Do we ever lose the stigma of being 'The guy that changed sex'?

[I Am Paula]

I can't remember a time in my life I have spent so much time thinking. Sounds wierd, but now that HRT, and the beginnings of transition are a reality, I daydream about what my life will be like.
I think I have very realistic ideas about what HRT will and won't accomplish at my age, so no, I'm not dreaming about looking like Charlize Theron.
Yesterday, in the coffee shop some women were giving me the 'Look at the tranny look', not mean or judgemental, just 'I see you'. All of a sudden my heart sank a bit. Will I always be the guy that changed sexes? My community, friends, and colleagues have been miraculously supportive, but how do I ever lose the 'used to be a guy' stigma? I was lucky to be able to relocate and start a new life as a woman, but people know I'm trans, can I ever just be a woman to them?
Sometimes I wonder if I should try so hard. If they will always treat me as the former guy, why go the extra yard to present EVEN MORE female. I need the HRT, and nothing will stop me from getting a BA, short of me having unheard of breast growth. Maybe I should just stop there. Live as 'There goes the tranny' guy, if they know anyway. Get on with my life presenting pretty much the way I have for so long anyway. I don't hate my appearance. I don't make anybody ill, or make them laugh at me, be I see the masculine markers that make me 'the guy in the dress'.
Does everybody have moments of doubt like this? Would the pain and expense of further hair removal, FFS, and hours of voice practice etc. just be for my benefit? I plan on staying where I live now, so I'll be interacting with the same people for a long time.
Despite presenting as female for as long as I have, do I just have new girl jitters?

[Inna]

What is Real?

We perceive the world through senses, those have been honed for entire life, based on Genetics and observation, combined they create a Reality. How about DREAMS? When we dream them they seem real, sometimes we awake and have to pinch our selves to make sure we are not dreaming anymore.

Reality however does not quite exist as we have learned to perceive it. There is ANOTHER, unlearned for most, TRUTH. Such is Reality of dream like actuality, where if you desire anything with full might of your truth and love, YOU WILL Create It!!!!!!!

Don't say, you may never see your self as Charlize Theron!!!

In fact, dream about the day YOU WILL look like her in the near future! Universe shall align, You have the power to create reality, with love and truth.

I have traveled such experience, and dreamed every night, sometime in tears, to become a true woman, pretty woman, real woman. I am still on my journey, it will never end but also I have arrived at reality so beautiful and wholesome, it almost feels unreal and dream like!!!

[sandra-leigh]

As long as I stay active in Science and Technology, I am unlikely to lose that stigma; my writing style is too well known. I'd be lucky if I managed to get as far as to stop overusing the word "actually"

[arbon]

I think a lot of people are able to move beyond it, just be women. A lot of women here have.

It just depends on different things I think/ circumstances likes looks, what surgeries you've had, money, genetic luck, age, location

me I'm not there, I live openly with a transsexual identity in a small community - think 15,000 people in whole county. Its just the way it is and mostly I am okay with it. Not much I can do about, so I try to accept it. I try to be a good person and a part of the community, I don't hide, I have a lot of friends - try just be normal about it and not make a big deal about it.

but there are times I get reminded of my difference. Like last thursday evening I went to get a quick bite with my 13 yr old daughter and a couple guys clocked me. I did not recognize them but they could have known me from around town or they may have been total strangers that just happened to notice me. But I had their attention, and they were talking some **it. That stuff does not bother me so much when it is just me, but when my daughter is with me it is upsetting because it makes her afraid. She, and my wife, and mom get afraid for still, though not like they used to. It should not have to be that way.

[mary something]

younger guys are the worst in my opinion Arbon, at least that has been my experience. Especially in groups where they have to "prove" their manhood to each other continuously because they are so insecure. BY themselves they are typically respectful and almost timid of the tranny lol. Just my experience but I think we make them more insecure of themselves, probably cause they've been looking at too much porn lol.

[Badtranny]

Wonderful post Celeste. This is exactly the kind of stuff we should be talking about in this forum.

These are exactly the things that questioners need to see discussed.

What you are experiencing is exactly what I, and every T-girl that I personally know deals with every day. I've been full-time for a year now and just last Friday there was a whole table of people who kept turning around to look at me during lunch. They were literally turning their bodies around to look at me. It was hard to not notice because there was also a mirror on the wall where I could see them, seeing me.

