I have always wondered why people prefer to blame others for their problems. I guess it may be human nature or the innate inability of most of us to accept responsibility for our own actions and the results. At one time I blamed god for being born transsexual and always wanted to ask god the question "how the heck can a supposedly omnipotent being get my sex wrong"? I lost my faith along the way and when I did regain some of my faith I realized by then that god had nothing to do with why I was born transsexual.
When I was a young child of 5 my mother was stricken with paralytic polio and I was crushed. I loved my mom and dad plus I knew they loved me. It had been a rather turbulent previous year to her illness because of my insistence I was a girl and not a boy was perplexing to all the adults. There was no screaming or yelling at me over this but there were lots of adult questions and hushed meetings of the adults trying to figure out if it was just a phase or was I actually serious and did their son actually believe he was a girl.
What makes it difficult for any kid is to them the world is basically black and white or good and bad. Kids no little of the gray areas we adults know exist. I had nor do I to this day have a rational understanding of why I knew I was a girl but it was just that I knew inside I was really a girl. This is quite common with Type VI transsexuals and actually not uncommon in Type V transsexuals. There were no girl toys in my world but I was fascinated watching my grandmother sewing on her Singer Sewing Machine or cooking her incredible fried chicken or baking.
The minute my Grandmother became aware of the "issue" I was shooed away whenever I wanted to take part or even watch anything considered not 100% boy. I overheard many a conversation between my worried parents and grandparents. It was 1951 and I was in first grade and it was late September when my first school incident happened. We were asked to draw a picture of our family with crayons and my artist skills are no better today than then but I had my picture of my mom, dad, my brothers and me finished quickly.
My teacher had been fascinated with me because I was already reading way ahead of my grade level, my brothers were the same way, but she pointed to the picture and asked, "who is that", and I said, "that is me", and she said, " that is a girl and you are a boy", and I said, "No, I am a girl" and well I guess the correct term is the shit kind of hit the fan. I was told to never lie so I told her what I honestly believed.
My mom was immediately called to the school and I was quietly ushered into the main office. There was a rather heated argument and my mom was extremely upset but nothing was said to me. Within a week I was skipped a grade and two weeks after that my mom was rushed to the hospital very ill and my world came apart. My mom was paralyzed and needed an Iron Lung just to breathe. It was polio and it was really bad.
The house was like a morgue. My dad was so stressed by it all because my mom was the love of his life as he said all the time. She started to slowly get better and eventually we could visit and when my Grandmother saw her for the first time the first thing she did was turn to me and say, "look what you did to your mother", and I made the connection between the stress I caused and what she was saying. She blamed me for my mom getting polio. That was traumatic for a child about to turn 6. Worse, I actually believed her.
Transsexual children have a big issue with self worth. In general we do not have high opinions of ourselves and self worth is low which is ironically a big problem for natal girls. This would eventually lead to or begin the process of turning my behavior into a self destructive one.
I never dared mention how I felt during the time mom was in the hospital. I avoided my grandmother like she carried the plague which was nearly impossible but I almost never spoke to her. This went on for over a year. My mom spent over a year in the Hospital between the Iron Lung and the Therapy required just so she could learn to walk again. She would eventually have a slight permanent limp but she beat it as best she could.
One of the things they did to prevent nerve damaged big toes from curling up was to put a "nail" in the big toe and all I can remember is I kicked it accidentally a lot and it was excruciating for her when I did. She walked for her exercise and my grammar school was close and I rushed home every day to take my afternoon walk with her. We lived next to a large peat bog that was fenced in with active animal life and was circled by a road and we lived on that road. I like to call it an Animal Refuge but it is a peat bog. We would eventually walk around that are every single day together whether it was raining, cold, snowing, or whatever.
I loved our walks and we talked but I was at this point still afraid to say anything about being a girl. I was afraid I would make my mom sick again and put her back in the hospital. I was now 6 and in the third grade and I knew I did not fit in so being really shy I withdrew into myself and began building the wall around myself that I realized later on was my protective shield. Scotty from Star Trek would have been proud of my shield.
