Quote from: Nichole on April 24, 2009, 08:00:42 AM
I believe that the "accepted wisdom" is that a "->-bleeped-<- ->-bleeped-<-" is a man or woman who wants a relationship with an MTF for the purposes of having a penis in the mix on their partner. The stories go that after the penis is gone that such a person is also gone and the MTF is left alone, having lost the appendage that was the "real" attraction.

I presume that such people exist. Although if they did they would seem like just another fetishist, like a person attracted to breasts or thighs or feet to the exclusion of an attraction to the person who had those parts. *shrug*

I believe the notion at work is that the MTF wishes to be desired as a woman, not as a woman with a penis or as a penis. But, I am a bit uncertain on the actual facts of the matter.

O, to answer the original question. I suppose I don't have a preference as I think the dichotomy is a false one.

I suppose I always think of myself as a "normal" woman, but am also a bit uncertain what that means as well. My partner, myself, and our female friends are alike in some ways, but we all have a varied range of likes, dislikes, styles, voices, faces, pasts and desires for future so actually nailing down "normal" seems a bit of a stretch.

Certainly I didn't come to normal in a normal way, but through transition. However, I am not at all sure that anyone is simply born "normal" and grows that way.

I suppose I like to think that each of our journeys are formed from various types and extensions of transitions. Surgeries and hormone replacements and name changes, etc are simply one of many that all humans who actually live their lives go through.

I find it difficult to think that my struggles to become Nichole are any more acute due to transsexing than other people's are who didn't make that particular transition in their lives.

My most difficult transition, in fact, was the one that took me from frightened victim of abuse to survivor. It was the hardest struggle.

Nichole

Thanks for the clarification Nichole and as you rightly say the transition to be a happy and well adjusted human being is the hardest one everyone has to make.

As for people who "want a penis in the mix" to be honest I really don't see the problem myself. There seems to be a massive tabù around this subject as there is around enjoying sex before SRS. Can't understand it myself as it just seems to reinforce traditional gender concepts, and that's something that will eventually come back to haunt us all.

Normal in my thread header was placed in inverted commas to indicate my uneasiness with the term.

I think this is not off topic because I am speaking about the original question. Most times I am happy; I do have a lot to be thankful for, and I am thankful. Sometimes I am introspect though, like when I read this question. It seems like such a simple question, but to me it's as loaded as papa fairy on saturday night. If you really concentrate on its implications, this simple question can dig down into your soul. As a child I was forced kicking and screaming to be "male", and I still have a deep and abiding fear I will wake one morning to find I have to be a man for the rest of my life. It's a bloody nightmare. Maybe not the original intent, but the question obliges me to confront how very much I despise this incongruity between my mind and body.

I hope to find the peace one day with my mind/body difference that some here seem to have found with theirs, even as I keep striving to do just that by both physical and spiritual means. For now, that will have to be enough. I literally cannot jump out of my skin any faster than I am already doing, without leaving my body forever. So to answer again, I'd much rather be trans than male, but I'd rather just be female than trans.

Sometimes in the throes of dysphoria maybe it is hard to remember that not everyone feels the same dis/comfort in their own skin. Transitioning has forced me to confront many issues about myself that would have not been resolved otherwise. Then again if I had been born a "normal" female rather than a wrong-side-out one, I don't know that I would have had those issues in any case. Probably would have just had different issues, lol

Love back to you imaz,
Chloe

Scientology has stuff up all over SF about 'what if you could change just one thing?'  Implying that there is some sort of magic deal, that if you could just hit that switch life would be all peachy keen.  Life rarely seems to work out that way. 

If it ain't one thing, its going to be another.  Lots of people, not just trans, not just people with GID have trouble with body image, don't feel right in their skin, or their lives. 

Its human nature to want to see the good in a perfect way, and ignore the bad thinking 'that's what happens to other people.'

but we have to believe we have the power to change it, otherwise we end up victims of our own lives. In the past 8 years I have changed occupations, homes, partners, priorities, and am now in the process of changing my physical sex. All changes for the better, though at the time some of them didn't seem that way. I still look forward to and strive for a time when things are better, even while I understand that I have it pretty darn good now.

