A few questions:
1) Are natal females socialized to have greater feelings about body issues than people born male. Does this attitude show up in transwomen or not?
2) Do you think that a woman's experience growing up is so different from what is done to boys and what is expected of boys that even the most polished and successful transwoman can never really understand being female cause they were socialized as boys. My cousin argued this to me at dinner the other night. She accepted that growing up as a "sissy boy" does create a different set of experiences than growing up a jock, but it still isn't a girl's experiences. She also asserted that I am not a woman nor a man, but something else. She knows I am post-op and have been living this way for 10 years. This is not a post about me or whether my cousin is ignorant cause that doesn't matter. I've heard this stuff many times before . I hope to get a discussion on this concept and how other people see this in their lives and in general. In an interview in In Style magazine, Alan Cummings the Gay actor said something like "No matter how feminine you may feel yourself to be as a man, you don't know how masculine you are until you try to pass as a woman.
Thoughts?
Well in my case I wasn't really socialised as a male. From the age of 5 I grew up living at least partly as a female with my parents toleration. Ok I suppose it is arguable that I wasn't quite female either... but that idea would kind of leave me perpetually in gender limbo. Forever intersexed.
So all I can say is I hope that isn't right. What do others think?
That gets into the whole "nature vs nurture" thing.
It is true that girls socialize differently than boys, but how much of that is society and how much is it the ways girl brains are different than boy brains is still quite up in the air.
Also, you must admit that girls body's change in a much more dramatic way during puberty than boys and that differentiation becomes much more of a conversation/socialization among young girls. Girls may talk about who had their first period, for example, but guys would never talk about nocturnal emissions.
We trans people have to ingrain ourselves into our chosen position in society and we will never have the experiences of being a child in that gender. We have to hit the ground running, so to speak. But we gain an insight to *both* genders that non-trans people will never have.
-Sandy
Quote from: xsocialworker on January 19, 2010, 08:44:23 AM
A few questions:
1) Are natal females socialized to have greater feelings about body issues than people born male. Does this attitude show up in transwomen or not?
Differences seem to emerge quite quickly. But the reasons, as Sandy says, are up in the air.
I recall a small study, a number of years ago.
A number of women were invited to take part in an interview examing language or soething like that. They arrived and were told there was a delay and would they mind waiting, then shown into a waiting room where a young woman was sitting with a baby. The baby was dressed so it was not possible to tell its sex from its clothes. Alternately, the baby had been provided either with a doll or a toy car.
Eventually the young woman said to the other that she needed to use the toilet, would she mind watching the baby.
When the baby had a doll, the woman caring for it cuddled it and they played with the doll together.
When the baby had the car, the women caring for it held it much more losely, allowing it to hold the car.
The study was too small to make any meaninful observation, Though, of course, the university triend to make all sort of claims. But it is intersting.
When a mother changes her baby's nappy, does she treat male and female gentials differently?
I have watched quite a number of young children grow from babies to children over the years. From many different cultures. Young girls seem to want to engage with others through their charm, showing an interest in those that seem to respond. While young boys seem to want to enforce themselves trying to control situations.
The only significant exception was a young boy who was very feminine and is now, as a young adult, very confused, agressive, lonely and homosexual seeking to be a female.
Quote from: xsocialworker on January 19, 2010, 08:44:23 AM
2) Do you think that a woman's experience growing up is so different from what is done to boys and what is expected of boys that even the most polished and successful transwoman can never really understand being female cause they were socialized as boys. My cousin argued this to me at dinner the other night. She accepted that growing up as a "sissy boy" does create a different set of experiences than growing up a jock, but it still isn't a girl's experiences. She also asserted that I am not a woman nor a man, but something else. She knows I am post-op and have been living this way for 10 years. This is not a post about me or whether my cousin is ignorant cause that doesn't matter. I've heard this stuff many times before . I hope to get a discussion on this concept and how other people see this in their lives and in general. In an interview in In Style magazine, Alan Cummings the Gay actor said something like "No matter how feminine you may feel yourself to be as a man, you don't know how masculine you are until you try to pass as a woman.
Thoughts?
I personally take the view that Transexuals are on a journey. We are breaking new ground, largely because we have available to us, for the first time in history, the means to alter our appearance with reasonable safety and success.
But to claim that we are not the sum total of our past is, I suggest a nonsense.
