The question is meant to be a benign search for objective understanding. What do you think causes the degree of difference between  being able to embrace  being transgender or the other end of the spectrum of being unable to embrace viewing oneself as transgender. There seems such a great dichotomy between willingness to accept on one end and total abhorrence on the other. Is society at fault because of its disparaging view of us or is it something else. I just find it so curious that there is two such divergent views of the same thing. Sorry it's a slow news day.

I'm not sure it's exactly rejection so much as a different way of looking at the sex/gender/self identity paradigm. I have no fundamental problem with transgender as a concept, it just didnt/doesnt encompass the problem I percieved that I had, which was wholly and soley confined to my physical form, and not to the nebulous concept of gender role/performance/presentation.

Essentially I perceive my gender presentation as entirely optional and only done to fit in with society. I am 100% comfortable in either "role" but I prefer having a female physical form and so in order to better acheive that without causing people to have a psychological melt-down. I have adopted female normative styles of all the rest. However it was my physical reproductive apparatus and secondary sexual characteristics that I had an issue with. Further since the physical problem was resolved a long while back I do not percieve that I am now currently trans anything, although of course I accept that I did take that journey.

I don't know it seems so weird to me. I totally agree with the physical need to be true to my self and live in the world as my brain has dealt with the world. Constant review of my life just causes me to unequivocally view my self as female. The life I lived was one of presenting falsehood to protect myself. I'm just going though transition and experiencing a lot of joy finally being free. It's just weird that viewing myself as trans is bordering on being quite interesting. Given societies view of us I understanding that the acceptance of being trans can be a difficult road. It's just really curious to me why there is such a divergent dichotomy of those that embrace and those that prefer to not embrace. There is absolutely nothing wrong with either view just curious.

The world labels me Transgender. I label myself as female, and always have.

I can't see myself as something I've never really been from my perspective.

My guess is that one's ability to accept themselves is highly dependent on how independently their ego operates.  If one finds self validation internally then I don't think it's hard to accept what is obviously true after some introspection.  Conversely, if one obtains all their self validation from external sources I think that their internal conflict will be never ending.

This all is probably related to an individual's personality type and how they view themselves and interact with the world.

Independent of all that though is what steps an individual takes after making peace with themselves.  That I think is more highly dependent on a multitude of interdependent life circumstances.


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Quote from: Sammym on October 23, 2015, 10:22:13 AM
The world labels me Transgender. I label myself as female, and always have.

I can't see myself as something I've never really been from my perspective.

This is a major part of it.

I have always maintained that "transgender" is a journey. It's a means to an end. The end is male, female, neither or both.

As far as shame goes, I guess I don't want people to view me as a man. Saying I am trans lets them view me as a male in some context. I prefer to bury that in the past.

My wife helped me too accept my being transgender,for yrs I couldn't fully embrace the idea I was this way.

Not that I  embrace or do not embrace being transgender, transsexual, whatever.  I have never identified being 'those medical terms'. I embrace my womanhood, my femaleness..  just love being the girl I am and nothing more. I have a slight medical issue twixt my legs and that's about where it ends with me. Has the 'issue' ever caused problems for me? -- mostly no and little bit yes -- nothing that I have not been able to get over or around. Maybe if I had experienced the stranger I call 'transition' my view of embracing being transgender might be different. I don't fret it though; I've lived a great life and never been happier.

We are transgender.  That is what we are.  There is no shame in that.  Those who hide it IMHO do themselves harm.  Trans is simply a modifier.  Shame is a horrible state.

I don't embrace or reject it; it is what it is, and I am not particularly proud of it; however I am proud of the transformation I have accomplished for myself. 

I'm starting to wonder if a part of my brain is missing some circuits. I'm sitting here reading all  the posts and wondering why I perceive trans the way I do. I'm getting very confused. The reason I started estrogen is that I wasn't going to live anymore. I lived in pain of loneness for too long and decided no more to take a phrase from DR. Who. I wasn't going to go any farther it was over , but I gave it one more try by seeing a Psychiatrist. I told him I couldn't go on and I damn well meant it.  They put me on antidepressants and antipsychotics. The only thing those chemicals did was to make me want to dress up again which I hadn't done for 20 years. The side effect of those drugs is breast growth. I researched it  and started to overdose on the drugs. I told the hospital I was overdosing, but they seemed to not understand that I really was overdosing until they cut me off. The reason for the overdosing was that I wanted breasts. I ended in the psyche ward and told the  psychiatrist  I wanted to be a woman and that was the problem. I started HRT and my life did a 180. The pain has gone and life has hope. I've told my therapist that being on HRT is like having a lobotomy as far as the pain of loneliness   goes which for me it's exactly like they operated and cut away the tissue that caused me to have crying nightmares.  For me the idea of being trans has replaced that pain. I can't ignore it. Its turned into like the nucleus of a cell that defines the purpose of that cell. I'm trans.

