  If I choose to define myself with the past then the present will be a continuation of the past.  We all carry forward what we value, what is meaningful and true.  Your truth is being trans after transition.  Not everyone shares your truth.  Just let others live their lives and let go of trying to control people.  Support people.  Share but don't tell people what is right or wrong.  I have tried to give other people on this website an alternative to your prescription because I feel that forcing others to be like you is oppression.  The more I attempt to allow others to make up their minds, the more others try to stop me.  Why is that?

The Matrix clip explains it for me.

Also a woman who transitioned can be loving and trustworthy, even if she doesn't share what for her is a mundane fact from her past (that she transitioned).  Transition very obviously means different things to different people.  Some trans people believe that trans women are men who want to live like women, therefore they should never fool a partner.  Apparently these trans people believe it's okay to lie some of the time, just not all the time.  I propose that not all women who transition are lying by just being women.  I realize that sounds morally wrong to someone who does not accept trans women like I do.

you can kinda merge those seven posts into one, 0_0.  ;)

Muuu, it has utterly nothing to do with us being ashamed of who we are. I am very proud of who I am. It isn't every day that someone can say they have experienced both genders. So your explanation of us telling those we love as who we are is completely off base.

Alaina explained it correctly by stating this is more of an honesty issue. Has nothing to do with being ashamed of being a woman fully.

When you date someone and it becomes intimate, they will find out. The only way you can lie to someone you love and get away with it is by moving to another country, disowning your family and friend and any past you ever had.

That is not any healthy base of any good relationship. You cannot hide your past from someone you are in a relationship...it's next to impossible....unless you were born and raised in an orphanage and disowned every person in your past...and never have them go to any type of hospital with you for whatever reason.

The only way you can remotely get away with your logic is by being post op and having one night stands or dumping the guy whenever it gets serious. Many of us are not into those types of relationships.

And as I said before, I don't think half of you ever had a post transitioned relationship...because the way you all are talking there's no way your "ideals" will work in a practical situation....unless its for one night stands or hookups.

But whatever floats your boat.

Quote from: Annah on December 28, 2012, 10:42:36 PM
you can kinda merge those seven posts into one, 0_0.  ;)

Muuu, it has utterly nothing to do with us being ashamed of who we are. I am very proud of who I am. It isn't every day that someone can say they have experienced both genders. So your explanation of us telling those we love as who we are is completely off base.

It is fantastic that you are proud of what you are.  What you fail to realize is that you get to decide what you are but you don't get to decide what anyone else is.  You have decided what women who transition are, I would prefer you speak for yourself and stop attempting to define everyone else.

Quote from: Annah on December 28, 2012, 10:42:36 PMAlaina explained it correctly by stating this is more of an honesty issue. Has nothing to do with being ashamed of being a woman fully.

It's an "honesty" issue based upon your personal "truth", what you consider to be the truth about Annah.  You are unable to appreciate that other people have their own truth but it doesn't stop there, you intend to prevent others from experiencing the truth they hold dear.  Why doesn't Annah focus on Annah or offer support instead of restriction?  It seems as though you intend to destroy our flesh so that our souls may be saved.  Please save the moralizing for the Religion section of the forum.

If you aren't ashamed of us being women, why is it your intention to place limitations upon us?

Quote from: Annah on December 28, 2012, 10:42:36 PMWhen you date someone and it becomes intimate, they will find out. The only way you can lie to someone you love and get away with it is by moving to another country, disowning your family and friend and any past you ever had.

You stated an assumption as a fact, shame on you Annah.  Also you assume that "finding out" will be a bad thing.  You continue to call people liars based upon assumptions, opinions and fear-mongering.  This isn't about us Annah, ask yourself why this issue is so important to you.

Quote from: Annah on December 28, 2012, 10:42:36 PMThat is not any healthy base of any good relationship. You cannot hide your past from someone you are in a relationship...it's next to impossible....unless you were born and raised in an orphanage and disowned every person in your past...and never have them go to any type of hospital with you for whatever reason.

Opinions, assumptions and fear-mongering stated as fact (again).  The past isn't what we are Annah.  Our being female is not a lie.  Your failure to accept us does not imply any failure on our part.

Quote from: Annah on December 28, 2012, 10:42:36 PMThe only way you can remotely get away with your logic is by being post op and having one night stands or dumping the guy whenever it gets serious. Many of us are not into those types of relationships.

Opinions, assumptions and fear-mongering stated as fact.  Feel free to share your experiences but please understand that your experiences and assumptions do not = absolutes or even truths.

Quote from: Annah on December 28, 2012, 10:42:36 PMAnd as I said before, I don't think half of you ever had a post transitioned relationship...because the way you all are talking there's no way your "ideals" will work in a practical situation....unless its for one night stands or hookups.

But whatever floats your boat.

Obviously what floats your boat is stating opinions and assumptions as facts, that and fear-mongering.

Why are you so concerned how other people live their lives?

I offer an alternative to what I feel is rampant oppression.

I haven't told anyone what is right or what is wrong, I let people decide for themselves.  Why do you have to inflict your own moralisms on us?  Am I in Church?  Is being a woman who transitioned the big lie that you say it is?  Is transition a sin unless you realize it is just pretend?

The thread made me think of this clip

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyNyHark4xk (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyNyHark4xk)

Considering this issue, nobody is perfect.   Too, when gets to be 66 I know I have a lot of history that most people in my present are never going to know.  Some of it good, some bad, and some what some people may consider ugly.   Nobody is going to ever know all of the thoughts I have had.   I also realize that most people don't want to know my full history and I really don't want to know the other persons.   What matters to me is what kind of person you are now.  As a female I am past the time of having any children and I still have all my male parts and very few female parts.    So I have to accept that I can only be a Male to Female transgender.      I also have 53 years of male history including 10 children and two spouses that have known my male side.   My current spouse has seen mostly my female side.    At the most if I were to be stealth,  I would to have to keep away from intimate relationships and the party scene.

