It used to be, now it's "do it my way or you're not a real woman".Originally Posted by sandra-leigh
It used to be, now it's "do it my way or you're not a real woman".
Every individual capable of rational thought and coherent to reality is always responsible for all of their actions. Whether they like it or not.
Some make bad choices, some rush into things, some ignore others advice, some are really mixed up or a mixture of any of these. No matter, de transition is an awful thing. If someone can avoid it by being advised not to transition in the first place that is a good thing.
Does someone de transitioning hurt all of us? Yeah some, just as someone who is alcoholic and falls off the wagon hurts other recovering alcoholics. Mostly it is the sensationalism of this used by people who do not understand this to begin with that hurts us all.
I really cannot understand it myself, and it will not be an option for me because there is nothing to detransition back to.
Last edited by Angela Campbell; 10-24-2013 at 05:43 PM.
All I ever wanted was to be a girl. Is that really asking too much?
Corinne, just do what you think is best and I do hope you are successful. Being sarcastic and dismissive is not going to help you. I mentor two young women age 22 and age 26, both successfully transitioned except SRS which we are working on. Not just online but in real life. I have met with and worked with their parents, employers, friends etc. to help them build allies and support and accompanied them through their transition. I represent transfolks of every stripe in my practice. So I have a fair idea of the differences and of the commonalities.
Sandra, I know, many of you think I am just plain mean, but really I just want all of you to prove me wrong. If you do, I have accomplished what I set out to do. I would distinguish between the need to transition and transitioning. One is the ultimate motivator the other is the activity to get where you want to go, wherever that may be. And yes you have to present beyond reproach, which by the way has nothing to do perfect make-up or voice skills (although that helps). If you don't you just feed the prejudice, which I am afraid to say means you lose credibility.
"Never forget the many ways there are to be human" (The Transsexual Taboo)
You remind me, Angela, that there's a difference between being responsible for actions versus consequences. So we're really talking about a situation where someone who is responsible for their actions is perhaps not responsible for the consequences of their actions. This is a more difficult ethical point than some credit, I think. Some maintain, for example, that ALL control is an illusion - so while you are responsible for what you do as a free agent, consequences are ultimately irrelevant to actions. I can accept that for situations the average person could not foresee. I have trouble accepting that for situations that are predictable.
This point looms for me, though. Can you force a woman to be (to present, to live) as a man against her will? That turns out to be a remarkably complicated ethics question.
Lea
Yes complete control is an illusion, so at best you settle for educated estimations. And no matter the action consequences will occur. Some take responsibility for these consequences and some do not. Some learn from them and keep going.
Can you force a woman to live as a man against her will? Sure....but there will be consequences.
All I ever wanted was to be a girl. Is that really asking too much?
It was never about me personally.
I take, and took exception to your position on failed transitions and treatment of those who suffer in it's wake.
If you accept that you can force someone to be (or behave as) what they are not, then it follows that there are conditions under which you cannot hold them responsible.
But what constitutes such irresistable force? Some will say that there is a decision made - and responsibility for that decision - in ALL circumstances. Some would prefer to die rather than give into force. Well ... OK, but even views of martyrdom go up and down depending. Personally, there are things I might die for and others where I might concede to compulsion or circumstance. ... but I still think that's my choice. Put another way, people who attempt to impose their will on others are morally responsible for that. I am responsible for what I do in response. The fact that I might not like it simply means I've ordered my priorities such that compliance is less onerous than the alternatives.
To see it any differently is to abandon my agency on a plea of victimhood. Don't mistake this. Someone coming under dire circumstances often IS a victim. But that doesn't change the fact that there is still choice involved.
So fine - Sally is now Harry again. So Harry, things sucked ... what made you decide going back was better?
