TIME MATTERS
To transition is not an event. It is an ongoing process of growing and unlearning.
Just as the passing years only increases my physical passability, so to does the years of living utterly as myself, as a woman, permit me to find and reveal my essence. I am far closer to being my true self today, than I was a decade ago, because I have had years to settle in, become comfortable, to let go of my past. All those childhood years of attempting to act like a male take time to release, take time to melt away. It takes time to wash away the protective mud, to reveal the jewel in the center.
It took me years to finally train myself not to automatically freeze up in tight-assed psudo-boy statue mode if I felt afraid or embarrassed. It took years to get over trying to sound aggressively certain about things in order to cover the fact that I was unsure. It took years to overcome the fear of being myself. Even today, a particularly stressful or singular moment might bring back something of those old tattered defenses.
It is not easy to overcome 20 years of self denial and self protective affectations. It takes time.
SOCIAL LIMITATIONS AND FREEDOMS
When I went through transition, my doctors were ever so worried that I would not be able to handle the limitations of life as a woman. What a shock, what a horror, they imagined, for anyone to find themselves suddenly paid less, not listened to, minimized, barely respected, and rendered less socially powerful just because of their sex. My doctors worried that this would destroy a man.
It probably would.
Fortunately, I am a woman. I have seen my share, perhaps more than my share, of such cultural minimization. Even before my transition, I was second class...indeed perhaps third class, because at least a woman is not a 'biological freak'. I never passed well as a male. In a way it is almost humorous that I pass better as a woman than I ever did as a male, despite having been born into a male body.
It is not a happy thing to hit a glass ceiling, to be denied any validity for lack of testicles, to be treated as somewhat dim because of the possession of breasts. No, it is not a happy thing at all, and having once spied for my gender in the boy's camp, I am doubly angry. Perhaps I am more angry than would a woman fortunate to be born into the correct body from the start.
But it is also not the most important thing in life, either. Sexism hurts, and I fight it strongly because of that hurt, but I also recognize that there is more to life than equality of power. I cannot take for granted the things that other women do.
A man cannot enjoy the same freedom of expression that a woman can. Even a secure and flamboyant gay man cannot. In the realm of personal expression, being female is supreme.
Society may change over time, probably in ways we cannot imagine today. But I live in the world in the current year. In this year, there are social limits and freedoms accorded both sexes, unique to each. In general, men enjoy power and hierarchy, women enjoy personal expression and the opportunity for emotional honesty (whether they choose to take that opportunity or not!).
Of the two, I prefer the lot of womanhood, so I have no regrets. Power and hierarchy is a strict game, and one I do not enjoy.
CONCLUSIONS
Being a woman is wonderful...if in fact you actually are a woman. It would destroy a man, which of course, is why Female-to-Male transsexuals are as driven as the Male-to-Female sorts. To finally fit in both body and social expression is without question wonderful. That only gets better as the years go by.
Hiding my past only became more painful, as time went on, and caused me to feel repressed and silenced, invisible and full of self loathing. Hiding my transsexuality seems to hurt, despite the dangers and problems of being Out. I would not choose to be Out to everyone, all the time. That would be horrible. But neither can I stand living in fear of discovery. Somewhere there is a balance, between the honesty of my life and the benefits of safety and acceptance.
Social limitations are just part of life. They must be fought when it is appropriate, and endured when there is nothing to be done.
The sadness of a lost childhood, of never being able to birth a child, of never being able to be a mother or to experience a 'normal' life, is a sadness that does not magically fade away. Nothing really cures it, and it will forever shadow me.
The wisdom of the experience of the transsexual's journey is of supreme value. It can bring awareness and understanding, and appreciation of that which others take for granted.
Sixteen years post operative, but not post transition...in a very real sense transition never ends, because change never ends.
In the final analysis, taking into consideration all these things, and my own responsibility for my own choices and life, I regret nothing that I could have realistically controlled. My only regrets are of things that were always beyond my ability to affect, such as time, and birth, and the bigotry of society.
I am grateful that I live in an age where I could get the hormones and surgery I needed, and that I could become what I am today.
Yes, sixteen years later, I am absolutely grateful for my transition. I am more grateful every year that passes.
It was worth the prices I paid, and then some.
That is how I feel, sixteen years post-op.
To Be Transsexual
What it feels like to be a Male-To-Female Transsexual
Before, during, and after transition
How it touches the soul, and
How it affected my life.
Initially, the trouble with my body being the wrong sex was just...troubling. My mother told me stories, before she died, of the difficulties toilet training me, of getting me to deal with plumbing I felt unhappy with. I remember how kindergarten gave me my first taste of the shame I would be indoctrinated with over my life, of ridicule by adults and my peers. Back then, in early childhood, I knew something was wrong, it caused me embarrassment and a little shame, but I always felt that it would work out, if I just hoped and prayed hard enough.
From the earliest I felt different, because I was not like those I was supposed to be kin to, boys. I was quiet and gentle and they were rough and loud. I liked to draw and read, to paint and play with stuffed animals making little homes for them and myself, I did not fit in with my supposed peers. I felt outcast even in kindergarten, and I had a difficult time understanding fully just why.
Girls would often not include me, which I also did not understand, so the best definition of what it felt like for me to be a transsexual child would be Outcast and Confused.
As I approached puberty, the exclusion from both boys and girls increased, as each had reasons for avoiding the shy strange child I was. To boys I was weird because I liked girlish things, and to girls I was icky because I was supposed to be a boy. When they did include me, they wanted me to play the role of 'daddy' or 'boyfriend' or other such role, and I would only be willing to play 'mommy' or my usual, the 'baby' in games of playing house. In every activity my gender dilemma affected me. If I wanted to twirl on the monkey bars I was ridiculed because only girls did that, and my stuffed animals were taken away by my vile father, fearful of my love for them.
