Hello all,
i am angelats
I am no native speaker.
I was born december 1961 in bavaria and do live in Berlin.
I consider myself as mtf transsexual or transgender.
But i do not transition.
There is a longing in me to be a woman and to live like one.
But i am also somekind of a hardcore essentialist:
if you are born as male then you are destined to live as a male,
no matter how unhappy this makes you,
even if it leads you to consider suicide.
you have to stay male.
I cannot say i consider myself female.
how could i being born in a male body,
being socialized as a boy, man in the contemporary bavarian german culture.
I can say i feel transsexual.
i got this transsexual feeling.
And yes, i prayed as a boy to wake up as a girl, i would have sold my soul to the devil for it.
To become female in a female body.
But here i am, with this transsexual feeling being born male.
I try to cope with this transsexual feeling,
that's why i am here.

Hi angelats,

Welcome to our little family. Over 11583 . That would be one heck of a family reunion.

Feel free to post your successes/failures, Hopes/dreams.  Ask questions and seek answers. Give and receive advice.

But remember we are family here, your family now. And it is always nice to have another sister.

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Janet  )O(

Welcome to the boards.

Hmm, I'm a hardcore existentialist and I say that we as people are able to define our own path.  But this will lead us into a major philosophical debate I gather because  I'm not one for metaphysics.  It has it's uses, but when it comes to ethics and values there are too many grey areas.  I gather you are one for believing that each individual has their telos.  May I ask, what do you think the telos for humans are?  And do you believe it differs from men and women?  And if so, what about the idea that many transwomen would claim they were born female internally but externally suffer from the cruel fate of a birth defect?  I would find it interesting to hear a philosophical perspective on this even if I may disagree with the overall view.

Lastly, the existentialist will say all the matters is that you find your own path and follow it.  As long as you are happy, that's all that matters.  So, it shouldn't matter if people don't think you should change or it's impossible.  IT IS possible if you want it be or feel it's necessary for your happiness.

Hello Janet  )O(

thank you very much for your welcoming.

i have read your links and posts.

thank you very much.

may the love you bring come back to you with the power of three.

Hi AngelaTS!!

We've chatted a bit before, but welcome to this place, our place.

"Welcome to the boards."

Thank you, learningtolive




"Hmm, I'm a hardcore existentialist and I say that we as people are able to define our own path.  But this will lead us into a major philosophical debate I gather because  I'm not one for metaphysics.  It has it's uses, but when it comes to ethics and values there are too many grey areas.  I gather you are one for believing that each individual has their telos."

I guess so.




"May I ask, what do you think the telos for humans are?" 

As created from god the destination of humans is to be a instrument of god.
As humans their destination is freedom.
if you see it in a religious perspective you have to consider grace as telos for humans.
if you see it in a philosophical perspective you have to consider freedom as telos for humans.
There is no difference between both of them. No big deal.



"And do you believe it differs from men and women? ".
both are destined to be instruments of gods will or living free will.


"And if so, what about the idea that many transwomen would claim they were born female internally but externally suffer from the cruel fate of a birth defect?" 
Even if the decision and judgement of the transwoman is wrong its ok. Its ok, within a religious or non religious perspective.
On the one hand its a religious decision based on judgments of the conscience .
On the other hand its the actualization of a free will, which might err, but nevertheless sets its will.


"I would find it interesting to hear a philosophical perspective on this even if I may disagree with the overall view.

Lastly, the existentialist will say all the matters is that you find your own path and follow it.  As long as you are happy, that's all that matters."


I disagree. Sometimes it does not matter at all, if you are happy ever. it only matters, that you follow the truth.

"So, it shouldn't matter if people don't think you should change or it's impossible.  IT IS possible if you want it be or feel it's necessary for your happiness."

I think it is wise to consider what people think  and then draw a wise conclusion.

"Hi AngelaTS!!

We've chatted a bit before, but welcome to this place, our place."


Thank you very much.

Quote from: angelats on June 10, 2013, 08:41:41 PM
Hello all,
i am angelats
I am no native speaker.
I was born december 1961 in bavaria and do live in Berlin.
I consider myself as mtf transsexual or transgender.
But i do not transition.
There is a longing in me to be a woman and to live like one.
But i am also somekind of a hardcore essentialist:
if you are born as male then you are destined to live as a male,
no matter how unhappy this makes you,
even if it leads you to consider suicide.
you have to stay male.
I cannot say i consider myself female.
how could i being born in a male body,
being socialized as a boy, man in the contemporary bavarian german culture.
I can say i feel transsexual.
i got this transsexual feeling.
And yes, i prayed as a boy to wake up as a girl, i would have sold my soul to the devil for it.
To become female in a female body.
But here i am, with this transsexual feeling being born male.
I try to cope with this transsexual feeling,
that's why i am here.

