Ok, I was reading this thread: 'On Dominant Narratives and Why Trans People Lie': https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,128050.0.html (https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,128050.0.html). It's an interesting one and I wanted to add my 2p, but it's an ancient one and everyone has probably moved on to think about other things, so I thought this can probably stand up as a new thread.... I'm sorry I rambled a bit, lol... I have split it up to make it easier to read though; if you want to...
On lying and trans stock phrases
I also have used the 'official trans catch phrases', in the past, when trying to explain myself to people. I wouldn't say I was lying when I used them. It was more a case that I was young when I started trying to tell people what I was feeling and I didn't have the vocabulary to do it very well. Also, if you're in a stressful situation being asked lots of challenging questions that are very difficult to answer, it's easy to use some of the stock phrases as a fall back position.
If I was transitioning, I expect I might well still say to some people 'I always knew I was a woman', because if you are talking to someone who isn't really going to challenge what that actually means, it's a whole lot quicker and easier than a more in depth discussion... especially if the depth of their response is only really does this mean you want to wear dresses and have sex with men, lol.
On having always known
The 'always known I was a woman (or man)' thing is interesting too, because that's another thing I have said in the past, but something I have refined my thinking on since. I think what people say about it has a lot to do with the way they think as well as what their experiences have been.
I am not someone who 'just believes' anything. I like to consider the evidence and then I may agree with a theory based on that evidence, until new evidence comes along which says that theory is wrong. If there isn't enough information then I just say to myself, ok, this is a question which isn't answerable at the moment.
Even ignoring very early memories of events where ascribing meaning to them later would only be conjecture and just considering more concrete ones involving feeling either one is or feels like one should be a woman – I still can't personally conclude they tell me I always knew I was a woman – no matter how far back they go or how many of them there are.
On what it means to feel like a woman or a man
What does it actually mean to feel like a woman (or a man) anyway? It's not an answerable question, because it's subjective. I think, that as best I know, my consciousness and thoughts are merely a product of electrical impulses in my brain and I don't have any kind of spiritual existence beyond that (though that sounds like a nice idea!). Therefore, it isn't possible for me to feel like anything other than myself; any amount of subjective feeling I'm a woman or a man I might do is then just how my particular brain works.
The only conclusion I can then come to is that based on my experiences and what I feel, I can form a hypothesis that I may feel more comfortable interacting with the world perceived as female and if my body was female in form... and that hypothesis can be tested out by going out into the world and trying to interact with it as female. Which I suppose is how the medical profession came up with the 'real life experience / test' idea.
I can see that someone who thinks in a different way to me (say someone who believes they have a spirit) could take my experiences and memories and conclude they mean they always knew they were a woman... it's just not the way I think about things.
On when you can say 'I am a woman! (or a man!)'
That's not to say I don't think I can't also say 'I am a woman', if one thinks of 'woman' and 'man' as two overlapping fuzzy sets. Ok, I'm not in the same part of 'woman' as someone born female, but if I say that the overall set of woman includes people who identify as female then I feel it is quite legitimate for me to say 'I'm a woman'. (Ok, it means some people will think I'm a loony, lol, but that doesn't really matter).
It also, for me, makes it easier for me to get my head around the dichotomy of feeling 'I am a woman... but I was born with a male body and I look male so I must be male... erk!', etc, because I can think to myself and say actually – that's ok, logically it does add up because I just belong to both the set 'woman' and the set 'man'... so, I know it makes logical sense and maybe someday science will come up with an explanation of why my brain works like it does, and then uninformed people won't think I'm crazy! Lol
On the relevance of when or if people transition and some thoughts on young transitioners today
Lastly, I don't think in and of itself when people transition or if they transition at all really says anything about the underlying causes. Categorizing people in that way is grouping people by outcome not by underlying causes. You can make guesses about causes based on outcome but I don't think anything conclusive, because I think the outcomes are due to a complex interaction between biology, personality and societal factors.
I can look at myself and see how you could have lots of different outcomes. When I see young children and teenagers now saying and doing the things I've done and parents who just say ok I've heard of trans people, you must be trans, let me support you... ok, I feel a little bit envious and pleased to see things moving on, but I also feel worried for them and whether they will be, or have been, sufficiently challenged to think...
...I also feel slightly envious of people, in general, who don't analyse things like I do, and just seem to operate in the manner of 'ok I think this... I'll do that... without thinking too much',... hah, lol!
Quote from: Q on February 03, 2013, 10:37:07 AM
The 'always known I was a woman (or man)' thing is interesting too, because that's another thing I have said in the past, but something I have refined my thinking on since. I think what people say about it has a lot to do with the way they think as well as what their experiences have been.
I've used that because it's less likely to be countered. If I tell them that I always knew something was off or that I never fit into my assigned gender role, it leaves it open to speculation, then I may have to spend months explaining myself to someone that I shouldn't have to explain myself to.
Quote from: Q on February 03, 2013, 10:37:07 AM
What does it actually mean to feel like a woman (or a man) anyway? It's not an answerable question, because it's subjective. I think, that as best I know, my consciousness and thoughts are merely a product of electrical impulses in my brain and I don't have any kind of spiritual existence beyond that (though that sounds like a nice idea!). Therefore, it isn't possible for me to feel like anything other than myself; any amount of subjective feeling I'm a woman or a man I might do is then just how my particular brain works.
Finally! Someone with similar viewpoints to mine. When I say this to people, it either ends the thread or people stop talking to me lol. I don't actually look at myself as just electrical impluses, but I do look at my self as just a series of chemical reactions. I also agree that it would be nice to have a spiritual side though.
Quote from: Q on February 03, 2013, 10:37:07 AM
That's not to say I don't think I can't also say 'I am a woman', if one thinks of 'woman' and 'man' as two overlapping fuzzy sets. Ok, I'm not in the same part of 'woman' as someone born female, but if I say that the overall set of woman includes people who identify as female then I feel it is quite legitimate for me to say 'I'm a woman'. (Ok, it means some people will think I'm a loony, lol, but that doesn't really matter).
Interesting. Math specialization? Good analogy. I just haven't heard that phrase in a long time.
Quote from: Q on February 03, 2013, 10:37:07 AM
Lastly, I don't think in and of itself when people transition or if they transition at all really says anything about the underlying causes. Categorizing people in that way is grouping people by outcome not by underlying causes. You can make guesses about causes based on outcome but I don't think anything conclusive, because I think the outcomes are due to a complex interaction between biology, personality and societal factors.
Your causes are your own. It took me a while to realize this. I kept getting weirded out because I didn't seem to have the same causes as other people, which caused me to invalidate myself. There are two forms of dysphoria and I expect that we all have both of them, physical and gender. My physical dysphoria far outweighs my gender dysphoria. I'm still trying to deal with the gender side because it's like a moving target. On the physical side I have an absolute need to transition and transition now. I am so sick and tired of seeing the wrong body, I'm not sure how much longer I can take it.
Maybe I could actually physically transition without dealing with the gender issues and get by. I doubt it. That would be a very lonely experience, possibly more lonely than I am now. Right now I've chosen not to date because I can't take being seen as a man in a relationship. I'd imagine when I'm finally comfortable in my own skin that I'd have a need to have another relationship, but how can I do that if I'm not presenting myself as the gender norm of a woman? Anybody with me will be caught off guard as soon as we become intimate. So then I'm stuck. I disagree with assigning gender to traits, but since the rest of the world disagrees with me, I'm stuck conforming in order to be comfortable in my own skin. It's like I'm jumping out of one cage and into another.
I had quite a lot of problems with this article when it was first featured here.
This, from the original, for example:
QuoteI really couldn't tell you why trans* people have become so much more interesting to the media and acceptable to governments than they once were, but I welcome the change, since I'm one of them.
The answer is obvious. People like reading about us. To the public, were a sort of gay, but safe. In much the same way as the media like attractive lesbians, but gay men, (Elton John and David Furnish), are just queens. Sort of camp funny. Wouldn't want them around too often though.
Now, I knew. I always did. But the question should be, what it is that I knew?
I knew something wasn't right, that I didn't like playing with boys because they were rough, smelly and competitive. I was desperately unhappy when I was forced to be with them. But that was dismissed for me, as for many others like me, as a 4 year old being a coward!! Weak, needs toughening up.
But someone identified as a girl is allowed that leaway. They are allwoed, at an early age, right up until pubatry, to be tom boys. They can do boy things, play with boys and be competitve. They can always fall back into their 'natural femininity' if they get frightened. (When a boy does this he needs to be a man and grow up). (At 4 years old!!).
So I'm sorry, but the basic thesis is based upon a misunderstanding of the relative situations we find ourselves in.
Now let me add here, because I want to. Trangender people, born with female bodys have enormous problems to deal with. I am not in any way, suggesting otherwise. But because they have less pressure to conform to a gender stereo type, (usually, there are significant exceptions), it is quite normal for many FtM to figure things out later.
But I think they do still know.
Quote from: Emily52736 on February 03, 2013, 12:41:50 PM
Finally! Someone with similar viewpoints to mine. When I say this to people, it either ends the thread or people stop talking to me lol. I don't actually look at myself as just electrical impluses, but I do look at my self as just a series of chemical reactions. I also agree that it would be nice to have a spiritual side though.