Eventually, I had to find a way to avoid persecution, for my difference increasingly resulted in physical abuse from the boys. I was threatened and beaten, called a fag and a queer, and constantly humiliated. I found an answer in Science Fiction, and my substitute dolls were little soft rubber monsters for which I would build not houses, but elaborate spacecraft. Science was just cool enough to be barely acceptable, and sometimes I could avoid persecution under the disguise of being an expectedly odd 'Brain'. I used my intellect carefully to make myself fit that role as best I could, but I never was able to find real safety. My home-built starships had all the amenities, such as domed gardens and bathrooms, and I imagined elaborate relationships for my little toy friends. The boys that would play with me wanted to create adventures of conflict, but my stories always had my little monsters visiting peaceful worlds filled with gentle creatures who just wanted to be friends. The girls that would play with me sometimes let me play with their dolls, but then would ridicule me for it later.
The feelings of being a prepubescent transsexual might best be summarized by Hiding, Substitution, and the pain of Physical Abuse.
By puberty, I knew shame very well indeed, and feared the names and violence applied to me. Increasingly I tried to deny my true self, and felt that my gender identity was something to be disgusted about. Puberty brought a rush of sexual tension, and with it the most awful horror...sexuality.
The awful incorrectness of my body now seemed to have a will and mind of it's own, and I felt devoured and possessed as if by some alien bodysnatching spore. I withdrew into the back of my own mind, and for the next decade and then some, would feel as if I were in the back row of a dark empty theater, watching helplessly as my life was lived by another.
Male hormones were like a poison and a terrible drug to me, they brought madness and sickness. I felt terrible all the time, poisoned by sweating, nervous twisted lust. The hormones made sexual feelings flood my mind, I could think of little else. I masturbated like a monkey in a cage, constantly, loathing the act but tortured by the uncontrollable drive. I felt like my constant nightmares, of being trapped in the backseat of a car, rolling to doom, down a steep hill.
The feeling of being a puberty stricken transsexual was for me the feeling of being possessed by a demon, the feeling of being out of control, with the only help in withdrawal deep within my own mind. It felt like I was being raped by my own flesh, turned against me and possessed by an alien will.
The agony of this drove me to near madness. My mind did it's best to survive, and split into two separate awareness. One awareness became a day-to-day attempt to fit in, to be what the world expected, and this version of me had little conscious acknowledgment of my gender problem. All it knew was that I was miserable, sick to die.
The other half of my consciousness became dominant only when it was safe, it waited to become me when ever the opportunity to be alone arose. Alone, my true self leapt panting into full consciousness, desperate to seize a moment to be itself. It was inevitable that my dressing up in my mothers things would become tarnished by that dreadful sex drive that owned my body utterly, and the endless masturbation became entwined with dressing as a woman, at least for a while.
Nearing my 20's I had begun to finally have some slight control over the impulses that rode me, and once again became able to separate dressing from the need for sexual release. I could once again simply enjoy, for however brief a time, feeling somewhat close to being my true self. One fine night I simply sat in a rocking chair in my favorite nightgown and watched the rain, a blessed eternal time of utter, peaceful contentment.
Then as soon as the moment was no longer safe, as soon as discovery became imminent, my mind slammed down the steel shutters, and I literally had no memory of what I had just been doing.
This schizoid defense mechanism is the closest I ever hope to be to true madness. I comprehend that it was the way my mind found to survive an unendurable agony, but it was a frightening and disturbing guard.
No sane human wants to be utterly alone, and I still had some shed of sanity left. Of the lovers I had at that time, all were female, and I did my best to fill the role expected of me...but it was very difficult. My sex drive found release, at first, but what I most deeply wanted was an eternal, committed relationship, something few other 18 year olds of my time seemed to want. In coping with the sex I was driven to engage in, the only way I could deal with the soul-rending horror of using those accursed organs I possessed was to distance my self increasingly from the act. Eventually I was all machine inside, carefully memorizing and calculating the exact behaviors that would please my partner, with no thought of what was happening for my own lizard brain. If my partner was satisfied, perhaps they would like me and stay with me forever. It was a reasoned transaction. It became like playing a video game or pinball, as I used intellectual techniques and trained motor control to rack up a performance score measured in orgasms per hour on the fleshy console I played. Of course this kind of distancing cannot last without self destruction, and soon I was incapable of 'performing' -for that was indeed what it was- any more. Impotence was a relief, for it spared me from this special hell of squirming wetness and reptilian compulsion. To this day, because of this agony, sex is all but anathema to me, and I am essentially asexual. Being sexual at all brings back some of the awfulness of those days, and flashback shrieking horrors in my soul, but happily, I now possess almost no sex drive at all. This is a magnificent benefit to my comfort, but frustrating upon occasion for my spouses. I do not know if I will ever be able to feel good about sex. It hurts so much less -and feels so wonderful- to be an angel. It seems that being innocent and childlike is my safety and my salvation.
The feeling of young adulthood as a transsexual was for me best described by Schizoid Denial and Crumbling Survival.
When I finally had my catharsis, and awakened, when the cleft halves of my split mind rejoined, when the pain finally brought me to the point of facing my self or welcoming death by my own hand, I knew Purpose.
Fully, consciously aware of my lifelong torture, armed with a definition of my condition, and clear on what I must do to save my own life, I began a Holy Quest to redress the unendurable fault of my birth.
Transition was enormous pain, and required every ounce of will and strength I possessed merely to continue one day to the next. All about me was hostility, and the loss of friends and family. My sadness was oceanic. Even so, I have never felt more alive, for I was facing life and death square on, for a Holy Purpose, and driven by that Purpose I felt invincible!
As my flesh, under the gentle but powerful magic of female hormones, began to change, as my sex drive fell away and the driving demon that possessed me was exorcised, I began to feel light as air. Sylphlike, I floated on wings of hope, and knew peace in my body, my mind and my soul. Oh, the difference! Where male hormones made me feel poisoned and sick to die, driven by sweaty-dark aggression, female hormones made me feel innocent and pure, filled with light and gentle contentment. I felt cherubic and new born, and I knew in a matter of weeks that my choice was correct.
