Quote from: Incarlina on October 31, 2013, 12:45:42 PM
I agree with what many others have said; coming out to yourself is the biggest step. Because that means you're the first person who accepts you for who you are 
Hey Again All,
So many very helpful / insightful comments. I want to reply to a few that have really stuck in my mind over the last couple days. It's funny what comes up, doing this. A sense of 'I have already taken enough time / space here!' Makes me realize how
little time and space I have taken up thus far in my years. Such is an effect of secrets. Secret gender experience, secret abuse, secret addiction... In my last post I spoke of feeling naked. Put another way, I am not used to speaking honestly, openly, freely about myself. So it is strange, but good to do so now...
* Coming out to oneself - Is this what I've done!? I guess so, though I really didn't realize this at the time. I have wondered a lot about what this means for me - coming out to myself as trans. In many ways, it's like I have acknowledged a door that has long existed in my life - existed but not been acknowledged. In so doing, it feels like this door has swung open and I am standing at the threshold looking in while asking myself, 'Now what's in here?'
* Transgender - Mary wrote of the value in "accepting transgender as a wide ranging description" and goodness does this make sense to me. Some of my hesitation in embracing this term is a reflection of a reluctance to step into yet another 'box'. I have spent decades living in a this is 'boy' and this is 'girl' world - and the effects have been downright soul destroying.
Whenever transgender is used in a similar way (i.e.: as a box), I feel like I am poised on the verge of insanity. I tell someone about my gender experience and they (understandably given the binary orientation of our culture) come back with, 'So you are a woman in a man's body, then'. It makes me want to scream. Perhaps this is the experience of some trans folk - maybe it's even my experience, I don't know - but 'Please, please don't box me in like that' I want to say. The usefulness of 'transgender' for me lay in it's breadth as much as anything - room to breathe, room to explore, room to relax, finally!
I listened to a radio interview with a ten year old girl named Harriet the other day. She was born male bodied but lives as a girl and is working to have gender designations removed from birth certificates in this neck of the woods. I nearly wept listening to her. She is so amazing! My whole body relaxed as she talked about this - the freedom to just be me! This is what I hope 'trans' offers. And if you are interested, I posted a link to the interview under 'People News'.
* Language - Constance offered a useful refinement of my statement around language and existence: "I don't think its so much that you didn't exist without adequate language, but it can be very hard to find one's place without it. Yes, saying it gives it weight, gives it substance."
This is so helpful! Thank you! It's not that I have not existed all these years - even this feeling of non-existence could be considered evidence of existence! But an authentic, resonant sense of 'I' has been very hard to find in the absence appropriate terminology. More ephemeral than solid, I have in many ways walked through this life a ghost - or a ghost with a series of effective masks where a face might be.
Saying, 'I am trans' does provide weight and substance. On some days, 'queer' is helpful too - pointing to an existence that does not fit more conventional notions. Weight and substance is a lot easier to explore than shadow and fog; I can already feel this.
* Assimilation - "You are now assimilated, welcome to the hive..." This just made me laugh! And miss TNG a bit.
So on we go! Another day...
