Hey guys, I was wondering what personal (not physical) characteristics about yourself do you believe help you or will help you in your transition.  Is there something about your particular personality that makes/will make your transition sail a bit easier? For example, a personal characteristic about me is that I am great at saving money and budgeting.  My sister has always told people (against my will) that she has never known anyone other than me to have never had a job in their life and has more money than some adults with jobs.  I'm good at budgeting my money and I am my own bank.  Obviously, this is an excellent trait for me to have while saving for top surgery (and future transitional procedures).  I can only imagine how much quicker I could save if I actually had a job?  It's almost like nature said "Muhahahahahahahaha, I'm going to crew Malachite's life up by making him a biological female, BUT I'm not THAT big of a d-bag.  I'm also going to give him the personal trait of being an excellent saver to help aid him in his transition."  Now don't get me wrong, I still have a bunch of other things wrong with me, including lack of motivation, but at least I have this one thing to help me.


I'm very curious to see other guy's persoanlity traits help them  Go ahead and brag about it here!

I also don't stop until I get what I want and am naturally a fighter. My dad told me the opposite though. Which leads to another thing: I've already survived a lot and know I got through it. I know I can handle anything that's thrown at me.

patience

at least, usually something I have

I think the thing that has helped me most in my transition is also what contributed to my not transitioning sooner. Nowadays it's fashionable to call it autism or asperger's, but really I'm just not good at being human. So like I learn all about myself and others in a careful way that isn't the magical intuition most people seem to have. So I've already written myself off as different, already watch and calculate all the time about how people act and how gender works.

That has helped me a lot in both recognizing the details and in not recognizing the details. I struggled with keeping pronouns straight with my cisfriends long before I ever met a transperson. It always made me angry that there were such radically different expectations of men and women. I've often been really way too abstract in my participation in society, even when I'm intensely emotional or happily engaged.

That made it easy though to assume that we are all feeling like I do, like a man, and that to be a real woman you just have to learn the rules. I hated myself for not understanding how to be a woman. I tried really, really hard to be what people wanted me to be, but it never made sense.

So yeah, already feeling like an outsider, already failing at the gender and other social rules made it easier to let go and be who I am.

With a few exceptions, I just really don't care what others think. So, that's good because it gives me the freedom to dress how I want, act the way that's natural for me, transition or not, without trying to please anyone.

I am also very motivated and a high achiever, so I know if I decide to transition, I'll have the finances to do so (unless I go into public interest work, then I'll be poor still). I push myself to perform to the best of my ability, and that's always helped me get jobs, recognition at work, and promotions. If I am going to transition, I don't want to go broke doing it.

I suppose Aspergers helps me in a way too. I also tend to be laid back. This makes my life a lot easier I suppose.
Though I don't like to be misgendered I don't care what else they might think.

--Jay

I have huge amounts of patience, to the point where sometimes it's pointed out by others. For example, I sat quietly (with nothing to do) for four hours the other week at the DMV with no problems. My fifty-something year old mother went with me and she was up and down...couldn't sit still. She later remarked that I have extreme amounts of patience.

I'm a very laid back person. Nothing really bothers me much and the things that do bother me I tend to get over quickly. That helps with my transition because I can accept what currently is and not stress over it. Things will come in time and I see a lot of impatience in these forums sometimes. I just want to tell those people that their turn will come but for the time being try to enjoy the life you have before it passes you by.

I'm an introvert. Some may see it as a bad trait but I can easily walk away from people. I don't keep many friends so my inner circle is tiny. With that I don't let people bother me much. If someone happens to find out and want to be a jerk then they've gotta go, point blank. I don't internalize what others say about me. Their opinion of me is none of my business.

Yeah, if I was an animal I'd be some strange cross breed of a honey badger and a sloth.

I think what helps me most is not really personality traits but just how my life went. I've always been different so now I don't really feel bothered by what other people think about me or whether they'll think I'm weird. I'm weird anyway :p. This makes it easier for me to deal with coming-out and stuff. I've learned to like myself and I'm happy with the person I've become so I stand quite strong. Another thing is that i'm really good at self-reflection and talking/dealing with my emotions and issues. I've learned this over years of therapy and dealing with myself and now it turns out to be a very convenient strenght. There is maybe one real personality  trait that helps me and that's my empathy, because of that I find it easier to understand people and why they might react a certain way, and it's helped me accept and understand people's reactions to me.

Being stubborn as hell and not giving a flying F about what others think about me, I suppose. Mom says I got good self-esteem.

Pretty much same as the op, I'm not good at numbers but i'm good at saving up from what I got.

I think another perk of mine is being very analytical.  I don't just jump into a conclusion or decision without thinking about it first.  Oftentimes, it results in overthinking which can hurt me at times, but I'd rather keep that trait and be more sure of what I want/need instead of taking the plunge randomly.

I am stubborn and tenacious. I hold on. And on. And on. I guess these characteristics have kept me alive when I wanted so much to give up.

I'm very introspective. I don't know whether this helps me in my transition, but it helps me in my therapy and self-improvement, both of which in turn affect my transition.