Ah, yes. I can imagine it might cause a bit of debate. They are just two different ways of thinking about life though; not more or less legitimate. Really, there is no purpose to arguing about them, as neither side can, ultimately, prove or disprove the others arguments. If someone is happy, then that's great as far as I'm concerned.
Quote from: Emily52736 on February 03, 2013, 12:41:50 PM
Interesting. Math specialization? Good analogy. I just haven't heard that phrase in a long time.
You're right it is a math(s) inspired analogy – not that I would proclaim to be a mathematics expert though!
Quote from: Emily52736 on February 03, 2013, 12:41:50 PM
There are two forms of dysphoria and I expect that we all have both of them, physical and gender.
I did think about there being separate aspects of physical and role incongruence as I was writing, but didn't mention it because I thought I'd already written quite a bit. I would agree that one needs to consider what it is that one is experiencing, whether it's one or both and to what degree, etc. I was actually thinking that, in itself, the 'real life experience / test' concept mainly tests the role aspect, but not so much the physical aspect... and that that was why caution in respect of physical changes was probably wise, since it's not so easy to test likely reaction.
Quote from: Emily52736 on February 03, 2013, 12:41:50 PM
My physical dysphoria far outweighs my gender dysphoria. I'm still trying to deal with the gender side because it's like a moving target. On the physical side I have an absolute need to transition and transition now. I am so sick and tired of seeing the wrong body, I'm not sure how much longer I can take it.
Maybe I could actually physically transition without dealing with the gender issues and get by. I doubt it. That would be a very lonely experience, possibly more lonely than I am now. Right now I've chosen not to date because I can't take being seen as a man in a relationship. I'd imagine when I'm finally comfortable in my own skin that I'd have a need to have another relationship, but how can I do that if I'm not presenting myself as the gender norm of a woman? Anybody with me will be caught off guard as soon as we become intimate. So then I'm stuck. I disagree with assigning gender to traits, but since the rest of the world disagrees with me, I'm stuck conforming in order to be comfortable in my own skin. It's like I'm jumping out of one cage and into another.
It's a conundrum, for sure. I think it comes down to understanding that we can have issues whatever we do and working out how we feel most comfortable. Easier said than done of course at times, and we all have days when we just want to say 'pffff, logical thinking, what do I want to do that for' – and cry into our beer, lol.
Quote from: spacial on February 03, 2013, 01:53:49 PM
I had quite a lot of problems with this article when it was first featured here.
This, from the original, for example:
The answer is obvious. People like reading about us. To the public, were a sort of gay, but safe. In much the same way as the media like attractive lesbians, but gay men, (Elton John and David Furnish), are just queens. Sort of camp funny. Wouldn't want them around too often though.
Now, I knew. I always did. But the question should be, what it is that I knew?
I knew something wasn't right, that I didn't like playing with boys because they were rough, smelly and competitive. I was desperately unhappy when I was forced to be with them. But that was dismissed for me, as for many others like me, as a 4 year old being a coward!! Weak, needs toughening up.
But someone identified as a girl is allowed that leaway. They are allwoed, at an early age, right up until pubatry, to be tom boys. They can do boy things, play with boys and be competitve. They can always fall back into their 'natural femininity' if they get frightened. (When a boy does this he needs to be a man and grow up). (At 4 years old!!).
So I'm sorry, but the basic thesis is based upon a misunderstanding of the relative situations we find ourselves in.
Now let me add here, because I want to. Trangender people, born with female bodys have enormous problems to deal with. I am not in any way, suggesting otherwise. But because they have less pressure to conform to a gender stereo type, (usually, there are significant exceptions), it is quite normal for many FtM to figure things out later.
But I think they do still know.
I think there are pluses and minuses to living the role of a man or woman and we can all lament things the other side has that we don't, whether in childhood or adulthood. I can think of things I like and dislike about both, not that that changes my sense of self though.
I agree that there's a difference between how we express ourselves and how we feel about ourselves. Also, that there are differences in the leeway societies give to the genders to express themselves... Much as I might like to change how things are, I can't.
Quote from: spacial on February 03, 2013, 01:53:49 PM
Now let me add here, because I want to. Trangender people, born with female bodys have enormous problems to deal with. I am not in any way, suggesting otherwise. But because they have less pressure to conform to a gender stereo type, (usually, there are significant exceptions), it is quite normal for many FtM to figure things out later.
But I think they do still know.
I actually really agree with this. On some level, I was the 'significant exception', sent away to a hospital at 14 for being too inappropriately male for a girl. But I also don't think the pressure I experienced was anything like an effeminate boy experiences. Also, because I had such a dominant personality and was immune to peer pressure, I really didn't feel too much discomfort socially. I wasn't treated like the other girls. It was far more about my body for me. I mean, sure it bothered me that girls hated me. But there wasn't much I could do about that.
As for the OP, I won't say 'I've always known'. I did try to communicate it to my mother at a young age that I was a boy. But I certainly went into denial around puberty.
It always frustrates me because these phrases do nothing to deconstruct society's erroneous views on gender - "X trapped in a Y's body" implies that there are certain bodies that men and women should have to be considered men and women. "I've always known..." reinforces the idea that gender is a binary, and immutable (it is not a binary, and need not be immutable) In fact, I'd argue even the idea of biological sex itself is a method by which gender identities have been forced onto bodies seen as being a certain 'type'.
At the same time, I don't blame any trans people who do use these phrases - if they hold some level of truth for them on a personal level, that's absolutely fine. And it's incredibly difficult to elaborate on one's experiences with being transgender when the English language (and really, most other languages) are infused with the very same fallacious ideas about sex and gender that hurt us.
Out of all the stock phrases, though, the one that annoys me by far the most is 'born a man' - no one is born a man.
I haven't always known, but hindsight is definitely an interesting asset to possess.
You look back and you realize 'hmm that makes a lot more sense now'.
I wonder to myself, how can I know what it is to be a woman, having spent a life in a male body. But they you are left to wonder, ok, what makes a woman think having had the female body gives her a magical benefit over me? If I am not my sex organs, then neither is she and thus we can over rule her having them being a magical bonus.
So it comes down to 'what exactly is it to feel womanly?' And for that, it really comes down to what do we consider the ideal to be, and do we match the ideal?
As always there is a failure on semantics and definitions....this thread creates a confusion by mixing what is biological innate and what are social constructs...
So, biological speaking on the (Always Known) I would say that I always knew tthat my gender was female....
So, biologically speaking a postop MTF transsexual will know how it felt to have a penis and an erection, and also what it feels to be penetrated and have several orgasm... as a po-MTF would never know how is to be pregnant or deliver...but so is true for many cis-females....etc...So, yes we are all slaves to our gens and hormones yet that does not detract from the human experience of being true to your gender...
So, as far as social constructs...well, they are mine and I chose to make whatever I want out of them.. For example:
I do not use the term "transition" to refer to me but rather "abandoning the forced male role;
as a mature female who has single-handily raised 5 children, I consider myself a "woman;"
as a fashionist, culture-vulture, scholar and bon vivant woman, I consider myself a "Lady;"
as a lady of sciences devoted to my country, I consider myself a female warrior...
Quote from: peky on February 03, 2013, 06:46:26 PM
As always there is a failure on semantics and definitions....this thread creates a confusion by mixing what is biological innate and what are social constructs...
So, biological speaking on the (Always Known) I would say that I always knew tthat my gender was female....
So, biologically speaking a postop MTF transsexual will know how it felt to have a penis and an erection, and also what it feels to be penetrated and have several orgasm... as a po-MTF would never know how is to be pregnant or deliver...but so is true for many cis-females....etc...So, yes we are all slaves to our gens and hormones yet that does not detract from the human experience of being true to your gender...
So, as far as social constructs...well, they are mine and I chose to make whatever I want out of them.. For example:
I do not use the term "transition" to refer to me but rather "abandoning the forced male role;
as a mature female who has single-handily raised 5 children, I consider myself a "woman;"
as a fashionist, culture-vulture, scholar and bon vivant woman, I consider myself a "Lady;"
as a lady of sciences devoted to my country, I consider myself a female warrior...
I don't disagree with anything you've said Peky. You are talking about slightly different things to what I was thinking of though, so I agree that I was evidently not clear enough.
In respect of 'always known', I was speaking only on a mental level of what it means mentally to know in ones own mind.... That is, what it means to inherently know irrespective of the entirety of the physical form of the body either at birth or subsequent to any changes; irrespective of any feedback society may, at any point, give; and irrespective of anything one does in life.
When I mentioned biology I was meaning the biology of the brain only, rather than whether one possesses a penis or vagina, or any other physical biological aspects.
When I mentioned societal factors I was meaning what behaviours are considered acceptable for men and women in a given society and I was meaning the influence those societal factors have on when people express their feelings or take action on them.
I like your term for transition and I like the examples you've given of why you consider yourself a woman, lady and female warrior – they all sound very positive and affirming. :)
From 4 to 5 or so I knew I felt very wrong as far as my sex. At 7 I planned to castrate myself, but did not do it. At 11 I wanted to end my life when my voice cracked, but did not do it. Did I always know I wanted to be a women? No, I wanted to be a little girl and play with my girl friends. As I got older males were more appealing then females for sexual relations. I had a long term relationship with a male in high school. I think guys are more appealing sexually but pigs in most all other areas. Women are pretty much perfect but I am less sexually attracted to them. There is more to sex than your primary attraction so overall women are equal to men in my sexual desire.
