Is it okay to talk about the fact that I feel ashamed to be a trans woman, that there is some misogynistic ego remnant that makes me feel lesser for not being a cishet male?
I'm trying to work through my feelings as to why I won't take steps to even part-time or partially transition. I always come back to fear, shame, and guilt. Fear I can power through and get over, hell, I've gone out in public presenting female several times and my fear gets less each time. Guilt is something that comes and goes but it has less to do with myself than my past and my relationships.
It's the self-esteem destroying shame that stops me every time. That I am "bad" or "lesser" for daring to express being female. I wish I knew a magic pill to make shame go away.
You can talk about almost anything on here , see the site rules, ashamed for you true self? I think every one on here would say see a gender therapist to help .
Robin,
This is exactly why many of us hold off our transition until much later in life until we can no longer stand the dysphoria any more or we don't care what others think about us. We try to deny that we have a situation that needs correcting. We struggle with our dysphoria because we have obligations to others and we feel that it is more important to care for them than ourselves.
Many of us late transitioners have finally come to accept ourselves as we are and do something about it. If transition is what we need to do, then there is much more to do for appearance issues than a young transitioner. I envy the young transitioners for their courage to accept themselves regardless of their situation.
Quote from: Dani on June 22, 2017, 05:33:29 AM
Robin,
This is exactly why many of us hold off our transition until much later in life until we can no longer stand the dysphoria any more or we don't care what others think about us. We try to deny that we have a situation that needs correcting. We struggle with our dysphoria because we have obligations to others and we feel that it is more important to care for them than ourselves.
Many of us late transitioners have finally come to accept ourselves as we are and do something about it. If transition is what we need to do, then there is much more to do for appearance issues than a young transitioner. I envy the young transitioners for their courage to accept themselves regardless of their situation.
Yeah, I'm just about there. The shame is from what we've be indoctrinated to believe what social norms are through parents, relatives and our exchanges with society as a whole. These internal beliefs are created before we acquire rationality, so it's ingrained. I still have it even though I see a therapist, although it's gotten better.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I like Iranian leader, Ayatollah Homeini's, approach to transgender issue. He said 'it's never mentioned in the Quran, therefore not forbidden, and as such should be treated as just another medical condition with compassion and support from state, community and all good muslims'.
As a Christian, I looked through all the New Testament to see if Jesus ever forbid anything, and he did not! (His apostles is another story, and they were just men who betrayed Jesus teachings on multiple occasions, so whatever old Yhve said to Jews, or Apostle Paul said to remote tribes isn't really what Jesus said :)
So, ask yourself, if it's your body, you don't harm anybody, and even your religion doesn't call it a sin, why should you be ashamed?
Quote from: RobinGee on June 22, 2017, 02:51:22 AM
Is it okay to talk about the fact that I feel ashamed to be a trans woman, that there is some misogynistic ego remnant that makes me feel lesser for not being a cishet male?
I'm trying to work through my feelings as to why I won't take steps to even part-time or partially transition. I always come back to fear, shame, and guilt. Fear I can power through and get over, hell, I've gone out in public presenting female several times and my fear gets less each time. Guilt is something that comes and goes but it has less to do with myself than my past and my relationships.
It's the self-esteem destroying shame that stops me every time. That I am "bad" or "lesser" for daring to express being female. I wish I knew a magic pill to make shame go away.
Robin, you are most definitely not alone in this feeling many of us have been through it or even some still struggle with it. Mental health professionals typically refer to this as internalized trans-phobia. As others have mentioned before me, this feeling of shame in who we are is why so many of us stay in the closet for so long. I'm just about 40 and only came out in the last 9 months. Had it not been for the internalized shame, I'd have started transitioning much sooner and saved my wife a lot of pain.
If you're not already, I would strongly encourage you to work with a therapist that has experience working with transgender people. A good therapist will help you wade through your emotions and find ways to cope with them or even change your outlook such that they fade away. My therapist has been invaluable to me in this process and I think most here would agree with that. Don't go it alone, this is a journey that REQUIRES you to get help. Unfortunately I think the 40% suicide rate among transgender people is due in part to those of us who try to conquer this by ourselves out of fear or shame of seeking out help.
