I happened upon this article written by a guy who has known all his life that he should be a woman, but says that he isn't going to transition. He chronicles certain events in his life by his age at the time.

His arguments are very interesting. I suggest that everyone on this forum to read it. It just may open your mind to come ideas that you haven't heard before. I know it did for me.

"Because it turns out transition isn't the answer for everyone — to suggest otherwise is narrow-minded and proscriptive. Because for some transwomen, femininity can feel asymptotic — the closer you get, the more you feel you can never make it. I realize it's not an inspirational message but it's a hard truth: some people manage dysphoria better than others. When you fight it, it fights back."

https://medium.com/@jencoates/i-am-a-transwoman-i-am-in-the-closet-i-am-not-coming-out-4c2dd1907e42

Thanks for the link. Very thought-provoking. I do wonder if she will change her mind as she ages. It is not something that diminishes with time.  But she clearly has grown up questioning gender in a culture that supports such questioning. That is so, so different than my background it is difficult to access her critique. But it is clearly not trivially reached.

I think I will need to read Jennifer's article more than once, her writing style (particularly towards the end) I find tough going following.

I find the theme that trans women play games to keep cis woman or feminist allies interesting.

More than a few out transwomen have told me, privately, they they are uncomfortable with these things, but are afraid that speaking up about it would cause ciswomen to like and trust them less. "I play along," one of them told me, "because in the queer community the only people who defend cisboys are cisboys. I don't want to give up finally being read as a girl."
Another says "I do the misandry stuff because it's an easy way to earn queer cred points, but when I think about it it makes me uncomfortable."
Another: "It's a coping habit I'm not proud of. If I agree 'girls rule boys drool' it makes me feel more like a girl."

I haven't experienced any of that, and have difficulty wrapping my head around where she is coming from. As I say, I will need to read it again.

~Dee.

A very interesting piece. Thank you for sharing it. I read a lot of myself in her early life, except it started with me when I was 2 years old and the internet wasn't common until I hit my 30s... so I had a dark patch (as in suicidal) in my teens and early 20s. I've been writing my own experiences down over the last couple of weeks but not finished them yet.

I never got into the feminist stuff, except perhaps Judith Butler... it angered me in the same way that it has angered her. It made assumptions about me and it made me react in a negative fashion towards people who made those assumptions. I ended up a pomo (post modernist) instead and while I appreciate some of the feminist arguments, I learned to reject binary gender and labels while it seemed to me that feminism was doing its utmost best to highlight binary differences. As long as I wasn't reminded that I was supposed to be a certain gender, I was able to interact in the illusion of a gender neutral world... and it wasn't until gender was once more forced onto me (essentially from July this year) that everything exploded in me.

I believe that ultimately she will need to transition. I thought I had managed to control it. I thought I had accepted my fate that I was never going to transition and I was at peace with that - I still wanted to wake up a woman but I had made my peace that it wasn't going to happen. I knew gender was a social construct but that's the problem, we are part of society and no matter how much you try to ignore it, the gender binary is always going to be in your face. It is like Ramakrishna when he came out of his long trance and announced that the world is an illusion but we too are part of the world and hence part of the same illusion.

Gender may be a social construct but ultimately it isn't really about gender at all. It is about looking in the mirror naked and seeing yourself reflected back. Making the mind and body match. It is ultimately about sex not gender. Gender is merely a means of projecting our identity so that others can interact with us according to our sex. Gender is reaffirming who we are. Plus there is the knowledge that our brains have developed differently, so no amount of psychotherapy, logic/philosophy, or medication is going to change how our brains have developed the way that they have. So ultimately I think we all have to succumb to the need to be ourselves.

Any way I am rambling and it is 3am.

I wish her the best of luck but...

I would say that overthinking is often a bad thing.

In this matter particularly. You can spend your whole life thinking about how you will be treated by others and waiting for perfect moments to do things that will never arise because perfection does not exist, and I so often see transpeople chasing a vision of personal and social perfection. It doesn't exist. And I'm fairly sure it's a recipe for disappointment and in some cases, much worse predicaments. Maybe this person can recognize that in themselves and wants to avoid it. If so, fair enough.

For my part, I decided to discard the toxic pursuit of absolute perfection very early on in this process (and also the idea that MY ideas/hopes/desires are the only ones that are correct in this matter) as I perceive it as a trap. I'm not perfect, and I've been happiest when I just let go of wanting to be. What was left behind after was a choice between doing it because I had nothing to lose, and doing it because I was curious to see if it would help... or not doing it and never knowing while continuing to feel intrinsically "wrong". There was no "I want to be a man" or "I want to be treated like x y z by others" but only, "I want to find out if this is going to help me medically." Which it did. 

Quote from: Kylo on December 19, 2018, 09:28:34 PM
...There was no "I want to be a man" or "I want to be treated like x y z by others" but only, "I want to find out if this is going to help me medically." Which it did.

That's a really good point. Sometimes I feel like the only thing I know for sure is that transitioning 'worked' for me (I was a total wreck of a human being before I transitioned).

I doubt my gender identity constantly. I keep rethinking the purity of my motives ("did I transition because I couldn't face the idea that I'm a gay man?"). But then, I think about what it would be like to have people go back to using my old pronouns and it's unpleasant to even imagine.

I think this means I made the right decision.

Transitioning isn't for everyone, and "right now" isn't the time to start for many of those who will transition. I put off transitioning, even believing at times that I never would, until I just found it too unbearable. I don't think I made the wrong decision by waiting to start HRT. I just wasn't ready before.