Transgender Q&A

[Mark Foote]

Quote

 

   On 4/19/2024 at 10:31 AM, Salvijus said:

 

But you exist as something right. Even if you have no identity. You still exist. As what? The spirituality that I follow would say. As existence. Or as pure consciousness.

 

 

 

There are a lot of folks who swear by "pure awareness" as the essential element of sentient being.  Something like that.

I think of Nisargadatta:

 

My Guru ordered me to attend to the sense 'I am' and to give attention to nothing else. I just obeyed. I did not follow any particular course of breathing, or meditation, or study of scriptures. Whatever happened, I would turn away my attention from it and remain with the sense 'I am'. It may look too simple, even crude. My only reason for doing it was that my Guru told me so. Yet it worked!

 

("I Am That", Chapter 75, p. 375)

 

 

'You are not your body, but you are the consciousness in the body, because of which you have the awareness of 'I am'. It is without words, just pure beingness. Meditation means you have to hold consciousness by itself. The consciousness should give attention to itself. 

 

(Gaitonde, Mohan (2017). Self - Love: The Original Dream (Shri Nisargadatta Maharaj's Direct Pointers to Reality). Mumbai: Zen Publications. ISBN 978-9385902833)
 

 

Or Dogen:

 

Therefore, …take the backward step of turning the light and shining it back.

 

(Eihei Dogen, “Fukan zazengi” Tenpuku version, trans. Carl Bielefeldt, “Dogen’s Manuals of Zen Meditation”, pg 176)

 

 

I used to write about the location of awareness, but a friend of mine felt that awareness is all encompassing, throughout the universe.   Because of him, I switched to writing about the placement of attention, but there's a trick (isn't there always!)--the placement of attention out of necessity in the movement of breath, with the activity of the body following entirely from the location of awareness, such as occurs in the moment before falling asleep.

 

As a matter of daily life, just to touch on such experience, as occasion demands--that's enough.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 21 by Mark Foote

[Nungali]

No no .... its okay now , I promise  . You where right  .... no one is going to anything nasty to you or judge you for being  suspect about a perceived  defensive over-reaction  ...... come on  ..... come on puss   ....  its safe now  ....

 

You can trust me   .....

 

 

 

Got him ! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Mark Foote]

9 minutes ago, Nungali said:

 

No no .... its okay now , I promise  . You where right  .... no one is going to anything nasty to you or judge you for being  suspect about a perceived  defensive over-reaction  ...... come on  ..... come on puss   ....  its safe now  ....

 

You can trust me   .....

 

Got him ! 

 

 

 

 

 

Apech, on the left...

 

 

Edited April 21 by Mark Foote

[Apech]

12 hours ago, Nungali said:

No no .... its okay now , I promise  . You where right  .... no one is going to anything nasty to you or judge you for being  suspect about a perceived  defensive over-reaction  ...... come on  ..... come on puss   ....  its safe now  ....

 

You can trust me   .....

 

 

 

Got him ! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They say when they first caught me I was wild …but it’s not true … I was completely livid!

[Maddie]

I hope everyone's having a good day today! 😊🩷

[Nungali]

I think you get the daobums award for the most selfies ever posted here .

 

Haven't you got a 'selfie gone wrong'  to show us  ?

 

An example of a selfie gone wrong ;

 

 

[Nintendao]

On 4/18/2024 at 8:06 PM, Jadespear said:

...I think you may misunderstand

 

ok i apologize for being a little quick to the punch back there. I've seen a lot of the thing Maddie explained where something posed as a question, but amounts to "why do you believe the wrong thing?" inevitably ends up in an exasperated facepalm.

 

On 4/18/2024 at 8:06 PM, Jadespear said:

A persons biological birth doesn't change over the course of their life.

 

I don't think anyone is saying that it does.

 

On 4/16/2024 at 6:25 PM, Maddie said:

You seem to be confusing sex and gender. 

 

This. This right here might be at the core of a majority of vexation with regards to the topic. For individuals who have not personally experienced a significant enough decoupling of the societally enforced equivalency of the two, i guess i can see how it might be inconceivable that such a thing even exists.

 

[Maddie]

2 hours ago, Nungali said:

I think you get the daobums award for the most selfies ever posted here .

 

Haven't you got a 'selfie gone wrong'  to show us  ?

 

An example of a selfie gone wrong ;

 

 

 

I know I know I probably post too many selfies. I'll try to slow down LOL

[liminal_luke]

29 minutes ago, Maddie said:

 

I know I know I probably post too many selfies. I'll try to slow down LOL

 

Selfies are good and if you´re enjoying posting them -- why not?  Nobody minds.  They wouldn´t work in every thread perhaps, but in the Here I Am thread or your own threads I think you´re good.  It occurs to me that you´ve invested a lot of time and effort to look how you look, so it makes sense that you want to be seen.  Then again, perhaps you´ve always been a big selfie gal?

Edited April 23 by liminal_luke

[surrogate corpse]

in my experience there is usually a dramatic upward tick in Desire To Appear In Photographs post-transition

[Nungali]

I have an anti-desire to appear in photographs    .

 

I usually use this guy instead  and claim he is me  ;

 

 

 

[Maddie]

8 hours ago, liminal_luke said:

 

Selfies are good and if you´re enjoying posting them -- why not?  Nobody minds.  They wouldn´t work in every thread perhaps, but in the Here I Am thread or your own threads I think you´re good.  It occurs to me that you´ve invested a lot of time and effort to look how you look, so it makes sense that you want to be seen.  Then again, perhaps you´ve always been a big selfie gal?

