What do MTF transsexuals mean when we say that we cannot live as men?

[tgirlintransition]

I ask because I struggle with this ...

Do all genetic men who happily live as men do so because they like their bodies, their gender roles in society and at home (as provider and protector), their stereotypical male hobbies, their sexuality, their genitals, their "manly" lives, ...?

I'm sure there's a spectrum among those cisgender males too. Some might like their lives as men and some might not. Some might like some of the things that are part of their lives as men while others don't like those things.

What is it that pushes us, MTF transsexuals, over the edge then (while many cross dressing males can still live as men)? What is that edge? Is it some combination of the things - like gender role + secondary sex characteristics, or genitals + sexuality, or ...? What is it about living as men that bothered you the most?

[Renee_E]

The thing that bothers me the most is I never fit in a men's group. I have always been more comfortable with a group of women. Women's interests and conversations are more in tune with what I like in life. I spent most of life trying to fit in with males only to feel I am on the sidelines. With groups of females I feel included and part of the group.

[Hope]

I mean, on a very fundamental level, that who I am, when forced to live as a male is not who I am.

It isn't that I didn't enjoy some "male" activities. I did enjoy some of them.

It isn't that I had stultifying body-dysphoria. I didn't (don't) like having a penis, but it DOES function properly (less and less every day thank you) and it does bring a certain amount of pleasure. For the most part I just tried to ignore it unless I had to interact with the bloody thing in some way.

It isn't that I wasn't up to the "challenge of manhood." I STILL outperform most men I know. (I have to now).

It was simply that living in that body, in that role, was not who I was. It was simply wrong. I was a round peg jammed into a square hole... Sure, it got the job done, but it wasn't right.

What is the difference between us, and cis guys? Simple, cis guys never think that they might be misgendered, it simply never occurs to them. That is the nature of privilege - those who have it are completely unaware of it.

Honestly, the issue isn't so much that I am physically unable to live as a man - god knows, I did it very effectively for 35 years. The issue is, that it has come to such a place, that it has become so intolerable to continue to endure the mystery of life in this role that makes no sense to me, that death is a plausible alternative, and an alternative that would be preferable to going back to having to go back to living that life that was not mine.

[Kaitlyn Michele]

:hugs:the number of ways to think about this is overwhelming..

you have to simplify it... hope's comment's have a lot of wisdom..

Cisgendered people NEVER seriously contemplate changing gender roles...our plight is literally incomprehensible.. just like it seems incomprehensible to us to not think about it.....after transition, changing my gender to male seems incomprehensible....how interesting..

Yesterday i went xmas shopping and it was all very femme and i got stuff for my sister and daughters...i visited some friends for coffee and xmas gifts...and then i went home, opened a guinness stout, watched football, played skyrim and bashed power chords on my guitar until bedtime... not very femme at all...it never occurs to me though that i'm anyone other than myself..i never think about my gender at all!!! I have to remind myself that i am living as female, because when you are in the right gender role, you just don't think about it....it doesn't matter anymore that i am female..it just is..

....

i bring that up because almost every thing you talked about in your post are simply traits of genders...i'm not trying to tell you to throw your list away... but i will tell you that the list will likely only help you to focus on your suffering....agonizing over every little thing...i wouldn't be surprised if something "male" comes up, and if you are happy about it, you wonder omg, maybe i'm not ts...this is no way to live..

If you are going to transition its much more important to get your ducks in a row to transition well than to constantly punish yourself with worry and doubt..

many of the starter steps are totally or mostly reversible..especially hair removal..
i think there should be a law...no transition talk until after 100hrs of gov't mandated electrolysis...that'll get rid of the guys..

pls trust me, if you proceed with electrolysis, spend alot of time out in the world as female, start HRT (all of these things are reversible!!!!), you will know much more about yourself than making lists...

[Steph.TS]

For me I find myself alienated, I don't related to men that well, I go down stairs to the shop where the conversations are about sex, or pron or something else of that area. I also feel like I'm unable to join in on the women's conversations, to give you 1 example on Firday I saw a woman at my work have a nice nail polish it was black with gold specs or sparkles in it, I wanted to say how I love her nail polish but I immediately thought that men generally don't get enthusiastic over nail polish so I toned it down to 'that's really interesting nail polish' wishing I gotten more into the topic but left it at that to avoid the issue. I got my ears pierced, before I did thought I asked a woman I work with if I should get them done, and she said men that get their ears pierced look like douchebags, I want to buy beautiful earrings but I am careful not to get drop earrings or overly feminine earring as to not draw that much attention to myself...

the there is clothing, the clothes available to men are a bit drab, nothing that excites the imagination or gives any reason to get excited about fashion. I bought my first high heels and thought that they looked so cute i couldn't wait to wear them, the only time I can wear them is to my trans support group. there you have dresses, skirts, styles of pants men would never wear, the variety, colours etc... are all amazing and leave me envious.

then there is the role of being male, I haven't dated, gotten married or even had sex, I've thought about it but somewhere in me the desire was enough to force me to go for it, plus I honestly don't see the plus side in being a male because most of the 'man interests' aren't there for me, I look at marriage and dating from the man side of things as a bit depressing to be honest.

then this the physical stuff, I want breasts, I want to have soft skin, less or finer hair, I find myself generally ignoring I have a penis but when I can't I either pretend I have a vagina, or get irritated at it.

Basically I'm left where if I don't transition I am in a position where I don't fit in, except for a handle of friends, and I'm denied from talking about what I really want. Where Jewlery, and clothes are denied to me because I've sure be mocked. I don't dare get involved in a relationship as the role doesn't fit me and as a man it's simply not appealing to me, so I'll be alone for the rest of me life. To top it all off I'll be flat chested, hairy, and have a penis. what woman would like to live like this?

[Kristy_K]

I never really got along with men or the things they usually talk about from a very young age. This my sound funny but consider myself very shy before I transition because I didn't want to go any where and meet people or let people see me. I worry about what people thought or felt they was laughing at me. I always try to hide my male parts.
Whenever I look in the mirror I hated what I seen and never wanted my picture taken because I was to a shame of myself. For years I thought this was just because I was so shy and I seek out many programs for shy people with very little successful results.

Since I have transition I don't worry about what people think when I go out in public because I feel I am just being myself. My friends calls my a social butterfly now. I have more friends then ever before. Even so most are females. I love my picture taken now. I tell people they may see me as a minus one when they look at me but when I look in the mirror now I see a ten plus and proud of it. I look forward towards tomorrow and next week or next year. I look forward towards just living now. People has asked if I ever quit smiling. It seems that the more chances I take to be myself the more people like me for being and they encourage me to keep it up.

I am able to live life now with love and passion.

[Aprilrain]

Like Kaitlyn said you are making list of the characteristics of gender which is fairly nebulous. Gender expectations change all the time, sex on the other hand is pretty concrete. Are you a female or not! Wether or not i like to knit or play football really doesn't matter. Just as those men you surveyed disliked aspects of their gender so will you find woman who dislike aspects of theirs. I have yet to meet a woman who enjoys menstruation except if she thinks she is pregnant and doesn't want to be! I have to keep reminding myself that life isn't fair, My dad has been telling me that for years yet for some reason I still think it should be.

[Julia_in_Pa]

For me I could not live in a utterly false and deceitful way concerning my presentation.

My gender presentation and my mind were way out of sync.
I purchased a handgun to kill myself with if I failed at transition.

It was that serious and that dire that I correct it.

I hope that helps you.


Julia

[Rianna Humble]

I think Hope said it quite well (especially the bit about it not being me). However, for me I think that it did go a bit further than that

I didn't know how to relate to men as a man no matter how hard I tried. I found it difficult to make friends with other women because they thought I was a man and I couldn't relate on that level. Even when I fell truly, madly, deeply in love with someone and would have liked nothing better than to spend my whole life with her, I could not act on that because she was hetero and so deserved to have a man in her life and I didn't understand how to be that.

