Normal is a Vanishing Point

[LeaP]

... However, the path of transformation always begins and ends in transgender identification by any reasonable measure of meaning.

...Transgender people have predictable kinds of pipe dreams. They often involve magical transformations. ...

Regarding the first cite, my experience contradicts this. As with so many other things that have happened, this was unexpected. My thinking on this was identical to yours, that it was inconceivable to NOT have a trans identity. It is conceivable and apparently for others as well, the reality.

I hear things that stretch my credibility, too. Sometimes it's hard to find the line that separates truth from projection. I once disbelieved many things that I now know to be true. I wish I could say that I arrived at that point through some combination of external evidence and empathy, but not so.

I'm gaining a new appreciation of the post-ops's plight ... the utter lack of credibility with those who solicit their views and advice.

[Jorja]

I think that one needs to remember, one persons dream is anothers reality. So the things you hear or read may not quite align with your manner of thinking or personal belief. It may very well fit someone else to a tee. Remember, there are no rules nor a right way and a wrong way to go about transition. It is what fits your situation best that matters.

[Inna]

Most trans people are normal trans people. There is no other kind of normalcy that is open to us. If there were more cismen and ciswomen who actively participated on this site then they would disabuse us of our notions of being normal in any other way.

The only question you need to ask and answer for yourself is how do you want to be trans in your personal and particular way? Once you have settled on the answer then you can forget about the struggle that led you to it. It might be gracious of you to observe that your answer and similar answers by other people who are more like you don’t carry any more authentic weight than the ones that trans people who are more different from you apply to themselves.

You can divorce yourself from the idea of being trans, but you can only do it by divorcing yourself from the truth.

TRUE, if you are locked into your own reality restricted by thoughts of unatainable dream!
However, you can not phantom what reality is for those who had gone further into the realm of Normal!!!
Just as anyone who had surpassed the platoeau of transness should not deminish those who are still dwelling within confine of trans reality, same should be respected by those whose sight is obscured by the conditions of their own limitations!


PS:
Normal is however a limitation of its own definition, a boundary perceived to be the norm. Without not-normal, the progress of humanity such as cognitive evolution and abstract thought would not be possible. Entire evolution is built upon ubnormality within DNA replication, without it, non of what we perceive as normal would had been possible, NON!

[becky77]

Hi Lea, Pink person.
I ask this as I just don't know, how far along the scale of transition are you? Some of this sounds like very clever theory and I wondered how it compares to your own personal experience?

[LeaP]

I consider it still early. Things difficult at home. Discussions at work. 50+ hours electrolysis. 100 pounds lighter. 21 months on HRT.

[KellyJameson]

"However, the path of transformation always begins and ends in transgender identification by any reasonable measure of meaning."

This thinking would be very dangerous to the transsexual in my opinion

When transitioning is about identity, and I say this because there are other reasons I have seen for transitioning that seem to have nothing to do with identity, than it is vital to let go of the transgender identity.

A transgender identity is not a female identity and when transitioning is done because you have a female identity than this identity has been with you since very early in life.

A persons gender identity is subconscious because it is created in the first years of life and usually based on observable differences between girls and boys that the child notices, making clear to them "who they are as what they are"

Transgendered children for reasons that are still partially unclear do not or cannot adopt the identity that corresponds to their external biology.

My own personal opinion based on my experience is it is part biological and part early childhood experiences that come together to create the perfect storm, resulting in the child having the firm conviction that they are the opposite gender than the one they have been labelled with.

This identity is written on a blank slate and how deeply it is etched onto this slate will decide whether it can be unwritten or written over with another identity.

Some children can experience a certain measure of gender fluidity while for others once fixed it is permanent.

Depending on how accepting the childs environment is of their gender non-conformity the child may repress their actual gender identity by pushing it down into their subconscious, much how a child would push down the memory of trauma.

This requires massive psychological resources to be used in keeping it below awareness, but always there are cracks where the identity will leak out and you will witness a person with an unstable identity sometimes showing aspects of Borderline Personality Disorder which is a mental illness related to identity.

With BDP the person loses their identity when the person they live through threatens to abandon them, where with the transsexual all of life is a threat to their identity so each has completely different triggers.