On just an acquaintance basis, I might have a chance of being at some level stealth.   Now its different for transgender teenagers.    They have most of their lives ahead of them.   They will have most of the rest of their lives as themselves.    There bodies will match their genders more closely than those of use who transition at older ages.   Should they have to explain all of their lives that they were born the opposite sex?    Why?  They will have to explain that they can't father or give birth to children.   

All of their legal papers except their original birth certificate will say that they are either male or female and even that be legally hidden.   Yes if they have an extreme medical emergency and they have a genetics test it will show that genetically they are a different sex.   At that point they will have to deal with that issue.   

But basically they aren't lying and as time goes on most of their early years as their birth sex will just disappear.    They just have to be very careful that their spouses are not violent and prejudice people against the GLBTQ community and that they are willing to accept them for whom they are warts and all.   This doesn't mean that transgender children will have to explain they are transgender all of their lives.   Everyone has the right to some private life nobody else knows and they will not have to explain.   

Individuals who transition as teenagers will have very little history living as their birth sex when they reach 66 years old.    So I feel that each person has to come to terms with what they feel others have a right to know about themselves or not.     Each of our families may have histories and traditions which other people may have strong feelings against.    Many people leave this family history behind and separate themselves from it choosing to keep it private and not explain it to the people they marry and become emotionally close to.   Transitioning at an early age could well be one of those things.   The longer we wait to transition the more history we have as our birth sex and the less likely we will be to be able to keep our transitioning private so telling those we bring into our lives will become more and more necessary.   

At 66 years old if I were to win the $10,000,0000 lottery and I could afford to physically change my body totally female,  I would still have to explain that I was transgender if I were not to disappear from my family because too many people know my history.

i feel that when we discuss this issue of rather we should out ourselves to our loved ones who don't know really depends upon where we are in the human life cycle, so we should really try and be more understanding.    Each person has a right to a private side of their lives.   All of us have them.    Many people we become involved with are going to keep a lot of things private from us.    What I really feel is important to know it how the person we become involved with is going to respond in a crisis.   Will they become angry, violent, hostile, and become physically violent and abusive?    Will they or will we become controlling and possessive and emotionally dependent upon the other person or they on us?   If this is possible then may we should just walk away quietly.

0_0, every thread and post makes you think of a youtube clip lol

Quote from: O_O on December 28, 2012, 10:31:32 PM

Stephe you are making a lot of assumptions.  Your first assumption is that the trans woman in question is not sharing that she transitioned because she believes her partner would have a problem with her being trans. First of all just because you identify as trans doesn't mean that other people identify as trans.

Where did I say that? I am saying you will have to lie about your past or avoid the topic altogether which will seem very weird to anyone.

And why else would you not share this fact with someone you love unless -you assume- it would affect the way they feel about you?

Quote from: O_O on December 28, 2012, 10:31:32 PM

You stated that it is the TSs fault when a man finds out he has been lied to.  This exposes your personal truth about yourself and your truth is that a TS is not a real woman and must confess to being something other than a Cis female or she deserves to be a victim.  You also absolve the man of any guilt by saying that not accepting the TS woman as female is the TSs fault, not his fault.  You side with people who view TS women as not actually being women.  You are welcome to believe as you choose but forcing others to adopt your moralistic reasoning and victim blaming don't belong on any "support" forum, at least not in my own opinion.

LOL victim blaming? So you believe if someone is stealth, is in a relationship and he finds out, the TS is a victim? I never said "It's OK for him to becomes violent" and if he did then yes the TS is a victim of the violence. But if he simply got pissed off and left her over finding out she has been lting to him, who is to blame? What exactly did the guy do here that was wrong?

And where did I say anywhere that you are still trans or that a TS isn't a real woman? Or come up with this "You side with people who view TS women as not actually being women." Here is a hint on why that isn't the case, I'm a woman.  This TS women aren't real women seems to be what you feel. Earlier in this thread you explained only a stealth TS can be "one of the girls". If a TS woman -is- a real woman why would you feel people have to hide this to be accepted as one?

And yes, if you never tell your -life partner- your past, it's a lie by omission. Maybe you don't think it's important but you are assuming for them it's not. Maybe it is, maybe they could care less. But you are never giving them the chance to make this choice, you have decided for them what is important. A sexual relationship assumes something kinda critical to the relationship... you get one guess here what that is. To say something like a sex change should have no bearing nor be of any importance in a sexual relationship is.. IDK crazy talk is the only thing that comes to mind.

I found this quote actually quite sad, " Telling your partner things you have never told anyone else may work for you, that does not mean it will work for everyone.  Not everyone wants to hear it." You're right, one night stands, friends with benefits and -sex partners- don't want to hear intimate things about you. Someone that really loves you will.

Quote from: O_O on December 28, 2012, 11:18:21 PM
Why doesn't Annah focus on Annah or offer support instead of restriction? 

Opinions, assumptions and fear-mongering stated as fact (again).

You seem to forget you were the one who explained: there is no way anyone will accept someone as "on of the girls" unless they are -stealth like me-. Seems like you have "restricted" acceptance as a woman to people who follow your chosen path.

And then you say Annah is "fear mongering" and I am "victim blaming" lol!

OK kids, it's chill time (tm).

The choice to disclose about trans status depends on factors unique to each person as is the choice of reaction by their partner. This never has or will take away the responsibilities by either party to either disclose before intimate encounters (for pre-surgery people), or to walk away if one does not agree to being with the other (our mythical hair-trigger partner).

This will be unlocked in a day or whenever a mod feels like it can continue.