On one of our walks mom asked me if I was over the "I am a girl" phase and she told me later I turned whiter than I already was and begged her to forgive me for making her sick. Kids that age, even smart ones, are easily manipulated. She managed to make me tell her everything and she was quite upset with her mother and I was told to not be afraid to tell her how I felt. So I told her, "I am a girl", and she said she loved me and we will figure it out. This is kind of amazing when you realize it was 1952. Of course figuring it out meant curing me of the thoughts but it was the 50's.
I soon was skipped another grade and I was now in 4th grade and not yet 7. Outside the house unless I was with my older brother I was a recluse. My Grandfather was a great fan of Shakespeare and I was reading all of it by an early age. I had little interest in boy sports although I was forced at times to play. I was fascinated by Shakespeare and actually spent one summer talking like a character in a Shakespeare play. It seemed like a cool idea at the time. I was a weird child in so many ways.
Mom was looking for help and that led to Harvard University and my first Psychiatrist. I had just turned 8 and I was driving my Grandmother batshit crazy. There were no girls clothes so I had learned to sew and when she was gone I took fancy pillow cases and made a skirt to fit me. Not one of my brightest ideas but she knew to the foot how much cloth she used so pillow cases were my choice. I was quite good at it and even hemmed my skirts which were confiscated by my Grandmother and thrown out. I then switched to the pillow cases on my brother's bed which caused him to scream, "he is at it again".
I had a very bad experience with the first shrink that ended with him calling me weird names and my dad threatening to kick the shit out of him in front of another patient in the waiting room. It took me a while before I opened up to this famous man of Harvard and the look on his face when I finally relented and said, "I am a girl", fell somewhere between shock and horror. I never realized a man's face could get that red was my first thought. I was 8 and he told me I was a lost cause or something along those lines and actually uttered the words, "your family would be better off if you were dead", and I took him up on the thought. Of course the fact I read his book in the Library and criticized it might have had a little to do with his anger.
It is very difficult for any family with a transsexual child and particularly one that is open to them about their feelings. I knew I was a girl, I just knew it but how do you convince adults you are right? I swallowed a bottle of my Grandmothers pills and was saved because my older brother found me and I had my first experience with the dreaded stomach pump. You would think that experience alone would curb my self destructive thoughts but when you feel hopeless and in reality nobody really believes you it is easy for the mind to convince you the next time you will succeed and everyone will be better off without you. I heard what my brothers friends said about me hanging around constantly. I did not do boy that well although I tried so now my family had to not only deal with a transsexual child they needed to be on permanent suicide watch. I was bad at committing suicide but I was persistent.
1956 was not a good year for my family. My Grandfather and Father died within 3 months of each other and my world seemed to just collapse and my Grandmother got her two cents worth in by telling me "you drove your Grandfather to his grave", which was a real boost to my low self esteem. I adored my Grandfather. He taught me to read and his love of classic literature became mine. I was devastated by his death and my dad followed 3 moths later. Mom comforted me and said it was not true but I was 10 and spiraling downward as I realized I was never going to be the girl I was.
The other thing that began was the bullying. I was a pretty boy but lots of little boys are pretty but between mannerisms and appearance boys began to get abusive. Multiple times I ended up in the emergency Room with some pretty ugly injuries and every single time the Police talked with me I got the, "if you didn't look and act like you do it would not happen", which is weird because until I was 12 I never really pushed it. Basically the Police blamed me for making boys beat me up which was not to good for my self worth and destructive behavior.
During this period my neighbor Chuck made his first attempt to rape me and failed. The Police showed up and I was about 5-6 then and maybe 110 soaking wet but he said I attacked him and again it was my fault even though my clothes were torn to shreds and I was the only one bleeding. It was my fault for being me it seemed.
One of the problems was I was always telling my mom how badly I needed to be a girl. She was looking for a cure everywhere which culminated in Children's Hospital at 12 and a name my mom was given that eventually saved me. In those days a cure meant curing the child of being transsexual which is impossible. Psychiatrist after Psychiatrist was perplexed by this feminine boy. Most were not mean but enough were mean enough to require mom to have my brothers always watching me to prevent me from harming myself.
