A common concern among us is "How do we know we are transsexual?"  There are some who never question it but I've seen the question asked enough to know there are many who want definitive proof they are TS.

Having lived in deep denial for decades, I can appreciate this concern.  Transitioning is nothing to be taken lightly and I have read a few accounts of people who began their transition only to return to their old life, sometimes after a year of more being full time.  One MTF had SRS, lived successfully as a woman then had surgery to reverse everything possible to return to male life. 

The thought of making a mistake can be scary.

Then there's the pressure we get from family and friends.  Most of us have to stand alone in that arena, finding it hard to get support with our desire to transition.

So how do we really know without going through the entire process and living the life that this is the right decision?

I listen to some friends talk of their feelings and watch them in their mannerisms and actions and there's no question they are TS.  But I'm not like any of them.  Deep in my soul I want to live the rest of my life as a woman but I know it will be a lifelong job, a lot of work.  It's a lot of work because I've lived so long as a man and I have so many learned habits to break.  If I chose to remain a man it would be a breeze to pass as one but I'd be miserable inside.  So I know I must continue on my chosen path.

One of the things that has me thinking is the vibes I get from the trans friends I have now.  I call them all friends even though by definition most aren't.  When we are together we are all polite and social but there are telltale signs I am not accepted by many of them.  And that wall seemed to go up as soon as I said I wasn't interested in men.

So is that one of the validations?  You have to be sexually attracted to the opposite sex?  Many seem to think so.

Another validation I lack is being feminine.  I am somewhat feminine but not to a high degree and I won't fake it.  I can be somewhat of a tomboy at times even though I like to look feminine.  Of course this can be construed as meaning I'm not transsexual but rather TG or CD.  But when I look at my sisters, none of them is ultra feminine in their actions.  They like to look feminine but they certainly aren't girly girls.

Something else that I see in others is their intense need to race through their transition because they HATE the life they are living.  I don't hate my life and I don't hate my male body.  I am bothered by it and it can cause me a lot of anxiety and depression, but I don't hate it.  Again, is this another validation?  I found some solace in reading that Donna Rose feels much the same as me and she seems perfectly happy having transitioned but she is the exception rather than the rule. 

I know I talk about thinking vs. being.  And I live the majority of my life in being.  When I do I'm happiest.  But thinking does creep in once in a while and gets me wondering.  What if?  What if maybe I could be making a mistake? 

And I think about my kids, how they would accept me again if I would just be the dad they want.  It might take some time but I feel they would come around more easily that way than if I stayed on my present path.  And work?  The problems I have with work would be gone.

Still, whenever I try to picture myself going back a dark cloud comes over me.  I am so intensely happy right now and when I look past SRS and possibly FFS I see that happiness increasing.  As a man, I was headed in the other direction. 

Maybe that's the only validation one needs.

Julie

At least here liking girls sexually seems quite common amongst younger mtf transpeople.

Is it really important to validate ourselves against labels? That makes it quite hard to get to the final truth.

I think the real question should be "Can I live without transitioning? Are all the alternatives worse?" If the answer is that transitioning is the best way then finding the exact label does not seem so important to me.

Interesting word Julie,

Some times it is hard to validate, Im fortunate, I dont do that to myself but I know my friends and family will. I just have to wait and see. Im positive transition would be good for me but I have others to consider aswell

Ironic, I've been pondering the same thing lately.

There's a girl on here I chat with a lot who is struggling to answer this question, and I just had to laugh when she questioned her own femaleness... it's just that she's SO much more feminine that I am, it just seemed a ridiculous worry. I look around forum and how most M2Fs just exude this natural femininity, it just seems to come so easy and natural for many. It makes me SO jealous, but... I am what I am. And nothing short of an asteroid collision will stop me from transitioining. And even then, don't count me out, lol...

But Julie, you're ONE of those "naturally feminine" people I envy. To hear you question it just sounds so silly, though I understand we're all often our own worst critics.

Still, some habits do take time to unlearn. We were socialized as males, so we're bound to respond within that framework for awhile as we adjust to our new roles and place in society.

As for knowing if we're TS and if transition is right... I can only answer for myself. And to be honest, I don't really know HOW I know it's what I'm supposed to do, but I do. It just FEELS right. You know when you're on the right path, though I'd suggest that if someone needs "reasons" to support where they're heading, the danger becomes that those reasons may be proven wrong someday. THEN what?

For me, this IS an act of faith, and in the deepest way. There's this Truth that I know - but I can't prove it to you or even to myself - and yet I'm willing to risk EVERYTHING to LIVE that truth, not just know it. That leap of faith, that roll of the dice, surrendering to my fate and willingly allowing myself to become vulnerable to that path is, ironically, what gives me strength.

