Transition....are we really that much different from the rest?

[Inna]

As I remember talking to my sister, about year ago, about transition, FFS, SRS, and all inclusive details, she pointed out something which stayed with me til now, and perhaps will resonate in my psyche for ever.

"You are more beautiful and strong now as you set out on this journey then I have ever known you before, but you are not different from any one else, non TG, who seeks to know her/him self, what makes a difference is the strength to say, enough is enough"

What she meant by this statement was the essence of transition, I do it because I could no longer tolerate living a lie, pretending to be someone I was not, but then I thought about her statement and realized that for most people, living their lives out, chasing material possession, conforming to others expectations, they too live out their lives not really knowing who they are!

Gender Dysphoria or not, majority of folks just simply live in the darkness of chasing tomorrow, without slowing down to see the beauty of today! They speed through life, told who and how they are, instead of stopping for once and looking into the space they them selves occupy and listen to a simple voice of SELF.

Are we all really that much different??????

[josee]

I think we are just more honest with ourselves than the vast majority of folks.
Sure there are non transpeople who live honestly. How many though are so driven to be real that they put themselves and their relationships in peril like we do?
Just wish I'd been as honest from the get go, would have been less painful in the long run.

[kimdl93]

Its always risky to generalize about how other people live thier lives. In truth, no one can be certain they understand other peoples' lives. Each of us, TS, TG or otherwise, respond to life's challenges with varying degrees of effectiveness. Very few people faces such stark choices as transitioning from the wrong gender to the right one, and having to make that choice in the face of economic, financial, interpersonal and cultural barriers. From our perspective, staying in a dead end job or a loveless marriage may seem easy choices, but again, each situation and each persons capacities are different. Sometimes, just enduring life and carrying on is an act of courage.

[AllieSF]

Yes, I believe that those with this blessing or curse, one's own choice of definition, are significantly different from the general public out there. Maybe all chase something, hide other things, but, TG's/TS's are, in my opinion, really dealing with some very serious and fundamental issues of trying to define, accept and then live who they truly are. As a guy growing up and maturing I probably had my issues, minuscule by some standards and experiences, but still mine. However, none of my issues and those of all my friends and acquaintances were anywhere near as serious and life changing as those issues that the T world inhabitants have to handle, come to grips with and then potentially make some earth shaking decisions about that may and probably will affect themselves and most people around them.

So, I say maybe somewhat similar but very far from being the same.

[LeaP]

"You are more beautiful and strong now as you set out on this journey then I have ever known you before, but you are not different from any one else, non TG, who seeks to know her/him self, what makes a difference is the strength to say, enough is enough"

...

Are we all really that much different??????

YES, we are!

I really don't like your sister's comment.

It makes a value statement about knowledge and change, implying virtue in holding some imaginary line and resisting discovery and change (the strength bit). How about inviting discovery and change instead?

I hear the "your issue is no different" from lots of people. The same people who call transition extreme turn around and then say the transsexual's issues are no different! Well, transition IS extreme, but what THEY mean is that it's abnormal. When you couple that viewpoint with a dismissive comparison about differences, it simply amounts to an invalidation.

There is an absolute difference with transsexuality that none of the cissexual population experiences, with which very of them empathize, and even fewer understand. That makes the implications of this self-knowledge unlike anything in their world. Personally, I think the discovery process is also different.

If you think about it, the entire comment is based in ignorance.

[ReineD]

... and realized that for most people, living their lives out, chasing material possession, conforming to others expectations, they too live out their lives not really knowing who they are!

You are dismissing people who do not take your path. Most people that I know also strive for full self-actualization, they do know or strive to know who they are, they also strive to be themselves and not live according to someone else's idea of who they should be. Just because someone is happy with their more conventional life does not mean they are selling out.

As for material possessions, some people are a slave to them (I do not think that TSs are necessarily exempt from this), but for most people material possessions are utilitarian just as they may be to you.

[melissaK]

Hmmm.

We all have in common that we get what anyone gets, we get a lifetime.

After that, we are each unique and unlike anything else in the infinite universe.

In between those two extremes the similarities unite us, the differences divide us. IMHO looking at issues of living an authentic life, (like having the courage to have Norma Rae moments and say enough is enough), I know we TS aren't alone because so many philosophers have debated the importance of living an authentic life. But for us TS the issue is unavoidable. Its not an abstract disscussion over cofee. We really have more profound identity issues than non TS don't necessarily have.

Example, I have a non TS friend who I have tried to explain my TS situation to. He really can't relate at all. He doesn't get it. Of course he has issues I don't get. He profoundly battles addiction. It's never been my problem. We're mutually sympathetic, but really we sail through our respective individual lives without any concern for the others issues.

