I replied earlier, and have read a few points that have been made, but I would like to add something to my original post and respond to a couple comments, first and foremost I have not responded yet due to the fact of possibly offending someone perhaps multiple individuals, but I need to get these thoughts and opinions off my chest.

for the most part  I always feel like a normal girl, even with my personality quirks that's what makes me unique. in fact I never don't feel I am anything other than female, and nobody makes the mistake thinking I am anything other than a girl. srs did away with what made me feel like less of a woman, but there are moments that I get reminded of what I had to do, and that thing is... dilation, and facial hair. 
now zoombagirl said "what's wrong with being  trans?" well with respect to opinion, to me everything is, it was not something I wished to have happen and when stated the way she has put it ,it makes me feel like this was some sort of choice, I am sorry but I don't like any part of being trans and if I could erase it from me I would. this was and will never be a choice.
some people said its all about whats between your ears, but ya know even cis women sometimes feel as if they were less of a woman as well, especially when something happens like they have to have a hysterectomy or  they have breast cancer and have a mastectomy , in this same fashion I feel as though I was robbed of my womanhood because of something beyond my control happened to me, and just as those girls who see the scars of a mastectomy or use prosthetics just having to deal with that, just like me and others have to deal with dilating, while yes we are female these items/act make us feel less of a women.

so please forgive me not wanting to embrace  being trans but .... I don't 

but still this doesn't mean I wont try to help those who are having issues here, so with respect to those who have their opinion, please take no offence I just want to make clear my exact feelings on this subject.

this all being said I am very happy in and with my life, I have come to the acceptance that we all have obstacles some more so than others, what we have to remember is not the obstacle it self but that we indeed cleared it and move on or forward.

Out of respect to Calico and to share my own feelings too...

What is wrong with being trans?

Nothing.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with being trans.  I transitioned to be female, not to be trans.  But when I first began transition I felt more alive than at any other time in my life.  Life was so amazing being trans and I didn't even mind the extra attention or being read as trans except (like many other things) that was great for a while but then it began to get tiring.  I began to notice that when people just assumed I had always been female that I was treated the way I always wanted to be treated but when they realized I was trans they either considered me a man pretending to be a woman or a third sex or worse yet they objectified me sexually as a feminized gay man.  Anyway... I transitioned because I have always been female on the inside, I haven't always been trans on the inside.  I just wanted to be female.  At a certain point being treated like a trans person began to feel wrong because instead of being able to feel like I was moving forward (closer to my goal of being female on the outside) I was being pulled backwards rather than making progress.

Worse yet was at times on online forums when I would seek Support I would be told I was transphobic (which I never was)  It is just that my goal was to be female on the outside because I am female on the inside and trans or transition was a goal oriented effort.

Do I dislike trans people, Hell no I don't.  But I don't like it when I am told who I have to be or who I have to represent.  Transition is about representing the person you are on the inside.  And like I said, I really enjoyed being trans for a while and there is nothing wrong with it but transition for me was a journey, not a destination.  I can still relate and in some aspects I am still a trans woman but if I could just be a woman without being trans, I would.  But that's just me.  Also people often change over time, they change their beliefs, they adopt new ideas.  Transition allowed me to change a lot.  If I ever met my old self it would be like meeting a complete stranger who I had been told stories about but I am not that stranger.  I might be strange but old me is not me.

I totally agree with Kate. I share her statement!

I also feel quite ashamed being a trans. Actually I hate to be trans, I haven't chosen for it and I didn't want to be it. It was fate who decided for me to be trans. I am a woman locked up in a male body. Terrible feeling anyway. A few weeks ago, I was horrified to see a transwoman wearing a T-shirt with the quote "proud to be trans*". It is something I don't understand: if you feel you are a woman, why to be proud of being trans?
Trans means: nature has mistakenly put you in a wrong body. Therefore I consider my trans-time (transition) as a stage in my life to forget quickly, to erase as a bad memory. Like Kate already mentioned: being trans is a journey, not the destination

I don't mind if some persons are happy and proud to be trans but it is not applicable to me!

Quote from: LauraGirl on September 22, 2013, 08:11:50 AM
It is something I don't understand: if you feel you are a woman, why to be proud of being trans?

I'm proud of the fact that I've done something difficult (transitioned to fulltime living as a female). I also think I understand the world better than most cis people because I've seen it from both sides of the gender divide.

Quote from: LauraGirl on September 22, 2013, 08:11:50 AM
I also feel quite ashamed being a trans.

I was born with a bunch of physical anomalies. I have aquagenic pruritis meaning I itch like crazy when I get wet. I have mitral valve prolapse, meaning one of my heart valves doesn't close completely. I have a large nose and large ears, a low tolerance for cold, and was medicated for ADHD.