I will think twice when I define my past, some very good points were made.
I agree, having a society that puts us in and through hell is hell. I to finally appreciate what my male self did to cope and survive.
I find myself at 66 years old identifying my self as a woman and presenting myself as such 24/7/ 365. When I was born just over 66 years ago, my physical appearance at birth had me labelled as a baby boy and I was raised as such. Much of my life has been spent trying to understand how I got from there to here. Susan's and the concepts presented upon this site and others help me to do this because they provide me with the linguistic concepts to do so. Since much of this journey is subjective it seems counterproductive to characterize the these insights in terms of truth and lies or right and wrong. What we really have is approximations and probabilities to the understanding of our lives. As we interact here we are developing the language and concepts which help us to better understand ourselves with a greater probability that our understanding approaches some resemblance of reality.
What we do know is that we were born physically and labeled as one gender and for some reason identified our selves as the gender that did not have the physical gender characteristics of our bodies. Yes some of us were born with both male and female physical characteristics and the powers that be chose our gender for us.
I can look back at my past to try and understand when I first felt that I was not a male but I identified myself as a female, and at my age its kind of fuzzy now. Even though at puberty I was more attracted to femininity, there was nothing that I felt that I could do about it, except day dream about being a female. As I got older, way older, I decided that reality was a better determiner than fantasy and began dressing more and more as a woman hoping that if I was a male I would reject my fantasies out of hand. I discovered that indeed that being a female was my reality and being a male was a fantasy forced upon me by society.
But all of this is subjective and it is pointless to label either reality as lying to myself because there is no objective reality to provide as a reference point in the matrix. What there is is a universe of individuals who identify themselves as male and a universe of individuals that identify themselves a females. We can ourselves in reference of these two universes. We can identify ourselves as males or females as both or as neither or in some universal set as to be defined.
My body puts me in the male set, but I put myself in the female set. Each set consists of all the behaviors that every one who identifies with the set exemplifies.
Any philosophical construct we use to organize our reality is linguistically and intellectually constructed by the members of the society who constructed it as is the language used to describe it. But we can only understand ourselves within the context of our life's experiences. Broadening our experiences increases our understandings.
Its really kind of pointless to attack the language by which we try and understand ourselves and to label our conclusions as lies by using very narrow interpretations of what individuals are trying to express here about themselves and how they are developing as individuals.
We can try an understand what others are saying about their lives and we can broaden our concepts and understanding and our language about what it means to be transgender and what it means for each of us to transition our identities.
You can chose to interpret when an individual says that they have always know that they were male or female to mean that what they meant was that as far back as they can remember they identified with this particular gender relative to some significant event in their lives by which they can determine their age at that time.
Also some of us grow up in families that build memories and some of us grow up in families that live totally in the present and the past even moments ago is never discussed and fades quickly from memory. My family did little to build memories so I have had to build my past memories on where I lived and what grade I was in and what school I went to. The death of my father is an important milestone for me and also entering kindergarten which was marked by a wasp going down the back of my shirt and stinging me several times and my cousin forgetting to pick me up after school and I had to wait until her step dad came and got me.
Yes and because many of us were not free to explore our sexual identity as children but we were socialized into roles many of us feel that we were forced to live our lives as what we might call lies, we might characterize our transitions as freeing ourselves from lies our society forced upon us, what we end up doing by using the word lies is attach moral values to struggles and make transitioning a battle with the Gods.
Being either male or female is not a moral issue and either is our gender identity so I feel that we should stop condemning ourselves by describing our transition in religious terms.
If we leave religion out of our gender struggles and just assume that we are all God's creatures who are just trying to discover who we really are we can just work our struggles out with God on our own terms.
I am stopping now because I am beginning to wander in my thoughts. Accepting and understanding is the better pathway, than negating and labeling using moralistic terminology. Meaning is achieved through open discussion. Narrowing meaning only brings darkness and confusion. We can not define others out of existence, we only erase them from our own personal reality so they become invisible to ourselves.
Quote from: Fat Admin on February 03, 2013, 03:39:53 PM
I actually really agree with this. On some level, I was the 'significant exception', sent away to a hospital at 14 for being too inappropriately male for a girl. But I also don't think the pressure I experienced was anything like an effeminate boy experiences. Also, because I had such a dominant personality and was immune to peer pressure, I really didn't feel too much discomfort socially. I wasn't treated like the other girls. It was far more about my body for me. I mean, sure it bothered me that girls hated me. But there wasn't much I could do about that.
This seems to echo a lot of what my son is going through, or has been through -- though his one hospital stay was related to anxiety issues that seem to have been related to his own self "coming out" -- no one was pressuring him into a hospital for being inappropriately male (though that might have been some of what was going on in the social conflicts that emerged from puberty onward?)
My ex remains puzzled, though she's getting much more comfortable lately calling him "he" -- we haven't really talked lately (my ex and myself) about what she has done in terms of having her own time with my son's gender therapist. But she has made various comments before, (in the past month or two) about how my son was raised with so few pressures to conform to stereotypes. Given that we had our son well after I had opened up fairly completely on my own issues, this has been something we've both puzzled about a bit, though for me, what it really seems to confirm in a conceptual way, is just how much of gender dysphoria (the feeling of a need to express and seek assistance to make the body conform to my notion (or my son's notion) of the physical sex that we each identify with.
I'm glad to see the questioning, but at some point I think questioning oneself on this is more of a delaying tactic (and potentially self-damaging) than it serves any real positive ends. A big part of me (at age 53) considers so much of my life as having been essentially wasted in doubt and self-questioning on this. It's an oversimplification to use the "always knew" trope as shorthand, but it's a simpler way of communicating something that can be complicated, and in the end is probably largely incomprehensible to someone not living through it.
Quote from: QLastly, I don't think in and of itself when people transition or if they transition at all really says anything about the underlying causes. Categorizing people in that way is grouping people by outcome not by underlying causes. You can make guesses about causes based on outcome but I don't think anything conclusive, because I think the outcomes are due to a complex interaction between biology, personality and societal factors.
I can look at myself and see how you could have lots of different outcomes. When I see young children and teenagers now saying and doing the things I've done and parents who just say ok I've heard of trans people, you must be trans, let me support you... ok, I feel a little bit envious and pleased to see things moving on, but I also feel worried for them and whether they will be, or have been, sufficiently challenged to think...
What you (Q) didn't touch on regarding timing is, unless you fold it into "societal factors" is the practical issues, including those related to budgeting and ensuring the means to see oneself through transition. I actually deluded myself at one point into thinking that "everyone else probably feels the way I do" since I could easily project my own misery onto others as a plausible motivating factor for why, for instance, guys seemed to do all kinds of things I considered strange and incomprehensible. I figured they were doing them (sports, crazy risk taking, etc.) because they felt a loathing for their maleness, and such actions were a socially sanctioned way of coping with the self-loathing I, at one point, rationalized as common to all male-bodied people. An awfully convoluted way to think about things, but it didn't strike me as any less absurd than much of the unprovable notions that were common in psych theories at the time I was thinking this.
While I've described before how I was one of those who "always knew" I was also very attached to various people in my life, and greatly fearful of being rejected by them... just one of many ways I rationalized delaying coming out to them... there were a lot of those.
I really want to challenge you to think more about what you're saying in that last paragraph. Personally, I don't really see what my son is likely to gain from being "challenged to think more" about this. He faces some pressure to do that from my ex that is going to be inevitable, as it is -- and there are things he's thinking hard about in terms of making decisions about what particular procedures he wants or doesn't want as part of transitioning. I really don't believe that greater acceptance and less familial conflict are in any way negative factors when it comes to individual life courses and narratives.
I have some very abstract concerns about society and the definition(s) of transitioning in terms of techniques and procedures... and I do think (or at least hope) that society at large needs to consider those things more in depth.
But, in the meanwhile, individuals need to live their lives as best as they can, in the societies where we find ourselves.
I really don't see too much intrinsic value for "us" in internalizing a conceptual rethinking that may or may not ever be completely finished or be based on accurate and objective facts. The more that becomes known and resolved (if that ever happens) in terms of coming to understand the underlying cause(s) of our condition, and what the best, ideal practices are for us in terms of finding ways to cope with that condition, the better for everyone, I would imagine.
Been thinking this further over night.
There's a line from Burns, 'Was' a gift a giftie gee us, tae see orrsels as ithers see us'
As Humans, we all preceive ourselves very differently from other's preception.
Now many of us here will have endured the, somewhat patronising, yet well intended, compliments as we are growing up. One I recall, in particular, came when I was about 21 or 22. My transformation from a child into an adult came slowly and in spurts, so I was able to pass easily at 18. Indeed, for much of my teenage years, I was probably able to pass. But I bulked out at about 20 or so and my chin, in particular, enlarged. I recall, walking with my mother, through a local fair, near to where she lived. A woman, manning a stall, recognised my mother and called out, 'Hi there, is that your son? My he's become such a strapping young man'.
Though she couldn't have known it, that was the most hurtful thing anyone had ever said. It was the final nail in any realistic intention I had had to live comfortably. I had become what I dreaded.
Now it has occured to me, that most people seem to have little discomfort with their gender. They may have different preceptions of their own physicality, but they still are accepting of it.
