I am curious about denial.  What our journeys have been.  Some have been mtf or maybe ftm then found themselves here.  Others came here and found themselves there.  It seems really hard for most of us to figure out who we are, vs who we were trained to be, vs who we wanted to be.  And  then there is the dsyphoria working some of us over, one of my close friends says "the mirror is not our friend"... I can certainly agree with that one, on body dysphoria.

I denied being GQ, it cost me, figured it out in time, Aisla and the shrink having both intervened...bringing me to the unicorn forest, a term I didn't know of until tonight... cool

Yet many mtf's think I am in denial and ultimately I will full time transition some day.  Which does not ring true in my spirit for me.

And I do know self deception can be exceedingly dangerous, especially when irreversable surgery comes into play.

Thoughts?  Thought it could be beneficial to us as nonbinaries.

Well, for me it was more a revelation about the flexible and breakable nature of gender.  I think that I was in denial for several years on the subject because it was the only way I could make sense of my need to transition: That you are either a man or a woman, and everything from the way you speak to the clothes you wear must fall into one of those two categories.  It took a year or so of living full time to realize that this notion was completely illogical.  That being said, I can't speak for not desiring surgery-I like looking androgynous, but I am genuinely transexual (as well as nonbinary) so I am seeking FFS and bottom surgery-I think that transexism must be entirely different in cause than ->-bleeped-<-, because no matter how liberated I feel in realizing that gender is a flexible thing, I still can't get over the fact that my body is simply incorrect.

I know what you mean about being looked at as "in denial"-It's almost certainly a generational thing, but in my circles the stigma is on people who DO seek surgery.  I only know one binary trans* person, and everyone else keeps telling me that I only want surgery because the world around me is pressuring me to do so.  It's very interesting how that's completely reversed over the years, I must say!

I spent the best part of my life denying being trans.  I'd make plans for transition, and never followed through.  I only made it to one support group meeting, and I vehemently said to myself "I am not like them..."

In my deepest heart of hearts, I'm probably a girly girl.  But there has been so much deep inculcation as a male, that I doubt I could ever fully shake it off.  Lifetime of habits and all, so I accept that I am a chimera.

Having been on low dose HRT, I see glimpses of her in the mirror at times.  I don't deny her existence, but for now she has to stay safely cosseted away from the world, as it can be such a cruel place at times.

Quote from: Satinjoy on July 29, 2014, 08:56:11 PM
Yet many mtf's think I am in denial and ultimately I will full time transition some day.

SJ I only say that because of your post's at times. You have a lot of depressive times and some times elude to not being happy with the conditions placed on you by others. I honestly feel that if these restrictions or conditions were not in place you would definitely go further down transition road. How far I cannot say, but you would go further. Of course this is my personal interpretation of the tone in your post's. I could very well be wrong, but my intuition says no I am not. 

Jessica,

We all tend to chafe when placed under the restrictions and expectations of others.  It's human nature.

Placing oneself voluntarily so, as SJ has, makes things all the harder - and there is hat need for release/relief at times.

Unfettered, I probably would have undergone a full binary transition, I make no secret of it.  But there are sufficient reasons not to do so.  A few different decisions at a few crossroads in life, and I would have been done more than 10 years ago, if not sooner. Would I have been happier? Hard to say.

So I'd say I'm not in denial of what I am anymore.  I'm just being pragmatic about it...

I still think that if my wife had not had to go and live in a nursing home would I have transitioned.

We all carry guilt I guess.

I don't honestly know where I do, or where I will, fit into the spectrum. Maybe I will end up binary, and maybe I will not. Are my thoughts still welcome here?

My entire life has been a struggle between denial and dysphoria. At times one or the other holds so much sway that I don't even notice the struggle. I worry that the struggle itself has completely destroyed my self-identity, and that it may perhaps never be found.

Denial has been so strong for me, that it gives me what I feel like is a strange sense of dysphoria, reversed from the experiences that most others seem to have shared here. As one example, I will often grow out my hair, though out of self-neglect more than the typical desire to have longer, more feminine hair. Eventually though, it reaches the point where when I look into the mirror, I see her, or an echo of her. The first time this happened my heart actually stopped, followed by a tumult of conflicting elation and despair, joy and heartache, epiphany and confusion.

