This is, I guess, the problem that I always dreamed of having.

I met this woman  three years ago  this July. We fell in love. She simply adores me and often jokes that she only loves me for my body.  (Thanks Dr. Kunaporn BA SRS in 2007) We have talked about marriage but in California we cannot yet legally marry. I have changed everything (even my high school diploma!) except the gender on my birth certificate from Maryland. So I never disclosed and the weeks turned into months and the months into years. At this point, I don't think it would matter. I have actually dropped a few hints, such as revealing that I still go to an electrolysis  to clear up the last few remaining facial hairs. (BTW for those starting out, get this done first and do not rely on laser.) And I disclosed that I take estrogen.

Anyway, I think I need to eventually tell her (especially if Prop 8 is reversed and we decide to legally marry) but I do not know how.

Well congrats.

If you are female what does the past matter?  Why bring it up now?  What do you hope to achieve?  Are you prepared to be the guy who wants to be a woman? (in her mind)  Does the past and what you did draw you back like a moth to a flame?  Does a dog always return to it's vomit?  (Metaphor, not intended to be insulting BTW) just something to think about.

If you really are a woman and if being a man was really that wrong and if the past is just the past and if you had a reason not to tell her before...  Why now?  What do you hope to achieve?

Some women have hair removal done.  Hair removal doesn't equal non woman or trans necessarily.

Laser works great on dark hair.  Don't discount laser.  Some people use laser to stunt or knock back hairs that are too light to be permanently affected, I did that for a while and it was a waste of money, yes.

Why isn't your birth certificate changed?

QuoteMaryland

Statute: Md. Code Ann, [Health - Gen.] § 4-214(b)(5) (2006).

Text: (5) Upon receipt of a certified copy of an order of a court of competent jurisdiction indicating the sex of an individual born in this State has been changed by surgical procedure and whether such individual's name has been changed, the Secretary shall amend the certificate of birth of the individual as prescribed by regulation.

Notes: Unless the court order specifies otherwise, amended certificates will show any changes that have been made.

Summary: Maryland will issue a birth certificate reflecting the proper sex.

It's okay to be female.  If you think it is important enough of a thing that you have to tell her then that means that it matters.  It shouldn't really matter.

I would tell her before getting married, if you broke up with you just because of that you probably don't want to marry her anyways. Kind of curious though, do you have to lie about your past or pretend to be on your period, or are you just kind of vague about it all? I guess she would take not telling her harder if you were like that then if you just were vague and didn't mention it.

Kate

I totally understand not wanting her to know and think of you being the other way. I got married a year and a half ago in a lesbian relationship. She knows though but other than my family nobody else knows that I ever had that problem.

Quote from: Noey Noonesson on June 21, 2012, 11:53:29 PM
Well congrats.

If you are female what does the past matter?  Why bring it up now?  What do you hope to achieve?  Are you prepared to be the guy who wants to be a woman? (in her mind)  Does the past and what you did draw you back like a moth to a flame?  Does a dog always return to it's vomit?  (Metaphor, not intended to be insulting BTW) just something to think about.

If you really are a woman and if being a man was really that wrong and if the past is just the past and if you had a reason not to tell her before...  Why now?  What do you hope to achieve?

Some women have hair removal done.  Hair removal doesn't equal non woman or trans necessarily.

Laser works great on dark hair.  Don't discount laser.  Some people use laser to stunt or knock back hairs that are too light to be permanently affected, I did that for a while and it was a waste of money, yes.

Why isn't your birth certificate changed?

It's okay to be female.  If you think it is important enough of a thing that you have to tell her then that means that it matters.  It shouldn't really matter.

This is exactly right. *you just DONT* she will never understand anyway, and will cause her all kinds of grief. Who you were in the past doesn't matter either, she accepts you for who you are as she knows you now. Don't go confusing her with things, she really will have no idea how to understand, most people just don't get it, or ever understand a thing about GD, I really wouldn't mention this at all.