How you feel is similar to how I felt. Over the years the dysphoria grows until you dont feel shame, you just need yo be who you are. I spoke with a therapist for 3 years before starting HRT, as an Alpha male it was difficult to accept I was tg. I guess being an older person and having fufilled all my family obligations I found incredible support. I'm 69 now, feel like 39 and finally loving life.
Just think years ahead to your deathbed and living a life unfufilled, that would be a total disaster. There is no shame to be who you are.
Eventually if you continue walking down this road the shame will be burned to ashes in the fires of anger over the game that's been played on you since birth by a transphobic society.
We were born this way.
None of you ever should be ashamed. You are who you are. People who make trans people fell ashamed and like they are doing something wrong are the ones who need to be ashamed. I have never been ashamed in any way of being trans.
Stealing £20 from an old lady's purse to buy alcohol should cause shame.
Being who you are shouldnt.
You are you, thats it. man, woman, half giraffe-half kangeroo.
It doesnt matter. Being who you are isnt shameful, its smart
Quote from: MissKairi on June 22, 2017, 12:56:53 PM
Stealing £20 from an old lady's purse to buy alcohol should cause shame.
Being who you are shouldnt.
You are you, thats it. man, woman, half giraffe-half kangeroo.
It doesnt matter. Being who you are isnt shameful, its smart
Should you feel shame for hiding some important information about your internal feelings for so long from the people who love you and who you love?
Should you feel at least some inconvenience for playing the system (gaining good education and job, then turning around - and saying I want to be feminine and taken care, but I still want my job, and my salary and my nice house, and community support - but I don't want to deal with negative parts of day-to-day of women's experience)? Last one was targeted mostly at part time cross dressers like myself, not to those who are out...
Robin,
Everyone close to you has looked at you as the 'male you' all your life. Thinking of transitioning means destroying that image for everyone including yourself. That is not an easy thing especially when you think you might be disappointing people you love. The 'new you' is not really known to a great extent so you can't know what the new life would be like. It will take time to work through these feelings. I am now living full time female, and I let these shameful thoughts stop me from progressing for decades. They are a memory now. I wish someone would have told me to not let the shame rule me. Of course, you are a different person and YMMV.
Moni
Quote from: elkie-t on June 22, 2017, 01:24:46 PM
Should you feel shame for hiding some important information about your internal feelings for so long from the people who love you and who you love?
Absolutely not. That is precisely the behavior our transphobic culture demands that we have. Exposing inner feelings that violate cultural norms is strictly taboo, and will get you 'thrown off the island.' Only a few decades ago, simply having those feelings was grounds for involuntary psychiatric commitment and treatment with electroconvulsive and aversion therapy, with noncompliance rewarded with an icepick lobotomy.
Seriously.
We should not feel shame for trying so hard to avoid violating taboos.
Within Western culture there are three paths transgender people may take, in order of acceptability.
1) Socially acceptable: Suicide
Society views suicide by the transgender person as putting themselves out of society's misery. That is, the transgender person had the decency to recognize that their existance is culturally unacceptable and has removed themselves. Society can shed a few crocodile tears, give a big "Aww. Too bad, so sad." and get back to their cheeze nachos and pro wrestling, or other vital concerns.
2) Socially tolerable: Self-medication
Just another unconscious body in an alleyway, or half-seen figure staggering down Skid Row? No problem. Obviously a lesser person, Not One Of Us, and safely ignored. Of course, they continue to exist (for a while) as a drain on societies resources, and others in society will occasionally see and be uncomfortable with them, so this isn't as socially acceptable as suicide.
3) Socially unacceptible: Continued Existance
I don't value a culture that seeks to deny my existance very highly. It's obviously defective, functioning on broken or false premises. We do exist.
Quote from: elkie-t on June 22, 2017, 01:24:46 PM
Should you feel at least some inconvenience for playing the system (gaining good education and job, then turning around - and saying I want to be feminine and taken care, but I still want my job, and my salary and my nice house, and community support - but I don't want to deal with negative parts of day-to-day of women's experience)? Last one was targeted mostly at part time cross dressers like myself, not to those who are out...
Is it really so terrible for a human being to try and survive within a culture that forbids such gender expression?
Is it so horrible that someone cannot meet the demands of a sick culture and seeks to survive through what few outlets may be available to them that do not destroy their lives?
Elkie-t, if these are real issues for you and not some argumentative "straw man", I would recommend that you seek some assistance in working through these issues and finding some relief for yourself. These do not come from a good or healthy place.
