Yup... I read it, and immediately I could sense that this was the personal story of a late-transitioner who was bitter about all the things she'd lost, and I couldn't help but laugh at some of the misinformation she has in there... (there is a lot of really accurate information in there too, but there's definitely a lot of comments that I can't take seriously.)
-"Transsexuals knew from their first memories that they were born in the wrong bodies." Wrong... we have many many transitioners on here (myself included) who didn't develop dysphoria until later in life, and WPATH's official guidelines basically state that this has nothing to do with one's validity as trans.
-"This explains why the vast majority of transsexuals are males..." wrong...
-Trying to claim that all transsexuals fit this same one-fits-all narrative where they knew from the age of 4-6 that something was wrong... again, not correct according to WPATH or the DSM.
-The entire section about young transitioners... "fully enjoying the ignorance of youth in a near perfect body with most of their problems solved!"... Wow, seeing the struggles of young transitioners through rose-colored glasses much? Jealousy showing through much? I know plenty of young transitioners, and they have just as many problems to overcome as anyone else does.
-Sheesh... okay, yes, you're probably going to lose something when you transition, (and I did lose my job,) but she makes it sound like everyone will lose everything due to transition. Again, this just sounds to me like the bitter ramblings of someone who did lose everything.
-"You surrender all you knew and loved, all your hope and self respect, and you trade it all for nothing more than a closet full of slutty club clothes and a few spike heeled shoes. You give up everything and what do you get in return? Prejudice and anger, misunderstanding and ridicule, beatings and death in the streets. You cannot get a job, you have no money, and the world insists that it constantly remind you that you do not belong... because you made a choice... a choice to live as a 6 foot tall, broad shouldered, ugly, hairy man in a dress. A choice to give up all you had for the right to wear pantyhose in public. Right."... Okay, while the intent here is admirable, to make sure that people who are just fetishizing about wearing "slutty" clothes and "playing girl" all the time know what they're getting into, this is just way too harsh on girls like me and my friends who really don't give two s***s about looking feminine as long as we can be girls, and spend most of our lives going out in t-shirts and jeans and normal everyday things. Plus I have to say, that entire phrase culminating in "ugly hairy man in a dress" is seriously just mean.
-Again, assuming that all trans women begin as crossdressers, and come to transition because they slowly get worse and worse. (I have to ask, was this article really written for trans women, or was it written to keep ->-bleeped-<-s away? That's what it seems like, is that it's basically speaking to ->-bleeped-<-s and others who fetishize transition, telling them to keep it in the realm of fantasy.)
-Seriously? "You will most likely never hear from any family ever again, that is just the odds at work."? Bulls***. I've yet to meet a trans woman in real life who lost her entire family. I know it happens sometimes, but most of the older transitioners I know, even those with kids, still keep in contact with them and still have great relationships with them. Yes, there's some resentment and some misgendering involved, and often an initial phase of denial, but going completely into the "I never want to see you again" realm is nowhere near as certain as she makes it sound like. Most families are at least willing to listen, and can accept that you're still the same person. Maybe I'm just biased too because I didn't lose any family or friends at all due to transition, but seriously, I think that just proves that transition isn't the social death-sentence she makes it out to be.
-"The friend thing is funny, but quite understandable in the end. You will lose all of them when you transition, just accept that."... Again, BULLS***. I came out in a very public fashion, right out front by just changing my name on my Facebook page and announcing that I was trans, and I didn't lose a single friend, plus got begged to come to my friends' 10-year high school reunion. Again... transition is not a death sentence. And I hate that this article is making all of these losses seem completely 100% certain and inevitable. They're not. Some will lose a lot. I'm not denying that. But it's not the big freaking deal that this article makes it out to be.
-"You are transitioning because you ARE different, and this is what makes all the difference to your friendships! What drew you together, what kept you together, is gone now. If you think you will still hunt and fish and play ball and chase women together, you are wrong..."... this makes me really question the author. I mean, am I doing this whole thing wrong? Because the last time I checked, my friends liked me because I had a good sense of humor, loved quoting nerdy references, doing voice imitations, and was a generally friendly and nice person who they knew they could trust to talk to, not because I had a penis.
