Hi all,

This article really hit home for me. While the author makes some broad generalizations, the main point rings true.

http://www.avitale.com/UnlivedLives.htm

That was me. although I found other ways to "cope" than the military or alcohol. I became a "hippie' with long hair and gender neutral rockstar clothes. I adopted a hard core far left agenda and spent my male years as a social worker in anti-poverty programs trying to fight the "system" and the "man" who would not let me be my true self. Rather than praying to any diety, I envisioned great social change that would free people like me and everybody else who felt oppressed. I still never miss Keith and Rachel. Like it was "Power to the People". (I know it's a cliche). I was an exception to the "male" model cause like the women in this article, I was able to find an employer that permitted me to dress gender neutral and have a Mick Jagger shag for the entire time I worked there. I knew the cops in the building talked about me behind my back, but it didn't matter.

That was so scary because it rang so true, expecially ...

QuoteFor some men, being with the right woman eases the tensions of non-participation. It adds a touch of social respectability and makes the family happy. The problem, of course, is that he almost invariably falls in love with the woman he wants to be. And as often as not, he starts living his life through her. This pseudo-life is characterized almost invariably by secretly crossdressing in her clothes, even going so far as going shopping with her and encouraging her to buy clothes that he wants to wear. It usually doesn't take very long for the wife to rebel and the individual to realize that far from providing resolution, marriage has complicated the matter. Now he finds himself waiting to become a wife as well as a woman. Can waiting to become a mother be far behind?

My ex always accused me of cheating with another woman our whole marriage.  She even said that the "other woman" was me.  Looking back on my life, that is so true.  Now I am that woman.  Maybe, when and if I even get into another long term relationship, it will last.

It is indeed a great article... but probably not such a big surprise that it's so insightful given that the author is one of us!

Well, she certainly described my life - not the drugs or alcohol or body-building, but most of the rest of it.  This 'Waiting For Godot' aspect of being trans is perhaps why I feel, for the first time in my life, that I am really, actually, truly alive.  (yay!)

- Kate

I could relate to a lot of that, but I don't feel my life was unlived.  I still managed to make the best of things in spite of something feeling off.  I do think, though, that I would have done a lot more if I had been born male; I do know there were other things I would have liked to have tried, but they were not traditionally female things to do, and I didn't have the guts to go for it (though I managed to do a quite a few other things that tested my limits).

I managed to avoid alcohol and drugs but was clinically depressed at times and on anti-depressants.

Jay