To the extent that people are concerned about empathy, any of us would feel deeply for someone going through that. Kathryn included. That doesn't mean that something didn't go terribly wrong. People f*** up all the time. We comfort and console them ... even when we ask them "WHAT were you thinking!? [leaving off the "you idiot"]"
If you maintain that someone transitioning REALLY and truly, honest-to-God has to be prepared to lose anything and everything, but then turn around and say no, you really didn't, that it's ok to go ahead and turn around based on something you weren't prepared to lose, then just what ARE we telling people?
Last edited by LeaP; 10-24-2013 at 09:28 PM.
Lea
YEAH! He is a CHEAT! He is a SCOUNDREL! He is a LIAR! How dare he hurt all of us real transsexuals by acting like a woman!
He needs to quit dressing up en femme and running around pretending to be a woman like I do!
For real people. When people gonna live and let live?
It takes a true Erin to be a pain in the assatar.
That's the path I took initially, but admittedly it's not for everyone. I'm a minimalist by nature and it felt wrong for me to think of HRT as a prerequisite to accepting myself as a woman. I wanted to approach hormonal adjustments as a woman correcting what nature robbed me of – if that makes sense.
One doesn't necessarily preclude the other. I do believe a lot of luck is taking advantage of opportunities, but there are some things that just work out well for reasons that can't possibly be foreseen. The fact that my friends were supportive is definitely a result of associating with decent people, a very practical form of karma. Winding up with a career in an industry that is about as trans-friendly as they get? It's hard to take credit for that decision, and it definitely made my transition a lot easier than it might have been otherwise.
... and I can take precisely zero credit for being born at a time, and into a culture where transition is a realistic option.
~ Kimberly
“To escape criticism do nothing, say nothing, be nothing." - Elbert Hubbard
It makes complete sense. Just to be clear, this is not an acceptance issue for me. It's entirely about psychological health and stability. I really don't think I would ever have been in a state to consider transition without hormones. And now that I think of it, that makes some additional sense of not attempting to make the transition decision until I HAD been on hormones for a while. But that's hindsight.
To the thread topic, what if I could no longer get hormones post-transition? Would that "force" me to detransition? Got me, but probably not. I'd just be screwed up in a different way. My writing might be more entertaining, though.
Lea
I haven't really had anything to say until now.
Kathryn, I don't completely disagree with your position though I do think you're being a bit churlish.
I have been an outspoken proponent of planning your transition with a clear head even before I knew what I was talking about. I'm also not shy about saying that clothes don't make the girl, transition does. I've always been very honest about my struggles and I've been consistently candid about my experiences and feelings. My transition has been nothing short of a miracle and no one can say that I haven't put in the work, BUT I am also extremely lucky.
I would never de-transition because that really sounds like a horrible thing, BUT I have no idea how I would feel if my transition wasn't successful. I definitely have my own physical challenges BUT I am rather fine boned and still within the physical parameters of an average sized woman. My voice is mostly pretty darn feminine as well as my physical presence. It took awhile but I now have pretty darn good hair as well. None of these things are attributable to any thing that I have done for myself. I am just plain lucky and I was literally born this way.
How can I look at a sister who couldn't complete her transition largely because she is undeniably masculine looking and judge her for lack of commitment? If I looked like the kind of guy that I'm attracted to yet I felt the same way, I have no idea what I would do, or if I would have ever transitioned.
This is why I'm always so snarky on here with the incredible passing stories. I know first hand that passing is HARD and I want the fence sitters to know this. I know I'm more fem looking than average and I STILL had a hard time getting to the point I'm at now. It takes guts to transition BUT it takes a special kind of spirit to do it when you're not physically lucky. This has been hard for me, it is still no picnic sometimes. Sometimes I feel like I'm starring in some weird reality show, and that is WITH my lucky looks. I can't imagine how hard it must be for someone who is not so lucky.
Now that is the biggest load of bovine scatology you have ever spouted.
It doesn't matter what the field or how well prepared someone is, anyone who will never admit self-doubt is either insane or dangerous - and often both. In my professional life, I have often been called in to clean up the mess caused by such people.
