Foxglove
07-03-2012, 05:44 AM
Hi, Everyone!
Let’s fantasize a bit, let our imaginations go, envision the best case scenario: we live in a society that is fully accepting of TGism. There’s absolutely no discrimination in any way against TG people. We’re allowed publicly and privately to live as we please with no hassle whatsoever from anybody. When a child is identified as TG, that’s no problem for anyone, and she gets some “self-education”, counselling from an older and experienced TG person who can explain to her what she is and what her options are going to be in life. That child can go to school dressed however she wishes and not be bullied in any way. Kids are just as cool with TGism as adults.
So, we’ve got it made, right? Heaven! Except what do we do when we want to get married?
Because the fact is that the overwhelming majority of women in this world don’t particularly like CDing/TGism, and they would prefer not to marry it. Now it’s true that many women, once they discover that their husband is CD/TG, can come to accept it. But even with the best will in the world, it’s difficult for them. We see that on this forum. There are many wonderful women here who are trying so hard to understand their husbands and become accepting of them. But it’s an awful struggle for a lot of them—perhaps one, if they were given a choice, they would prefer not to have to deal with in the first place.
There is a gap between transgenderism and cisgenderism. Cisgender people are baffled by us—even if they don’t particularly dislike us. We are simply different. Our experience and feelings are so different from theirs that they find it well-nigh impossible to comprehend what’s going on inside us. Some of them succeed in doing that. But they’re pretty rare. We live in a realm that is light years away from theirs.
Ah, but we’re imagining the best case scenario, right? We’re fully accepted, right? Yes. Except that there’s a difference between accepting something and liking it. I myself am fully supportive of gay rights, fully supportive of gay marriage, etc. But that doesn’t mean I’d sleep with a gay guy, let alone consider marrying him, given that I’m not gay myself. I accept him and his rights, but I couldn’t accept him as my life’s partner.
The fact is that your average GG wants a normal, heterosexual man, and there aren’t many GG’s who are delighted to see an element of femininity in their partner. They can be accepting of CD/TG men, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they want to marry one.
There is a view often enough expressed that claims that “if she truly loves you, she’ll love you as you are.” I myself think that’s simplistic. Your average GG’s feelings towards CD/TG may be very similar to my feelings towards gay guys: she can accept but not marry.
We TG people say that we should be accepted as we are. The corollary of that is that we must accept others as they are. Your average GG isn’t made such that she can be terribly thrilled about the idea of marrying a CD/TG man. It simply isn’t in her nature. She’s not to be blamed for that any more than we’re to be blamed for being TG.
So what would we do when we wanted to get married? As things stand, a lot of us (and that would include me) simply don’t tell our wives-to-be about our TGism before we get married. What she doesn’t know won’t hurt her. Except that in many cases she does eventually know and it hurts her a lot.
Now we all know why we don’t tell. Various reasons: we don’t truly understand ourselves, never having had any “self-education”. Maybe our CDing urges come and go, so we naively think maybe they’ll go away for good. Maybe we’re not thinking about it all in the run-up to the wedding. We’re in love with a gorgeous woman. Our own feminine tendencies are the furthest thing from our minds. But above all because hiding, keeping our little secret to ourselves has become second nature to us. We have a pretty good idea of what will happen to us if people find out what we are, so we learn not to tell. Anybody. Ever. And that includes the wife.
GG’s don’t generally like this explanation. I can understand that. Being TG myself, I can understand why we don’t tell. But I can also understand why a GG would be hurt and dismayed when she eventually she discovers her husband’s secret. That’s certainly the sort of thing she would have wanted to know before she got married.
So what would we do? In our best case scenario we’re fully accepted, so we no longer have any reason to hide. Which means we no longer have any excuse at all not to tell the wife-to-be who we are. But most women wouldn’t want to marry us. In our best case scenario, they all accept us. But still being cisgender, very few of them would want to marry us. Would there be enough of them to go around? Would there be enough women who would actually prefer to marry a CD/TG man to satisfy all of us? And if there weren’t, would we still try to hide from them what we are, aware as we would be, that if they knew about us, they wouldn’t want to marry us?
“Hold on a minute,” you say. “Since we’re imagining the best case scenario, why not imagine that lots of GG’s become so fond of us they do want to marry us?”
That’s just it. I can’t imagine it. Maybe others can. I can’t imagine that cisgender women would some day become so fond of us that they’d want to marry us in huge numbers any more than I can imagine that straight people would become so fond of gay people that they’d want to marry them in huge numbers.
I suppose that’s what it all would come down to: how many of them, given the choice with full knowledge beforehand, would want to marry us?
