Carin
10-12-2008, 07:03 PM
Granted that being transgendered is an inherent component of your personality. You might call that the nature part, or a natural influence, abstractedly defined as your femininity - I don't want to debate the natural influence here.
For most of my life, before and during my struggle with this part of me, I was shy, quiet and very introverted. I lacked self-confidence. In a room full of people, I wanted to be invisible. It occurs to me that a large part of my personality was repressed, hidden, left at the door, or maybe just stuck in a closet.
Since I crawled out from under that rock and learned to understand and accept this quality in me that is 'being transgendered', I see different aspects of my personality. I am more open and expressive, less afraid to engage in conversation. The confidence to go about my business in a very feminine presentation translates to a better level of self-confidence overall. Yes, there is an aspect of introducing the other half of me to the world, maybe the part of me that I like better than what I exposed and allowed to BE before. In the grand scale of my lifetime, this is only a recent development. Maybe it is temporary, maybe it is evolution, maybe it is the unlocking of previously stifled personal attributes.
When I reflect on my youth now, I recall more and more signs and clues of my feminine side, but because of the culture of the time none of these were given any importance, either by myself or by any one in my environment. My mother may have had a clue, but she struggled with her own demon - cancer - and passed when I was 16. The end result was that a potentially very expressive part of my personality was suppressed for many many years.
I can't help but wonder how different my personality would be now, had those traits been allowed to develop from my early years. I guess i am in a melancholy state this weekend, and reflecting on how much of life I missed because of a stifled personality, induced by cultural attitudes and ignorance of transgender.
So what do you think. Did being cd/tg and the cultural unacceptability of that influence your personality?
For most of my life, before and during my struggle with this part of me, I was shy, quiet and very introverted. I lacked self-confidence. In a room full of people, I wanted to be invisible. It occurs to me that a large part of my personality was repressed, hidden, left at the door, or maybe just stuck in a closet.
Since I crawled out from under that rock and learned to understand and accept this quality in me that is 'being transgendered', I see different aspects of my personality. I am more open and expressive, less afraid to engage in conversation. The confidence to go about my business in a very feminine presentation translates to a better level of self-confidence overall. Yes, there is an aspect of introducing the other half of me to the world, maybe the part of me that I like better than what I exposed and allowed to BE before. In the grand scale of my lifetime, this is only a recent development. Maybe it is temporary, maybe it is evolution, maybe it is the unlocking of previously stifled personal attributes.
When I reflect on my youth now, I recall more and more signs and clues of my feminine side, but because of the culture of the time none of these were given any importance, either by myself or by any one in my environment. My mother may have had a clue, but she struggled with her own demon - cancer - and passed when I was 16. The end result was that a potentially very expressive part of my personality was suppressed for many many years.
I can't help but wonder how different my personality would be now, had those traits been allowed to develop from my early years. I guess i am in a melancholy state this weekend, and reflecting on how much of life I missed because of a stifled personality, induced by cultural attitudes and ignorance of transgender.
So what do you think. Did being cd/tg and the cultural unacceptability of that influence your personality?