There used to be someone named Kate Grimaldi who posted on Calpernia's website many years back.  On there she used the name Gray and then changed it to Starbuck.  She was the first person I met who advocated just being a woman after transition.  At the time I believed that I would always be trans.  But experiences caused me to realize I was wrong about that.  I didn't have to always be trans, I really could just be female.

They say that those who can't do teach.  And I find that to be true.  I live in a place where people know I transitioned.  In some ways I can't do.  I know there are people in the city where I live who recognize me as someone who transitioned and I have to live with that and I feel like it detracts from my experience of being female.  I try to avoid people who "accept" me like the plague.  There is a lady who owns a restaurant and I went there for lunch with a guy and she recognized me and told me she, "Keeps me in her heart."  I will never eat there again.

Still I haven't broken my promise to myself.  I never tell people I transitioned.  Because it isn't me, does not represent me and does not give people an honest understanding of who and what I am.  That is why I said you don't even have to be "stealth" to do this, to just be female.

Still I feel kinda screwed having to live in the place where I transitioned.  And I want to be gone from here.  I want to feel like I have more freedom to just be me.

The thing is I didn't really know who I was until experiences sorta kicked me in the butt.  Like most people and especially like men (I think), I had framed my reality.  I had my ideas about what it was like to be "trans".  I decided what my limitations were before I even started.  My reality was handed to me by other trans women and really it was my fear, ignorance and my lack of confidence or belief in myself that strengthened my belief in that self-defeating reality.  But I was not yet 'her', I was not yet that woman so I had no idea what I was preventing myself from becoming.  That quote from the second Matrix movie keeps haunting me.  "People can't see past a decision they don't understand."

Just being a woman is like powerful magic.  It can transform your life.  In my complete ignorance I was given a taste of that freedom when a guy who I thought knew I transitioned, didn't know and took me to a hotel room.  I was at a bar and it was too cold to ride my Harley Sportster back to the city where I lived.  He was a handsome English man with a Land Rover and a wife and kids.  He told me repeatedly that if I got pregnant and ruined his life that he was going to murder me.

He wasn't a good guy and really it wasn't a good situation to be in but during sex with him I realized that acceptance had been a complete sham, an act or politeness and I realized that "acceptance" made every interaction artificial, fake...  Even under the best circumstances "acceptance" tainted my interactions and made them slightly "off" not real.  It was like existing in the Matrix in a dream state, nothing was quite right.

That Englishman gave me a taste of reality.

Having lived my whole life as a pretend man, having lived my life in the closet, once I tasted that freedom and realized I was real and didn't have to seek acceptance or play the part of a woman and have people play along with me.  Once I experienced being the true me, there was no going back.  I wasn't going to go back running into that closet where I played a trans woman and sought acceptance.  I finally knew what it was like to actually be me.

There is no going back for me no matter what.

I will never seek acceptance again.

I have tasted real freedom and nothing else compares.

And I will fight to the death to keep what I have.

A post on a forum like this can't even really begin to convey what I am saying here.  So I apologize for my lack of finesse in trying to explain something that goes (so far) beyond words.

Being able to live as 'female' after going though a M2F Transition does not require stealth however not having people know you transitioned will certainly make it a lot easier and much more enjoyable.  Really it is a commitment to one's self to be true to one's self.  Most people let their fears, doubts and insecurities overcome their commitment to be true to themselves.  And the truth is that most people never experience their true self because they will never allow themselves to experience their true self.

They already have their idea of what they can and can't do, what they should and shouldn't do and what is morally right and wrong...  And most people will go to their graves believing in a reality where they can only exist as a 'trans'woman.

It was an 'experience' that broke me out of the Matrix for a moment.  Long enough to realize how full of it I was.  Long enough to realize that my "reality" was flawed.

My reality was something I had created for myself.  Other people had handed it to me and I (being ignorant) sucked it up.  Because it sounded "right".  It matched all the other trash I had been told all my life.  It was 'familiar'.  And as humans we tend to value the familiar.  We tend to think that the 'familiar' = reality or truth or even honesty... (Refer to 'The Four Agreements' by Don Miguel Ruiz for explanation).

People tend to prefer the familiar, even when it's self-defeating, self-destroying, self-preventing...

That is why women who were abused as children tend to seek out husbands and boyfriends who will continue the abuse.  It feels like 'home'.  And there's no place like home, is there?  O_o

Transition is a physical process:

Clothes
Voice
Hair
Makeup
Breast Forms
Hormones
Surgery
...

Many times it appears as if transition is a sport or a hobby and it's all about buying the gear.

Because it seems to me that most people who transition just accumulate objects.  Maybe to some who transition women are 'objects' and transition is a matter of accumulating the necessary objects and assembling them?  But there is a disconnect because if women are 'objects' and people who transition are... people.  Then being an object is like play acting.  How could it be anything else but play acting?

