Being only partially transmale, I'm not planning to transition physically, but I'm curious; do most people who transition and enter the mainstream, continue to see themselves as "trans" or do they only see themselves as their current gender?

For instance, most people here are in the process of transitioning, coming out to family, adjusting to hormones, etc.
What happens afterward? Do they still visit forums like this, keep in touch with trans friends, etc., or do they leave it behind?

For that matter, do androgynous and non-binary people eventually start seeing themselves as "normal" and stop considering themselves gender outsiders?

I suppose you could easily say that I'm still trans, but I tend to drop all other words and just say I'm female. I don't hide my past, but I don't feel the need to add qualifying words to who I am. Hugs
Mariah

It all depends on the person and how the feel I guess.  I know i will probably not do a full mtf transition do to the fact I'm afraid how people will view me.  If I told them I was mtf. 
Funny you mention that,  because society has a role too in what we do.   I was talking to my friend a few days ago and I have known her for 7 years.   First time i met her she was a TomBoy.   But now she told me she stopped being a TomBoy because people were giving her "strange" took.   Then I asked her if she liked being a TB,  she said she loved it,  but just couldn't handel the stares. 
For me I try to be gender neutral.  Be male when I need too,  be female when I want to,  and I guess I am happy who I am.  Don't mind gender fluid.

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A discussion from my therapy group many years ago. We were all transsexual and the argument was after surgery, we would no longer be transsexual. The reason is a transsexual is one who wishes to alter their body to that of the opposite gender so after surgery, you have achieved your goal. Today there are ifs, ands and buts for example the non binary as well as people who may have had surgery that is not appropriate for them.

In my case, the surgery was the correct decision and while there are touchups to consider, my desire to become a woman no longer exist. I am a woman and if I need to refer to my past, I was transsexual. I could live without the community and I did for many years but I have found a place in the community where I can continue to repay the enormous gift I received from the community many years ago. I don't discuss my past with others who are not aware of it, but I am not ashamed of it and I am comfortable discussing it should the need arise.

Speaking only for myself:

I don't see myself as transgender. I'm a man with transsexual life experience, or a transsexual medical history. I'm not stealth, but I'm at a point in my life where it just doesn't come up ever.

My bottom surgery is a single stage procedure scheduled for March, so I'm essentially done. I no longer feel like I'm in the process of transitioning. There is a sense of normalcy now that was missing from my life prior to this point, and I expect that will continue to improve with time.

I have made a lot of great friends here and through the bottom surgery support groups I'm part of. I don't intend to ever lose touch with those folks because their advice and support got me to this point, and in turn I will honor that with my loyalty and friendship.

I still participate in forums like this and intend to continue doing so after my medical transition is complete. For every post I've made here, I probably read at least five more that helped me at crucial points in my transition. And that advice was made possible by folks who were further along or done with their transitions who chose to stick around. I also feel a lot of personal responsibility as someone getting bottom surgery to be open to talking about my experience with other people who are pursuing it because there is so much misinformation (or a lack of information) out there regarding FTM bottom surgery procedures.

But it can be tough. I feel out of touch with folks who are early in the process now, because it feels like it was a lifetime ago, even though it was only 2014. I can't connect at all to the anxiety of coming out posts or the early on excitement of choosing a name. So there has been a little bit of a shift in the areas that I choose to immerse myself in, but I haven't wholesale withdrawn from the community. I've just shifted focus to talking with and helping folks who are a little deeper into their process.

Yeah, I consider transition to be a transitory experience.  I think "trans" is a constructed identity, and now an umbrella term, which is sustained primarily through storytelling.  After transition, I came to understand that I've always been female, helped by some medical corrections along the way. 

But, you know, it's interesting... because it's a narrative identity, it's possible to... hmmm... not start a second chapter, but have something that's more like a sequel.  With its own beginning and end.

I don't see myself as trans and I won't be referring to myself as it as soon as I can leave the transition process behind.

