Sure... I have seen people come to this section and because of the desire to identify, can and do have a similiar reaction to what they read. There are so many similarities to different terms and descriptions that they identify with what they may not necessarily be. Nothing wrong with that, it's everyones learning curve. The problem is, as it can with psyche students, that they don't progress any farther or worse yet, reinforce those assumptions.

It's as easy to do here as anywhere, but I was cautioned and I in turn caution. It can seem like you're on the fast track to understanding yourself, to finding the answers to questions you may not have even realized you had.

It's just the beginning, as things will change, you will change as you discover more about yourself. You will change into who you are from who you thought you were. A mistake in the beginning can slow up that process and make it stressful. That just makes it more difficult on yourself.

I don't think anyone, anywhere, on this forum wants that to happen. But it does, and it can cause friction.
You get more than a couple people who are doing this very thing to themselves together and the results can be disastrous.
Not only to themselves (we don't want this) but, also to others (we don't want this).

Life is a journey. Don't get stuck in a dead end alley.

Ativan

I guess on our Walk about to become who we really are, which I believe is never ending sometimes we see brick walls where there are none.   And then again sometimes we don't see a brick wall where there is one.    I am learning with myself some times I see may changes and many times I don't.   That doesn't mean I am not changing.   Sometimes a change becomes so much apart of me that I don't see how much I have changed.    Progress can not always be measured nor is it always necessary to measure it.   When we make changes at a certain time we need to stop changing and integrate the changes into our personalities and being.   Then we change again.   Sometimes we make what we think is a big change towards becoming our true selves like the first time we go out in heels.   We get all psyched up for a big reaction and the world yawns at us.   Then there are times that we make a small change like our shade of lipstick and all of the world notices we are wearing lipstick which we may have worn for months or years and we feel like a big brick has landed on us.

This happens to me all the time.   I can go out with my girl friend wearing bright red lipstick and after walking around for hours she looks at me and exclaims your wearing make up.   Dah!  I have been for days.

All we can do is be ourselves and change happens for us when we are ready for it.   When we are not ready we may put up all sorts of mental blocks to keep us for doing it. 

As for any assumptions we make in life about ourselves we have to keep checking on them daily and be willing to change then when they become barriers to our moving on.

And yes transitioning for some of us may be like a yo yo.   Especially for us woman because the more we change the more emotional we may become.    Those of us who have defended our selves with reason all our lives may wake up some day and find we have become the dizzy emotional women we made fun of in our more rational days.   Why  because we had been using logic and reason not for the love of logic and reason, but as a means of defense and we had progressed to the point that we did not need them any more and became crazy, dizzy, and irrational woman.   All women are not this way, but I have to realize that some day I might wake up and be more like Sarah Palin in personality and not politics then I ever though possible.   I won't be young and pretty as she is, I will be old and grouchy.

Oh yeah. It makes sense that that would cause friction. I've never understood how people can do that though. It just seems so illogical.

Quote from: Ativan on June 20, 2012, 12:45:37 PM
Sure... I have seen people come to this section and because of the desire to identify, can and do have a similiar reaction to what they read. There are so many similarities to different terms and descriptions that they identify with what they may not necessarily be. Nothing wrong with that, it's everyones learning curve. The problem is, as it can with psyche students, that they don't progress any farther or worse yet, reinforce those assumptions.

It's as easy to do here as anywhere, but I was cautioned and I in turn caution. It can seem like you're on the fast track to understanding yourself, to finding the answers to questions you may not have even realized you had.

It's just the beginning, as things will change, you will change as you discover more about yourself. You will change into who you are from who you thought you were. A mistake in the beginning can slow up that process and make it stressful. That just makes it more difficult on yourself.

I don't think anyone, anywhere, on this forum wants that to happen. But it does, and it can cause friction.
You get more than a couple people who are doing this very thing to themselves together and the results can be disastrous.
Not only to themselves (we don't want this) but, also to others (we don't want this).

Life is a journey. Don't get stuck in a dead end alley.

Ativan

Ativan very good post.  There is another axiom on this forum to this effect, "If you want to transition then you must be prepared to lose all."

Well I do not want to lose all.  Still feel I could have found a better solution.  My goodness I have tested many combinations.  Now I am at one of those dead end alleys.  I did not get to this alley by reading but by trying to reduce confusion of gender.  I encourage no one to follow my route because I travel against flow.  Maybe I will see something that someone else did not see because it is reviewed many times.

If I listen to community I pass if people do not know me; otherwise we have confusion.

I dislike feel of a wig on my head.  If I do not wear wig then effects of T are clear.

I dislike modifying my voice.  If I do not then effects of T are clear.

Is is nice to share your life with friends and modifications must me made for gender presentation or you may end up on an island.

Hey I got outed by a bi-gender friend yesterday.  She was presenting female but talked in male voice and she was called sir.  I talked in my trained voice and wore my pixie and was casually dressed.  No one even looked or  noticed me until my friend outed me.  Turn around is fair play,  Rather ironic.  I think she is MTF.

Trans people that are hostile to me are hostile to other trans people too.

I think many trans people were out for my best interest and they are my friends.

Finally we have different definitions for same word and our own definitions are not static.

