Yes, I've often wondered what it would be like to have had my body to begin with. The fact is that I think it's a better life to be a cis-genered woman than a transwoman. Here in Denmark we have no rites of passage for transwomen, and participation in established female rites of passage is abnormal to say the least. There's no sense of community and belonging as a transwoman, you're always "the other". People can be sympathetic, they can be kind, they can be cooperative, but they'll never completely see me as a woman in the same way they do a cis-gendered woman. And there is no third gender rooted into Danish culture which is equivalent to those found in North American tribes. You're a guy or a girl, game over, cash in your chips.
I hear so many women say "I'd give anything to be a normal, heterosexual man. But I'm not, I'm a transwoman."
This is essentially an acknowledgement that cis-gendered people have better lives and are more accepted. It's an expression of a desire to belong. I have the same desire, only I say things a little differently:
"I'd give anything to be a normal woman. But I'm not, I'm a transwoman."
I don't want to surrender my identity as a female. That's me, it's the core of my existence. Why should I even want to change that? I want to change the frame, not the engine.