It's hard to get away from the fact you're different, but it seems to me to serve no purpose in maintaining your difference longer than you have to.

Some people see trans as a label to embrace. I don't, it's just a word I use for now when I have to.

Quote from: Kylo on December 30, 2016, 11:46:42 PMSome people see trans as a label to embrace. I don't, it's just a word I use for now when I have to.

Yes, I didn't transition to be trans.

It seems transgender has a different meaning for differing circumstances. If one is transitioning the term may cease to apply. For people like myself living between genders it is more or less a permanent label.

Hugs, Devlyn

Quote from: Sophia Sage on December 31, 2016, 09:41:03 AM
Yes, I didn't transition to be trans.

YES, well put.
Still working on a few refinements, but I am a woman!

I like being trans, it's who I am.  People differ in how they feel there is no right or wrong

I'll bite.

I'm trans. I transitioned six years ago, had SRS almost five years ago, but I'm still trans. It's not a label, not an identity, not even really how I feel, it's just a fact. The fact is, there are very few people who do or even should know this. Doctors, my partner, my family. It's important that I'm trans when I need medicine or surgery or something else that affects how my body functions, because being trans is a relevant fact about how my body functions, and that's true no matter how long ago I transitioned.

What's happened for me, at least, is that over time I've stopped associated being trans with all of the things one might normally associate with it. It's almost so disembodied to me that I don't even think about it in terms of being 'trans + female'—it's more like I'm trans, I'm female, and those things are barely related. For me, when I think about or am reminded about the fact that I'm trans, it's not "I'm trans because of transition, HRT, surgery ... etc." or even "I'm trans because I used to have this other body and now I have this one" or "I'm trans because I was assigned male at birth" but more like...I'm trans because I'm trans. And all that means is that certain aspects of my body are/behave differently.

As far as my inner monologue is concerned, or about what I think about, I don't even necessarily remember or think about the fact that my body is the result of HRT/surgery and that it used to look and behave differently, it's more like my mind operates in a pretty circular fashion (I'm trans because of xyz traits about my body, I have xyz traits so therefore I'm trans), since that's the only way in which being trans is really relevant to me.

I guess what it comes down to for me is that I didn't transition in order to be trans, I transitioned in order to feel something other than horrible about my body. The end result with the current medical interventions we currently have is a body that still reflects that I'm trans, if not externally then internally. That's not relevant to a whole lot of people, and so as a consequence being trans is not something a whole lot of people do know or get to know.

Aside from the fact that both 'transgender' and 'transsexual' feel somewhat old-fashioned to my ear, I don't really associate it with gender or sex either, anymore, which makes 'trans' a term that makes a little more sense to me and my experience. So despite the fact that 20% of my life has passed since I've done anything related to my transition, I don't feel like the amount of time that's passed makes me any less trans. Maybe it's a little confusing, because I know 'trans' also functions as a community identifier for people who are frequently in earlier stages of their transitions, and the amount of time since I've been there makes it more difficult to feel or express the same degree of kinship or solidarity, but I think of the definition I use for myself as being the same word with a different meaning.

In this sense, I echo Max's sense of it being hard to connect with people in earlier stages of transition, because of how distant I feel from the anxiety and excitement related to first steps. For me though, I feel so far away from transition that my use of the word 'trans' for myself reflects the things that are relevant about being trans now (infertility and daily medicine) rather than the things that were relevant about being trans six years ago (everything related to transition).

As NB I don't see myself as abnormal because of that now. I think of myself as someone who just needs a physical presence humanity doesn't offer a model for right now.

Culturally, a lot of my issues would have been far less in other societies where 3rd genders were allowed even if medicine couldn't provide the  matching shell.

I just happened to be born into a society where we can provide part of the shell, but society doesn't seem to accept it.

That's not *me* being abnormal. That's me being normal in the wrong place.