In the context of transition, those WTF moments are often a side-effect of the dysphoria itself. Unlike you, I would not judge someone who admits to those moments, but I would worry about someone who mid-transition insists (s)he has never had them.
Check out this link if you are wondering about joining Safe Haven.
This above all: To thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any
Galileo said "You cannot teach a man anything" and they accuse ME of being sexist
Never ascribe to malice that which can be easily explained by sheer stupidity
What about at the beginning? I am only to a point where I need to further explor the whole thing. I believe I am trapped in a mans body but to date have only started to seek help. If I question at three in the morning does it make me prudent in my consideration or a future failed experiment? Sorry but that does not really make me feel any better about myself.
As far as e need to transition and the related depression, well the depression is a symptom of the real diagnosis. That being gender dysphoria. I would worry more about a person beginning transition that did not have depression. Why treat the flu after you have gotten over it? Kinda defeats the purpose to me. My depression is caused I believe by my being trapped, not the other way round, so the treatment for the issue is to seek help in transition, not take anti depressants which never worked for me to begin with.
Megan
The residents of Winnipeg must have been at Tim Hortons when the memo about mandatory Two Minutes Hate went out.
Oh, last week a passenger in a car driving by yelled an indistinct remark. Oh me, oh my! Guess I should go back to male 'cuz the world handed me my tranny letter. You remember me being male, don't you? The days of 100% male presentation, when I would get insults hurled at me by strangers walking by 2 feet away? Utter strangers, who knew nothing of me other than somehow I was "wrong" in some invisible way.
I had my walk in the snow {* -- a Canadiana reference} some years ago. I figured that since the world was determined to hate me anyhow, for nothing, that I might as well dress in public the way I wanted to. At least the insults would be more accurate, and I could enjoy myself in-between. So I did. And the random close-range insults went away. An occasional giggle, but that was nothing new to me.
It was when I thought I was a guy that the world was busy giving me my "tranny letter". These days I seldom even rate a shrug. At least in person.
Changing my professional name will have an exposure to a few tens of thousands of people, and some of them might get upset. Some of them might go as far as to read the documentation (gasp!)
THis thread has been an interesting read! Kathryn, your original comment is perhaps one of the most damningly judgemental pice of prose I have read in many a day.
When will people realize that in any given situation, 20 people may well react in twenty different ways, depending on, for example, their world view, their health, and dare i say it, their gender. For each of those people, their unique response may well be the one best suited to them.
I would suggest that you take a long look at your reaction to the OP, and note the responses to it - the should verify the correctness of what I have just written.
Could you please try to stop being so judging and prescriptive, as if you knew better thean the person undergoing the experience?
If you always do what you always did, you'll always get what you always got!
Why don't you just say bullshit..... I would be fine with that. Not that I agree with your brilliant but rather smelly analysis. And, by the way, scatology is not feces, it's the study of feces....
Sandra,
Are you really that dense. What you are writing there confirms what I said, namely, that the world will be the one to judge you and you better be prepared to withstand that onslaught.....
Amanda,
I am not sure what you are expecting from me. Let's just for a moment go along. What people are saying in their comments is that de-transitioning is something that is within the normal rage of trans-whatever behavior and that people should be supported in both transitioning and de-transitioning. I happen to disagree.
Even worse is that this is not about anyone that anyone here would know.is what Arbon wrote. She described as a phenomenon that she has heard about, not "Joe has de-transitioned". The investment of emotional energy invested , especially in attacking me, is pretty enormous given that we are not even talking about a real person but something someone has heard about. So you are taking me to task for for not giving much credence to someone who doesn't even exist, some nebulous multitude of people who have apparently done this. And I have been declared morally blameworthy for not being supportive to whom exactly. I don't know anything about de-transitioning, but I do know the impact these rumors and the stories of actual person de-transitioning have on those that want to transition. And that experience is quite different. It is also the reason why I think people who de-transition (especially if they are post op) are to be judged.Sometimes you hear people that have decided to de-transition, even post-ops.