More recently, in the run up to my RLE, every time I had to put on men's clothing and pretend for another day that I was a man, I had to physically prevent myself from throwing up. The very strain of trying to assume a role that was wrong for me had become too much and was literally making me sick.

In contrast, I find it much easier to relate to others now because they don't expect me to behave as something that I am not. I have made more friends since beginning my RLE than in the previous 10 years combined. Someone who has known me for a long time has commented on how much nicer I am than Robert used to be - she put that down to me not having to cope with the conflict between who I am and my birth sex.

I can only try to answer your question about what pushes us over the edge compared to CD's by reference to my own experience. I tried to use cross-dressing as a coping mechanism but it only served to underline to me that I was not living in my correct gender and thus I became even more depressed.

I think that what bothered me the most about living as a man was that because I never understood how to do it, I was very bad at pretending. In the end, I got fed up with living a lie and it came down to a straight choice between the lie and living.

[Badtranny]

There's a couple of posts here that I feel really muddy the waters. I feel like the OP is a little off base and her list is just a list of crappy things. Or nebulous as April put it.

I remember catching a lot of poo from people that I really respect back when I was trying to divorce the "dressing" from the "being". I just felt like the line between CD and TS was getting blurred on the forum. I wasn't getting my point across very well, but when Steph talks about fashion choices being on the list of reasons to transition it really upsets me because I feel like it trivializes our struggle. I swear on my new bottle of Lip Envy, that wearing pretty clothes was NEVER on my list of reasons to risk everything. Of course I love wearing cute clothes, and I love to shop and wear perfume and I'm "girlier" than many of my GG friends (so they tell me ad nauseum) but those things are no reason to go through this. Many women TS or GG do NOT particularly enjoy being traditionally feminine and I am personally offended when people who should know better even mix "dressing" or any kind of pretending with the hard reality of being a TS person.

I'm going to a Holiday office party next month down in Bakersfield (see: rednecks) where EVERYBODY now knows what I am, and this will be the first time they've seen me since they found out. You better believe I'm nervous and anyone who says that I'm doing this so I can wear women's clothes is crazy, delusional or both. This isn't fantasy time for me. This is my real life and I don't do drag and I don't pretend that I don't have a penis, or that I'm a beautiful princess. I'm a transsexual, a freak in most circles and nobody in their right mind would do this to themselves for anything other than achieving harmony between soul and body. That's it. There are no other reasons. I want to see me when I look in the mirror, not a dude.

Why can't I live as a man? To put it simply, I can, I did, and I don't want to anymore.

[Frances]

The concerns on the list were exogenous for the most part. Being transsexual is an endogenous problem. Men often want to escape their lives of men, but not themselves. Transsexuals are caught in prison from which there is no espace, oneself. I still watch hockey and F1, play guitar and do electronics, but the panicky feeling of not being gender congruent is gone.

[Kristy_K]

I'm going to a Holiday office party next month down in Bakersfield (see: rednecks) where EVERYBODY now knows what I am, and this will be the first time they've seen me since they found out. You better believe I'm nervous and anyone who says that I'm doing this so I can wear women's clothes is crazy, delusional or both. This isn't fantasy time for me. This is my real life and I don't do drag and I don't pretend that I don't have a penis, or that I'm a beautiful princess. I'm a transsexual, a freak in most circles and nobody in their right mind would do this to themselves for anything other than achieving harmony between soul and body. That's it. There are no other reasons. I want to see me when I look in the mirror, not a dude.


Very nicely said Melissa. I would feel the same way. Just be yourself and I think you will done fine at your office party. When they see you are really, Most will try to understand.

I believe that when you are really happy then people around you gets happy.

Happiness is like money, everyone wants some.

[Kaitlyn Michele]

the panicky feeling of not being gender congruent is gone.

when you boil it all down to the smallest nub....this is it... this is what you get when you transition...everything else is gravy...

if you can somehow suffer this feeling w/o transition, then you should not transition.. the exceptions to this is if you are young and surrounded by family support and medical support..in this case, transition can actually be a totally positive and relatively straightforward...(not easy..just simpler)

[Inna]

Genetic Male: Gender is fixed!

Questions as to discomfort of being:
am I manly enough?
I need to loose some weight! ehhh, tomorrow!
is my beard thick enough?
Boy that fart was loud!
I need to kick some butt!
I am too soft!
I love my family therefore I provide the shelter.......need more money!
honey I am horny, give me some ass................please!


Genetic Female: Gender is fixed!

Questions as to discomfort of being:
am I feminine enough?
I need to loose some weight!
my skin is getting rough!
Boy he farts so loud, how embarrassing!
He is my man, my hero, am I good enough for him!
He is so handsome!
I love my family therefore I will give them my heart, my soul, my spirit, my time, my hugs, my kisses, my sensuality...do I do enough?!
I love him dearly but can he be satisfied with a good hug, I am soo tired being a spiritual provider, I am trying so hard but he just doesn't understand!

Transsexual woman: Gender is ?????? huuuuh

Questions as to discomfort of being:
who the f&$%#@ am I?

[Debglam]

What is it that pushes us, MTF transsexuals, over the edge then (while many cross dressing males can still live as men)? What is that edge? Is it some combination of the things - like gender role + secondary sex characteristics, or genitals + sexuality, or ...? What is it about living as men that bothered you the most?

I think that the OP asks a good question although I believe it is unanswerable in a general sense. Unanswerable because it is so unique to each individual. I personally agree that if it is not about the clothes, then there is in fact a spectrum of gender identity where there is eventually a tipping point where the individual HAS to transition. If you look at the technical definitions, i.e. DSM, WPATH, they use words like "severe," "stong," "persistent," etc. These are words that are almost incapable of black and white definitions. Is your "severe" the same as mine or anyone elses for that matter? How much do external factors come into play? How was the individual socialized, how repressed, etc?

I'd love to know the answer and maybe someday when the medical community figures all of this out - who knows. Until then, IMHO, the answer is what does this mean to YOU.

[sandra-leigh]

It isn't easy for me to say exactly what it is I don't like about being male. It is more something I know, and any list of reasons I might provide would be at most "evidence" or perhaps rationalization.

Myself, although I "know" that being male is wrong for me, I do not "know" that I am female. Some days it would be easier if I had some particular semi-measurable "goal" such as SRS, instead of the more nebulous "keep doing what feels right at the time and hope I end up more or less happy". (I know that transition is not at all easy, but living publicly with obvious mixed gender is not easy either.)


Is your "severe" the same as mine or anyone elses for that matter?

Yup. Every year at work there is an ergonomic survey in which we are supposed to rate our pain in various areas. There is nothing in the survey that allows one to rate how persistent the pain is or how debilitating the pain is. How does one compare a 15 second toe cramp (painful while it lasts!) to a 24-hour-a-day back problem that moves around? A "wave" of feeling hopeless and helpless about one's gender, or a daily feeling of throwing up at having to wear the wrong clothes -- both are "severe" in different ways.

[kellycan27]

Very simply. I couldn't live as a man because.. I wasn't a man. Take a cis man and dress him up as a woman, and then ask him to live in that capacity then see how he fares.

[Starling]

Hey Kel, that's a great idea for a documentary film! And in fact, it may be the unstated premise of Tootsie.

:) Lallie


...I'm going to a Holiday office party next month down in Bakersfield (see: rednecks)...

Melissa, I deeply hope you have a positive time in Buck Owens country. "Rednecks" certainly aren't all bad, and in some situations a "real man" can come in real handy. Testosterone has brought us many awful things, but a confident man with physical strength and mental determination could save your (or my) life some day.

Of course, in this context I'm not talking about drunken fools desperate to prove their masculinity by pushing people around.

Growing up I always admired manly men, but I was mortified by how badly I failed to match up to their standard. I thought of myself as a weak and cowardly male. When thank God, I finally realized I was actually female in nature, I stopped obsessing about my inadequacy. Instead, I began contemplating the gender abyss, and praying for a rope ladder.

