Is how the world sees you is what transition is or is it how your mind sees itself or is it even possible to separate the two. The famous proposition in philosophy are your senses telling you the truth or can your senses really know objective reality ,Can you ever be objective about yourself when using your senses. Can you ever really achieve the gender your mind is telling you that you are.
Honestly it's more how others sees me than how me I see myself. I always look at myself via the eyes of others and use them as a mirror.
I guess that's what I saying where is the line in others or yourself. Would transition make any sense on a desert island you will never escape and be eternally alone.
When I started to transition (which wasn't all that long ago, so maybe my views will change again.) it was ALL about how others would see me.
Now it's mostly how I see and feel about myself.
I have not yet been out in full female mode, but I have and currently am going out mostly in androgynous mode. I've been called ma'am several times, only to have the person correct themselves after they get a closer look.
I've been going out this way for over a month now and I'm finding that how others see and react to me doesn't bother me anywhere near as much as I thought it would. I think in another year or so I'll be able to pass easily, but even if don't I believe I can live with it because I feel so much better about myself.
And Yes! If I was alone on a desert island I would still transition. Not sure where I would get the E, but I'd figure something out.
I just want to look in the mirror again and gain confidence from my appearance
rather then a few glimpses in the right moment, the right lighting and this becoming exceedingly harder throughout the years.
For your philosophical stance:
Je pense donc je suis :angel:
What then is gender? If nobody asks me, I know what it is. If I wish to explain it to those who ask, I do not know.
I think it's a combination of the two. How much one or the other differs with each one of us.
Quote from: stephaniec on December 18, 2015, 11:57:13 PM
Would transition make any sense on a desert island you will never escape and be eternally alone.
In a word, yes.
I think it's a combination. For me, I have to see myself as a woman, but part of that is based on whether I think other people will see me as a woman.
It's both for me, too. As a child I wanted to be one of the girls, but that was impossible because I was a boy and was expected to be and do boy things. Boys hated sissy boys and girls didn't want boys, sissy or not, hanging with them. It's really no different now in adulthood. As a woman, I can be one of the girls now and just fit in as long as everyone is comfortable with my appearance, mannerisms, and anatomy. I was never at ease with my masculine features. In my mind I am a woman which for me means that my mirror image should reflect that. Thus all the effort to become as feminine as I can manage. Transition serves both needs.
It's very much what others see. I felt like a woman all my life. I was never treated like one until after I started transition.
It's very much what others see, but in the end what matters is what I see inside more so than outside. Hugs
Mariah
Even if absolutely nobody ever saw me, I still would have been uncomfortable having a hairy body with all of that male bulk, a changed voice, and my genital anatomy.
That has nothing to do with how the world sees me, that's how my brain feels about my own body. Even if nobody ever saw me again, I'd still want to be living in a female body, because that's what my brain expects to be there.
I'll be done with transition when I'm happy with me, and when I feel like my body is mine again, not when someone else looks at me and validates me somehow.
While I would like the world to see me as female it isn't always so, no changing that. However, in my mind, I am female and that's it. Doesn't matter where I am or what I wear during the day or what I'm doing. My brain has switched to full female mode and I never have to remind myself any more that I am a woman.
Love,
Clare
If you had asked me a year ago I would have said what others see is most important. Now I've been on HRT for nearly a year and I don't care anymore what anyone sees or thinks.
It struck me today that for a lot of years I was already dead, just counting the endless days until the dark bliss of endless sleep would begin.
Now I am alive and living again and I'm happy. I thought I had seen the end of that a long time ago but it's here again.
So for now at least I'm holding steady on this path, HRT and growing my hair without any earth shattering revelations to the world.
What people see doesn't change at all who I am no matter what clothes I am wearing.
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The Desert Island reference is a good one..
It shouldn't be thought provoking but just a straight forward answer.. (well for me it is anyway)
"If on a desert island,would you transition make sense."
Yes!! Yes!! & He'll Yes!!
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Quote from: j.d79 on December 19, 2015, 04:59:45 PM
The Desert Island reference is a good one..
It shouldn't be thought provoking but just a straight forward answer.. (well for me it is anyway)
"If on a desert island,would your transition make sense."
Yes!! Yes!! & Hell Yes!!
Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk
Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk
It's far more important ,in my opinion, for how you feel about yourself ;D
Quote from: stephaniec on December 18, 2015, 11:57:13 PM
I guess that's what I saying where is the line in others or yourself. Would transition make any sense on a desert island you will never escape and be eternally alone.
Yes. A lot of us dressed in secret, hoping for relief from the constant pounding of dysphoria. So it would make sense that being all alone we would absolutely transform ourselves. We would probably be even more likely to so so.
I think the question posed in the thread is framed as an either-or choice when it is neither.
I want the world to see me as a woman (and they do) and I want to see myself as one (I mostly do).
I need both. I can't just get by with one. If I am not seeing myself as a woman, then I feel my transition is a failure. If others don't see me as a woman then what is the point, really? I know some people are fine just with their own satisfaction but I am a social person. I want others to perceive me the way I want to be, which is 100% woman.
there is something innately beautiful about bein called your proper gender that wouldn't happen on an isolated desert island.
Quote from: Charley on December 19, 2015, 09:49:26 AM
When I started to transition (which wasn't all that long ago, so maybe my views will change again.) it was ALL about how others would see me.
Now it's mostly how I see and feel about myself.
