Gender fluid before TG?

[Zooey]

Robin, to modify your analogy, I always thought I was American. I mean, I thought I understood what Americans were saying, for the most part. I thought I got the culture, and that we were all using the same references.

Eventually, I started vacationing in France. I had always been interested in the culture, and had periodically owned/worn a beret, but I was shocked by how much more comfortable I was there. Not in an easily explainable way, but deep down, things were just easier. It felt like home. So I moved there.

While I was in the process of packing up my stuff in the US, I started talking more directly to my old American friends about culture. We had never really talked about it before; we all ASSUMED we were coming from the same place. Turns out we weren't, and that we couldn't have been more different. Turns out I was never American - I was always French.

So, I guess what I'd say is that you are not on a ship, lost at sea, being carried somewhere by forces unseen. You're already from somewhere, and your job is to hopefully figure out where that is before you die in a strange land, never having known home. Take ownership of your identity, and do whatever you can to figure it out.

If that's visiting every country in the world, great. If that's going to the place you always wanted to but could never afford or were scared of, do that. If that's buying an island and trying to start your own country, then good luck but you gotta try. Just remember that this doesn't average, and that there's a difference between identifying clearly as two things and identifying as something in-between. You can't create the experience of living in Kansas by spending half your time in LA and half in New York, no matter how often you make the flight.

[LeaP]

The only fluid in these analogies is the ocean. People don't live in the ocean, fish do. People enjoy it for a while, may travel over it, but eventually have to get to land. If you have to swim to live, stay in the water. Whatever you do, don't shake your fins in rage at the people on land. They'll just stick you in an aquarium.

Hmm, but then there are aquatic mammals, amphibians, birds that never come to land ... Such a SPECTRUM!

[Tina_gm]

Gendermutt,

Transitioning should have a huge freeking scare factor, it is long, hard, brutal. It's not something for the faint of heart or for those that are not quite sure if they are TS or not. It's not something to fool around with or toy with.

Yes there have been many warnings on here, "don't transition unless you have too" is a common one and is to be taken very seriously. Like you said lots of people lose everything, some people lose nothing but most likely you will end up in the middle and face some loses.

I lost my career and am still trying to rebuild, I planned, plotted and talked it out with my therapist for over a year before I could no longer take living the dual life and had to toss that one final grenade. While my employer was very supportive and we still talk regularly since I ran the Canadian operations of the company we ran out of work and I was laid off. What I did not anticiate was having to interview for jobs. And let me tell you there is nothing more discouraging than being passed over time and time again for jobs that you could do with your eyes closed. I have even had a couple of places come right out and say they did not hire me becuase I am trans..

So long story short, transitioning is damn f'in hard. Only do it if you absolutely have too!!

Megan, thank you for addressing my post. I have "considered it" but the consideration, the thinking about it always led to the same spot for me. That transitioning seemed harder than staying as I am. Staying as I am isn't always easy, but I guess the way I am looking at it, so long as it is livable for me, it is the better option to stay put.

I draw a weird parallel to my 1st marriage, which ended but not due to gender related issues. (I was in such deep denial and not CDing). It was never a good marriage. But, I took my vows seriously. Slowly over time, it just kept getting worse and worse, until I had nothing left to give. Now I look back and think that it was all just a big waste of time for me. I spent years being miserable. My life toward the end seemed just one of survival to get through the day. Had I only accepted that it was a failed marriage and ended it years before I did, it would have saved me so much misery. I became a BETTER father after the divorce. I became a better person all around. On the other hand, and I think this is true of my current wife, who was in a somewhat similar situation with her 1st marriage, it isn't the misery factor which prompts a change, you have to be ready to make that change. I guess I wasn't ready. My current wife tried once to end her marriage but wasn't ready to. Even though when she ended the ending, she wasn't going back to her ex out of love or happiness. She just couldn't handle the ending of the marriage at that time. He tortured her both times, the 1st, she couldn't handle. The second time, she was ready for his torture, and survived it.

There are some who are TS and either have or are transitioning that were in a similar place as I am I would imagine, but there are others who stay at this in between place forever. I am not predicting an outcome. I am just living life where currently it is in the better place for me to be. I could very well be where I need to be gender wise. But, for those who are TS and transition, when the time is right it works out right. But just about all say they eventually realize TS is not something you become, it is something you always are, or were. Years of suffering and misery would have been avoided IF ONLY they were ready to pull the pin.

[LeaP]

Hindsight always seem so perfect. But it's not. Chances are were any of us tossed back into our original circumstances and time the outcome would be exactly the same. Just as with your first marriage, GM, our ethics, upbringing, social milieu, religion, etc. all have their place in how and why things take the path they do. This is far deeper than a simple lesson learned situation. When we advise others to jump ship and shortcut the process, sometimes we just find that we are undercutting their values.

Like you, from one perspective I spent far too much time in a failed marriage. 20 years! I know that at the end I had concluded that I couldn't live with myself unless I had tried and exhausted every possibility to salvage things. I did that. Unfortunately, it also took me many years to really understand where my responsibilities were in the situation. I had to change to get to the point where I could actually try – really try. It was probably too late anyway and there are circumstances which rendered my efforts irrelevant anyway I suppose. Hard lesson… But what are you going to do?