You know, folks, some of the things said on this thread have given me things to think about.

Imagine this dialogue:

Young man (going down on one knee and opening a little jewelry box with a diamond ring in it): My darling, I love you with all my heart and soul. Will you marry me?

Young woman: Oh, yes, I will! But my love, I'm afraid there's something I have to confess to you: I'm a woman.

Young man: Huh?

That's kind of why he wants her and she wants him, right? But suppose she'd said, "I'm trans." What's he going to say then? That could change things, right?

And that's the mistake a lot of us made. We forgot the "I'm trans" part when we were getting married. What's simple for them isn't so simple for us. There's lots of women out there really upset with us (though some are OK with it), and it's easy to understand why. Except that some of us here seem to be forgetting what's going on. Most of us here know what gender dysphoria is, and we also know what heterosexual love is. That's our dilemma, and it is a b*** of a dilemma. And it's really hitting Marla square in the face now.

It's the advantage cisgender people have: they get to be themselves all their lives, and nobody thinks anything about it. If we try to be ourselves, a lot of people treat us like freaks.

I know where Marla is right now because I'm in a somewhat similar position myself: it was a relief to me in a way when my son left me. That's our dilemma: what we are separates us from those who are most dear to us. If my parents had ever known about me, they would have disowned me. I don't know about my brother and sister or all the rest of my extended family or my friends. We never can guess. If people we love find out what we are, chances are we're going to lose some of them. No woman ever lost anybody she loved because they realized she was a woman, nor has any man ever lost anybody because they found out he was a man. But we do lose people.

And now it's being suggested that Marla has somehow done wrong because for the last while she's had a lot of time to be herself. There's suggestions here that she got spoiled or she's being selfish. What woman has ever been told she's spoiled and selfish because she's behaving like a woman? What man's ever been accused of being spoiled and selfish because he's behaving like a man? But when a transperson really wants and needs to be trans, she's being told she's spoiled and selfish. She's got to accept that she's going to have to give up being herself.

Yes, things are going to change for her. And this is something that really hurts me. Shouldn't it hurt all of us? When you're trans, if you really want to be trans, it's going to cost you a lot. When you're trans, if you don't want to be trans, it's going to cost you a lot. We're all aware of the price we have to pay.

'Taint fair. Life isn't fair. It's just that this thread is getting to me a bit because it sounds like there's a bit of guilt-tripping going on here. I don't know about the rest of you, but I've had plenty of that.

Annabelle