I'm not ashamed of any of that. I didn't ask for them and overcoming them has made me a stronger person.

I am a bit proud lately. I was not for years - tried that whole forgetting it thing - like I am now just another woman and forget that whole trans stuff, it is over and best forgotten. Turns out now that I am doing a recap of the time since transition, I feel good about having done all this. I am feeling proud to myself that I pulled through that, that I managed transition, that I survived a SRS with complications, that I have now a body that much more is closer to what it should be like. I enjoy to think of that change as a success. But it is my personal success that I do not want to share with anyone except when I come to places like here. And it is something I mostly think of as a memory, a thing that happened in my past. The bad thing was being born in the wrong body, that was the ugly side I dont want to think about a lot. Transitioning showed me many things and I learned a lot in that time and have many good memories about it actually - the joy of finally getting the body more "right" was very warm. So no, I dont want to forget it, it is part of me, though I do not longer identify much as trans, I know it is in my history, it is something I have done and that I have worked for and I'd like to see it as an accomplishment for myself.

Thank you all for your thoughtful posts on this thread. 

Would a moderator give Kate G a +1 for her insightful post?

Quote from: AlexiaFR on August 24, 2013, 04:42:23 AM
Hello everybody ! I just want to share one point with you. I had my srs, two months ago, but for me it's very difficult today to consider myself as a full female. I'm not saying that I regret the surgery or that I did it only for being absolutely a "real" female but beyond the surgery it's like I still think i'm a trans ans not a (cis) female. Maybe I don't want to loose this "label" or I don't know, I'm pretty confused about who i am. My feeling may appears ridiculous but I just wonder how do you feel about this idenfication issue.

Sorry for my english, I hope you'll understand the most.

Alexia, I have a good friend that just completed her SRS surgery 3 months ago & she still feels "trans" & not yet a normal female it seems. She has had a man/boy friend for a long time & sex seems good for her. I'm kind of suprised to be honest. Maybe this is normal? I'm not sure since I'm not yet close to that step.

I've always felt totally feminine & if I'm fortunate to complete my SRS I hope I never have any of those thoughts???

Anyway my best to you & I hope your life settles down & that you totally enjoy being a woman.

Take care. 

Girls, give it some time! SRS is a huge step, a rite of passage, but the effects are not instant. You stll need to heal the body and your body image has to adjust to the effects. Not FEELING trans anymore comes from the realization in daily life that you ARE not trans any longer in terms of your present experience. Or in other words when you are suddenly faced with the absence of any major trans issues concerning yourself in you life.

Quote from: anjaq on September 23, 2013, 02:13:22 AM
Girls, give it some time! SRS is a huge step, a rite of passage, but the effects are not instant.

I for one, am not expecting SRS to change the fact that I feel like a guy pretending to be a girl a lot of the time. That's the way I experience my transgender and I'm accepting it.

The only thing I'm looking for SRS to do is to give that part of my body the right shape.

Oi, suzi - really?

QuoteI feel like a guy pretending to be a girl a lot of the time

How come? Because you feel like your body is not "truely female" even if you do SRS and all that or is it a matter of identity, that you identify as transgendered and not in the male/female categories?

Quote from: anjaq on September 23, 2013, 04:07:20 PM
Oi, suzi - really?How come? Because you feel like your body is not "truely female" even if you do SRS and all that or is it a matter of identity, that you identify as transgendered and not in the male/female categories?

Well, I've never understood "identity" on a subjective level. I can't imagine what it would be like to "know I'm female" like some of my trans friends describe.

For me, transgender has always been more of a yearning. That regardless of my birth sex or who I feel I am, being a woman would be the most wonderful thing I could imagine.

Now that I'm living as one, it pretty much IS the most wonderful thing I could imagine.

But I still feel like a man. I gender myself male (when I don't catch myself). I envision my body as a male's. Looking at my clean shaven arms and legs and the breasts hanging from my square frame always shock me (wonderful, delicious, beautiful shock, but shock nonetheless).

Part of it also might be the elaborate steps I take to pass as a woman: Wigs, breast forms, shaving, epilating, covering up my neck and back at all times, foundation to cover beard shadow, etc. Underneath it all, I still look like my male self. The moments I find myself feeling feminine - those times when I finally feel like the person I want to be - tend to be uncommon and fleeting.