This is also not about someone who fails RLE, because that is what RLE is for.
Last edited by Kathryn Martin; 10-25-2013 at 07:07 AM.
"Never forget the many ways there are to be human" (The Transsexual Taboo)
Since you have the answers and know the exact differences between a real and fake TS, maybe they should start calling it the "Kathryn Martin standards of care"
I hope no one on this forum questions their own identity just because of what you imagine to be real or not.
It takes a true Erin to be a pain in the assatar.
I agree in part with the "do or die" approach of Kathryn, I remember that she is a lawyer and a good lawyer should always warn you that every cause is a messy one. Do you remember the "war of the Roses" movie? In the initial scene the divorce lawyer says that he charges $300/hour but he will give to the customer a free advice of how divorces could go wrong... and then the story begins.
I am an engineering but the background is the same: practical. Transition is something that society does not currently understand so we, especially MtFs (for FtMs the problems are different), must present beyond reproach, at 100%.
I think that one legitimate cause of de-transitioning is that it is physically impossible... but that is something that is more or less clear even before hormones. If I am 2 meters tall, well, either I am able to sustain that I won't so easily pass (with all the consequences) or the gatekeeper should simply reject to give me hormones... unless I demonstrate with a real life test that I can handle the consequences of a difficult passing.
Hormones, we know, are not magic, they will not turn a man into a woman, unless we take them before 18 (more or less).
Transition at a mature age should be done only when ALL the material, physical, mental, emotional aspects are clearly resolved. That does not mean to abolish doubt, which is inevitable, but that transition itself is clearly supported and its master plan (like an engineering planning diagram) fully laid out, with times, financial resources, support, etc.
But... I know that not every one is an engineer or a lawyer (thanks God), for the others there should be professionals which take care of this. A Gender therapist should (in my view) act as the lawyer in the "war of the Roses", warn the possible TS that this is a very steep road.
I think this is a good point. The entire purpose of RLE is to see if transition is right, because no one ever really knows.....giving up or changing direction before or during RLE isn't really a failure it is part of the process.
The thing that is difficult to understand are the ones who do complete all the way through SRS and further and much later detransition. After all they went through .....although this is extremely rare it is often publicized to our detriment.
But you know....there isn't always a happily ever after.
And Melissa,
Yes luck has a part in it for many of us. I find luck has been very good to me, but not without an enormous amount of hard work, just as with you. The harder you work the more apparent the luck seems to be.
Last edited by Angela Campbell; 10-25-2013 at 07:05 AM.
All I ever wanted was to be a girl. Is that really asking too much?
Megan, only you can decide what the significance of your doubts represents. I have had my share of WTF moments. Written about them here, in fact. In the beginning they WERE doubts. My mind felt like it was being scrambled. There were times I seriously questioned my sanity and experienced a kind of internal vertigo.
For some of us, our real identity emerges, having been roused from the edge of consciousness by a crisis and then manifesting ever more strongly and frequently. Until doubt is finally gone. Yet I still have occasional WTF moments! But they don't engender doubt any longer. Rather, they are flashes of old and alternative points of view. You don't suddenly take on a renewed view of yourself, immediately and completely cutting off the old.
So I will see myself as if from without once in a while. Sometimes I'm chagrined, sometimes it's funny, sometimes it's in response to being with someone trying to understand and listening to how they see me.
I can only speak to the *decision* to transition at this point, but I can tell you that mine came from a very deep place. There are elements of both self-knowlege and faith in the decision. But there is no longer any doubt about who I am. That's what prompts me forward, and that's what I would have to face going back. Misty neatly characterized that as a horrible prospect.
Oh, and in before the lock ...
