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Having lived with me on the inside for all these years...the male side fighting it off...I understand the direction I need to go. With the support of my wife I'll make the transition...She has said I deserve to live the rest of my life the way it was suppose to be (priceless)...HRT for sure...SRS we'll see.
I was at a lost for words until I read this. I feel trapped. There are times I want to dress as a woman and others that I want to be a man. I feel society has become programmed. We accept this as normal and think nothing of it but when something changes its like a major earthquake. I have a picture in my head on how I want to look but I know no one around me would ever agree so I keep my feelings to my self. My wife know to a extent and would love to show her this side but knows the response and prefer to keep it to myself for the most part. By doing this I feel trappedQuote:
Originally Posted by almostalady
Lorileah, I very much enjoy being gender fluid and really don't know where I want my fluidity to settle (maybe I don't want it to?). But, as I look around at life it occurs to me that a lot of life is settling for the best we can do. That kind of settling could probably be cured with enough $$$, but our gendered selves certainly takes a lot more inward searching to see if we want to upset the apple cart we are currently pushing...or maybe just give it a flat tire :) if that's the best we can do right now. There is always tomorrow to look at it all from a new perspective!
DeJa vu, Lorileah
This subject has been on the surface of my thoughts for several days now, in preparation for a long talk with my teenage daughter.
Like many here, I grew up in a time and place where display of my feminine tendencies might result in severe repercussions both at home and with my peer group. I learned at an early age to "fake it" and act like a boy. Act like a man. Regardless of our orientation we were considered gay, and gay absolutely untolerated.
From there I graduated HS, went to college for a few years and got married. My wife was religious conservative, so I continued faking it for another 20+ years, as best I could, for the sake of my new family. Now I have grown children with children of their own who all identify me as completely male, albeit sometimes in pink socks. And good shoes, of course.
After 30 years of practice it feels strange to let go of the adopted mannerisms and thought patterns. Like an actor who has portrayed a character for so long that now everyone identifies with the character instead of she, herself. It's been 18 months now since I decided to slowly begin presenting as myself again. Now I am embracing my femininity, looking for common ground between the Yin of my psyche and my forsaken Yang. Trying to learn the things we "real men" would never have had any justification to explore in our youth.
That's how I came to live with myself, even though it wasn't myself. I'm sure it's a common story among us here.
Michelle
What a beautiful thread, my heart goes out to us all. I'm one of those trapped out here on the continuum between the two traditional poles of gender. With the assistance of my gender counselor, the love of my family, the emerging protections for us under the law, and the support of you dear people I think I'll be ok. xoxo, Elfin
Lorileah. My first reply sounded like a public service announcement, sheesh! The most important point is that any SO accepts you as you are. I think you've found somebody that does. You'll make the right decision I'm sure.:)
I am living with it and have been doing so for so long. Probably if I had been younger when things became possible I would be living it truly. When changes became poossible or even talked about, I was just too old. I dunno would I have changed, I dunno...
~Samm
I came to who I am rather late, after living a life, and promising that in retirement our life was set in stone. Now that I now who i am, i know what I must be is not who i am. Can I live with that, time will tell. For the present, until my wife changes her position. I owe her that, so I will try to be the best I can without hurting her. I have to still learn how to live with it, but am progressing.
Barbara
Lorileah,
There is no wrong body. It is just that we haven't learned to understand why our thoughts don't represent whats on the outside. We are hybrids like the pluot==part plum, part apricot and no amount of messing around with it will make it either one again. We are in the same boat. We are pluots in a world of apricots and plums.
Last year I saw an Australian documentary film of some children 5-8 or so who "Knew" that they should have been the other gender. They had accepting, loving parents who let them dress in boy or girl clothing as they were wont to do and play with dolls or GI Joe and at some point in the future they could make a decision about which gender they would follow. sounds great but in the intervening years they would become socialized very likely according to their "outer" self and when they made that important decision they would be likely just as unhappy as if they grew up confused. Why, because their thoughts would be a dissonance to "reality" and try as they might, they could never be a plum again. Life is so subjective that hormones and surgery cannot make a pluot into an apricot. If one accepts that they are forever a pluot, then life can likely progress in a better way. In other words, self acceptance that we are not like others and we must compensate to some degree.
There is a wonderful philosophy paper entitled "What's it like to be a bat". I've mentioned it before and here is a link to it. Here is a precis of the paper.
"The paper isn't really about the sensory world of bats; it's a critique of reductionist theories of the mind. Nagel argues that consciousness has a subjective aspect, and that understanding other mental states is difficult or impossible for those not able to experience those mental states"
and here is the lint to the paper, click on the blue text if you wish to read it. It isn't long, and it is really worth while reading.
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/...t-is-it-be-bat
This thread has weighed heavily on my mind partly because I think the topic is extremely important and partly for my affection for you LoriLeah.
Think about the experience of connection because in my opinion that is everything.
This is not about a mental state as a woman because there is no such thing as a mental state as a woman.
The body you reside in decides how you experience life because that is what you use to connect with life.
Instead of body lets use skin color in relationship to connection to culture.
In a culture where the dominant skin color is white the person with the skin color of black will have a completely different connection to that culture because of their skin color than a person who has white skin and it is this connection that fundamentally shapes them into who they are.
There is no difference between people who are white or black because of their skin color but because of their relationship to the culture as dominant skin color along with the power that being dominant gives it.
Take that connection and multiply it by several hundred fold and that is the connection I'm talking about between a man and a woman sexually
It is your experiencing of the man as a woman that creates connection because you can express who you are through that body.
Nothing to do with mental states. You have changed the vessel so changed the experiencing so changed the connection.
You change your body to express who you are and you change your body to experience who others are in ways only possible after you make the change.
Transsexuality is all about connection, not having the mental state of a woman.
You are not trying to become something else but removing that which blocks you from being what you already are.
I changed to have the connection that my body was preventing me from having with my environment and to eliminate the dissonance I experienced between body and mind that left me feeling abnormal, different and uneasy.
Not to become a woman or have the mental state of a woman.
If you cannot connect with yourself or others than this is what you want to focus on in my opinion.