Reading the post, I don't wanna be a transsexual either. Nobody does, really. I have yet to come across someone that wants to have to go through all of this trouble and stress.

I don't think suicide is the answer. Maybe just hold on and do the best you can for yourself. Learn to be satisfied with what you're stuck with.

Like Chris, I don't wanna be a short guy with no dick and womanly hips. Don't want a feminine face, or a small build, and I know that transmale worries about this stuff aren't as big a deal but we're all in the same boat. Plenty of transsexuals learn to live with it and I'm sure you can too.

YellowDaisy, when I fist read your post it broought tears to my eyes.   You posted as if there was no hope for you, given what you see ATM.

The road is not easy, I know when I first embarked on it numerous years ago I used to have my doubts also.   Yes I thought I was tall etc etc etc, big feet and what not.

HRT does soften the edges and when you eventually can afford some surgery, it will do wonders.

I wish you all the best and hope things get better for you.

Hugs - Di

i see alot of you bringing up hrt. i'm desperate for it, and i've been trying to get on it for over a year. my mom owns the air i breathe, since i'm not quite legal age yet, and she's been dragging her feet, and putting it off. we've been getting in alot of fights over it. it makes me think how being shy and introverted works against a transsexual. it really has worked against me, because if only i asked about anti androgens once they found out when i was 13, but there's nothing i can do about it now, so i might as well forget it, and take advantage of the opportunity that i have now. i'm going to start pushing this alot harder, because obviously, not saying anything isn't doing me any good, and my mom's been letting it slide. i'm going to do whatever i can to get on anti androgens as soon as possible. being "nice" just isn't working, because she's only been taking advantage of me, and letting me finish last.

....and I thought I was too tall for a woman at 5' 7"......I've had days where I've felt it's not working, especially with my fat disribution. Transition isn't all it's cracked up to be and very hard to achieve our goal from any angle...

Hum.. I somethings think that I was so very shy and introverted growing up BECAUSE of being transexual.  I am just a whole lot more outgoing now a days.  Though I still have days when the shys come back.

The good news is that being younger, that even at 20-21 or even much later, you can still have pretty good results.  Best thing I recommend is get a job, any job and start saving money for therapy and doctors.

Hang in there

Beni

Susan Boyle, a famous person who was on the show Britain's Got Talent...Is (And I don't want to be mean) but she is very very unattractive and she looks bluntly masculine...Could pass as an male--But--She is worldly famous and people see beyond that!

What I'm trying to crack at is...That not everyone is going to be beautiful or drop-dead pretty--There's plenty of cis-girls who are just not plainly that attractive...The same goes for trans-people (Not everyone will be what society thinks is beauty.)

Quote from: Tetra on November 03, 2009, 10:17:59 PM
Susan Boyle, a famous person who was on the show Britain's Got Talent...Is (And I don't want to be mean) but she is very very unattractive and she looks bluntly masculine...Could pass as an male--But--She is worldly famous and people see beyond that!

What I'm trying to crack at is...That not everyone is going to be beautiful or drop-dead pretty--There's plenty of cis-girls who are just not plainly that attractive...The same goes for trans-people (Not everyone will be what society thinks is beauty.)

Susan is plain, but since her makeover she is looking fine.   I don't think she looks masculine at all, soz.

I never wanted to be transsexual in the first place. You've got to admit, it kind of sucks.

Quote from: Alyssa M. on November 03, 2009, 10:47:03 PM
You've got to admit, it kind of sucks.

Yeah. I rather would have been a dog or something. Preferably an American Eskimo but I'm not choosy.

Quote from: Alyssa M. on November 03, 2009, 10:47:03 PM
I never wanted to be transsexual in the first place.

I really, really, really wanted to be a gay man, but it didn't work because I wasn't gay and wasn't a man.  You have to play the hand you're dealt. 

(A little creative cheating is OK, though. )

- Kate

I remember one desperate day when I had had it. I called my therapist and left a pathetic message. When he called back, I told him how I was feeling and said what you just said: "I don't WANT to be a transsexual." And he said something like, "Well, I don't know of a single transsexual who WANTS to be trans." He made me laugh through my tears. I knew what he meant; given a choice before birth, would any of us have said, "Oh, yes, please! I want to be a transsexual! Pretty please!"

But people learn to value it. Later, at a support group, the icebreaker was, "If you had your choice and could start over again, would you choose to be cis or trans?" Maybe I was in a very idealistic group, but I think every person but me said that he or she would choose trans.

There might have been one other person who felt the same way I did, but I really think I was the lone holdout. Then I was told, "Well, you weren't given the choice of male or female. If you chose cis, you would be born cis male OR cis female--luck of the draw. You wouldn't get to choose your gender, but you would be happy with it."

Well, that gave me pause. My transsexuality has been such a pervasive force in my life that I couldn't even imagine being happy as a female. It's a completely foreign concept. The thought of a fifty percent chance of being born cis female just horrified me. It's not who I am. How could it be?

So I guess I choose trans after all. But grudgingly. Because I still don't wanna be a transsexual.

Quote from: Arch on November 04, 2009, 06:42:58 PM
I remember one desperate day when I had had it. I called my therapist and left a pathetic message. When he called back, I told him how I was feeling and said what you just said: "I don't WANT to be a transsexual." And he said something like, "Well, I don't know of a single transsexual who WANTS to be trans." He made me laugh through my tears. I knew what he meant; given a choice before birth, would any of us have said, "Oh, yes, please! I want to be a transsexual! Pretty please!"

But people learn to value it. Later, at a support group, the icebreaker was, "If you had your choice and could start over again, would you choose to be cis or trans?" Maybe I was in a very idealistic group, but I think every person but me said that he or she would choose trans.

