For me the ultimate goal is to fully transition and live my life as Amy. Until that point, I'm happy with transitioning in stealth and living as my male self on the outside for work / family reasons but enjoying being Amy in my own time with my friends and those that know Amy, transitioning to the point i'm ready to shed my male self. ( obviously will be a point that my body is so female I cannot hide it anymore but I expect to have a few years yet).

Amy xx

Just FYI, this is the "Male to female transsexual" subforum.  A transsexual is a particular subset of transgender, and there is almost always a very specific set of goals when a transsexual transitions.

You know what, I just noticed that myself. I apologize if my earlier comment clouds the matter. I usually pay attention to where I'm posting, and while this question will certainly have a multitude of answers across our community, I agree that the goal will narrow among the transsexual subset.

Hugs, Devlyn

While i do mostly (i think) understand how a transexual is a subset of being transgender. I'm not sure I entirely understand all of the differences. I understand the difference is intervention to align the physiology, but by that definition does it mean every transgender person that does HRT is a transexual?  The Wiki mentions that there is some disagreement on the term. Is transition of a transgender person for alignment purposes all medical? Because there are whole other things like social, names, speech etc.

It would seem both categories of folks would have specific, varying and overlapping goals.

Quote from: Nina on October 06, 2017, 01:05:23 PM
Happiness.

Simple as THIS ^

WOW! What a cornucopia of great responses. Thank you all so much. What l appreciate the most is the utter candour and sincerity of so many of the responses. What stands out to me is happiness and the ability to feel normal within our own skin.
I also noticed something which had not be so apparent to me and that is that our goals evolve. Just I like someone pointed out above initially, my goal was just to stay on this side of the grass. In my case my prospects were not good. Once l saw a glimmer of hope my next goal was to get things together so that l could transform my body to match up with what was in my head. Once that was resolved, my next goal was to put my life back together starting essentially from scratch. Of course there was that small matter of maintaining the health and happiness of my newly reconfigured genitals but frankly, that really was not much of a problem considering the number of hot young men in this world.
So now, nearly 50 years down the road since my sex change operation, my goal is to help those who are willing to accept my help. Again,  thank you all for your honest and heart felt responses.

Quote from: Deborah on October 06, 2017, 12:32:16 PM
My goal is to be able to live without wanting continually to be dead.

This is me, I am afraid. Many times throughout my life I wished I just never existed. Just be non-existent. That's depressing. But it's what I have been since I was very young (I grew up in a house of insanity and hopelessness). But my sudden death would crush so many people. So there's that.

Changing my body through HRT seems to be a good distraction and keeps me somewhat satisfied with my life's direction, in spite of the fact that I will always be closeted. I should have been female at birth. But I can survive life if I can have a small bit of what I secretly desire. I don't want to grow old. I have seen so many in my family die a bit every day through old-age disease and hardship. It seems so often in my life that the more I hate something the more I get of it. If I love something, it runs away and hides. So my "ultimate goal" is to simply survive with at least a tiny bit of joy here and there and also just hope I can pass from this life before too much hopelessness overwhelms me...

My goal is to live the rest of my life as I wish, without the dysphoria of feeling that I should be female. Today I am. I am happy and content with my life. Thank you. 

Quote from: HappyMoni on October 06, 2017, 03:52:37 PM
This thread seems to have ruffled a few feathers along the way. I am not sure why. I take the question as seeking a specific answer. I think my answer is to be at peace with myself, to experience many of the things in my life that have been unavailable to me because I was not considered female. I want to interact with people as myself. I want to, for once in my life, feel sexy. I want to be comfortable with myself, not worry about transition any longer, but just live it. How's that for a goal.
Moni

Moni, I think you might be one of those "wise women" that seem to turn up in folklore.  I value your posts. 

To answer the question (or try, anyway)- I want to be comfortable with my body.  I can present myself as woman to everyone else by dressing the part, but once that exterior's gone I'm still male.  The hrt has helped (especially by thinning that awful hair that resulted when my body turned on me at 14).  The top surgery has helped a lot more.  But those particularly male bits are still there and have to go.  Once they're gone I'll be for sure who I've always known I am- physically as well as psychologically and spiritually.

Hope this helps,
Shannon

Quote from: Julia1996 on October 06, 2017, 03:51:08 PM
. . . to be as passable as possible, to be accepted as a female

That was the big question in Erin's 'group' one day . . . .

What's more important: 'Passing' or 'Acceptence'?? In terms of trans'ness if choosing one meant to the exclusion of the other? ( ie: pass perfectly but nobody knows and risk 'discovery' /OR/ be accepted wholeheartedly by all but not able to stealth at all )

Obviously having both would be ideal Julia and yet both are, for most part, out of our individual control.

Quote from: Kiera on October 07, 2017, 01:39:52 PM
That was the big question in Erin's 'group' one day . . . .

What's more important: 'Passing' or 'Acceptence'?? In terms of trans'ness if choosing one meant to the exclusion of the other? ( ie: pass perfectly but nobody knows and risk 'discovery' /OR/ be accepted wholeheartedly by all but not able to stealth at all )

Obviously having both would be ideal Julia and yet both are, for most part, out of our individual control.

If we are talking only about social interactions, I would vote for acceptance.  I really don't care if other people know or guess my background, as long as they are nice to me.  On the other hand being stealth would feel to me like being back in the closet, even if I was accepted as a result, so it would make me miserable.

Of course, dysphoria is not just about social interactions.  Now that I am dealing with the elephants in my room, social and presentation dysphoria, I can see that I still have some body dysphoria left.  It wasn't strong enough to make itself strongly felt before, but now I feel it.  So I'm not done yet.

In general probably to get to a point where you don't have dysphoria physically, mentally or socially.

