I wish to thank all for your kindness while I was here. I find that admirable and worth taking note.

  I came here seeking answers of how to treat a coworker and stayed longer than expected. Since then I have lost that job. I did see many things here I would not have seen otherwise. For that I give thanks.

  From the very beginning I stated that I was in disagreement with transgender views. Both psychological and spiritual. I never found anything that has changed that. I found some nice people if I am to give credit where it is due but nothing to sway my beliefs. Those I won't bother posting as you have all heard them before from other preachers. No need to rehash that.

  I know that there are some here that claim to be Christians. It is not in my place to judge them. The same word that judges them on the last day will judge me as well. On that day we shall all find out about what is right and what is wrong. Believer and nonbeliever as well.

  Until that day I have to do that which gives me a clear conscience before man and God. Just as the nonbeliever has to do that which gives them peace and a clear conscience before whatever or whoever they answer to, admire, study from, take advice from or whatever.

  Having said thus I do sincerely wish all well as I depart.

  Take care.

  Del

Del, you way outlasted your 15 posts! (from your introduction) I'm glad to have known you. Your views are your views, I respect that as you respect others. Keep your account and just say "Hi" once in awhile. If not, best wishes in life, hugs, Tracey

Yes it was pleasent having your opinions here.

Try going to transspiritual here i think you will like it ==> http://www.youtube.com/user/Transspiritual

I recently bumped into it and it spoke to me. there are 23 videos worth watching

There are so many people here at Susan's that this is the first time I have encountered Del.   It is interesting to note that the two posters above me seem to have been thankful for Del's opinions about transsexuality, critical as they must have been - though perhaps not offensively so - judging by his post in the thread.   My opinions on the other hand have been coolly received at best, and ignored and passed by at worst.   I suppose criticism from inside is always more painful that criticism from outside the community.
I don't mind if you are very keen upon pills and highly enthusiastic about  surgeries and procedures, if that is what you want, then go for it.  *  It is when you try to assert(tactfully for the most part) that pills and surgeries are the very essence of transsexuality, and those who don't live and breathe such things are perhaps fooling themselves about being transsexuals.  That is when I get annoyed and restive.  I am firmly of the opinion that surgeries wouldn't make a blind bit of difference in my passing, so I am most unwilling to go down that route.   I am more ambivalent regarding pills, as most of their effects are unseen by the general population.   However, what makes me deeply suspicious of pills is that (1) They weren't designed for us.  (2)As a consequence of this their effects upon the genetic male/female body varies very widely indeed.  To give an example, some mtf's on oestrogen faces start to take on an unmistakable female appearance, while other mtfs experience good breast development but their face never looks feminine.   Other mtfs - myself - gain huge amounts of unhealthly and unsightly weight on hrt.   In addition to all this I simply do not trust pharmacology.   I am most reluctant to risk wrecking my body as part of a huge semi-unofficial medical experiment, the long-term outcome of which is any doctor's or pharmacologist's guess.     Trying to hint, however tactfully, that the 'true' transsexual is always and will always be mad keen to change their body through the mechanisms of pills and surgical procedures is highly offensive to those who cannot or will for many legitimate reasons, not go down this route.

What brought all this on was that the posters above me seem grateful that a cisgender person and a Christian to boot has deigned to try and understand our community.   This gushing gratefulness is endemic in the TS/TG community.    Del has stooped to our level, he has tried to understand us and our baffling ways and thought processes, and now he is going away mildly sympathetic but with his initial views and opinions wholly unchanged, and we thank him for this?    Had Del come here ranting and raving about us all being 'sinners' and bound for 'the unquenchable flames' then the moderators would have had him out of here in two seconds flat.   Perhaps I have maligned Del by all this?  He may have been quite serious and honourable in his intentions - I leave that judgement entirely up to those that read Del's posts.   The point is that only Del ultimately knows the truth.




* Yours is the risk and yours is the reward.