Willkommen, angelats.  Ich komme aus sonnigen Sud-Kalifornien.  (Sorry about my poor German.)

Many of us were born as males, raised and socialized as males, and lived as males.  I even married and fathered children.  But that never caused my dysphoria to leave me.  That is because, I believe there is a decidedly feminine part to me - my brain - that recognizes the mismatch between body and soul.

I have decades of male socialization to overcome.  I often fail.  But I use my heart and brain as a guide, and that helps me reconcile my own complexity.  My destiny is what I make it to be.  My body is just a shell of flesh, and bones, and blood - I can do with it whatever I wish.  I am predestined to nothing.

Hi Angelats,

Welcome to the site.

Feelings and explanation of gender can get very confusing, particularly when we try to fit our bodies into our gender.

Gender of course has no link with sex, that has been known for aeons. Indeed many cultures had several gender groups to accommodate people who had different sexual view points.

I have to admit that I have never really questioned my gender or my sexuality. I've always known I was female, I just had physical birth defects that needed correction.

Sexually I have always been a straight female.

I've found acceptance of myself to be very easy and very pleasant, It just took time for society to catch up with me.

Hugs

Cindy

@JamieD

"Willkommen, angelats.  Ich komme aus sonnigen Sud-Kalifornien.  (Sorry about my poor German.)"

Thank you for your kind welcome. Your german is good.

"Many of us were born as males, raised and socialized as males, and lived as males.  I even married and fathered children.  But that never caused my dysphoria to leave me.  That is because, I believe there is a decidedly feminine part to me - my brain - that recognizes the mismatch between body and soul."

I agree with that my gender dysphoria will never leave me. I have to live with that. I too recognize a mismatch between body and soul. But my theory and explanation is different. There is part of me that i recognize as "decidedly feminine part of me". There are even parts of me that are not a specific gender. But all i ask is, does having a decidedly feminine part make me a woman?

"I have decades of male socialization to overcome.  I often fail."

I am still thinking about not to transition.

"But I use my heart and brain as a guide, and that helps me reconcile my own complexity.  My destiny is what I make it to be.  My body is just a shell of flesh, and bones, and blood - I can do with it whatever I wish.  I am predestined to nothing."

America, land of the free, noble free spirits i bow to you.


Thank you for your great post.

@Cindy


"Hi Angelats,

Welcome to the site."

Thank you  very much for your kind welcome.

"Feelings and explanation of gender can get very confusing, particularly when we try to fit our bodies into our gender.

Gender of course has no link with sex, that has been known for aeons. Indeed many cultures had several gender groups to accommodate people who had different sexual view points."

Great post.

"I have to admit that I have never really questioned my gender or my sexuality. I've always known I was female, I just had physical birth defects that needed correction.

Sexually I have always been a straight female.

I've found acceptance of myself to be very easy and very pleasant, It just took time for society to catch up with me."

People and society can learn a lot from you.

"Hugs

Cindy"

Hugs

Angelats

angelats - I hope you have been able to meet some of our other German members.

Quote from: Jamie D on June 13, 2013, 12:13:51 AM
angelats - I hope you have been able to meet some of our other German members.

Hello  Jamie D,
Thank you for your mindful post.
No. I have not been able to meet some of our other German members here.
Good idea. Thank you.

I have been to therapists, gynecologists, endocrinologists, tg support group members
in different cities here in Germany (, mostly Freiburg im Breisgau and Berlin).
But this was years ago, back in 1995 till 2002.
I stayed now for many years in the closet.

Although i am quite shy, I am open to meet people.
I just wonder these days, why i had this breakout of transgender feeling the last days.
Usually i succeed in suppressing these urges.
But not always, there are times these urges are very strong, hard to describe.
Weeks, Months, that drive me out of the closet to people
who understand, can help.
For example i have been with a gender therapist from 1999 to 2001.
She diagnosed me as a mtf ts.

She did not know about ffs. Nor did she know the work of Dr. O.
And she did not found it important whether i pass or not.
She did not understand my fear not to pass ever,
because of my manly features.
And she scared the ->-bleeped-<- out of me then, 
when she declared to me,
being a post-op mtf means to be alone and unhappy.
All the post-ops mtf she knew did not live with a partner and had great problems to find partners.
FTM post-ops she knew lived with a partner.

Meanwhile i do know,
many things she told me are not true.
May it was some kind of test to see my reaction.
She said to me,
she liked to counsel transsexuals as patients
because they were so much more interesting than
patients, who suffered depressions.

But  i guess all this belongs to the learning experience of life
to meet therapists
that have no idea
what being mtf ts is and feels like.

I have met some pre- and post op woman,
that helped me greatly.
There were some of them that have gone all the way and were happy then.
Who lived happy lives.
It is possible to do this and to succeed.
That was important information for me.

