Transgender Q&A

[surrogate corpse]

20 minutes ago, Apech said:

Thany you but your bookcase is not in focus.

 

Critique heard and appreciated! I'll take a bookcase photo, unblocked by unnecessary human, when I return home

Edited April 25 by surrogate corpse

[surrogate corpse]

1 hour ago, Maddie said:

This I suppose is a good topic for the old transgender thread. Personally I feel like my relationship to my old boy life is more positive than a lot of other transwomen. I think one reason is that I was so suppressed for so long I just thought I was a boy and didn't really question it for a long time. So it's hard to hate something that you thought you were ok with at the time. 

  The other thing is that while obviously I didn't ultimately feel comfortable as a boy, I didn't hate myself. I practiced self compassion even back then and I think that helped a lot. Besides now I have the unique perspective of seeing life from both points of view and that is something most people don't have. People seem to be fascinated when I tell them how life as a boy was verses life as a girl. 

 

This makes me very happy to hear! My relationship to my past is a rather pained one, and I wouldn't wish it on anyone.

Edited April 25 by surrogate corpse

[Maddie]

9 minutes ago, surrogate corpse said:

 

This makes me very happy to hear! My relationship to my past is a rather pained one, and I wouldn't wish it on anyone.

 

I'm very sorry to hear that. If you don't mind sharing would you care to elaborate? I don't actually know any trans people in real life so I would love to hear someone else's story (that's of course if you are comfortable sharing). 

[surrogate corpse]

Sure. I'm 32 approaching 33; I started transitioning in late 2021 (age 30).

 

Family background: My dad cheated on my mother when I was 4-5; they divorced when I was 5, and within a few years my dad married the woman he had been cheating with. I spent most of my time with my mom, who was very dedicated to meeting my material and intellectual needs, but had a very disappointing life (beyond the breakdown of her marriage), and was very bitter and controlling. My dad compensated for this by being the fun, no rules parent. So I swung wildly between feeling totally stifled and being left entirely to my own devices. A big part of the stifling was that my mom needed me to be The Thing She Did Right. Everything else in her life may have gone wrong, but at least she was a Good Mother. Which meant that my attempts to claim independence for myself, to be my own person, generally went unheard.

 

This shows up with regard to my first dysphoric memory, which is of being on a swim team in middle school. I remember feeling intense distress at the thought of changing in the boys' locker room. But I couldn't tell my mother this: she'd tell me to grow up, that there was nothing to be ashamed of, etc. (Would she actually have told me this? Who knows. I didn't trust her enough to find out.) So I would lie and say that I had a headache and couldn't go. (Eventually I learned to give myself actual headaches, so I wouldn't have to lie...)

 

From there, I spent most of the next twenty years just... shut-down. I was consistently depressed. I was unable to imagine a future for myself, so I took the easy life path, the one that didn't involve making decisions for myself, taking the career path that both my parents took. I could feel pleasure, but not really joy—any joys I felt were brief flashes in the dark. I think it's fair to say that for twenty years I did not have three consecutive happy days. (When I finally realized I was trans, and I felt good for a week straight, I couldn't believe it. It was a totally new experience. I was sure I didn't get to keep it...)

 

Much happened in that void (including the rise and fall of a nice heterosexual marriage), but let's skip to 2020. Before then, I'd occasionally encountered discussions of trans people, which raised a weird mix of fascination and repulsion. Sometimes I'd wonder if I was trans, but I always shut that down quickly. In late 2020, I started a relationship with a trans woman. It was a horrible relationship, but in early 2021, near the end of it, she told me she thought I was trans. That loosened something: after that, when I asked myself, "am I trans", the answer wasn't an immediate "no". I was willing to countenance the thought that the answer might be "yes". Eight months later, I had a moment of utter clarity, where I saw my desire shining with impossible brightness, and at the same time saw clearly the complex knot of fear that was keeping from that desire. I've been Rose ever since.

 

Life has been good since then, not because it is constant joy but because both joy and suffering are present to me. I exist, I feel my existence, I don't need to run from it. But when I look back, I feel tremendous sadness. I have a narrative memory of what happened, but I wasn't there for it. My life before late 2021 is a void. I never got to be a girl. I never got to be a young woman. For all the space I took up, for all the things I did, I was a non-entity.