Just my two cents, and good luck sweety

Oh, Berkeley,

I have a different perspective on this issue than most who have responded here so far.  My lesbian love-of-my-life and I have not been able to marry either; in Oregon we are in what they call a "registered domestic partnership", which basically means that we're married in Oregon.  We plan to travel to New York in the next year or so and actually marry in a more traditional sense.

I'm in a similar situation as you in the sense that most people who know me, so far as I know, are completely unaware of my trans history.  I'm not going to frame this response to your question as an admonishment for how you should behave.  Instead, this is a declaration of my own moral standard for how I conduct my life relative to those who I love.

I was 33 years old when I transitioned.  I'm 47 now.  I have never, never, never dated anyone without first telling them about my trans nature.  (That is true pre and post transition.)  When I say without telling them first, I mean, before the first date.  This is just my standard of behavior.  A lot of people have a real powerful issue with this whole fluid gender thing.  First off, I believe that a person has a right to know who they are making their heart vulnerable to.  But that's neither here nor there... this is just my feeling on the subject.  The more important point that I want to make is that, if someone is going to have an issue with the reality that I am a trans woman, I want to know before I've made my heart completely vulnerable to them... for my own protection!  For the security and sanctity of my heart!

I don't lie in relationships.  I just don't.  The longer a significant lie continues, the more likely that the deceived party is going to take it badly and feel wronged when the lie comes to light.  Even as a youth, long before transition, I never had a problem finding lovers who happily accepted me for who I am.  The woman that I'm now partnered with, who I intend to spend the rest of my life with, actually loves me BECAUSE I'm a trans woman.  She's attracted to trans women.  I don't know why.  And it isn't as though there's anything at all overtly trans about me except my history.  But hey, why would I question it?  She loves me; I love her; we got married.  It doesn't get any better.

Someday your love is going to find out the truth of your history.  I mean, where is your family in all of this?  My spouse knows and loves my mother.  She's hung out with my father.  She knows my big brother and my little sister.  My dear friend from when I was a teenager comes over and hangs out with us sometimes.  She knows my ex-wife.  How could I ever hide my history from her?  She's seen the photographs.  She's read my journals.  She knows every detail of my long life... she loves me; she doesn't want me to leave out a single detail of where I've been, who I've met, things I've done.  She wants to feel herself an intimate part of the grand adventure of my lifetime.  And I love her for that.

If you find some small meaning for your situation in my story, well, I feel blessed for that.  If not, thank you anyway for this opportunity to share.

peace,
Miharu

Quote from: Miharu Barbie on June 22, 2012, 11:44:38 AM


I don't lie in relationships.  I just don't.  The longer a significant lie continues, the more likely that the deceived party is going to take it badly and feel wronged when the lie comes to light.

This is really toxic thinking to me.  The implication is that women who transition aren't really women.  I have entered long debates in the past with people on the web who tried to explain that we are women, we are just relegated to being "trans women".  Then when I would explain that they are creating new type of human, a "trans woman" they would get bent out of shape and accuse me of not accepting "trans women" as women when really they were the ones creating the division by saying that if you don't confess to a partner that you are trans then you are a liar, deceiving someone who loves you into thinking you are a woman.

So anyway...

I just don't appreciate the accusation (Stated as fact) that women who transition who don't tell their partners they transitioned... that those women are liars and deceivers.

Partly because by making that statement the implication is that we are not really women.

Quote from: Noey Noonesson on June 22, 2012, 05:18:19 PM

This is really toxic thinking to me.  The implication is that women who transition aren't really women.  I have entered long debates in the past with people on the web who tried to explain that we are women, we are just relegated to being "trans women".  Then when I would explain that they are creating new type of human, a "trans woman" they would get bent out of shape and accuse me of not accepting "trans women" as women when really they were the ones creating the division by saying that if you don't confess to a partner that you are trans then you are a liar, deceiving someone who loves you into thinking you are a woman.

So anyway...

I just don't appreciate the accusation (Stated as fact) that women who transition who don't tell their partners they transitioned... that those women are liars and deceivers.

Partly because by making that statement the implication is that we are not really women.