Quote from: imaz on April 24, 2009, 10:11:06 AM

As for people who "want a penis in the mix" to be honest I really don't see the problem myself. There seems to be a massive tabù around this subject as there is around enjoying sex before SRS. Can't understand it myself as it just seems to reinforce traditional gender concepts, and that's something that will eventually come back to haunt us all.

I think it already haunts us, Imaz. The basis of the entire  ->-bleeped-<- postulate is that "women are asexual." Therefore one can attach a plesymythograph a la Freund and Blanchard to a set of genitalia and determine arousal at images. Obviously, if an MTF is aroused by sex then she cannot possibly be a woman because everyone knows that women are asexual.

Impeccably logical, no?

But transwomen have often followed that identical course as if having a libido somehow manages to disqualify one as being a "real" woman or a "true" transsexual. (There are other specious ideas about attraction to one or another sex that are also used in such ways.)

The brew has been not only disingenuous, but literally harmful. But lots of trans-women apparently walk in fear of having any sexual attractions prior to surgery as if those would somehow disqualify one from actually being TS. *sigh*

I recall years ago on a board where I actually admitted having sexual desires and was expecting a thorough reaming for doing so. (I did get dissed by a few) but I was pleasantly surprised to see a host of women own the same feelings and desires and physical reactions (orgasms) as being "norm" for them as well and they'd felt, just like me, that they couldn't admit to having them because the "pat story" was that MTFs cannot have those responses.

@ Fairygirl

QuoteI'd much rather be trans than male, but I'd rather just be female than trans. I'd much rather be trans than male, but I'd rather just be female than trans.

O, luv I sooo understand.

My way through that jungle has been just recognizing that women come in all sorts of different packages. I'm not going to argue that I didn't transition, but will choose to know that I have always been female (no, I don't get into the "always a woman" thang simply because no one ever avoids her childhood. And being a woman and being a girl are separate developmental stages.)

Perhaps seeing the matter as one and another rather than one or another is better for you?



Nichole

Too right it does Nichole. One of the purposes of this thread was to bring such tabù matters to the surface.

As I'm not "normal" in the sense I was born male these issues impact on me directly. To be perfectly frank in my experience the least understanding regarding issues concerning the sexuality of "transsexuals" have been "transsexuals" themselves followed by Gay men then Lesbians while the most tolerant have been Heterosexuals.

Yes I enjoy what I have and have no feelings of shame in doing so, cannot for the life of me see why I should. So long as things happen between consenting adults and no one gets hurt physically or psychologically what can be wrong?

It's not just sex that seems to be unmentionable but all the whole non-op business and the issue of non adhering to a mythological concept of womanhood and femininity.

As regards the last two both the women I live with would certainly fail despite being born female!

thanks Nichole, it is definitely something to think about. 

Last night I was watching a special on CNN called "Behind the Veil" about women in Afghanistan and how things have changed for them since being "liberated". Seems it's not all that much. Even though it's no longer required by law, men and local custom still force many women to wear those horrid blue burkas from head to foot, and many are reduced to begging in the muddy streets to the jeers and insults of men passing by, having lost their husbands and sons to 20 years of war. They can't even afford to eat or feed their children, so it doesn't much matter that technically they are now at least free to get an education. In such a society I wonder if there are those who wish to be female so much they would be willing to endure what these poor women suffer? I'm sure many of them would love dearly to abandon mythological concepts of womanhood and femininity, at least those imposed on them by their society. What passes for "normal" there would seem to be tragic by anyone else's standards. 

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Post Merge: April 24, 2009, 12:07:02 PM

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sorry, didn't mean to be a wet blanket.  Please resume discussing sex lol

Very true FairyGirl, it's very sad that Islam is blighted by such appalling societies when The Prophet (SAW) himself had extremely progressive ideas for his time. It is often forgotten the important roles that women played in those early year even being present in warfare.

Unfortunately the situation in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and Iran has been worsened by western interventions and global politicking.