Best wishes, Annabelle
Let’s fantasize a bit, let our imaginations go, envision the best case scenario: we live in a society that is fully accepting of TGism. There’s absolutely no discrimination in any way against TG people. We’re allowed publicly and privately to live as we please with no hassle whatsoever from anybody. When a child is identified as TG, that’s no problem for anyone, and she gets some “self-education”, counselling from an older and experienced TG person who can explain to her what she is and what her options are going to be in life. That child can go to school dressed however she wishes and not be bullied in any way. Kids are just as cool with TGism as adults.
So, we’ve got it made, right? Heaven! Except what do we do when we want to get married?
Because the fact is that the overwhelming majority of women in this world don’t particularly like CDing/TGism, and they would prefer not to marry it. Now it’s true that many women, once they discover that their husband is CD/TG, can come to accept it. But even with the best will in the world, it’s difficult for them. We see that on this forum. There are many wonderful women here who are trying so hard to understand their husbands and become accepting of them. But it’s an awful struggle for a lot of them—perhaps one, if they were given a choice, they would prefer not to have to deal with in the first place.
There is a gap between transgenderism and cisgenderism. Cisgender people are baffled by us—even if they don’t particularly dislike us. We are simply different. Our experience and feelings are so different from theirs that they find it well-nigh impossible to comprehend what’s going on inside us. Some of them succeed in doing that. But they’re pretty rare. We live in a realm that is light years away from theirs.
Ah, but we’re imagining the best case scenario, right? We’re fully accepted, right? Yes. Except that there’s a difference between accepting something and liking it. I myself am fully supportive of gay rights, fully supportive of gay marriage, etc. But that doesn’t mean I’d sleep with a gay guy, let alone consider marrying him, given that I’m not gay myself. I accept him and his rights, but I couldn’t accept him as my life’s partner.
The fact is that your average GG wants a normal, heterosexual man, and there aren’t many GG’s who are delighted to see an element of femininity in their partner. They can be accepting of CD/TG men, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they want to marry one.
There is a view often enough expressed that claims that “if she truly loves you, she’ll love you as you are.” I myself think that’s simplistic. Your average GG’s feelings towards CD/TG may be very similar to my feelings towards gay guys: she can accept but not marry.
We TG people say that we should be accepted as we are. The corollary of that is that we must accept others as they are. Your average GG isn’t made such that she can be terribly thrilled about the idea of marrying a CD/TG man. It simply isn’t in her nature. She’s not to be blamed for that any more than we’re to be blamed for being TG.
So what would we do when we wanted to get married? As things stand, a lot of us (and that would include me) simply don’t tell our wives-to-be about our TGism before we get married. What she doesn’t know won’t hurt her. Except that in many cases she does eventually know and it hurts her a lot.
Now we all know why we don’t tell. Various reasons: we don’t truly understand ourselves, never having had any “self-education”. Maybe our CDing urges come and go, so we naively think maybe they’ll go away for good. Maybe we’re not thinking about it all in the run-up to the wedding. We’re in love with a gorgeous woman. Our own feminine tendencies are the furthest thing from our minds. But above all because hiding, keeping our little secret to ourselves has become second nature to us. We have a pretty good idea of what will happen to us if people find out what we are, so we learn not to tell. Anybody. Ever. And that includes the wife.
GG’s don’t generally like this explanation. I can understand that. Being TG myself, I can understand why we don’t tell. But I can also understand why a GG would be hurt and dismayed when she eventually she discovers her husband’s secret. That’s certainly the sort of thing she would have wanted to know before she got married.
So what would we do? In our best case scenario we’re fully accepted, so we no longer have any reason to hide. Which means we no longer have any excuse at all not to tell the wife-to-be who we are. But most women wouldn’t want to marry us. In our best case scenario, they all accept us. But still being cisgender, very few of them would want to marry us. Would there be enough of them to go around? Would there be enough women who would actually prefer to marry a CD/TG man to satisfy all of us? And if there weren’t, would we still try to hide from them what we are, aware as we would be, that if they knew about us, they wouldn’t want to marry us?
“Hold on a minute,” you say. “Since we’re imagining the best case scenario, why not imagine that lots of GG’s become so fond of us they do want to marry us?”
That’s just it. I can’t imagine it. Maybe others can. I can’t imagine that cisgender women would some day become so fond of us that they’d want to marry us in huge numbers any more than I can imagine that straight people would become so fond of gay people that they’d want to marry them in huge numbers.
I suppose that’s what it all would come down to: how many of them, given the choice with full knowledge beforehand, would want to marry us?
Best wishes, Annabelle