It felt so wonderful to shape shift ! Every day held promise, for I enjoyed a second childhood of soft growing wonder. I saw my hands soften and become delicate again, a sight lost to puberty. I itched sweetly inside my growing bosom, and the sea of life within my body altered it's flow to fit the contours of my soul. I was no longer in the back of the dark theater of my perception, I was outside that metaphoric theater altogether, living life fully, as I do to this day. I knew constant hope, and the exquisite pleasure of being resculpted by the very Nature who once betrayed me. The Mother was repairing Her mistake.
Only this boundless joy and ecstasy could have permitted me to survive the misery I endured at the hands of the cruel humans around me. The stuff of ridicule, there were many days I could not face the grocery store and went hungry, because the taunting and insults of the clerks were too much to bear.
The feeling of transition was Absolute Heaven, and Deepest Hell. It was miracle and curse, release and damnation both. But I have never before or since, felt more truly alive. It was Real Magick, the stuff of dreams made solid.
Surgery was almost anticlimactic, at the same time as being utterly terrifying and hideously painful. I knew I could die from it, and for the first time in my life, I had something to live for. But I also knew I could not endure to live with those horrid organs. I loathed them, how they looked, how the worked, what they felt like. It was like having some decaying parasitic worm hanging off of my body, or a tumor that had distended to freak show proportions.
After my surgery, after the bloody mess had healed and the stitches removed, after the Frankenstein reconstruction had finally become Human, I marveled.
I finally felt....right. Correct. Oddest of all, I felt exactly the way that I imagined that I would feel before surgery. How could I possibly know what having a vagina, labia, clitoris, -even a 'pseudo cervix' would feel? Yet I had, long before these things were my body, in my dreams.
Science tells us that there is a map in the circuitry of the brain of the layout of our bodies, and children born without limbs suffer phantom limb syndrome though they have never known the missing limbs, my explanation is that my 'body map' was female, and the cause of my desperate need for surgery. Things felt wrong because my wiring told me clearly what I should be shaped like. Now that I am, the conflict is gone, and my suffering for missing organs is absent. I possess the contours and organs that fit my internal 'map', and so I feel.....all right.
So the feeling of surgical correction is...normality. Finally feeling free from internal and external conflict. It just...finally....is OK.
Now, 16 years after surgery, I live my life pretty much without much thought to gender dilemma. I am fixed, I am repaired. But I will never be utterly without this difference. Unlike most women, I suspect, I cannot help but occasionally hug my own breasts, feel the delicate flower of my labia, or the softness of my skin, and whisper a heartfelt prayer of thanks for the gift of finally being me. I can never take these things for granted, they are happy birthday presents forever, reminders that I lived a miracle.
And because I have lived such an adventure, I am forever set apart. I cannot simply be an ordinary woman, because I have not lived an ordinary woman's life. The mindless chit-chat of either the average woman, or the average man, bores me to tears, and so in a way, I am still apart, alien on the inside. And so many life experiences I cannot join in to discuss, like menstruation, or dating, or Girl Scouts, or the myriad trials of growing up as a girl. I have known all of the discriminations and limitations of being a female...and then some, for I was treated as a freak before my attainment of womanhood...but few of the joys. I can not relate to the childhood of a boy either, for I did not have one, so I have so many things -not- to say.
This difference does haunt me, and in my years of hiding until this site on the internet, I felt the most disturbing muteness, the fear of discovery, that anyone should know my shameful past. This is why I have decided to come Out, because even if my body is at last corrected, I have been altered in my soul and mind by the journey to achieve it.
So the feeling of being a post-op transsexual is for me the comfort of happy correctness mixed with the bitterness of forever lost girlhood, and the joy of remembering that I am a miracle, a shape shifter incarnate, and that I have lived an adventure. I am at once Normalized and Alienated, Wistful and Joyful together.
This is what it feels like, at least for me.
Beliefs That Can Kill
Beliefs can destroy you and end your quest to become yourself. Indeed, beliefs are one of the major causes of death for transsexuals. Here
is what you need to know to protect yourself from yourself.
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN BELIEF AND FACT
To believe in something is not the same as knowing something. Intrinsic to the concept of belief is implication that there is an opposite to belief, disbelief. Not everyone will believe something is true, but all sane and rational people will acknowledge an observable fact.
I can claim that I believe that it will rain at 3:00 AM, six years from today, and someone may agree with me and believe the same thing. If I hold a rock, and drop it, all who are present will acknowledge that a rock had been dropped...unless they are just choosing to be childish, whimsical, or are a philosophy major.
The difference between the matter of the rock and the matter of the rain, is the difference between an observable fact, and a thought accepted as a fact. One is present, provable, undeniable and concrete, the other, howsoever fervently believed, is not. The rain could come, my belief about it could be true enough, but there is no observable proof. There is nothing to point to, nothing to show, nothing to touch, nothing to smell, nothing to be experienced by the senses of myself or others.
The only way belief can be experienced is in the mind. Facts can be experienced both in the mind and by the senses...and what is more, unlike a mental hallucination, the sensory experience can be shared with others.
It is a common error of human beings to allow belief, to allow a mental construct accepted on faith, to become so important, so obsessive, that it is taken as the same thing as fact. Indeed, there are many emotional reasons why a person might be driven to do this, but it still remains that any belief is purely mental whatever it's origin, and the mind can be mistaken.
This means that all beliefs have as part of them an implied doubt. Facts cannot be doubted, they are observably real.
When belief is assumed to be fact, when this mistake is made by a mind clouded by a motivation to assume belief as fact, that belief is considered beyond doubt, just as is a fact.
Beliefs beyond doubt are inherently dangerous. They are dangerous because they are often acted upon as though they were facts, and the inherent weakness of this is that a belief is not a fact.
Beliefs can be, and often are, wrong.
Children in our culture often believe in Santa Claus, in the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy. To them, with their simple minds, these beliefs are facts. This is because very young children may not have developed sufficiently to discriminate between belief and fact.