Most men behave is a predictable manner to insinuations of their sexual interests or capabilities.
Most women are essentially accepting in a resignation sort of way, to having periods.
When I first started in Susans' I was aware of transgender people living with FtM, but that was all. I had practically no experience, had never consciouly met any and had found very little information, anywhere. Indeed, I assumed that the notion was rather strange, since why would anyone willingly want to abandon what I had longed for? In a selfiish way, it made no sense to me at all.
Then I come here and met many. There was one, in particular, who wrote just like any other educated man. Indeed, it is sometimes said, that even the most skilled authors have a problem passing themselves off as the opposite gender when they write. Yet every indication was that this was a man. Then he used a term which brought the full horror of what FtM transgender people face, Red Death!
In my case, I remember the very first time I wrote the words, I'm a GIRL! to people who know my physical condition. (Talk about a high. Those moments only come once!). I live with the routine experience of what I call the rage. A time when I feel that male energy building up side of me, yet because I can't express it, it ties my insides into knots. My guts feel like wrung clothes, my cheast feels like its being beaten with a hammer, my ears and sometimes, my nose, go on fire and my head needs to explode. I'm 56 now. years of that have finally taken theit toll and I have heart failure. I finally see an end in sight.
I read from people here talking about their frustrations with being treated as female and I think I understand.
My own frustration with being treated as male are a symptom of the same problem transgender.
Which leads me to view transgender as a problem of our preception, but of ourselves. Others don't see us as we see ourselves. Where I see a girl, others see an increasingly frustrated, and therefore, challanging little boy. Where I see a female nurse, atending to the personal care, others see a male nurse, getting overly friendly and too poofy.
It brings me back to a much eariler theory I had on the origins of gender non-conformaty, namely, that in the feral stage of human existance, from about 3 million years to about 40,000 years ago, not all members of a tribe would have been within the two extremes of gender identity. The so called Binary gender identity. That those, like us, within the centre formed a constructive and important buffer role with the structure of a tribal society.
We're made this way. Some sort of cosmic joke. Perhaps some karma from an earlier, misplaced existance. But like it or not, we're the way we are. We didn't discover our wish to be the opposite sex. We came to terms with the very real frustrations of being forced to live in a way that is insulting, offensive and isolating.
It isn't about what our birth gender is, or sexuality, our racial or nation or social class origins. We each share the same, utterly identical problem, Transgender. That we have different experiences is to be expected. That for some, the realisation comes later, even much, much later, is irrelevant. As humans it is in our natures to see to function as best we can. A transgender persona will seek to live according to their assigned roles and it is only when they finally hit that wall, where they simply cannot go on, that is when realisation happens.
For me, that came when I was 4 and told I couldn't play with my friends because boys don't play with girls. For others, it may come in middle age, after years of successful mariage, career, parenting.
But it will happen to each of us, eventually. Because, in reality, it already has.
I'm not sure I am evious for those that have 'always known' or not.
I'd like to have lived all of my life as 'me' even if it meant 50 years of me and frustrated.
But, I don't see me as being in 'transition' and I must confess, every time I hear the term or see it written it annoys me.
I have not 'become' a woman, nor am I 'becoming' a woman, I was never a man to begin with, I was simply not aware I was wrong for 50 years.
I think the hardest part for a lot of people, is just saying the phrase 'I was/am wrong'. It's the root reason so much of life is such a pain. Because there are so many people out there, that are wrong about so many things (not just gender issues), and they will start wars over arguing the matter.
I am not a man. I have use of male hardware, but that's not permanent. My being a woman though, that is. I didn't decide to be one. It is not a choice, a preference a lifestyle that's for sure.
Maybe I am different but I do know that when I was child I knew something was different about me but I didn't know what it was. I had no words to describe how I felt. I liked hanging around with the girls in the neighborhood when I had the chance. Of course the mothers were suspicious with me "not being a girl". I used to sneak and play dress up any time I could get. I did like the princess thing. In all honesty if I were that age and sat down in front of a shrink I don't know what I would have done or said or for that matter not said. I am pretty sure I would have clammed up and withdrawn out of fear. My parents did their damnedest to put the fear of god in me but it didn't work. I would be good for a day and go back to my "crazy fairy" ways a day later. Yet still I didn't know what was wrong with me. I finally figured it out in my 20s but buried the feelings with work. If I worked 60 hours a week then it solved everything, for a while anyways. Eventually I knew enough about myself that I knew what had to be done. The old line "the last act of a desperate man" applied to me perfectly. That's was when I finally took action.
I don't know how applicable childhood or adolescent cross dressing is for TS people. I did it, but I'm not so sure it was a trigger. I never wanted to be a dressed up boy I me wanted to a girl all the way, but I didn't know how to say it or there was even a word to describe it for that matter. Thankfully with the Internet I was able to figure it out.
Sometimes I never stop to give myself credit for taking on my problem head on. I wonder how long the feelings held deep in my internal pressure cooker took to finally explode and give me the courage I needed.
Quote from: Zumbagirl on February 04, 2013, 08:35:16 AM
In all honesty if I were that age and sat down in front of a shrink I don't know what I would have done or said or for that matter not said. I am pretty sure I would have clammed up and withdrawn out of fear. My parents did their damnedest to put the fear of god in me but it didn't work. I would be good for a day and go back to my "crazy fairy" ways a day later. Yet still I didn't know what was wrong with me. I finally figured it out in my 20s but buried the feelings with work. If I worked 60 hours a week then it solved everything, for a while anyways.
I did end up in a shrink's office as a kid, for depression, and I did exactly what you expect you would have done. I clammed up. I didn't know what was wrong, but I knew enough to know it was a source of shame after being punished so much for it. At the time, I was sure anything I said to that shrink would end up being relayed to my parents.
I did the same thing with work and still do actually. I kind of made a habit of focusing too much on work back then and it just kept going. But, if it wasn't for that, I wouldn't be where I am in my career, so it's not all bad.
Quote from: Elspeth on February 04, 2013, 02:08:00 AM
I'm glad to see the questioning, but at some point I think questioning oneself on this is more of a delaying tactic (and potentially self-damaging) than it serves any real positive ends. A big part of me (at age 53) considers so much of my life as having been essentially wasted in doubt and self-questioning on this. It's an oversimplification to use the "always knew" trope as shorthand, but it's a simpler way of communicating something that can be complicated, and in the end is probably largely incomprehensible to someone not living through it.
Hmm... Elspeth, your post has made me think: Why am I actually writing this thread; what am I trying to get out of it? What am I really posting here for? And, I suppose there are a number of things which come to mind.
In part, I guess I am trying to reason myself into a place where I have decided and accepted, once and for all, that I'm never going to take any action towards transitioning in the future; so that I can mentally move forward. To do that, I need to solidify my thoughts better.
I think, for myself, although in the past I have said 'I've always known I'm a woman', I've come to realize that I do also identify with aspects of being male and my understanding of self is more complex. I feel I have probably not wanted to acknowledge that, in the past, in a subconscious effort to fit myself to other peoples notions of 'trans' people (mostly late 80's and 90's notions as I am in my late 30s now). I would still say I identify with being female to a far greater degree than male, but it's not a 100% thing.
I suppose I am trying to just be honest with myself about how I think and feel and to forget about what the medical profession thinks it knows about 'trans' people as I don't trust that they know what they're talking about and think that they're only just beginning to understand the real complexities of how 'trans' people think and feel about themselves. (sorry, if anyone reading is a member of the medical profession!)
So, it interests me both what other people think about how I am thinking and how other people think about and understand their identities; what their sense of self is. As, I feel I need to make comparisons to help me better evaluate and understand my own thoughts. I wonder what similarities and dissimilarities there are between myself and other people. It's difficult to work that out with simplified versions. I'd rather hear the versions that include the uncertainty and the self doubts that people have / had, so I can compare theirs (and how they deal with them) to mine. That's a lot to ask though and I guess probably not possible. It's also difficult to ask in a way that's tactful and doesn't upset people.
Another issue I suppose I have, that I wasn't intending to mention (as I wanted to stick to talking about myself), but is relevant here, is some of the conversations I've had with my dad over the years on this subject. My dad is now a woman. I didn't know he had any thoughts in this respect when I started trying to talk to my parents about this stuff. However, he did later tell me so and he later went on to live as a woman, etc. (I'm going to stick to 'he' here by the way as I'm thinking in a historical sense – we use both pronouns in our family depending on what time period we're thinking / talking about)
I have a reasonably good memory and I can say there has been quite some difference in some of things he has said to me over the years, not to mention a few wildly not correct things too. I can see there has been an evolution from initial doubts and uncertainty to a position of saying I was always a woman. I have also seen how he has used over simplification and so on in order to avoid questioning and as a form of self justification.
I don't blame him (or anyone else who has and don't suggest everyone does (take note people about to berate me because they don't do that! ;) )) for doing any of these things as I understand why it happens. Really it has actually probably helped me recognize the same things in myself and made me question myself more. I do find it frustrating though and it does mean I have a bug bear with some of the oversimplification I see used.