Kate

Quote from: Kate on February 19, 2007, 10:07:28 AM
Still, some habits do take time to unlearn. We were socialized as males, so we're bound to respond within that framework for awhile as we adjust to our new roles and place in society.

Kate

You touched on something Kate I hadn't considered.  While I was totally full time I was becoming very comfortable in my new life.  I had no doubts.  Then I went back to work.  Even though I carried with me many female markers, it wasn't enough to overcome working in such a male dominated field.  Eventually I started becoming re-programmed, and I didn't see it happening.

I'm off work again, for how long I don't know, but I'll pay attention to how this affects me.  If I see myself once again dropping the male habits, I'll know what is truly natural for me.  And I'll be more aware of it when I return to work.  Another social experiment!

Julie

Somewhere I read that the easiest person to fool is oneself. I have to keep that in mind, and keep myself moving slowly, and to keep asking for feedback. I have gone on wild-goose chases before! I have to keep questioning myself, keeping myself honest. Not sure that will prevent any but the most obvious of errors, though!

Quote from: Tara on February 19, 2007, 12:19:05 PM
Somewhere I read that the easiest person to fool is oneself.

Only because we try to FIND the truth rather than CREATE and LIVE it.

We look and search and calculate and reason and compare and gather evidence... always looking for a way to avoid responsibility for our beliefs, for ACTING on what we know.

I'm just ancient enough to know that The Truth is totally malleable... I've "known" for sure so many things in my life which I eventually tired of and found NEW things to "know for sure" that beliefs and truth are playthings for me now. I don't believe things because they're true or factual, I believe them because they work for me, are beautiful, and make this dream I'm having a more fun and loving place to play in.

Am I fooling myself? You BET I am! But in the bestest of ways, as an ART form - willingly, with love, and with heart.

Kate

Quote from: Kate on February 19, 2007, 10:07:28 AM
I look around forum and how most M2Fs just exude this natural femininity, it just seems to come so easy and natural for many. It makes me SO jealous, but... I am what I am.

Kate, you ARE one of those people. 

Melissa

Kate, you are so incredibly beautiful!
My personable issues with what you say are that I have lied to myself for so long, beaten my truth within a millimeter of it's/my life, that I am leery of ANY idea or path. I will have to go slowly. I do understand what you say, and envy your confidence in yourself. And agree with your assessment of truth. Beliefs, I have abandoned.
It is a blessing to read your thoughts.

Julie;

I like to think we're kind of like cooking with tofu, in that we to various degrees take on the flavour of the environment we find ourselves in.  So when you go into that hyper-male world, of course you're going to take on a male flavor.  And so would a GG who enjoyed the work enough that she'd put up with the rations of **** she'd get from macho coworkers.

Of course, for you there's a danger of being perceived of as both male and effeminate.  Girls, cripples and people wearing glasses are afforded societal protections, while effeminate males are self-selected targets to alpha-males.  Of course you're going to 'hide' behind your created male persona.

My therapist has said that I will finish becoming Karen when I give up the care and feeding of #**** for good.  He also says that with many of his clients he never knows who will walk in his door -- the man or the woman.  And he's also seen clients change during sessions because after the session, 'the guy' had to be somewhere and do something.

Which tells me this is natural and a part of transitioning.  I will have times I can choose to be either.  I want to always choose to be Karen, but some times the guy will come out, and afterward I will kick myself and promise to not do that again in a similar situation.

But I only allow myself one kick -- actually I visualize how I would have liked to behave.

Julie, don't beat yourself up over 'lapses'.  Work at it, and they'll diminish over time.

Karen

Interesting that my brother and I had a...discussion on this yesterday.

In his opinion, he has no doubt that I beleave that this is real. The fact i've put up with it for as long as I have shows that i'm serious about it. However he wonders what would happen if I waited longer to do more therapy and put tis off till i've thought it out more. One of the things he says is that I am changing my body so that in a materialistic world I can fit myself on the outside to comfort the inside, but what I should do is to change the inside to accept the outside. Maybe some of you are smarter than me, but I had a difficult time arguing against that viewpoint, but it is the viewpoint of most of my family.

I'm not femme, no desire for it either. I want to get in the thick of things and get the adrinaline pumping. The only thing that would really change about me would be my body and how I relate to people. A real tomboy if you will. But my main argument to my family isn't that I can't be a guy, but that it feels forced. One of the things I asked my brother was when he was growing up did he have to constently judge what would be the girl thing or the guy thing to do. Did he feel unconfterble in an intimate situation of anykind, or even just feel 'wrong' half the time. Not because he was ugly or unhappy about his body, but at the same time it feels wrong, incorrect.