Seeing myself triggers my dysphoria, opening a floodgate of uncertainty. Then denial takes hold, and the uncertainty must be destroyed, so I shave myself bald. That is what the man in the mirror must look like, even as I dissociate myself from it.

There is strength in denial, uncertainty and weakness in acceptance. One is comfortable and secure, the other, terrifying. One is easy, and the other, so very hard. How do you even begin to wade through the comfortable self-deception to find a true self you've desperately buried for so long? What if the two are now blended, never to be separated; can the Self still be found?

Quote from: Satinjoy on July 29, 2014, 08:56:11 PM
Yet many mtf's think I am in denial and ultimately I will full time transition some day. 

Transitioning isn't just for traditional MtFs. I'm non-binary, but I transitioned fully.

Though I've always wanted to transition. If that's not true for you, then don't act on it.

It really isn't about labels. We can drive ourselves crazy trying to figure out whether we're MtF, GenderQueer, bigender, genderfluid, etc., when what's really important is that we find the presentation that works for us.

Quote from: suzifrommd on July 30, 2014, 08:00:18 AM
It really isn't about labels. We can drive ourselves crazy trying to figure out whether we're MtF, GenderQueer, bigender, genderfluid, etc., when what's really important is that we find the presentation that works for us.

I have been pushing this sense that labels can lead us into boxes that we have a hard time finding our ways out of.
What is worse?
Not having a label for ourselves or finding ourselves in one that we feel just as obligated to stay in and deny ourselves our true selves?
It's been coming around to this breaking down the barriers that have been in place for too long between binary and non-binary.
Sarah7 has such a good handle on this, I can't even begin to tell you all the revelations of reading her short and sweet comments about this.
The barriers are beginning to fall, we don't have to classify our selves as anything other than what we truly want to be.
Isn't this the point? Isn't getting away from the rules imposed by a cis world the point?
To be who we truly are?
Then why do some impose the same kinds of standards of having to fit somewhere within the trans community?
It's a carry over from what they imposed in the first place? The security of knowing you fit in yet another box?
Doesn't make sense to me, it has placed far to many restrictions on people over the years, yet it also brings a sense of belonging to many.

It's time to stop this nonsense of imposing standards on anyone within the community, to let everyone explore who they are.
Isn't that the end goal here? To be who you are without the imposed boxes that society wants you to be placed it?
The tipping point is near, the old way of looking at ourselves is getting us into areas that keep coming up as a problem for to many people.
Support is broken down into those who fit these boxes and those who don't, yet there is a sense of relief that I read more frequently, all the time.
I see it when someone does this and the rebel in me says very quietly, 'good for you'.
And then I turn around and read comment after comment of people explaining to others about why you have to tow the line of a certain box or label.
I always advocate for people to be who you are, not a label, not a box, be descriptive about yourselves, not another damn description you have to live up to or live within, we just aren't that kind of people to start with.
If anything, there are some who delude themselves into thinking they have to fit somewhere, when just being yourself is the best fit of all.
Look at the nature of so many posts that deal with the explanations that describe who you are supposed to be, when the question had nothing to do with that.
It was a question of how do you get away from the boxes of imposition that society, cis and otherwise have placed on you to start with.

You do it by defying those boxes in the first place.
Be yourself.
Stop telling people they need to fit in one, they just managed to get out of one that suppressed them for too many years.
Support isn't another box or label, it's supporting the person's journey, not their destination, that will come soon enough.
Ativan

I think my problem with denial for so long was the influence of my father. My mother died when I was 8 and my father took care of me and my siblings. He never remarried and as far as I'm aware never dated after her death. He was aware of my special condition and lovingly tried to point the way to manhood. I think it caused me to try so hard to bury my inner self out of respect for my father. I was in such conflict for so long until finally accepting   who I was .

SJ

Boxes, destinations, delusion v reality.  Deep down I suspect that we all just wish to be accepted.  In many cases this leads us to trade off self acceptance for group acceptance.  The irony is powerful.

As trans* we have accepted that our dysphoria needs to be addressed and that we need to change to grow.  Far easier, less risky to accept the norms of another group than to journey through uncertain country and across unchartered seas.  I suspect that, for some, it is just more practical, easier, less stressful and affirming to find the more comfortable box and to establish a home.

The non binary, the free spirit, the soul that doesn't seek a box, is uncomfortable with restricted choices and seeks full and authentic self  expression, boxes are constraints, they don't provide shelter, they imprison, restrict choice and imprison.