It is really easy for gender dysphoria to look like a mental illness because mental illness often travels with damage to ones identity but gender dysphoria is not caused by trauma but by circumstances that than result in trauma to identity.

For years I was sure that I must be crazy because I could not stop believing that I was a woman when all evidence indicated that I was not.

I was a woman who did not want to be a woman because I was "a man".

This created a constant never ending struggle inside my own head to kill this female identity that would not go away no matter what I did.

I absolutely could not control it because sooner or later I would simply become exhausted and "she" would take over.

It is like being possessed and you see it as foreign and unnatural. You live with a split identity.

Unless you have actually lived this nightmare it is impossible to describe how it destroys your life. You are literally being pulled in opposite directions with two people inside you trying to both have their identities.

Each identity is trying to kill off the other because only one can live. It is not possible to merge these two identities into one cohesive identity because they are opposites like oil and water that MUST be physically manifested to be experienced.

At its heart gender is a three dimensional experience that is understood abstractly.

I was always fearful of movies like "Three Faces of Eve" because it seemed similar to what I was experiencing but without the black outs.

To fully go into your identity you must give up the "crutch" of a transgender identity which is an identity that will keep you locked out of your actual identity leaving you not experiencing the feeling of "reality" as your identity.

There cannot be any doubt about your identity or you will not be able to live it fully.

A transgender identity will stay in your conscious but true gender identity lives in the subconscious beyond "concern of gender" so gender is taken for granted

You must end up in that place where your gender identity is beyond question and feels completely normal.

You must end up experiencing your gender just as everyone else does.

It is such a part of themselves that it seems laughable and ridiculous to even question it.

Instead of you feeling crazy about your gender, others seem crazy when they question it. This is how most people would react if their gender was questioned because it is an unquestionable part of who they are.

A transgender identity will never give you this.

At some point you must leave it behind and come full circle, arriving back where you started in childhood.

[Kaitlyn Michele]

".... However, the path of transformation always begins and ends in transgender identification by any reasonable measure of meaning.

...Transgender people have predictable kinds of pipe dreams. They often involve magical transformations. ..."


We are disbelieved by everyone that is not transsexual.
Gender queer people too.

I'm not an idiot. I get that as a factual matter I had different parts and I lived as a male for most of my years. That's a simple fact. So what.
Unfortunately, because we are stuck in the cisgender world, in some ways my words are just howling at the moon...
Your words win...people just don't buy it, and there really isn't much to do about it other than soldier on without their approval or understanding.. we deal with it...

But what you are missing (and you will always miss) is that my transition eradicated the transness..I have no internal feeling of being anything but a woman. that's the whole point..
...this is totally and completely different than living a gender queer or transgender life where your transness is part of your identity. My identity is woman.

You can say anything you want about it, but when I read and hear things said by gender queer people about my transness I know how different we are. It directly contradicts my experience..



..I love the concept of "by any reasonable measure of meaning"...its delightfully condescending while also being ignorant of my reality

...and transgender people do have lots of pipe dreams...one of them being that they are transsexual.
transsexuals get their pipe dreams pretty well shattered by the time they actually transition..

[LeaP]

It's an interesting phenomenon. In the thread's terms, it appears that people are prepared to believe that normalcy is only experienced by the cisgender population. That anyone else is either naturally trans-identified or perhaps is permanently crippled in a sense by their experience, even if their sense of gender is firmly in the binary. As such, it represents an outright rejection - or invalidation - of transsexuals' lived experience.

But that is the point of the thread, of course. Not just that it is experienced, but how it comes about. My experience, pre-transition, only goes so far, but is easy to extend into the reported experiences like Kaitlyn's. The reality hit home for me when I realized I was starting to make "of course" decisions based on gender, i.e., that I was no longer giving. This did not resolve external conflicts, of course, but it did substantially address inner conflicts.

The process of realizing this state seems heavily dependent on taking action along gender lines. That is, I experience this sense of unremarkable normalcy as long as I don't deviate. A few observations here: One is that trans-identity (for me) is mostly about what I am not, not what I am. It is a reactive self-view (and a negative one at that). Second, is that it affords some insight into what is gender-based and what is not, undermining the position often taken that there's no way to know this. I think it may even undermine the idea that dress is a mis-focus, as it seems rather absurd to divorce having gender reflected from one of the means of achieving it.