But even adults can fall prey to such immature thinking, because they are afraid, because they are disturbed, because they are mentally ill, because they are filled with excitement, or a whole host of reasons. Hallucinations can occur that seem so real that they convince the brain that it has experienced observable fact. Such events add false certainty to beliefs.
Understanding always that beliefs are not facts, is the fundamental component of sanity. Confusing the two inevitably leads to catastrophe.
If I believe that by rubbing a hunk of quartz I will gain the Power of Absolute Indestructibility, and I act on this belief as though it were a fact, I will quickly die under the metal onslaught of the first train I attempt to block. My belief might be true, but I have no proof. Acting as though I did have proof would lead to my destruction.
When any belief is accepted as fact, catastrophe is inevitable.
TOOLS FOR SORTING FACTS AND BELIEFS
We are constantly bombarded by ideas, facts and beliefs in a muddled, often confusing mess. To make matters worse, we all must accept the experiences of others as facts simply to survive. There are so many facts now that for any individual to test even a fraction of them would be the work ofa lifetime. There would be no time to live, if we had to prove even a portion of the collected facts of humanity.
In order to be able to cope with life, we have to have facts to make decisions on. But mixed into these facts that we learn... and take on faith are real... are also many examples of nonsense and arbitrary belief, promoted as fact, by fanatical individuals. Fanatics are driven to promote their beliefs because of the conflict that occurs for them whenever their beliefs are challenged. To stop the feeling of conflict, the fanatic becomes compelled to convince everyone that their belief is fact, or, failing that, to destroy those who threaten the belief.
Fanaticism is a dangerous mental illness.
There is then a primary question to the individual, how to separate fact from belief, when so much of our knowledge is taken essentially on faith, on the assumption that we are being told factual things?
There are some quick and simplistic tools that you can use to analyze information in order to roughly guess whether the information is fact, or truth.
When faced with new information I suggest applying this simple mental test to determine if the information is a fact, or a belief.
FACT OR BELIEF?
Quick Test
1. Has this information been reliably verified by many different people?
2. Is there a way I can demonstrate it reliably, even if I choose not to?
3. Is this information that can be put to practical use by someone?
4. Does this agree well with what I already know to be fact?
5. Do I trust the motives of the information source?
SCORING THE QUICK MENTAL TEST
Each YES answer is worth 20%
Each NO Answer counts as 0%
Total the results and SUBTRACT 10%
This is your PROBABILITY OF FACTUALITY. Care to roll the dice?
Notice that the highest possible score is 90%. It is impossible to score 100%. Comprehend this. In order for a mind to remain sane, to avoid fanaticism, to remain capable of growth, there must be room for doubt.
When all doubt dies, so does the mind.
There is an even simpler test you can use. Simply ask yourself this:
Is this information more concerned with the physical world, or more concerned with emotional experience and defining rules?
Almost all deadly beliefs are based on emotional biases. If the information you are given, or which you already possess, fails these tests, it is probably a belief. Be suspicious of beliefs masquerading as facts.
DANGEROUS BELIEFS
The beliefs that kill transsexuals are insidious and easily become fanatical. Many of them are religious, some are purely social. Accepting these beliefs, or failing to question and discard them, can kill you.
Here then are some of the very most dangerous beliefs, why they are just beliefs and not facts, and why they can kill you.
1. It is morally and spiritually evil to be a transsexual
Why this is a Belief and Not a Fact:
Morality is derived from religion, unlike ethics. There is no proof of the existence of any religion. That is why religions are called FAITHS. Religion is taken on faith, because it is impossible to prove: indeed some religions require absence of proof, in order to validate the importance of faith itself. Regardless of the religion, no matter what it may be, there is no way to put a soul in a jar and measure it, or to dissect god on a table. Devoid of proof, religions are beliefs. This means that any rules or laws or morality are not based on fact. Such things are arbitrary.
Why this can kill you:
Accepting the belief that it is spiritually evil to be anything, automatically implies that to be good you must stop being it. If you cannot stop being it, you become intolerable. Intolerable things are, in most religions, to be destroyed. Believing this will make you hate yourself, and others, enough even to kill yourself, or other people like yourself. Many, many transsexual and homosexual people are killed, and have been killed, by this belief.
2. Absolute Truth Exists
Why this is a Belief and Not a Fact:
"Truth" is a mental definition. Truth cannot be pointed at, touched, or put in a jar. Truth is a concept, not an actual thing. Truth can be based on emotions, as in 'Emotional Truth', or even on best guesses. All truth is an emotional measure of the veracity of information. Truth does not even automatically imply facts.
Why this can kill you:
'Absolute Truth' suggests that in some fashion the basic, emotional, faulty nature of 'truth' can be transcended to the point that it becomes unquestionable fact. This is problematic for several reasons. All facts can be questioned, and must be capable of being proved to remain facts. There can be no such thing as an unquestionable fact. Absolute truth exists to silence any debate, to quell any curiosity, to censor any opposition. Fanaticism is based on absolute truth, and fanaticism kills people. Absolute truth makes acting on beliefs imperative. When belief is acted on without question, disaster will eventually follow.
3. Transsexuals are not as good as other people
Why this is a Belief and Not a Fact:
Transsexuality is a medical condition. It is just like being born with any deformity, or congenital defect. To say someone is inferior requires a definition of just what is meant by that inferiority. Certainly a blind person is inferior to a sighted person in being able to see, but this is just a statement of comparison based on capability. Transsexuals are statistically blessed by superior capabilities to the average population. the word 'good' is a relative term, which has no basis in fact. What is 'good' to one person may be 'bad' to another.
Why this can kill you:
Self loathing can lead to suicide or self destructive behavior of many types. To imagine yourself as innately inferior, flawed, and less savory than other people leads to self hatred. Self hatred can kill you.