Women are not objects.

Women are people.

So you should ask yourself, is transition a game or is transition a way for me to really be who and what I am and if I confess to people that I am really "trans" and not a regular woman and if that confession causes people to understand that I am a male who wants to be a female or who likes dressing up as a female...

By the way...

Trans women love to convince themselves of a magical reality where other humans will learn to accept trans women as women.  It's not going to happen.  Regular people believe that trans women are men who want to be women.  And they accept trans women as men who want to be women.

It's only in our fantasies that trans women are real women, unless we stop engaging in fantasy role-play and commit to actually being our true selves.

So...  I would suggest that one needs to add to the list of transition stuff I provided above...

Say what women say.

We learned how to dress female, and we even learned how to speak in a female voice.

Now let's add to that list...

Say what women say.

What do women say and what don't women say?

In order for transition to really work it has to be taken beyond the physical.  You have to actually believe in yourself as being a woman.  The word believe is formed with two words, by and living, byliving = believing.  Because if you really believe in something you will manifest it by living it.  Like talking the talk and walking the walk.  Do women admit to being male?  In Society a transsexual woman is a man who wants to be a woman and he will be accepted as such.  Acceptance is about helping Society to understand that why he needs to transition but Society doesn't believe in magic.  Society doesn't believe that M2Fs become women.  Society believes that M2Fs sometimes look like women, sometimes sound like women... but Society will never understand that you have always been female.  That would take more faith than a religious conversion.  And people won't invest the sort of effort necessary to believe in something you can't show them.

Or can you show them?

You can show them by being the woman you profess to be.  Say what women say, do what women do and never say things women would never say.  Use the magic that exists in you already, it's there for a reason.  ^_^

Sorry to go on but I think this is really important and generally ignored stuff.

This is the last email Kate Grimaldi (AKA Starbuck, Gray) ever sent me...  Her shipwreck analogy

QuoteLife begins anew. The ship goes down and we thrash about in an ocean. We
see an island. We thrash to be to shore ... like transition. Oh God, we
pray, help me swim to the island and I'll be out of these deep, dark,
threatening waters. And we see most never make it to shore. Most others
never transition.

But some make it to shore. Many of those stay close to the breakers and
call out to those still at sea. Most of those at sea stay at sea. Most
that make it shore stay at the edge.

But a few pick themselves up after they've rested. After all, it's been an
ordeal and I doubt anyone can just sprint into the woods. But those who do
not stay at the beach (long with a few who decide to swim back out to
sea), they start to go into the island ... and that's the place you are
now (possibly?) starting to explore.

And this is so different from the ocean. In the ocean there was always the
hope of the island (in the sense of this parable), a place to escape to.
Now what? Can't stay on the beach and become a beach comber, or do you?
Soon there isn't enough. Soon the recollection of the waters and the
amazing swim to shore fades.

So, as you have done and continue to do, you swing your sights inland.
There is the forest and beyond it the mountains. You start to leave the
beach. There are those who are staying behind. They scream and shout.
"Stop! Don't go! You'll die. The boggie man lives in that forest! You'll
fail. You'll always be of the waters from where you came! You fool. You're
deluded. No one ever survives the forest! I went in and I know. It's a
delusion."

But out of the sand and into the pine carpet of the forest that grows
beyond the beach and soon the familiar cries fade. The smell of the ocean
is replaced by the smell of vegetation. The trees close around us. The
crash of the breakers is gone ... and we worry. "Were they right?" We
wonder "am I alone?" We look, "where's the trail?" We grow anxious,
"where's the path?'

But then we look. There seems to be a trail. Someone's marked some trees
with a blaze. There's a r ribbon tied around a tree ... but we're alone
and possibly lonely. Who put these markers up? Did people actually go this
way, before?

Foot prints. The trees are eaier to navigate. We were so used to the
openness of the ocean that we got confused by how enclosed the fores is,
but it has it's own logic (like womanhood) and we get better and better at
it.

The woods seem endless. On and on. We get tired and feel alone, but then
we notice, we are climbing upward and soon we realize we are heading into
the mountains. We come to a spot in what is now a road. Someone's put up a
sign with a skull and cross bones, "Go back before it's too late." And you
know that once you go beyond this point, there is no turning back ... but
you take a deep breath and walk past the sign and head into the mountains
and the path gives out. There are canyons and gullies and no clear trail,
but now there is the rock and sky and there is a logic to this place, too.
And the mountains have a way of showing where to go. You realize you can't
stay here forever, either. The lightning is crashing and it's still
dangerous to be here.