[Maddie]

16 minutes ago, surrogate corpse said:

Sure. I'm 32 approaching 33; I started transitioning in late 2021 (age 30).

 

Family background: My dad cheated on my mother when I was 4-5; they divorced when I was 5, and within a few years my dad married the woman he had been cheating with. I spent most of my time with my mom, who was very dedicated to meeting my material and intellectual needs, but had a very disappointing life (beyond the breakdown of her marriage), and was very bitter and controlling. My dad compensated for this by being the fun, no rules parent. So I swung wildly between feeling totally stifled and being left entirely to my own devices. A big part of the stifling was that my mom needed me to be The Thing She Did Right. Everything else in her life may have gone wrong, but at least she was a Good Mother. Which meant that my attempts to claim independence for myself, to be my own person, generally went unheard.

 

This shows up with regard to my first dysphoric memory, which is of being on a swim team in middle school. I remember feeling intense distress at the thought of changing in the boys' locker room. But I couldn't tell my mother this: she'd tell me to grow up, that there was nothing to be ashamed of, etc. (Would she actually have told me this? Who knows. I didn't trust her enough to find out.) So I would lie and say that I had a headache and couldn't go. (Eventually I learned to give myself actual headaches, so I wouldn't have to lie...)

 

From there, I spent most of the next twenty years just... shut-down. I was consistently depressed. I was unable to imagine a future for myself, so I took the easy life path, the one that didn't involve making decisions for myself, taking the career path that both my parents took. I could feel pleasure, but not really joy—any joys I felt were brief flashes in the dark. I think it's fair to say that for twenty years I did not have three consecutive happy days. (When I finally realized I was trans, and I felt good for a week straight, I couldn't believe it. It was a totally new experience. I was sure I didn't get to keep it...)

 

Much happened in that void (including the rise and fall of a nice heterosexual marriage), but let's skip to 2020. Before then, I'd occasionally encountered discussions of trans people, which raised a weird mix of fascination and repulsion. Sometimes I'd wonder if I was trans, but I always shut that down quickly. In late 2020, I started a relationship with a trans woman. It was a horrible relationship, but in early 2021, near the end of it, she told me she thought I was trans. That loosened something: after that, when I asked myself, "am I trans", the answer wasn't an immediate "no". I was willing to countenance the thought that the answer might be "yes". Eight months later, I had a moment of utter clarity, where I saw my desire shining with impossible brightness, and at the same time saw clearly the complex knot of fear that was keeping from that desire. I've been Rose ever since.

 

Life has been good since then, not because it is constant joy but because both joy and suffering are present to me. I exist, I feel my existence, I don't need to run from it. But when I look back, I feel tremendous sadness. I have a narrative memory of what happened, but I wasn't there for it. My life before late 2021 is a void. I never got to be a girl. I never got to be a young woman. For all the space I took up, for all the things I did, I was a non-entity.

 

Thank you so much for sharing! I found a lot of that relatable and will go into more detail soon. 

[Elysium]

5 hours ago, liminal_luke said:

I have a question.  Is it better to refer to a transgender person as always having been the gender they transitioned into?  Is it OK when taking to a transgender woman, for instance, to say "when you were a boy..."?  

I would just go for "before you transitioned" if I was in that situation 🤔

 

Not giving advice, just thinking out loud.

[Maddie]

9 minutes ago, Elysium said:

I would just go for "before you transitioned" if I was in that situation 🤔

 

Not giving advice, just thinking out loud.

 

That definitely works as well. 

[Maddie]

1 hour ago, surrogate corpse said:

Sure. I'm 32 approaching 33; I started transitioning in late 2021 (age 30).

 

Family background: My dad cheated on my mother when I was 4-5; they divorced when I was 5, and within a few years my dad married the woman he had been cheating with. I spent most of my time with my mom, who was very dedicated to meeting my material and intellectual needs, but had a very disappointing life (beyond the breakdown of her marriage), and was very bitter and controlling. My dad compensated for this by being the fun, no rules parent. So I swung wildly between feeling totally stifled and being left entirely to my own devices. A big part of the stifling was that my mom needed me to be The Thing She Did Right. Everything else in her life may have gone wrong, but at least she was a Good Mother. Which meant that my attempts to claim independence for myself, to be my own person, generally went unheard.