4. It would be better to deny and suppress my transsexuality
Why this is a Belief and Not a Fact:
On what is this based? Nothing. What is the definition of "better" in this belief? All medical evidence points to the contrary. This is pure emotion, pure fear, pure self doubt or even loathing. Transsexualism is a medical condition. Failure to treat this condition can lead to self destruction and often does.
Why this can kill you:
Failure to treat this condition can lead to self destruction and often does.
CONCLUSIONS
The beliefs that you hold, if unquestioned, can control your life, destroy your own happiness and the happiness of others, and lead to your own end.
Only by keeping a flexible mind, devoid of any absolutes whatsoever, mindful that all information is questionable, and by remaining aware of the difference between belief and fact, can any person hope to function in a sane and rational manner.
To the transsexual, this rejection of any absolute truth becomes vital. We exist in a world often controlled by arbitrary belief, and many of those beliefs are destructive and filled with mindless hate. To survive, the transsexual must learn to question all assumptions.
It is important to remember that you alone own your own mind, and it is your responsibility to determine what information you act on. You must take responsibility for your own collection of facts and beliefs, and it is to your advantage to reject beliefs, however appealing or ingrained, that would lead to your own misery or destruction.
The Issue Of Passing
To some it is a rude concept. To some it is a socio-political issue. To the transsexual, it can make the difference between forever being a object or living a comfortable life.
"Passing", the act of successfully appearing as a desired definition of person in the world, is a complex matter. Not only does the very accomplishment of passing require a vast number of factors be brought together and applied correctly, but it also raises questions about the nature of self definition, personal freedom, and social taboos.
At the heart of being transsexual is the absolute certainty of being trapped in the wrong body, the wrong physical sex, and the wrong definition within the world. The transsexual seeks to correct a flaw of birth, to become a preferred expression of gender. Tied into this basic, biological drive, is the way in which a society accepts and permits gender to be expressed.
While most human societies have universal concepts of gender expression, there are also unique cultural expectations and taboos that themselves alter over time. To enjoy a life accepted and embraced by other human beings, every person must to some degree compromise or alter their natural behavior or desires to fit a common cultural agreement.
People who refuse, or who cannot meet the minimum expectations and requirements of their culture increasingly are rejected by it, to the point of total exclusion, or even violence and annihilation.
Existing within any society is a balancing act between the individual and the expectations of the culture. This becomes a very severe matter when fundamental cultural taboos and requirements are involved.
There is probably no more fundamental cultural definition than that of gender expression.
To be outside the boundaries of sanctioned gender expression is to threaten, at a basic level, the established comfortability and security of a culture. The more rigid the culture, the more profound this effect.
In modern, Euro-Christian post industrial society, rigidity with regard to gender taboos is fairly severe.
The transsexual, in quest to achieve agreement between brain and body, must also cope with a vast array of expectations and taboos that affect every aspect of life, every moment of action, and every nuance of appearance. To succeed without facing a lifelong burden of exclusion, the transsexual must somehow come to terms with both biology, and society.
A transsexual is raised as a gender opposite to their inner gender. The cultural training, and reinforcement of gender specific behaviors, confuses and torments them. By the time they have the opportunity to change their physical sex to agree with their true gender, they are faced with a triple cultural problem. The transsexual must not only unlearn a lifetime of enforced gender role behavior, make up almost overnight for the loss of a lifetime of gender role training culturally appropriate to their true inner gender, but must also find a way to comfortably express their unique personality honestly through that new gender role.
This enormous requirement is only half of the entire path to success, for there is also the matter of physical appearance.
Within human society, the gender definition that other people create when faced with a person, is determined by essentially two things. One is the sum total of behavior, motion, action and emotional presence of the person. The other is the physical appearance, the shape, look, sound, even the smell of the person. In effect, an equation is performed that totals the many factors, and a result, male, female, both, or neither results.
In every way, it is safer, easier, and less filled with suffering to fit neatly within one of the twin accepted poles of the current definition of gender: male or female.
To accomplish this is a complex undertaking. This is "Passing".
Hormones can take care of all, some, or little of the physical side of gender presentation, depending on age and receptivity. Almost all human beings can accept, and be altered by, both male and female hormones. Only a very rare number of humans are insensitive to the effect of applied hormones, and if those rare individuals happen to be transsexual, the soul is in a very difficult position indeed.
The effect of hormones varies somewhat from person to person, and also is dependent on age. The younger a person is, the more quickly, and effectively will be the result of taking hormones. By age 18, the effectiveness of hormone treatment begins to plummet. By age 25, hormone sensitivity is half what it is at 18, by age 30 it levels off at one fourth. This level of sensitivity is maintained for the remainder of life.
Physical passability is fundamentally based on the effectiveness of hormone therapy. No surgery, or other treatment, can replace this most basic foundation of physical sex. Clearly, to be accepted as the correct sex, early hormone therapy is without question the single greatest factor in achieving passability.
Advanced age provides a benefit different from youth, but just as valuable. Advanced age renders both males and females increasingly similar in appearance, as physical sex cues wither and fade, as skin wrinkles and the flesh degrades. This degradation of aging, masks obvious physical differences between the sexes, and thus aids passability.
The very few physical aspects of sex differentiation that hormones cannot change, such as the voice in Male-To-Female transsexuals, and the developed genitals of either sex, must be addressed by other means.
Social passability is a complex mix of natural behaviors and learned affectations.
Worldwide cultural definitions of gender expression have a surprisingly high degree of commonality. How a man is fundamentally expected to act and behave versus how a woman is expected to act and behave is essentially consistent amongst all populations of human beings, regardless of the degree of isolation. We know that gender is hardwired into the brain. It would be irrational to fail to recognize that much of the cultural definitions of gender expression are the result of averaging inborn gender behaviors into a basic human stereotype. However, many arbitrary behavioral expectations and roles are often tacked onto this basic observation. These additional rules change with time, technology, and location.
In order to pass effectively, providing that the physical side is granted, the transsexual must study and incorporate selected behaviors and conditioning to complete gender presentation. Each transsexual must choose for themselves which of the cultural sex role components they can either live with, or find natural for themselves to express.
