Is how the world sees you is what transition is or is it how your mind sees itself or is it even possible to separate the two. The famous proposition in philosophy are your senses telling you the truth or can your senses really know objective reality ,Can you ever be objective about yourself when using your senses. Can you ever really achieve the gender your mind is telling you that you are.

Honestly it's more how others sees me than how me I see myself. I always look at myself via the eyes of others and use them as a mirror.

I guess that's what I saying where is the line in others or yourself. Would transition make any sense on a desert island you will never escape and be eternally alone.

When I started to transition (which wasn't all that long ago, so maybe my views will change again.) it was ALL about how others would see me.

Now it's mostly how I see and feel about myself.

I have not yet been out in full female mode, but I have and currently am going out mostly in androgynous  mode. I've been called ma'am several times, only to have the person correct themselves after they get a closer look.

I've been going out this way for over a month now and I'm finding that how others see and react to me doesn't bother me anywhere near as much as I thought it would. I think in another year or so I'll be able to pass easily, but even if don't I believe I can live with it because I feel so much better about myself.

And Yes! If I was alone on a desert island I would still transition. Not sure where I would get the E, but I'd figure something out.

I just want to look in the mirror again and gain confidence from my appearance

rather then a few glimpses in the right moment, the right lighting and this becoming exceedingly harder throughout the years.


For your philosophical stance:

Je pense donc je suis 

What then is gender? If nobody asks me, I know what it is. If I wish to explain it to those who ask, I do not know.

I think it's a combination of the two. How much one or the other differs with each one of us.

Quote from: stephaniec on December 18, 2015, 11:57:13 PM
Would transition make any sense on a desert island you will never escape and be eternally alone.

In a word, yes.

I think it's a combination.  For me, I have to see myself as a woman, but part of that is based on whether I think other people will see me as a woman.

It's both for me, too.  As a child I wanted to be one of the girls, but that was impossible because I was a boy and was expected to be and do boy things.  Boys hated sissy boys and girls didn't want boys, sissy or not, hanging with them.  It's really no different now in adulthood.  As a woman, I can be one of the girls now and just fit in as long as everyone is comfortable with my appearance, mannerisms, and anatomy.  I was never at ease with my masculine features.  In my mind I am a woman which for me means that my mirror image should reflect that.  Thus all the effort to become as feminine as I can manage.  Transition serves both needs.

It's very much what others see. I felt like a woman all my life. I was never treated like one until after I started transition.

It's very much what others see, but in the end what matters is what I see inside more so than outside. Hugs
Mariah

Even if absolutely nobody ever saw me, I still would have been uncomfortable having a hairy body with all of that male bulk, a changed voice, and my genital anatomy.

That has nothing to do with how the world sees me, that's how my brain feels about my own body. Even if nobody ever saw me again, I'd still want to be living in a female body, because that's what my brain expects to be there.

I'll be done with transition when I'm happy with me, and when I feel like my body is mine again, not when someone else looks at me and validates me somehow.

While I would like the world to see me as female it isn't always so, no changing that. However, in my mind, I am female and that's it. Doesn't matter where I am or what I wear during the day or what I'm doing. My brain has switched to full female mode and I never have to remind myself any more that I am a woman.

Love,
Clare

If you had asked me a year ago I would have said what others see is most important.  Now I've been on HRT for nearly a year and I don't care anymore what anyone sees or thinks.

It struck me today that for a lot of years I was already dead, just counting the endless days until the dark bliss of endless sleep would begin. 

Now I am alive and living again and I'm happy.  I thought I had seen the end of that a long time ago but it's here again.

So for now at least I'm holding steady on this path, HRT and growing my hair without any earth shattering revelations to the world.

What people see doesn't change at all who I am no matter what clothes I am wearing.


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The Desert Island reference is a good one..
It shouldn't be thought provoking but just a straight forward answer.. (well for me it is anyway)

"If on a desert island,would you transition make sense."

Yes!! Yes!! & He'll Yes!!

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Quote from: j.d79 on December 19, 2015, 04:59:45 PM
The Desert Island reference is a good one..
It shouldn't be thought provoking but just a straight forward answer.. (well for me it is anyway)

"If on a desert island,would your transition make sense."

Yes!! Yes!! & Hell Yes!!

Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk

Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk

It's far more important ,in my opinion, for how you feel about yourself 

Quote from: stephaniec on December 18, 2015, 11:57:13 PM
I guess that's what I saying where is the line in others or yourself. Would transition make any sense on a desert island you will never escape and be eternally alone.

Yes. A lot of us dressed in secret, hoping for relief from the constant pounding of dysphoria. So it would make sense that being all alone we would absolutely transform ourselves. We would probably be even more likely to so so.

I think the question posed in the thread is framed as an either-or choice when it is neither.

I want the world to see me as a woman (and they do) and I want to see myself as one (I mostly do).

I need both. I can't just get by with one. If I am not seeing myself as a woman, then I feel my transition is a failure. If others don't see me as a woman then what is the point, really? I know some people are fine just with their own satisfaction but I am a social person. I want others to perceive me the way I want to be, which is 100% woman.

there is something innately beautiful about bein called your proper gender that wouldn't happen on an isolated desert island.

Quote from: Charley on December 19, 2015, 09:49:26 AM
When I started to transition (which wasn't all that long ago, so maybe my views will change again.) it was ALL about how others would see me.

Now it's mostly how I see and feel about myself.


And Yes! If I was alone on a desert island I would still transition. Not sure where I would get the E, but I'd figure something out.

the island was a doomsday bunker with all the medical supplies needed for one person for a life time