This may be a question for you guys and dolls (using Nero's phrase ...it's so cute) early in their post-op period, but for you long term folks feel free to give us your sage advise and input.

How do you find acceptance from same gender people with your own gender, now that you are done with your physical and legal transitions? And additionally your own acceptance with that group. This stage may well be vital to the success of your entire transition and will definitely affect your quality of life moving forward.

Being comfortable with your own body is one thing (now that you have corrected that), but allowing yourself to belong socially as an equal member of your gender with the freedom to participate, relax, enjoy and shine as only you can do is quite another.

Is it easy or hard ...natural or scary? Do you feel a need or urge to tell them your past? Does their knowing matter to you? If word gets around do you feel invalidated?

On the other hand, this may well be a matter of learning new skills and not transition related at all.

So... how is it going? 

I posted a bit about it in the thread "the last stage of transition" but when I had SRS in 1974 I just accepted that I WAS a girl, just like all the others because nobody carried an asterisk in those days and you had surgery because you were a girl with a deformity so it was just expected you would go on to live a normal (woman's) life. Being a girl was just a matter of letting go and letting myself be me and it was all there. Nobody questioned, nobody looked twice (except the boys! - in a good way) and the odd time my stealth was blown, nobody believed it - I was just so free, easy, and natural that it was implausible.

I recently underwent extensive testing to see if there had been some type of Intersex condition but nothing was found. The doctor told me "You are XY .... you know that means you are male, right?" and I just about fell off my chair laughing! Invalidated? Not in the least! I have 37 years of pure womanhood behind me that says otherwise! Tell any of my friends I am not a girl and they will lock YOU up for being nuts LOL!

Quote from: Valeriedances on February 27, 2011, 04:44:37 PM
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I have this but word that trips me up internally. I am a woman, but... (I have a history, please dont hate me). It is my own acceptance of my history, not from others. This is holding me back from enjoying myself more fully.

I can really understand that Valerie. I've thought a lot about how I would keep things to myself after a full transision.

As I've got older, I don't tend to talk nearly as much as I use to, in social situations. But when I was much younger, I'd get really nervous and start rattling away. I kinda reinvented myself as a listener. I don't go into a lot of social situations, but now I try to just listen. I'm still quit nervous, but at least I don't go away with the horrors, wondering what I've said.

Valerie, I am totally interested in this. Like you vie never been too social with anyone other than my partner.

My fear about transition is that I won't be seen as a woman by other women and Inwill be socially isolated. I can handle not finding a husband (it hurts, but I don't expect it). But the idea of not being able to socially interact as a woman after having SRS scares me. Like I'd be stuck in some sort of purgatory between two genders. I'm 26 and haven't started HRT, if I was sure I would be able to function socially as a woman post transition then I'd begin HRT tomorrow.

Pre-transition, I don't know if I have any authority to answer your questions.  But I would think social integration would have occured prior to the surgery.  Socially women are not validated on the presence or lack of a vagina, so being pre-op shouldn't be a barrier to including yourself in the social group of women.  That I know cis-gendered women can face exclusion becuase of their percieved gender and/or presentation so there really shouldn't be a distinction between trans and cis women.

As for disclosure, how necessary is it in your average social interaction?  Why should I be treated differently becuase I'm a woman who wasn't born with a vagina?  For that matter why whould I choose to tell that to someone I merely had a social relationship with, like telling them I had a boob job or a man tellign his casual friends he's got errectile dyfunction (or something like that).  Is there a protocol for that sort of thing, like over coffee between asking for the cream and sugar? 

Interesting question

I transitioned in the mid 80's and the other girls in my office at the company I worked for then were absolutely brilliant and I was always included in all the girls nights out and I truely felt like I was one of them and was totally accepted, even though I myself felt a bit of an interloper because they knew what I was and I always imagined they were looking down on me (most likely they weren't).
Fast forward to now I've lived 'stealthily' (appologies for the word - but can't think of another) for over 25 years and live in a different country. No one knows anything about my past and I would never ever say anything either - even to my closest friends. I still go out with the girls as before but this time safe in the knowledge that my past is unknown. I'm totally integrated and happy and more outgoing and socialable than I ever was pre-transition.

I am still 15 days out from being post-op but I have felt like I fit in fairly easily with straight women. My mom hangs out with lesbians and I join her sometimes but I find I'm much more comfortable with straight women. And in most cases, they would have never known about my past had I not told them at some point. I've been lucky they have all been supportive.

Quote from: Valeriedances on February 28, 2011, 11:28:19 AMSo I guess my topic is more concerning the effects of dysphoria with socialization from the post-op view. What is the experience like from a social perspective post GRS with no more dysphoria?

For me there was NO "dysphoria" after SRS and socializing was the same as any other girl who moved to a different area - just totally easy and natural.

There were awkward times when my friends were all having babies and I couldn't - that HURT! - but that's a problem some women have and my friends were very sympathetic. They weren't so sympathetic about me not having periods - OH YOU LUCKY B!#CH !!! LOL!

I think like NJ my answers may be coloured by the fact that I pretty well grew up in target gender. So I have never had any insecurities about my gender. I simply AM a woman.