:) Lallie

[Badtranny]

Growing up I always admired manly men, but I was mortified by how badly I failed to match up to their standard. I thought of myself as a weak and cowardly male. When thank God, I finally realized I was actually female in nature, I stopped obsessing about my inadequacy. Instead, I began contemplating the gender abyss, and praying for a rope ladder.

I could not have said this any better even though I feel like I should have written it. I have always been in awe of those guys and attention from the best among them always made me feel great. On the other hand attention from the worst among them would terrify me and drive me further into isolation. I joke about rednecks a lot, but I was raised in Southern Louisiana and lived in Bakersfield for 15 years so I've got a bit of a white trash pedigree. The truth is I am very VERY attracted to big, rough alpha males and a big sweet guy with huge hands a soft southern accent would make me light headed if I thought he was interested.

I have no problem with testosterone either as long as it's not in me. I totally agree with your assessment of a "real" man. I love 'em and I don't even mind that they're goofy and phobic and ridiculously macho, I love that they're different than us. Thank God.

[Longing2be-Trisha]

Melissa well put! Could not have put it in better terms than you did! Bravo!

Big Hugs

[kellycan27]

I could not have said this any better even though I feel like I should have written it. I have always been in awe of those guys and attention from the best among them always made me feel great. On the other hand attention from the worst among them would terrify me and drive me further into isolation. I joke about rednecks a lot, but I was raised in Southern Louisiana and lived in Bakersfield for 15 years so I've got a bit of a white trash pedigree. The truth is I am very VERY attracted to big, rough alpha males and a big sweet guy with huge hands a soft southern accent would make me light headed if I thought he was interested.

I have no problem with testosterone either as long as it's not in me. I totally agree with your assessment of a "real" man. I love 'em and I don't even mind that they're goofy and phobic and ridiculously macho, I love that they're different than us. Thank God.

Works for me as well. Nothing gets me going like a big macho, type A, razor stubbled, assertive, monster in the sack MAN, who would rather rip my clothes off than wear them. I am fanning myself as we speak!:battingeyelashes:

[Jorja]

Well, it looks like you girls have this one under control. No need for my 2 cents. ;)

[ReineD]

Do all genetic men who happily live as men do so because they like their bodies, their gender roles in society and at home (as provider and protector), their stereotypical male hobbies, their sexuality, their genitals, their "manly" lives, ...?

I think they do, at least from personal observation of my sons, ex, father, brother, and the hundreds of other males that I know.

But I've also noticed a wide, wide range to being a man, for example not every male is the stereotypical macho guy who guzzles beer and is into sports. I know men who aren't into sports or cars at all, who like to cook, or the arts, history, philosphy, etc, and who don't apologize for it because they don't experience any gender identity issues they feel they need to hide. There are men who care just as much as their wives what color goes on the wall or what the new couch should look like. And there are men who don't apologize for showing a full range of human emotion.

What makes you trans? The jury's out on that one. :p

[Bree-asaurus]

It means I cannot live another day repressing who I am and putting forth an empty shell of a person for everyone else.

[Badtranny]

Works for me as well. Nothing gets me going like a big macho, type A, razor stubbled, assertive, monster in the sack MAN, who would rather rip my clothes off than wear them. I am fanning myself as we speak!:battingeyelashes:

Oh my goodness. Yes please.

[Traci Elizabeth]

I think simplicity is the answer here.
MTF Transsexuals are not men, they are women, so that's why they can't live life as a man.
Cross Dressers on the other hand are men who enjoy being men but get sexually aroused dressing as a woman.
Men who enjoy their manhood and their masculinity are just that - men. The more "T" they have the more masculine and aggressive they are.

[Stephenie S]

I'm with Traci on this one. Do try not to make this too complicated.

April touched on this too. She asked point blank, "Are you a woman or are you a man?" Those who transition do so because they HAVE to, not because they want to. If you have any doubts, don't do it.

There is NOTHING I do now that I couldn't do if I were male. And yet, I am NOT male. I could not live as a male because I am not a male.

I really think this is one of those times where black and white, either or, male or female, exist.

KIS,
Stephenie

[Kristy_K]

However, being in a limbo with my questions unanswered is almost like a death sentence for me. And that makes me want to end it all.

tgirlintransition you are on the right path. You are asking questions. Do you have a therapist to talk with? You have the experiences of transition with you. You can use that experience to transition back if you need to. You have lived both sides now. Maybe you are like a girl I know. She wants to be and acts like a male but she will wear lots of jewelry and female clothes. To me she likes a little of both sides and she is happy wear she is at.

Something I am learning about my transition is not really as much about acting like a woman but just being yourself. Being a woman just gives you more options to chose from.

[Rianna Humble]

I'm trying to figure out what "severe," "stong," "persistent," etc mean for me. As my pain of being male is no longer as severe or as strong as it used to be, I wonder if I'm now on the border where I actually have a choice now to live as a man or as a woman. And if so, what's that threshold which pushed people to one side or the other.

A common failing in all human beings is to experience relief from suffering brought about by beginning a course of treatment (whether for food poisoning, flu, stomach cramps or GID) and believe that what we have done has completed the cure.

How many times have we begun a 14 day course of treatment for some ailment, then felt better after about a week so we've stopped taking the medicine? Guess what, there is a reason why the doctors prescribe a course of medicine that lasts beyond when we experience the first relief.

So it is with the treatment for Gender Dysphoria. After a relatively short time (compared to the whole of our lives) the hormones begin to relieve the feelings of dysphoria but that does not mean that everything in our life is perfect and we no longer need the treatment. Stop following the treatment and you will progressively fall back into the old anxieties etc.

[Aprilrain]

April,
"Are you a female or not!"
To be totally intellectually honest, I have no idea what it means to be female! I actually have no clue what it means to be male either.

this may sound even more stupid and shallow than some of the post about clothing options but here goes

For me being female means having a female body or as close to it as is medically possible, thats it! that is what makes me a transsexual, I need to be the SEX I was not born into, that is what my brain keeps telling me. The gender stuff is peripheral.

[Violetgray]

Many women TS or GG do NOT particularly enjoy being traditionally feminine and I am personally offended when people who should know better even mix "dressing" or any kind of pretending with the hard reality of being a TS person.

I'm a transsexual, a freak in most circles and nobody in their right mind would do this to themselves for anything other than achieving harmony between soul and body. That's it. There are no other reasons. I want to see me when I look in the mirror, not a dude.


I was hoping someone would make these points.


Growing up I always admired manly men, but I was mortified by how badly I failed to match up to their standard. I thought of myself as a weak and cowardly male. When thank God, I finally realized I was actually female in nature, I stopped obsessing about my inadequacy.


I think some women might be offended by the idea that being "weak and cowardly" is inherently a female trait.

[Hope]

I remember catching a lot of poo from people that I really respect back when I was trying to divorce the "dressing" from the "being". I just felt like the line between CD and TS was getting blurred on the forum. I wasn't getting my point across very well, but when Steph talks about fashion choices being on the list of reasons to transition it really upsets me because I feel like it trivializes our struggle. I swear on my new bottle of Lip Envy, that wearing pretty clothes was NEVER on my list of reasons to risk everything. Of course I love wearing cute clothes, and I love to shop and wear perfume and I'm "girlier" than many of my GG friends (so they tell me ad nauseum) but those things are no reason to go through this. Many women TS or GG do NOT particularly enjoy being traditionally feminine and I am personally offended when people who should know better even mix "dressing" or any kind of pretending with the hard reality of being a TS person.


I like perfume a bit too much too... but then I work at the fragrance counter... so my collection has grown exponentially in the last year...

But the real reason I have to reply here is this - As we have all said 100 times, "It isn't about the clothes!" And it isn't. But the clothes do get us to what it IS about. being female in the world. If I could identify as a woman, and look like a man, and never have to go through laser and electro, and surgery, and wearing heels, and giving up a career - you better bet your sweet bitty I would. But the truth is, that with vanishingly few exceptions, if I presented as a man to the world, and told everyone I was a woman, even if I convinced them to use female pronouns - no one would really look at me and treat me like the woman I am. No one would agree with me. But if I present as a woman, and do it well, and endure the pain and the spend the $$$$$, then I am accepted, and understood as, and treated as the woman I am. And the world, as well as my place in it, makes sense.

