If we are so delicate that we will turn these little molehills into life-altering mountains, what kind of future did we have anyway? My transitioning (which is still pending, more or less) does not magically make my feelings more important than anybody else's. It does not entitle me to special treatment and special consideration. Our culture is what it is and it was here long before I chose to transition. It consists of countless more people than just me. As such, it is my job to adapt to it, not vice versa. My issues, however deep, are mine and mine alone. The world does not owe me respect for my having transitioned. That is something I earn - or not - and ultimately it will have nothing to do with having transitioned, in the context of my role as a "complete" woman. Once my transition is done, then I am a woman, and that is that. Not "a woman who used to be a man physically." It will not matter where I came from or what I was perceived as yesterday. Isn't that the whole point of transitioning at all?
From what I'm seeing nearly everywhere I turn, it usually isn't the point at all.
It seems that the vast majority of people in any subdivision of the LGBT community are always on edge, just itching for a fight, always needing to crusade and advocate and jump into the ring with somebody. Looking desperately for the next thing to take offense at and using that as justification to go after this person or that group. As if we were the ruling class with a life mission of finding all among the peasantry who do not properly fall into line with our dictates. It could be construed as the ultimate in narcissism. I did THIS, so now you owe me ... and you ... and you ... if only it were so easy.
We are not the only one whose reactions, feelings, and needs matter. There is a ten times larger subset of people in any culture who did not transition. By virtue of sheer numbers, they come first. I am not condoning "beating up the ->-bleeped-<-" in the parking lot of the bar after hours. Basic respect can and should be demanded by anybody. But does it stop there, or is it an endless quest for more power, more power, more power? I am speaking only to general attitude. Nobody owes us. As the minority, it is our job to fit in, adjust, adapt, and find our way, once the point of basic respect is reached. Our culture isn't about us. We are not more important than any other group, from people who play D&D every night to off-roaders to whatever else you could use to group people together conceptually.
Beating others down, whipping them into shape, will never create any kind of life for us. I am not transitioning in order to be "transgender." I am transitioning to be a true woman; to bring the physical body into proper alignment with every other part of me that has always been purely female. Once there, my purpose in transitioning is not served by hanging onto both physical identities, even if one is only "what I used to be." If that is kept alive as the driving part of my existence, then I have pissed away everything I claim to have transitioned for. Once I am physically female, then I am wholly female, a whole and complete woman in every sense that matters in our culture, and that is what will drive my life from that point forward. We don't go to college as people who "used to be in high school but we can't let go of that so we are trans-educational." We show up for our first day in college and we are expected to be where we are - college - and do what we came there to do. Nowhere does the high school world we once occupied but don't any longer factor into that.
There are crusaders, advocates, etc. who have been crusading and advocating for decades. They may even have accumulated a few of what they call "successes," having beaten people down, pressured them into some forced behavior that is in line with whatever political correctness rules the day. But to what end? Looking back on the civil rights movements, the Black race as a whole arguably has far more complaints today than they ever did before the movement. The women's rights movement of the seventies produced the same results: four decades later, the same complaints persist as if the movement never occurred. Force-engineering society through demands and oppression does not make for a happy society, if communist-era Russia and China are any indication.
My concern is with being a woman, forgetting where I came from as far as that being any kind of relevant factor that my culture should care anything about, and doing what I do ... as a woman. We are all babies who transitioned into toddlers then grammar school kids then we transitioned into post-pubescent pissy impossible teens then we continued to evolve and morph into whatever we ultimately are today.
All the above is just one person's opinion and it is worth exactly that much. I do not expect or demand that anybody else adopt it, like it, embrace it, or anything else. The point in posting it is to give it exposure as one possible framework to place the entire transition process into. Most people are automatically swept away by the current of popularity: if you transition, you are then expected to crusade, fight, scream, advocate, etc. What if you don't feel like doing that? What if that isn't any more who you are than the physical sex you left behind? Every now and then, all it takes is exposure to a paradigm and something clicks; the light bulb goes off and suddenly we have found our "home."
The point is to be who you are. If you are truly a crusader at heart, then that is who you are and no matter how right or wrong others make it, it's still who you are so that's what you need to be doing. It is "a" way, as valid as any other, but not "the" way.