Hi Stephenie

If your brain is missing some circuits then so Is mine because your narrative sounds very familiar to me.

My path in getting there was different mostly consisting of self med experimentation but the end conclusion was the same.  HRT by itself lifted the fog and let the sun shine again.

Everything beyond that gets better but only in small increments.  HRT was the big thing.

Just to be clear, I did self med once upon a time but I'm doing it right now complete with psych evaluation and endocrinologist.  Doing it the right way is so much better than on my own because the psych evaluation helped immensely and there is no constant worrying about dosages and supply.

I can relate to your last sentence pretty strongly too about the redefinition of the nucleus of that cell.


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quite cool

Might also be a self-identity thing.

Like, for me the experience of being trans was basically more like the experience of always seeing myself as female, and yet it was society and my body chemistry that said otherwise.

Like, I don't feel "trans." The word "trans" as a root means "across," "beyond," "through." But to my own mind I really didn't ever "change," or even really "transition." Even now, I still feel a complete sense of continuity through my entire life, where I remember being my current self even back then, and it doesn't even occur to me that I was actually socially male while all of those things that I remember happened to me. I'll remember something from middle school, remember friends from back then, and then suddenly as I'm having that memory I'll realize "oh wow, I was actually a guy back then." Basically, it takes me conscious effort to realize it. That label is just something that happened to me, not something that I actually was.

And even though my body is different than it was, I don't even remember having that old body. Because even when I did have it, and did see it every single day, it wasn't me. The only person it was ever "me" to was society.

So although to society they may call me "trans," to me it doesn't feel like it. It's not so simple as having changed from one thing into the other, it's more like I was always female, and I always saw myself as my current female self, but nobody else could see it. So I really don't feel "trans" even though that is, in every way, the proper label for what I am.

Quote from: iKate on October 23, 2015, 10:43:18 AM
This is a major part of it.

I have always maintained that "transgender" is a journey. It's a means to an end. The end is male, female, neither or both.

As far as shame goes, I guess I don't want people to view me as a man. Saying I am trans lets them view me as a male in some context. I prefer to bury that in the past.

I wouldn't ascribe shame to that, it's all about them being an a-jerk if they are implying you are somewhat less than a woman with different circumstances. Remember that our society constantly questions women's femininity and qualifications. Cis women are constantly barraged by not feeling woman enough if their breasts are very small, or if they are barren. We start so much further behind them to having our womanness questioned and policed by men. So when someone thinks or says you as a trans woman are inauthentic, you can thank them for treating you like a woman.

As trans women, I believe we have a bit of a distorted view of what it means to be female. Isolating the genders has a lot to do with that, along with the assumption of heterocisnormativity. We kind of forget that misogyny is still pretty prevalent in our society. But you can insulate yourself from the negativity by surrounding and associating yourself with kind people.

Being trans is just a thing that is. It's not bad or good, the people who use others' statuses to discriminate are the vile part of the equation. We're told that everyone is worthy, be unique, be a snowflake, be yourself. The people who have the problem aren't you. You share air with them occasionally, but they are sad hateful bags of bacteria and viscera.

I'd rather be proud of who I am and how far I've come despite the hate-bags bullying me as much as they could. I am trans, and I won't let anyone make me feel ashamed about it anymore. It's never been my job to make everyone happy anyway.


     Hugs,
- Katie
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I think we variously use the word trans to mean different things.  To one it implies a state of identity and to another it's simply a statement of objective physical reality independent of identity.  Maybe this causes us to speak past one another sometimes.


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Quote from: Deborah on October 23, 2015, 02:47:13 PM
I think we variously use the word trans to mean different things.  To one it implies a state of identity and to another it's simply a statement of objective physical reality independent of identity.  Maybe this causes us to speak past one another sometimes.

I think that is certainly an issue.  I for example don't understand those who would reject the statement of identity.  I don't identify as trans.  OK I would just say I understand the words, but they simply make to real sense to me.  We are trans.  That is what we are.

Embracing it was effortless for me because I never had a male identity. I worked with mostly women, never connected with men at all. Most of them thought I was a really really really effeminate gay guy before I transitioned. Things like my soft, high pitched voice and inability to pee while standing up due to biological shortcoming made it that much harder to pretend I was male.

I dont believe I am transgender anymore, as I have completed my transition. I have female genitals, breasts and a curvy female body. In my mind I am female. I dress like a very girly woman. the world sees me as a woman. Even all my documents state me as female.

Therefore I am a woman. 

I was encouraged to embrace my femininity by my close friend and roommate. Without her, I would have been nothing but a closet crossdresser. She helped me come to terms with my gender confusion. She actually asked me do you want to be a girl, at that time I did not have a straight answer, I just knew when i dressed as noleen, it felt right.. so she set up my first therapist appointment to help me explore. and the rest as they say is history.

I told my therapist yesterday that all I want now is to live as a woman.