That's all OK. When I started this, I hoped I would become a woman. I've always told myself that if that didn't happen, I would gladly, gladly, gladly live as one for the rest of my life as a richly appreciated second prize.

ah ok. well some of the elaborate process will go away with permanent procedures, right? I did not have a clear idea of identity either at first. I was just me and obviously looked male. So my mind told me that logically I must be a guy who wants to be a girl. It was only with time that I realized that I never really identified with males and getting more into womens circles I realized more that I identify with them. My major disphoria was about the body though, which kind of was a big hint that I am identifying as a woman, because I really hated the maleness stuff. SRS was despite all complications and pain a huge relief and at that time with 2 years of HRT as well, I could feel at home in my body. So I identified as a woman in terms of how my body was supposed to be. I took a bit longer to not longer identify as trans but rather as woman afterwards though and to admit it, I still had some black spots on my identity that told me in the back of my head "you are not a woman, you are a transsexual" and that I am more male than any born woman. Those old patterns were sticky. Paradoxically now, 13 years post op and at a time when i AM actually back at doing some trans stuff, I evaluated that post op time and those black spots disappeared, things fell right into place and while before I was sure to "somehow" be a woman, now I just AM a woman and feel complete. It was one of the most wonderful things as I was not really aware of that tainted self image in the last years. I shoved it aside out of some fear of it. Now I faced it and it went "poof". And now looking back it totaaly makes sense for me to honestly say that I always was a woman or girl and always idendified as one, I just was not clear about what that meant.
So definitely living in womens space showed me at least that this feels like being at home - so thats where I belong and thats what makes the identification clear as before that - for me before SRS and before living fulltime for a while -identity is only something in the head - a longing, a conviction that ones identity is not male and probably female but one cannot really be sure as one did not live on that side. At least for me it was like that - I knew more that I was not male and did not want a male body and that I longed for a female body and I longed for being as a girl/woman in social context, but i could not claim to know my core identity was female - it was only what I suspected, but I had no comparison. I was just me. So by living a womans life I had that comparison and it was a great relief to see that indeed this is where my identity belonged and was at home.
I hope you will find that peace and stability as well with time - its great.

Quote from: anjaq on September 24, 2013, 01:50:34 AM
I hope you will find that peace and stability as well with time - its great.

Thanks for the pep talk. Hearing people talk like this who are many years post-transition really helps.

I used to spend a lot of time fretting about my gender identity. I stopped a while ago, partly because I read a lot of the type of posts you shared. Also, my therapist tells me it's a waste of time. We all experience our transgender differently, she assures me, and it's far more productive to talk about what changes will help me become more comfortable with myself.

I have not gotten to that stage of transition and GRS. My biggest fear is how I will lose some very close friends and relatives who have known me as a guy. That will happen. But growing bigger boobs is wonderful. Feminization is wonderful and that includes GRS.

Quote from: Gina_Z on September 25, 2013, 12:31:39 PM
I have not gotten to that stage of transition and GRS. My biggest fear is how I will lose some very close friends and relatives who have known me as a guy. That will happen. But growing bigger boobs is wonderful. Feminization is wonderful and that includes GRS.

You go girl! 

Thank you for the flowers and the encouragement!

I'm 3 years post-op.  Sometimes I feel inauthentic, but those feelings happen less and less as I get to know more women without the barrier of them seeing me as male.  I am learning from them the vast diversity of female experience, some of which I have.  I am learning that the definition of 'woman' is broad enough to include me.

For me it is not about the fact that I now have a vagina but that I am accepted by others as a woman, even by those who know of my past and therefore know that I am a transwoman.  With them the issue rarely comes up - I'm just one of their women friends - but they may ask a question if the subject does comes up.  They know I have knowledge of the issue that they don't.

I didn't feel surgery was that important for me even though I had always felt like that weird stuff between my legs had been pasted on, like invasion of the bodysnatchers or something.  For me, it was about living in society as a woman, being accepted as a woman, being able to relate to others as a woman.  Others, I know, focus much more on the physical aspects.

I've now lived 1/16th of my life (so far) as a woman.  I think it would be unrealistic for me to expect to not have a lot of feelings and thoughts that carried over from before.  The healing takes time.

- Kate

a trans women is a state of being. sometimes a life only when one chooses to stop. for me, i have really never considered myself a trans women. or at least sunk it in. im a women with kinks. i need to fix those. thats it. you are the same. just a regular ole women.

I still feel trapped in my body 10 years after SRS, there are still other aspects of me i would like to change/enhance even though i have had the op. Gender dysphoria may end but body dysphoria may continue 

Quote from: jade on October 05, 2013, 05:14:13 PM
I still feel trapped in my body 10 years after SRS, there are still other aspects of me i would like to change/enhance even though i have had the op. Gender dysphoria may end but body dysphoria may continue 

We like to think that transition and SRS will solve all of our problems.  But much of who we are remains.  Transition freed me and gave me a wonderful life, but I still have many of the habits of thinking I had before.  I'm liberated, but in many ways I am the same person.

- Kate