It has just occurred to me those on hrt are both and at once potentially Baron Frankenstein and the 'monster'.    I sincerely hope that hrt is everything you thought it would be, and that it transforms you to your complete satisfaction.  But what if it doesn't?   What if you end up with a woman's face but no breasts and/or a man's walk and body language.  Or your breasts are to your satisfaction and your voice and mannerisms are good even great, but your face is unmistakably male? 
  While I don't wish to downplay everything that the mtfs go through, in some ways they do have an easier time of it.  A pre-op FTM, who isn't on hrt, but who dresses in male clothes, will in most cases pass.    Their smaller size, narrower shoulders and completely beardless face isn't really too much of a hindrance for them.   However, I suppose it must be a great annoyance to be say 25 and thanks to the above perhaps be taken for a 10 year old boy.
  What we need to concentrate upon, in my opinion, is getting the public to accept us as we are.  It shouldn't matter if we are 7' 3" and/or built like Desperate Dan, if I say that I am female then I am female regardless of any external factors.    I have become so cocky and confident in my identity that I regularly use 'Miss' before my male name and I have and do do this with such things as magazine subscriptions and clothing catalogues.   To tell the truth I only stumbled upon this when I received letters addressed to Miss [female name].  My mother didn't like this.  I discovered quite by chance that it wasn't the use of 'Miss' that upset her it was the feminisation of my male name that annoyed her.   So I got into the habit of using my real name with the Miss boxed ticked or Miss written alongside my name and I haven't had the slightest problem with this.  If someone were to make a fuss of this I would simply tell them that 'Miss' was my preferred title, which it is, and let them infer the rest.   There is no law against considering yourself to be a member of your opposite biological sex, and by using my legal male name there can be no accusations of fraud.

There are some people here who are under the impression that I am one of those very young, very passable transgender girls. *  The first part may be true, but the second part isn't.  I assure you that I have agonised for years regarding my appearance and my passing.   I saw any number of attributes that needed drastic changing and the realisation of the extent of the change necessary became overwhelming.   That is when I started to seriously question the whole concept and thoughts/attitudes and deep-seated beliefs that surround transsexuality.  I realised that in that old saying I was trying to take the mountain to Mohammed instead of taking Mohammed to the mountain.   The say that you teach other people how to treat you, and we can extend this and say that you also teach people what you are.   I teach people that I am female despite any physical differences that they see.    had I gone down the pills and surgeries route then there would have been no end to the pills and surgeries and psychologists, psychiatrists, gender-therapists, endocrinologists etc .  I think that it was George Bernard Shaw who said: "all professions are a conspiracy against the laity."   The doctors and the pill pushers and the surgeons will do anything and everything to get you to come to them and start paying their salaries and they will do whatever is necessary to keep you as a client for as long as they want, probably until they retire.  It is sadly human nature.  As is, the fact that there will be a sizeable number who will never accept you in your gender identity.   The rude, the resentful, the bitter, and the unintelligent will ridicule you to your face.   Others will be all smiles to your face and malicious whispers behind your back.   The only persons that I can count on accepting me totally are my mother and sister.   It says in the Tao Te Ching: "If you crave another person's good opinion who make yourself their prisoner."


Apologies to Del for temporarily derailing his thread.   May you have calm seas and gentle breezes Del.


* These members probably think to themselves:  " Just you wait my dear, just you wait another 15 or 20 years, then we will see if you are still singing the same song then Missy".

Odd thing to post in the hello section.

It doesn't matter to me that Del is christian and cisgendered. It doesn't matter how he felt when he came here, or now. All my interactions with Del were friendly and respectful. I don't see any need to call my goodbye to someone "gushing thankfulness." See ya, Del!

Quote from: Valeriedances on August 16, 2011, 07:54:33 PM
I agree. He was a nice fellow while here. We'll miss him.

That was my experience of him... always quick with a kind word when I felt low, which has been far too often these days.  I'll miss having him here!