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This is a thought provoking question.  I've had to stop and think about it.  The vocabulary related to sex and gender is evolving as our understanding as a society progresses.  It's still muddled in my mind.  Any label that I pin on myself has to be accompanied by a lengthy description of what I mean by the label, depending on who I'm talking to.  Ironically, transgender people are among those demanding the most qualification, this thread being a case in point.

Having completed my transition, MTF, I recently changed my primary care physician to a woman internist who doesn't specialize in transgender care.  I considered not revealing my medical past, but realized that my medical past was still relevant, not something I could ignore as it relates to my future health, so I quickly discarded that fantasy.  I'm not, and can never claim to be a natal woman.

I find that, for the most part, my family and friends don't ask about my transsexuality.  I don't know how most see me today.  I very much doubt that the women see me as a woman in the same way they see themselves, but for the most part, they are the most accepting people in my life.  The men don't know how to take me, and keep their distance.  People who don't know of my medical past see me as a late, middle aged woman, probably a lesbian (I'm married to a woman), and somewhat atypical in terms of interests, hobbies, etc.

I'm still connected to the trans community, but that involvement is becoming less and less.  I can see the day coming when it will take more than having just a mutual experience as trans women to maintain a friendship.  That will be a strong indication that I've moved beyond transition.

I view myself as an intersex person.  Not in the way the term 'intersex' is traditionally defined, but updated to include the brain as an important component of one's biological sex.  I was born with male genitalia and an unmasculinized (female) brain.  It's a medical condition that was not diagnosed and treated until late in life, even though I experienced mind-body incongruity since childhood. 

From personal experience, I view gender identity as a psychological phenomenon.  Being transsexual is more than that.  I lived most of my life as a man and identified as a man.  I have no recollection of pretending to be a man, even though I sensed something was off track.  I now know that testosterone played havoc with my female brain ever since puberty.  My dysphoria was not caused by being deprived of cross-gender expression.  It had physiological roots.  The solution was to correct the incompatibility of my physical sex. 

Now I live my life as a woman.  I identify as a woman certainly, but mainly I identify as myself.  How I got here is interesting, but not important.  What's important is that I no longer feel the painful consequences of having been born part male, part female.  I'm all female today, mind and body.

Most people understand transgender to mean someone born with a body incongruent with their gender identity. While I could personally redefine it to mean someone with body that mismatches their gender identity in the present or in the moment, but I don't think that's useful for communication as we speak past each other when we use two different meanings. I'd require clarification with each use.

Much of this is where I'm at now as I begin to move to my future home with my soon to be husband. Most people will not know my past and I won't have to choose a doctor because they specialize in transgender care anymore which is amazing The fact I'm changing states and regions in the country will only add to the fact that no one will no me as anyone other than Mariah and my friendships and life in that state will mostly be based not on the fact that we both had to transition, but being friends and family I get to know down there. I will stay connected in way like I am now where I will come in here and help, but beyond that it, like with you, more than just being trans will make up the foundation of the friendship. Hugs
Mariah

Quote from: Clara Kay on December 31, 2016, 02:00:40 PM
Having completed my transition, MTF, I recently changed my primary care physician to a woman internist who doesn't specialize in transgender care.  I considered not revealing my medical past, but realized that my medical past was still relevant, not something I could ignore as it relates to my future health, so I quickly discarded that fantasy.  I'm not, and can never claim to be a natal woman.

I find that, for the most part, my family and friends don't ask about my transsexuality.  I don't know how most see me today.  I very much doubt that the women see me as a woman in the same way they see themselves, but for the most part, they are the most accepting people in my life.  The men don't know how to take me, and keep their distance.  I'm still connected to the trans community, but that involvement is becoming less and less.  I can see the day coming when it will take more than having just a mutual experience as trans women to maintain a friendship.  That will be a strong indication that I've moved beyond transition.

I view myself as an intersex person. 

Now I live my life as a woman.  I identify as a woman certainly, but mainly I identify as myself.  How I got here is interesting, but not important.  What's important is that I no longer feel the painful consequences of having been born part male, part female.  I'm all female today, mind and body.