So perhaps it's wrong to say others sail through life living un examined lives. Maybe they just don't need to stop and examine theirs.

Hugs,
'lissa

[ColleenA]

When I "transitioned" from a career in Human Resources to Journalism, my life got upended in many ways. And I was finally being far more authentic and in touch with myself than I had been previously. But it did not rock my very essence -- both internally to myself and externally in interaction with everyone else -- in the way that fixing your entire life in terms of gender does.

Similarly, when I moved from the West Coast to the East Coast for a job, and knew virtually no one in my new locale and had no social support network -- again such a major change did not rock me to my core.

There may be some parallels that your sister or others try to draw, but I don't think any of them approach the magnitude or scope of what you have done, Inna.

And I like melissak's comparison to addiction (not that it equates to transsexualism other than there is such a significant line in both cases between those who are and those who are not). I cannot comprehend what being addicted to drugs or alcohol is like, and it would be insulting and dismissive of me to feign an understanding of what the addict faces or to imply that it is similar to the overeating that I deal with.

[kellycan27]

There's a big beautiful world out there, and some very good people who struggle with life as much as we do, just in other ways. You should put the hand mirror down so you can see past your nose. What we go through as transsexuals might make us a little stronger than some others, but it doesn't make us more intuitive, insightful or superior... Just saying.

[Badtranny]

What we go through as transsexuals might make us a little stronger than some others, but it doesn't make us more intuitive, insightful or superior..

Present company excepted ...of course.

[Suzette Muguet de Mai]

What she meant by this statement was the essence of transition, I do it because I could no longer tolerate living a lie, pretending to be someone I was not, but then I thought about her statement and realized that for most people, living their lives out, chasing material possession, conforming to others expectations, they too live out their lives not really knowing who they are!

My thoughts only.
Inna, you are really seeking the depth within as if now you are cleansing your mind in order to complete transition. I wonder and these are only my thoughts: if the mind and body is materialistic too in such a way that transition envelopes material worth as a sports car to a car enthusiast? Do we seek to reveal the woman who has hidden for years and within this we seek to make ourselves as fully a woman as we can possibly achieve? Have we become materialistic in regards to our body?
In finding my true self I thumb my nose at society and pursue with vigor to be revealed to society as to who I really am. It is society that has inflicted itself on me and cast me in its "rules" only to find that I have been in prison locked away yet I have found me and that makes me cry.
Is it that I am now conforming to myself, yet society has still influenced my being as I see what I should NOW be and I am yet to find who I really am.
Is the person who has chased the dollar any different? Yes because they see only what has blinded them and never realize who they are from within.
Although I sure could use some of their wealth to help me.:heehee:

[KellyJameson]

Identity is both fragile and resilient because it has to be formed yet in many ways we are born with it already so in some ways we are predestined to be certain ways and in others we choose or have it chosen for who we become and this creates a tension between what is fixed and what is flexible and for me this is GID, the tension between what is that cannot be changed and what is that can be changed, between choice and the absence of choice.

In this we all walk the same path just as we all need to breath oxygen

Beyond that we are all different because "what is" is never the same from one person to the next and "what may be" is never the same from one person to the next.

Because we are all so different we have to make an effort to discover what we have in common because it usually is not obvious and takes time to learn.

There is a state of being called the "no self" and it was this search for this state that brought me face to face with my gender identity that I had been very successful at not consciously acknowledging.

For me the dysphoria worsened as I removed the defenses I had built to prop up my deep sense of inadequacy that living outside my gender partially caused.

One defense was narcissism, that need to feel superior to others because secretly I felt inferior and I would do everything I could to use others to overcome my sense
of being worthless.

For me healing the body is only one part of GID there also must be a healing of the mind that not living ones true identity causes because it leaves you with a very fragile sense of self that distorts our relationship with others so we constantly react to others by either elevating ourself above them or elevating them above us.

You will know you have arrived when you no longer need to impose your reality on others or allow them to impose their reality on you, you remain completely open because you are wholly formed but yet willing to change because you cannot be changed without your knowledge and acceptance.

Being human is both a blessing and a curse because we pay for the privilege but self awareness certainly opens up the possibility of evolving into all that one is capable.

This is only possible when fear does not guide our behavior, we acknowledge the fear but do not give it power.

[Sara Jessica]

You will know you have arrived when you no longer need to impose your reality on others or allow them to impose their reality on you...

That's funny, I'm feeling a lot of other's reality being imposed these days. I won't allow it, therefore I guess I have arrived.