MtFs will never have a period and especially a first period. The significance of this event should never be underestimated.
Now I've cited the example of a first period because it is, by any measure, a dramatic event which I imagine most adults can readly understand.
I still recall the very first time I ejaculated. I really hoped that, by achieveing this mile stone, that other boys calimed they knew so well, I might become normal. The effect of the male climax, as you probably know, creates a sudden relief from the tension that created it. For me, personally, I reached the second point in my life when I seriously wanted to die. Needless to say, the hoped for normality didn't emerge.
In the 70s I researched for and wrote a paper attempting to postulate the place of homosexuals during humanity's feral stage, (99% of human existance).
I tried to suggest that, based upon what is known about the lifestyles of these early humans, examinations of feral humans today and the varying attitudes toward homosexuals among the different principal human families, that homosexuals probably had a very important role in these societies as guardians of encampments while the men went to hunt.
But transexuals today, I suggest, need to understand that we are creating a new society for those that will come next. We cannot presume to be fully, or desired gender. It is unlikely, in the forseeable future, that most hetrosexual people will fully accept us in the way they accept genetic males and females.
But we are creating a society for the next generation. We have a right to be here. We are not ill nor disturbed. We are a funtioning part of society able and ready to contribute in the same way as those of a different race. To suggest we should submit to treatment is as offensive as suggesting to a black man that he should accept skin bleaching.
lots of studies shows 'sissy boys' to grow up to be gay men - is that what xsocialworkers's cousin sees her as and why cousin refuses to give xsocialworker the well earned right to be seen as a woman?
if xsocialworkers colleagues and strangers see and accept her as female then really it's just the cousin's own transphobia is in play and refuses to accept her as female?
But we are creating a society for the next generation.
Twas ever thus, at least when the whole 'civilization' thing works right.
Is our socialization different than genetic women's? Well yes, unless we're talking a girl that was raised a boy and who's body and soul was also wreaked by 'T' for possibly decades. Does that make us any less legitimately women? That depends, like most things, on the agenda of the person you ask. Personally I don't understand the motivation to exclude anybody from whatever social pigeon holes they want to be defined by. It seems like a kind of adolescent 'no boys allowed' kind of thing.
I think it's kind of silly to even be seeking a black and white answer to ANY question in a universe where, with the possible exception of math, there is no such thing. In a binary gender world, nobody proves this better than transpeeps, and that is one of the things that makes us awesome! :)
Well, I don't think you could find two women that have had the exact same socialisation growing up so the whole argument is flawed.
Another way of thinking about this is that a transwoman is a girl, their experience is a girls experience. "I am a girl, and those were my experience, hence those experience are a girls experience" Certainly their socialisation is different from many woman but it is not like there is an average way a girl is socialised.
You have to then question what is it that makes a girl? Is it the way they are raised? Is it genetics? Is it the body? What aspects of a body? Lots of women don't have all the parts, many are not even xx, lots of women have radically different upbringing and socialisations. The only concrete concept thing is self identification.
Here in the UK and in Europe generally, there is a gradual adoption of unisex toilets.
A new school has just been built near to me with a unisex toilet. The argument being that toilets are too often used as meeting places.
Time will tell how this works out. But I see this as a positve development, especially for people who have changed. Toilets are really the biggest hurdle for us to overcome. In every other walk of life, our changing is nobody's business. But a story I read of a young transexual who was forced to use the cleaner's toilet at school, quite frankly, made me fume!
Hopefully America will begin to adopt this.
Quote from: Nicky on January 19, 2010, 01:37:54 PM
Well, I don't think you could find two women that have had the exact same socialisation growing up so the whole argument is flawed.
'zackly.
Quote from: Nicky on January 19, 2010, 01:37:54 PM
Well, I don't think you could find two women that have had the exact same socialisation growing up so the whole argument is flawed.
Another way of thinking about this is that a transwoman is a girl, their experience is a girls experience. "I am a girl, and those were my experience, hence those experience are a girls experience" Certainly their socialisation is different from many woman but it is not like there is an average way a girl is socialised.
I couldn't agree more with that. Transwomen are just girls raised as boys, with a couple complicating factors possibly thrown in. Does that mean our socialization is different from the 'typical' girl? Yep. Does the experience inform who we are? You bet. Does that put our gender or sex in a category all its own? I don't think so, but I guess you'll have to ask the Gender Fairy. She knows such things.