I have a binary female gender identity and my goal was to have female sex characteristics and get rid of the male ones, as much as medically possible, and be seen female without a question.

My goal is to walk outside of my house and have people look at me and see me as I feel that I should be. I've lived far too long not understanding why I don't like seeing myself in pictures or why I cower in the background whenever possible, assuming I was not simply outright afraid of going anywhere to begin with. No matter the hardships of transition or what I will eventually look like, I will still be infinitely closer to how I feel I should look, and that alone is a huge comfort. The dissonance has held me back enough.

And while I think this isn't really a goal, but more of a hopefully byproduct, I also want to live a happy, fulfilled life. I want to fall in love and be loved in turn. I want to have relationships, good and bad. Maybe even get lucky enough to find someone to spend my life with. Mostly, I want to live.

As you can see from the answers, there are as many ultimate goals as trans people in the world. Some might want to look completely female and delete their past identity, while others are proud trans people and don't care about passing at all. Also, there are trans who have a binary identity, but you can also find people who identity as both genders, or maybe none, who don't like a "normal" cis woman appearance and prefer more androgynous looks and confuse people.

And all the greys in between.

In my case, I just want to be happy with myself. I want to wear the clothes I like be them male or female. I want to wear makeup sometimes. And paint my nails. I could mention thousand things, both female and male, that I like. I want to do them all without caring about gender stereotypes.

I am very female binary. I spent many years in binary male mode, survived it but didn't always enjoy it. I know that changing presented identities will not fix all of life's issues but at this point in life I want to address those issues as a woman. I know that I can never be a cis woman but I hope not to be constantly seen as a transgender woman, I just want to live my life as the woman that I am.

Quote from: Kiera on October 07, 2017, 01:39:52 PM
What's more important: 'Passing' or 'Acceptence'?? In terms of trans'ness if choosing one meant to the exclusion of the other? ( ie: pass perfectly but nobody knows and risk 'discovery' /OR/ be accepted wholeheartedly by all but not able to stealth at all )

Questions like that might be philosophically interesting but bear little relationship to real life.

But to even start you would have define what acceptance means. Does it mean full acceptance as an infertile female human being with no if ands or buts, or does it mean just accepting that YOU believe you are one, being nice to you, and using the right pronouns...

Superfically and in the moment it might seem the 2 are not that different, but IMO in the long term they make a huge difference in the texture of ones life.

IMO in the real world the former is rare, and latter the best one usually gets when people know.

The ideal for most would be the former, but realistically one does not get that in society without a high degree of stealth... but not everyone can get there and not everyone who could, can live with the pressure of that, or be able to bring themselves to sacrifice others as it sometimes takes,  no matter what they want for themselves.

While its not fair, practically speaking life for many of us has to be a tradeoff...

How we live depends on what we can achieve, what we can live with, what we value most and how much of a risk taker one is.  As such, it is a very individual thing.

- Karen

Quote from: Karen_A on October 07, 2017, 08:00:05 PM
Questions like that might be philosophically interesting but bear little relationship to real life.

But to even start you would have define what acceptance means. Does it full acceptance as an infertile female human being with no if ands or buts, or does it mean just accepting that YOU believe you are one, being nice to you and using the right pronouns...

Superfically and in the moment it might seem the 2 are not that different, but IMO in the long term they make a huge difference in the texture of one life.

IMO in the real world the former is rare, and latter the best one usually gets when people know.

The ideal for most would be the former but realistically one does get that in society without a high degree of stealth... but not everyone can get there and not everyone who could, can live with the pressure of that. or be able to bring themselves to sacrifice others as it sometimes takes,  no matter what they want for themselves.

While its not fair, practically speaking life for many of us life has to be a tradeoff...

How we live depends on what we can achieve, what we can live with, what we value most and how much of a risk taker one is.  As such it is a very individual thing.

- Karen

WOW! Again.  Thank you Karen. That was so well put.

I used to think happiness was the target, but it seems that we have innate aptitude for happiness, and I tend toward the melancholic in general.  I'd say "coherence".  The fact that my life has gotten more coherent as I progress is the best evidence, to me, that I'm walking in the right direction.

Quote from: Complete on October 07, 2017, 10:38:00 PM
WOW! Again.  Thank you Karen. That was so well put.

Thanks, but I am just speaking from my own experience and what I have seen and heard over the years.

(I transitioned 20 years ago and had SRS 19 years ago)

- Karen

     I could think of all kinds of answers to this question because I understand that it was presented honestly, but it sort of hints a bit at pre supposing that fully operating by the binary playbook and getting full acceptance into the world of the cis female is all of our nirvana.  I suppose it may be, but I have to take this journey one day at a time and my goal for today isn't the same as the one I had yesterday.  Two years ago I was excited to just meet my female side that I had to abandon at age 11.  A year ago, after a year on hormones, I was warmed by noticing body changes toward the female I had felt re enter my life.  Six months ago I was struggling with fully accepting this and coming out to my wife and my goal was to keep both my spirits and the love of my life.  Yesterday I went shopping with my wife, dressed and looking pretty femme with painted nails and very noticeable boobs and had my ears pierced at Claires and bought some cosmetics at Sephora and each time I asked for assistance, the girls didn't bat an eye and were friendly and we talked without pretense about what I wanted.  Sure money was involved, but I could tell they really didn't have a problem with me at all.  I can easily tell when I get bad vibes and are not particularly welcome some places (mostly older women).  Yesterday I was accepted for who I was and THAT was my goal for yesterday.  I can see that each little good day moves me closer to my femme side, that's becoming apparent.  But I'm really just after being able to dress and shop and interact with people without them wondering which box I fit in.  I want them to not care because I have two spirits both alive and well in me and will probably never fit a binary.  But that's how I feel today, tomorrow is likely to be different.  Toni