Ask a MtF TG a question

[La damnee elle la licorne]

 

[stickygirl]

You don't want to know.. Haters

 

[Messier82]

(1) ^^^ agreed, but that's not to say the pain the Stacy feels is any less valid

(2) I sometimes wonder about reincarnation and if in previous lives I was a woman

Do you have any definite spiritual beliefs?

A Buddhist would say to (1) that "All life is suffering" (more precisely it is Dukkah which equates to suffering, anxiety, dissatisfaction). Really is intended to mean that for the majority of us (who have not achieved Enlightenment and are therefore still bound to this material world) all aspects of life are ultimately unsatisfactory because whatever we get we always want more.

To (2) they would say that we've all been reincarnated countless times (this is Samsara, the endless cycle of birth, death and reincarnation) and have been many things: many different animals, both male and female humans. Tibetan Buddhism likes to emphasize (amongst other things) the defects of Samsara which they illustrate with things such as this "We have been wandering since beginningless time in these samsaric worlds in which every being, without exception, has had relations of affection, enmity and indifference with every other being. Everyone has been everyone else's father and mother." This is meant to elicit compassion for all other beings by emphasizing the inter-relatedness of all life.

So if you choose to believe in reincarnation then you have indeed been both male and female in past lives.


BTW, I don't consider myself to be a Buddhist, I just have read about it over my many years kicking around this planet.

 

[Messier82]

I don't know what a TERF is.

I know this one because I had to ask SG myself way back in this thread:
Trans-Exclusionist Radical Feminist. I guess they think "once a man, always a man and of course all men are ...."

There's never any shortage of hate in the world.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Heard from a techie friend: "TERFs are like Unix - they measure time by how many seconds have passed since the 1970s."

 

[coati]

A Buddhist would say to (1) that "All life is suffering" ...because whatever we get we always want more.

To (2) they would say that we've all been reincarnated countless times ...to elicit compassion for all other beings by emphasizing the inter-relatedness of all life.

Messier,

Perhaps it is the context of this discussion, but your economical explanation of both of those Buddhist points crystallized them in a new way for me. I often think the most effective Buddhists are non-Buddhists, as evident in your explanation, and, assuming she is not an evangelical Buddhist, in Sticky's statement, "But if you live your life grieving for something you've never had or wishing for something you can never have, then you risk your life slipping by, when we have so much to live for."

 

[Messier82]

I'm also reminded of an old Hans Christian Anderson story, The Little Fir Tree who basically pined his life away (groan... sorry )

 

[Stacy_TG]

Without wishing to words into Stacy's mouth - it's about the experience, it's about menstruating, child bearing and birth and of making a life. It doesn't get any more real. Sure, don't tell me - I know about cramps and hemorrhoids and episiotomies as downsides and I certainly know about cystitis and sneaky orange peel.
But if you live your life grieving for something you've never had or wishing for something you can never have, then you risk your life slipping by, when we have so much to live for. I can't have kids either and I'll always have the wrong chromosomes, but I'm not going to let those things get in my way. I've fought hard to get where I am and for sure, life isn't fair for women, but when I look at women that I admire and see what they've achieved, it makes me fight harder every day. It's my life and I have to make of it what I can.

Once again, Sticky putting into words so eloquently what escapes me to say.

It's missing out on the experience that's heartbreaking to me. All of it, the menstruating, the trying to get pregnant Having my husband wrap his arm around my growing belly, feeling a life growing inside of me. The cravings, the emotions, the stretch marks, all of it. Him holding my hand as I have the baby, kissing me when it's over.

I try not to focus on those things, but I can't help it. I'm not a real woman. I don't have the parts, and no man could ever want me, when he could have a cis woman who could give him everything he wants. I'll never know what it's like to be called 'wife' and 'mommy'.

I do believe in reincarnation as well, and I pray to whatever deity is out there that this pain and suffering ends soon so I can hopefully start over again being born into the body I should have been born into in the first place.