Exactly. The way I see it, you got it all right. But she will probably have it lingering all the time for the rest of her life, and maybe it doesn't feel right having that 'burden'. Who knows, maybe her gf doesn't mind, as it really doesn't make a difference. It's all very ironic.

Quote from: Noey Noonesson on June 22, 2012, 05:18:19 PM

This is really toxic thinking to me.  The implication is that women who transition aren't really women.  I have entered long debates in the past with people on the web who tried to explain that we are women, we are just relegated to being "trans women".  Then when I would explain that they are creating new type of human, a "trans woman" they would get bent out of shape and accuse me of not accepting "trans women" as women when really they were the ones creating the division by saying that if you don't confess to a partner that you are trans then you are a liar, deceiving someone who loves you into thinking you are a woman.

So anyway...

I just don't appreciate the accusation (Stated as fact) that women who transition who don't tell their partners they transitioned... that those women are liars and deceivers.

Partly because by making that statement the implication is that we are not really women.

its not implying that they arent really women its just that when your with someone you should be onhest about your past , a close relationship should know no secrets . i mean if your adopted you probably would tell your partner you are doesnt mean your parents arent really your " parents "

Something to consider....


When we transition it generally goes like this

1. Clothes
2. Makeup
3. Hair
4. Voice
5. Hormone blockers and Estrogen therapy
6. Name Change
7. Surgery
8. Paperwork
9. Confessing that we are actually not real women, that we are instead 'trans' women.

If you are in love with being trans and if trans is what you are about then by all means, love it and embrace it.  Feel free to deceive partners for a date or two and then confess to them that you aren't what they thought you were, you aren't a woman, you are a 'trans' woman, a new category of human being.

I have been told by coworkers that I need to be honest and not deceive customers into thinking I am a woman.  What if a customer is attracted to me, what if a customer mistakes me for a real woman and tips me.  Dishonest of me huh?  Not fair of me to allow a customer to be attracted to me because I am turning him gay, tricking him, trapping him.  right?  So where do you draw the line?  Confess that I'm not a real woman after the first date?

What if instead of number nine...

Quote9. Confessing that we are actually not real women, that we are instead 'trans' women.

What if we changed number nine into something like...

Quote9. Believe in yourself.

I previously mentioned a list of things that a transitioning woman does in order to transition.  For me transition isn't about playing a real woman, it's about being a woman.  Not an act, not pretend.  Because some part of me has always been female and is the very basis of my transition.  I suggest that you try believing in yourself.  My experience is that you don't have to spend the rest of your life with a trans narrative playing in your head.

Learn to ...

10. Do what women do.
11. Don't do what women don't do.

For instance women don't confess that they are actually men who transitioned.

12.  Say what women say.
13.  Don't say what women don't say.

The result is that you will begin to enter into female head space, assuming of course that you have mastered all the other steps of transition.

The fact is that the past does not exist in the present unless you continue to refer to it and use it for the purpose of modifying the present.  If you were to master steps 1 through 13 you would find that in a short amount of time you would have a female history.  Sure... if you wanted to you could dig past that female history, rake some muck...  Just like you can dwell on any unhealthy thing you choose to dwell on.

In my experience most people are unable to exist in the moment, simply because they have so many ideas about what and who they are, about life and reality and everything.  People tend to think they are their ideas and the truth is that when confronted with the idea that their ideas are wrong, most people react like their lives are being threatened.  Because most people believe that they are their ideas, that their ideas make them who they are.  And if their ideas were proved to be wrong...  OMG, they would cease to exist.

This is why meditation is so important to the human experience.  The act of meditating successfully... to exist without any thoughts for a period of time...

It is the experience that an individual continues to exist without his or her thoughts, without his or her ideas.  It tends to be a PROFOUND experience for most people.  People who don't even realize that their heads are entirely full of circulating ideas.  Ideas that they feel create their experience, ideas that actually narrow, squeeze out and limit their experiences.

I believe in freedom.  I believe in being who I am.  I don't believe that I am a pretend woman and I don't believe that I need to confess to a partner that I am actually a trans woman.  I don't feel that when I am perceived as a regular woman that allowing that to continue is maintaining deception.  I believe I have accepted myself and I encourage others to do the same.