Yes when I was a young girl everyone knew I was "different" but as they treated me ok I kind of got used to ignoring the fact that some people might know that I was somewhat "other".

So I have to confess that it simply has not arisen for me. I live by my own rules anyway. If people don't like them then that's entirely their problem not mine. No one is forcing them to be my friend. If they want to play silly mind games they can stop wasting my time and find someone else to annoy because I have more than enough friends to last me a lifetime.

Do I tell people? Not as a rule no, because most of the time it would serve no use other than to confuse them. However I am not in paranoid stealth either. I will very OCCASIONALLY talk about my past IF there is a solid and constructive reason for me to do so, and IF I am 100.00% sure that it will be helpful to someone.

In practice this translates to the fact that perhaps about 25% of my current friends either currently know, or once knew about my past. However when you have been postop for as long as Jane and I people actually do forget. I know that probably sounds odd to all you newbies - but trust me they really do!

The other thing is that once it is not a recent and therefore potentially HOT topic, those you tell will probably not tell others. So after perhaps five years the "information creep" in your friend network will settle.

Does it bother me when women find out? NO! Do I feel invalidated? Again, no. It is after all only the truth that they have discovered. Does it make any difference - well if it does then I don't want that person as my friend because anyone small minded enough to let something like that matter is not worthy of my friendship (and I really DO mean that!) I hold my friends in high esteem. There is little I would not do to help them, but I am highly selective as to whom I befriend.

I think that moving to an entirely different country immediately after SRS has made it easier for me in some ways, because life is all new in a culture that is superficially similar to my old one in many ways, but also very different in many more. No one I meet has any clue about my past, and I am extremely disinclined to inform anyone of the gory details. I find I'm a lot more outgoing, it is much easier for me to relate to men as being the opposite sex (and much easier to relate to them romantically as well), and easier to relate to other women, both on an individual basis and as members of the same sex. I do feel more socially comfortable around other women than I do around men, but that has always been the case.

My safe place now- my solid, grounded place, is in the knowledge that I am a woman and will be for the rest of my life (happy dance!), and no one can ever take that away from me. Being cured is the best feeling in the world, and I hold onto that like a blanket. I do believe that being seen to be accepted by ourselves as who we are probably goes a long way towards gaining that acceptance from others, whether they are aware of any past history or not. All I have, all I can do then, is to let that be my refuge, my anchor to hold onto whenever I feel anxiety in social situations. Hopefully it will see me through. But I always know that no matter what happens, I've been set free.

One of my big fears pre-transition was that I wouldn't be accepted into the club.  But I've been surprised at how readily I was accepted as 'one of the girls'.  I've had several girlfriends tell me that they know I was always Katherine.  I asked a girlfriend if she thinks of me as she knew me before.  Her reply was: "I just don't think about it."  Still, the occasional 'he' will pop up from habit (although not from her).

My orientation changed with the hormones.  I still find women very attractive, but as compatriots rather than sex partners.  In fact, I sometimes wonder if I'll ever be open enough to men for one to find me attractive, because I cherish my female friendships so much more than my male ones.

As for the 'but' problem (I am a woman but...), I think that will diminish with time.  I think that part of it is just that all of this is new.  I am a 67 year-old woman with a grown daughter and two ex-spouses, but I've never been with a man.  It makes me nervous.  (I had an offer from a male friend who knew me before, and I was tempted just to break the ice [so to speak] but just couldn't see us tearing up the sheets together.  Since then I've wondered if I did the right thing.)

And since I live where a whole bunch of people know my history, I have little experience with chatting and editing my past appropriately.  I have met some new people (women) who I assumed didn't know.  I was surprisingly relaxed talking with them without indicating in any way that I didn't always live as a woman.  I think that, too, gets easier with time and with getting more history as you are now.

Quote from: Northern Jane on February 28, 2011, 01:58:23 PM
They weren't so sympathetic about me not having periods - OH YOU LUCKY B!#CH !!! LOL!

As a side note, I had to laugh at this.  A girlfriend told me she had an emergency hysterectomy at age 39 and would tell all of her friends that every woman should be given one as a 40th birthday present.

As I posted elsewhere, I am still working on accepting myself as a woman.  I think for those of us with a long history in the wrong gender, it just takes longer for us to acclimate to our good fortune.

- Kate

Quote from: Valeriedances on February 28, 2011, 02:58:08 PMSo it sounds like some of your  friends at that time knew of your past but it didnt prevent them from seeing you as a woman or hold it against you.

Actually, for many years, I lived stealth and nobody knew my medical history. The comments about being 'lucky' for not having periods came mostly from young girls who had heavy periods, bad PMS and other very negative effects of being fertile - this was mostly in my 20's, a time for most girls when periods, fertility and so forth were more of a PITA. In my 30's not having periods wasn't so enviable since most of my friends were having babies and infertility was viewed with some sadness.

My stealth was blown in my mid-30's by an employee of a medical clinic and my medical history became the subject of common gossip. I was, by then, well established in my community and that's when I first noticed the phenomenon "That which is inconsistent with the senses can not be maintained" - people who had known me for years without knowing my medical history could not comprehend that I had ever been otherwise and dismissed the rumours as implausible.