But then there is a break between peaks. A pass! There is a way through
this. You notice that those who have gone before have piled up rocks in
tiny piles that show the way, but you're scared because there will be no
real way to turn back. And we grow frightened. We realize how much we have
given up to come this far and in a way we know we're going to change in a
huge way and we will no longer recognize ourselves. We now know that some
came to this place and ran back, somehow, to put up the skull and
crossbones we saw earlier, but we don't and we go through the pass and we
are so scared because we feel we're dissolving ... inside ... and then we
pass through the pass itself and at first it looks like we've gone
nowhere, but after a while the trail seems simpler. Easier. Ah! We're
descending and we look up from the trail and we see we aren't on an island
at all. We're on the mainland.

We see farmland and roads, and cities. We see people. We see other woman.
This world is not strange, though it is now. But we now live in it. We
obay it's rules, we follow it's customs. We learn it's language. We
respect how it is governed and who is in charge (woman). This is the
women's world and we are now part of it.

That which once was, we left in the mountains and back at the beach. We
didn't die, "he" died. He passed away in the mountains at the moment we
let our real self out. We realized we never were a "he," we only needed
the change to be "she," and it isn't easy, but it fits.

Yes, there are those who are younger, prettier, and all have been doing it
all their lives, but after a while, we can't remember when we weren't
doing it all our lives.

"He" is but a memory ... like a nephew we recall and who we liked ... only
a fading memory. Instead, we live in the now. We live in the way of
females, irrespective of what once was. We are here, not there and no one
can hauls us back to the beach and the ocean. No one has the power to make
us leave for this is our place and we have found it and at last we're
home.

Starbuck

I realize it is time for me to leave the community now.

Be true to yourself.

Cheers,
Noey

First off let me say that I have not walked a mile in yours heels so its hard to know how it feels. I can only imagine that it felt very personal to the bone. I have been very luck with a partner that's been incredible for decades. Unconditional love Through thick and thin and my Orchi.  But rejection hurts at any level. It hits at the deepest part of our psyche.

I would not necessarily conclude it had anything to do with you. Genetic males are often threatened by us because it makes them uncomfortable. But why? IMHO It challenges their masculinity and their not used to it. This gender stuff runs deep and any change to their binary world scares the devil out of them. They start thinking whats wrong with me when I like this women. I am not a real man. The easiest solution is to "run away"  Then they don't have to deal with these issues. They simply go to another women. It's kinda human nature. The thing is we are forced into dealing with these issues. They are not. It's easier to move on. Could be he wanted children someday. A way to leave his leagacy. Who Knows

I have concluded that Allot of the rejection, looks, reactions, stares etc.. that we get are the result of just human nature.  They see something different and take a second look or whatever. Some people react with anger some with denial or simply ignore it and some become fearful. Some wont trust you employ you or talk to you. . I don't think  it's allot different than the discrimination blacks have faced for decades. Its human nature. It's just that gender has not caught up to the main stream yet. Given time I think it will. Unfortunately not in my lifetime.

But I will say girl your gorgeous. The heck with him.

 

I totally agree with the above.  I know it can sometimes hurt when this happens, but this kind of thing happens to most women at some point.  I dont let it bother me anymore..just move on to the next.  He or she isnt worth it if they feel this way.  They just dont get it.  You cant get someone to change their views, especially if they are ignorant on the subject in the first place.

Quote from: Noey Noonesson on September 14, 2012, 02:24:29 PM
I realize it is time for me to leave the community now.

Be true to yourself.

Cheers,
Noey

You'll probably not read this if you're truly leaving, but I have to say 'thank you'.  You've just set up another couple of those markers in the trail for the rest of us.  Thank you for reposting that email.  It truly touched me.

May "he" rest in peace.

-Hope

I feel once your post op going stealth might be the best option.

Instead of saying your trans, you can say something alone the likes that you just cannot have children.  It doesn't even have to be right away but when things feel like they are becoming serious.

I know some people like to be up front, but you are still being up front by saying you are a woman. I don't want to light any fires of course, gotta be who you gotta be and say what you gotta say.  Just opinion.

Quote from: Valerie Elizabeth on September 02, 2012, 09:56:28 PM
Its been a while since I posted here. Probably at least a year.

Recently, I was rejected by a guy because I am trans. I'm post op and have been for a a couple years. I've dated on and off and haven't actually had this issue yet. I was a little surprised by that fact. Every guy I've dated has been ok with it until this one.

I'm not exactly sure why I feel so crummy. I've been rejected before, but never for being trans. I've always expected it to happen, but now that it has I don't know how to process it.

Any advice?

The problem with this, is your trying to get 'inside' this persons way of thinking. Your never going to be able to do it, he might have his own issues that he is battling internally.

Like you said you've never had an issue before, so don't worry about it :-)