Quote from: Michelle_P on June 22, 2017, 01:49:20 PM
Elsie-t, if these are real issues for you and not some argumentative "straw man", I would recommend that you seek some assistance in working through these issues and finding some relief for yourself. These do not come from a good or healthy place.
These are my real feelings, not just arguments. I don't feel ashamed for being transgender, but I do feel ashamed for not telling my parents at 10 or 12 or 16. I feel ashamed for marrying twice and fathering 4 children (2 of which I abandoned, and 2 another I might if I come out now). I do feel ashamed for using male privilege to get into top college and getting good career as a man (definitely my career won't be where I am at would I come out at 16)...
These are my personal feelings, and remorse for not coming out early in life, and reasons not to transition now. But you don't have to have those same, obviously.
Ps I am not suicidal, don't worry. And I don't go to shrinks, now they are obligated to report you to authorities - thanks a lot, I'll keep my thoughts to myself and stay out from them.
Quote from: elkie-t on June 22, 2017, 01:24:46 PM
Should you feel shame for hiding some important information about your internal feelings for so long from the people who love you and who you love?
Absolutely not! If I had had a clear idea that I was trans and had concealed it from family and friends in order to gain some kind of advantage of male privilege or something, then maybe that would be shame-worthy. However, I didn't have a clear idea that I was trans, so I never intended concealment, and such concealment as there was did not gain me any advantage, but rather cost me dearly.
I feel embarassment that it took me so long to recognize the truth, and I feel pride that I acted quickly and honourably once I did figure it out. No shame at all.
Quote from: RobinGee on June 22, 2017, 02:51:22 AM
Is it okay to talk about the fact that I feel ashamed to be a trans woman, that there is some misogynistic ego remnant that makes me feel lesser for not being a cishet male?
* * *
It's the self-esteem destroying shame that stops me every time. That I am "bad" or "lesser" for daring to express being female. I wish I knew a magic pill to make shame go away.
Yeah, it's okay to talk about shame. Pretty much everybody here has faced and struggled with shame at some time and at some level. That's not surprising, since almost all of us grew up in families and societies where gender conformity was valued and rewarded and gender non-conformity was stigmatized and punished.
If your level of shame is painful and obstructs your development (and it sounds like it does!), get some help from a good gender therapist and work on it. And don't worry. Therapists work for you, and they are ethically obligated to respect your confidentiality and keep your secrets.
There isn't a "magic pill" that makes shame go away. But you CAN work it out. Yes, it's okay to talk about shame here. We understand what you're talking about.
If you feel guilty about your own choices in your life that is your choice. I don't see why you would try to apply it to someone else who is just trying to figure themselves out. Do you really think what you said was helpful to Robin?
Monica
Quote from: HappyMoni on June 22, 2017, 02:41:22 PM
If you feel guilty about your own choices in your life that is your choice. I don't see why you would try to apply it to someone else who is just trying to figure themselves out. Do you really think what you said was helpful to Robin?
Monica
Absolutely. She wanted a discussion about her feelings of shame, and I shared mine. Acknowledgement of those feelings is very important step in self-acceptance.
Do you think a standard vanilla 'you should not feel ashamed of nothing' instead of honest exchange of personal thoughts would help anyone deal with this problem?
Quote from: davina61 on June 22, 2017, 03:17:19 AM
Is it okay to talk about the fact that I feel ashamed to be a trans woman, that there is some misogynistic ego remnant that makes me feel lesser for not being a cishet male?
I'm trying to work through my feelings as to why I won't take steps to even part-time or partially transition. I always come back to fear, shame, and guilt. Fear I can power through and get over, hell, I've gone out in public presenting female several times and my fear gets less each time. Guilt is something that comes and goes but it has less to do with myself than my past and my relationships.
It's the self-esteem destroying shame that stops me every time. That I am "bad" or "lesser" for daring to express being female. I wish I knew a magic pill to make shame go away.
It sucks that more people feel this way, but I'm glad I'm not the only one. The only reason it's taken me so long to pin down that I'm actually transgender is because every time I would present as masculine I would have breakdown because there was something inside me that told me I needed to be a female, the standard definitely of a female....Then I would try way too hard.....Date men, wear dressed, keep my nails done....And I finally just hit a point where I realized I was only sabotaging myself.