It is not about the clothes, but the clothes get us to what it is about. Also, it IS fun to be pretty.

[noeleena]

Hi,

Does one ....have ....to be a man or a woman some of us dont, when you have both & are happy with that , you dont have to prove any thing , i can be very happy doing if it come's to doing things wether male or female . im not trying to be one or the other when you can intergrate both youv nothing to loose yet a lot to gain , & for some of us its, your born that way,

Tho if it comes to a crunch time im more woman in my thinking & my demeaner & bearing , my friends see a woman so i can leave it there.

...noeleena...

[Kristy_K]

tgirlintransition,

I myself just transition four months ago. I find this post and the reply's on it
all very interesting. As you see from the reply's everyone thinks a little different about there transition and why they did transition and what keeps them going.

A therapist won't usually tell you what to do or not to do to a point. My therapist just usually listens and only ask a few questions. But than again I am different then most TS. I transition first and then I seek out a therapist only to get a time stamp on my one year RLE so I could get my SRS papers so I decided to have the surgery if I would have them. I use only cd.com for my support. I don't go to any other support groups. I have my rough times in the transition and think at times is this all worth it and how much easier and cheaper life was before I transition. But then I realize because I did transition I was able to be myself and express myself they way I wanted to. I could take what I have learn about myself and use it be a better man ( maybe) but I feel that wouldn't be the real me and I would be living a life of lies again. If I myself felt I would be better off mentally living as a man I would.

Please keep us inform on what you will do and why.

Good luck to you.

[Starling]

...I think some women might be offended by the idea that being "weak and cowardly" is inherently a female trait.

Ah, but I didn't say that, Violet, nor do I believe it. I know many brave, strong women. I was remarking on my own inability to embody a masculine ideal.

:) Lallie

[Aprilrain]

I am really confused by your posts. On the one hand you list many positives to your transition, you feel more comfortable with your body, your presentation and the way people interact with you, You love pictures of your self now. On the other hand you say you live in prison because you can't decide if transition was right for you, if you should end it all because you ruined your life! I feel that there is something you are not telling us.

What prompted you to survey cisgendered men to see if they suffer from gender dysphoria? Your informal survey predictably ends in the statement of fact that, in spite of any annoyance they feel toward their gender role or bodies they have no real desire let alone NEED to change their sex to make their bodies congruent with their minds. I'm not sure how asking a man who has never had gender dysphoria if he likes going bald is helping you??

Your survey of men is mostly focused on gender role expectations though I acknowledge you also include a few secondary sex characteristics as well. Then you go on to say gender is a social construct which is true. So why focus on these questions then? How does this serve you?

I mean really do you like your role as a woman or not? If not then great you have learned a lot about yourself and you can go out and buy some male clothing and change your name back. If you DO like your role as a woman why torment yourself with these pointless questions? maybe some time spent as a male would help you get to the bottom of this, rather than comparing your insides to the rest of the worlds outsides, especially men! Masculine gender role expectations are such that most men put up a very fortified front to protect their egos.

You clearly like your body better now than before so perhaps maintaining feminine secondary sex characteristics yet living as a (very androgynous) male is an answer to the dilemma you seem to be having. I feel that you have already made up your mind that transition was a mistake for you, as you say you "overcorrected". I assume that you have not had any surgeries and could therefore reclaim your masculinity or as masculine as a feminine male can be that is.

[ReineD]

Just because gender questioning is not common among cisgender folk, it's not like every cisgender person is totally happy with their gender. Actually, they are all bothered by one or more of their gender-specific characteristics or expectations from them based on their gender. However, they do not dislike living as their assigned gender.

That got me wondering, is it the case that I am way more sensitive about the things which bothers genetic males in general? Perhaps my transsexuality is essentially that excessive sensitivity about a collection of common issues of men.

The things you listed that men don't like: going bald, having (too much?) body hair, facial hair (having to bother with shaving?), being eligible for draft, having to be responsible for wife and family (although this is changing since women work as well), lack of close friendships (don't understand this since my sons have very close friends, but I'll take your word for it :)), having to put on an agressive front ... do you think they dislike these things as much as you do, or are they mere annoyances?

There are things that I find annoying about being female, but it certainly isn't enough to make me want to change genders. I'll list a few: not being taken seriously by some men, not having the upper body strength that I need in order to do things since I live on my own now, feeling that I need to conform to the media's ideal of feminine beauty (skinny, pretty, feminine, nice clothes), feeling as if I am not an attractive woman past a certain age (whereas men are attractive at any age), having my sons respect the authority of their father more than mine, feeling as if there are certain places I cannot go on my own for fear of being harmed, being paid less than a man for the same job, feeling as if some of the household chores default back to me (cooking, cleaning, laundry, general picking up). And many women hate having their periods and hate having to wear bras.

But, like most women I roll my eyes at these small (and I emphasize small) inequities, and just carry on, secure that I am a female and I will not change my gender. If I found these things unbearable to the point of causing a major depressive disorder, then I might consider changing some of them, or at least I would structure my life (like some of my lesbian friends) to live strong and not worry about conforming to a feminine gender role, even though they are ostracized for this. If I were gender dysphoric, then I'd likely transition.

I guess I'm trying to say that it is natural to believe that the grass is greener on the other side and everyone likes to complain about inequities. But still, this is a far cry from having gender dysphoria, which is finding things about one's gender unbearable.

I didn't mention this before, but there are trans individuals (both birth males and birth females) who do not feel they "fit" in with their birth gender, yet they also know they are not exactly the target gender either. Is this where you are perhaps? My own SO I believe is such a person, and there are scores of (the non-fetish) CDers who feel this way too. In my view, this is very difficult to deal with, since no matter how we are socialized (male or female), we are socialized to be one OR the other and most people don't know what to make of individuals who fall outside the binary.

I feel for your struggles and I hope you will find a way to resolve them. :hugs:

[Fractured]

tgirlintransition, it is highly personal yet somewhat universal for each person - their inability to align their internal state with the external world (be it their body, society, or a combination) in a harmonious fashion.

I have found some satisfaction in shunting who I am away from trying to be a man and being myself. Appearances are, though, that myself is more woman than man. This frightens me - I've read the stories of transition as well as those of not transitioning. I have over thirty years of experience being someone that I am uncomfortable being and little to no experience being someone I desire to be. Yet I find being this other person is more appealing. I am trying to incorporate this sense of well-being and happiness I find so tantalizingly close that I feel a pleasant warmth on occasion. But I have many hurdles to overcome and the primary ones center around what is important to me.

You ask: Why do I look at transition? I ask myself a slightly different question: Why not?

[Hope]

Thank you for your thoughtful responses!

Hope, Julia, and Rianna,
Your stories seem to be a bit different from mine. You seem to have been at a decision point where I have not been prior to transition. When I transitioned, I was not at a decision point in life between transition and death (perhaps I was not there then, and I might have reached there many years later).

After living as a woman for a few years now, I feel way more comfortable with myself, with my body, and with the way people treat me. In short, the things which bothered me as male bother me much less now.

Feeling a bit isolated in stealth as a woman and never having contemplated death prior to my transition, I wondered how other genetic males feel. I never used to connect with men as well prior to my transition, especially not around very personal questions. Now I do, and exceptionally well. So I asked them.

Seeing that most cisgender genetic males feel even more bothered by some subset of the things which used to bother me a lot previously, I am having serious self-doubt about my gender identity (not that I was ever sure that I was supposed to be "female"). I get the feeling that perhaps I over-corrected via transition.

So while you seem to be confident in your decision to transition, I'm having doubts. While your alternative to living as women is death, my feeling that I ruined my life makes me want to end it all.

Of course I do not repent having explored transition because it has helped me discover myself.


Let me clarify, I was not at the suicide or transition point when i chose to transition. I had seriously considered suicide in response to GID as a teen (I did more than consider actually), but never seriously since then.