 

This shows up with regard to my first dysphoric memory, which is of being on a swim team in middle school. I remember feeling intense distress at the thought of changing in the boys' locker room. But I couldn't tell my mother this: she'd tell me to grow up, that there was nothing to be ashamed of, etc. (Would she actually have told me this? Who knows. I didn't trust her enough to find out.) So I would lie and say that I had a headache and couldn't go. (Eventually I learned to give myself actual headaches, so I wouldn't have to lie...)

 

From there, I spent most of the next twenty years just... shut-down. I was consistently depressed. I was unable to imagine a future for myself, so I took the easy life path, the one that didn't involve making decisions for myself, taking the career path that both my parents took. I could feel pleasure, but not really joy—any joys I felt were brief flashes in the dark. I think it's fair to say that for twenty years I did not have three consecutive happy days. (When I finally realized I was trans, and I felt good for a week straight, I couldn't believe it. It was a totally new experience. I was sure I didn't get to keep it...)

 

Much happened in that void (including the rise and fall of a nice heterosexual marriage), but let's skip to 2020. Before then, I'd occasionally encountered discussions of trans people, which raised a weird mix of fascination and repulsion. Sometimes I'd wonder if I was trans, but I always shut that down quickly. In late 2020, I started a relationship with a trans woman. It was a horrible relationship, but in early 2021, near the end of it, she told me she thought I was trans. That loosened something: after that, when I asked myself, "am I trans", the answer wasn't an immediate "no". I was willing to countenance the thought that the answer might be "yes". Eight months later, I had a moment of utter clarity, where I saw my desire shining with impossible brightness, and at the same time saw clearly the complex knot of fear that was keeping from that desire. I've been Rose ever since.

 

Life has been good since then, not because it is constant joy but because both joy and suffering are present to me. I exist, I feel my existence, I don't need to run from it. But when I look back, I feel tremendous sadness. I have a narrative memory of what happened, but I wasn't there for it. My life before late 2021 is a void. I never got to be a girl. I never got to be a young woman. For all the space I took up, for all the things I did, I was a non-entity.

 

So much of what you said was so relatable. I constantly battled mysterious anxiety and depression my whole life but could not find any obvious source much of the time. 

 

When I first became aware of what trans people were I also had a mixture of fascination, and revulsion. 

 

I grew up in Texas. A very conservative and religious place. I didn't even know trans people existed and if I had I would have thought to do something like that would be one of the most disgraceful things one could possibly do to themselves. 

 

Fast forwarding a lot, one of the main reasons that I became interested in internal cultivation was because of the constant anxiety and depression that I was constantly feeling all of the time. So very early on, on the path I began meditation. At first I was horrified and thought meditation either didn't work or was harmful to my mental health because almost as soon as I began meditation feelings of being a girl came to the surface very quickly. This naturally horrified me and as I fought it my anxiety and depression became worse. I spent several more years meditating, thinking that if I could just meditate enough I could "meditate the trans away". This obviously didn't work and the anxiety and depression only became worse as I continued to meditate. 

 

Fast forwarding a little more the fact that I was a girl was becoming this constant internal screaming that I could no longer ignore. Therefore I decided to to an "experiment" and dress like a girl and "indulge" my mind. I fully expected to "get it out of my system" and then that would be the end of my "shameful" cross dressing experiment. So on my day off I went to the thrift store got a girl outfit (my face was red from embarrassment) and took it home. I put it on and instead of feeling ridiculous like I thought I was going to, I felt so comfortable. I realized right then and there that I was trans. I just remember staring at the floor all day in disbelief. The other thing I noticed was once I acknowledged it the constant anxiety and depression that I dealt with constantly just disappeared over night. I could not believe it. 

Edited April 25 by Maddie

[surrogate corpse]

It's funny, the ways these stories are different. One of the bits of evidence I used to tell myself that I wasn't trans was that I hated the idea of wearing a dress. I think trying that might have driven me deeper into the closet. Even now, I've worn a dress out in public only once, and felt uncomfortable doing so. My wardrobe update has mostly been swapping out men's jeans for women's jeans and men's t-shirts for tank tops and turtlenecks.