I have met also a few that had regrets and retransitioned.
It is also possible to do this and not to succeed.
That was important information for me, too.

And i had met one post-op, who was very happy to have transitioned,
but asked me to consider really very well, to go the whole way.
She suffered great health problems (osteoporosis).
And i am forever thankful for all of them helping me.

IMHO there is a huge gender and sex spectrum
and it is not easy to find my place there.
What i am and what i am meant to be.

Its all not so easy at it seems,
and we all struggle to make the best out of our lives.
Sigh.

Angela, just let me say this ... for you, it is a new day!

I remember you wrote that you were born in 1961, so you are 51 or 52 years old.  That was about the age at which my own gender dysphoria started to affect my life.  Perhaps it is related to falling testosterone levels (my T levels have always been below normal).  Perhaps, too, it was because I was becoming more aware of my dysphoria and of the coping mechanisms I had used for decades to deal with my undiagnosed gender issues.

Today, your former gender therapist would be dismissed as incompetent.  The hormone therapies are better; the surgeries are better; and ways of meeting other people have improved.  You can become what ever you want.  Which reminds me of a quotation from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe:

"If you treat an individual as he is, he will stay as he is; but if you treat him as if he were what he ought to be and could be, he will become what he ought to be and could be."

You are correct about the gender spectrum.  I identify as non-binary.   

Quote from: Jamie D on June 13, 2013, 05:52:34 PM
Angela, just let me say this ... for you, it is a new day!

I remember you wrote that you were born in 1961, so you are 51 or 52 years old.  That was about the age at which my own gender dysphoria started to affect my life.  Perhaps it is related to falling testosterone levels (my T levels have always been below normal).  Perhaps, too, it was because I was becoming more aware of my dysphoria and of the coping mechanisms I had used for decades to deal with my undiagnosed gender issues.

Today, your former gender therapist would be dismissed as incompetent.  The hormone therapies are better; the surgeries are better; and ways of meeting other people have improved.  You can become what ever you want.  Which reminds me of a quotation from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe:

"If you treat an individual as he is, he will stay as he is; but if you treat him as if he were what he ought to be and could be, he will become what he ought to be and could be."

You are correct about the gender spectrum.  I identify as non-binary.   

"...for you, it is a new day!"

I am in some kind of spiritual crisis now to decide what to do with the rest of my life. And guess what, my gender dysphoria knocks, knocks on my feelings and self perception.

"it was because I was becoming more aware of my dysphoria and of the coping mechanisms I had used for decades to deal with my undiagnosed gender issues."

i guess that's the clue of gender dysphoria, to become aware of gender and yourself, how it affects you and how you cope with it. But i do not go with the theory of gender therapists, psychologists, doctors of transsexualism. There is no explanation of transsexualism or ->-bleeped-<- that convinces me. Brain structure, hormone levels are indicators for me. I need a theory of transsexuality i can understand and that convinces me totally.


"Today, your former gender therapist would be dismissed as incompetent.  The hormone therapies are better; the surgeries are better; and ways of meeting other people have improved."
I agree with your judgement about my  former gender therapist. I hope so, that hormone therapies and surgeries are better and ways of meeting other people have improved.

"You can become what ever you want."
I love to be free and live a free life and i hope for America that it will always be the land of the free and i hope for the people of Germany, that they improve a lot in the spirit of freedom.
But i doubt i can be a whole woman ever.  I can feel like a woman trapped in a mans body, but for me that is not being a born woman, but being a transsexual woman. Experiencing yourself as transsexual is not the same as being born female and experiencing yourself as such. Not being able to become a whole woman ever, makes me think.

IMHO I am some kind of hard core essentialist. Being born in a male body means - at first sight- being male. I know its far more complicated than that. Best i can become in transition is to become a male born woman. I will always have male genetics for example. male bone structure and so on. I believe i can, if i am lucky, come close to look exactly as a female woman with hormones, surgery, body language and so. Maybe I could even succeed in passing perfectly. Maybe i could feel complete female then after a successful transition. But i cannot undo my past, being born male, having not grown up and being socialized female, having no experienced periods, typical girl things, being not able to become pregnant and so on.
So for me it seems realistic to suppose, i can hardly experience the full spectrum of femininity. I feel for ts woman who are sad, because they cannot bear children and so on.
So it seems for me wise to think about what goals i can reach with transition. And for me its only a gender reassignment living in a close as possible female body. I try to be realistic.
So for me to transition is some kind of risk to align my whole life to these emerging transsexual feelings, try to become a female as possible, becoming whole as possible.
But i still do not know whether this is a way for me, still do not know this is the way for me.

With best regards
Angelats

Hi Angelats, welcome to Susan's Place! I was born in December 1961as well. So we're both 29 the way I figure it! See you around the site, hugs, Devlyn