When I started transition I was actually VERY tentative and unsure. I was pretty sure I didn't want to transition even. I promised my wife I didn't want to live as a woman (at that point I didn't). My therapist used to "push" me and encourage me to experiment. I was VERY timid at first. It took a LOT of exploration, and experimentation to realize that this is indeed who I am, and to realize (I never made a decision) that transition is what would finally bring me, if not joy, an end to my suffering.

My comment about death being preferable to life as a guy is in contemplation of going back. I would sooner die than go back to living that miserable existence, and I didn't even identify it as being that bad at the time... but I could never do it again. I wouldn't commit suicide - I just wouldn't go.

[Kaitlyn Michele]

It is healthy to seek self awareness.

Male and female are words that can describe our sex organs, our secondary sex characteristics, our gender, our favored traits, and our sexuality (do you like males or females?), and i'm sure other things too..
None of those things make you female or not female.

It's the gender part that seems to be the most nebulous and unknowable. Men and women simply can't easily say what it means to be a man or woman..many people do ask the question..they ask our of curiosity or as a scientific question...but its a given that the answer is at best a guess.

The rub is that it matters so much more to us. Unlike cis-gendered people, we are challenged to actually answer the unknowable question. Our answer can determine our entire quality of life..
Cisgendered people literally NEVER ask this question of themselves..
To them, the importance of the answer is the same as knowing the answer to a tricky math question..

Just parsing through your posts, you seem like you are asking more out of self questioning and maybe even doubt...trying to justify your choices
I urge you to not let the healthy desire for self awareness get in the way of a peaceful, confident and care-free life as the woman you are..
The comfort that you made the right decision is in the here and now, the day to day, not a replay of minimally significant memories of your past.

If you are in a good place now, too much looking back seems counter productive.
If you are not in a good place, no amount of looking back will make it any better..

[ReineD]

I'm guessing that this might come close to the feelings I had. It was not a happy feeling. And definitely a different paradigm from annoyance, hence not exactly comparable with annoyance.

This is what I wanted to determine, since in your OP, you asked why the men you've spoken to also seem to not enjoy certain things about being men and you wondered why these men aren't trans. The difference is in the degree of dislike, whether someone is merely annoyed or if there is a deep discomfort. If you experience the discomfort to the point of GID, then you can't compare yourself to them.

[gabimartini]

As far as I can remember, I've been fighting this battle to fill an ever-increasing disconnect between my feelings and what is expected of me as a male. I've been able to stave off society's demands by behaving exactly as Reine described: never apologizing for being a "different" man, one who's into the arts, gastronomy, and never afraid to show emotion.

I got away with it. In fact, I played the role so well I almost had myself fooled I could live that way. Slowly, but surely, I realized it wasn’t enough. Though being this “different” kind of man does legitimize the expression of some of my feelings before others, it is simply not enough for me. Ultimately, I am still required to act, present and feel male. And I just can’t do it for much longer now.

[Kaitlyn Michele]

you say have been living in stealth for 4 years, are you saying you've changed your name, moved away from your old life, taken HRT w/o concluding in your own mind that you are female??
I have met many therapists and they would be universally horrified at what you claim all the therapists in your city said to you..

btw you mentioned in your last post you are bald??? you must have a pretty spectacular wig to be stealth for that long!!

Hey in the end, do what you want... four years is long enough to figure it out..
sounds to me like you are not getting what you want out of your stealth transition, and the next steps for you are obvious...

most ts people i know that get obsessed with questioning are unhappily frozen in their male role...i don't anyone frozen unhappily in their female role

[Mountain Girl]

I’ve been through a lot of phases, but I never made a list of things I disliked about males or liked about females. Out of courage, or reckless foolishness, or simply because I’ve been generally oblivious of people and things around me, I’ve pretty much always acted on my impulses ... which, before unisex came on the scene, were mostly on the female side of things. But I was already a loner (buck teeth, bad acne, skinny and tall plus neurotic symptoms that put others on their guard), so I was not subject to conformist peer pressure like most people. For the most part, I was not being forced into male activities, behaviors, or attitudes that would later show up on a “why I’m a transsexual” list.

Even when fully dressed as a woman at home I still do things that most people identify as male or masculine, practically all things I learned as a boy when I was being raised as male and long before I became aware of my gender identity conflicts. But my outlook on those things has changed. Take a Coleman stove, for example. As a boy it was a tool often used by males when cooking out of doors on a hunting or camping trip. But I now I tend to see myself more in terms of my mother preparing a family meal.

I most definitely am not yearning to become a woman because I’m trying to escape being a man. Instead it’s about all the many positive things I like about women that I also simultaneously see in myself. Besides, I like a lot of men too, and for reasons that they themselves would want to be liked for (not because I perceive the “feminine side” in them or anything of that sort). It’s nothing negative about men (leaving aside some cultural issues). I just don’t want to be one

Even though I was an unhappy isolated misfit as a boy, I was being brought up as a male, and of course that’s how others perceived and treated me. Ironically, this has proved my salvation. My private and public lives are too intertwined with others to allow me to make the full-time switch, as much as I would like to try it. It’s my salvation because I built up a repertoire of male stuff that I can now identify with a half century later, be reasonably content, and be perceived by others as conforming (including by those who know I am tg or ts, since I’ve made no secret of this fact about me). So I have a new Coleman stove, but only few know what’s going on in my head when I’m cooking a meal on it.

Since I’ve always been unwittingly conflicted and at war with myself, I’ve generally not been aware of what I’ve been missing. I like that one-liner in an earlier post about privilege and how the privileged are unaware of this fact about themselves. But very occasionally the truth about my selfhood breaks through. Recently I visited my PCP, a woman. She knows all about my gender issues, and we had recently discussed HRT on the phone. I was sitting on her examination table in women’s underwear and a bra and I turned my head to look at her as I spoke, and for one of the very, very few times in my life I made eye-contact with another human being. It was such a revelation since for that split second I got an idea of what I have been missing all these years. For that brief moment I was both being myself and interacting with another who recognizes me as that person.

[ReineD]

When I see straight couples together, I feel very sad. I think, "that could have been me, if only I did not fuss about my body hair, baldness, etc", "how did she accept him despite his <name any physical feature considered negative in popular culture> while no straight woman looked past my appearance to ever get to know me, why was I ever born", "I wish I had the relationship he has, and I probably still could, but I'm now stuck on the other side", ...

My SO has altered his male appearance in every way conceivable short of HRT & FFS. Looking at it item by item:


He's had laser facial hair removal so his face is smooth and he never has a dark shadow. But, he just looks like a clean shaven person.
He keeps his mid-back hair tied at the nape in guy mode. But, there are many men who have long hair, especially in his work environment (academic).
He pierced his ears even though he wears no earrings in guy mode. But, there are also many men who have body piercings.
He has trimmed the bushiness out of his eyebrows. But, he also doesn't keep them in an ultra feminine high arch, like many women out there, so the eyebrows are quite androgynous and do not scream "trans".
He keeps his arm hair clipped and legs shaved. But, there are men out there who don't have tons of body hair.
He dyes the gray out of his hair. But, there are also many men who do this.
He keeps his nails long and shaped. This has raised a few questions among people we know, but they just put it down as a quirk.


So appearance wise, he looks great when dressed, and in my view there aren't flagrant, tell-tale signs as a guy. I think she/he is gorgeous in both modes. :)



Long ago, I used to hate my photos. Now I don't hate those old photos or the new photos as a man. I think I look better and a lot more confident now when presenting as a man than previously. So when anyone tells me that I look much more attractive as a woman than as a man, I feel very upset. It's like my male identity still remains with me and I feel emotionally hurt and insulted when anyone calls him unattractive, even if only in comparison with my own female presentation.

Just so you know, I hate, HATE myself in all my pictures. It's not a gender thing, more than feeling as if all my flaws stand out in the pics. I'm not sure why this is, other than the fact that I don't believe I'm photogenic at all. :p

As to your quote, if you care about your male appearance, then it could be you are somewhere in the middle of the binary, like my SO. I think I mentioned earlier that in my opinion this is a very difficult place in which to permanently be, and also be at peace with yourself, since we are all socialized to believe there are only men and women in this world.