 

And it's also funny, the ways these stories are the same. That persistent sadness, that vacancy, that nothing but transition can relieve.

 

When hungry, eat.

When thirsty, drink.

When tired, sleep.

When dysphoric, transition.

 

It really is that simple.

[blue eyed snake]

I live in a woman's body and after decades of wearing pants I had a hard time to wear a skirt at first, but it was so hot I thought it would make me more comfortable. Now, in my old age it does not matter anymore, what clothing I wear, whether I enjoy looking at a young woman or a young man, what pronouns people use. 

 

it's of no interest anymore.

 

Looking back I think i was lucky with parents who reared their brood as neutral as possible in those days.

 

we all had to learn to cook, knit, basic sewing

and also basic technical things, fix a puncture, change a tire on your bike. Being able to use a hammer and a screwdriver, helping dad painting the house. 

 

plus the leniency of my parents to let me wear boyswear, to let me run wild.

 

Looking back I am happy I've tasted both genders without transitioning, just by living like the opposite, fond memories of my time as a mechanic. 

in a way I've tasted physical life in an extraordinary rich way, although i would have jumped to the chance of mastectomy and testosterone when I was younger, now I am grateful I had to find other ways to be okay with myself. 

[Maddie]

19 minutes ago, surrogate corpse said:

It's funny, the ways these stories are different. One of the bits of evidence I used to tell myself that I wasn't trans was that I hated the idea of wearing a dress. I think trying that might have driven me deeper into the closet. Even now, I've worn a dress out in public only once, and felt uncomfortable doing so. My wardrobe update has mostly been swapping out men's jeans for women's jeans and men's t-shirts for tank tops and turtlenecks.

 

And it's also funny, the ways these stories are the same. That persistent sadness, that vacancy, that nothing but transition can relieve.

 

When hungry, eat.

When thirsty, drink.

When tired, sleep.

When dysphoric, transition.

 

It really is that simple.

 

Haha, I also don't really care for dresses, but most of the women in my family and most of my female friends have always been jeans and shorts types of gals. I rarely wear one. Also I think part of me thinks its a bit "cliche". Also between how much I work (scrubs) and jujitsu (gi) that's pretty much what I wear 90% of the time anyways. 
Then at home its just a tank top and gym shorts. 

Edited April 25 by Maddie

[blue eyed snake]

for me it was pivotal, during my early years women and girls wore dresses.

 

to wear pants was a statement in those  days, I remember one of my big sisters wearing hot pants with high boots in those days, that caused quite the uproar in the household.

 

I found her beautiful, i think i was five so she was 15, dad was not amused, i did not understand, i liked what I saw.

 

[Maddie]

1 minute ago, blue eyed snake said:

for me it was pivotal, during my early years women and girls wore dresses.

 

to wear pants was a statement in those  days, I remember one of my big sisters wearing hot pants with high boots in those days, that caused quite the uproar in the household.

 

I found her beautiful, i think i was five so she was 15, dad was not amused, i did not understand, i liked what I saw.

 

That is a really pretty outfit. Here's the only picture I think I have of myself in a dress. I don't wear it often 

[blue eyed snake]

 

 

't was the hottest thing in those days. My, the times have changed indeed. 

That is the dress you bought to try a bit of crossdressing and then be finished with it?

 

I think dresses could look real good on you but you need a bit of help what looks nice on you  and how to wear .I know another transwoman, my age, who told me the first dress came out  a bit meh... and then her young adult daughter took her to the shops and they went on a shopping spree and she learned womans clothing.

at first sight i would say this needs some dangling jewellery around your wrists just some doodads to finish it. 

 

I remember when I started working as a child-psychologist i got help with what outfits i could use for that. I much like looking at welldressed woman, but me myself, no sir

 

I was top of my year but always looked like a mechanic or someone cutting trees... and i needed to learn to look like a female professional, well, i ended up in pants but the total looked professional and i did feel more or less myself in it.