A common trap is adhering too strongly to cultural stereotypes, which generally works against passability. To pass successfully, the best tactic is to express the honest self. Since much of cultural sex roles are based on observation of real gender linked behaviors, finding an internal and natural self expression will accomplish as much, or more, than learning an affected role. It is often more successful, precisely because it is not a role, but an honest form of presence in the world.
In a nutshell:
"Passing" increases survivability and overall happiness for the transsexual. Passing is composed of a physical side and a behavioral side. Earliest possible use of hormones is the best guarantee of physical passability. Unlearning sex roles and expressing natural, inborn gender behavior is the most important part of successful behavioral passing.
HOW TO CREATE SELF WORTH
One thing that almost all transsexuals, indeed almost all people at all, suffer from is a very low level of self esteem.
Confidence, empowerment, the feeling of having value to one's self, and to others, is greatly desired. For a great part of my life, I have known such a deep feeling of worthlessness that it was impossible for me to imagine just what feeling good about myself would be like. I understood intellectually that such a feeling must be better than what I knew, that there must be a positive way to feel about my own existence, but I simply could not imagine how it might be achieved. One thing I often wished for in those times was for someone to explain to me exactly how to achieve real and lasting self worth. No one could, with simple admonishments to 'cheer up', or mindless brush-offs in the form of 'you'll get over all that in time' being the rule.
I have learned the secret that I sought long ago, and I imagine I am not the only soul to have been so desperate simply to feel some degree of goodness about my self. Perhaps others might wish to know the mechanism by which self worth is generated. Here it is.
Self worth depends on just a few basic factors.
The amount of achievements a person has accomplished
The weight that the person places on those achievements
The emotional support that the person has around them
PART ONE: ACHIEVEMENTS
Self worth comes greatly from feeling that one has taken a sufficient degree of useful and valid action in the world. The nature and type of that action is irrelevant. What matters is that one feels that the actions taken are both useful and valid.
By useful, the action must accomplish something that provides benefit of some sort to one's self or to others, or both.
By valid, the action must fit within the individual's personal ethical framework. The action must be considered appropriate, necessary, correct, proper, or acceptable to the self.
By sufficient degree of action, the amount of action taken must feel like it is enough...for now. This last point is absolutely vital, and is often a stumbling block for people. It must be incorporated into the individual that there is such a thing as having done enough for a given period of time. This may require determining real and concrete rules for action in relation to time. Vague estimates may sometime lead to a condition of feeling like one has never done enough. This is detrimental, and ultimately, destructive. One must develop a reasonable concept of effort.
One way to develop a reasonable concept of how much is enough is to truly incorporate the bromide of 'Having Done One's Best'. It is reasonably easy for most people, unless they are incapacitated by clinical levels of depression more suited to medication than words, to judge when they have more or less done the best that they can.
To judge that one has done one's best, within the time available, with the available resources, and under whatever duress was ambient, is useful in learning how to determine when one has done enough. Use this tool, it is a cliché for a reason: it works.
A last part of relating to action in the world is actually remembering the things one has done, and thinking about them. Self reflection is important to self worth. One must make the effort to consistently, and as dispassionately as possible, reflect upon the actions one has taken. The important part here is not to fuss over the action, but to be able to feel the sheer weight of the effort. One has to actively make one's own actions count.
Indeed, the concepts listed above for achievement can be broken down into some basic rules to observe:
Do Your Best
Do Only What You Know Is Appropriate
Remember What You Did And Reflect On It Intellectually
PART TWO: LEARNING TO WALK
Self worth is not instant. It is a process, not a thing! Self worth is constantly being sapped and demolished by the nature of our society, and even the physics of our universe. A person is responsible for their own happiness, and also for their own self worth. Neither can really be bought, sold, given or accepted, despite all fuss to the contrary. Self worth, and happiness for that matter, must be CONSTRUCTED OVER TIME.
A baby cannot immediately run, but must first crawl, then walk. Self worth cannot be truly, permanently gained overnight. At best an illusion of self importance can be gained by fame or sudden success, but this mirage quickly fades. Lasting good feelings can only be achieved by developing a basic technique of constantly generating them.
The technique is simple and must forever be used: there is no point at which one may slack off. One must DO. Take action, small at first, then gradually greater, building up. It is that simple.
One note about the nature of action: one ALWAYS takes action. Doing nothing is also an action. The key is to do whatever one does deliberately, even if that action is to do nothing. One must make the effort to take responsibility for both action, and inaction. Always be aware that one cannot help but choose. Choice is not a privilege, it is a fact of existence.
Choose actions to take that are well within the realm of success. Successes build self confidence, and so one must stockpile them up. The successes do not need to be great, they need to be abundant.
This is an important point. There is sometimes the confusion that one must achieve great things to feel great. This is often counterproductive, because it can lead to attempting things far out of one's league, and thus produce ego shattering failures. It is easy to understand that abundant failure breeds self loathing. The reverse must be understood to be true as well. Abundant successes...even small ones...gradually create self worth.
Huge successes are dramatic and can boost self worth a great deal, if briefly. However the risk of failure is greater, and at the lowest levels of self esteem this becomes critical. Tiny successes may seem too small to be satisfying, but over time they stockpile. Enough tiny successes can create sufficient confidence and self knowledge to make larger action successful.
This too can be put into simple rules:
Self Worth Is Self Constructed
Choice And Action Are Inevitable and Unavoidable
Success Is Best Measured By Quantity First
Start Small And Build Up
PART THREE: LIFE SUPPORT
Even if one diligently applies all of the concepts above, it can come to naught if the drain of the environment is too great. Human beings are social creatures, we require other people -or at least other animals- and we gain much of our orientation and validation from social contact.
Other beings are our mirrors, they reflect to us what and who we are by the effect we have upon them. It must be understood, however, that not all mirrors are equal, and that some mirrors totally distort what they reflect.