One of the other things we do is blame ourselves for being this way by asking, "what did I do wrong to make god punish me this way". That is part of the Christian angst of guilt because we are all sinners so it must be my fault. My family was religious but for reasons I will not get into I was thrown out of Sunday School at 11 and got to spend Sunday mornings with my older brother Ray, he was thrown out at 12, watching old movies and his beloved three stooges and championship bowling if I remember right.
My last suicide attempt was Thanksgiving 1959 and it was my best plan and thankfully I failed but it did lead to a hurried meeting with a Dr. Benjamin in late December of 1959. In February 1960 after I had started hormones I was raped by my neighbor. I have no memory of the actual event but like most rape victims blamed myself for letting it happen. That took some time to get over but I had a boyfriend and I was on my way to being me.
The one thing I am thankful for was nobody in my immediate family ever laid a hand on me. I would not have survived if I had been physically abused by my father or mother. I got my fair share of spankings and I can honestly say i deserved them all in retrospect.
Women seem to be genetically disposed to blaming ourselves for lots of things. The irony is most of the time it is men helping us blame ourselves. The abused wife stays with the husband despite constant beatings because she made hi do it by her actions. Battered wife syndrome is a male induced blame mechanism.
A woman gets raped and she gets blamed for "dressing provocatively" by the police, the rapist, and the courts which is why the majority of cases are not reported. There is a clear pattern here if you look closely when it comes to the male-female relationships. Men like to blame us when they do something bad or at worst intimate we brought it on ourselves and it has made women all to often blame themselves for something they did not have fault in.
I was a leading research engineer for a long time and most of what I was involved in had never been done before and in some cases never attempted. I know all about being wrong but having the intellectual courage to admit it and take the steps needed to get on track. A lot of what I was involved with dealt with flyboys in danger and the military and its weaponry. We made a mistake and people could die so accepting blame for a bad design was par for the course when in a testing phase. We made mistakes but thankfully I was never personally involved with any designs that led to deaths but I watched death reach out and grab friends and I also watched everyone blaming everyone else.
One of the things that irritates me as a woman with a history is what I see today. We are blamed by men for their problems. Look at it clearly. It is we women that are not allowing these poor transvestite men into our spaces because we are such meanies and I actually read one dipshit intimate the poor men in dresses needed to be escorted to ladies spaces by women who supported them. I would have led them to the men's room but then I kind of am interested in watching a 6-3 inch man in a dress and heels duking it out with another man in a shirt and jeans.
We are blamed for the transgender problems daily. We are blamed because we are called separatists. We are blamed because we do not support transgender/transvestite civil rights or human rights even when they infringe on those same rights for us women. It is part of the new blame game promoted by the Transgender Borg and the sycophants that follow them. We women are blamed because we find it silly that anyone would claim they are female with a penis but that is discrimination against a women with a penis which is both a dichotomy and an oxymoron and only men could not realize that.
Transvestites blame their wives for not accepting them and supporting them as if some social fetish requires every woman to bow down in deference to her husband's dressing wishes even though she certainly never made that agreement when she said "for better or worse".
Notice the picture here. It is men blaming women for not accepting them as an equal women. It even gets weirder when we get to the penis packing lesbian men claiming that lesbians are discriminating against them because they find it sickening that some man in a dress, with a dick, would actually believe a lesbian that prefers women and does not want a male sex partner would be offended by a lesbian with a functioning prick. Only a freaking man could think that way but again it is the woman that is to blame.
The sick part is they actually have women with a history buying this total bullshit they are promoting and even worse they have actually gotten GLAAD and the GLB to support their insanity. I actually read a blog where an activist said"Being trans is a rough hobby" or something of that ilk. In fairness she may have been kidding but it is as likely a Freudian slip as anything.
This is a man's world and always has been but now these same men want to invade what little we women have that is ours and it is our fault. Somehow I think I am being raped again and this time it is being done publicly.
26 comments:
In general we do not have high opinions of ourselves and self worth is low
Sorry for the slight derail, but I find this comment extremely interesting and telling when one examines/considers the attitude commonly found in transvestites/transgeders.
I find a lot can be deduced about a person, their motivations and the life they've experienced by this alone.
So here's an interesting thought: what have we seen of Jenna Talakova's actions? and what might one deduce about her opinion of herself from those actions?