[Maddie]

24 minutes ago, blue eyed snake said:

 

 

't was the hottest thing in those days. My, the times have changed indeed. 

That is the dress you bought to try a bit of crossdressing and then be finished with it?

 

I think dresses could look real good on you but you need a bit of help what looks nice on you  and how to wear .I know another transwoman, my age, who told me the first dress came out  a bit meh... and then her young adult daughter took her to the shops and they went on a shopping spree and she learned womans clothing.

at first sight i would say this needs some dangling jewellery around your wrists just some doodads to finish it. 

 

I remember when I started working as a child-psychologist i got help with what outfits i could use for that. I much like looking at welldressed woman, but me myself, no sir

 

I was top of my year but always looked like a mechanic or someone cutting trees... and i needed to learn to look like a female professional, well, i ended up in pants but the total looked professional and i did feel more or less myself in it.

 

Oh no, I actually saw this at the grocery story of all places and liked the color. This was just a quick try on after the store. Actually when I did my cross dressing experiment it was not a dress. It was actually a tank top, shorts, a wig and makeup lol. I don't really wear jewelry, it makes my qi feel weird lol.  

Edited April 25 by Maddie

[surrogate corpse]

1 hour ago, Maddie said:

you look like a soul-stealing spirit in this (positive affect)

[Maddie]

2 minutes ago, surrogate corpse said:

you look like a soul-stealing spirit in this (positive affect)

 

I don't know what that means lol. 

[surrogate corpse]

it means just what it says really, there's an innocence to it that's a bit sinister, like you're luring someone in only to steal their soul once they get close

 

(cannot stress enough that this is a good thing. being vaguely malevolent spirits is our birthright)

Edited April 25 by surrogate corpse

[Apech]

3 minutes ago, surrogate corpse said:

it means just what it says really, there's an innocence to it that's a bit sinister, like you're luring someone in only to steal their soul once they get close

 

(cannot stress enough that this is a good thing. being vaguely malevolent spirits is our birthright)

wot? Why the malevolence?

[Maddie]

11 minutes ago, surrogate corpse said:

it means just what it says really, there's an innocence to it that's a bit sinister, like you're luring someone in only to steal their soul once they get close

 

(cannot stress enough that this is a good thing. being vaguely malevolent spirits is our birthright)

 

The weird thing is, is that you are not the first person to tell me this. I'm like "hey I'm nice" lol 

[surrogate corpse]

@Apech torn between giving a serious answer to that (what is our status in society? from whose perspective are we deemed "malevolent"?) and gently chiding that i'm just trying to compliment a gal for looking good in a photo and it really shouldn't be taken too seriously, and as a compromise you get this halfway house of a post

 

@Maddie 👁️

 

Edited April 25 by surrogate corpse

[liminal_luke]

I´m reminded of the time, many years ago, when I strolled through Portland´s Saturday market hand-in-hand with my then boyfriend.  Even in uber-liberal Portland, Oregon we still got looks, albeit mostly of shocked approval.  I´m a fairly introverted person and not used to taking "center stage" but I remember thinking there was a strange power in being able to command attention just by holding hands.  All things considered, I wish my public handholding was an everyday event, but if ya gotta be a freak I guess ya might as well lean in.  Was I being malevolent?  Some probably thought so.

Edited April 25 by liminal_luke

[Maddie]

I like how this little thread has become the lgbtq+ (and allies) club house :-)

Edited April 25 by Maddie

[surrogate corpse]

precisely, @liminal_luke! i do nothing special; folks around me fall to pieces. how strange!

 

they tell me i'm malevolent. perhaps i am malevolent, perhaps i am the threat they say i am.

 

perhaps one day soon i shall cease to be malevolent. i do not expect it will be because of any change in me.

 

(though i do expect there will be many changes in me; i am a changing essence, after all)

 

ultimately, i don't know anything about that. i simply am as i must be, and i do good as best as i can perceive it.

 

 

[liminal_luke]

Just now, surrogate corpse said:

 

they tell me i'm malevolent. perhaps i am malevolent, perhaps i am the threat they say i 

 

 

I can´t comment on your malevolence or lack thereof, but I´m not going to forget the penis of feminine power anytime soon.