The bottom line is that experience is about (gender) confirmation, not comfort or comprehension. Confirmation of this type virtually paves its own way, regardless of issues, angst, or opposition. And I can see why holding anything in reserve against a return, perhaps even including ongoing involvement in the so-called trans community, might tend to perpetuate some trans identity.

[Angela Campbell]

It depends. Some people get so involved in the trans part that they are comfortable and it becomes their life. All their activities, friends, and even thoughts are the life. It is hard to give that up and start all over again. Some do and move to a normal(for them) life.

I'm moving away from the trans lifestyle. I don't need meetings or hanging out with t girls for support, I go out with gg'S and do what I enjoy doing. I wanted a change so I could live as me. The trans stuff was only a way to get there.

[Kathryn Martin]

Originally Posted by Pink Person

... However, the path of transformation always begins and ends in transgender identification by any reasonable measure of meaning.

...Transgender people have predictable kinds of pipe dreams. They often involve magical transformations. ...

Nope, the path begins with identification of the sex you are not the gender (the social construct) that is imposed as a result of your sex. I agree transgender people have a lot of predictable pipe dreams and believe in magical transformations, as in women with penises, biological sex is between the ears etc. You and yours just make me tired. And what the hell does that have anything to do with transsexualism.

[Aprilrain]

What Kathryn says makes a lot of sense. Transition for me was about aligning my body with my mind, I didn't have to change anything but my body. My body said male which was all wrong! It needed to say female, that's what felt right.

I'm not sure what a trans identity is? I guess you could say I identify with the struggles of other trans people if they have been through or are in the process of transition. I know what that's like but quite often the identification begins and ends there. We're all very different people from different backgrounds and walks of life.

......Pink?.......you still there?....... Becky I think you might have frightened him.

[becky77]

Becky I think you might have frightened him.

Hey what did I do? I normally only frighten people off, face to face lol.

[Aprilrain]

It seems you have honed your Jedi like skills, now they work even on line!

[becky77]

Well at least I didn't waste my money at that Skywalker training course!

[LeaP]

I'm not sure what a trans identity is?

Neither am I, really. At the time I was using it to describe myself, I meant it to be indeterminate. As I wrote earlier, it was a reactive state of mind and a reactive way of viewing myself. All it really meant was that I hadn't come to terms with who I am.

"Trans..." makes more sense to me as a descriptor than as an identity. It describes one aspect of what I am, but not who I am. Physical characteristics can drive identity (e.g., little people), but the evidence here is on the side of trans-ness being transitory.

[Aprilrain]

Well at least I didn't waste my money at that Skywalker training course!

No doubt!

@Lea yeah at one time I was too scared to say I was all woman, a lifetime of repression I suppose, but I've been at this long enough now to know that's all I can be, there's nothing else there.

Like I said I can identify with the transition experience but not in a "trans identity" I can see how if you're gender queer or a middle pather or perhaps even a CDer that that might be an identity in and if itself.

[Kathryn Martin]

Saying I am transsexual is like saying I am a diabetic. If correctly managed with diet and some drugs and a bit of surgical intervention it's like it never was even there.

[Inna]

I still post here, even though I feel miles away from the subjects at hand.
I believe that everyone perceives their world within certain bubble, within that bubble is their immediate history, present and future. Our past becomes less rigid the furter the distance to these events, so our childhood is considerably less attached to today then events from several months ago.
It is the direction we yearn after which brings us forth into the realm of who we are.
As for me, I never stopped seeking absolutness, a term I use lightly as it seems unutainable within its own definition, but a dream constantly in sight, a measure of reality and comfort.
I always wanted nothing less then womanhood, of course limited by confined of contemporary medicine, yet far outreaching reality of the days gone by, when I could had settle on mere mid point of transness.
But I knew, that if my life was surrounded by any label of less then woman, I would simply leave this place for good, as I have already done so once, unsuccesfully.

So you see, I beleive, that reality isnt what limits us, but reality is what dreams we strive for!