That aside, nice post.
This was a very good read, Elizabeth. I can see many parallels from my own experiences. I especially felt chills reading the parts about your grandmothers redirected anger toward you. I too had a grandmother whom lived with us for some time in which I experienced much the same from her.
I have a hypothesis about that. Our grandmothers came from a time when girls were not as 'prized'or valued an addition to a family unit as were boys. When they see who they believe to be a boy doing, acting, and proclaiming 'girl' traits, they tend to direct their anger upon one who would - in their eyes - willingly toss male privilege aside. Male privilege being something that they see as assuredness toward continuance of family security.
Just my thought.
Assignment of blame away from it's true ownership is a sign of complete insecurity, and mental weakness. At the same time, assigning blame is also a power trip. Like grandmothers of old in believing that men were on a higher order of life, thus making themselves subservient to them; the transgenders believe there is little value in the privacy of women's spaces. But being really men, they continue to blame women for being resistive to their urges.
DJ
Kids might say the darnedest things, but some adults say things that couldn't be more cruel. I suppose sometimes it's ignorance and not malice, but it can be so harmful to a child nonetheless.
I was moved to tears at the part where your mother was recovering and you told her about what your grandmother had said. Of course you believed your grandmother! But it's wonderful that your mother was wiser.
One thing you should not blame is your genes. There is no genetic predisposition for women to blame themselves about things. That's learned behaviour. We can unlearn it (not easily, I know too well), and hopefully girls can go through life without learning it. Society is still stacked against this, but we're trying to change it a little at a time.
Blame has to be one of the most useless things in the world.
Isn't this blame game the same as you blaming the TG for somehow devaluing your TS medical condition?
Tara
Elizabeth you have an amazing recall of facts from your childhood.
@Deena
A lot of it was discussed ad nauseum with multiple Psychiatrists in my childhood. Funny thing is my short term memory is worse as I get older but not my long term memory.
@Tara
A statement of fact is an accusation based in truth but I am sure TG like yourself would find it the same as the blame game. Write your own blog if you have a different opinion.
I really enjoy these posts where you recount events from your childhood. They cause me to reflect on some of the parallels that we shared, despite having very different experiences.
One of the places where our experiences seem similar is with our interactions with our Moms. Like you, I knew at a very early age and initially I had no problem telling anybody and everybody that I was a girl. Like you said, this was the early 50's so this notion was not well received. Nevertheless, my Mother never failed to stand by me.
Like you I was taken to the proverbial shrinks, who of course had absolutely NO IDEA what I was trying to tell them. In frustration, I finally clammed up and just determined to wait it out until God, in His own good time and Wisdom, decided it was my time.
What I find ironic is that those with the loudest, strongest voices decrying the failures of Faith and embracing atheism are the ones still fighting and struggling against their own personal demons.
Except for my surgical recovery, which was extremely harrowing and dire, I had an relatively easy time, getting across the gender divide.
While I was not particularly feminine as a child, once I began the medical transition, it went smoothly with little drama or trauma except for the aforementioned surgical recovery.
I agree with DJ that blaming others for ones own personal shortcomings or failures, as the TG are so prone to do, is a sure sign of mental weakness and a lack of personal integrity.
There's a very good reason it's known as "a woman's lot in life." Because no man alive could or would stand for such a thing! To be given male privilege from the moment of birth to the day they die it stand to reason that it is their right to be heard. It is their right to not be at fault and, pun quite intended, rightfully so! Are they not the axis of the universe? Does the sun not rise and set for them? As masters of the universe, are not women put upon this earth solely to service and adore them? So logic would seem to say, if there is fault, then it must be anothers! As women are their help-meet and their inferior, the women who did not stop them from their folly are most certainly to blame!
Interestingly, society seems to get that about us! If we managed to weather the storm, and as women the world over must do, we prove ourselves... then accord is made... or so it was going, as little by little, with the unfortunate outings of women of history it was becoming evident these claims were real. That these people did have an id, a soul, a person, a being, that was the sex they claimed themselves to be. So it seemd an act of kindness to help them to be that sex as much as is humanly possible...