The fact is that when we confess to people that we are actually trans we communicate that being trans makes us different.  Essentially we are telling other people, "I am not actually a real woman, I am trans, a man who desires to play a female in real life and I love you and want you to know this truth about me because it is important, real and cannot be ignored."  Congratulations on becoming your own worst enemy.

The fact is that if we placed more importance on accepting ourselves (for real acceptance) and putting importance where importance is due - that other people would begin to accept us in the same way that we accepted ourselves.  That is the thing about inferiority and insecurity, lack of belief in one's self. Other people pick up on it and carry it for us.

Feel free to be true to yourself.  Above all other things be true to yourself.

Quote from: Noey Noonesson on June 22, 2012, 05:18:19 PM


I just don't appreciate the accusation (Stated as fact) that women who transition who don't tell their partners they transitioned... that those women are liars and deceivers.

That's one way of interpreting it, Noey.  But I believe (from my way of thinking) that there's a larger issue involved.  The fact that I tend to disclose my trans history to intimate partners has nothing at all to do with how I see myself (or how I see trans people in general) and everything to do with what others almost certainly consider to be important things to know about their most intimate partners.  In other words, there are certain significant, life altering events that take place in the lives of some people that others might want to know about at the beginning of a relationship.  The issue of disclosing this very significant event in my life (my gender transition) has EVERYTHING to do with protecting myself from the negative reactions of others.  We can never predict how another is going to react when they hear that the journey of our lives included, somewhere along the line, corrective surgery related to a gender mix up at birth.  Some people are very accepting.  Some people are extraordinarily hostile about such things.  Some people turn homicidal over this issue. 

The ONLY reason that I tend to recommend early disclosure to those we become intimate with is FOR OUR OWN PROTECTION.  When I'm having a physical, loving relationship with someone, the reason that I would describe withholding information about my gender transition as "lying by omission", is because I know that almost no one (in my experience) would consider social/surgical gender transition to be insignificant information to have about someone that they are intimate with.  And again, we can't know how ANYONE is going to react to hearing about this historic event, but we can be assured that the vast majority of people are going to have a reaction.  It's good to find out sooner rather than later whether this inevitable reaction is going to be a positive one, a negative one or somewhere in between.  That's all I'm saying.

I apologize for offending you.  I will graciously bow out of this conversation at this point.

Hugs,
Miharu

Quote from: mementomori on June 22, 2012, 05:41:15 PM
its not implying that they arent really women its just that when your with someone you should be onhest about your past , a close relationship should know no secrets . i mean if your adopted you probably would tell your partner you are doesnt mean your parents arent really your " parents "

One of the greatest lies because it sounds so moral.  The lie that lovers should have no secrets.

My experience is that lovers should have secrets.  And without secrets the relationship will loose it's savor, become tasteless and then the two people will drift away.

Part of successful relationships is not sharing everything.  A man should do his things, apart from his wife.  And a wife should have a life of her own.  These are things that make people interesting.  Also time spent apart creates a stronger bond.  If you love something set it free.  No one likes to be a slave in a relationship, even less an empty confessor who has puked up every detail about his or her life to someone.  When you have puked up every little factoid about yourself to someone you become a relic.  You are no longer alive to that person.  You are yesterday's news.

A Little Less History, A Little More Mystery.

This is what keeps a relationship alive.  This is what makes you an interesting person.

Ever notice how some people seem very intelligent until they open their mouths?

No one really gives a rat's ass what you think about politics and religion.  If you agree with someone else on everything then there may be no confrontation but there is also nothing to maintain interest.  Part of a relationship is the mutual unfolding of two people.  Two people who are changing and growing, new chapters are being written and your partner is waiting for the next chapter to come out.  That is a relationship.  Two people who puked up every aspect of their lives are just two people who know a little too much about each other.