I'm also good at saving money, and I'm able to completely do without a lot of luxuries that many other people seem to find necessary. I like my exotic coffee beans, and I like living in my own place, but I would go back to cheaper coffee if I needed to. I don't blow lots of money on eating out, going to the movies, buying lots of merchandise, and so forth. When my ex and I broke up, I was able to adapt quite quickly to an austere way of living, even though I had gotten used to having quite a bit of extra money around.

All the same, I hope I can spend my money on a replacement car (when the time comes) and, eventually, a house--not bottom surgery. I hope to get most of that covered by insurance.

I've always been a tightwad with money. When I was in my single digits I would literally keep a giant jar of change (I still do actually) and count it all out when I came home from school. Now I'm older and it comes in handy because I haven't had an official job in years and I still have more money on hand than most people do. My family and friends call me a tightwad and greedy but yet I seem to be the one that buys them groceries and cigarettes...

These are not related to me, but I really don't have these traits.

Being thick skinned: I'm not exactly an emotional guy, but a lot of stuff can get to me. If you're thick skinned and don't really care about how other people react, you will probably have a better time than somebody who isn't.

Being patient: hormones took WAY longer than I thought it would've to get me to a point of "getting sir/he/him/dude/bro'd" more often than that other set of pronouns. It took me years to get on hormones, and everything has just taken so much more time than I expected. So, being patient would've helped me out.

I've dealt with a lot of rough things in the past, and I'm continuing to deal with those things because many problems have managed to get worse since there is no available solution to end them (particularly my medical conditions). Having to bear the emotional weight that has put on me, I've learned to cope with things a lot better than I did before everything in my life started going wrong.

But I think the ability to pass pre-everything is what has helped the most. I'm really lucky in that aspect, and the fact that I just needed a haircut to be read as male continuously brings up my self-confidence, a character trait that I had lost many years ago. It makes me able to open up and speak more often than the alternative when someone says anything that hurts me, which is giving in to the pain and shutting down entirely. It's always been too easy to allow that to happen, and I still can't control it a good amount of the time (non-related issues, not even people talking about being trans since no one does) but very slowly, I'm getting there. (It's a scary thing btw, I find myself unable to talk and my body goes completely cold both on the inside and on its exterior.)

I like you have the desire to save lots of money which certainly helped me with electrolysis and such. That's a trait I've always had and I still retain it.

however the other day I was reflecting on my personality and how radically different I am from myself 10 years ago and whatever would they think if they met me.
Back then I was extremely different, I've changed so much because while alot of my old personality was stereotypically feminine and I liked thosr traits for that reason, it wasn't even remotely conducive to me surviving or starting transition. As such I'm nearly unrecognisable personality wise.

I used to be.
Shy, Stoic, Passive, Sensitive, Quiet, Bookish.

Now I've become
Individualistic, Tenacious, Passionate, Expressive, Defiant, Cynical, Aggressive, Capricious.
Some of those changes are brought about by indirect physical changes, ie identifying with my body and emotions and actually enjoying them.

However other traits.
Individualism, Defiance, Cynicism, And Tenacity have come explicitly as requirements to and from my transition and I can identify where they came from.
A requirement to break the rules and realize that authority figures are clueless to your plight a need to then make your own path, A realization that your the minority now, and some people will want you dead for it. And an ability to focus on that one focal point in the distance and push through despite the obliteration of your old life.

I was reflecting on this because I was actually begin told off the other day for the above character flaws, unfortunately I can't really address them because they are my strongest points, they just happen to be double edged swords.

Quote from: pebbles on October 02, 2013, 06:07:34 AM
A requirement to break the rules and realize that authority figures are clueless to your plight a need to then make your own path, A realization that your the minority now, and some people will want you dead for it.

Funny, but prior to my transition I always made a point about breaking rules on the go, just because I felt like I could and because I could - I wanted to. Even those, which could not affect me directly, but I almost felt like any rule was a challenge to me. Now, I dont feel like any rule bothers me just because of its existence, per se, and I have to break it just to make a point for myself. But I am still just as stubborn and headstrong as I used to be .

Hi M2F here and the characteristic's I use are the skills I learned on the streets with my career as a paramedic/firefighter. I learned patience, good judgment under pressure, how to talk to people of all sex, gender, socio economic levels, religions and other things. It also showed me that no one really pays attention to any one else most of the time. An issue some of the people here have a real hard time with. It also taught me to achieve goals no matter how hard and that life is too short, so do what you can as soon as you can (with good judgment of course). I learned a LOT watching people of such diversity. It also gave me the ability to protect myself, gave me "Kevlar" skin in dealing with snide remarks and a lot of good coping skills. I know without a doubt I will do fine passable or not, which will actually HELP me to pass by giving me such esteem.

My characteristic is both a blessing and a curse. I live in my head a lot, and it has served me well on a number of occasions - it helped me when I wasn't able to be myself, I had my own world inside my head and it kept me going. My world, my rules, lol. 

But it has also been a curse, because if I have a bad self-image, then what goes on in my head is really bad for me. And I find it hard to break out and get a grip on reality again. So it's one of those things that can work both ways.

i'd put it as my optimism and self confidence. even when everything goes wrong, i feel that its going to be alright. its very hard to make me feel hopeless about anything. i'm also confident about everything i do. even if i'm a total flob at something, i feel i'd be able to deal with it, and i deal with it! also the adaptive trait and the skill of explaining stuff diplomatically i've got from dad might help in coming out.