And Yes! If I was alone on a desert island I would still transition. Not sure where I would get the E, but I'd figure something out.
the island was a doomsday bunker with all the medical supplies needed for one person for a life time
Or better yet we were raise by masculine men and never had contact with a female (lets say we were sent on a mission to distant planet of another solar system on a generation ship using cells like cocoons for our births). Everyone must be born male for a successful mission due to women's periods and cost, men stregth, and to avoid drama. All sperm collected is spray with XY concotion.
So we have no reminders of what a female is.... But being trans is still possible but much rarer because T is much stronger due to the spray. The only way we become transgender is by the brain being disform by lets say, the T shot was misuse. Due to being so rare... We happen to be the only trans on the ship... Its not known so theres no one to imitate . (think of this like a time before hormones...)
Would we know the difference? Would we still want to be female?
Quote from: stephaniec on December 19, 2015, 07:22:36 PM
there is something innately beautiful about bein called your proper gender that wouldn't happen on an isolated desert island.
I agree but for me part of transition was feeling how I am in my own body with a woman's proportions and dimensions. So on the island I'd still be happy but in society I also need to be seen as female.
Quote from: Wild Flower on December 19, 2015, 09:05:25 PM
Or better yet we were raise by masculine men and never had contact with a female (lets say we were sent on a mission to distant planet of another solar system on a generation ship using cells like cocoons for our births). Everyone must be born male for a successful mission due to women's periods and cost, men stregth, and to avoid drama. All sperm collected is spray with XY concotion.
So we have no reminders of what a female is.... But being trans is still possible but much rarer because T is much stronger due to the spray. The only way we become transgender is by the brain being disform by lets say, the T shot was misuse.
Would we know the difference? Would we still want to be female?
Too many factors here. I was likely DES exposed so the hormone spray would probably cause some issues.
That said, I was raised by my dad in an all male household. I still wanted to be female, so badly I was willing to take my own life in the hopes of reincarnating as one.
It would be pretty interesting being the only woman with all those men on a distant planet
Quote from: stephaniec on December 19, 2015, 09:11:32 PM
It would be pretty interesting being the only woman with all those men on a distant planet
It'll be like.... I dont belong here. I think mother nature will play her role on us, and trans women will gravitate to girl games regardless...
I played with barbies as a child without knowing it was right or wrong. I was really into making outfits for the dolls or fixing their hair.
I think a trans person will play his toys like a girl would...even if he had no knowledge of a woman.
After 40 years of just thinking I was wierd or different, I only care how I treat myself. The e makes my mind feel good. Yes it's changing my body, but as long as I now know myself, they can call me whatever! That's worth more than years of drugs, shrinks, or body mods to figure this out..
Postcards from the other side:)
To your question.
Its a toss up. 50/50. I need both my mirror validation on me passing and I need some validation in the real world.
On a deserted island, Ill have long hair and need to look feminine.
Quote from: Wild Flower on December 19, 2015, 09:17:26 PM
It'll be like.... I dont belong here. I think mother nature will play her role on us, and trans women will gravitate to girl games regardless...
I played with barbies as a child without knowing it was right or wrong. I was really into making outfits for the dolls or fixing their hair.
I think a trans person will play his toys like a girl would...even if he had no knowledge of a woman.
yea, they say we're just hard wired. I wanted to wear female clothes from me earliest memories
Omg. I havent seen this show in over a decade. In the Wild Thornberries, Debbie, a ditzy blonde, is deserted in the jungle with her sister/mother/dad. Nigel used her last shampoo... And she went cookoo about her shampoo. Her father told her she can find all the ingredients in the jungle.
There is no reason to smell good or look pretty. She took it upon herself to search for the ingredients for her shampoo to feel good.
Why? Why go through all that?
To be pretty regardless if anyone cares.
She did it for herself.
And that would be the same reason why I need to look pretty... For myself.
Quote from: stephaniec on December 19, 2015, 09:29:13 PM
yea, they say we're just hard wired. I wanted to wear female clothes from me earliest memories
I wanted to be Sailor Moon. That show was awesome as a child. I put on dresses here and there. Or make up For Halloween I was a witch lol. I even trim my eyebrows and my arm hair as a child.
You would think.... My family was ignorant I guess.
I had at least 3 barbies. And a Barbie head... And i hated boy toys.
It involves doing whatever you need to do to yourself to be accepting of your physical body but mostly changing the world to treat you as you. If you only wanted to change yourself for the sake of other people and wouldn't transition on a desert island then you are probably doing this for the wrong reasons.
It's more about me than anyone's perception of me of course! Obviously acceptance from outside of myself is important as well, just not as important as my own reality and perception.
it's kind of hard though , can we really not look in the mirror. I guess it's a sum total of all experience. Now , that my body has changed some what to the proper proportions I feel so much better. The feel of and weight of my breasts is healing a wound that's been there since childhood. My breasts and hopefully some hips have such an amazing feel to them. The last time I went to my doctor she was mentioning the possibility of my hips filling out and this inner little self started jumping up and down.
If there's a single mirror in this bunker, I'll want my E. Otherwise... I don't know how much I'd care. No matter what, my facial hair would make me cry if I couldn't get rid of it. I'd pluck it incessantly; with my fingernails if necessary.
both important. As to the island reference, I'd transition in a heartbeat. If the feeling of incongruence would leave me be, life wouldn't feel so impossible. How others perceive me is important, but it is secondary.
A bit of both really. It is a very nice thing to have the affirmation of others and to have them react to you the way you know they should. It is also awesome to have things aligned within your own self. In the end, what others think is simply what they will think and there is not a lot that can be done about it. The inner turmoil being quelled is nearly bliss!