In the end I asked him one final question, when he told me that nothing I had said had affected his opinion that this is the wrong course of action, I asked him to come from the other side and tell me what I would have to be saying to convince him. He thought for a moment and responded that nothing I could say would affect his decision.

Kate is right, its a leap of faith. But I think if you are serious enough to at the very least deal with the laser, and the human element, then perhaps you need to worry alittle less. My faith, my life, is based on my God, I don't think he would show me to so many supportive people if he was truly against what i'm doing.

Quote from: Elissa on February 19, 2007, 03:54:00 PM
In his opinion, he has no doubt that I beleave that this is real.

As soon as I read that I knew he didn't believe you.

Quote from: Elissa on February 19, 2007, 03:54:00 PM
One of the things he says is that I am changing my body so that in a materialistic world I can fit myself on the outside to comfort the inside, but what I should do is to change the inside to accept the outside. Maybe some of you are smarter than me, but I had a difficult time arguing against that viewpoint, but it is the viewpoint of most of my family.

Yet he is unwilling to change how he feels inside to accept how you look outside.  Seems a bit hypocritical to me.

Melissa

"Validation"

As in achieving certitude or validity of the concept--?

That process for me, which I finally can say is permanently resolved [NO going back to the former detested state], induced yet another element of searing agony in the course of transition.

No doubts exist. Not anymore.

The EMPIRICAL and manifest evidence both of who I really am and of the NECESSITY to achieve FULL transition, is irrefutable and cannot be ignored.

"Deep denial for decades"

Not so, here. Since the proverbial "Day One", I knew that SOMETHING related to sexuality [but in reality, it was a GENDER issue] was deeply flawed, but I did not have a clue as to what it was.

I was relentlessly driven to do certain things, to function sexually in a certain way--but I had no idea as to why this was.

It was a living hell.

And knowing that, knowing the VAST GLOBAL improvements that were the direct result of transition and HRT, knowing how comfortable, natural and JOYFUL that I feel now,

How could I POSSIBLY revert or allow myself to be deterred from attaining the true??

Forced in a choice between reverting to a male role and death...I think that you know which would be chosen.

"Femininity"

By my writing style, perhaps nobody would even suspect it, but the feminine expression and speech to a lesser degree, require little effort for me in private or public.

In fact, as it was with trying to maintain an acceptable male presentation, it is now in trying to repress the natural feminine.

It's comfortable and feels natural. I'm continuously refining these, but the basic 'feminine instinctive movements and mannerisms" were always present.

Still, I'll wind up being something of odd homogeny of predominantly feminine characteristics and traits, with an admixture of decidedly masculine elements.

I'm saying this NOW, but as I have observed so many times during the course of transition these remnant masculine elements very possibly may reach points where they simply become intolerable to live with and ultimately are 'shed' or greatly modified.

"Disinhibition"

I am NOT going 'back'. The very concept is utterly abhorrent.

It would kill me.

"Sexuality"

I definitely and exclusively LOVE men. But I am not at all keen on the idea of using 'sexual preference' as a DETERMINANT as to who is TS and who is really just a poseur.

That constitutes a 'false balance' in my view and I won't accept nor utilize such a a standard.

It seems analogous to the ego centered 'caste system mentality' that some TS folks erect to differentiate and distance themselves from other TS folks whom they PERCEIVE to be inferior to themselves.

Welcome to humanity.

But IMHO, these dichotomies are purely artificial and find their ultimate etiologies in subjective human pettiness.

Welcome to humanity.

It seems to be a product largely of deficient self-esteem, self aggrandizement, small-mindedness and a lack of love.

The external validation doesn't concern me. It never really has.

I gave up trying to use such as a 'feedback mechanism' MANY years ago.

Over-reliance upon such, can be very dangerous.

"Racing"

I have a good life, no doubt about it and I have been blessed richly.

That isn't the issue with me, that which has been and is driving me mercilessly toward completion.

No, with me, it is a race to avoid more psychic pain or much worse.

It's purely a function of intense GID pressure and stress.

And I DO detest my male body. The sordid and gory history solidly attests to this.

But does my level of GID mean in my little mind that those who have GID to a lesser degree than I are not TS?

I think not.

There is NO going back for me, my good sister. I would rather die.

Rhonda

Julie....


               S  T  A  M  P

There's your official stamp of validation.

You're doing fine.

Cindi

Quote from: Cindi Jones on February 19, 2007, 07:12:06 PM
Julie....