Enter the TG, with an inbreed hatred of women and with fetish run-a-muck they turn to us rather than the women born female. Because to their eyes it seems we, like them were men too! So as is happening with Ms Tacklova they climb on the backs of every outed women of history with the claims of being "just like her, just like her!" But as they quickly discover every single time. Once they come out to the world. Once they put on the wig and heels that they are not and they never will be, "just like her!" So now what? With a male id, a male soul, and a male being, all far too strong and too deeply rooted in themselves to even consider the sacrifices she has made. Having now ruined their lives and to some degree, their bodies. There can be but one answer to their folly... As we, history be-damned still seem to be women it can only be our fault!
Ironic no?
@ Deena
An interesting and highly researched FACT (I wouldn't know which link to give you as the best place to start, google "long term memory- trauma") Is that our most lasting and vivid long term memories, the ones our brains have a propensity to retain, are ones that have relavence to us, mostly because of how they made us FEEL.
Humans are emotionally driven, we like to feel pleasure and happiness, and dislike hurt.
Stands to reason then; that especially happy, pleasurable, or even TRAUMATIC events might be especially well remembered.
Another interesting concept is that individual incidents that relate to the same sources of happiness and trauma become automatically associtated with the other memories relevant to that source, a pattern developes in our mind linking them, and amplifying them.
The more we experiences we have that have relavence to a particular source the better, more readily/vividly we are able to remember ALL the other incidents.
My memories aren't as old as Liz's but I remember certain things extremely vivdly.
I can tell you what room we were in, how many people were in the room, how the furniture was arranged, that it was sunny outside the window, when I asked my mom if a boy could be girl at age 6 (only 24 years ago)
Sorry, 22years ago (apparently my short term memories and mathematical ability aren't quite as sound.... Guess you win some, you loose some huh! ;-P)
Oh, and the reason I can remember those details, from what I read, is because the things we commit to LTM are so impressed upon/important to us, that we also remember them with an associated visual imprint.
FACTS are verifiable with evidence and disproven with evidence. The rest is just opinion. Imperical recollections offered as facts are just personal testimony and not facts unless verified.
Lisa
*sigh*.....
Yeah, yeah! But we all know I wouldn't have sounded nearly as "cool" or knowledgeable if I'd have written:
highly researched opinion
Thank you though, for pulling me up on your perceived inaccuracy. Might I ask; I lieu of the ability to prove or disprove such opinions with solid physical evidence, to gain "facts" what exactly does the medical community go on? What do they use as a guide when treating patients?
I do love how there's always an over opinionated person sitting in the wings Waiting for the slightest of tecnicalities in order to demonstrate the intellectual supiriorty and potentially start and meaningless and irrelavent argument.
And here is where I exit the comment thread.
My appologies Liz, your post resonated quite a bit with me.
@Lisa.
What are you implying? That Elizabeth is a liar? If so, then why not just say so? I find it such a cheap shot to engage in such passive aggressive disparagement for no other reason than you find her reality different than yours.
Pardon my interjection but I think what Lisa is stating is a caution to not confuse or conflate personal testimony with evidence. One runs amuck with confirmation error and epistemic arrogance. I’ve noticed that the transgender movement is filled with evidence and referenced sources whereby non exists here. The invisible testators, for fear of outing themselves, seem to fail to supply as such, and if at best, a lack of confirming evidence to support there contentions.
BlackSwan
@BlackSwan
ROFLMAO. This from someone that comments anonymously. Planning another trip to Boston?
Look it is quite simple. I posted a lot of documentation from back in the day in NYC but it was claimed even an appointment card from Harry's office could be forged.
What reference sources would you like from me BlackSwan? I would have to out myself to do that but I guess you think that is cool.
I learned that there is nothing I could do or post that would satisfy you and besides it is so much fun knowing how it must rub your nerves raw not knowing who I am. Sometimes it is the simple things that bring pleasure.
If I displease you please do not read this blog.