 

[blade_rocknut]

No, it doesn't make the pain or other feelings less valid at all, I just don't think it has to be a pain that is 'divisive' within our shared gender....I don't think it makes a trans woman less woman than any other infertile woman. Whatever the cause of infertility the pain is valid, and shared. Infertility, or just straight forward lack of having children, doesn't equal a lack of complete 'female existence'. Or make Stacey less.

I guess as a cis woman I am trying to say, 'I hold my hands out to you and say you are still my sisters in gender, and in this we share experience in ways perhaps others don't within our shared gender, in other ways you will experience more with other cis women than I do....' I think it can be something that is.....not divisive ....something that doesn't have to be a wall between trans women and cis women. I guess for me saying it, I see it as a 'gender affirming arms open gesture....if it's my experience as cis woman, how can it be less a female experience for Stacey? It's a shared female experience. Hard, real, but nonetheless a grief of a woman.



I don't know what a TERF is.

Vile creatures who so despise that which isn't their idea of "twue", they'd rather side with Evangelical Christians than accept trans women .

Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists.

 

[stickygirl]

I do believe in reincarnation as well, and I pray to whatever deity is out there that this pain and suffering ends soon so I can hopefully start over again being born into the body I should have been born into in the first place.

To Stacy ( and others pondering my Buddhistness! )

I've read bits and pieces about suffering, but it's not something I wear like a hairshirt. Suffering? fuck that! What I would say is that when I look out my window and see wee birds chirping, and happy that they made it through the winter or spring flowers poking through the dirt in outrageous colours, I realise how amazing life is. I think about life and death in the animal world and know that we aren't so different - we are all part of a circle of life and it is a privilege

... oh hang on... now I sound like Rita on Groundhog Day!
https://youtu.be/G4spJxTCtS4

Yea, well. It's easy to notice good things, but I know how jarring it can come across when you're feeling down, so I'm not going to tell you to cheer up. What I will say is to read the comments that have been made, because none of those people had to say anything, and they weren't saying it for their own benefit. The little that we know you Stacey is enough to convince us that you are a good, kind person... and we want you to fight and overcome those obstacles

and we'll be here

 

[stickygirl]

Haurni kindly brought the shocking news about North Carolina to my attention in the GLBT News, so check out that thread.
It's basically the nightmare scenario that the trans community feared would finally happen in one state or another. I feel so sorry for any trans person living there, because now they have no choice but to hand in their notice and move out the state.
Grishno explains better than me
She includes the twitter account for the state governor.

Some good reactions from the business community

That's enough from me today. I can go to bed and wake up on Good Friday, when they crucified Jesus, knowing that hate knows no bounds

 

[haurni]

Some good reactions from the business community

I'll be more impressed when PayPal actually cancels its plans for a new facility in NC, or when Dow or Biogen close plants there, or when the NCAA confirms it won't be holding basketball games in the state...

 

[Stacy_TG]

To Stacy ( and others pondering my Buddhistness! )

I've read bits and pieces about suffering, but it's not something I wear like a hairshirt. Suffering? fuck that! What I would say is that when I look out my window and see wee birds chirping, and happy that they made it through the winter or spring flowers poking through the dirt in outrageous colours, I realise how amazing life is. I think about life and death in the animal world and know that we aren't so different - we are all part of a circle of life and it is a privilege

... oh hang on... now I sound like Rita on Groundhog Day!
https://youtu.be/G4spJxTCtS4

Yea, well. It's easy to notice good things, but I know how jarring it can come across when you're feeling down, so I'm not going to tell you to cheer up. What I will say is to read the comments that have been made, because none of those people had to say anything, and they weren't saying it for their own benefit. The little that we know you Stacey is enough to convince us that you are a good, kind person... and we want you to fight and overcome those obstacles

and we'll be here

Sticky,

you are one of my truest, most sincerest friends, and I love you deeply and profoundly.

I also love the movie "Groundhog Day"!!!

That being said, I'm trying to look at things on a more positive note, and I try to make each day a new one...I guess I'm just..trying to find ways to validate my femininity..my womanhood, when the world seems hell bent on telling me that I'm not.