There might have been one other person who felt the same way I did, but I really think I was the lone holdout. Then I was told, "Well, you weren't given the choice of male or female. If you chose cis, you would be born cis male OR cis female--luck of the draw. You wouldn't get to choose your gender, but you would be happy with it."

Well, that gave me pause. My transsexuality has been such a pervasive force in my life that I couldn't even imagine being happy as a female. It's a completely foreign concept. The thought of a fifty percent chance of being born cis female just horrified me. It's not who I am. How could it be?

So I guess I choose trans after all. But grudgingly. Because I still don't wanna be a transsexual.

I've thought about that scenario a lot too.

If I had a choice to have been born trans or born cis, I would definitely rather have been born cis.

But the way I see it, it would have to be ME being born cis, and ME being born cis would be being born female, otherwise it would be someone else being born cis.

Saying that if you could have been born cis but that there's a 50% chance you would be born as mentally being the opposite gender than you are now, is the same as saying you could be born but there's a 50% chance someone else will take your place instead.

Quote from: Arch on November 04, 2009, 06:42:58 PM
I remember one desperate day when I had had it. I called my therapist and left a pathetic message. When he called back, I told him how I was feeling and said what you just said: "I don't WANT to be a transsexual." And he said something like, "Well, I don't know of a single transsexual who WANTS to be trans." He made me laugh through my tears. I knew what he meant; given a choice before birth, would any of us have said, "Oh, yes, please! I want to be a transsexual! Pretty please!"

But people learn to value it. Later, at a support group, the icebreaker was, "If you had your choice and could start over again, would you choose to be cis or trans?" Maybe I was in a very idealistic group, but I think every person but me said that he or she would choose trans.

There might have been one other person who felt the same way I did, but I really think I was the lone holdout. Then I was told, "Well, you weren't given the choice of male or female. If you chose cis, you would be born cis male OR cis female--luck of the draw. You wouldn't get to choose your gender, but you would be happy with it."

Well, that gave me pause. My transsexuality has been such a pervasive force in my life that I couldn't even imagine being happy as a female. It's a completely foreign concept. The thought of a fifty percent chance of being born cis female just horrified me. It's not who I am. How could it be?

So I guess I choose trans after all. But grudgingly. Because I still don't wanna be a transsexual.

like i said in my last post, i could be the perfect female in another life, but when you are born cisgendered, that's just it, that's who you are, and gender is a very small part of your life, you very seldomly think about it, and you think that the things you do are just birthrights, so it really is not valued too much. when i think of it, if i wasn't transsexual, and i was born female, that takes away such a big part of my life that would make that life a whole lot different, because my gender would just be a minor feature that would be taken for granted like the shoes on my feet.

I note people referring to cisgendered, I don't hear that term used in Australia, could someone please explain?

If it is born genetic female or male, that's a term I'm familiar with.

Yes. I call it Bio, short for biological. Of course.  Also know as GG ( Genetic Girl ) or GM ( Genetic Male or Man).

Janet

The term "cisgender" was coined in analogy with the concept of cis-trans isomerism in organic chemistry, where a molecule with two sides comes in two versions, or isomers, where in one isomer, one of the sides is "flipped" relative to how it is in the other isomer. The isomer which is "flipped" is called the "trans" isomer ("trans" meaning "across" or "on the other side"), and the other one is called "cis" ("on the same side"; it's prounounces like "sis"). Wikipedia has some clear examples of this.

So "cisgender" refers to when internal gender identy is "on the same side" as perceived birth gender. The only problem I have with it is that it might suggest that the term "transgender" is very binary -- i.e. birth sex and gender identity being true "opposites." I think that's a stretch, but some people disparage the use of "transgender" on those grounds.

The really nice thing about this terminology is that the language is quite neutral. GG tends to suggest that trans people are genetic defects; Bio man/woman suggests that trans people are biological freaks. Using cis makes it harder to treat trans people as "other."

Also, there's a bonus that when some bigot calls someone a ->-bleeped-<-, you can say, "yeah, what about it, cissy?" (or at least think it to yourself).

Thanks Janet and Alyssa.

Another term that has problems, even though I use it myself somethimes, is natal woman - a born woman.  Well, I was born a woman but no one could see that because of the upholstery, so I was raised male.

But when talking to cis-gendered people - people who don't think about any of this much - the term cis-gendered requires explanation while they seem to get natal woman or genetic woman (or biological woman - haven't tried that) right away.

- Kate

If I were to use it in conversation with someone that didn't understand what it meant, I'd either let them figure it out or, if they were to ask, tell them, "Cis is the opposite of trans. It's a common term in chemistry, borrowed from Latin."

Quote from: Alyssa M. on November 05, 2009, 02:27:15 PM
If I were to use it in conversation with someone that didn't understand what it meant, I'd either let them figure it out or, if they were to ask, tell them, "Cis is the opposite of trans. It's a common term in chemistry, borrowed from Latin."

Chemistry and Physics are very different mostly to biology.   I would have thought 'cis' and 'trans'sexual maybe are different, but not necessarily the opposite.  - ie. different biology at birth, but many would suscribe a sameness in cognition, aims and goals.   Of course transsexuals can't bear offspring.

I am a post-op female and believe I think and act female, thus I transitioned in my late teens early 20's. I was born with a boys biology and as a young person much as I wished I was a girl, reality told me this was not the case.   The dilemma of course is the mental processes, I acted far more like a girl child than I cared to admit back then.  I say that as no kid wants to feel "teased' at school and sent up for being girly.