It is vital to actively choose to surround oneself with worthwhile individuals.
If an individual is very lacking in self worth, this can become a difficult issue. As social animals we hunger for company, and if we are low in self esteem, we may feel unworthy of decent company and grateful for any attention at all. Poor quality attention, from unworthy people, is often worse than being alone for a while.
There is a fairly easy way to determine if the company one keeps is worth keeping, or should be actively avoided. Judge whether you are being raised or lowered emotionally. Does your companionship make you feel good?
If your companions consistently degrade you, if their comments and the overall emotional effect of them makes you feel bad about yourself, life, your plans and attempts at achievement, your happiness and usefulness, then your companions are destructive to you.
A worthwhile companion, a worthy friend, consistently helps to lift your spirits. This does not mean that they agree with you on everything, or support every plan you construct, rather it means that overall, they encourage rather than condemn, offer help rather than despair, and show that you are worth their time and effort, by consistent mutuality.
Unworthy people must be avoided. No matter who they are, what their relationship to you is, or their social or emotional connection. This is not a matter of ego or whim, this is a matter of survival. Avoid those who drag you down, who minimalize or abuse you, or otherwise depress and sadden you. Loneliness can be cured in time, but a bad relationship can drag on indefinitely and limit the chances of gaining better relationships.
A valid relationship is a mutual thing. It must be. If it is not, it is not real, and is best left. To be mutual, a relationship must show roughly balanced interaction: What is done is returned in kind. A valid relationship builds up, and enhances power, self worth, and provides support and assistance. It is trustworthy and useful for all parties involved. If it is not, even if it be a bond of blood or law, it is poison, and must be abandoned if it cannot be changed into a valid form. This must be followed.
Emotional Support Is Vital
A Valid Relationship Is Consistent And Mutual
A Valid Relationship Enhances And Encourages
Invalid Relationships MUST BE LEFT!
PART FOUR: SUMMARY
If the basic concept outlined above is consistently and diligently followed, the result will be a gradual build up of self worth and confidence. With it will come an increase in satisfaction, contentment, and add to overall happiness. The basic principle is simple: start out with small successes, keep trying slightly greater things to achieve still greater successes, and surround yourself ONLY with supportive, mutual, encouraging people.
Over time it then becomes inevitable that self worth and confidence will be the result. Here is a summary list of the basic rules as given:
Do Your Best
Do Only What You Know Is Appropriate
Remember What You Did And Reflect On It Intellectually
Self Worth Is Self Constructed
Choice And Action Are Inevitable and Unavoidable
Success Is Best Measured By Quantity First
Start Small And Build Up
Emotional Support Is Vital
A Valid Relationship Is Consistent And Mutual
A Valid Relationship Enhances And Encourages
Invalid Relationships MUST BE LEFT!
If one makes even a partial effort along these lines they will be rewarded by feeling better about themselves, and any progress helps make for more progress yet.
Diligent effort will be rewarded with maximum gain. Even if one can not imagine what self worth feels like, even if one is afraid of self worth, these rules put forth a simple and functional plan to cling to, in order to achieve lasting and real self worth. For those with gender issues, self worth can often spell the difference between survival and destruction. Every living thing has the basic natural right
o fight for it's own survival. Bother to do so.
The basic principle is simple: start out with small successes, keep trying slightly greater things to achieve still greater successes, and surround yourself ONLY with supportive, mutual, encouraging people.
The Quick Guide to Heterosexual Dating for Male-To-Female Transsexuals
1. If you date men, you are always in potentially fatal danger. Be aware.
2. Make certain, before you even consider a date, that your partner is FULLY aware of your status and is not significantly bothered by it. Never date anyone who does not know about you.
3. Be aware that in our society, men who are secure enough to accept you are rare. there are predators who attack transsexuals, confused sorts who seek to use and then punish transsexuals, and those who try to be accepting but fail, often violently.
4. Be honest, be aware, and be very, very cautious.
5. Some men may only like you because of your transsexuality, and may find you uninteresting post-operatively. Be sure of the attractions that occur.
6. It is not all dark, but you will have to search more carefully, and be more aware, than nontranssexual women. Even with all the above, know that it is possible to find caring partners and loving friends.
The reasons
Dating both pre, and even post-op, involves concerns that non transsexual folk do not have to concern themselves with. Some of these issues are serious.
Most, if not all of the dangerous issues revolve around sexual and gender insecurities. These insecurities are not dangerous in the transsexual, they are very dangerous in non transsexuals.
Our culture still has a lot of bigotry and mindless hatred in it, and much of this evil comes from religious origins.
Homosexuality and Gender Threat
Early Christianity, Judaism, and to a lesser degree, Islam, became dominant in the western world by virtue of being warfare based religions. The universe was spiritually divided into an Absolute Good, and Absolute Evil, and the basic premise was that the Good and True believers in the faith had to overcome everyone and everything else. To accomplish this, two things had to be done: one, the group, tribe, and religion had to concern itself with converting by any means possible other groups, and two, it had to become as populous as possible.
This last requirement is the basic reason behind homosexuality being made into a crime and an Evil. More babies means more tribe members. More tribe members means more ability to conquer and convert. Homosexuality produces fewer babies than heterosexuality. It cannot be tolerated by a belief system bent on domination.
You may be a woman, but be you pre-op or post-op, the social stigma of ever possessing a penis is there. If you date a man, those old Judeo-Christian issues in our western society kick in, and problems can occur. Sometimes these problems can be fatal.
Transsexuals and the Foundations of Assumed Truth
Transsexuals, by their existence, threaten basic assumptions and truths about gender and religion. The 'Evil' of homosexuality is shown to be the violent nonsense it is when the transsexual enters into the equation. Am I, a post-op, a woman? A surgically altered man? Something outside the scope of current belief and understanding?
