Simple question, and if your first reaction is to go all defensive just because of the question, it is actually possible you actually do suck at acceptance.
How important is it really?
Why should you give a damn?
Before rushing to offer a comment, spend a while thinking about the question. It won't be easy to actually pause and say nothing at all, but give it a try.
We are TG, and to some extent, so what, you're TG, big deal, you are TG.
Before I realized I was TG, I often fixated on being disabled. I'd go off the deep end just because someone had made a nasty comment aimed at my being disabled. I'm a wargamer, and I some times encountered dumb comments about wargamers and I would go off the deep end about the dumb comment about wargamers. Or it would be a dumb comment aimed at role gamers, and I would go off the deep end about that. I have even had dumb reactions about dumb comments aimed at the fact I make models.
The thing is, there are people that will make dumb comments out there, and they can be found for anything. And I can go off the deep end about almost anything.
Part of the problem is of course people that make dumb comments often do it intentionally. And you won't be seeing them go away.
Part of the problem is I let them get to me, and it is basically the same as bullying, I let them get to me, I let myself become a victim.
I suppose I suck at acceptance in quite a few ways.
I wonder, can you say that about yourself, and not get all defensive over it?
I am of the opinion, and it is just my opinion, so don't go taking me stating it as fact, I am just stating an opinion and you might even agree with it, who knows, but, I am coming to wonder, do TG persons simply suck at acceptance a lot more so than they realize or wish to admit?
Take for instance the popular bathroom issue.
Ok when you pee, what is it coming out of? Sounds like a silly question but think about it?
I have a penis attached to my body. I'd rather not, but I do.
I do not HAVE to sit to pee, I can, and I often do, but, I don't actually have to.
I can pee standing in front of a urinal. I don't need to, but, if I am wearing pants, it is not like I need to go into a stall, unbutton and lower pants all so I can sit down to pee and reinforce a mental image of how girls with vaginas generally speaking DO have to sit to pee. I can unzip my pants, and just take it out, pee, and in mere moments be done.
It's just relieving yourself of a need to pee. Because if you don't you do what you stopped doing many years ago.
Peeing is not that big of a deal, unless you DO piss yourself, and then it of course is.
The acceptance part come in when you make a fuss over WHERE you absolutely must do this peeing.
Does peeing in front of a urinal beside a cis male who is also peeing seriously affect your acceptance of yourself that you are female?
Why?
Is your belief that weak?
Myself, I AM female, I simply have a penis attached to my body today. With luck I am changing that. With luck, and time, well I won't have the penis. With luck time and a vagina, peeing in front of a urinal will not be an option and I will be stuck needing to pee in a stall sitting down after being forced to go the whole route of lowering pants or whatever based on my outfit before I can. There won't be anything to just reach in and take out and pee with like before.
I don't feel less female for peeing next to a cis male in the same fashion he is peeing.
Hell for all I know, he might be a TG female peeing with the aid of something to allow him to pee standing. It's not like I am going to take a good look to see how real it is eh. Chances are most men beside me are actually cis males though. Might be heterosexual males, no reason to think they have to be though. Might be homosexual though.
But how much of all the angst and all the current fuss over where to pee is an acceptance issue?
An acceptance issue of mine, and not theirs.
Which is not to say they don't have their own issues. And I think some of them sure have some weird problems.
Is my desperate need to be able to pee from a penis in a woman's restroom and get some women that have weird ideas all in a snit worth the hell it generates, all basically because my acceptance of my femininity is that lame because I can't handle taking a pee next to a cis male in a men's room?
Me, I am so accepting of my being female, that to some extent, my main problem with the term TG with transgender, with transwoman, is it sounds like I need some form of re affirmation. No, I'm a woman. I am only a woman. I am just a woman. I am not a woman needing a special label to assist in clarifying I am a woman. I am only a woman.
To me, TG loses it's value once I am not talking to a medical professional who needs to be told WHY I want a perfectly functional penis and perfectly functional testicles that are still operating as designed just fine in the production of sperm, removed. As we speak, it is no major problem for me to fertilize a cis female in 15-30 minutes. But I don't want that. I have no desire to be able to do that. If tomorrow they were able to tell me medical science could transfer the parts of a female that would permit me to become a mother into me, I'd be more happy than words can describe. The fact that at 52 the last thing I actually want, is to become a mother is of course important to remember.