[Mountain Girl]

To address again the OP’s question about what MTF transsexuals mean when “we say that we cannot live as men” … and to resume my own earlier post (#50) in the hope of adding an alternative, middle way for those who don’t identify with the body we were born with. (I may be new to this board, but I’ve been actively and consciously struggling with my own gender identity for about 30 years now).

I am now able to survive as a nominal male in the eyes of others via a single basic strategy—identification with myself as a male child prior to the onset of my conscious feelings of being female. Some of the specific identifications come down to what I call “brand name fetishes.” So the camp stove I mentioned has to be a Coleman, otherwise the magic doesn’t work. This is pure conditioning. Going through the motions of some activity or behavior that others regard as male while investing that activity or behavior with female meaning or purpose. For me, maleness has little or nothing to do with it. We’re not dealing here with a residue of early manhood. Male body yes, but no gender identity (male or female) existed for me as a child, only confusion, fright, crippling shyness, social incompetence.

It’s something like the cisgender male or female who as a child acquired (back in the day, before unisex) a specific interest under the influence of the parent of the opposite gender. The girl who was taken to baseball games by her father, the boy who was taught to cook by his mother. No one bats an eye these days, but in the 1950s this was cross-gender stuff, and such a girl or boy was at risk of being thought or called a tomboy or sissy. My point is, we’re dealing here with conditioning, not gender-expression. A person can do a gender-specific thing without either expressing or denying their gender identity.

So, for me, it’s not entirely or only a question or liking or not liking, loving or hating my male body. Mainly I like and love my female self, though like many women I wish I could change certain things about my body. I try to avoid the expected corrosive internal tensions and conflicts by doing a minimum of male-looking things while taking the maleness out of them and, if possible, giving them a female reference. While a transsexual woman, I try to avoid coming to the conclusion (to use the OP’s phrase) that “I cannot live as a man.”

As I write this I think of the female rape victim who is put on the stand and made to feel responsible for the crime committed against her. Believe me, I feel like the victim of assault every day, an assault against my selfhood, my personhood. I hope no one thinks that I am counseling compromise on the issue of being allowed to express who we are, just like everybody else. I’m just trying to survive, to avoid making things worse for me and for others, and not to be defeated by letting the bad guys win.

[Kaitlyn Michele]

The curse of transsexuality is that unless you deal with it as a youngster, like the Barbara Walters success stories and like many younger people who take advantage of the steadily improving climate for transitioners..

you ALWAYS end up at a point where you are forced to use any means necessary to survive...

this is not overstating the problem, and thats what it means when we say we can't live as men..

we literally can not live...

whether you transition or somehow get yourself into a comfort zone, it takes incredible willpower and energy to survive once the bell gets rung..

very few people outside of ts world will ever give us credit for thriving with this problem....

[Badtranny]

I don't think there can be a better example of why we should live out loud than this thread. A couple of posters are exhibiting some fairly severe pathology and I believe it's a result of living closeted and not being able to accept yourself. I hate to be one of those that stands on the other side and and crows about how nice it is, but coming out saved my life and I didn't even know it. Until being trans and transitioning was no longer a secret, I had no idea how far I was getting from my own mental health. There's no doubt in my mind that another five years would have pushed me right down the slope and into the abyss.

So after further thought (and heartbreaking reading) this isn't about not living as a man, this is about living an authentic life, whatever that is. So for me, it's not acting like a man. I want to have a feminine body, and be perceived as a woman. For some it might be homosexuality, for others it might be wanting to paint instead of build computers. The more we deny ourselves our own feelings, our very essence, the further we get from what is good and healthy. Your light cannot shine if it's being covered, and you can't just cover part of who you are. You are either hiding or you're not.

Why do we live as women? Because a life unexamined is not worth living.

[Mountain Girl]

Self-acceptance is not the issue here at all. I’d be very surprised to learn that anyone who posts on this board has not fully accepted, even embraced, his or her transsexual self. But I can speak only for myself. The question is, once you’ve accepted your transsexual self, what to do next.

Part of the problem (besides the medical ones) with “transition” is just what transition is and whether it goes far enough to bring about the self-realization and inner peace that we all seem to want. If I make the transition to female, I want ovaries and a uterus, mammary glands, ovulation/menstruation/monthly mood swings, … the whole nine yards. I want to have a baby! So transition, as practiced in the real world, would stop far short of bringing about an “authentic” life for me. But again that’s just me talking, and I know that my personal preferences are not shared by others.

But of course the real stumbling block is acceptance, not only by your self, but by others as well. The previous poster (sorry, honey, can’t tell what you want us to call you) is from the SF Bay area. That’s not the same planet I live on, sweetie. There’s no sure way of predicting what the response would be in my region (since after many years I’ve encountered only two MTF women, not counting support groups), but I have learned something (I think) from observation of many gay and lesbian friends and acquaintances. Several of these are partnered, share a residence, have gone through ring ceremonies, and have even adopted children in a couple of cases. Not only are they accepted but they also appear to be admired and respected, certainly at least tolerated, by many of those who deal with them, straights as well as gays. Where I personally am concerned, some know that I am transgendered (because, in some cases, I told them) and, as I wrote previously, I make no secret of my gender status, so certainly they have no reason to fear rejection on my part. All these friends and acquaintances are very conventional, and conventional appearing, people. My point is this: even though some of these friendships go back 40 years or more, I have never observed any of these gays and lesbians make even the most innocuous public display of their feelings towards each other … the sorts of little gestures, terms of endearment, pecks and pats that have always been among the privileges of straight couples when out in public.

In other words, it’s okay to be gay or lesbian, to live the lifestyle in the privacy of your home (or other safe haven), but The Powers That Be permit no overt public expressions of your sexual orientation. Well, it’s easy to see how this state of affairs would apply to us fully self-accepting transsexuals … almost anywhere in the US outside of the SF Bay area, Greenwich Village, or a few other ultra-liberal sequestered communities. Most, maybe all, of us, have moved past coming to know and embrace our transsexualism, … it’s the outside world that’s the source of all this dysfunction and unhappiness.

[Kristy_K]

I don't think there can be a better example of why we should live out loud than this thread. A couple of posters are exhibiting some fairly severe pathology and I believe it's a result of living closeted and not being able to accept yourself. I hate to be one of those that stands on the other side and and crows about how nice it is, but coming out saved my life and I didn't even know it. Until being trans and transitioning was no longer a secret, I had no idea how far I was getting from my own mental health. There's no doubt in my mind that another five years would have pushed me right down the slope and into the abyss.

So after further thought (and heartbreaking reading) this isn't about not living as a man, this is about living an authentic life, whatever that is. So for me, it's not acting like a man. I want to have a feminine body, and be perceived as a woman. For some it might be homosexuality, for others it might be wanting to paint instead of build computers. The more we deny ourselves our own feelings, our very essence, the further we get from what is good and healthy. Your light cannot shine if it's being covered, and you can't just cover part of who you are. You are either hiding or you're not.

Why do we live as women? Because a life unexamined is not worth living.

I myself would have to agree with you. I also believe coming out save my life and also gave me a life to be proud of. No matter how many people it makes uncomfortable. I now look forward to living. Life is now a wonderful thing for me.

[Kaitlyn Michele]

you are not in any kind of transition at all..

i know you never respond to me, but thats ok... you need to hear its ok to be whoever you want, and that its much better if you have a realistic and healthy view of what you are doing

ither you are a classic ts person that for some reason is unwilling to accept it, or you are a gender fluid person..you can't be both..and you refer to yourself as both...


You have made it very complicated for yourself and you need to sit back, get a good understanding of what you are doing...stop pretending that you are in stealth transition and start setting realistic and achievable goals for your life.. for example...how are you going to meet this woman if you present yourself as a woman? you can't. ..and transition does not include "photos as male", there is no male....stealth transition is not the middle of the gender binary...

e
enjoy who you are, as you are, that's the whole ballgame..