I wanted to give a negative point to author of this post but system has a piece of coding that prevented option.

Author is guilty of talking on phone about a close friend (Ms. 1) that outed both author and lady on phone (Ms. 2).  Ms. 2 said to author, "Maybe Ms. 1 is scared and Ms. 1 compensates by being loud and out there."

Author is subborn and comments of Ms. 2 made a lot of sense!

....................

A rhetorical question: "Does society view a trans person that does not pass different from a trans person that passes but is outed?" 

Does it make sense to judge each other in community when society judges all in community?
......................

My old cocker spaniel is both deaf and blind.  She finds her way around by smell.  Sixty seconds after a new person comes in house she will hobble downstairs and walk over and bark at new person then go lie down.  If you make a meal for her and it is not to her liking, she will not eat meal and push bowl around kitchen.  If she wants water she will jump in bathtub and bark until you turn on tub faucet and she takes her drink.

Why are we deaf and blind to each other when majority of us can hear and see?

Quote from: wendy on June 23, 2012, 11:51:38 AM

A rhetorical question: "Does society view a trans person that does not pass different from a trans person that passes but is outed?" 

Does it make sense to judge each other in community when society judges all in community?

Don't actually agree that society judges trans people. From what I see there's far from a consensus on trans people.

I've seen:
* A great deal of people accept trans people in whatever form they come in, outed, non-passing, or proud (my personal favorite).
* A lot of people are ignorant. They see trans people as vain and self serving but when faced with evidence of the wrenching life choices and crushing emotions associated with transgender, find themselves empathetic.
* Some people are judgmental. They think transgender goes against God's natural order . Some of these can be brought around to the point of view that if God created everything in the universe, then transgender must come from God also.
* Some people are terrified of anything gender non-conforming. It forces them to confront feelings that they want to keep buried.
* Some people have a visceral hate of anything that genderbends. Most such people hate all kinds of other stuff too. Heaven help them.

Quote from: agfrommd on June 23, 2012, 12:29:53 PM
Don't actually agree that society judges trans people. From what I see there's far from a consensus on trans people.

I've seen:
* A great deal of people accept trans people in whatever form they come in, outed, non-passing, or proud (my personal favorite).
* A lot of people are ignorant. They see trans people as vain and self serving but when faced with evidence of the wrenching life choices and crushing emotions associated with transgender, find themselves empathetic.
* Some people are judgmental. They think transgender goes against God's natural order . Some of these can be brought around to the point of view that if God created everything in the universe, then transgender must come from God also.
* Some people are terrified of anything gender non-conforming. It forces them to confront feelings that they want to keep buried.
* Some people have a visceral hate of anything that genderbends. Most such people hate all kinds of other stuff too. Heaven help them.

Agfrommd I agree with almost everything in your post except definitions of words.  I view society as "collection of  generally accepted societal principles".  No one has ever physically hit me.  A couple of times people actually made a big deal of me being in their presence and put me in danger.  Occasionally people say a comment loud enough to someone else so that I can hear.  Frequently people are just curious which is no different from any human.  Occasionally I have a cisgender person go out of their way to make me feel part of their lives.

I consider church that I attended for twelve years and taught for as many part of society.  I only go boy mode to church and they know my gender issues.  I walked in and removed my membership.  Their only concern was if my contributions could be placed under my ex's name.  I told them yes and that was my last contact with a church of 8000 members.  I have not gone to church this year and a trans person asked me if I would like to go to church with her.  When we are both available we will go together.

There are no hate crime laws in Georgia. 

Georgia is fire at will state and you can win if employer fires you for reason of being trans, but you will not win if they fire you because you did not follow their policies 100% of time even though cis-genders did not follow their polices 100% of time.

I agree that most people are nice to me regardless of gender expression; however, some people in positions of authority have made my life difficult due to gender expression.

Metro area is much more friendly than rural small towns.

Only people that have a right to feel betrayed with my gender expression are my ex and children.

Probably be a good poll question.

Quote from: wendy on June 23, 2012, 01:49:11 PM

Georgia is fire at will state and you can win if employer fires you for reason of being trans, but you will not win if they fire you because you did not follow their policies 100% of time even though cis-genders did not follow their polices 100% of time.

That's the nasty reality of employment law. A bad boss can find an excuse to get rid of you if he doesn't like you. Either that or make life so miserable that you decide to leave on your own. Luckily most bosses want their areas to run smoothly and if it's a trans person (or gay person or black/jewish/female/kyrgyzstani person) that does their job well, bosses will be thrilled. But there are bigots in the world, and there's little scarier than a bigot with power.

Then there are jobs like mine, where to be effective I need to make a good impression on a lot of people and earn their respect. Presenting as anything but good old traditional male scares the stuffing out of me.

Quote from: wendy on June 23, 2012, 01:49:11 PM
Probably be a good poll question.

Go for it. I love polls.

I put a poll under Transgender section.  I consider people that have a conflict with their birth gender to be transgender even though we have dozens of variations.

Gender identity is an individual experience as is ones transition (either mental or physical) to the person they want to be. I don't know why people can't accept when someone has a differing stance on the own identity? In the end we have all struggled and fought, arguing over it just seems tiring