(As an aside I have some sympathy for Winston Churchill when he reportedly said that he would not seek to join any club whose membership criteria permitted him to join.)

And so to Jera's comment ... What if our identity has changed, what if we are 'deluded' and our true self can no longer be found?  Is this a Gordian knot to be undone or a tangle to be sliced by a sword?  ...  What is reality and what is illusion?

Does it really matter? In making choices and in expression, we bestow legitimacy, we change and we transmute.   Nothing is permanent.  At our very core, is what exactly?  A spirit, a soul? A set of deeply held, but rarely questioned values?  Nothing?  Pick something, join a new group, pick a box, any box or why not pick up a compass, find a chart then map your course.  A little more confronting, a little more empowering, but the views are spectacular, the fellow travellers more compelling.  Committing to the journey is an heroic quest - the experience, the perspective will be yours alone and indeed second to none.

At the end of their days when the weary traveller, knows that they have exhausted themselves, that they are fully spent.  Will they yearn for, or regret, not having built a home within a box, or to have travelled long and far?   Both are legitimate choices but for the non binary, the choice was ever clear.

Safe travels

Aisle

Denial, that is a river I know something about.  Pretty much every important existential change I have had in my life has had denial as a precursor.  In every case I have clung to the familiar, held on to the conventional, chosen the mundane, until I was forced to choose between light and darkness.  Jera commented on how terrifying it is to discard self deception and move into authenticity.  The terror is sometimes unfounded, sometimes not.  I knew the possible consequences of being a transexual woman.  I have seen the pain, heartbreak and sadness in people I have loved.  I know the terminal stages of addiction.  I have watched friends die of aids.  Denial is a tool to cope with the unthinkable.  The problem is it eventually fails and we are left with desolation of spirit.

Until I become desperate I have extraordinary difficulty with leaving the inauthentic lie, and living an uncomfortable truth.  Denying that in my deepest heart I was a girl for almost six decades was a root of denying that drugs and alcohol are poison in my system.  Looking for anything that let me believe that I was not a fake and a fraud is a big piece of many dysfunctional relationships and was a foundation for a couple of co-dependent marriages. 

A tool is only valuable for as long as it works.  For two and a half years I have sought to become authentic; to discard the lies, fear, and loss; to embrace life, health, and love.  I don't fear for those of us who are seeking a non-binary authentic life.  That they are here, that they are seekers, that they are beautiful and courageous, transcends any possible element of denial.  We are a community.  I've never felt community before.  I would do almost anything for anyone here who is in pain or needs a friend. 

That we seek, that we journey towards truth is the critical element in my pilgrimage to authenticity, and acceptance.  Truth comes in small bits for me.  Enough to need to seek more, not so much as to destroy my sense of self. 

An edit: Thank you Aisla, once again you are spot on

Love to you all,
Julie

Quote from: androgynouspainter26 on July 29, 2014, 09:56:46 PM
Well, for me it was more a revelation about the flexible and breakable nature of gender.  I think that I was in denial for several years on the subject because it was the only way I could make sense of my need to transition: That you are either a man or a woman, and everything from the way you speak to the clothes you wear must fall into one of those two categories.  It took a year or so of living full time to realize that this notion was completely illogical.  That being said, I can't speak for not desiring surgery-I like looking androgynous, but I am genuinely transexual (as well as nonbinary) so I am seeking FFS and bottom surgery-I think that transexism must be entirely different in cause than ->-bleeped-<-, because no matter how liberated I feel in realizing that gender is a flexible thing, I still can't get over the fact that my body is simply incorrect.

I know what you mean about being looked at as "in denial"-It's almost certainly a generational thing, but in my circles the stigma is on people who DO seek surgery.  I only know one binary trans* person, and everyone else keeps telling me that I only want surgery because the world around me is pressuring me to do so.  It's very interesting how that's completely reversed over the years, I must say!

I do see a generational difference in perspective and I do sense that, as Ativan believes,  significant change is afoot.  Folk are an interesting contradiction - we are social and like to 'belong' yet we bridle and we resent normative constraints.   Younger folk have new lenses, they can see, touch and smell the bs.  Self expression is highly valued and we are starting to see its impact.   This is a very good thing indeed.