There is a whole lot more I could say about my interfamily relations and 'trans' issues, but most of the issues actually come down to family dynamics rather than 'trans' issues themselves. I'd like some day if my dad and I could have a more honest and open discussion about these things. I don't think either of us is capable of it yet though, and I'm not sure if we'll get there before one of us runs out of time. At the moment we just leave it as something we don't talk about as it doesn't matter in day to day life. If I raise these things it makes my parents worry, and I get frustrated because they don't seem able to get past thinking of me as their child who doesn't understand anything about these things. I see it as something that will evolve as we all age, but for now I'm happy for this to stay something we don't talk about at the moment.
In regard to your point on delaying tactics -> if I were to accept that any outcomes were inevitable (which fortunately I don't) then I think I'd be inclined to say – well I may as well just shoot myself now then! (in a metaphorical rather than literal sense, I hasten to add).
I also feel a sense of wasted time, like you. I've spent an inordinate amount of time thinking about these things and it has touched all aspects of my life, but I feel I have had no choice and I've done the best I could and what I thought was right at the time.
Quote from: Elspeth on February 04, 2013, 02:08:00 AM
What you (Q) didn't touch on regarding timing is, unless you fold it into "societal factors" is the practical issues, including those related to budgeting and ensuring the means to see oneself through transition.
You're right, I forgot to include that one.
Quote from: Elspeth on February 04, 2013, 02:08:00 AM
I really want to challenge you to think more about what you're saying in that last paragraph. Personally, I don't really see what my son is likely to gain from being "challenged to think more" about this. He faces some pressure to do that from my ex that is going to be inevitable, as it is -- and there are things he's thinking hard about in terms of making decisions about what particular procedures he wants or doesn't want as part of transitioning. I really don't believe that greater acceptance and less familial conflict are in any way negative factors when it comes to individual life courses and narratives.
Part of why I have included a bit about my own family above, is so I can answer you here.
There were a lot of things I was thinking about when I wrote that paragraph that I didn't go into detail on, in the interests of brevity.
I was imagining myself in the position of the parent of a 'trans' child, how I would react, what I would say. I was thinking about my own family and myself as a child. I was also thinking about my own fears and doubts. I was thinking about the ways in which my thoughts have changed and not changed since then. I was thinking about the conflict between transitioning early and the potential physical advantages that has versus having time to live and experience life.
Mostly I was thinking how very hard and complicated it all is. I was thinking, you know, I might actually say a lot of the same things my parents said to me back in the day... and wondering, jeez, am I turning into my parents already.
I don't know anything about your family, so can't comment. I expect you will all do the best you can though, and I wish you all good luck. :)
PS: for the people commenting on the relative merits of the term 'transition'. I only use it because it's currently the most widely used and understood.
PPS: Thank you all for all the other comments – I'm thinking about them but don't have time to reply to them all at the moment. :)
I can't really say that I always knew 100%; but I knew My internal gender was very different than other kids my age (starting around 5-6ish). At the time I didn't know that it was my gender per say; but I knew that SOMETHING was different. As I started to get older and got into high school I progressively became more aware that I had to pretend to be male to fit in. I had no clue why boys acted the way they did, so I just copied them.
In a way I still thought I was male, even though I was pretending just to be male to fit in; I just thought they were pretending to fit in as well. Since my gender is female but my ideal outward expression is androgynous I didn't have too many problems with puberty or pretending to be male. I don't know if most boys enjoyed their puberty, but I was indifferent; except for the body hair I always hated that.
Later on when I was 15 y/o my repressed gender started coming back. All those years under a persona...I didn't know my behavior changed, or that I felt different. But my female side began to break through the false persona....and when I fully grasped what was happening it shocked me. Just to clarify, when I say I have a female identity I say it just for the sake of clarity. At my core I feel female, but to a small degree I also feel tomboy/androgynous/genderqueer; hence I am transexual, just not a normative transexual.
Throughout my teen years I fought depression, although I never really knew where it came from. I guess pretending to be someone else can result in a person feeling unloved. How can someone feel loved when no one sees them for who they are. Although at the time...all I thought I needed was a girlfriend.
And so here I am, trying to convince myself that I'm just OCD or a hypochondriac. At the same time I can't convince my mom that I'm trans. I'm still holding the male persona up as though it was a cardboard mask; although I mostly use it in the presence of masculine males.
Sometimes I really hate my life.
The bad thing with dominant narratives within the TG community is that they make it more difficult for people within it to build their own narrative. This issue also makes it difficult for many people who are seriously looking at the TG family of identities to find a home within in. A positive thing about dominant narratives within the TG community is that they may give it a better chance of cutting through the narratives pumped out in society at large.
The reality is that people figure things out in different ways and at different times. Whatever dissonance TGs are supposed to feel can be delayed due to how they are socialized, and the prism which we feel gender will change as our own bodies develop and as others treat us differently (for reasons age-specific and otherwise). The problem here is that this complexity makes for a more complicated argument in terms of legitimacy, but given the relative difficulties and resistance of living as such, I'd say TSs are more like to be correct about their gender than non-TSs, and their gender shouldn't be questioned any more than a non-TS's (with the possible exception of screening-within-reason before administering a medical transition). Non-TS TGs likewise have their own narratives (first that they even exist within the GLBT alliance).
I think this matter boils down to people with no/low information wanting to make decisions about other people. It has to stop, and it impacts more than TGs.
Quote from: Sky-Blue on February 05, 2013, 08:51:13 AM
... hence I am transexual, just not a normative transexual.
Much of your post rings true for me, echoing my own childhood/adolescence. I'd hesitate to call yourself a "normative" transexual, however. There's enough of a variety in this spectrum called "trans" that I doubt there's any such thing as "normal."
Quote from: Incarnadine on February 05, 2013, 11:57:54 AMI'd hesitate to call yourself a "normative" transexual, however.
Normativity and normality are two slightly different things. In simple words, "normal" is something common and (at least) tolerated among group X. "Normative" is something everyone in group X is
supposed to strive for.To take the father of them all, heteronormativity, very few people are in that "Exemplary Family" with nice house, beaming kids, breadwinner husband who actually wins enough bread for his wife to stay home, no one having any hanky-panky on the side... Whether out of conscious rejection or out of practical considerations very few people live like that. Yet it's still a kind of family that is archetypal when many people talk about "family values" and so on, even those who don't fit the pattern in significant ways.
And links in the OP actually take about trans*people falling into somewhat similar trap: a small subset of actual transfolk held up as yardstick everyone must be measured against. It's sort of inevitable, gender being all about conformance to patterns and all, but it also mixes things up for people like me, who could've understood themselves sooner and better if the public archetype of trans* person wasn't that ultra-femme, straight, "always knew" MtF transsexual most people think about when picturing a "typical transgender person."
Yes, they're probably ones in the most need of prompt medical help, but... They aren't someone others should unconditionally emulate just to be accepted as trans*.
Quote from: ac110 on February 05, 2013, 12:44:10 PM
It's sort of inevitable, gender being all about conformance to patterns and all, but it also mixes things up for people like me, who could've understood themselves sooner and better if the public archetype of trans* person wasn't that ultra-femme, straight, "always knew" MtF transsexual most people think about when picturing a "typical transgender person."
Yes, they're probably ones in the most need of prompt medical help, but... They aren't someone others should unconditionally emulate just to be accepted as trans*.
Not necessarily. The patterns have changed over time, and those who fit this supposed "ideal" may have been among those who transitioned at the earliest ages. On the plus side, that, for them, usually led to better effectiveness (at least if one measures effectiveness in terms of passing/conforming to most of the appearance conventions for women in the culture). In some ways, though, if you look at the havoc that gender dysphoria creates in the lives of transwomen and those that they connect with, it could be argued, as Helen Boyd has been saying recently, that those whose narratives stray from that supposed "ideal" are often those who could have benefited most (and caused less damage to others) had they transitioned earlier.
In the end, I don't think it really makes a lot of sense, though, to make judgements about relative need for prompt medical help.
I really tend to see a lot of these differences as accidental. How much any transwoman insists on preserving her identity at an early age is probably very much related to environmental factors. How much, for example, was she coerced, punished or abused for expressing her gender at early ages (3-7, let's say). Another factor might be simply personality differences unrelated to gender. How stubbornly did she hold to declaring and expressing her gender from those ages, or how much was she thinking of herself as a "good girl" and withdrawing into a protective shell, that got thicker and thicker over time?
This is the sense I get, at least, when I compare individual narratives, and read many of the less offensive and biased papers on our "typical" histories.
Quote from: Q on February 05, 2013, 07:40:25 AM
I have a reasonably good memory and I can say there has been quite some difference in some of things he has said to me over the years, not to mention a few wildly not correct things too. I can see there has been an evolution from initial doubts and uncertainty to a position of saying I was always a woman. I have also seen how he has used over simplification and so on in order to avoid questioning and as a form of self justification.
...
I also feel a sense of wasted time, like you. I've spent an inordinate amount of time thinking about these things and it has touched all aspects of my life, but I feel I have had no choice and I've done the best I could and what I thought was right at the time.
I really want to respond almost paragraph by paragraph (especially now that I know that part about being 2nd generation (at least?) trans.
There are so many ways to reflect on this, and so many, seemingly persuasive or valid reasons to question, and especially to question whether the current approach to coping is necessarily an ideal one. I hear what you're saying, and if I had time to write a novel right now, this post would probably run as long as
War and Peace.
I would, for now, just like to ask what your thoughts are on why you seem not to have yet been able to communicate as fully as it seems you'd like to with her (your father)?