I am ashamed to tell my grandparents, not for who I am, but because they're extremely religious and I know they're going to be disappointed and embarrassed....Aside from that I'm pretty confident and comfortable with all of it now.
I think it's just a natural feeling. Even if we're not born in the right body, we're all still human at the end of the day...And unfortunately that means feelings.
Shame is something we all have. It can be a force of good as it helps us to better ourself. If you think back when you were a child, you wanted to have the respect of your parents so to avoid shame, you behaved yourself and worked to learn in school.
Now you are finding shame is bad because to become yourself, you fear that others will look down on you. This keeps us in the closet for years and makes our life miserable. The trick to overcoming shame is two part. The first part is to discover that others aren't troubled by your desire to transition. If you watch the site for long enough, many of our members have really great coming out experiences. The remaining shame is cause by people who will never accept you. These people aren't worthy of you as they are narrow minded, not the people who make the best of friends. They can be dismissed as you move into your new life and they remain in the old one filled with ignorance.
It's not easy risking everything but if the thing you value the most is yourself, you might be ready to discover that you have little to to be ashamed of.
I had a little fear at first, but soon moved on from that. I've never had any shame or guilt. Why should I? I have a fairly straight forward medical condition for which I've received the appropriate treatment..
Quote from: elkie-t on June 22, 2017, 02:53:45 PM
Absolutely. She wanted a discussion about her feelings of shame, and I shared mine. Acknowledgement of those feelings is very important step in self-acceptance.
Do you think a standard vanilla 'you should not feel ashamed of nothing' instead of honest exchange of personal thoughts would help anyone deal with this problem?
You expressing your experience, yeah, that is fair. The only thing is you really didn't make it clear that that was your experience. You said, "
Quote from: elkie-t on June 22, 2017, 01:24:46 PM
Should you feel shame for hiding some important information about your internal feelings for so long from the people who love you and who you love?
Should you feel at least some inconvenience for playing the system (gaining good education and job, then turning around - and saying I want to be feminine and taken care, but I still want my job, and my salary and my nice house, and community support - but I don't want to deal with negative parts of day-to-day of women's experience)? Last one was targeted mostly at part time cross dressers like myself, not to those who are out...
Maybe I have it wrong but it seemed like you were aiming it at her. It seemed like it had a fair amount of anger behind it. I'm not trying to fight with you here. Really not! I just think if people come on here with an issue of feeling shame, they aren't helped by loading them up with reasons to be ashamed. The people who are trans and ashamed are terrified to tell anyone. Look at the atmosphere we live in. No one wants to hide this. What do they gain? I lived in terror for 50 years that someone would find out my secret. No one can say I was selfish in doing that. What you might call "playing the system," I called surviving.
Well, I wish you well. We may have to agree to disagree. You have a right to your opinion.
Moni
Robin, I hope you be able to shake that feeling. You deserve to be happy and be your genuine self.
Moni nailed it. shamed and terrified someone would find out my terrible secret. Until being a secret agent becomes such a burden I just don't care anymore, and i can begin to imagine a life living true to myself. and once that idea takes hold, and it's not some crazy fantasy, but actually quite plausible, the idea of not living that way eventually is worse than the idea of not living at all :)
Quote from: HappyMoni on June 22, 2017, 09:49:38 PM
The people who are trans and ashamed are terrified to tell anyone. Look at the atmosphere we live in. No one wants to hide this. What do they gain? I lived in terror for 50 years that someone would find out my secret. No one can say I was selfish in doing that. What you might call "playing the system," I called surviving.
Well, I wish you well. We may have to agree to disagree. You have a right to your opinion.
I said earlier in this thread, that there is no reason to be ashamed for who you are - medical science says it's not a choice, legally one doesn't break any law no matter how he/she dresses (and even if does, those laws have no moral ground at all), even religiously if you believe in god - neither Jesus nor Mohammed said anything against it.
But hiding who you are is not really survival (although I knew a trans girl kicked out by her family to live on the streets after coming out). Still most of us have no reason to fear for their life, but do fear to lose career, social status, are afraid to be ridiculed. These things are all real, but by hiding who we are, especially from those who we love, is hurting them, and the longer you hide, the bigger the hurt is if you decide you cannot bear secrecy any more.