The assumption here (and assumption is the original ->-bleeped-<--up) is that somehow its all the same, and it's not. I went to college with a girl whose last name is on what seems like every other car you see. Do you for a New York Second think she was socialized there in Grosse Point like the rest of you were? With that last name? No way.
Class, your parents, your social standing changes everything. Just because everyone you grew up around was one way, don't assume that it's the only way all people grow up.
Well obviously our little girl selves managed to survive this so called male socialization. The argument also seems to assume (erroneously) that we pull this idea that we are women somewhere out of thin air and there can be no basis for it other than our imaginations. Nicky's statement, "I am a girl, and those were my experience, hence those experience are a girls experience" cuts to the heart of this matter very well.
There is a generational issue to consider. Children who are trans today have a very different set of possible socializations than those born decades ago. While there is going to be some return to conservative values and the repression that will come back with that, I think that in the future, parents will at least be presented with the concept that they should consider their son or daughter's transsexuality. This bodes much better for transwomen of the future.
So if you are asking about transwomen as adult today, most were raised as males and draconian methods were used to enforce rigid gender stereotypes causing some degree of "male" brainwashing. As a result, we have late transitioners like myself who were so completely messed up by gender socialization that much of my life was spent in massive confusion and dysfunction. I suspect that there will be fewer late transitioners as time goes on. Now, do we lat transitiones know what it is to be female because of so many years living as male? Can we claim to have any understanding of femininity at all? My wife adamantly insists that we cannot. We cannot know what women went through in social situations in years past. We can only guess and even then, it is an academic understanding not emotional for us. For example, I do not know what it feels like to be denied a checking account because of my gender. My wife does. I don't know what it feels like when a college professor tells a woman to go home and have babies and free up her seat for a man to take. My wife does. I won't know what it is like to be forbidden to play sports because of being female but my wife does. I don't know what it feels like to not be allowed to go out alone as a child but my wife does. Obviously, I don't know what it feels like to be pregnant and give birth. My wife does. As a result, I have to admit that I cannot say I experienced or understand the female experience. As a result, I have stopped discussing women's issues with my wife because it will cause an instant argument. She is right. I don't know what it is like.
Then again, we cannot know what it means to be male either because while we were raised male and expected to act the part, it was foreign and unnatural. So in this way, we again experienced gender academically, never reveling in maleness or male bonding etc. I will never know the joy men feel at cheating on their wives or badmouthing them amongst other men. I will never know what pleasure there is in beating up a rival and then bonding with him. I will never know what it is like to not care about my children yet I witnessed many men who could care less. I don't know how to be unemotional, never letting anyone see me cry. I was never the stereotypical "tough guy." I don't know what it feels like to respond to a woman who wants to be "taken" by a strong confident man, ravaging her. I didn't even like sex because I was sickened by my genitalia. After sex, I was routinely disgusted or despondent because of it. My first wet dream caused me to wake in tears. So, I didn't experience maleness like real men either.
All in all, in my opinion, transwomen have a unique perspective on social gender roles from both sides but not as males or females do. Does that make us a different breed? Perhaps, but only because of socialization not because we can't know it. Had I been given the chance to transition as a child, I feel I could be able to know at the deepest levels what being a woman really means.
Maggie
Quote from: FairyGirl on January 19, 2010, 02:50:06 PM
Well obviously our little girl selves managed to survive this so called male socialization. The argument also seems to assume (erroneously) that we pull this idea that we are women somewhere out of thin air and there can be no basis for it other than our imaginations. Nicky's statement, "I am a girl, and those were my experience, hence those experience are a girls experience" cuts to the heart of this matter very well.
No, I think that's completely wrong.
I don't know where my instinct comes from. I know I realised it at 4 years.
We can analyse from now till doomsday. We can search for bology, boichemestry, genetics, development.
This is ultimately pointless. But more than that, it implies that our problem is us, not society.
We are what we are. Historical records show that people like us have existed for thousands of years. That demomstrates that there is a persistance. But also, it demonstrates that we are not caused by modern society.
There are, in essence, 4 human families, 4 essentially separate macro cultural groups, North Asians, who were also the original inhabitants of the Americas, South Asians, Europeans and Africans.
Cultural intolerance toward homosexuals and transgendered people is only significant in Africa and Europe.
