Ok, so I may be trans.   I'm going to start therapy soon, and even with the support of my parents (they don't know about the trans stuff yet) I still feel like after all is said and done I'll still feel like I'm a fraud.  I wasn't born a girl, so the best I could do would be a close resemblance.  Male pattern balding has taken it's toll, and I'm more hirsute than most guys I know.   I should start the laser zappy up again, damn the pain.  I'd need wigs though....

Ugh.  Somebody give me an e-smack upside the head.  Tink, Steph, Sheila, Karen, and any other post-op girl....step right up.  I just want to be happy with myself.... 

But that's the point. You want to be happy with yourself. And yourself isn't the sum total of your physical attributes. It's also your thoughts, feeling, hopes, dreams, fears, worries... everything else that makes you who you are.

Physical appearance is only one little part of that. And if you think like a girl, feel like a girl and know that in every other way you are a girl, then you're not a fraud at all.

The fraudulent aspect would come if you pushed all that away and tried to deny who you are, because then you would be lying to yourself. And, when all's said and done, that's the only person you can't lie to... or at least get away with it when you try.

*hugs*

You were born a girl... just not physically. In every other way, you aren't any different. I don't think a smack upside the head will do so much as giving you a bit of belief and confidence in yourself. How far you take it is up to you, Nathan, but you don't need to convince the outside world that you're female if you already know in your heart that you are. The only person you have to do this for is yourself. Once you're happy and more confident in yourself, that'll permeate through into everything you do.

Quote from: nathan on July 12, 2008, 04:35:21 PM
I just want to be happy with myself....

Then be honest with yourself.

Hi nathan

"Big hug"

i totally agree that the real fraud in this is you to yourself and not accepting what you want to be, passing is a state of mind and well foregtting finances for the moment the modern medicine and surgery available to us all now is as good as its ever been for a transperson wanting to change their life. As for hair, ive been receeding too but what with hrt and avodart ive seemed to have managed to stop the tide as it were and what depressed me to near suicide only a year ago has given me new hope.

There are also amazing results in hair transplants and hair systems available which will completely change your mind on just being someone wearing a wig too. Just snap out of seeing yourself as that because again thats the real fraud in all of this.

Deny who you are and then who really are you ?? 

Quote from: Leiandra on July 12, 2008, 05:01:10 PMYou were born a girl... just not physically. In every other way, you aren't any different. I don't think a smack upside the head will do so much as giving you a bit of belief and confidence in yourself. How far you take it is up to you, Nathan, but you don't need to convince the outside world that you're female if you already know in your heart that you are. The only person you have to do this for is yourself. Once you're happy and more confident in yourself, that'll permeate through into everything you do.

Just want to second this sentiment.  Your spirit, essence and soul are female, the body is secondary.  Or as C.S. Lewis said:

QuoteYou don't have a Soul. You are a Soul. You have a body.

Think on that a bit.  Be You.

In my experience the vast majority of us turn out fine.  And so will you.

Nathan,

For the balding thing I totally understand.  I have been looking into Hair Direct.  They seem to have a good system.

I have read that anti-anogs help in that respect.  I haven't seen it but I am only 3 months into HRT.

As it has been said before be true to yourself and all else will fall into place.

Janet

Quote from: nathan on July 12, 2008, 04:35:21 PM
I still feel like after all is said and done I'll still feel like I'm a fraud.  I wasn't born a girl, so the best I could do would be a close resemblance. 

Ugh.  Somebody give me an e-smack upside the head.  Tink, Steph, Sheila, Karen, and any other post-op girl....step right up.  I just want to be happy with myself.... 

Hi Nathan!

*Gives Nathan an e-smack upside the head*   

You are correct! transsexual women can never be "genetic" females if that is what you are referring to.  Hence, no matter how feminine we become, we will never have the "natal body" nor the childhood memories of growing up in our true gender.  Does this fact make us NOT female or a "fraud" though?  What about our substance?  Our true gender identity? Doesn't that count at all?  The fact of the matter is that no two human beings are the same, and as a result you will turn out to be YOU in the long run, and that can never be a bad thing! 

and the best of luck with therapy and everything else!


tink

The life I was living prior to starting transition was a fraud.  Unintentional fraud, but fraud nonetheless.  I was never female, ever, but pretended to be.

