QuoteInteresting assumption here that the person with the $$$ came into life with said $$$. Some people who have $$$ did not get there by privilege but by the very means you describe:
Never said I had any problems with those who had done what they had to do to have the money before beginning transition. More power to them, wish I had been able to develope and retain enough to get me by and see it all through.
Trouble is, like many others, I was relieved of more then enough money carrier potential when I simply could not work along those lines anymore and valued my sanity more then the money, then on a new scaled down job path, I came out in an area that wasn't exactly understanding of such things and found myself removed. With the financial overhead I had, and an inability to find new work without identifying as male again, I went though all my savings, 401k, credit cards etc. until I went back to a very unlikely form of work. Drywall, where they cared not what I looked like or behaved like, only my performance, which though I was by that time in my later 40's was still outstanding in an almost totally male occupation where around and usually before 35 the complaints would start about being to "old for this".
Drywallers generally work by necessity in teams, but I couldn't find anyone who would work with me because they didn't want to be associated with what I represented to them, so I took out the last of the money I had, bought a Panel Lift, or Three Toe Joe as they are commonly called to raise and hold sheets of drywall to the cieling so you can stand on a horse or climb a ladder to screw the sheets down and went to work with my new "partner" who could care less about me being "queer" and we made a living together, though it tended to cut, bruise, and callose me up as well as mess with my attitude. I only did that for a little less then 3 years and with considerable help found and relocated to the job I have now, though I have to admitt to using a lot of male past and associations to obtain some of the information involved and assistance to get hired in the first place. Get my foot in the door so to speak, from there on, it was up to me. It would have been so easy to simply change back to male identity and keep my nice coshy consultant job and just keep me inner self more private until I had the cash to get it all done quickly, but I found that once the decision was made, I couldn't pull back out, for any reason.
About the privialage? As a male I found I was automatically accredited with having certain abilities which were not considered valid in females and as a female, I never would have attained the kind of trust and perceived compentcy I had achieved as male. There are so very few females to be found in some of what I used to do, even at present.
Obtaining a job of responsibility at good wages in the first place as a woman, especially as a transsexual woman is hard enough in the first place, if not impossible given certain areas, and gaining recognition and respect in that job afterwards isn't a piece of cake either. Doing so is the real RLT, when you are totally judged by what you are and can do on present status rather then anything you have done in a male capasity. And there is a difference in transitions paid for by money aquired as male or with male mode pretentions as opposed to doing it with money aquired totally as female while having to legally cover up past life and establish new identity at less then the wages that could be earned with using male influence and at times impression or afilliation with the old male identity to ease through the rough parts.
And yes, it can easily come down to the "haves and have nots" when talking about taking a confirmable Full Time, no backsliding stand in life and having to find new work in a female identity and finance the transition as such as opposed to those who have built and aquired the means as male and when pressured, use male identification to obtain what they need and want. It does kind of make for a very different mind set and greater sense of accomplishment for those who have had to make it from scratch as female rather then make it as a combination of male and female.
Having the money to transition on and a male built job or means of living before and during transition doesn't make one any less valid, it simply makes them different and not have the same view of life. There are those who have to simply throw themselves into the fire without having any idea if they will actually be able to come out the other side or not and those who can start with full confidence in the knowledge that they will retain the comforts of life and will unquestionably, barring some extream catastrophy, obtain surgery.
If you haven't simply thrown yourself into the fire with no reasonable reason to have any security in the outcome, with only your own confidence in yourself and your conviction to let nothing stand in your way but time, not knowing if you will be totally broken and trashed or achieve your goals, then you can have no idea of how some can feel about those who they perceive to have it easier because of male privialage influence, even if that Privialage was duly earned.
Wars fought by generals in the War Room are viewed in a slightly different context then the soldier in the field, sloshing through the mud and earning a few purple hearts on the way to the end, whatever that may be, though they both be soldiers.
Terri
