I'm sorry for the overly dramatic title there! I thought it would be a nice change from the usual "Hi!" "Hello!" "IT'S ME!!" titles. Not that those thread titles are bad in any way, as they describe exactly what the thread pertains to. I guess I have always just felt the need to separate myself from anything considered "usual" and instead revel in the "weird"... Yes, I know, that is a bizarre and seemingly pretentious psychology. Sorry!
Aaaaanyway... before I begin to talk about who I am, I should mention why I'm here. I frequent quite a few different forum sites, most of which being video game forums, yet it never occurred to me until I woke up a couple days ago and told myself "I need to find a transgender forum FOR transgender people!" that there actually are transgender forums. The reason I need to find a forum, such as this one, is because - quite honestly - it is an absolutely
massive struggle trying to be myself, as the woman that I feel I truly am inside, on forums and the like that don't really see a lot of transgender activity. Or, rather, it is not that trans-folk don't play video games or post on forums, it is more that trans people don't really make themselves "known" on different places on the internet, with due cause, as I've learned over the course of my journey on this path.
Video game forums, or video games for that matter (specifically online video games), naturally require a lot of interaction with people. While I can interact fine through typing, it gets... hazardous to talk to people over a mic. It doesn't make me feel particularly good for people to (usually) assume I'm a woman on the internet and then hear that I sound like a dude. That TOTALLY feeds into the ridiculous stigma, and internet meme, that girls don't exist on the internet. It's sad... and I don't want to be the person who propagates that kind of stereo type (G.I.R.L.=Guys In Real Life or other stupid crap like that). You know, it's implying that I am a liar and that I have insidious goals towards unsuspecting prey! No, it's just that I want to be myself, in any situation.
It just so happens that "gamers" tend to be some of the most immature people on the entire planet! There's my stereotype, for the sake of irony, but it's true. If I said I was transgender on a video game forum, which I made the mistake of doing so before, it just bloody SCREAMS for trolls to invade your inbox and/or any threads that you've made. Interestingly enough, when I mentioned who I "really" was, I had gotten more positive reactions mostly from GUYS, of all people, and it was only the so called "women" who tried to give me a hard time. One such person with a particularly foul attitude, aside from a minor incident in real life on a bus, actually succeeded and was the first true taste I got of the bitterness and resentment towards the trans community that some people hold. Even though it was on the internet, I think I am still scarred by it and I think it pushed me further into the little box that I've been steadily trying to inch my way out of.
My point being is that it feels difficult to say what I want to on such forums or, indeed, in video games when it would be incorrectly considered as a "lie" by some, if not most, people who are undoubtedly uneducated about ->-bleeped-<- or other fairly ignorant people who feel scared, threatened, and insecure around people like me. It becomes a great burden to constantly feel the need to check the way I'm writing to make sure it's not too girly or not too "guy". That said, I've had to kind of play the androgynous role in most cases and give vague answers riddled with humour when gender comes up and I am mentioned in the conversation. Like I said, most people usually assume I'm a girl on the internet, which of course in my mind I am, but whenever my gender is specifically mentioned... I'm just at a total loss of words! What, do I outright say to an MMO guild (or something similar) "Yeah, I'm a girl!" only to talk on the mic later and have people thinking that I somehow "tricked" them?
The answer might appear simple: just don't talk on a mic. Unfortunately, that gets difficult when I have to come up with an explanation as to why I'm not using a mic during a raid or other crucial gaming moment where voice chat functions are necessary. I would then be portraying myself as even more of a "fake" if I went through that route. "Well, don't post on forums if it's such a big deal!" It is but I just can't stay away! No, really, I am a sad, depressed, hooded little gremlin who plays video games and has no friends and then seeks human interaction on internet forums, for the games that she loves. Sad but true -- yes, it needs to change and I'm working on that. It still stands, though, and back to my point that I just can't seem to get to, it is a huge struggle to try to check the way I type, the way I portray myself, in the most femininely ambiguous way possible. It is a huge struggle to interact with people when I, unconsciously or not, desperately want to.
Quite frankly, it sucks... and it's nice to get away from the stifling feeling once in a while and possibly talk to people with the same experiences. For the record, I haven't been posting on many video games forums lately and I have to say that I feel GREAT about it. It was like an entire attention seeking crap-fest! It was horrible. It was really only once I found someone, or more accurately someone found ME, who actually listens to my issues and sees me as a person instead of some hideous monster or a strange, deeply erotic being meant to satisfy a man's darkest desires! If that last one seems creepy as hell, it's because it is. I have met people like that over the internet... some of whom I didn't even know was doing that until I had a big "OOOH!!" moment. Yeah, needless to say, that really made me rethink the way I come off to people.
If you haven't hit the back button yet, hang in there! I suppose now I should clarify who I am. My name is Crystal and I am 19 years old. Obviously, I am a male to female transgendered woman. As you can tell, I do have a lot of self esteem issues and I am extremely shy in nature. These aren't helped by some of the issues that I face on a day to day basis; anxiety, depression, agoraphobia, and ADD to top it all off!!
As grim as it may sound, it's true that if I were by myself I imagine I wouldn't be around on this Earth anymore or somewhere very close to that point. Fortunately, in that regard, I do have a lot of support. It's something that I overlook a lot... when depression totally takes over, I forget that there are transgendered individuals who live in apartments and houses that look as if they're falling apart or just look like a drug den -- smoke in the air, dead people in the bathroom, all kinds of bad news. Having to sleep in rags... no, I fortunately am not in that situation and I need to acknowledge that much more than I do. I am thankful to have loving grandparents - whom I live with - and my mother, and her boyfriend and his family, my brothers, my great grandmother, many of my aunts and uncles, and I seem to somehow be adored by some of my cousins!
I live in San Francisco, probably one of the better places to be for people like myself, and I am starting my transition relatively young! I am approximately three months into hormone treatment, already seeing some welcome changes to my body, about two and a half months into laser hair removal treatments, which is undoubtedly working, and I just started working with a speech pathologist/therapist to help raise the voice that I loathe so much into a voice that I can finally feel happy and like myself with! To make things even more sugar coated for me, I have an overall feminine frame and look about me. It can be described that I have the silhouette of a beautiful young woman and that's certainly much more than I can fairly ask for, being in my situation. I have a lot to be thankful for... but, it's the oldest story in the book, you know: "I want more!" Then I get pissed off and depressed that I can't have more and that it will take a while to have more. Not for bratty, disgusting reasons, of course, but more along the lines of "why the hell was I not born as a genetic woman!" "I have to take hormones my whole life!? This bites!" It's the way to win the game that is life, however, or more specifically my own personal game of life. I can rightfully say that I'm a lot better off than NOT transitioning. I don't see that life progressing very much... that's not winning! It's not even playing the game.
Phew... well, that's me! I know it's ALL about me but that's what this thread section is for! I assure you, I'm not conceited or anything... I seriously hope I'm not! I'm definitely a crybaby but by now you can probably tell that it's something I've been striving to change. It's a difficult transition but the point is that I'm doing it and I will get to where I need to be in the near future. I am getting a massive amount of help from all different kinds and that is so much more than I can ask for. I will say that my psychiatrist has been an absolute pivotal character in my journey thus far. I made the realization and the decision on my own, before I even started to see a psycho-therapist, but he has helped me reduce the jagged edges of my road into a more paved and pretty one, built of red bricks complete with flowers on the side! Yes, that's campy... but I assure you that is all!! Thank you for reading all of this, if you did, and I hope to maybe share some experiences with you in the future!
TL;DNR: Hello there! XD-
The Passage/Crystal/Me