God willing things will improve when fundamentalism ceases to be encouraged by global inequalities and military interventionalism. Never forget that Osama Bin Laden was trained by the CIA as part of their Cold War stategy.

I think you can find a strong progressive streak in every major religion on the planet; and almost every one of them is destroyed by Pharisees, people who love (and extend) the legal aspects and forget why they came about in the first place. It's a persistent tragedy of history.

Intervention is a slippery concept. I don't fault the U.S. (and Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan) for supoprting a variety of local groups in resisting the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, but for dropping them once the Soviet Union fell apart, and for dropping them once again, -- I mean, WTF?!!!! -- in 2003 to go screw over Iraq for no particular reason. Remember, the U.S. also gets flak for not intervening in Rwanda. (But they are not Muslim and don't have oil, so we quickly forget; Bill Clinton is loved in Africa for being the only major world leader from the time who actually seems to regret that failure, even though he didn't do a damned thing.)

We have the U.N. and regional groups like NATO specifically (in part) to provide for a framework for distinguishing between necessary interventions (where diplomacy completely fails, Yugoslavia, for instance) from military adventures like the American invasion of Iraq.

Very true and very sad particularly concerning Islam where the Quran warns against making the same mistakes as the the other Abrahamic faiths. The clerical hierarchy in Shia Islam is a case in point.

Afghanistan unlike Iraq didn't have oil (AFAIK) but that didn't do them much good... As far as the Soviet invasion goes it was caused by their paranoia concerning being surrounded by the US and it's allies. If one observes the globe looking down from the North Pole the USSR was effectively surrounded on all sides and far from being the threat it was perceived to be. They themselves justly felt under great pressure due to these circumstances.

As regards the UN, the EU, The OAU etc and their interventions that's a different matter, and I concur that the intervention in Bosnia was necessary and positive.

I don't think that paranoia is exactly a valid reason for invading a country, whether your name is Brezhnev or Bush.

I don't think that paranoia is exactly a valid reason for invading a country

Perhaps not, however, it is a very popular one.

Maybe we should all play dress up and invade some unsuspecting country with love and kindness just for the hell of it  Oh, and don't to forget to bring flowers and something for the pot luck dinner

Quote from: Virginia Marie on April 24, 2009, 11:07:37 PM
Maybe we should all play dress up and invade some unsuspecting country with love and kindness just for the hell of it  Oh, and don't to forget to bring flowers and something for the pot luck dinner

A Love Invasion...   That sounds fabulous!

I'm liking the sound of this love invasion!

Oh, I'd much rather just be normal. Being "different" has been eye-opening, but I think I'd be a relatively understanding guy even if I were born the correct gender.

The Love Invasion sounds like a really dodgy band,

Best of The Love Invasion - Includes the Hits, Cupid's Bullets, Bombsight to My Heart and WMD (Weapons of Mass Delectable-ness).

I'd prefer to be normal, but if

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Post Merge: April 25, 2009, 06:29:12 AM

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i were normal, there'd be something else to complain about.

Hi... Trust ..... I dont think i could stand being ...... what did you say ....normal ... na   .. not this kid never was to start with ...so why now .....  he he   oh well .....
     ...noeleena...

TS/TG? Yeh, that's normal. I feel I'm normal. Isn't NORMAL an acronym for an organization for legalizing pot. I've heard of that before.

Quote from: Mister on April 22, 2009, 06:18:19 PM
I didn't spend time and money overhauling my life to forever be 'lesser' or 'other' than my cisgendered counterparts.  Outside of my physician, my girlfriend and my parents, I am not known otherwise.  I'd prefer to pass undetected than to be recognized and respected.

qft

Quote from: Mister on April 22, 2009, 06:18:19 PM
I have to disagree.  I didn't spend time and money overhauling my life to forever be 'lesser' or 'other' than my cisgendered counterparts.  Outside of my physician, my girlfriend and my parents, I am not known otherwise.  I'd prefer to pass undetected than to be recognized and respected.

Aha... Someone after my own heart.  Damn it even rhymes...

LR