Seems like this place is pretty quiet. I was a regular here about 5 years ago in what seemed like a hay day to me. Pica pica was there, and the immortal Rebis (anyone know what happened to them?). There there was this trans guy who was forever haunting the place calling us his unicorns, Tekla was always ready to chime in. It was a good time.

Back then I ended up declaring myself a woman which was a good thing. It felt like it justified me transitioning to having a female body, taking hormones and getting SRS. I think this was the push that got me there. Now that I have transitioned I've relaxed into myself. I identify once again as non-binary and feel good.

What I find interesting on reflection is that I started out looking like a fem guy which I really loved. The long hair, nail polish. I loved the shock value of it. Now nobody sees me is anything but female, but have slowly stepped back just a little. I let my side burns grow (for some reason I never got those removed). I don't shave any of my body hair. I've taken to using my manly voice more. I don't wear make-up, except on rare occasions. It has not affect how I pass and I am thankful for this female looking body which retains some of the male strength I once had - it fits me perfect. I got a good groove going on in this easy chair.

I'm rambling a bit. Not sure where I am going with this. It has taken a lot of getting over social conditioning to be comfortable and I still butt up against it sometimes. For example I struggled with feeling a bit ick not shaving my legs. It feels like a victory that I can wear shorts and show my hairy pins. But I still can't have bare legs and a dress. The wall comes down brick by brick. It is a slow process but damn in the long run it is really good.

I guess that is my message - incremental change and change your body if that is what you need. I know I was paralysed for the longest time wondering if I was trans enough. I'm glad for the brief mad period I identified as a woman and transitioned in a whirlwind.

I agree, it has been somewhat quiet. There was a flurry of activity about a year ago that unfortunately ended with a number of people leaving the site over interpersonal problems with other site members. Pica is still around - they posted just a few days ago. Revis departed before my time (I don't remember them, and I've been here for three and a half years).

But there still are enough of us to provide support for each other and be a haven for those stopping by on various stages of their non-binary journey.

I'm Suzi, by the way.

Nice to make your acquaintance. 

Some of us are still here, just don't post much.

I'm non-binary, but this section always felt more like a place to showcase literary skills...and I have none! 

Hugs, Devlyn

One thing is that most of the frequent posters left.  Prior to that, there were enough talkative non-binary folks so that all kinds of conversations got going, some related to being trans, some less so.  When the frequent posters left, the group dropped below the critical mass to keep things like that going.  You can't trust that if you post something about your non-binary feelings or experience you'll find a lot of people who can relate to where you are, the way it was before.

Also, one of the impressions left by the stoush was that the susans.org community doesn't really have room for people or posts that don't fit the standard trans narratives.  I know that I have that impression and I don't feel as comfortable posting stuff that doesn't fit into the standard trans topics as I did before.

Personally, I'm going through a lot of stuff right now, I don't know how much is related to being trans or transitioning.  I don't feel like susans.org is able to be all that helpful to me right now, so I don't post much about it.

I always felt out of place on this sub-board in the NB heyday. I've got a lot of respect for all the old posters (Satinjoy, Taka, Shan, and Jacey all come to mind) and I had a ton of positive interactions with them, but. I dunno. Everything was whimsy and metaphor -- which is lovely, but when I first came to Susan's a year ago, I was struggling so much with feelings of dehumanisation and alienation. I needed pragmatic advice and the reminder that I was a real person with reasonable desires whose identity has a solidly tangible place in this reality. I wasn't interested in play-acting.

This board had a poetry back then, which I admired but hated. I totally understand why imaginative people with a unique viewpoint would want to express themselves in untraditional ways, but I'm a weird, rigid, stick in the mud and even when I tried, I couldn't contribute.

Now, things are more my style, but it is dead. I miss the activity, I have to say.

Still feeling dehumanised and alienated? What helped or hindered?

I do sometimes feel alienated. Like looking in on the cultures of men and women and not really being able to participate. Sometimes it all seems so bizarre, everywhere you look it seems the world is geared up for binary gender. So much energy is taken up with it yet most people are not aware of it at all.

I'm naturally rather introverted too which does not help the alienation.

I think Susan's, Asche, at it's heart is a conservative place. Narratives have always fascinated me. See I had to buy into one to transition, to feel valid in pursuing it. Did I convince myself of being a woman to justify it? I think so.   

I think I'm in a much healthier place. I sometimes still have moments where I feel like an outsider amongst cis and trans people alike, but I feel much less haunted by my non-binary identity.

Finding peace in my own liminality --and as a mixed race, bisexual, non-binary expat, trust me, my life is full of it  -- was a challenge for me, but one thing that helped was finding a group of likeminded people. In the past, the only NB community I had access to was Tumblr, and while that site is invaluable in many ways, it made me feel wretchedly ancient at the old age of 20, haha.