And, with regard to NC, I'd cancel my vacation there this year, but for the fact that the condo is already booked and I can't get a refund.

 

[stickygirl]

Sticky,

you are one of my truest, most sincerest friends, and I love you deeply and profoundly.

I also love the movie "Groundhog Day"!!!

That being said, I'm trying to look at things on a more positive note, and I try to make each day a new one...I guess I'm just..trying to find ways to validate my femininity..my womanhood, when the world seems hell bent on telling me that I'm not.

That's the spirit, girl!

And, with regard to NC, I'd cancel my vacation there this year, but for the fact that the condo is already booked and I can't get a refund.

There's a petition to sign now

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/512/405/754/?TAP=1007&cid=causes_petition_postinfo

 

[VeronicaMerlin]

I Am Just Going To ....

To"Throw" this out there. Is it me? Or would one suspect at this place and time in the Universe, this very website, that there are people here that THINK we're conversing, because I am Transgender?

Was Einstein right ?

 

[stickygirl]

Thanks VM - it's good to keep some humour.

Here's a very frank, honest article about the real side of transitioning and subsequent surgery
http://www.vox.com/2016/3/7/11162180/gender-affirming-surgery-transition
I think I went into surgery having looked at everything in a very objective way. Pain is transitory ( hopefully, but not guaranteed ) but discrimination isn't changed by it one bit. As the article points out, if people turned their back on your before surgery, their backs stay that way.
I used to suffer terribly with depression and to a lesser degree still do and though I'm reluctant to take pills, I totally support the idea that they are simply supplements to help balance things out. If things get worse for me, I'll frigging take the pills because suicide isn't nice. I don't know if trans people are predisposed to psychological problems to start with ( consider how our brains are apparently messed up in the womb ) but I do know that society provides all the fucking triggers you need to put a match to the psycho-tinder.
I was struck by one section at the end of the article
"The morning of my surgery, the day of my last big step, I realized that right now in our society, transitioning isn't just some process you go through; it's also something you survive."
You have to be tough to survive and maybe even have some luck, by way of your family and economic background, but it is tough. I'm not looking for sympathy here, I'm thinking of other trans folk and their families. Surgery doesn't make the dysphoria go away, it just makes it more bearable for people whose dysphoria is especially focused on 'body'. Not every trans person will benefit from surgery, because we're all different and transition cannot be pulled off a shelf ready-made. Talk to your therapist; if they don't make sense, get another. Get used to talking about the most difficult, darkest, ugliest parts of your psyche because the last thing you need is have monsters under your bed when you need to think clearly about your choices and future.
/rant /off soap box

 

[MrBennet]

This is a fascinating thread, if a little atypical for the rest of the site. Thank you for the many insights and education.
From what you've said here, you make it sound as though being transgender were a psychological issue rather than one of , how to say, a sense of self?

 

[coati]

Sticky, this article by Lily C. and your accompanying comments are very moving.

 

[haurni]

you make it sound as though being transgender were a psychological issue rather than one of , how to say, a sense of self?

Isn't one's 'sense of self' a psychological issue almost by definition?

 

[stickygirl]

This is a fascinating thread, if a little atypical for the rest of the site. Thank you for the many insights and education.
From what you've said here, you make it sound as though being transgender were a psychological issue rather than one of , how to say, a sense of self?

Thanks Mr B. Do you mean, are we all nutters? I’m sure that’s not what you meant, but it’s true that a good percentage of transgender people have psychological issues. A good percentage commit or attempt suicide.

How does a sense of self fit into the psychiatrists consulting room? Do psychs even consider ‘self’ to be a thing or are we simply a bundle of random idiosyncracies gilding a gene framework? You’ve got me wondering now - it’s not something I’ve thought to ask before.
From a personal pov, my sense of self has taken some time to find. I’m not a child expert, but I think kids start to develop in this way at around 2-3yrs. It’s a foundation on which children build year by year, with nurture adding refinements along the way, as we learn the rules of our society. Come to think of it, without a strong foundation, ie one in which ones gender ID is sorted out, then everything else is sure to be wobbly.
That’s why it’s taken me so many hours of therapy to go back to basics and relearn / contextualise societal rules on which most people rely instinctively.
You made me think AND use long words. I’ve got my eye on you Mr B

wobbly is a not a long word - I'm sure there are better ones

 

[Messier82]

Isn't one's 'sense of self' a psychological issue almost by definition?