               S  T  A  M  P

There's your official stamp of validation.

You're doing fine.

Cindi

Awww, Surly it is not that easy.


Alice

Quote from: Kate on February 19, 2007, 10:07:28 AM
As for knowing if we're TS and if transition is right... I can only answer for myself. And to be honest, I don't really know HOW I know it's what I'm supposed to do, but I do. It just FEELS right. You know when you're on the right path, though I'd suggest that if someone needs "reasons" to support where they're heading, the danger becomes that those reasons may be proven wrong someday. THEN what?

For me, this IS an act of faith, and in the deepest way. There's this Truth that I know - but I can't prove it to you or even to myself - and yet I'm willing to risk EVERYTHING to LIVE that truth, not just know it. That leap of faith, that roll of the dice, surrendering to my fate and willingly allowing myself to become vulnerable to that path is, ironically, what gives me strength.

Beautifully stated!

Julie, you are listening to that pesky little ego again, aren't you? Listen to your heart, it will never lie to you.

Kelly

validation?  how about this link for [validation]?

http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node=transsexual

Quote from: Alice on February 19, 2007, 07:54:18 PM

Quote from: Cindi Jones on February 19, 2007, 07:12:06 PM
Julie....


               S  T  A  M  P

There's your official stamp of validation.

You're doing fine.

Cindi

Awww, Surly it is not that easy.


Alice

But it can be.  Life is what you make out of it.  Why do we make things more complicated than they need to be?  Our lives are already pretty messed up as it is.  Shouldn't we just make a simple decision and stick with it until we find something better?  Why not?

Cindi

(shaking her head, trying to clear)

I pulled up that link and read the article...and while I read it I realized that I was...engaged in my now standard 'comfort reaction' of massaging a breast.

High emotional stress, brought on by...remembrance...knowledge and understanding of who I am and the 'why' behind my history.

I have a copy of "True Selves" and I have read it approximately 1.4 times...I've 'hi-lighted' so many pages in that book that it is almost completely fluorescent yellow now.

I stay away from it now; I couldn't finish the second reading of it.

It um.............evokes too much and too many, now.

Just as that link just did.
My mind seems to be now 'locked back on' to this general subject for the moment...

"Validation"

My LORD....in May of 2005, I was pretty much emotionally dead, beaten to proverbial submission...

I tried everything that I could think of over the horrid years, to remediate an unknown, merciless demon in my mind.....

The last thing that I tried was sex, with men of course...MANY men,

High risk, unprotected...but after a while, while I loved it I realized that it was ineffective at silencing the the demon which permanently resided in my mind,

And would not by repressed nor silenced by ANYTHING tried.

So I sat down in my LazyGIRL (sorry for the 'militance', but I think that you understand), emotionally spent and leaving my intellect relatively free to coldly analyze and assess--life and history....

And strangely enough perhaps, the probable future which at that point somehow I intuitively knew would only unfold in ever increasing pain and agony, with no apparent hope of resolution....

Later on I learned that GID does indeed, worsen with age.

It has been said that one cannot arrive at a decicion to self-destruct on an exclusively, coldly rational basis, but that isn't true...

I did, on that day in May of 2005.

I sat there for a half hour or so, coldly analyzing and prognosticating and at the conclusion of this 'exercise in rational problem solving'??

"Nothing has worked; nothing apparently will. It is finally time to die."

But on that very same day, EVERYTHING became manifest, EVERYTHING became known and understood.

And life and healing began and continue to this day.

THAT is where I came from, utter failure at trying to maintain and sustain a diametrically opposite presentation and facade; I couldn't do it anymore.

THIS is what I would be returning to, if I de-transitioned--but that would only last for but a brief moment, before a 9mm hollowpoint would finally end it all.

Quote from: Cindi Jones on February 19, 2007, 07:12:06 PM
Julie....


               S  T  A  M  P

There's your official stamp of validation.

You're doing fine.

Cindi

You know something, Cindi?

I am really beginning to like you it is indeed foreseeable that eventually, I may grow to LOVE you as a valued sister and friend.

As Cindi mentioned in her reply - Yes it can be that simple.  There is no yard stick to measure yourself against, just as there is no yard stick to determine who is a man and who is a woman.  Each and everyone has different trait's and to try and gauge yourself against them is folly.  You may well want to start a topic entitled "So what makes a Transsexual" and see the great variety of answers you would get.  Just because one person looks or acts more feminine doesn't mean they are more TS as that is impossible.  It's whats between "YOUR" ears that matters, and what/drives causes the TS to be.

Sometimes it seems just as many find it hard to admit they are TS it's just as hard for some to admit they are not.

Steph