[sandra-leigh]

you are not in any kind of transition at all..



I disagree, Kaitlyn. "transition" is any mental or physical journey from one gender to another. The key part of transition is not in between one's legs: the key part of transition is in between one's ears.

It was only about 6 years and 2 months ago that I realized I was a cross-dresser. In that time, I have gone from not even knowing that about myself, to wearing female clothes all the time including at work, wearing female earrings everywhere, gone from very short hair to below-the-shoulder, told my wife, told my immediate family, worn skirts and dresses (with no wig or makeup) nearly everywhere in the city, been in gender therapy about 2 years -- and been on HRT for a year (and made no attempt to hide the resulting physical changes at work or in public.) To go from "male" to living full time as transgendered, meanwhile having risked my job and all my close relationships: you don't think that was a "transition" ?


ither you are a classic ts person that for some reason is unwilling to accept it, or you are a gender fluid person..you can't be both..and you refer to yourself as both...

Some people have said that I am a TS in denial. I am open to that possibility, but it is not what feels right to me at this point in my life. I work in science, where it is said, "An absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." Can I prove that I am not TS? No, and even attempting to do so is not of interest to me at present. Would it be intellectually honest of me to say that I am definitely not TS? No. So I don't: I say that as best I can tell at present I am in the middle, but that there is a possibility that I am TS.



for example...how are you going to meet this woman if you present yourself as a woman? you can't.

It becomes clear you do not live in the same city I live in :D

I am certain that there are a fair number of accepting women in the city I live in; I have met a fair number of women that would, I think, consider someone like me seriously. If I were looking, the more difficult part would be in finding someone like that who was approximately my own age; the women in my social circles tend to be 15 to 25 years younger than I am, and I really have no idea where the women my own age tend to go.

[Badtranny]

The previous poster (sorry, honey, can’t tell what you want us to call you) is from the SF Bay area. That’s not the same planet I live on, sweetie

Really? I sign my actual name under every post. You can find me all over the internet (FB, Twitter, blog) with my member ID or my name. I stopped being anonymous a year ago and my avatar is actually me so clearly I have nothing to hide.. ...and what should we call you, Mountain?


… it’s the outside world that’s the source of all this dysfunction and unhappiness.

I would have totally agreed with this before I came out, but since I've felt the sun on my face and walked among the world as an openly transitioning T-girl, I now strongly disagree. My unhappiness and dysfunction was entirely manufactured by myself. Something about nothing to fear, but fear itself comes to mind.

Also, I'm not FROM the Bay Area. I'm from an extremely rural and extremely southern background and moved to my beloved Bay in 2006 after living in Bakersfield, CA for 15 years. I moved because I knew I would never have the courage to explore my issues in that awful redneck infested place. Getting to where I am now was a long process over several years but I was serious about it and did what I had to do to get here. This is the difference between the fence sitters and the transitioners. We do what must be done. Period. I will be the last person to say it's easy, (actually I think all of us would wrestle for the last position) but easy isn't the point. It's impossible on paper and even harder in practice. When I talk about self acceptance I mean real acceptance. If you have indeed accepted this as your fate then how could there be any other option? I hate to say this because it makes me sound too much like one of the super villains around here, but you either are, or you aren't.

The support of other TS girls is not likely to be forthcoming in the world, your support has to come from inside you and your own circle. We are a suspicious lot and the kind of navel gazing that is going on in this thread is exhausting if not a little bizarre to a group of people who are prepared to face down whatever just to live the lives we need to live.

[Fractured]

I don't think there can be a better example of why we should live out loud than this thread. A couple of posters are exhibiting some fairly severe pathology and I believe it's a result of living closeted and not being able to accept yourself. I hate to be one of those that stands on the other side and and crows about how nice it is, but coming out saved my life and I didn't even know it. Until being trans and transitioning was no longer a secret, I had no idea how far I was getting from my own mental health. There's no doubt in my mind that another five years would have pushed me right down the slope and into the abyss.

So after further thought (and heartbreaking reading) this isn't about not living as a man, this is about living an authentic life, whatever that is. ... The more we deny ourselves our own feelings, our very essence, the further we get from what is good and healthy. Your light cannot shine if it's being covered, and you can't just cover part of who you are. You are either hiding or you're not.

... Because a life unexamined is not worth living.
After examining that life, what should you do if you decide it's not worth living for?


When I talk about self acceptance I mean real acceptance. If you have indeed accepted this as your fate then how could there be any other option? I hate to say this because it makes me sound too much like one of the super villains around here, but you either are, or you aren't.

The support of other TS girls is not likely to be forthcoming in the world, your support has to come from inside you and your own circle. We are a suspicious lot and the kind of navel gazing that is going on in this thread is exhausting if not a little bizarre to a group of people who are prepared to face down whatever just to live the lives we need to live.
Super villains are a necessity. We may not like them, but they serve a needed purpose. :)

[sandra-leigh]

This is the difference between the fence sitters and the transitioners. We do what must be done. Period.

I see a connection here to part of the discussion between tgirlintransition and Katyln, with regards to meeting accepting women.

In the summer of 2010, I did not know whether I wanted to start HRT, and had never checked out how it would affect my biochemistry, and had never investigated whether they would even consider me for it. But I did decide that I needed to stop letting imagined "but what if..." scenarios control me, so I put my name in to check things out, having heard that it could take 8 to 9 months to get an appointment with an appropriate specialist.

Less than five months later I had the information, had passed the screening easily, had The Letter from my therapist, and had the medical clearance -- and I was in the position of, as they say around here, "Shit or get off the pot." I went through a lot of angst about whether to go forward or not.

Going forward meant losing any remaining possibility of having children, and meant a high likelihood of losing the ability to have standard male/female sex. But neither of those are possible in my existing relationship, so was I thinking forward to the possibility that I might eventually be in a different relationship? If so, how would I make it through the intervening (say) 15 years? And considering my age, if I were to decide that those aspects were the highest priorities for me, higher priority than my daily GID-fueled depression, then the "rational" thing for me to do would be to end my relationship and go out "wife shopping" for a woman at least 15 years younger and who tested fertile and wanted children "soon".

My depression was real and wore me down every day. The other factors, about potential relationships and children and sex, was purely hypothetical. "And perhaps the horse will learn to sing (http://aebrain.blogspot.com/2003/10/and-perhaps-horse-will-learn-to-sing.html)." I did what was personally necessary to survive.

Stop concentrating on the ways things might fail, and start concentrating on your needs.

Around here, there are more lesbians and bi-sexuals and pan-sexuals, and open-minded hetrosexual women, looking for a kind and happy person, than there are hetrosexual women looking for a reclusive male who is "getting through each day, somehow."

[ReineD]

What you wrote is very apt here - the place in the middle of the binary is very difficult to permanently be in. I'm okay with living as described in the two paragraphs before this one. The problems arise for me with dating, relationships, etc. In simple words, I'm yet to meet a woman who accepts both sides of me together in one person. That's the biggest one for me. That makes me apprehensive and I feel the need to fit in on one of the two sides. If I can find her, I could probably just continue with where I'm at, in the middle of the gender binary.

Not to be negative, but it is also difficult according to the posts I've read here for TSs to find romantic cis-partners, although before transition, I gather there is no lack of admirers (men who are not interested in a TS unless she has a penis).

This may be a generational thing, since there do seem to be younger TSs who have romantic partners. Our world is changing. But I gather the pool of potential partners is greater among the trans community. Still, you should not consider transition if one of your main reasons is to find a partner. I believe there are potential partners out there for everyone, but the grass isn't necessarily greener after a transition.

[Kaitlyn Michele]

Hi Sandra

First off I was directly responding to the Op....based on what you are doing, you are doing what i urge everyone to do, which is to be yourself and be happy about it as best you can...simplify everything you can..
if dating is more important than gender, then you should drop the idea that you transitioned, and date, and if you need to live as a third gender, then do it...be happy about it..
also, I hear you that trans people can meet people if they try, but if i understand the op, he is trying to be a man to get dates, there is desire to have a woman love him as a man even though the OP claims to be in "stealth" transition.....sorry but that's not the way it works..and based on your post, it has nothing remotely to do with your situation..