I know that in my case, concealing aspects of myself was something I did based on advice I now consider faulty and destructive... but it was also pretty conventional advice to be given, as recently as a decade or so ago. Without an extended and open conversation with her, I'm not sure I could say much about the inconsistencies you sense in your communications with her.
My situation may also be different in that (at least right now) no one in clinical circles seems to make the kinds of distinctions that are common when splitting transwomen into early and late transitioners and all the intellectual (or at least intellectualizing?) baggage that has gone with that?
One of the things that has brought me back into crisis mode (or at least into feeling that I need to acknowledge and take action, other than slow suicide) has been my son's coming out.
And one of the things that has come up for me from his coming out, is how resolute he is, compared to me, now that he is owning his own gender dysphoria. He has almost no tolerance at all for the kind of hand wringing and self-doubt that I have, and that I've seen as fairly common, especially for those of us who managed in some way to assemble some kind of "male" persona, and often careers and reputations and (not that I like the term, I find it problematic to say the least, but I'll use it here anyway -- "male privilege". I'm trying to wrap my head around that one right now, in part because of some things Helen Boyd has been blogging recently, about those of us with people who have some vested interests in seeing us continue to struggle or muddle on within those carefully crafted, but flawed personae.
I think I'm too tired and frazzled for now to be very coherent on this.
I'll try to take another look tomorrow and see if I can at least lay out some of the more important points, at least as I see them.
If you have the inclination, you might want to scan back in some of my other posts, as I've probably said some of what I'm likely to say in at least some of those earlier posts, and I have shared a fair bit of detail in them about my own history, and where my trans son fits in terms of why I'm back in these forums after quite a long time of not so much denial, and a kind of stasis, partially a result of bad advice, and my own lack of persistence in getting myself heard effectively by some of those who thought they were helping.
At the very least, some of what I've already said might be of interest to you as someone with a trans parent, who also seems to be trans, as far as I can tell.
Quote from: Elspeth on February 05, 2013, 11:18:02 PM
[...]if I had time to write a novel right now, this post would probably run as long as War and Peace.
lol, I know that feeling.
This is just a quickie to say I will reply properly, but it will probably be the weekend before I have time to sit down and write a proper reply.
Quote from: Elspeth on February 05, 2013, 11:18:02 PM
[...]I'll try to take another look tomorrow and see if I can at least lay out some of the more important points, at least as I see them.
If you have the inclination, you might want to scan back in some of my other posts, as I've probably said some of what I'm likely to say in at least some of those earlier posts, and I have shared a fair bit of detail in them about my own history, and where my trans son fits in terms of why I'm back in these forums after quite a long time of not so much denial, and a kind of stasis, partially a result of bad advice, and my own lack of persistence in getting myself heard effectively by some of those who thought they were helping.
At the very least, some of what I've already said might be of interest to you as someone with a trans parent, who also seems to be trans, as far as I can tell.
Thank you and I will have a scan back. Also, don't worry – I'm taking 'trans' as a broad spectrum within which I'm somewhere rather than anywhere specific. I'm also keeping in mind that wherever you are in it, there are a lot of different ways to find happy balance.
I actually had a moment of inspiration, of sorts, reflecting on this thread today:
(a) that it's probably wishful thinking on my part to think that using pure reasoning on it's own, without allowing myself more exploration of where my place of balance is, is going to get me to a once and for all position any time soon.
(b) that I may be preventing myself from finding a better balance point due to fear of where allowing myself to explore further could take me; and
(c) that maybe I should take some of my own advice and keep in mind that there are a lot of different ways to find happy balance, and just allowing myself more leeway to explore wouldn't mean I was going anywhere in particular.
I'll reply properly to everything you asked at the weekend though – busy few days until then.
Somehow this thread seems to have become all about me. I really didn't intend that, but maybe it was inevitable. Anyway...
Quote from: Elspeth on February 05, 2013, 11:18:02 PM
I would, for now, just like to ask what your thoughts are on why you seem not to have yet been able to communicate as fully as it seems you'd like to with her (your father)?
I didn't realise how hard it was going to be to answer this and I wish I could write an answer that sounded more upbeat. Unfortunately a truthful answer involves some depressive thinking. Maybe it'll still be useful to someone... I don't know...
I have a lot of different feelings about this question that involve things to do with how my dad has communicated, things to do with what I have felt about it all as child of a 'trans' person, the interplay with my own issues... I have to admit the 'why' is as much about my own failings as anything else.
I suppose I should start with what I feel we haven't communicated. This comes down to, firstly, that I'd like to understand my dad better, how she was thinking and exactly how she got to where she got to. In part just so I can say I knew my dad better and in part because I obviously have my own issues. I don't think we've ever really talked about the real why's and wherefores of her situation.
I remember her first telling me she had any issues, but due to how long ago it was, not exactly what she told me (part of a conversation not that long after I had tried to talk about my own problems where she was telling how it was ok to crossdress and how there were women who liked that kind of thing, that I could be gay if I wanted to, etc - cringe).
Then, the second time she came out to me (I presume having forgotten she'd already come out to me once before)... where I was visiting back home and she tried to tell me she had spontaneously grown breasts due to a hormone imbalance, lol. It was completely obvious she had gotten breast implants. So I, thinking, 'okaaay... you aren't seriously thinking I'm going to believe that are you?', tentatively offered that I already knew she had been taking hormones and knew that your breasts don't grow that much due to hormones (being au fait with what hormones do it had been obvious to me quite a while earlier). At which point she proceeded to accuse me of being a coward for not saying I knew. (Which wasn't the case – I just felt I should leave it up to her to tell me when she felt ready) So, I didn't really push things and just decided to humour her.
I could write a book here, but I think I'll leave it at that for some examples. We've moved on a lot from that time now anyway. We've just never gone back and talked about it.
Secondly, there are some things I suppose I've just never expressed. Things you can't help but feel as the child when your parent has major surgery – you know, like – I'm not sure it has been better for you in terms of physical health to have done this and couldn't you have found another way to cope? Are you sure your mentally better off?... because it's not like the whole thing doesn't bring new problems and insecurities...
Thirdly, I suppose I've never really explained my own issues very well and part of me wants to say 'help, I'm struggling to know how to cope'.
So, the 'why' part.
Well, I know why she would've told me daft things, because I know and knew then that it has been the type of thing to say. If I was going to rant about it I should've done it at the time.
As regards the real why's and wherefores of her situation: I'm not sure if you're supposed to know your parents that well. It'd be nice to know, but it'd be a tough conversation to have. I don't think I feel comfortable asking and I doubt she'd feel comfortable telling me.
The questions in the second part: I don't know that there is any point asking them, because I doubt I'd get much of an answer and I doubt she'd want to talk about / answer them.
The third part, about my own issues, is where I can't write without sounding depressive. Essentially it would be pointless for me to discuss any of this with her at the moment, because (a) I know how that conversation would go without having it, and (b) it would bring more pressure and scrutiny onto me which I'd rather not have.
At risk of making myself sound pathetic... As a result of how many problems it was causing in my life – I basically said ok I can't deal with this, I'll just focus on work and doing other things that interest me – and that's how things have stayed for the last twenty years or so.
In hindsight that hasn't really helped me all that much and it has had a few unintended consequences. For example, in the fantasyland in my head I am only ever female in sexual activities. I quickly found that is a bit of a stumbling block when you're in real life encounters and you're expected to be the male one. I decided I didn't even want to go there and so haven't for ages. That will sound crazy to a lot of people, but it's how things have gone for me. I can't even begin to fathom how people end up getting married when they have that issue. I assume they must have more drive for sex than I do and so get over it somehow.
If I were to mention things like that and all the usual gender dysphoria type things to my parents (asides from being a nightmare conversation) I'm not certain what they'd say, but I'm pretty sure they'd tell me off for wasting my life and tell me to get a grip, sort myself out, buy a wig and wear a dress from time to time if I feel like it and get over it. They'd remind me of all the hard truths about how hard / impossible living as a woman would be for me (even more so as I'm getting older) and scare the crap out of me and that would be that.
But, it would all be true, however much I hate thinking about it.
My parents are like your son in that respect - no tolerance for hand wringing , lol.
It's right too that I am allegedly an adult and so have to take responsibility for myself.
In theory the answer should lie in finding a better way of expressing my femaleness more. In practice I can't think how to do that in a way that I think would solve the problem.
I think (keeping think in there rather than know as I still maintain it's complicated and one can't know without trying) I want to be able to be and interact in the world as a normal woman, unfortunately I've had too much experience to believe that is a realistic possibility, in my case. Just wearing a skirt or whatever from time to time isn't a solution to the underlying mental issue either.
Consequently I feel stuck with a problem I don't know how to solve and it despairs me to think that I'm never going to be able to solve it.
Sorry for going all 'woe is me'.
I almost feel like I should update my first post to say 'mostly happy, except when depressed' or something now. Uggh.
I'm going to want to post something longer when I've had some sleep, but with the Nor'easter coming on soon I want to do a quick reply on a couple of points now, just in case I lose power and/or lose track of this thread later on.
Quote from: Q on February 08, 2013, 05:40:24 AM
I remember her first telling me she had any issues, but due to how long ago it was, not exactly what she told me (part of a conversation not that long after I had tried to talk about my own problems where she was telling how it was ok to crossdress and how there were women who liked that kind of thing, that I could be gay if I wanted to, etc - cringe).