Aisla

I had no deviant gender or sexual proclivities whatsoever and had been something of a womanizer early on and up to my marriage. I enjoyed sexual trysts with attractive women and more than that I enjoyed the process of coming on to them so subtly that they would think that it was all their own idea. As time passed I began to realize that it wasn't the sexual aspects of relationships between men and women that had attracted me, but that I was more attracted to the female gender because I loved the feminine side over the masculine aspects of life.

I had been through a war doing as men do, stalking and killing each other and had become repulsed by the idea that this rite of passage was my only due and was expected because I was a male. I began to question the attitudes and ideas put forth in Playboy Forum and began to loathe that leering bastard in his pajamas with the pipe for foisting his crap off on men and women. I had seen a Playboy centerfold of a beautiful woman presented to me in Vietnam and was asked if I'd like to do her, and in my mind I said, "Hell no, I want to be her far away from this awful place!" That along with seeing Joey Heatherton's pouty beautiful face and long sexy legs at a Bob Hope event was the internal revelation that would never let up.

Initially I had decided that I was indeed MtF and it didn't take any counselor to convince me that was where I was headed, that was well over twenty years ago. I started HRT back in 1994 and had an orchiectomy thirteen years ago. It was about eleven years ago that I paid Dr. Marcie Bowers $500 for an SRS consultation and met her at her part-time office in Nordstrom Tower at Swedish Hospital here in Seattle. She agreed that I was a good candidate and since I had letters from a therapist and Dr. Anne Lawrence who I had seen early on, and from the urologist in Portland, Oregon who had removed my family jewels, also from the VA endocrinologist, I was good to go. I had brought my spouse along who hit it off rather well with Dr. Bowers and asked a lot of questions, many of which I had not even considered because I was head long and hell bent to do this thing. It was an interesting and lengthy conversation and to be honest, it opened up my eyes to a lot of stuff that I had not considered, things that I really didn't want to have to deal with later, and then this would have been the straw that broke the camel's back in our relationship though divorce was not an option, we felt we would be miserable living together like that, one real woman and one pseudo-woman, it just wasn't going to work.

As time passed I began to realize the gravity of what I had done, we were hinged at the hip as married couples go and we were forever getting "ma'am-ed and you ladies" until I finally felt that I had been suffering from self delusion as I looked in the mirror and said "Are you shi**ing me you dumb fu*k?" I pulled my diamond stud earrings out of my ears and had my spouse mow my head into a GI-Joe buzz cut and went off HRT for two years and became very ill with no hormonal base at all and now have to take a thyroid booster because of it as my thyroid took a big hit. I tried injectable testosterone which lasted for only one week, I hated it because it turned me into an instant a** hole and caused my face to be red as if I had drinker's flush. I went back on female HRT but since I had fallen through the endocrinology department's cracks at VA I decided to self medicate and gave myself a nasty life threatening case of DVT. That being history I have now come to the place where I realized that I had taken everything way overboard in my initial enthusiasm and that we are all uniquely different and should never think that transitioning is a one size fits all proposition, because obviously it's not. I have become quite content with adapting to a non-binary androgynous persona and outward expression and have found great acceptance from family and friends who love me as I am even though they consider me a bit eccentric. One of the women we meet daily at our Starbucks coffee Klatch is making me my favorite, a carrot cake for my upcoming birthday August 3rd I am well loved and accepted by those that count and I couldn't be happier.

I don't think I have ever really denied it. Sure I have hidden it maybe I did try to deny it at times but it was always there no matter what. I have tried to do the masculine manly man things and so on and spent four years of my life stuck as having to be full male with tiny little breaks in between. There was nothing more reaffirming that I wasn't a real man while constantly being around a lot of real masculine males with no way to escape. Even though it was an experience and I probably wouldn't change it, it was also one of the most oppressive uncomfortable few years of my life. It did let me see that I am not really a male in the true sense of the word. I am nonbinary I think but lean heavily toward female. Yes it is confusing sometimes and dysphoric at others but most of the times I can fight it back or beat it down. nature did do me some favors though and I really don't know how to explain it but it just seems to have become a part of me. Who knows? Maybe I have done driven myself insane 'cause what I wrote sure sounds crazy even to me.