I feel bad for not hurting my parents 30 years ago, I feel bad for marrying twice (I thought I disclosed second time, yet she claims she's not a mind reader and my disclosure meant something else to her than my transgenderness), I feel bad for bringing 4 children into this world and abandoning 2 of them.
That sort of happens, when you build your life on a sand of secrets and lies.
What would I lose would I tell 30 years ago? Probably my good college education. I'd still more likely than not have some, and even if I didn't I was fairly solid on my career path - I'd still write computer programs, and I was good at that before college. I might start working somewhere else though - it was tough getting a job as a guy after the college, might be unable to find any without degree and being trans, I might end up doing some low wage job and being a subject to demands for sex from the boss (been common thing 20 yes ago in my country - you want a job, and your boss wants to have sex, you are either let him, or look for job somewhere else). No sexual harassment laws and no enforcement of any laws at all. I got a job in USA, and have 15 years of career here. Would I come out at any moment, my company probably won't fire me, but I would not have support from my colleagues (most of whom came from the same old country as me), and without their support - I'll probably still sit in some cubicle writing test plans and executing them countless times without any hope for promotion.
So, did I played the system? Oh yes. Did I gained something? Definitely.
The dean of my college once said - we don't have no sexual discrimination here, but girls have no place in our industry. And this was a liberal place in a liberal city...
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
QuoteI said earlier in this thread, that there is no reason to be ashamed for who you are - medical science says it's not a choice, legally one doesn't break any law no matter how he/she dresses
That most definitely wasn't the case when I was a kid. Back then, you'd have been considered mentally ill. And there have been many laws back then that did make cross dressing illegal too.
Quote from: AnneK on June 23, 2017, 08:02:55 AM
That most definitely wasn't the case when I was a kid. Back then, you'd have been considered mentally ill. And there have been many laws back then that did make cross dressing illegal too.
And many thanks to those of you who lived then and fought those laws (any little bit helps, even if just by not contributing to those). Our generation (and younger ones) should be thankful for where we are now. (Although I reserve a right to think I contributed a little too by being proudly out many times in the past)
Shame followed by Guilt, are my two oldest friends. A manifestation of the internalized transphobia. From an early age we are taught boys are this, and girls are that. We all grow up wanting to please our parents. We also feel guilt and shame when we know not being X or Y will disappoint our parents. SO we stuff the feelings as best we can. The stuffing is best done by burying it under a mountain of shame.
I wonder if a survey was ever done here asking if there was a time you felt ashamed about being trans? Y/N?
A funny thing happened along my road to recovery, a good portion of shame disappeared. The biggest guilt I have is rightfully earned, the pain of me taking on the Trans-Beast has inflicted upon my wife.
I said nothing about my gender dysphoria for decades because I was ashamed. I never even mentioned it to therapists whom I trusted implicitly, because I was afraid they'd laugh at me. I thought my dysphoria was laughable because Nature, that ***** goddess, decided that I needed a body that has extreme female secondary sex characteristics. In my mind, it was all about being able to pass for cis. If you could, then maybe transitioning was worth a try. If you couldn't, then you were just stuck, and too bad for you.
I finally got to the point where I just didn't care what people thought of me anymore, because the dysphoria was making me so very miserable. Ironically, abject misery led me to a much better place of just not giving a damn what other people think of me. I don't have to go home with them. I don't have to give their voices rental space in my head. The person I have to live with is myself, and I'd rather make me happy than appear "respectable" to others.
I can tell you that I am very prone to feeling shame. I don't know if I inherited it up from my mother's catholic upbringing or from my Dad's alienation from his adopted family. I just know that shame is a strong motivator for me, and it hurts deeply. I have to manage it in my life on a whole.
I think shame leads me to repress other feelings, including happiness! I can feel that push and pull of emotion when I contemplate my womanhood. Part of me feels effervescent and I want to float away on a cloud of joy, but another part feels afraid, and ashamed. Like I'm being selfish. And one of the worst parts is that these feelings kick in even before I've taken any real action! Like I think I'm selfish just for having thoughts and feelings!
My best take on shame and other emotions is that I have to let them pass through me. This is very much a part of the fabric of who I am, and if I fight too hard, I think I will hurt myself. I can have my shame, and I can let it go. And I hope it will eventually get the hint and stop coming around ;)