It's absense in the north and south Asian groups demonstrates that the origins of the social antipathy is not innate in humans.
There is little reason why we cannot live and function fully in our chosen genders except in one area, that of interpersonal relationships. Here, we can expect to have problems with many people, but not all, thankfully.
However, if we are to be able to take our rightful place as in society as people, we need to change attitudes. The rantings of the evangelists, the hard men, the narrow-minded women will continue to stand in our way until we face this.
Based upon our current understanding, humans originated in Africa.
Post Merge: January 19, 2010, 03:24:07 PM
Quote from: Maggie Kay on January 19, 2010, 03:08:36 PM
Then again, we cannot know what it means to be male either because while we were raised male and expected to act the part, it was foreign and unnatural. So in this way, we again experienced gender academically, never reveling in maleness or male bonding etc. I will never know the joy men feel at cheating on their wives or badmouthing them amongst other men. I will never know what pleasure there is in beating up a rival and then bonding with him. I will never know what it is like to not care about my children yet I witnessed many men who could care less. I don't know how to be unemotional, never letting anyone see me cry. I was never the stereotypical "tough guy." I don't know what it feels like to respond to a woman who wants to be "taken" by a strong confident man, ravaging her. I didn't even like sex because I was sickened by my genitalia. After sex, I was routinely disgusted or despondent because of it. My first wet dream caused me to wake in tears. So, I didn't experience maleness like real men either.
Maggie
I'm so pleased to read that.
It perfectly sums up exactly my own experiences.
Quote from: FairyGirl on January 19, 2010, 02:50:06 PM
Well obviously our little girl selves managed to survive this so called male socialization. The argument also seems to assume (erroneously) that we pull this idea that we are women somewhere out of thin air and there can be no basis for it other than our imaginations. Nicky's statement, "I am a girl, and those were my experience, hence those experience are a girls experience" cuts to the heart of this matter very well.
I have the feeling we all agree with each other but keep on arguing anyway. Major disconnect going on between my intended meaning and how it's being interpreted. Now that I've seen at least three people disagree with me by rewording my thoughts on this I'm going to blame my poor communication skills :P. I agree that Nicky phrased it best, so just refer to her post for my opinion. :)
I apologise if I've picked up the wrong end of other people's sticks.
But I really love a good discussion. It brings so many excellent ideas out into the open and makes me, at least, think.
And hey, at the end of the day, I'll stand up for any one of you.
QuoteDo you think that a woman's experience growing up is so different from what is done to boys and what is expected of boys that even the most polished and successful transwoman can never really understand being female cause they were socialized as boys.
I spent part of my teens living en femme and transitioned at age 24 (35 years ago) and, for myself I see no difference between myself and other women, nor do they see any difference either
QuoteBut we are creating a society for the next generation. We have a right to be here. We are not ill nor disturbed. We are a funtioning part of society able and ready to contribute in the same way as those of a different race. To suggest we should submit to treatment is as offensive as suggesting to a black man that he should accept skin bleaching.
what Spacial said.
I believe boys and girls are socialized very differently as groups. I also believe that individuals are socialized differently from other individuals. Some boys have girl experiences, and some girls have boy experiences. I was raised as a boy, but as the oldest of ten, and having mostly sisters, I did a lot of female things - like changing diapers, cooking, cleaning, brushing, and playing house. My mother joked she was going to charge a dowry when I got married. I think it was joking. I know men change diapers more now, but my father almost never did.
I also believe that to say no one who has not had a period can understand is too all-or-nothing. Yes I will never know completely what it is like. But if I listen, with my heart open, I can understand about it with more than my intellect.
Empathy is real.
As a therapist, I have to try to understand people whose life experience is very different from mine all the time. It takes time and patience on both our parts: mine and the person to whom I am listening.
I believe we are all human, and potentially share more in common than we have differences - if we allow the communication, and sharing, and connections with respect and openess. The only reason I might not understand is if I won't listen - or the other won't share.
I may have gone off topic a little - if so I am sorry. In re-reading I wonder if one issue is that some GGs believe TGs are not real? But they cannot rule on our reality can they? Can anyone ever say what someone else is? Or is not? What is a woman and who gets to say?
Tbh the one and only standard for womanhood has to be black females born and raised in Decatur, GA. I feel that individual subculture is the only one that offers the unique set of experiences from which a true woman can emerge. I dunno what you would call the rest of us, certainly not men but no not women either ...something else.