People look at me every were I go, and I've had a lot of work already. This is your life now.

TS girls need to know that the social transition is long and hard. The next person that tells me my pics 'totally pass' is gonna get an earful, because that person is clearly not paying attention.

[DaniG]

I have not walked the path yet, so take my opinion with a grain of salt, but I'm not thinking of it in terms of being on one side of the line or the other. I see us being on a spectrum between guy in the dress and true woman. No, we'll never be 100% on the side of the spectrum we want to be. But real woman are never satisfied their appearance either.

Instead of despairing, I suggest that you try to craft you appearance the best you can in the direction that you want to go. Want to look like Charlize Theron? Then do everything reasonable to make it happen. Get the FFS, stay in shape, enjoy expanding your wardrobe in the direction you want, and, as Inna suggested, believe in yourself. Will you ever really look like her? No. Will you ever be 100% true woman? Maybe not. But if you're at the 40% true woman mark now, you'll be a lot happier if you can get to 80%. You may still get a look now and then, but now and then is much better for your quality of life than every day.

I won't pass well either, so this is my strategy. I hope this helps! <3

[Nigella]

The "stigma" is our own to bear. I know that without a complete change in my life I will be known by some as that bloke that had a sex change, but I am not ashamed of who or what I am. I am honest with anyone that asks a question about being trans, with the exception of anything too personal. I will tell anyone who asks "are you a man or woman" that I am a woman, the choice to believe or not is theirs.

I will correct anyone who should know better if they misgender me, those who have no impact on my life, that is their choice, I am not that paranoid that if a sales assistant says sir, to be indignant.

[arbon]

I see us being on a spectrum between guy in the dress and true woman. No, we'll never be 100% on the side of the spectrum we want to be. But real woman are never satisfied their appearance either.

I won't pass well either, so this is my strategy. I hope this helps! <3

Dani, I do understand what you are trying to say.

the words you use are maybe not the best though - I do consider myself a true woman, a real woman as you put it. I am.

Its just my experience of being a woman is different then most, and the way society views me is not always in line with how I feel. I may be a transsexual woman - its kind of like being a small woman, a big woman, a native american woman, an asian woman - and millions of other types of women. I am a transsexual woman, but still a woman. There is nothing unreal about me and I am not trying to "pass" as a woman as though I am trying to deceive people. I'm not trying to convince people that I am something I am not. There is no being 20%, 40%, or 80% woman. you either are or you aren't - unless maybe they are dual gender.

[Michelle.M]

In this thread I see some great points being made, but we're already strolling too close to the edge of that deep well that we always seem to want to fall into.

That deep well is called "pretty".

There is a big difference between being passable and being attractive. I know plenty of genetic women who are not the least bit attractive and they still are properly gendered as female, whereas I know trans women who are very attractive yet still get clocked. And I know trans women who are not very, um, shall we say "polished" and yet they seem to do just fine with society gendering them as women.

Time and again we talk about the attributes that make it possible for others to properly gender us. Physical things like voice, electrolysis, grooming, wardrobe and deportment - all very important, but none of these things matter at all until we truly see ourselves as female.

Otherwise it becomes a vicious cycle: "I don't see myself as female" leads to "I'll fix my appearance until I do" which leads to "I still don't see myself as female" and then "Well, let me add this surgery (or whatever)" and I'll finally be there" and on and on it goes until - when? Until we get there (wherever "there" is)? Until we give up in despair?

And FWIW, I have heard that some therapists have to deal with post-op girls who STILL have issues because, even after all the hard work and scrimping and saving and getting clocked and surgeries they just aren't pretty enough.

Not pretty enough for whom? Not pretty enough for themselves.

I suppose in a strange and twisted way those girls have made a real and total gender transition, to the point where they've fully embraced the same sort of debilitating body and appearance issues that many insecure genetic women are saddled with.

Yes, gender dysphoria fundamentally means that our female soul does not match up with our male body, and therefore changes must be made to achieve congruence. But if the only acceptable level of change is "pretty" then we derail our own transition process.

The original question - Do we ever lose the stigma of being 'The guy that changed sex'? - the answer is Yes, once we learn to accept the woman who lives within. Or No, if we define womanhood as [many, but not all] men do as anything less than physical beauty being below standard.

