This is just my opinion. When we go through stages of transition or even when we think about the possibilities, I think we often fall into a self-critical mode. I do that. I think about my masculine traits or how I need to do this or that to get to a passable state.
      I think the ultimate goal (for me) is to get to where I am not thinking about myself. A state where I accept myself as I am and then I can focus on my purpose in life. Gender is not my purpose. The most amazing people in life are not successful at being a man or woman. It has more to do with how they affect other people and often that can be through her work. Rarely do I think, Oh she is amazingly good at being a woman. It's more of Wow she is so talented or generous or gracious or artistic or sympathetic or.........  Hey just sharing an idea here. I'd like to get to the stage of losing myself and just having a worthwhile purpose.

I agree with you. This is the absolute end goal for me. This is one of the reasons why getting my surgeries is so important at this stage - the more I can live as a normal guy, and not have to focus energy on, say, worrying about my chest or dressing around my chest, or worrying about if someone's going to see that my genitals aren't normal, the more I feel I can just move on with life. They're small concerns (like choosing which shirt to wear) but when it's a day in, day out concern it definitely makes me think about gender more than I care to. And I do feel like I am so much more, and I want to be so much more.

Agree as this is where I have been heading   With hrt removing the intense dysphoria and other changes leaving me somewhat androgynous I don't feel inclined to enact a performance so that I can be comfortably gendered by members of the audience/community.  I have masculine and I have feminine traits and it is a good place to be.  Now I can stop gendering appearance, feelings, personalities etc and just be.  Being present and not allowing a constant self chatter about gender to intrude seems to be easier by the day.  Gender no longer rules.

I totally agree with you Gina. That end state of gender not being in the forefront of out minds is completely my goal too.

Each little day, I do get closer. HRT does a little more each day, and I learn a little more each day. Like everything in transition, it's slow going.

It does take a lot of time. Time is needed to learn all of the girlie things. It's an art. Passing is a beautiful dream for me. Someday. 

Of course gender is not everything!  Vegetable gardening is everything!  Just ask all my Facebook friends who see me post about nothing else for months on end!

On a more serious note, gender isn't everything, but when it creates challenges in a persons life, they can get pretty all-consuming.  In that way I sometimes wonder if trans* people perhaps have a measure of kinship with others who spend a lot of time thinking about gender--feminists, sociologists, psychologists, researchers, and masculinists (is that a word?), among others. But hopefully we ll eventually reach a point in our lives where we aren't quite so dominated by it in our minds.

After all, we've got to make room in our lives for vegetable gardening.

Yes! It is sad to see some individuals obsessed by the dysphoria. I can empathize with that state of mind, but it's dangerous to let it become all-consuming. I can imagine my life becoming all about feminizing techniques like removing facial hair, learning about fashion, spending hours with a therapist, over thinking about HRT, obsessing about passing....  Some of these things are fun and interesting, but I see some people who act like this stuff is a way of life. It's a start, but not the ultimate goal. I refuse to obsess about it. Maybe it will be a wild ride. Maybe I can try to make it smooth and gentle. I don't know.

Eventually, you get over the gender thing and start living as yourself. The trans crap comes up from time to time but you mostly ignore the heck out of it by-and-large.

Quote from: Victoria Mitchell on March 01, 2014, 07:01:18 PM
Eventually, you get over the gender thing and start living as yourself. The trans crap comes up from time to time but you mostly ignore the heck out of it by-and-large.

I love the way that you put things so succinctly Victoria.

I do what I can. 

Generally, after four years of this, it's just life. Being able to look from the other side of the crazy that is early-transition is pretty much all I can do for the community right now so, it's mah bag. 

Quote from: Gina_Z on February 28, 2014, 03:31:57 PM
This is just my opinion. When we go through stages of transition or even when we think about the possibilities, I think we often fall into a self-critical mode. I do that. I think about my masculine traits or how I need to do this or that to get to a passable state.
      I think the ultimate goal (for me) is to get to where I am not thinking about myself. A state where I accept myself as I am and then I can focus on my purpose in life. Gender is not my purpose. The most amazing people in life are not successful at being a man or woman. It has more to do with how they affect other people and often that can be through her work. Rarely do I think, Oh she is amazingly good at being a woman. It's more of Wow she is so talented or generous or gracious or artistic or sympathetic or.........  Hey just sharing an idea here. I'd like to get to the stage of losing myself and just having a worthwhile purpose.

Ka Ora Gina,

That's called "enlightenment"

Metta Zenda