Feel free to be your own person.  A relationship does not equal a sale.  Your partner is not buying your soul.  This is not a matter for CarFacts.com and last I heard slavery was illegal.  I value loyalty over honesty.  Who needs to know how many boogers you have eaten in your life.  If you masturbated while thinking about your mother or brother or sister, who cares?  Who gives a sh1t that you ran a stop sign or stole a candybar when you were nine years old?

The human animal is the only animal who punishes itself a million times for a single crime.  So you were born with GID, get over it (assuming that physically you can).

The problem with creating your own reality and morality is that it becomes a means unto itself.  Like worshiping a statue of a gold ox.  Sure.. it may feel good to believe that a giant gold ox in the sky is looking out for you.  But eventually all that time spent on bent knees and all those blood sacrifices... they take away from your life.  You could have used that money to take a trip to the South of France instead of buying all those goats for the blood rituals.  All gods have their commandments, "Thou shalt always be a male and thou shalt spend thy days wanting to be female however thou shalt never believe in thine self or fool another into thinking thou art a woman."  Such 'reality', such 'morality' becomes a graven image.  A means to it's own end.  Instead of you living a full and rewarding life you serve some words that are circulating in your mind endlessly until you take your last breath and settle into your eternal slumber.

Choose your gods carefully.  Decide which Master you will serve.  Or become your own Mistress.  The fun thing is you get to choose as long as you haven't fooled yourself into believing that those circulating ideas in your mind are 'reality'.  Unfortunately the average person spends his or her life fooling his or her self.  It is what people do.  Quiet lives of desperation.  Entire tomes have been written on the subject...  Henry David Thoreau comes to mind but it seems the more people read and rely on others for their ideas the deeper they entrench themselves in circular thinking slavery.  No one seems to want to sit and spend a few moments not thinking but the truth is that if everyone did the world would be transformed.  http://www.mro.org/zmm/teachings/meditation.php

If your going to bring it up do it with some way that is like you have given enough clues that she should have known all along anyway. That way she has the freedom to just agree and ask you why are you bringing it up now? Tell her it might come out due to some job  etc etc. Making it into a big thing can become upsetting to her and you.

Don't worry about offending me.

Many if not most people spend their days looking for an opportunity to be offended.  It is another way to waste time and energy.

I just want to avoid the tired old, "When to Confess,"  Topic and show the world another alternative.

If your going to bring it up do it with some way that is like you have given enough clues that she should have known all along anyway. That way she has the freedom to just agree and ask you why are you bringing it up now? Tell her it might come out due to some job  etc etc. Making it into a big thing can become upsetting to her and you.

Quote from: Miharu Barbie on June 22, 2012, 06:15:36 PM
That's one way of interpreting it, Noey.  But I believe (from my way of thinking) that there's a larger issue involved.  The fact that I tend to disclose my trans history to intimate partners has nothing at all to do with how I see myself (or how I see trans people in general) and everything to do with what others almost certainly consider to be important things to know about their most intimate partners.  In other words, there are certain significant, life altering events that take place in the lives of some people that others might want to know about at the beginning of a relationship.  The issue of disclosing this very significant event in my life (my gender transition) has EVERYTHING to do with protecting myself from the negative reactions of others.  We can never predict how another is going to react when they hear that the journey of our lives included, somewhere along the line, corrective surgery related to a gender mix up at birth.  Some people are very accepting.  Some people are extraordinarily hostile about such things.  Some people turn homicidal over this issue. 

The ONLY reason that I tend to recommend early disclosure to those we become intimate with is FOR OUR OWN PROTECTION.  When I'm having a physical, loving relationship with someone, the reason that I would describe withholding information about my gender transition as "lying by omission", is because I know that almost no one (in my experience) would consider social/surgical gender transition to be insignificant information to have about someone that they are intimate with.  And again, we can't know how ANYONE is going to react to hearing about this historic event, but we can be assured that the vast majority of people are going to have a reaction.  It's good to find out sooner rather than later whether this inevitable reaction is going to be a positive one, a negative one or somewhere in between.  That's all I'm saying.

I apologize for offending you.  I will graciously bow out of this conversation at this point.