Quote from: Shantel on July 30, 2014, 10:49:16 AM
I have now come to the place where I realized that I had taken everything way overboard in my initial enthusiasm and that we are all uniquely different and should never think that transitioning is a one size fits all proposition, because obviously it's not. I have become quite content with adapting to a non-binary androgynous persona and outward expression and have found great acceptance from family and friends who love me as I am even though they consider me a bit eccentric. I am well loved and accepted by those that count and I couldn't be happier.

Shantel

We are indeed each very different.  We are unique.  We shouldn't be in a hurry to pick one box or one set of norms over another.  A journey of discovery and authentic self expression has many twists and turns,  but is never boring.   At the end of the day if the most negative comment you receive, is that you are a little unusual or eccentric, then it is a pretty decent outcome and fair reward for a life well lived.

Safe travels

Aisla

Quote from: Jess42 on July 30, 2014, 11:04:48 AM
I don't think I have ever really denied it. Sure I have hidden it maybe I did try to deny it at times but it was always there no matter what.   ....   It did let me see that I am not really a male in the true sense of the word. I am nonbinary I think but lean heavily toward female. Yes it is confusing sometimes and dysphoric at others but most of the times I can fight it back or beat it down. nature did do me some favors though and I really don't know how to explain it but it just seems to have become a part of me. Who knows? Maybe I have done driven myself insane 'cause what I wrote sure sounds crazy even to me.

Jess

If you are insane then I suspect that you are not alone.   What you have experienced and what you have written, sounds pretty sane to me.  As non binary we may not be a homogeneous group but our respective journeys feel familiar.  Our journeys do not feel like denial or even optional,  I experience it almost as a need or a compulsion to explore and in so doing to discover and to express myself.

Aisla

Quote from: Jessica Merriman on July 30, 2014, 01:59:39 AM
SJ I only say that because of your post's at times. You have a lot of depressive times and some times elude to not being happy with the conditions placed on you by others. I honestly feel that if these restrictions or conditions were not in place you would definitely go further down transition road. How far I cannot say, but you would go further. Of course this is my personal interpretation of the tone in your post's. I could very well be wrong, but my intuition says no I am not. 

Ah my dear you are only wrong about you being the trigger!  No worries there at all, or with anyone here for that matter.  The trigger in one sense me in my own self deception, and in something my shrink said.

As to the transition compromise, yes I would go farther down the road, but the price is too high.

I have to go back off forum, and I love all of you very deeply.  It may be a while... but I don't want Lady Jess or anyone else to think they were the mtf triggering the denial thread.  Denial is simply something we all have to overcome as trans, whatever box may be around or not around, we are pretty good at hiding our cores from ourselves and need help to find that diamond.

Blessings and love, now I really must disappear for a while

Tears are flowing.  Be well

Quote from: Satinjoy on July 30, 2014, 04:30:00 PM
Ah my dear you are only wrong about you being the trigger!  No worries there at all, or with anyone here for that matter.  The trigger in one sense me in my own self deception, and in something my shrink said.

As to the transition compromise, yes I would go farther down the road, but the price is too high.

I have to go back off forum, and I love all of you very deeply.  It may be a while... but I don't want Lady Jess or anyone else to think they were the mtf triggering the denial thread.  Denial is simply something we all have to overcome as trans, whatever box may be around or not around, we are pretty good at hiding our cores from ourselves and need help to find that diamond.

Blessings and love, now I really must disappear for a while

Tears are flowing.  Be well

C'mon SatinJoy, don't leave. It would be a cold day in hell before anyone self-identifying as MtF would manipulate my feelings on the Non-Binary Forum, I don't care who it is! This is a support site, I resent militant types or anyone trying to play mental health counselor questioning other people's motives for their personal choices.

Quote from: Satinjoy on July 30, 2014, 04:30:00 PM
Ah my dear you are only wrong about you being the trigger!  No worries there at all, or with anyone here for that matter.  The trigger in one sense me in my own self deception, and in something my shrink said.

As to the transition compromise, yes I would go farther down the road, but the price is too high.

I have to go back off forum, and I love all of you very deeply.  It may be a while... but I don't want Lady Jess or anyone else to think they were the mtf triggering the denial thread.  Denial is simply something we all have to overcome as trans, whatever box may be around or not around, we are pretty good at hiding our cores from ourselves and need help to find that diamond.

Blessings and love, now I really must disappear for a while

Tears are flowing.  Be well

You will be missed, but I completely understand doing what you have to do. Safe journeys.