Quote from: Sarah7 on July 25, 2014, 08:46:39 AM
I get it: the disappointment that the person Andreja appeared to be in the public eye never really existed. There was never a guy walking the runway in women's clothes. The knowledge of her true identity essentially makes her more normative in a sense.
Only that's actually really more a perception. All trans folks of any kind are still massively norm violating just by existing. It's why I sometimes feel a bit weird about the binary/non-binary divide. Trans folks are kind of non-binary by definition. It's what makes us trans.
And for all that she is a she, her history remains. In the same way that it does for us all.

I'm happy for her, after all, didn't she make so many of us happy, and still does?
It's about the journey and hers has done so much for us all in ways that not that many other people could have the same said of them.
How could anyone not be happy for her? If you aren't, perhaps you wanted her to be someone for you just a little too much...
Ativan

Quote from: luna nyan on July 25, 2014, 09:42:09 PM
Not at all.  It's a case of I look at her and start thinking is a full binary transition my ultimate destiny... (Queue darth vader here and some heavy mask breathing...).  Should I transition, I don't believe my posts here on living as non binary would be invalidated. 

This is exactly where I was a couple years ago. I had celebrated my non-binary identity only to find that the most satisfying presentation, when all things were considered, was a highly binary one.

I sort of felt like I was betraying my non-binary friends (quite a few of whom have since also chosen a binary presentation themselves). But after thinking about it and reading a few of Padma's posts about how no non-binary experience is superior to any other, I no longer saw it that way.

Face it, a lot of non-binary folk are that way because our experience living as a member of our birth sex and our natural gender identity have coexisted for so long that they've become hopelessly intertwined.

It's common for the birth assignment to "fall away" once we become more in touch with our internal identity and seem less important, pushing us toward a more binary presentation.

Because non-binary folk are marginalized, some of us get an Orwellian "non-binary good, binary bad" point of view, when neither is superior to or more authentic than the other.

I hope this is making sense.

No, she finally found herself. I'm glad for her. As for myself I wish I had the strenght when I was younger in life to correct my gender. Maybe she will make Victoria Secrets runway.

I certainly was surprised by her transition, but not because she transitioned rather the way the media portrays it.  You would think that the non-binary/trans community would know better than to put people in specific categories.  If the community is against the non-binary, why are there celebrations that now she is a "she".  I am really glad that she had SRS but that changes nothing about her.

A very indicative sentence in the article of how stuck the trans community is with the gender binary is this: "The gender-bending model work perplexed some but fascinated most — always leading to the question about her identity."  Whyyyyyy?? Who the hell cares? male female? She passed for both and anything in between.  This is crap journalism.  People were intrigued by her looks not her identity.   I think that if there is anyone who was questioning her gender, it was the media and the trans community who can't evolve and understand that people possess different capacities of gender.

I hope that she doesn't keep fighting the media who wants her to "choose" a gender.

I'm not sure you can decouple her public persona from her profession. If she were to insist on being non-binary, exactly what non-binary clothes would she model? Also, there almost certainly are some challenges she faced being in that industry, that other people don't have to deal with, like the clothing companies not wanting her as a spokesperson because their executives barely understand transgender, and probably haven't even heard of anything non-binary. Being a model isn't an industry where you can be yourself, it's about being the person that fits some designer or company's image. The clothes you saw her modeling were not generally ones she chose, they were chosen for her. This may have partially been a career move, as was possibly being ambiguous in her previous interviews. That profession is all about image, after all.

I don't fault her for any of this though, her public persona is her livelihood, as it is with any model.

Good for her. Let's just let her live her life. She seems happy now & maybe she can make the Victoria Secret's runway/stage.

Lucky girl

Quote from: Jessica Merriman on July 25, 2014, 05:31:43 PM
She still is unless her having GRS negates all the work she did for the non binary community. That would be so wrong on many levels. 

Like Suzi pointed out Jessica many of us began our journey in the non-binary forums and later moved into the binary ones as we learned more about who we are. I can name members on this forum stretching back for many years that have done that including me - it is a well worn path. Note that I am NOT saying that everyone does that and I am not invalidating the identity of the non-binaries - after all, they have a cool unicorn forest with fruitcake and bacon and I enjoyed the time that I spent there discovering myself.

