Quote from: Deborah on May 21, 2016, 04:48:08 PM
Mine was every bit as much a real person as the rest of me even if it's aura was my creation. It was a very good creation and I did well with it.
Sapere Aude
This.
Quote from: Rachel Lynn on May 21, 2016, 06:42:25 PM
I remember exactly where and when I realized I could no longer put up the façade and I had to be myself. It was in the summer as I was walking in downtown Philly. Over the next 6 months I spiraled down hill till December 2012. it is really scary when the way you exist is a completely false person and there is an inner identity that is stunted. It was like I was in a battle with myself. Part of me had to be me and part was scared and fought with myself to be safe and continue as before.
I resolved the internal conflict but not till after a breakdown. My male identity did not die it literally went away. Perhaps there was no room for my old male identity and my identity that was stifled emerged and grew and continues to grow. I could not go back to the old way I existed.
And this.
Meh, other people have already explained it better and more briefly than I. But I'm going to post this anyways because that's just how I roll - extraneously.
I feel like most aspects of my male persona were created due to outside pressures rather than my own desires. Perhaps I overestimate or lend more significance to subtle differences than is deserved, but regardless, he was like a big brother who kept me safe, and we couldn't both be expressed at the same time, so... he had to "die" so that I could "live". He was basically a large set of defense mechanisms that were developed over a lifetime. Everybody that knew me before I began transitioning was extremely surprised by it (but nobody freaked out or shot beer out of their nose or anything even mildly amusing
); I was told "That's the last thing I ever expected to hear from you" and "There's never been anything feminine about you".
In transitioning I am attempting to become who I have always been deep down but could never express in even the smallest way, or acknowledge to myself. Yes I'm still technically me, but there was a massive amount of repression that had to occur. Honestly, it STILL trips me out how diametrically opposed parts of me have turned out to be, in comparison to who I had convinced myself I was. The trans realization is literally a manhood destroying thing, which is a scary as hell thing in our society; masculinity is rigidly defined and strictly enforced, and is an incredibly fragile thing that has to be actively guarded against the feminine. My larger point being that, for some, transitioning comes at the cost of many aspects of their former personality, including the way they see themselves, if denial was involved. I've heard other MTF's talking about this phenomenon as well so I'm assuming that's Caitlyn's deal and that I'm not projecting TOO much, and that she didn't just mean the end of Bruce in a legal sense...
You may have read some stuff about how older MTF transitioners can sometimes go overboard with expressed femininity compared to people in their teens and early 20's - in addition to the generations becoming, on average, increasingly permissible to things like gender expression and sexual orientation, the younger someone is when they transition the less time they've spent having fake personality traits ingrained into them and the less pronounced the difference between old and new will be. Not to trivialize or say that younger transitioners are not as trans or don't have it as hard as older transitioners, it's just two different sets of experiences, and Caitlyn's is that of a late-life transitioner. She's spent a very long time being male, not just to the outside world but quite likely in her own mind as well. At a certain point, in certain environments, denial becomes a necessity.
Thankfully, I can easily imagine (*cough*) a day where being trans isn't even really a thing, not because it doesn't occur, but because nobody cares how anybody else expresses themselves. The social dynamics that prevent this and contribute to the prevalence of anxiety and depressive disorders within the trans population are already headed in that direction. Side note - I think this is what people who claim the entirety of gender is a social construct have in mind - the idea that it's completely plausible a genderless society could exist. One where there are no rigidly defined or enforced gender traits, and only sexual dimorphism remains. They simply fail to comprehend the innate parts of gender that are, ultimately, the source of gender dysphoria.
And as for why some FTM's may have a less pronounced experience regarding "old them" and "new them", I think it comes down to the social conditioning of the genders - tomboys are more readily accepted than the AMAB equivalent, up to a certain point at least. Basically, feminism, both intentional and the result of circumstance (such as needing factory workers during WW2) has made more strides in gender-bending permissiveness for females than males. As a specific example, 100 years ago women weren't really allowed to wear pants. Now they are, but men still can't wear dresses in casual environments (rare circumstances such as costume parties, charity events, et cetera, excepted). It's changing somewhat, especially in certain social circles and geographic locations, but the progress has been slower for AMAB than for AFAB. Don't slay me for this if I've got it wrong, but I think the more reluctant acceptance of feminine traits in AMAB results, on average, in more severe amounts of inner-repression, denial, etc. than exists in the average population of FTM's, resulting in disparate experiences regarding "My old self DIED isn't it so dramatic?!".
In addition to the evolutionary force of feminism having unequal effects/following the path of least resistance, there's the original sexism problem - the message that's given by our culture is that a FTM is moving
up into the man's world, and a MTF is moving
down into woman's : to desire to be a man is only natural, but to desire to be a woman is wrong, weak, and perverted; why would anybody possibly want to be a woman? It's so not alpha. As such it makes no sense to them, in a similar way that it makes no sense except as a perversion to religious types whose morals come from their religion - anyone who's not of their religion is necessarily immoral.
Bringing it back around...a lot of MTF's try to "man-up" and out macho their trans'ness, even if only subconsciously. I'd be interest to hear from any FTM's who tried the same thing on the other side, and if they experienced a clearly delineated "before" and "after" personality or if the changes were mostly outward.
Anyways, I realize I've wandered all over the place subject-wise, and that I'm heavy on assumptions and logical leaps that may very well be complete BS. It's not my intent to offend anyone, mansplain anything, or spread misinformation. These are just my thoughts and understanding at the moment, and are subject to change. Feel free to educate me anywhere I've got it wrong or on any points you disagree with!