I could be completely off base here -- especially since I don't know what your age was for either of the conversations you've outlined -- but she may have been acting on bad (but fairly common, standard) advice from therapists. Or it could have been something else. You can't read minds, even if you imagine you can. (Took me a very long time to realize that... I used to have entire conversations with people, in my head, thinking that I knew what they would say, and therefore I could just have the conversation in my head. It's a very bad habit, and at some point, not necessarily soon, chances are something will come along to prove it.
Also, I have no sense of what the nature of her relationship is with your mom, and whether she might have chosen to keep things from you to avoid conflict there. She might also have been trying to avoid saying things for fear of "coaching you" or at least the fear that others might later interpret some version of your conversation as her feeding you ideas... there's a lot of bad advice out there, especially when it comes to how a trans parent is/was expected to cope with children, and it wouldn't surprise me, given our own common levels of internalized transphobia, if some of us wind up carrying the concealment we were advised to engage in, well into our children's adulthood.
I had a lot of clues that my son was trans from fairly early on. And yet, even when I was buying him binders and he was making it amply clear that he was trans, it took me quite a few months before I finally managed to have the open conversation I'd hoped to have some day, and I might have put it off even further if he hadn't come to the point of expressing his intentions to seek top surgery. Looking back, it's remarkable to me -- especially since in just about everything else we've had a very close and open relationship and have discussed all sorts of other meaty subjects -- but somehow (I don't suppose it's entirely surprising) when it came to revealing my own femme identity, I remained cagey for quite a bit longer than I'd really planned to. Some of it was just force of habit, some of it was fear of rejection for having concealed things for so long, even if I was doing so on pretty direct advice, and at least some potential for my integrity being used against me in, say, family courts . It's still possible (even close to certain) that he hasn't asked some questions he'd like to, even now.
My ex, however, is still much easier with him identifying as lesbian than she is when it comes to the trans identity. I've had a deep discussion with her, and confirmed that she
doesn't think I had an active hand in his reaching his present views and agenda. I'd imagine, it's at least one possibility, that his sending you the "its okay if you're gay" message could have been an attempt to avoid being seen as coaching you. Or it could just be that you haven't managed to be clear enough with him to avoid having this circuitous conversation?
QuoteThen, the second time she came out to me (I presume having forgotten she'd already come out to me once before)... where I was visiting back home and she tried to tell me she had spontaneously grown breasts due to a hormone imbalance, lol. It was completely obvious she had gotten breast implants. So I, thinking, 'okaaay... you aren't seriously thinking I'm going to believe that are you?', tentatively offered that I already knew she had been taking hormones and knew that your breasts don't grow that much due to hormones (being au fait with what hormones do it had been obvious to me quite a while earlier). At which point she proceeded to accuse me of being a coward for not saying I knew. (Which wasn't the case – I just felt I should leave it up to her to tell me when she felt ready) So, I didn't really push things and just decided to humour her.
Be careful about assuming you know what someone else is thinking. Her upset derailed the conversation, but "humouring" her also closed things off. It's very hard to have these conversations, and I think it's hard on both sides. I sensed my son shutting down at times (but maybe I was projecting that?) -- I'm not assuming our conversations are over, though. I know he doesn't know all I'd like to share, and I do keep trying to offer more as time goes by. But I also try to avoid making every conversation a heavy one about gender issues. He finally admitted (or I finally heard) for instance, that he doesn't really like "soap operas" -- I'd hoped to watch some parts of
The L Word with him as a way of opening up further conversation, since that series contained one clear transman, and a few others who may or may not have been transmen, but it's not a style he likes, and sometimes he would rather watch some sci-fi adventure, or a Hayao Miyazaki movie... there are things about trans history that he doesn't actually know already, for instance... there are a lot of conversations I'd like to have, but time and energy are not always in the right place for those.
It's not exactly the same situation, since I also kept to the advice I was given and avoided beginning transition (and at this point am not sure I'll have the means to go through it, unless something changes remarkably about my career and finances). But for us, there were times when I felt like my kids must have figured it out. At least when talking to me, though, they won't admit it... yes, they knew things, spotted things, but part of it (the heavy androgyny, for instance) was something that had been there from before they were born, so to them I was just me. There were a few times, though, especially when they were younger, and I was less sure that my ex would not decide to go to court or use my honesty against me, when I would hedge or offer what amounted to non-answers -- I would try not to lie outright, but I often told far less than the whole truth.
Obviously I don't know her situation, and she might not feel she can raise all of it without appearing to try to drive some wedge between you and your mom, so you might still not get the full story from her, unless, perhaps, you choose to press harder.
QuoteSecondly, there are some things I suppose I've just never expressed. Things you can't help but feel as the child when your parent has major surgery – you know, like – I'm not sure it has been better for you in terms of physical health to have done this and couldn't you have found another way to cope? Are you sure your mentally better off?... because it's not like the whole thing doesn't bring new problems and insecurities...
Has she had some specific transition-related medical problems? Do you know that she wouldn't have had something more serious had she not transitioned? We only live on one of the many possible paths we could have chosen. Especially for that last question, how is it even answerable, honestly?
QuoteThirdly, I suppose I've never really explained my own issues very well and part of me wants to say 'help, I'm struggling to know how to cope'.
This is really the only important question, in some ways, and one where she might be able to help, if not with certainties, at least with personal experience... even though you're her child, though, everyone does still have their own pathway.
QuoteAs regards the real why's and wherefores of her situation: I'm not sure if you're supposed to know your parents that well. It'd be nice to know, but it'd be a tough conversation to have. I don't think I feel comfortable asking and I doubt she'd feel comfortable telling me.
I'm oversimplifying a little, but to quite an extent it's a choice. Granted, some of it is based on your mutual histories, and some of it is up to her. But you control your own mouth, and you can ask questions. Maybe she won't answer them right away, or answer them fully. But persistence can pay off, eventually, given enough time and repetition. Chances are very good that she concealed herself for reasons of her own, ones that you may or may not have deduced correctly. You won't find out the actual answers unless you ask, and keep pressing, at least within decency's bounds, to assure yourself that you're not getting some kind of deflection.
QuoteThe questions in the second part: I don't know that there is any point asking them, because I doubt I'd get much of an answer and I doubt she'd want to talk about / answer them.
The third part, about my own issues, is where I can't write without sounding depressive. Essentially it would be pointless for me to discuss any of this with her at the moment, because (a) I know how that conversation would go without having it, and (b) it would bring more pressure and scrutiny onto me which I'd rather not have.
At risk of making myself sound pathetic... As a result of how many problems it was causing in my life – I basically said ok I can't deal with this, I'll just focus on work and doing other things that interest me – and that's how things have stayed for the last twenty years or so.
Fortune telling like this is in and of itself depressive. The truth is, you don't know what will happen, but chances are good that, with some persistence and the right setting, the conversation may go quite differently than you predict (or fear), especially if you can manage to be upfront on your part of it. It almost certainly won't be perfect, and you may want to consider whether you want to enter their own couple dynamics into it.
Personally, I'd want to have conversations with them separately. There may be many things they really haven't resolved between themselves, that could have very little to do with you, and everything to do with things you haven't been privy to. Especially considering how tangled up culture's deep misogyny is with transwomen in relationships with women, I wouldn't trust that any three-way conversation would have a great chance of being honest and open... too many potential issues. A novel I should write someday, but not right now.
I'm really fading, and beginning to lose focus, so I'll try to pick this up later, and pick apart any of the things I'll realize later on that I've mis-stated.
QuoteThat will sound crazy to a lot of people, but it's how things have gone for me. I can't even begin to fathom how people end up getting married when they have that issue. I assume they must have more drive for sex than I do and so get over it somehow.
Or a combination of imagination and a will to reframe things to suit themselves. In retrospect, I think for me it had mostly to do with my desire to be a full-time mom. I never got close to starting a relationship that could have led to marriage until I met someone who, in my view, was soft butch enough (while also being somewhat homophobic and in denial about that -- mind you, this was all my interpretation... my ex would tell a very different tale)... but for me, I managed to refocus, find ways of channeling things that were not too dysphoric... and at the worst tell myself something akin to "lie back and think of England" -- I was a little more active than that, but it definitely involved some mental gymnastics I've rarely heard expressed by other transwomen, yet in each of their stories, I can see how they also found various ways -- among other things, it's fairly rare for women to be all that sexually aggressive, and for many married transwomen, avoiding sex is not especially hard, and some wind up in relationships with women who are largely assexual for any number of reasons in their own histories.
My ex was actually fairly aggressive about sex, so for me it was not very hard to encourage her to be as active as she wanted to be, whenever she was prepared to initiate things. It did become somewhat more difficult over time, though, once I was more explicit and open with her about where my head was at... since she was not especially in love with the idea of thinking of herself as lesbian.
QuoteMy parents are like your son in that respect - no tolerance for hand wringing , lol.
Sorry I wasn't more specific about this. When I referred to this it wasn't to say that he wouldn't tolerate it in others. He just has no taste for it in himself, and he is much better at owning what he wants, once he's come to feel strongly that he knows what that is. I wish I were as resolute, but I recognize that it's not one of my traits. He's more like my ex, in that respect.
I went on pretty long, and I probably am not in a state to proofread this well. I'll come back to this again when I'm a little fresher.