I am sad I have missed some parts of life as a female. I am naturally not sad I have missed some of course. I have hemorrhoids, I have had to deal with bleeding. I haven't experienced the rest of menstruation though. Only an idiot 'misses' that. It would be like saying I enjoy any other physical process that is intrusive uncomfortable and unavoidable. I don't like migraines either.
Acceptance is a troublesome state of being.
It's a fight that is waged more internally than it ever will be externally.
If YOU don't accept yourself, you have lost the only part of the battle that matters.
There will always be mean people that won't accept you for something.
There will always be miss informed people that might not be a problem if not for their lousy misconceptions and crummy education.
If you can't accept yourself, why should anyone else accept you?
If you go through the day constantly beating yourself up over perceived slights that never actually happened, all you are doing is bullying yourself. And the problem there, is you can't run away from yourself.
If everything is seen as an attack, if your every thought is a defensive reaction as if it was an entirely negative act, you likely are really mostly just not really accepting yourself more than anything else.
Because most people simply won't have the time or the interest to care.
The guy next to you in the restroom could be thinking anything.
He's not going to be thinking half the things you think you are thinking.
Odds are the only thing on his mind will be something along the lines of 'aaaaaaahhhhhh' as he empties his bladder and feels good.
It's usually what is going through mine.
He's not going to be examining your outfit, not going to be saying 'why is HE dressed like THAT and going all anti social on you.
He might be capable of that, if you hang around an chat him up after he is done while washing his hands. I guess the best advice is pee and then leave and socialize somewhere else.
If you must use the ladies room, don't take it as a moment to practice your passing technique with the girls there eh.
This hasn't been a rest room campaign thread by the way it is just the example I picked.
I could have used something else.
Going out and buying a dress for instance and change rooms.
Going to the pharmacy to look for make up and asking for assistance from the cosmetics department.
Going to the bar on ladies night.
Heck I have seen a lot of comment on TV shows and their content lately as well.
In my own situation, I have problems I am coping with. I am not afraid to shop for new clothes, I am miserable I am out of shape and I would rather be shopping for dresses in much smaller sizes. I am accepting of my being female and needing a dress, and not worried about shopping for them, I just think it sucks the stores never have my size and I am stuck shopping in the one place in town that specializes in 'plus sized' which really is what it is, fat girls or girls who are other extreme range shapes. Yippy, I'm a fat girl. Huufrigginrah.
I don't have 52 years of training in putting on make up.
I am not afraid to shop for it, I just have no idea what I need. I go into the relevant departments in the store, but I am always seeing paint colours with the eye of someone that builds models :) Hmm panzer yellow, olive green, rust brown.
I'm annoyed that I don't have boobs, too many tops look dumb with no boobs in them. They are made with the idea you have at least soooome boobs.
I am particularly glad I have kept myself clean of any form of medication. Nothing to need to juggle with HRT when I get the ball rolling. I will only need to track the effects of the HRT meds. If anything at all happens, I won't need to wonder if it is an interaction problem with anything else. No hassle getting other meds to cooperate.
I am of course anxious about the wait, all of 2014 likely shot before I get anywhere at all about getting on a list to get rid of a part of my anatomy that I want to get lost. But people rarely like waiting for anything important.
So anyway, that is what I have been thinking about this morning. Long read, and sorry but if it was too much reading, that is YOUR limitation, I read this much text easily.
I think the TG world needs to sharpen it's acceptance skills. Too many of us are a bit too touchy me thinks.
Too many are too touchy, and likely it is for reasons they do want to see, or just can't seem to see.
Maybe if more of us were better with genuine acceptance of ourselves, there would be more of us more visible and more likely able to help more of us that are not having an easy time with being TG.
I have not witnessed a single example of a person that is TG in my home town. Ludicrous that in a town or more than 20k that I am the only TG person living here. How many of us are here, and just so unaccepting of themselves, that we suffer in silence and for nothing.