/sarcasm
Quote from: Jen on January 19, 2010, 03:26:37 PM
I have the feeling we all agree with each other but keep on arguing anyway. Major disconnect going on between my intended meaning and how it's being interpreted. Now that I've seen at least three people disagree with me by rewording my thoughts on this I'm going to blame my poor communication skills :P. I agree that Nicky phrased it best, so just refer to her post for my opinion. :)
Quote from: spacial on January 19, 2010, 03:19:27 PMNo, I think that's completely wrong.
hmmm I don't see where I'm disagreeing with you Spacial and I was actually agreeing with Jen. I knew at age 4 as well, and I always knew, and despite years of male socialization that knowledge, feeling, whatever never went away. The point I was making is that if we are born female then at best our experiences are those of a female socialized as male, as Nicky so eloquently put it. Basically none of us can know exactly how anyone else dealt with our socialization, and perhaps we can all agree that the original statements were too generalized and based on assumptions not necessarily true for everyone.
Quote from: Kendall on January 19, 2010, 04:42:56 PM
I also believe that to say no one who has not had a period can understand is too all-or-nothing. Yes I will never know completely what it is like. But if I listen, with my heart open, I can understand about it with more than my intellect.
Empathy is real.
I apologise for the way I attempted to make that point and thank you for highlighting it.
I think we are each, to a significant extent, the sum totals of our past.
But I do believe, nay, I know that the essence of my being is female.
Though I appreciate that this was a rather trite and parhaps ignorant way of attempting to illustrate a point.
Post Merge: January 19, 2010, 05:38:14 PM
Quote from: FairyGirl on January 19, 2010, 05:22:38 PM
hmmm I don't see where I'm disagreeing with you Spacial and I was actually agreeing with Jen. I knew at age 4 as well, and I always knew, and despite years of male socialization that knowledge, feeling, whatever never went away. The point I was making is that if we are born female then at best our experiences are those of a female socialized as male, as Nicky so eloquently put it. Basically none of us can know exactly how anyone else dealt with our socialization, and perhaps we can all agree that the original statements were too generalized and based on assumptions not necessarily true for everyone.
The point I was taking issue with was:
Quote from: FairyGirl on January 19, 2010, 02:50:06 PM
The argument also seems to assume (erroneously) that we pull this idea that we are women somewhere out of thin air and there can be no basis for it other than our imaginations.
If you got the impression that I was attacking you specifically, then I do apologise.
It was this notion. I accept that you were not asserting it. I should have been clearer.
To anyone else. I really wasn't trying to attack anyone nor undermine your positions. I was allowing my thoughts to free flow and expressing what emerged.
I really, really, really am on the same side as all of you.
besides which, I love you all to pieces. :icon_flower:
perhaps we can never know what it's like to bleed every month. However, another recent thread here showed that it seems to be a common phenomenon that after a period of time on HRT we can pretty much have all the other symptoms.
Geez. Yeah, it's that time of the month, again. Every month, same thing. It starts with feeling a little amorous, proceeding to simply feeling bloated and fat (although the slight swelling of my breasts at this time is welcomed). This further progresses to increasing tenderness in my nipples (among other places), finally giving way to full blown emotional chaos with the accompanying tear-fest over any and everything. The whole process from first symptoms and back again takes more than a week. So here I am again in my emotional basket, as in basket case. This morning I burst into tears because I finished reading a book I was enjoying. The book wasn't sad, but I was evidently because I had finished it. After that it was like someone had turned on the faucet. I started crying over literally nothing. There was no rhyme or reason for it whatsoever, it just welled up inside me and had to come out.
Sigh. The joys of womanhood. I love the Moon, I love to play outside at night under her magical light, I love to follow her phases and I find it utterly fascinating that the direction of the waning/waxing cycle runs backwards down here in the southern hemisphere because she appears upside down from her appearance in the north. This monthly cycle thing, I haven't pinned down the exact number of days yet but it's something just under a calendar month, makes me feel connected to her in a way I never could before. This is part of what it means to be female. True I may have missed it before, but I get it now. And so I see that women share a kind of common bond in even this.
