when its over?

[arbon]

What do you think completes your transition?
What makes your transition successful?

[Angela Campbell]

Wow 2 questions both with no real concrete answer I can think of. For me I guess what will complete my transition will be SRS in the next year. Everything else is done, at least physically. (well except for electrolysis) Socially...well I have no clue.

Successful for me will be getting through all this and still be sane. I am already happier than I have ever been. A friend of mine who is about 7 years post op told me she really doesn't remember anymore what it was like to be a boy. That would do it for me.

[bas1985]

1. the autoacceptance is key to completeness, until they find a way to alter the body, or to create a female avatar in which move my awareness (like in the movie) I will always be "in transition" (physically)

2) It is a very good question: in my present state I think that successful means to be able to "live" in the target gender with other cis people of the target gender, so to be recognized a woman by other cis-women.

I would stress the recognition from cis-women (heterosexual cis-women) because I would try to avoid the "sexual" component, in which you can be
judged successfully transitioned by the beauty standard for men.

but I think that this also depends on the transition age. At 20 it is natural for a transwoman (straight) to consider a successful transition one
in which she is perceived also "sexy" from men. For an older lady the interest of men is not desidered so there is less pressure to be "pretty"

my 2c.

[Angela Campbell]

I don't know Bas......I am older and I plan on being pretty.

[bas1985]

yes... :) I know

"tell a woman she is pretty, the devil will repeat to her fifteen times" (Italian proverb)



to be beautiful is enough. If a woman can do that well: who shall demand more from her? (Thackeray)

[PaulaQ]

What do you think completes your transition?
When looking in the mirror no longer makes me consider suicide from time to time because a man looks back at me. I'm getting there! That is to say, in more precise language, that my GD is mitigated to a point where my life is no longer in danger.


What makes your transition successful?
A. If others view me as a woman, and not as some type of "thing."
B. If my quality of life is sufficiently high that I don't need to wonder whether or not I should've just let GD do it's dirty work on me.

As for my life of coexisting with the cis-world, I dunno. That seems to be over - at least each time I go further in transition, I seem to move further and further away from the cis world. I grieve that I probably won't be much a part of that world - it is the one I grew up knowing, and all my old friends and family live in it. It doesn't really matter though - I never really fit in there anyway, and I hated it for the most part. I'm not sure why I'm sometimes a trifle sad that I'm leaving it behind finally. Homesickness I guess - even if it mostly wasn't a very good home for me.

[gonegirl]

As for my life of coexisting with the cis-world, I dunno. That seems to be over - at least each time I go further in transition, I seem to move further and further away from the cis world.

The world is a "cis world" and there's no way to escape it unless you physically cut yourself off from all civilization.

[Kaitlyn Michele]

Always be careful defining successfully completing something , especially something like this.

To me each one of us can enjoy a moment when we realize that sometime in our past 'it was over">.. I bet we all pass that "its over" moment without realizing its happening.

I literally forget my gender dysphoria....its like it never happened...I never think about wishing I was something else or even regretting that I did this or that... I just wake up and got about my business.... I can't say when this feeling started, I didn't notice it until well after...

the reason to be careful is because life happens...and it may just happen at some point where I am forced to deal with my past in an awkward or difficult way... so in that way its kind of never over..
but I'm ok with that because I did what I needed to do (got rid of gd, living MY!!!!!!!!!!!! life)....everything else is just stuff that happens to ME in MY life...

[I Am Paula]

I am Shrodinger's cat.
I have not had SRS, and my boobs aren't finished (either naturally, or installed if ness.) but I feel complete. I live, interact, and am perceived as a woman, therefore I am. What more can I ask for?
Alternately, since I'm not finished, as in 'complete', I feel I'm a work in progress, therefore, still transsexual.
Like the cat, I can be in the two states at once. Finished/incomplete.
What makes my transition successful? Attitude

[PaulaQ]

The world is a "cis world" and there's no way to escape it unless you physically cut yourself off from all civilization.

No kidding. I really meant that I'm not expecting to conform well to the expectations of the heteronormative society I grew up in. Obviously I'll exist within it - but I don't ever expect to really fit in well. I get lazy about typing "heteronormative", so please pardon me.

I expect I'll continue to live in the little gay enclave where I currently dwell. I like it here, the people here are great. I have an interesting, purposeful, and fulfilling life so far.

I'm just a little sad sometimes that there is so much of what I experience that I can't really discuss with my friends and family from the heteronormative world. They don't understand, and mostly don't want to hear this stuff. It freaks them out. This is NO different, I think, than what many other gay or lesbian folks experience. Indeed, I'm better off than many who also lose their friends and family.

It'd be nice to fit in to the larger world. I don't really see that happening though. I guess we'll see.

[Aprilrain]

Life is a journey, there have been phases to this thing we call transition but I doubt it ever really ends. In many ways I have successfully transitioned but for me I'm still incomplete until i have SRS in August, after that will be a new phase.

[Kathryn Martin]

first question= integration as my self;

second question = functioning fully in my correct sex

The answers must be broad because individual circumstances differ.

Just realize that transition is a phase not a goal..... it is means to living a normal life ... not an end in itself

[Rachel Smith]

To me there are several parts to my transition. First no more GD like Kaitlyn said no more waking up wishing and hoping all day to be someone different. Hell I even gave up my ADD meds w/o incident. A quiet mind is a wonderful thing. Then there's being accepted by cisworld which I am albeit more by females then males. Then there are the physical parts of me which I don't think I will ever be done with.

[Inna]

When everyone seeing you does not consider anything but a woman!
When even those guys who knew you before very well, look you in the eye and smile, that "you know what smile", it is simply immensely gratifying!
When you awake and catch a glimpse in the mirrors pane of her barely cracked open eyes and that unmistakable female form.
When doing something for prolonged period of time you suddenly catch a reflection and are positively surprised, as though the image now reinforces your psyche and not the other way as it were.

[Nicole Erin]

completing - when you have taken it as far as you are willing and able. We all have limitations.
I would say once we start thinking about "what is next?" in life and it isn't about transition, we can call it "done" pretty much.

Successful - once you have completed whatever goals and are living the life you want.
For me, I got my name change, I have the confidence to present each day as Erin, I got a job, have friends, a normal life, have a dating life (even a couple women recently)...

[tori-e]

When you look in the mirror and the torment is gone. When you feel a sense of contentment for who you've become.