Okay, can I ask this? Is this author seriously insinuating that one goes from being so deep in denial pre-transition that they refused to do absolutely anything that might get them read as gender-nonconforming, anything that might make people think that they were "gay" or anything? Are they seriously that deep in denial that they insist on doing only "masculine" things, and that therefore post-transition they really don't have any of those things left? And how is it even possible to go from completely male interests to completely female interests to the point where you have NOTHING in common with your old self like that? Isn't that just trading one set of cultural expectations that you're trying to live up to for another set of cultural expectations that you're trying to live up to? Going from being a stereotypical male to a stereotypical female? Maybe that's why this author is so bitter and miserable about transition... because just like she was trying to assert her maleness pre-transition, maybe now she's trying to assert her femaleness post-transition, and likewise failing to live up to those same cultural standards of femininity? Again, I'm biased on this, because I had very gender-neutral interests pre-transition, and now post-transition all I've done is taken that same basic behavior and added a few arbitrary things like nail painting and cute accessories which I really weren't "allowed" to do pre-transition. Every person I've met has realized that I'm exactly the same person they knew pre-transition, just a girl now. So frankly I feel like this entire article is lacking a true sense of personhood and authenticity. I feel like she's whining about how she's not living up to society's standards of femininity.
-"If you are a real transsexual, you were born a woman. All you did after the childhood beatings and ridicule was designed to cover up the truth through exaggeration. You learned to become a man, to project the image of a man to the world. You were not though. It was, in fact, all a lie."... yup. There we go. I knew it. And come on, "if you are a REAL transsexual?" Bulls***. All I see in this post is "Look at how authentically trans I am because I SUFFERED!" and "Look at how authentically female I am, because I do womanly things and my male friends don't understand me anymore!"
-"Of the millions of men who attempt the transition, less than 15% make it, and that 15% certainly does not have it easy. Think about this too... the 85% that fail? They go back to living as a man, in the comfortable world they knew and can function in."... According to what? I've NEVER seen that mentioned anywhere before, and there's no citation or anything. So is it right for me to assume that this is just a statistic that you pulled out of thin air?
-"You have looked at all the silly feminine websites out there from Crossdresser Sally and Terri-the-TV to Jean's World and The Rose Garden... you know, the giggling female wannabees who have websites with flowers and pink scripted writing all over them. They talk about their wonderful lives in spike heels and satin corsets, giggle about the silky clothing, and flirt with the boys as if they were a 45 year old schoolgirl."... Again, am I living in a different world here? Is she really talking about transsexual women here, or is she talking about cross-dressers? Or maybe it's just a Cleveland thing, where just about every trans woman my age that I've ever met doesn't give two s***s about pink and frills and corsets and thinks that these markers of femininity are horribly cliched? They see transition as actually being physically female, getting smooth skin and boobs and "female" fat and a vagina as their primary transition goals, not to be able to go around in some feminine princess fantasy? Again, I don't know. This just doesn't ring true to me at all.
I'll stop there. Again, all I see in her writings is bitterness, overblown doom-and-gloom, jealousy of young transitioners, overcompensatig and divisive wording that puts other people down for the sake of her feeling superior and "->-bleeped-<-r than thou" and "womanlier than thou," (you know anyone who says "TRUE transsexual" in anything is pulling that nonsense,) and it frankly feels like one giant vent of self-loathing more than anything.
Also, again, I feel like this was almost written more for cross-dressers than for transsexuals. It reads like one giant discouragement for people who are fetishizing transition and who really do think that femaleness is all about frills and dresses and makeup and heels, rather than for people who see femaleness as nothing more than another way to be human and do normal everyday human stuff. So, okay, I guess it serves a purpose to keep fetishists who probably shouldn't transition from transitioning, but it's seriously just so unnecessarily discouraging to those who are transsexual. How many people have staved off transition for these exact reasons, because they were afraid of being a freak, because they were afraid of just looking like a "man in a dress," and ultimately denied themselves of happiness because of it? This article is SO hurtful in that regard.
I guess all I can say is, trans girls, take this article as one person's experience, and take it as a worst-case scenario, the ramblings of a very bitter woman who went through hell and lost everything and everyone due to transition, and so she thinks that she can make generalizing statements about everyone. Likewise, take my responses to her as the ramblings of a trans girl who didn't get dysphoria until I was a teenager, didn't really "overcompensate," and who avoided transition for a good 13 years because of "->-bleeped-<-r than thou" articles exactly like this making me question myself and scaring me away from it due to social fear. I told myself for years and years and years "nobody would understand." Well, guess what? They did understand.