And it is the same with all of us who share or who have shared this disease of transsexualism, or whatever you want to call it. We've all been there and we KNOW. So many people brush us off as having made some kind of kamakazi lifestyle choice, as if our gender is ever a choice that anyone can make. But they cannot know like we know, or feel the utter horror of being forced to live as the wrong sex, or know what it's like to confront that part of your soul that knows what everyone has told you your whole life long about who you are is simply not true, and despite years of trying to conform to that false image we can never really lose the feeling that it isn't who we were meant to be.
ps. **hugs** Spacial ;)
Quote from: FairyGirl on January 19, 2010, 05:39:23 PM
And it is the same with all of us who share or who have shared this disease of transsexualism, or whatever you want to call it. We've all been there and we KNOW. So many people brush us off as having made some kind of kamakazi lifestyle choice, as if our gender is ever a choice that anyone can make. But they cannot know like we know, or feel the utter horror of being forced to live as the wrong sex, or know what it's like to confront that part of your soul that knows what everyone has told you your whole life long about who you are is simply not true, and despite years of trying to conform to that false image we can never really lose the feeling that it isn't who we were meant to be.
I so very much agree with this. Very well put and to the point exactly.
Thank you.
Maggie
Quote from: spacial on January 19, 2010, 05:29:36 PM
besides which, I love you all to pieces. :icon_flower:
<3 <3 <3
Btw fairygirl, that was beautiful :).
I adore the direction this thread took. ^^
If your parents accepted who you are, like say Kim Petres, do you grow up the same as other transpersons? I doubt it. And even before that, when none of this was known, some of us grew up in an atmosphere that was loving, accepting and had people willing to defend us, I'm sure that makes some difference.
Quote from: Maggie Kay on January 19, 2010, 03:08:36 PMAs a result, I have to admit that I cannot say I experienced or understand the female experience. As a result, I have stopped discussing women's issues with my wife because it will cause an instant argument. She is right. I don't know what it is like.
Exactly. So I have to wonder: can we ever truly know or have the "female experience" now?
I'm an immigrant to Womanhood. I'm a refugee from Manhood. Life in that country became impossible, and so I immigrated to a land I had always wanted to inhabit.
My mother is an immigrant as well, in the ordinary geopolitical sense. She defected from her country because it was politically repressive (well, in a nutshell).
I don't think my mother understands what it means to grow up in America (whatever that means) the way I or my sisters or my father do. And I don't know what it means to grow up a girl. Nevertheless, there's enough difference in the experience, difference that I witnessed firsthand watching my sisters grow up, that I feel that I was robbed of the childhood I ought to have had. But to say my mother doesn't know what it means to be and American is just foolish. She is American. And I am a woman. We're just in a particular minority among many minorities within those categories, and we understand perfectly well what it means to be ourselves.
Those who disregard our experiences only diminish their own understanding.
good analogy Alyssa :)
Thank you. :)
But it's not mine. It's just one that resonated with me pretty strongly. It comes from the Vagina Monologues -- see "Beautiful Daughters" if you haven't yet.
"You know how people feel about immigrants."
Quote from: FairyGirl on January 19, 2010, 05:39:23 PM
perhaps we can never know what it's like to bleed every month. However, another recent thread here showed that it seems to be a common phenomenon that after a period of time on HRT we can pretty much have all the other symptoms.
Geez. Yeah, it's that time of the month, again. Every month, same thing. It starts with feeling a little amorous, proceeding to simply feeling bloated and fat (although the slight swelling of my breasts at this time is welcomed). This further progresses to increasing tenderness in my nipples (among other places), finally giving way to full blown emotional chaos with the accompanying tear-fest over any and everything. The whole process from first symptoms and back again takes more than a week. So here I am again in my emotional basket, as in basket case. This morning I burst into tears because I finished reading a book I was enjoying. The book wasn't sad, but I was evidently because I had finished it. After that it was like someone had turned on the faucet. I started crying over literally nothing. There was no rhyme or reason for it whatsoever, it just welled up inside me and had to come out.
Sigh. The joys of womanhood. I love the Moon, I love to play outside at night under her magical light, I love to follow her phases and I find it utterly fascinating that the direction of the waning/waxing cycle runs backwards down here in the southern hemisphere because she appears upside down from her appearance in the north. This monthly cycle thing, I haven't pinned down the exact number of days yet but it's something just under a calendar month, makes me feel connected to her in a way I never could before. This is part of what it means to be female. True I may have missed it before, but I get it now. And so I see that women share a kind of common bond in even this.