I felt like I was up against a different set of circumstances than the others I was encountering, and it made discussions feel out of touch, even ridiculous, to me. Not saying they were, objectively -- just that I, reading posts, often found myself baffled by suggestions or discussions that didn't seem set in the adult world. (For example, a "f*** thy haters" attitude might be psychologically affirming, but there are some things I can't afford to say to my boss without losing my job ... the job I need to pay my rent. Being told that made me complicit in transphobia grated on my last nerve.) I felt like the binary world was impenetrably walled off to me and the NB world, while technically accessible, was some kind of weird fantasy swamp, alluring but toxic.

Unfortunately, I was so embroiled in the dogma of social justice that I internalised a lot of shame, and I was afraid to that saying "Hey, this doesn't reflect my understanding" would reveal me as a bad person. I assumed that I was unilaterally wrong and that the voices I was encountering were unilaterally right, even if they said things that struck me as hurtful, offensive, or strange.

Meeting people I trusted enough to open up about my concerns helped me a lot. Hearing someone say, "You have a right to think critically about this, you have a right to disagree as a member of this community" was very validating. I felt more confident in myself, and as that confidence grew, I found that I was more and more comfortable being non-binary. Fitting in mattered less to me. I was okay with myself.

I still do feel alienated from binary society, especially cis binary society, but these days I'm better able to see it as a problem with the rigidity of our boxes, rather than a problem with ME for not fitting in them.

Quote from: nicole99 on September 19, 2015, 06:22:17 AM
I do sometimes feel alienated. Like looking in on the cultures of men and women and not really being able to participate. Sometimes it all seems so bizarre, everywhere you look it seems the world is geared up for binary gender. So much energy is taken up with it yet most people are not aware of it at all.

Tell me about it!  I can remember as a very young child, back in the 1960's, when it was a lot worse, and thinking the whole "boys are" and "girls are" and what boys had to or couldn't do just didn't make any sense.  (I think I was a radical feminist before I'd ever heard the word "feminist".)  The rules got beaten into me -- eventually -- but I never internalized it.  (I did internalize the fear of being caught breaking them, though.)  I think that's why I don't have a gender identity.  For me, "male" is just the body and the social role I got stuck with and would happily go AWOL from if I thought I could get away with it.

But it's not just the gender binary that feels alien to me.  Pretty much everything in our (=USA) society just seems weird to me.  The values make no sense to me.  Lying is a virtue.  Stealing more than the next guy makes you a big shot.  Putting people down and making them feel awful is what makes you cool.  And hating whole categories of people is what you have to do to not get ostracized.  It all feels about as much fun or as sensible as hammering ten-penny nails into your head.  (I haven't been able to watch TV since I was about 16 because it all seems so stupid and pointless.)

I know I sound like some wild-eyed radical.  (A half-century of watching one stupid, pointless atrocity after another being committed in the name of this or that supposed virtue or principle will do that to you.)  Sometimes I'm angry.  Other times I despair.  But most of the time, I just wonder if this is really my species and, if so, what does that say about me?

Quote from: nicole99 on September 19, 2015, 06:22:17 AM
I think Susan's, Asche, at it's heart is a conservative place. Narratives have always fascinated me. See I had to buy into one to transition, to feel valid in pursuing it. Did I convince myself of being a woman to justify it? I think so.

I'm planning to transition myself, but I don't see myself as a woman (nor a man), and don't expect to feel any more a woman inside when I'm done than I feel like a man now.  The "woman born trans" and "I was always a woman" narratives don't fit me and I don't plan to pretend it does.  For me, it's not a question of who I really am, it's mostly a question of which of the two roles society has room for (male vs. female) I think I'd be more comfortable in (or maybe less uncomfortable.)  No matter which role I'm in, I know I'll still be the same me inside and that "me" will still be somebody society isn't interested in dealing with.

I know there are people who try to live in neither of the two boxes or somewhere in between, but that just seems like too much hassle.  I don't have all that many years left and, like Professor Kettleburn, I just want to retire and find a comfy gender-cottage where I can enjoy more time with my remaining limbs.

"Comfy gender-cottege" is my new provocative thought of the day.

Not enough surgical steel nor HRT in the universe to transcend me into the female I aspire to.

There's a hetero-normative dyad out there, pretty rigid, because it's all about sexual discourse, finding a mate, reproducing. Hetero-normative, monogamous family units.

In Hawai'ian native culture (kanaka maoli) there is the cultural tradition/custom of "middle people" (mahu) -- teachers, spirit guides, conveyers of culture and tradition. Other cultures share this concept of more than two genders. But much of this inclusive view flies in the face of traditional Western values -- Judao-Christian, ethos.

We were speculating recently that sex is like a sixth sense, and that despite being "of a gender," we are entirely out of the sexual relations loop. Like being blind or deaf -- sex relations are not part of my sensory field. It's disabling, and requires adaptation. But gender expression is heaps more accommodating than it has been. There's been much advance since 1960's, and especially recently. Progress is speeding up.

Quote from: Allison Wunderland on September 20, 2015, 12:39:56 PM
We were speculating recently that sex is like a sixth sense, and that despite being "of a gender," we are entirely out of the sexual relations loop.

I dunno.  I actually really like the fact that I don't have to bat for either team, or be part of the hierarchy.  The rules don't have to apply to us, and there are plenty of people out there who value independence and the person you are, instead of gross sexual characteristics.