Hugs,
Miharu

You have a lot of ideas about your life.  To me that is unfortunate and I wish I could show you an alternative but Rome can only be disassembled one brick at a time and you have to do the disassembling yourself because it's your architecture. 

Good luck

Noey, you are extremely right. At the same time, Miharu is talking about the REAL world, where meditation is, as you said, something almost ignored by most. That place where you can even get killed if you get unlucky with people, and to a certain degree, where people prefer survival to soul searching. Sad but true.

Quote from: Elena G on June 22, 2012, 06:46:57 PM
Noey, you are extremely right. At the same time, Miharu is talking about the REAL world, where meditation is, as you said, something almost ignored by most. That place where you can even get killed if you get unlucky with people, and to a certain degree, where people prefer survival to soul searching. Sad but true.

Well you have chosen your version of reality and supported it with your ideas.  You suggest that in "The Real World" (which I assume is the name of your personal version of reality)  that I can get killed if I am unlucky with people.  Oh that sounds so scary O_O !  And are you suggesting that I am living in an imaginary fantasy world?  It seems pretty obvious that you are.

And my post had nothing to do with soul searching. 

Quotesoul-searching
n
deep or critical examination of one's motives, actions, beliefs, etc.
adj
displaying the characteristics of deep or painful self-analysis

I remember a long time ago... I was so afraid to transition.  I was certain that if I did transition in my little conservative town that someone would kill me.  I had heard about a trans woman who was gunned down (murdered) while mowing her lawn.  I was so sure that something like that would happen to me if I transitioned and no doubt others might have agreed with me.  I mean, there was proof, a dead trans woman, murdered while mowing her lawn.  And I was so certain I would be unable to survive.  I knew I would loose all my customers.  I knew I would end up homeless.  I knew my family would disown me and never speak to me again.  I knew and I could point to the experiences of others to demonstrate that I was right.

Just like you did in your post, the one I am replying to.  As you stated, if we just live as women we will be killed!  O_O  And we can prove it because some people will agree with you and we can point to other trans women who were murdered and obviously they were murdered because of what I am proposing.  Right?  Wrong.

And let's face it.  We all get to pick and choose.  And some people are not cut out for what I propose.  For one thing you have to do the ground-work first.  This isn't something for people who are considering transition to cut apart and dissect.  Instead allow them to learn about breast forms or lipstick and focus on the whole one step at a time thing.

This is for women who transitioned who can pass as women, in the company of other people.  In the bed room, in the board room...  On the street, under the sheets.  This is for women who can be around someone for eight hours a day, day after day after day and pass as female.  This isn't for the woman who had SRS three months ago and then left a bar with a drunk and got lucky in the back of a Buick.

Let's take another look at your, "Real World."

Or more specifically the "Real World" of people who share a situation like the situation of Mirahu Barbie.

Let's explore Cognitive Dissonance

QuotePeople tend to seek consistency in their beliefs and perceptions. So what happens when one of our beliefs conflicts with another previously held belief? The term cognitive dissonance is used to describe the feeling of discomfort that results from holding two conflicting beliefs. When there is a discrepancy between beliefs and behaviors, something must change in order to eliminate or reduce the dissonance.

Trans Woman = Cognitive Dissonance

Especially in the case of the Trans Woman who got married before she transitioned.  Or in the case of any Trans Woman who remains around people who knew her from before transition.

QuoteExample, Cognitive Dissonance

Betty believes she is a woman.  She lives with people who knew her as a man.  She wants to take transition as far as she can but no one is going to forget she used to have a male name and male genitals.  So she has to marry her reality with the reality of others and find some balance, a compromise has to be made.  She can't forget the past because it exists in the minds of others, others who she continues to have a relationship with.

It happened like this...   Herbert marries Laura.  Later on Herbert decides to transition to female by entering a process of medical transsexuality.  He she (Herbert) changes his her name to Betty and determines to have as much a female life as possible however Laura will always remember Herbert as the man she married.  They have a shared history and Laura has always been female and compares herself to her husband lesbian wife.  Perhaps Laura is resentful, she didn't sign up for this and her husband betrayed her by selling her on something and then changing everything.