And it is the same with all of us who share or who have shared this disease of transsexualism, or whatever you want to call it. We've all been there and we KNOW. So many people brush us off as having made some kind of kamakazi lifestyle choice, as if our gender is ever a choice that anyone can make. But they cannot know like we know, or feel the utter horror of being forced to live as the wrong sex, or know what it's like to confront that part of your soul that knows what everyone has told you your whole life long about who you are is simply not true, and despite years of trying to conform to that false image we can never really lose the feeling that it isn't who we were meant to be.
ps. **hugs**
Post Merge: January 20, 2010, 02:14:24 AM
sorry, silly comp hiccuped..
Fairy Girl what I was going to say was you may be just so far over to female that you're more AIS than TS... my AIS friends have same feelings as you...ever had your chromosomes checked and been xrayed to see if you're not intersexed?
Quote from: FairyGirl on January 19, 2010, 02:02:03 PM
'zackly.
OT:
THAT, FG, is by FAR the best Avatar of you I've seen. You are flat out beautiful in that pic.
Post Merge: January 20, 2010, 02:49:54 AM
QuoteAnd it is the same with all of us who share or who have shared this disease of transsexualism, or whatever you want to call it. We've all been there and we KNOW. So many people brush us off as having made some kind of kamakazi lifestyle choice, as if our gender is ever a choice that anyone can make. But they cannot know like we know, or feel the utter horror of being forced to live as the wrong sex, or know what it's like to confront that part of your soul that knows what everyone has told you your whole life long about who you are is simply not true, and despite years of trying to conform to that false image we can never really lose the feeling that it isn't who we were meant to be.
This.
The wife and I were looking through some old photo albums tonight (for other reasons) and occasionally I'd come across otherwise interesting pics except they also had "him"
And it just so nauseated me to have to look on that image - everything about it looks so wrong.
I agree with a lot of what's been said here - about having a unique socialization no matter who you are...about the TS experience in youth being something that doesn't fit well in either "traditional" gender experience...
But I do acknowledge that there IS a "traditional" umbrella under which MOST people are socialized to their birth gender. not every girl is the prom queen but the vast majority of them want to be, or whatever...there is a broad vague set of stimuli and responses common to being a girl (or boy) that are at odds with the experience of the other gender and which I consider tragically lost to me in much the same way that music is tragically lost to the one born deaf or sunsets are lost to one born blind.
But Sandy said something to be considered too - we have the privileged of having a set of experiences non-trans people never will. While I don't consider that sufficent compensation for what I missed, I don't want to overlook its value.
Quote from: lilacwoman on January 20, 2010, 02:11:05 AMFairy Girl what I was going to say was you may be just so far over to female that you're more AIS than TS... my AIS friends have same feelings as you...ever had your chromosomes checked and been xrayed to see if you're not intersexed?
lol I don't think so, but maybe I will. I'm getting all that fixed soon anyway :)
and thank you Laura. :) I know how you feel about seeing those old pics too... luckily most of mine burned up when I had my house fire but I'm sure my mom will always keep a few around to embarass me with :icon_redface:
Quote from: lilacwoman on January 20, 2010, 02:11:05 AM
Fairy Girl what I was going to say was you may be just so far over to female that you're more AIS than TS... my AIS friends have same feelings as you...ever had your chromosomes checked and been xrayed to see if you're not intersexed?
As someone who was late diagnosed with partial AIS myself this is indeed possible. Although the diagnosis is a little more complex, it involves ultrasound, pelvic exam, hormone responses and indeed full genetic screening. The thing is, one has to ask whether it makes any difference. Personally I'm not sure. Mine was only eventually found because of another medical issue.
Quote from: tekla on January 19, 2010, 06:10:38 PM
If your parents accepted who you are, like say Kim Petres, do you grow up the same as other transpersons? I doubt it. And even before that, when none of this was known, some of us grew up in an atmosphere that was loving, accepting and had people willing to defend us, I'm sure that makes some difference.
It certainly does. Like I said in the seecond post in this thread, possibly because they had some knowlege or intuition about me, my parents more or less allowed me to be myself as I grew up.
True I never had a first period, and true back then I was considered by many to be an oddity but I still maintain that my socialisation was at worst somewhere in between and at best close to female.
As to whether any of that matters or not, I think it is for others, and not for me to say.