 

Actually I used to hate selfies before I transitioned. I have been on this site since 2009 or 10 and I don't think I posted a single selfie before transition at all.

Edited April 23 by Maddie

[Maddie]

8 hours ago, surrogate corpse said:

in my experience there is usually a dramatic upward tick in Desire To Appear In Photographs post-transition

 

Definitely seems to be the case in my experience lol. Also welcome to my thread surrogate corpse. Would you care to introduce yourself here? Up to you. 😊🩷

[blue eyed snake]

I've seen that more yes.

 

at last the way you look fits with how you feel and that's reason for joy and pictures.

 

like the happiness I felt as a preschooler having told my mom that I did not want dresses anymore. After a slight hesitation she told me "yes, that's okay for me"

 

I was so happy  

[Salvijus]

Could be the need for approval at play. Wanting to be liked and accepted. Constantly looking at the mirror. Wanting to show off etc. But we have already discussed that we can't act enlightened until we are. So some display of ego is expected I guess.

 

To quote Maddie. Bringing awareness to our clinging is what will eventually take us into wisdom. 

Edited April 23 by Salvijus

[Maddie]

12 minutes ago, Salvijus said:

Could be the need for approval at play. Wanting to be liked and accepted. Constantly looking at the mirror. Wanting to show off etc. But we have already discussed that we can't act enlightened until we are. So some display of ego is expected I guess.

 

To quote Maddie. Bringing awareness to our clinging is what will eventually take us into wisdom. 

 

I would say when you spend your entire life hating what you see in the mirror constantly and then finally you like it. It tends to make one kind of excited LOL

[blue eyed snake]

21 minutes ago, Maddie said:

 

I would say when you spend your entire life hating what you see in the mirror constantly and then finally you like it. It tends to make one kind of excited LOL

 

yup, also in general societal approving comes from behaving as you should according to your gender.

where transitioning or, in my case, behaving like a boy got you a lot of disapprovement.

 

[liminal_luke]

13 minutes ago, blue eyed snake said:

 

yup, also in general societal approving comes from behaving as you should according to your gender.

where transitioning or, in my case, behaving like a boy got you a lot of disapprovement.

 

 

People give up promising dance careers and become accountants in order to win the approval of their parents.  Nobody transitions to win the approval of their parents.

[blue eyed snake]

8 minutes ago, liminal_luke said:

 

People give up promising dance careers and become accountants in order to win the approval of their parents.  Nobody transitions to win the approval of their parents.

 

and the approval to be won from parents is small compared to the approval we want from peers, at least in our younger years.

 

[blue eyed snake]

1 hour ago, Salvijus said:

Could be the need for approval at play. Wanting to be liked and accepted. Constantly looking at the mirror. Wanting to show off etc. But we have already discussed that we can't act enlightened until we are. So some display of ego is expected I guess.

 

To quote Maddie. Bringing awareness to our clinging is what will eventually take us into wisdom. 

 

 

I sort of wonder why you think people here on the forums want to get enlightened 🤔 

I for one come here to socialize with some guys and gals I like and share some information-like things.

[Salvijus]

1 hour ago, Maddie said:

 

I would say when you spend your entire life hating what you see in the mirror constantly and then finally you like it. It tends to make one kind of excited LOL

Yea that could be part of it. But perhaps there is something more to it. Because there are people who like what they see in the mirror and have no need to show off. Just as a comparison example. 

Edited April 23 by Salvijus

[Salvijus]

26 minutes ago, blue eyed snake said:

 

 

I sort of wonder why you think people here on the forums want to get enlightened 🤔 

I for one come here to socialize with some guys and gals I like and share some information-like things.

I'm not concerned with what people's goals are. I'm concerned with finding opportunities to bring some light where I feel called to express myself. 

[liminal_luke]

14 minutes ago, Salvijus said:

Because there are people who like what they see in the mirror and have no need to show off. 

 

"Showing off" is generally seen in a negative light, something that insecure people do to try to get approval and prop up their fragile egos.  So my question to you is: why ya wanna do that?  Why cast aspertions on the character of someone who you presumably don´t know well?  The tendency to do this undermines your claim of coming in peace and goodwill; perhaps this is why many of us initially pegged you as a troll.

 

A person could just as easily frame Maddie´s selfies in a positive light.  You could say she´s courageous to show us who see is.  You could say that her many selfies are evidence of self-love and a joyful, celebratory spirit.  These hypothesis are at least as likely as your idea that she is "showing off."

[Salvijus]

5 minutes ago, liminal_luke said:

These hypothesis are at least as likely as your idea that she is "showing off."

I'm open to all possiblities. I'm just throwing some possibilities out there to consider and reflect on. Something inside me thought she would benefit from this introspection. See how good hearted I am? Haha. Your welcome

Edited April 23 by Salvijus

[liminal_luke]

4 minutes ago, Salvijus said:

I'm open to all possiblities. I'm just throwing some out there to consider and reflect on. Something inside me thought she would benefit from this introspection. 

 

People rarely benefit from unsolicited criticism, especially from strangers on the internet.  Consider your own experience. My previous post was mildly critical of you.  Foolishly perhaps, I hoped that you would seriously consider my words and that your introspection would lead you to relate to our online community differently.  Will that happen?  I suppose it´s still possible but I doubt it.

Edited April 23 by liminal_luke