No 'almost' about it, it's entirely psychological.

 

[MrBennet]

Perhaps I didn’t explain myself very well, so apologies! I’ve never had a need for counselling so consider me a complete, if sympathetic, numpty. In reading blogs such as yours, it forces one to rethink old accepted values and view them in a new light. I’ve never stopped to consider my own persona in terms of gender - I’m just me, a regular bloke. I presume you’ve been forced to put your own persona under far more scrutiny and surely you are the wiser for it? You are surely an expert, having already had to give the subject so much time, whilst the rest of us are still scratching the surface.

I’m going to sound terribly stupid here, but I’ll say it anyway. When I think of people who have had to have therapy, I think of people I’ve known who have had mental breakdowns and been in crisis. You sound as though your feet are very much on the ground, so have you always been so, or did you have crisis moments that therapy has helped your through? Please don’t feel that you have to reply to that because I respect your privacy. I’ d like to have a better understanding of what you’ve been through and if that might be a common experience.

To go back to the other commentators, yes, I accept that a sense of self falls under the umbrella of psychology, but we develop our own persona outside of a counsulting room through our life experiences.

In short, do you see yourself as the same person now? Have others who’ve witnessed your transition seen changes, beyond what I very much hope, is your increased happiness?

 

[stickygirl]

Dear Mr B
don't worry about asking difficult questions here - if there are questions I don't want to answer I'll simply duck them.
Yes - trans folk are experts in gender roles and sexual politics. We ought to be consulted more often!!

I suspect you already know the answer to persona and how it changes, because surely everyone's sense of self develops as we grow? There are aspects of my character that have remained the same: my intellect and interests for example. Friends have commented that my sense of humour has sharpened and that must be due to my greater confidence: I'd always consider a person's SOH to be an expression of their self. I think I know what you're getting at, in as much 'do I feel like the same person?' , do I think the same thoughts, do I react instinctively to certain stimuli as I used to? Well, the voice in my head is the same, but the words are less stressed and anxious. I've found it easy to be fearful on a dark street so that's the same person - different circumstances. I suppose social circumstances shape the way we interact but I don't think they necessarily change the person underneath. Sexually, I'm less of a bee in a jam-jar and more butterfly in the sun, but I put that down to hormones.
As for therapy: yes, I've had crises but it was not psychological intervention that fixed me. A lot of trans people suffer abuse... err ... correction. Every trans person suffers abuse and some are better able to cope or have had less of it. If you whip an animal it learns to flinch or in the case of people, they learn to cut themselves, or live dangerous sexual lives or try to end it all with pills. Psychologists can help a person unravel how they ended up in that mess and can point the way, but only the person themselves can take the steps to recovery.
I'm sorry if these thoughts are a bit jumbled so they may not make much sense - it's a good thing I didn't major in psychology huh?!
And finally yes, thank you - I'm much happier, and I'm still alive

 

[VeronicaMerlin]

EVERY DARK CLOUD ..... I'm more Silver Lining.

Thanks VM - it's good to keep some humour.