Lea
Hi Arbon, you sure asked some difficult questions there in your first post. While it is sad that complete transition did not work for these people only they can answer your questions. We can only speculate what caused them to de-transition. I would hate to think that the gender therapists are responsible for their failure with all the safeguards in place. I have read that 2% is the expected failure rate although 5% may be more realistic. Science is not perfect and there is no real test for this "birth defect" other than listening and observing and challenging and preparing the client for transition if it's required.
Perhaps some people who did transition and it went well for them according to plan have higher expectations for those that need to transition, IDK.
Last edited by Marleena; 10-25-2013 at 05:46 PM. Reason: added info, pbbly not precise enough.
Lea, I think I was trying to be rhetorical in my comments, but you are spot on in that each journey is unique. My crisis did occurs recently so I agree whole heartedly with that aspect.
Last edited by Rianna Humble; 10-25-2013 at 05:27 PM.
RLE is there for a reason and if a person realizes changing genders and living in the opposite gender is not goood for them then that is success and the system worked. Success or failure of a transition resides with the person undergoing such transition. Yes society judges, however if an individual is happy and can deal with the abuse of society, then who are we to judge whether a transition is successful or not. GD is not a black and white condition. The goal of all of us should be to find a level of comfort where our condition is eliminated or mitigated to a manageable level.
I had some examples or 3 individual I personally know that transitioned 30 years ago with hormones for a couple years(no surgeries) and gave it up. but the post glitch obliterated it and I have work to do. Bottom line 1 stayed male identifies as trans, 2 retransitioned 4-5 years ago. 1 because of medical reasons can not have surgery, and the other had SRS last year at age 70. All 3 are mentally stable, happy and productive members of society.
Success or failure is a personal thing and nobody can tell me I am a success or failure. Your concept of being a woman and what transition should be may differ from mine as well as the road we take to get there.
"When failure is off the table the only thing left is to negotiate levels of success" M Hobbes
"Never Let your Fear Decide Your Fate" Awolnation
"A new dawn destroys the tranquility of the darkness" Steph W
No, this isn't a good point. Why is a line being drawn at failure of RLE? Technically my friend was in the midst of RLE when she de-transitioned. She presented as female 24/7. The world wouldn't know where she was in the transition process any more than it would be able to describe my own situation correctly. RLE let the genie out of the bottle and all of the de-transition in the world certainly cannot and did not put her back. I can't even imagine the pain she was going through.
De-transition after GRS would be that much more tragic but regardless, both situations deserve our compassion rather than scorn or ridicule.
Like a corpse deep in the earth I'm so alone, restless thoughts torment my soul, as fears they lay confirmed, but my life has always been this way - Virginia Astley, "Some Small Hope" (1986)
Sunlight falls, my wings open wide. There's a beauty here I cannot deny - David Sylvian, "Orpheus" (1987)
Quite the thread. The "must present beyond reproach" premise expressed by a few really bothers me.
Why do you accept that? Who the heck sets the standard for "presenting"? Isn't that ratifying prejudice?
I mean we can and do ratify prejudice; I did it by closeting my feelings away and hiding my true interests and suppressing my true behaviors all to make sure I "presented male beyond reproach". Now you want me to believe I gotta do the same thing but as a woman???
That in a nutshell is what I felt when I let myself out of my closet. I felt the same freaking pressure to be perfect, just in another gender role. And I decided I wasn't going to do it. I am going to "relax into" a role that I define and I create. Perhaps not unlike the path Sandra-leigh describes.
And to take this thought back to the OP, maybe the pressure to "present female beyond reproach" is just too much, and that's why some de-transition. It would probably help if more people in our own community accepted or at least openly discussed middle ground "Gender Outlaw" concepts discussed by Kate Bornstein and other TS commentators.
Hugs,
'lissa
"The second life isn't like the first one, is it?"
"Sometimes, it's even better."
~ Elektra Natchios & Stick, Elektra (Movie) 2005, R. Metzner, S. Zicherman, Z. Penn
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