[kellycan27]

NO.. If we transition in place and everyone knows. The support and acceptance we may receive is still going to be acceptance and support of that girl.. who used to be that guy.
NO.. If you don't do a pretty good job of looking the part. ( that does not mean having to be pretty）
Accepting our selves is very important, but that in itself won't end the stigma.

[Eryn]

For some people it may be difficult to leave behind the "special" status of being transgender. Unless there is a completely clean break with the past, a thorough revision of written records, and a move to a new city and job, it is very difficult for a TS individual to lose all the links that can generate a stigma.

[Lorileah]

Kelly makes the best point. I am seeing that already. When you transition with people around you who "know" you will always be (at least in the back of their minds) the original you. You can't erase that. And I expect that no matter how hard I try, there will be tells forever. I am trying to learn to just go with it.

[Angela Campbell]

I think I would rather that one who changed sex than the one who didn't.

[kellycan27]

I made a couple of clean breaks. I started my transition in Ca and finished it in Nevada. Then back to a different part of Ca.
I established my credit after transitioning, attended college and got my degrees as a woman, and got my CPA license as a woman. We just relocated to New Hampshire where nobody ( with the exception of my in laws) knows anything about my past. I am Dr Rick's wife, Brian and Maria's mommy, and the woman who just bought the old Miller place.

[Xrys]

I really like the point you've made Michelle. This is something I have to constantly keep an eye on myself. What quallities do I want and why do I want them. Which ones will make me more feminine and which ones will make ma more attractive. I want to make sure i spend my time and money on the right ones first, as both are quite limited recourses. Will i be seen as anything more than some pretty man in a dress? Will society ever see me the way I see myself? I don't know, only time will tell. Here is a song i found a while back that helps me stay focused. I hope it helps.http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=DjF4a...%3DDjF4aMv_6eY

[KellyJameson]

You are really healthy and I wish others had the strength to face truth squarely as you do because in the end I think it is our illusions of what is possible that does the most damage to us.

Sometimes to understand I try to see similar challenges faced by others, not necessarily other transsexuals but other women who also may feel like "less of a woman" because of what life throws at them

Many woman have felt like they are less than other women because they cannot become pregnant or they lose their breasts to cancer and sometimes simply because they lack what is defined as feminine beauty by being big boned, having to much body hair or possibly being to tall even though this seems to be something that is now being seen as an advantage.

Many of the physical attributes that transsexuals mention that leave them feeling "less than" other women, woman also feel.

These are some of the things that their identity may be connected to.

When you are talking about being seen as a guy the other side of the same coin is not being seen as a woman.

This comes from having lost something that other woman have whether it is seen in the face or some other physical attribute, characteristic or behavior.

This is why in my opinion transitioning should be about transitioning in your mind as much as in the external world of your body and the world you live in.

It is a knowing that you reach where you feel your femaleness flowing through you and the main thing that stops this is not making the connection between this that flows through you that is in every transsexual to it being "you as female".

In a way you still do not "know" that you are female so you are looking for validation externally.

I will not lie to you it is very difficult to find this "knowing" without external validation but I promise you that it is there inside you because I feel it when I read your words.

We are born female and identify with that which we know ourselves to be which is female but you have been taught to label yourself as male so you have paradoxically been taught to label this energy in you as "male" when it is actually female.

You have been living with yourself your whole life while calling yourself by the wrong name as that which you are on the inside so your mind is still confused and you are trying to escape this confusion through validation so that you can give yourself permission to re-label that which you are that was mislabeled by others mistakenly.

You are caught in a paradox created by others who could not really "see you" because of your physical shape so you were taught to think that what you "know yourself to be" as this "energy" that runs through you is called being a "man"

When you converse on a forum you feel the person behind the words and it is very hard for men to go on a forum and pretend to be women or women to pretend to be men.

The energy in their words betrays them every single time. Use testosterone and estrogen as symbols for energy because they are energy as much as they are information

Validation is nice but you want to stop labeling your essence as "male" because it is actually the opposite which is female.

When you experience this "knowing of self" as female you will find it much less stressful when others see the "man" and not the "woman" and this will go a long way to helping you be able to reject or ignore what others think or do in reaction to your appearance.

Transitioning is partly unlearning the lie that you have been told since you were born.

I like my masculine characteristics because I have no interest in being feminine as "pretty".

I have resisted the suggestions from surgeons for FFS and I have a nose that has its own zip code plus a square jaw and slight brow ridge but this is my face and I like it.