As for the pre-op transsexual, then all possibility of a clear answer becomes lost. Is a pre-op a woman, a man, a woman in some ways, a man in others? To the average, simple mind, the result is paradox, confusion, and the destruction of neat, tidy categories and labels. It is hard to believe in religious prohibitions when reality itself shows the limits of them. If the word of god is so limited, so meaningless, the universe itself becomes upset for some folks. They find themselves adrift, without answers, forced to think, perhaps for the very first time. They begin to question themselves and their place in the universe, they are filled with nagging doubts.
Scared, confused people can be very dangerous. They can become violent, they can kill.
Far too many transsexuals have been murdered by men that just could not handle the issues they were forced to confront, the doubt they felt, the insecurity they suffered, or the 'Truth' that came tumbling down.
Sometimes the conflict is so severe, that men become convinced that the only way to restore their lost faith is to destroy that which caused it to be questioned. Such men deliberately seek out transsexuals to punish, humiliate, control, or harm them.
These same issues can also lead to other reactions besides murder. Some people are attracted to the forbidden and the rejected, and find it exciting. Such folks will find you desirable only as long as you fit this category.
Other folks try very hard to accept the transsexual, but fail at the task, because the conflict between what they were raised to believe, and what they want to be accepting about, is too much. In the end, sometimes the original 'Truth' wins out, especially because society supports it.
In all cases, the root cause of this nastiness is fear and instilled hatred of homosexuality, and this comes from only one place, religion. It is pervasive in our culture, because our culture is steeped in Judeo-Christian values and beliefs.
The Game Of 'What Am I ?'
If you are a Male-To-Female transsexual and you are attracted to men, then what is really going on? Are you gay or straight or what? The answer depends on how one chooses to look at the transsexual.
If what matters is identity, is the mind and the heart, then you are a heterosexual woman with very standard desires.
If all that matters is the birth shape of the skin, in the past, present or future, then you are an altered gay man experiencing homosexual desires.
If all that matters is the current cut of the skin, then a pre-op is a gay man and a post-op is a straight woman.
If the transsexual is considered a unique creature, a 'third sex', then all definitions become moot...perhaps being some shade of bisexual might come closest.
The problem is that, however you may define yourself, others will create definitions of their own over which you have little or no control.
What you must do is to be conscious of this, and determine what you want, and what you are willing to do, accept and teach, to get what you want. You must also be aware of the very real dangers involved.
It is not fair that this should be so. It is not fair that transsexuals should be forced to be so cautious, so concerned with safety, so endangered. It is not fair that religious dogma should brand transsexuals and homosexuals both as evil or as misguided, or even simply as distasteful.
But it is real, and you have to deal with that, or possibly die.
On the positive side, however, real, decent relationships are not impossible. They can and do occur, because there are men out there who can sort themselves out, and get past this inculcated bigotry or fear.
I know of such relationships personally, and am even involved in one: in my polyamory, or group marriage, one of my spouses is male. But it does take a little more effort and searching than the non transsexual woman must face.
Selectively Out
All of this does not mean that the transsexual must wear their transsexual status as a badge, or be out to everyone, everywhere.
The key is to be selectively 'Out', to carefully choose who to tell and when and why. This is something the individual transsexual must be in control of, if at all possible.
Each circumstance must be evaluated on it's own merits, but there is a general rule of thumb to follow:
Tell men up front, as early as possible
Why? because 93.7 percent of all violent crime, on the planet earth, is committed by men. Women just do not commit violent crimes even faintly as often. Women do not rape, murder, kill for hate, fag bash, mutilate, dismember, shoot, eviscerate, disembowel or torture unto death nearly as often as men do.
I will not bother with a discussion of the possible reasons for this, suffice to say that in the debate all sides are correct: the reasons are cultural, biological, genetic, and social all at the same time. Why this is true is not important.
What is important is that it is true, across the globe, in every society, everywhere. Even if violence is all but nonexistent, what violence there is will follow this statistic. Learn the one thing all women must:
Be afraid of men.
Non transsexual women learn this from an early age. 3 out of 4 women learn it the hard way, in America, at some point in their lives. When you live as a woman, love as a woman, exist as a woman, you automatically are the heir to the perils of being a woman. To think yourself immune or to fail to be aware of this, is suicide.
Even more extreme, the status of being transsexual, even post-op, put one at a greater risk than that of non transsexual woman.
Save your own life. Be up front, be 'Out' to any prospective male date.
Different For Women
This article is concerned with MTF transsexual woman who wish to date men, primarily because this is the group in serious statistical peril. Why not an article about the issues of dating as a lesbian?
Perhaps in time, but in general, the issues there are more about rejection and social bigotry, rather than physical violence and death or dismemberment. Your author identifies as being primarily lesbian, or if you prefer, a 'polarized bisexual': dedicated to reducing reflected glare off of sexual surfaces.
Although this may be a terribly politically incorrect thing to say, because of the vastly smaller risk of getting dead or mutilated, it is reasonably safe to date with women without outing ones self, until the relationship reaches the point of sexual involvement.
Because one is less likely to be killed, one can hope to become close friends first, before revealing the Big Secret, if one is living in secrecy of any degree.
The value of doing this is simple: it increases slightly the odds of being considered a human being, and therefore also increases the possibility of not being immediately dismissed out of bigotry, political dogma, ignorance, or blind, mindless hatred.
Because women are less likely to disembowel you for being a transsexual, you have a chance to escape having to suffer outing yourself immediately.
You have a chance to be seen, for a while at least, as something other than a politically unacceptable Frankenstein monster.
This may be enough time to cut through the bigotry and be truly seen.
Conclusions
The content of this article sounds quite frightening, and this is not without some rationality. However, there is also a danger in becoming paralyzed by fear or concern. That danger is loneliness.
What I suggest that you do is to be aware of the dangers and issues, but also realize that they are indicative of probabilities. It is very possible for you to find joy and love, it is just my intent that you live long enough to find them.
Be smarter than those who would harm you, and you have the edge. Be aware of the very real dangers, and select carefully, mindful of your own precious safety.