The bottom line is that I am very happy for her. However, I also understand the disappointment that some people are feeling by all of this. But none of us know why she had to transition this way - her career undoubtedly was a huge part of that decision as well as other factors. She figured out who she is and she successfully transitioned the best way for herself and we should be happy for her - she is a trans success story.

Everyone has a differrent path and the ultimate goal is ALWAYS to find inner peace and for the pain to end. So yes i am very happy for her since she finally reached her goal.

On another note, i fully understand her in the way she reached it. She helped all our causes and made tons of money doing so. Not one of us can say they haven't wished for a way to the pot of gold at least once. Now i guess it is just maybe time for someone else to carry the torch she held so brightly up till now.

Quote from: Myarkstir on July 27, 2014, 08:25:14 AM
Everyone has a differrent path and the ultimate goal is ALWAYS to find inner peace and for the pain to end. So yes i am very happy for her since she finally reached her goal.

On another note, i fully understand her in the way she reached it. She helped all our causes and made tons of money doing so. Not one of us can say they haven't wished for a way to the pot of gold at least once. Now i guess it is just maybe time for someone else to carry the torch she held so brightly up till now.

I can't say that I didn't expect her to transition in spite of her constant denial, I think she was expressing what we all go through at some point, but given her fabulous looks I can hardly blame her, I'd probably do the same under those circumstances.

I only saw her name and picture somewhere once and thought "That's not easy being in the spotlights, fashion industry is hard work" . I think her well being is more important than expressing strict binaries just to fit in and the comments she made after her come out just strike home to me:  She's still the same person, just a different sex who recognizes its important for gender non-comforming people to have a place and feel good

Yeah, pretty soon.. someone's going  to say the way someone writes can say whether they have a female or male brain. ..   

Quote from: Paula Christine on July 27, 2014, 01:57:44 PM
Yeah, pretty soon.. someone's going  to say the way someone writes can say whether they have a female or male brain. ..   

Or whether you like McDonalds hamburgers or salads...my sister-in-law has a guilty pleasure I've come to know while shopping yesterday, filthy burgers   

Quote from: suzifrommd on July 26, 2014, 08:07:48 AM
It's common for the birth assignment to "fall away" once we become more in touch with our internal identity and seem less important, pushing us toward a more binary presentation.

Right now, I'm still in a muddle about M vs. F vs. non-binary vs. who-knows-what  (arguably, I've been in a muddle for 60+ years, but I digress...), but as more things pop up in my psyche like goldfish briefly surfacing in a muddy pond, I have the impression that what I thought was gender-variance (M) or non-binary is going to turn out to be full M2F trans.

But then I wonder: is this because I really want to be full F?  Or is it that life is a lot easier if you just choose one of the socially-approved roles than if you try to build a life and a place in society in the middle of nowhere?   Things like: not having a standard interaction protocol (e.g., pronouns), so you have to negotiate everything from scratch every time you meet someone.  (And bathrooms: which bathroom should a non-binary use?)  To be honest, I dread the prospect of 20+ years of non-stop social bushwacking which is what I imagine would come with living the rest of my life as a non-binary.  (Actually, to be really honest, staying in the male role seems like it would be the easiest of all; too bad it fits me about as well as one of those little dog sweaters from the pet shop would.)

Rationally, I think that there's a lot to be said against life as an ISO Standard Female (ISOSF), and if I believe that being an ISO Standard Male (ISOSM) has even more drawbacks, is that because male is, in fact, worse for me than female?  Or is it just that I don't see all the drawbacks to the ISOSF role because I've never lived it?

Asche

My thoughts have been running along similar lines.  It does feel that there is more scope for a FAAB non binary to express their identity, and less scope, or at least social acceptance, for a MAAB non binary.

Safe travels

Aisla

Good for her!

Damn was my intuition good here... I just noticed that she was phasing out the "male stuff" more and more and just one week after I asked she came out as transgender.

I wish you all the best Andreja!

Quote from: 930310 on July 27, 2014, 04:27:22 PM
Damn was my intuition good here... I just noticed that she was phasing out the "male stuff" more and more and just one week after I asked she came out as transgender.

Yes. This hit the press like a couple of days after I replied to your post before saying she denied being on anything. I wondered if she was reading. 

It's spooky isn't it??
Maybe you are Andreja? Or maybe she's a member here? Maybe I'm Andreja???

this actually surprised me! I thought they were intent on playing the adrogyny line, and yet now that I think back it makes sense.