I walk where I walk openly and without regard to how I look.
I like my jewellery, I like my purse. I like my new hair do.
If I get called sir, I don't make a fuss constantly correcting them. Not that important to me if the person is so unable to notice that the 'man' the person just called sir is carrying a PURSE and wearing women's jewellery and has a woman's hair style and smells pretty. Eventually I will succeed in finding some better more female looking garments. Eventually the HRT might give me breasts, or something that looks close enough.
That day will come.
I know I am a woman. I don't need to constantly be reminding everyone.
I have accepted me.
Sort of.
More that I suck at courage. But acceptance is part of that.
I used to suck at acceptance and to some point tolerance. I have found that my career and age have made me really good at both now. I have seen what is truly important in life and just how short that it can be. I regret things and parts of my life in the past, but find I concentrate more on what I have learned and how to apply it to be a much better person. I just wish I would not have been forced to live a lie the past 40 years and could have lived like I felt. I accept how things went and maybe it was done to me to give me the tools to help others in their quest and give them the life they want and need. Kind of a Trans Yoda! ;D
Quote from: Orange Creamsicle on December 16, 2013, 11:58:05 AM
So, just accept discrimination? Is that essentially what you are saying? Where you go to the bathroom isn't that big of a deal, right? What about where you sit on the bus? No big deal, right? Which drinking fountain you are allowed to use, no big deal, right? Rosa Parks should have just sat in the black section of the bus, it's not like she had to let it really affect her life, it's just a bus seat, right?
We have to fight the small fights in order to eventually win the war. In my opinion.
Maybe I misread what she said, but I didn't read it as accepting discrimination - I read it as not caring what others think. And as for the bathroom issue, this is how I took it...I know that I didn't use the men's room until I started passing a lot, and even other trans people were like "USE THE MEN'S ROOM, you're a man, aren't you?" But I didn't pass as a man in society, and felt 100% safer in the women's. so I used the women's. I never let it affect my self image because I just wanted to sit down, pee, and leave. I tried not to focus on not passing at the time, and just doing my business. Now in the men's, I do the same - enter the stall and pee, I don't think about how I can't use the urinal because I don't need to stand to pee to be a man. I think that's what she meant with the bathroom comment. Just using whichever you feel comfortable in and not caring what others may think.
To Lesley - Bathroom issue aside, I really like what you said about not taking what other people may think of us seriously. I will admit, much as you said you got fixated on your disability, or on negative comments people made, I get focussed on being TS. I worry about things like, "if people know, they'll define me as 'trans' and nothing else." Or "they wouldn't think of me as a real man." And maybe you are right, maybe my self-image is weakened. Should it really matter what they think? After all, I never transitioned for anyone else, I did it so I could be more comfortable in my skin and be myself. I don't need anyone else or anyone else's approval to be me. I mean, the validation is nice - to know I don't look female and that I am integrating - but at the end of the day, all I really ever have is myself to face.
Yes, people make dumb comments. But as history has shown time and time again, dumb comments can reach a critical mass, give hateful people the opportunity to harness their hatred into something much worse and before you know it people are being severely discriminated against because of their race, their religious beliefs, their disability, their sexual preference...etc. in the worst examples they are being rounded up and killed.
Dumb comments might be just that, but they usually stem from a lack of understanding or inability to empathise. Do I care about them? Not really. But if they're left unchallenged they can amalgamate with all the other dumb a$$ comments and give hateful people the strength to push through regressive policy and legislation, etc.
You're on the right track Caleb :)
I never said accept discrimination. Being told I couldn't use the white restroom would be a level of wrong way out of proportion.
I seriously don't understand the problem with a woman in a male body peeing standing into a urinal in a men's room.
THAT is what I meant about acceptance. It doesn't make me less of a woman because I am standing peeing in the men's room.
If I were standing there, purse over shoulder, skirt hiked up, panties lowered the same way I lower men's briefs and a penis dangling out peeing, a guy standing next to me, he can think anything he frigging wants. Why should I care? He might think a zillion things. All likely would be incorrect. And 30 seconds later, I am done taking a pee, and chances are we never meet again.