Well, I'm in a better frame of mind today. I should have said my dad also said it was something I'd find would go up and down! (in the mind, not anywhere else, lol).
Elspeth, thank you so much for taking the time to reply to me, and everyone else who has too.
I'd have been 18/19 for the first of those conversations, and maybe 21/22 for the second (I'd have to think about it and try and correlate it to something I was doing to be more sure for the second – everything seems to blend together a bit after a while). My parents are still together, but I couldn't speculate beyond that.
I'm sure you're right (well, as you said, as sure as I can be whilst not actually knowing) that she would most likely have been acting on advice of what to say. Definitely not doing any coaching... In my one reply to someone wanting advice here, I read it several times thinking: 'have I said anything that's going to push them in any particular direction', then I still almost didn't post it in case I had and hadn't noticed, lol.
I can't remember precisely what I said about myself at that point, but almost certainly it wouldn't have been brilliantly clear. It was a long time ago. I was not very well informed (it was still before the internet for a start, so I wouldn't have had much information available). I have vague recollections of being interrogated; being asked lots of very tricky to answer questions and getting tied up in all kinds of intellectual knots. Maybe that has influenced my trying to answer for myself some of these tricky questions.
Quote from: Elspeth on February 08, 2013, 08:08:55 AM
Has she had some specific transition-related medical problems? Do you know that she wouldn't have had something more serious had she not transitioned? We only live on one of the many possible paths we could have chosen. Especially for that last question, how is it even answerable, honestly?
I think (a few years ago now) I was feeling a sense of loss / mourning for the past / how things used to be before, rather than anything specific. I have moved past that now though, as a lot of time has passed. You're right the last question is unanswerable. I suppose it's more of a thought that has passed through my mind, at certain points, when feeling frustration about certain issues that we didn't have to deal with before, rather than an actual question.
Quote from: Elspeth on February 08, 2013, 08:08:55 AM
This is really the only important question, in some ways, and one where she might be able to help, if not with certainties, at least with personal experience... even though you're her child, though, everyone does still have their own pathway.
This is something I would only ask if really desperate. Maybe that's a fault of mine, I'm not sure. Experience tells me asking is not necessarily wise. I also tend to think: it's my brain and only I know what happens in it therefore ultimately only I can sort it out. Not that external input, or externalising thoughts isn't sometimes useful though.
Quote from: Elspeth on February 08, 2013, 08:08:55 AM
I'm oversimplifying a little, but to quite an extent it's a choice. Granted, some of it is based on your mutual histories, and some of it is up to her. But you control your own mouth, and you can ask questions. Maybe she won't answer them right away, or answer them fully. But persistence can pay off, eventually, given enough time and repetition. Chances are very good that she concealed herself for reasons of her own, ones that you may or may not have deduced correctly. You won't find out the actual answers unless you ask, and keep pressing, at least within decency's bounds, to assure yourself that you're not getting some kind of deflection.
I may well ask some things, when I think it's an appropriate time. It is a little different for me now, as we are all older and have our own lives, so complicated discussions like this aren't the first thing that comes to mind when we do see each other.
Quote from: Elspeth on February 08, 2013, 08:08:55 AM
Or a combination of imagination and a will to reframe things to suit themselves[...]
Yes, I guess so. I guess I just haven't had the inclination. It's not really something I feel any great desire for. Companionship would be more the thing, but on the other hand I'm quite independent and like doing my own thing as well.
Quote from: Elspeth on February 08, 2013, 08:08:55 AM
Sorry I wasn't more specific about this. When I referred to this it wasn't to say that he wouldn't tolerate it in others.[...]
Ah, ok.
I think this thread has been quite helpful. Just saying some things 'out loud' does sometimes help. It's almost like I sometimes fall into a bit of all or nothing thinking, which really I should try not to. I think a good way forward would be to just focus on having fun and incorporate more 'crossdressing' into it. After all if I want to experiment with more female expression, I suppose I should probably stop whining about it and get out and do it.
I do reserve the right to periodically flip out though, lol.
Thank you very much for your replies.
@Q -- Glad to have helped. This also helps me, to at least ask myself where I have or haven't been open with my son, and where I might be able to be of greater help to him, without intruding too much into his own journey, and thereby pushing him (inadvertently) away.
It probably would be best to give yourself permission to explore more, and in ways that are not so distressing. More later, if something more comes to mind... I just finished reading your last response and wanted to at least acknowledge it.
Quote from: Elspeth on February 09, 2013, 05:20:50 PM
@Q -- Glad to have helped. This also helps me, to at least ask myself where I have or haven't been open with my son, and where I might be able to be of greater help to him, without intruding too much into his own journey, and thereby pushing him (inadvertently) away.
It probably would be best to give yourself permission to explore more, and in ways that are not so distressing. More later, if something more comes to mind... I just finished reading your last response and wanted to at least acknowledge it.
I'm pleased it has been some help to you as well. :)
I'm inclined these days to say "I was always a woman, but I didn't always know I was, it took me a while to figure out what exactly the incongruity was. Partly because the women that I was like (and wanted to be like) were not, when I was growing up, considered 'womanly'."
Quote from: Padma on February 10, 2013, 03:22:34 PM
I'm inclined these days to say "I was always a woman, but I didn't always know I was, it took me a while to figure out what exactly the incongruity was. Partly because the women that I was like (and wanted to be like) were not, when I was growing up, considered 'womanly'."
My biggest problem was always coming to terms with the analyzers. People who try to connect one event with another, to suggest causal.
It's almost an extension of the guilt syndrome. You do this (what you seek) because of that, (something apparently negative which we should feel ashamed of), so you should avoid it.
As a child of course, it was my family and almost impossible to ignore.
But even as an adult, this nonsense tended to create a sort of neurosis. I had to battle it constantly in many respects. I suspect it is quite common in my generation.
I hope like hell that is somehting we haven't passed onto succeeding generations.
Another observation has occured to me. I don't know if it's particularly connected to this thread but since it's been such an eclectic mix of interesting intensity, I don't suppose it is out of place particularly.
It's the association of guilt with transgender.
That a mere man, seeking to ascend to being a woman! Creeping in where he doesn't belong.
There is an antithetical rationale which implies that women are down-trodden yet men seek to invade because they lack the integrity of character to face the world. This is more associated with feminism of course, but never-the-less not unusual.
I have come to realise that for transmen there is an equal argument, that they are seeking to ascend to the level of men, almost like some peasant, seeking to associate with the upper classes! A sort of Get Back Into Your place, Inferior!
Guilt as manipulative control.
If I could go back and change one thing about my life it would be that I would ensure that Susan was around and running this site. Of all the intellectual gains I've had from being here it's being able to rationalise guilt for what it is, a self sustaining autonomous control.
I find myself falling into the of only I knew then pattern. That's really bad. It's backward and negative thinking. >:-)
Quote from: spacial on February 10, 2013, 06:13:44 PM
My biggest problem was always coming to terms with the analyzers. People who try to connect one event with another, to suggest causal.
It's almost an extension of the guilt syndrome. You do this (what you seek) because of that, (something apparently negative which we should feel ashamed of), so you should avoid it.
As a child of course, it was my family and almost impossible to ignore.
But even as an adult, this nonsense tended to create a sort of neurosis. I had to battle it constantly in many respects. I suspect it is quite common in my generation.
I hope like hell that is somehting we haven't passed onto succeeding generations.
Old theories die hard.
My ex is a doctor, but not a specialist in Gender Dysphoria, or in psych generally, even though she was a psych major in college. Some of her aversion to the subject has to do with a traumatic summer internship experience at Bellevue, when she was in college, an intership arranged by someone who encouraged her late in her college experience to consider medicine as a career path.
With my son coming out as a transman in the last few years, I would have assumed she would have done more research than she did since the last time she dealt with gender dysphoria (mine) beginning a bit more than 20 years ago. But in conversations with her, one on one, about where our son is going, it became clear that she still has many preconceptions that come from learning about this and over-accepting some of the thinking about causes that was more widely accepted, and uncontested as recently as ten or 15 years ago. (Ex.: the fact that our son did not express explicit identification as a boy in his early years (though he was quite androgynous in behavior and play interests at the time, far moreso than his younger sister).
Frankly, the tendency of culture to poison people's thinking is part of why I've gotten less and less concerned, and somewhat less interested in the research on etiology of ->-bleeped-<-(s) since the days when I spent a lot of mostly wasted effort on it. It's nice to be well-informed, but it often has few practical benefits, apart from boosting one's own confidence in trusting intuition.
Much of what you're describing seems less and less likely to be true, but it's unlikely that information is going to percolate into the broader consciousness of people, except maybe by some sort of osmosis, and perhaps the greater visibility of at least some transmen and transwomen, as some of us choose paths that leave us more visible which I'm not really sure is the direction that very many of us are headed, but then again, some people are more visible that others -- Lana Wachowski is one example who jumps to mind, and there have been others over the past few decades.
Que sera sera.
What tires me out is how third parties seem to require "expert opinion" before they will accept that someone experiences their gender as incongruent. So often I hear people being told variations on "you don't know yourself." This is what puts tremendous pressure on trans folk to self-justify. None of this should require justification in the first place. And by extension, people with non-binary gender identities should not find themselves having to justify their genders to other trans folk.
Excellent point Padma.