It wasn't until I was honest with myself, and was true to myself, and started transition have I been totally real, totally myself, and this alone has given me so much more confidence and happiness with my life.  On the surface, though, I look like a fake man, or a butch dyke, but that's at least a step in the right direction.

Jay

Quote from: nathan on July 12, 2008, 04:35:21 PM
I still feel like after all is said and done I'll still feel like I'm a fraud.  I wasn't born a girl, so the best I could do would be a close resemblance. 

Well, I have felt that way too so I can understand how you are feeling. I just decided that "well, if this is the best I am going to be able to do then that is it" and just be happy with that.

i take issue with the basic premise of your argument.  "i was not born a girl."  i guess that's true is you are afflicted with  ->-bleeped-<-, but if you are transsexual you might benefit from taking another look at that speech...see if it's truly accurate in your case.

i can say in my case i was born a girl.  i was of male biology but that did not make me male.  it suggested maleness, but it certainly was not determinate.  my brain was female.  my spirit was female.  the way i related to the world seemed entirely female to me.  so, with just a penis suggesting male and everything else suggesting female...in my opinion the scale was tipped way over to the female side.  i can say with some assurance that i was in fact...born a girl.

so to me, and it finally became very important, posing as a male in an effort to appease my penis was an act of fraud.  once i transitioned, started telling the truth about myself as i understood it, the fraud ceased and honesty prevailed.  i think i'm a much better person overall for ceasing the perpetration of that fraud.

if you get into this and honestly believe that you were not born a girl, that you were born male...i'd think long and hard about perpetrating the fraud, it's a lously way to live.

pj: Yeah, I can see how some people could read it that way.  I was speaking about my biologic male-ness when I made that comment. 

hi nathan.  yes, i hope you do get to internalize that thing.  the language we use, even among ourselves, is so important to how we precieve and are precieved.  an e-smack is what you asked for and i hope it hits home.

transition is the antithisis of fraud.  transition is about truth.  it isn't about how you look or what you wear, it's about doing away with the fraud.  it's about relating to the world as you are.  it's about correcting a congenital error.  even if that error wasn't precieved or confronted until later in life, it's always been there if you are transsexual.

the point here is, i hope you will stop thinking that way.  stop thinking of this as illigitimate, as a fraud...it isn't.  you have more then a right to present yourself as you truly are, you have an obligation.

God bless you dear girl, keep searching and seeking.  question everything, listen and then put on what fits.

Yeah, the "never can be real" argument -- that was my own personal strait-jacket.

I undid that one by realizing a few things.

-The thoughts/wishes/desires wouldn't go away, no matter what I obsessed over.

-Whether or not there was an afterlife or reincarnation, I would never know it in this life, and I doubt that if I were so lucky that there was reincarnation, that I'd know I'd finally got lucky.

-As I never could visualise God as the retributive kind, God wouldn't mind my transitioning and trying to bring my inner life out of conflict with the role I was assigned/forced to play and into a role more compatible with who I am inside.

-If others had a problem with my transitioning, it was largely their problem.  It was only my problem to the extent they would MAKE it my problem.

Eventually, I melted that "You're only ersatz" argument.

Last night I had a chat with an old army bud (MtF), and we kind of rehashed this argument.  We agreed that, even if GID really were a mental illness, transition was the most effective treatment.

Does that help?

Karen

That does help. Thanks.

I've read threads like this a lot in my two years here.  Never thought I'd start one myself.    There's a support group in town that meets on Wednesdays.  Maybe I'll go see 'em this week.

I feel the same way, but we're wrong.

Nobody here is a fraud. Trans people will never be "normal" like cisgendered people, but what does that matter if your happy, in love, got a family... seeing so many married transpeople tells me that I can have everything I need. I think you can too.

Sorry, I'm not a post-op anything and I'm just a dumb boy.