Finally, as to transition...this is what i think..
I transitioned...i lived as a male, i now live as a female..there is no concept of maleness, there is no going back, it never occurs to me to even think of it.....gender dysphoria is totally and completely gone, there is no buzzing or questioning in my mind..
I don't judge based on body parts.. i don't judge at all.. but if a person is not living or directly aiming towards the goal of living totally and completely as female, with no going back and forth, then i can't call that transition... transition means one thing... if you are not doing that, then why do even want to co-opt that word? Transition does not include going back to male for dates!!!!!!!!!
I just don't get why so many people want to call themselves transitioning transsexuals like it is some kind of badge..its just words that describe something.....if you are living as a third gender, then call it that.. and make it work for yourself...

[sandra-leigh]

I don't judge based on body parts.. i don't judge at all.. but if a person is not living or directly aiming towards the goal of living totally and completely as female, with no going back and forth, then i can't call that transition... transition means one thing... if you are not doing that, then why do even want to co-opt that word?

Yes, you were responding to the OP, but your response excluded the possibility of categories of experience. I do not know the OP and would not speak for her, so I wrote in terms of my own experience to illustrate factors you had not taken in to account.

The sense in which I used "transition" is consistent with the earliest known use of the word in English. The way you are using "transition" is a specialization of the word. If there has been any co-opting here, it would only be through a mistaken insistence that the word now only means what you have used it to mean.


Definition of TRANSITION
1 a : passage from one state, stage, subject, or place to another : change b : a movement, development, or evolution from one form, stage, or style to another [...]
Origin of TRANSITION
Latin transition-, transitio, from transire
First Known Use: 1551

The wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transitioning_%28transgender%29) is not badly written: "Transitioning is the process of changing one's gender presentation to accord with one's internal sense of one's gender". No requirement there that the end point be "living totally and completely as female". And since it is a process requiring experimentation, one must expect that at times one might have gone further in a gender change than one finds oneself comfortable with (all things considered), and so might move back on some aspect either permanently or temporarily.

And why do you exclude FTM?

[Rianna Humble]

why do you exclude FTM?

That is a cheap shot and completely unworthy of you. As you are more than well aware, in the context, Kaitlyn was describing MtF transition. It was therefore unnecessary to include complex sub-clauses to every postulate which would cater for both directions of transition in the same sentence.

Or shall we apply your own standard to your previous post? Why did you not mention FtM transition? Could the reason be the same, or is it more sinister?

[sandra-leigh]

That is a cheap shot and completely unworthy of you. As you are more than well aware, in the context, Kaitlyn was describing MtF transition.

It was not a "cheap shot": it reflects the heart of the discussion.

Kaitlyn did not restrict her remarks to MTF transition, not in context. Kaitlyn wrote to tgirlintransition that "you are not in any kind of transition at all.." and thus denied the very existence of transitions other than the ones Kaitlyn set down.

Is this Transsexual Forum a section in which only transition in the "start with male body and become fully female" sense is discussed, or is it a section in which different varieties of Transsexualism are to be considered, and in which respect for different experiences and different "destinations" is to be offered? When Kaitlyn says that to her the only valid kind of transition is to become "fully female", is it not fair to question that, hoping to thereby expand Kaitlyn's outlook as to what "transition" is to include alternatives other than her own path?


Or shall we apply your own standard to your previous post? Why did you not mention FtM transition? Could the reason be the same, or is it more sinister?

There is a difference between not explicitly mentioning something and excluding it. If you refer back to my posts in this thread, you will find parts in which I refer to my personal experience (and not to what anyone else is going through), and that the other parts are not MTF specific. For example, in that "previous post", I wrote,


I disagree, Kaitlyn. "transition" is any mental or physical journey from one gender to another. The key part of transition is not in between one's legs: the key part of transition is in between one's ears.

It is not an accident that my phrasing does not mention MTF: when I wrote "any mental or physical journey from one gender to another", I fully included male to female, female to male, intersex to male or female, male or female to androgynous, and other varieties of gender transition.

[Badtranny]

It was not a "cheap shot": it reflects the heart of the discussion.

Not true.

This may be the Transsexual forum, but the thread clearly specifies MtF, so you're just being argumentative, and obviously so.

I don't know if you're aware but listening to somebody pick nits is not very compelling.

[sandra-leigh]

so you're just being argumentative, and obviously so.


Argumentation
Argumentation is an appeal predominantly to logic and reason. It deals with complex issues that can be debated.


S: (n) argument, argumentation, debate (a discussion in which reasons are advanced for and against some proposition or proposal) "the argument over foreign aid goes on and on"
S: (n) argumentation, logical argument, argument, line of reasoning, line (a course of reasoning aimed at demonstrating a truth or falsehood; the methodical process of logical reasoning) "I can't follow your line of reasoning"


Classical rhetorical theory identifies four modes which writing can take: [...]
Argumentation: the writer tries to persuade the reader to agree to a new belief or to take a course of action. Also called persuasive writing.

If your intent was to say that I am using logic and reason to attempt to persuade readers to agree to a new belief, then you would certainly be correct in that.

The title of the thread mentions MTF, but the content from the original poster make clear that the original poster's purpose is to express uncertainty about her gender and to request input about gender experiences and about where she is in the gender spectrum. Some of the opinions that have been expressed in response have been framed through negative reasoning -- framed by making definitions and applying the Law Of The Excluded Middle, saying that as the original poster does not meet the respondent's definitions, that therefore the poster must be male. It is incumbent on all of us to ask whether the definitions presented are reasonable ones, and to ask whether the Law Of The Excluded Middle holds in this situation before we can make reasoned statements about what the original poster is or is not.

With regard to motivations: as I am someone who lives full time in the Middle that is being Excluded, I do have a vested interest in preserving the existence of the middle ground, so I am not "arguing for the sake of arguing".

[Rianna Humble]

It was not a "cheap shot": it reflects the heart of the discussion.

It may reflect the heart of the way that you are trying to subvert a thread about what MtF transsexuals mean when we say that we cannot live as men, it in no way reflect the heart of the discussion about MtF transsexuals.


Kaitlyn did not restrict her remarks to MTF transition, not in context. Kaitlyn wrote to tgirlintransition that "you are not in any kind of transition at all.." and thus denied the very existence of transitions other than the ones Kaitlyn set down.

Any other than the one she describes for an MtF transsexual which is what tgirlintransition claims to be. She does not claim to be an FtM


Is this Transsexual Forum a section in which only transition in the "start with male body and become fully female" sense is discussed, or is it a section in which different varieties of Transsexualism are to be considered, and in which respect for different experiences and different "destinations" is to be offered?

This is a thread about MtF transsexuals and the title makes it clear that the people from whom the OP wants answers are MtF transsexuals who have experienced the inability to function as a male. Accoreding to the FAQs, the onus is on those responding to the thread to ensure that they fit the description before responding. Nothing in the title nor in the OP itself opens the way to discuss FtM.


There is a difference between not explicitly mentioning something and excluding it. If you refer back to my posts in this thread, you will find parts in which I refer to my personal experience (and not to what anyone else is going through), and that the other parts are not MTF specific. For example, in that "previous post", I wrote,


I disagree, Kaitlyn. "transition" is any mental or physical journey from one gender to another. The key part of transition is not in between one's legs: the key part of transition is in between one's ears.

For someone who throws around dictionary definitions, you seem to have difficulty distinguishing between "current" (that which is under discussion) and "previous" (something which occurred before that which is being discussed) Your quote was from the post to which I was responding and which semantically could not possibly have been classed as previous.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This has gone far enough off topic. If you still want to argue that your attempts to subvert the thread and your cheap shot against Kaitlyn for posting on topic are anything worthy, I suggest we take it to PM

[sandra-leigh]

I disagree with what is represented about me and about what is represented about I have said; none the less, that meta-discussion need not take place in this thread.