Evidence...? Referenced sources...? Just the other day I re-read Alice Through the Looking Glass, It's a little practice of mine for whenever I start to take the world around me too seriously. The point being that the Right Almost Reverend Dodgson takes particular delight in the inexhaustible human capacity for circular logic. Which by, one can quite successfully argue, if one doesn't mind that it makes no sense, that cabbages are indeed kings, (or running for office as such!) So Dear BS, or other dear readers of Elizabeth's. If you care to follow the trail of "evidence" presented by the TG. It will always... ALWAYS leads back to simple conjecture and myth, or, it leads back to us... (insert curtsy, cute smile, exit stage right)
The thing I most notice about TG declarations about their past lives is how their stories tend to "develop" over time. In contrast Liz's has remained consistant unchanged by embelishments. There are great many false narratives on the the blogs. This blog is not one of them
Don't like the message? Simple solution, discredit the messenger.
Have you nothing better, BS? Is this truly your best shot? Evidence? Evidence of what? This is a blog. People offer observations and opinions. Some of those opinions and observations make sense. Others, like those offered by BS, make no sense at all.
A few posts back I discussed this in detail. Elizabeth is so conspicuously selective in her senior moments that I’m at a loss to call this a total write off of effort, but most plaintiffs never forget who the defendant is. With the amount of details she routinely recalls she seems to selectively forget this very important and inconvenient fact, which she posted multiple times as defendant Blue Cross/Blue Shield, when it could only be Blue Cross prior to 1988 in Massachusetts. A narrative fallacy emerges. She took some time to reply which means to me a couple things, she was sleeping or coming up with a narrative to allow herself plausible deniability.
BlackSwan
@BlackSwan
Actually I needed to talk with my attorney since they are the family firm. He laughed at you actually. Said, typical paralegal that thinks they know the law and how it works because you are one in California.
Wrong on all accounts dipshit. I gather it is coincidence that it was covered from 1972 until it was stopped. I do suggest you learn how Blue Cross works and also how and why some doctors were covered by Blue Shield back then.
I really find your obsession with me hilarious. You really need to get over yourself and me. I am a silly little blog that gets a couple hundred views a day and you are obsessed with me. You might want to see a shrink but then I am sure the others you have stalked feel as I do. You are fucking nuts.
Remember you are not required to read my blog but then you are obsessive and aggressive which goes hand in hand with being a Dominatrix and the hand to hand combat you like.
Comment on the post or do not bother commenting.
Your case was very important to me if real. So far not, but your bog is so amusing, like watching kids fly kites.
BlackSwan
@BlackSwan
My case is important to you? That was 40 years ago. It did not set a legal precedent, nor is it case law, it was a settlement agreement. Now you are invited to just go away. You add nothing to the conversation.
I have put up with you for long enough I guess. I told you to stick to the topic.
You are done here.
If your topic is the Blame Game then this plays into that on point. If your reasons for posting this story are to somehow show you did do something to help when the TS are blamed for doing nothing. I told you before If the stipulations in your settlement stated that BC had to pay for SRS FOR OTHERS then it can be used to persuade insurers to do it again.
BlackSwan
@BS
That is actually not true. Because an insurance company paid for something a long time ago does not mean there is any requirement they pay for it today and besides BCBS is a different company from the separate BC and BS entities that existed back then although they often did work together plus they were not for profit entities then.
Leave me alone.
You are grasping at straws BS. This post talks about how vunerable children and women are to accepting the blame laid on them by adults and men.
I personally see cowards and more specifically the Teegees, trans-ing the blame for their own cowardice and short comings on everybody, like society in general, and those of us who have overcome whatever stood in our way and succeeded in obtaining that cure necessary for own individual survival.
In addition, your irrational, poorly articulated 'arguements' are weak, unfounded and specious in addition to a major self serving waste of time.
jesus wept, Elizabeth. you had a really hard childhood.
Your Grandma blaming you like that was awful. you must be exceptionally strong to have made it through alive (and maybe not very good at suicide, thank goodness)
i wonder if any of the TG reading and criticizing have any real concept of how it feels to be stuck with the wrong body? so much of what they say seems like stupid games -> they demand recognition as women without actually wanting to be women.
i hope they get the courage to stand up and fight for what the should be fighting for. legal recognition of a 'trans' gender, one that leaves those of use born transsexual out of it.
keep up the excellent blogs, please.
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