Here's a very frank, honest article about the real side of transitioning and subsequent surgery
http://www.vox.com/2016/3/7/11162180/gender-affirming-surgery-transition
I think I went into surgery having looked at everything in a very objective way. Pain is transitory ( hopefully, but not guaranteed ) but discrimination isn't changed by it one bit. As the article points out, if people turned their back on your before surgery, their backs stay that way.
I used to suffer terribly with depression and to a lesser degree still do and though I'm reluctant to take pills, I totally support the idea that they are simply supplements to help balance things out. If things get worse for me, I'll frigging take the pills because suicide isn't nice. I don't know if trans people are predisposed to psychological problems to start with ( consider how our brains are apparently messed up in the womb ) but I do know that society provides all the fucking triggers you need to put a match to the psycho-tinder.
I was struck by one section at the end of the article
"The morning of my surgery, the day of my last big step, I realized that right now in our society, transitioning isn't just some process you go through; it's also something you survive."
You have to be tough to survive and maybe even have some luck, by way of your family and economic background, but it is tough. I'm not looking for sympathy here, I'm thinking of other trans folk and their families. Surgery doesn't make the dysphoria go away, it just makes it more bearable for people whose dysphoria is especially focused on 'body'. Not every trans person will benefit from surgery, because we're all different and transition cannot be pulled off a shelf ready-made. Talk to your therapist; if they don't make sense, get another. Get used to talking about the most difficult, darkest, ugliest parts of your psyche because the last thing you need is have monsters under your bed when you need to think clearly about your choices and future.
/rant /off soap box

TY Sticky.
Great stuff. Mental toughness? I am OK there. Support? OK Wife, 40+ yrs. Loves Lil Ole Me. She just bought us matching bracelet, necklace, earring sets! . " most difficult, darkest, ugliest parts of your psyche" 20 year Veteran. I know dark. I am thinking about trans folk. 20 years of STELLAR training of how to help young people cope with being away from home and facing life and death decisions on a regular basis. I am considering getting myself properly "finished", by that? I am good downstairs. Happy wife, happy life, you know! She's a Vet too. Upstairs? Must have, WILL have boobs. And that's me. I already have my "self" mapped out. I just need some "official" ground truth. But getting the certification and such to counsel other people who don't have what I have? Help people I don't know? Keep them safe if I can, even if it means risking getting hurt? Standing up for whats Human, because we have rights? 20 of the best years of my life? For what? SO I can say YES! Those were the BEST 20 of my life! And now I've had a break and have skills and motivation. I can do 20 more. Why not? My "transition"? I'm a Sailor. I don't transition. I "Transit", one destination to another. REALLY AWESOME shore leave at the other end. I am on it. A healing process. I can do that. I can make myself better, because no one else can. Silver lining. Good Story. Fight the good fight. Pick someone else up when they stumble. Someone did that for me. Sacrifice. Help my community.

Which is weird, saying this, on a sex chat site, when I had that whole "being pansexual" and "Dysphoria" CAN BE two different things. OK. I am too different things. GOOD. Universe normal. Walls not breathing. Just kidding.

I'm good with being feminine and living my life that way and being happy. I always just thought me being freaky in the sack was part of the equation. I suck at math. I didn't say I sucked someone off IN MATH! Hahaha. GOTCHA! Sex Site. Nah-NAH!

Dysphoria? OK. So I needed a healing process. They have them. My PCP say's. Make sure whoever you talk to sends me notes. Bring them to me on paper if you have too! Good guy! His staff likes me. My favorite Nurse likes my perfume. I'm SO normal, if slightly NUTS for mid century fashion! That just takes some getting used too!

I hope EVERYONE has a fabulous weekend ! Stay safe. Stay Frosty. Just Stay!

I have a date this weekend. Lunch. Massage. Fun Stuff!

 

[coati]

I like this thread. In addition to humor and the compelling story, I think I can relate because I have experienced adversity and crisis. Multiple crises left me with a profound sense of isolation. I tried several therapists, but they felt so remote and disconnected from what I was experiencing.

Then, I made a good move, considering how shaky I was at the time-- I looked for another therapist, and I scored. I found someone who listened better than anyone I had ever met before. You know when someone is really hearing you. That experience of being heard took me out of crisis mode, and put me into a constructive two-year exercise that worked, because of the trust we developed starting with our first meeting. Many years later I thank my lucky stars that I pursued this help.

Sticky mentioned earlier that if you don't find a good therapist, then look for another one. I knew I had something that needed to be fixed, and I knew that my attempts to fix it on my own were not working. It was great to find a partner who listened so well. By example it taught me how I needed to relate to other people.