I'm kind of an ugly chick and I dig on that because it is more interesting to be an individual than one of the faceless who look and act like everyone else.

I believe that I'm comfortable with me to a large extent because I have zero doubt within me that I was born female but I did this by going deep within me and reflecting on my life and healing the fracture in me caused by being mislabeled and prevented from living truly as I know myself to be.

It was this "knowing" that gave me the confidence to continue with transitioning instead of the half life of living as neither male or female which was not living at all in my case.

The inner journey is critical in my opinion to successful transitioning. Without that "knowing" you will be wounded by others at every turn.

No matter how you look the ravages of time will take there toll so without a strong sense of self as the woman you "know yourself to be", every change will bring misery and heartache.

The stigma will become irrelevant once you leave the world of others behind and have a full, complete and loving relationship with yourself.

You are very healthy and I have no doubt you will get there.

[Inna]

Interestingly, I have become female in the eyes of scrutiny about 6-7 months ago. Yet, there are still those around me who had known me forever. Most, almost all refer to me as they see me, a woman, however, couple are stuck in the past and somehow, out of their own predicament, they still slip often, even though when asked, who do they see in front of their dull eyes, they apparently state "WOMAN" and so I do ask, "so why do you keep on referring to me as someone I am not, nor ever been? Their answer falls short of true underlying motive, as they point to remembering me as a BOY......I believe, they simply, subconsciously can not accept that anyone could possibly always be a woman even though enveloped in male body!

However, the point I like to make, is that even though they do this, it simply doesn't bother me, not anymore................because I KNOW WHO I AM!

I distanced my self from their company simply because they could not see my truth. But if I should run into them at any given moment, I will be as friendly as I have ever been, and correct them as they speak, probably annoying them more then they could ever annoy me

That to me is overcoming Dysphoria!

[Jorja]

There are those who will refuse to change and only see him no matter what. They are far and few between. The old saying applies here, you can't cure stupid. I would say 99.998% of the people you engage with in life will see you as you are. A women.

[I Am Paula]

Thanks so much for all the great responses. We all have a history. Short of being reborn magically female, we just have to face that in the eyes of those around us, we will always be 'the guy that changed sex', and just be comfortable with it. At least thru confidence and making a good example, those around us can put that aside, and see our beauty.

[noeleena]

Hi,

Even some of us who are female dont have those female ..... you should just look like a normal female .... we dont because our bodys came with two sets of hormones,

We are not trans any thing just different. most of the talk is about how we look or in my case dont , go back to the 1860s on i have pic's of women who are female who look nothing like female, if you stood other men next to them youd think they all are men. dress them in womens clothes & hair do like women did in the day youd still say that is a man. not so this woman was natal born & gave birth to her own children yet theres nothing about her look to say she was a female.

Of cause that then gets into my subject of intersex was she , theres no info so ill never know or of others like us just because some of us dont look like female does that say or mean we are not , some of us have our womb's & some of us dont.

Those who know myself dont have any issues thats why im a member of women only groups plus mixed of cause, they see a woman who is different, if they did not wont to be around me or not wonted myself to be part of thier group i would not be invited to be a member or be on commites,

did i have to prove im a female did i have to prove because of how i look i cant be a female / woman , ...the prove... is in my acceptance by them thats why i can work along side those im around,

For myself its not about what i dont have , or my disadvantages or disabiltys , its about we dont all come perfect at birth, & what happened before then ,
its who we are after that counts & who we become, that is what really matters,

I did not choose to be female at birth i did not wont to be a woman. nore a man as it goes, i had no say, though some will allways disagree they can i dont mind, you see i am the way i am because of a mix up in details with in my body . & those who can not or will not see beyond my look will miss out on who i really am as a person. maybe not perfect yet can be accepted,

...noeleena...

[mary something]

maybe instead of thinking about it as "that guy who changed sex" we should see it as "that gal who finally got sh!t right!"

[Angela Campbell]

I used to complain about not having shoes until I met someone with no feet.

And you know what? This gal is gonna get this sh!t right!

[Michelle.M]

maybe instead of thinking about it as "that guy who changed sex" we should see it as "that gal who finally got sh!t right!"

Oh, I am SO gonna steal that line!

[Marleena]

maybe instead of thinking about it as "that guy who changed sex" we should see it as "that gal who finally got sh!t right!"

I like that too!

Celeste if they ever call you out on it just tell them you never were "that guy".