In order to reduce this dissonance between desire and shared reality, Herbert who is now Betty - can either leave the relationship or reduce her emphasis on being a female. In the case of the second option, dissonance could be further minimized by emphasizing the positive qualities of being the trans woman in a relationship with a natal woman, rather than focusing on the limitations that being the 'always trans' woman creates. It is difficult though, always having someone to compare yourself to, someone who knew you and married you before you changed your sex.  This situation would be even further complicated if Betty had sired children prior to changing her sex from male to female and especially if those children continued to be present in her new situation along with her wife.

So what kind of man murders a trans woman when he finds out she used to have a penis?  A murderer, most likely a violent murderer.  So if you don't want to be murdered by your partner then get to know your partner before you hook up.  People used to do that.  Get to know someone before sleeping with them.  Find out if they are violent or have a history of violence.  I know it sounds like some trendy new thing but it has practical applications.

I realize that as a community we love to blame the trans woman.  Insist that she deserved to be murdered for tricking a man in to thinking she was a woman.  Who are we to believe in ourselves least of all to allow someone else to believe in her self.

And there is always risk.  I could walk across the street and be hit by a car.  An airplane could crash through my roof at any moment... Hmmm I am still here.  Haven't been hit by an airplane yet.  Imagine that.  And the fact is we don't always know the rest of the story.  It is like we see a snippet of someone's life and try to imagine what the rest of their life was or is like.  Someone has an angry outburst in a mall food court and we might think, "Oh look, an angry ->-bleeped-<-, how rude."  A trans woman is murdered and we assume, "Hmmm obviously she deceived the guy she had sex with into thinking she was a real woman.  As people we seem to have to know everything and when we don't know we tend to make assumptions.

I will say this though, what I propose may seem scary and if it seems scary to you feel free to spend your life doing things that feel safe.  Which reminds me of a story about a family that wanted to live in the safest place on the Earth and so they chose the Falkland Islands and then some crazy stuff began happening that they never would have anticipated in a million years.

So leave me to my weirdo meditating and deep soul-searching and be more sensible than me.  Most people are way more sensible than me so feel free to join them ^_^

QuoteAny time there is insufficient reward there will be dissonance.  The general principle seems to be that people come to believe in and to love the things they have to suffer for

The woman who transitions who is never accepted as female comes to believe in and to love being trans.

QuoteAll of us including criminal justice officials try to believe in a just world and in a just world people who behave in a normal way will not be subject to crime so if someone is a victimized there must be and they are trying to look for some way of attributing the crime to the victim and as long as we as researchers and practitioners are aware of this psychological mechanism of self defense in order to preserve your own peace of mind then we can actually change our behavior and show much more understanding and much more empathy for the victims who deserve our sympathy, who deserve our respect.

Jesus Christ, Noey, calm down. All I was trying to say is that (and you KNOW this) the world, unfortunately, doesn't work as well as you'd like too, and that I agree with you. If you don't want people to assume things that are not entirely true about other people, PLEASE don't do it with me.

Thank you.

Ok I'm chiming in being a ciswoman who has been married twice and watched relationships for over 25 years.

I don't think you should tell her. 

I don't think you should tell her because you haven't told her for 3 years.  And if you haven't told her for three years then she's going to have a bit of emotional whiplash and go back over the relationship whenever there is a problem.

I do believe people should tell people going into a relationship but I really do understand why people don't.  You are a woman and always have been a woman and you just adjusted the outside.  But many people don't understand that.


There are certain things I don't think people should reveal.  Ex.  An ended affair with no long term consequences.  Zip it.  It's only going to create grief.

And in this case it's not so much that you are the woman you are,  it's that you kept this from her for 3 years.  If someone forgot about something or didn't think it was important and it came out years later,  and the "wife" got upset with the "husband" (binary roles in this case) if the "husband" was clear on it,  he could say I just didn't think it was important and it will blow over.

But coming and announcing it sounds like you are talking about it for a reason.  If you think she "needs to know" then it sounds like you think there's a problem here.

There's no problem. You are a woman who is with your love.  Be with her.  The past is gone.