Now in a school, ya different. Schools though, the troubles kids face today, heck the list is a long one.
We need to teach kids to believe in themselves. We need to show them, what they are and who they are, is determined by them. Not outside opinions. They need to be taught the same attitude as above.
Maybe the rest room is the wrong battlefield. I can think of better places for a fight on TG issues.
If you want a more involved discussion on that, I'm on my Facebook all day some days :)
You are who you say you are, and if you need a sign on a door to feel better about who you are, you need to work of convincing yourself more.
Hmmmmm,
Acceptance of my body in physical transition from MTF at age 60 is confusing even to me sometimes. That it is confusing to others ought not surprise me. However when I look like, act like and sound like a lady I expect to be accepted as such regardless of whether I pass without question, or not. For me to stand and pee is efficient but in-congruent with how I want my view of myself to be. That said, I need not accept discrimination, but neither do I need to seek out confrontation, and when confronted I need to behave better than they do. I hate getting called out and it doesn't happen much any more, but when it does, my concern is first safety, then education. I do not expect to change the world, but I do expect myself to believe that the world can be changed. And that I am an ambassador of that change. I spent 59 years of my life trying to be something I was not. I wish to spend the balance of my days tuning my image and femininity into the magic that is woman.
Peace
Best part of your post Julie was "and when confronted I need to behave better than they do."
That is the point where you REALLY give yourself genuine acceptance.
The moment you are living your life for a cause, you are really living to convince. Because too often we claim it is standing up to discrimination, but in truth we are just reacting to provocation.
Yes I want to be treated like a lady, but, I'm not going to wait till I am, to live life like one.
I don't care what I look like, I only care what I feel like. Hell I envy Japanese school girls their incredible impossible look, and how their females look 16 till they are 26. There's no cosmetic miracle in my future. I will never look 'pretty', I might look female, but pretty? oh come on, there's being kind and then there's dangerous ego stroking :) I might never pass, but if I have my way, I will in time be able to say, I AM a female, if you want to be a pervert, I can even show you.
My neck size is always going to intrude, but, I have seen some cis females with physical features I sure wouldn't want to cope with. I will never be buying panties in a lingerie shop, they only sell to teenage tooth pics. There is no reason for me to walk into shoe stores, I have wide feet even if not a large foot size, there won't be any shoes in there for me.
But I am not my outfit. I realized the other day, I already know what I look like in a dress. Stupid, you've been lounging around in a night gown now for quite some time, what do you think a dress is going to look like if not this? I'm not overly pleased with the way it sits on me as far as the mirror is concerned. Not enough up top, way too much in the middle. But I have seen cis females look waaaaay worse than this. I'll find my way eventually.
There is a big deal of difference between not finished the remodeling, and finished accepting I am a female under renovation.
I'm not an ugly guy lamenting I don't look like a woman after all. I'm an ugly woman lamenting I am not a pretty woman.
There will always be mountains to cross. But one has to ask, do you have to cross all of them? You CAN go around the mountain too.
I think some of us, we wear ourselves out insisting you have to go over every single mountain, never around.
Good Morning,
None of us are ugly - the ugly ones are the hateful ones and I have never met at trans* person filled with hate. I doubt I will ever be much in the way of pretty. Way too late for that. But part of my transition has been getting and staying fit; eating well and in moderation; asking for help with make-up and fashion; and being willing to look a bit silly to those I trust in order to look passable to those I don't. For me, sixteen months estradiol, finasteride, minoxidil, and spironolactone, along with yoga and running have shaved 35 lbs off me, reshaped what is there, and given me the confidence to allow my inner view to be shown to the world. Today is an electrolysis session so I don't much like my image, but that too will pass and eventually the incongruity and dissonance will be reconciled. I started this adventure feeling lonely, angry, different, and afraid every day of my life. Until I could accept myself as I am, I could not accept the world as it is. I am a work in progress - I am a smart, useful, loving human. I am feminine, and female. What the opinion of the rest of the world is, affects me but does not rule me any more. I have spent decades isolated, even with friends, lovers, and family. Slowly that is changing, slowly acceptance is winning.
Lots of Love