I always knew I was a girl until I realized my body was incorrect and at that point I knew I had to somehow correct my body with the added problem that I had no clue I was a transsexual until a few days short of my 14th birthday. I never accepted myself as being a complete female or woman until I had surgery and this is the real problem or the difference between people like me and the likes of Autumn Sandeen and Monica Roberts and others in the transgender camp. It is really the crux of the problem.
Once I realized there was a surgery that would complete me it was the single goal of my life and it is the single goal of everyone like me that I have ever known well enough to confide in and have them confide in me. It is certainly universal among those young transsexual I have known, helped, and dealt with over the last 43+ years of my life.
I was born into an affluent family and outside of my maternal grandmother was loved by my parents and brothers despite the giant pain in their collective asses that I was. I am sure they got tired of me telling them I am a girl and I know I hurt them with my suicide attempts. They sought help for me but it was help they hoped would cure me and it was those Psychiatrists and the depression of not believing there was anyone to help me that brought about the suicide attempts, along with some bullying. The only mental illness those of us born transsexual usually have is the depression related to the realization that our bodies are just wrong. It can be debilitating. It wanes as the hormones kick in and our bodies become as they should and it disappears after SRS.
I never understood why I was born that way and I have always been very angry about this. I was a child of the 50's and I wanted my Disney Moment like every other little girl or certainly every other heterosexual girl. I wanted my Knight In Shining Armor, some children, a house, a dog, and a white picket fence. I prayed every evening for god to make me whole so I could be the girl I just knew I was and woke every morning to the same Groundhog Day nightmare. I was still not a girl although what a complete girl meant was a mystery until I was 11.
My grandmother always threw away my fashion magazines and girl teen magazines because it reminded her I was me and me was at that time something she was very afraid of. My brother Ray had begun to treat me like his little sister and was 14 by the summer of 1957 and he said he would hide my magazines with his Playboy and other porn boys seemed to have. I knew where he hid them and when I went to retrieve my magazines my grandmother had thrown mine away and left his porn there. Somehow porn was better for him and possibly me than Vogue and other girl oriented magazines. That was the first time I had ever seen a vagina and I just thought it was so beautiful and I needed one immediately which was of course impossible.
I knew there was a difference between a girl and a boy but not "that" big a difference but I got a rather quick lesson in girls have an "innie" and boys have an "outie" from my poor brother Ray who I realized later was totally embarrassed by the entire event. I remember getting really depressed because how could I get a vagina out of that "thing" I was born with.
My mom found me crying in my bedroom a few days later and was worried because crying and depression usually led to a suicide attempt in my life. I just did not understand how god could let me be born with what I had instead of what I should have had which was obviously what my mom had. It was just another shock for my mother but I felt she was understanding so initially I thought I should be honest with her about how I felt but kids like me can sometimes be too blunt because in many ways we are pushy about what we need.
I never understood how much I both confused and hurt her until I read her letters to Dr. Benjamin. We young transsexuals are not the only ones confused by our situation and we are not the only ones that are in harms way. I looked at my mom as someone that had beaten Paralytic Polio and as the woman I took long walks with every day as she continued to strengthen her body and her very soul after what she went through and then she makes the mistake of telling me I can always talk with her about myself and believe me I did. She was frightened and worried about me because she loved me.
In some ways we are typical children but in so many different ways we are forced to grow up long before we should have to. A lot of our childhood is lost to the nightmare of being born transsexual and god help the child if the parents are not supportive because Nightmare on Elm Street comes to mind. An abusive parent of a child born transsexual can scar the child for life and in too many cases to think about lead to the horror of a successful suicide or the situation where a child runs to be themselves and ends up in the clutches of the sex trades and the sick assholes that abound there.
In many ways the life of a child transsexual is a minefield and unfortunately very few of you understand it because, well, you just do not. Some of you do because you lived it but most of you did not because the intensity of your transsexualism did not drive you into action because believe me when I tell you no matter what a parent did they could not dull the intensity of just knowing how wrong we were and how desperate we were to fix the problem.
The vast majority of the kids like me that I knew and know today, both friends and those we helped, had one thing in common. Whether we were heterosexual girls or lesbians the single thought of ever using that "thing" we were born with on another girl or woman was so reprehensible it made us sick to even contemplate it. In the Dutch Study discussed in this post kids like me were decidedly heterosexual and accordingly would eventually mirror the normal spectrum for sexual preference in women.
It most certainly does not mean others that marry are not transsexual. All it really means is societal pressures allowed them to somehow function as men and it does not mean one form of transsexualism is better than another. People are different and transsexualism in people is different but what it should tell you is that that if you did not react as a child as some do then getting a do-over in life starting with the same metrics but better parents and finances would have made no difference in most cases although I will say physical violence from parents is another thing. In my time if you had SRS by 25 you were young and some of my friends had to wait into their late 20s and early 30s but SRS was the goal not because it was expected but because we wanted it because how could we have a lover while we had a penis? A girl does not have a penis. It was that simple and should be today.
The biggest problem most of us faced was boys because we are and were attracted to boys but only as a girl and that is the big caveat. We were not attracted to boys as a gay boy is attracted to boys. We are attracted to boys as a girl is attracted to a boy and there is a big difference. We are and were very susceptible to being fooled by boys that seemingly accepted us as girls and sometimes it was truly acceptance, my case is an example of that, and others like my friend Lana led to rape and carnage that forced her to run away forever.
To us and 99% of the other transsexuals SRS and the freedom and completeness it brings is and was our goal. It gave us the chance at leading a good life but it was only the chance not the assurance. Most of us worked hard to fit into society as girls and young women because that was all we wanted. Most of us dreamed of finding the right man that could love us. Some of us did and some of us had to keep plugging along until the right person came along, if ever. It was never an assurance that it could or would happen but the chance was all we asked for. It is why we disappeared into the mainstream of society. We always have known we would never be 100% normal, because of our history, but that does not mean we could not live as a normal female in society.
I have never owed anything to any transsexual that came after me or was before me because my life is and will always be my life to live and no other person has the right to tell me how to live as long as I live within the boundaries of society. I fought my way through a minefield like those before me and those after me in order to be as I should be. The only people I owed anything to were those that helped me and they only wanted me to be happy.
Now many of us find ourselves under attack because we refuse to accept ourselves being drawn under the Transgender Umbrella because we find ourselves at odds with the overall positions taken by the activists supporting the Transgender Umbrella. We are called Separatists and worse. We are told we have no "right" to protest because it is for the good of all under the transgender and we are thus transphobic or worse. The funny thing is these same people think they have every right to tell us how we should think and what we should believe in. They are free to be transvestites but we are not free to be female. How conveniently male of them.
We have no right to our opinion because they are right and everyone else is wrong because they say it is so. It is sort of like the collective under communism where minds need to be retrained to follow the party line. The transgender have kidnapped us and forced us under the Transgender Umbrella and we are all expected to immediately develop a giant case of Stockholm Syndrome and immediately accept our captors as our masters and we should shut up and sit in the back of the bus and neither be seen nor heard.
I have asked many times if one of them will please tell me how those of us born transsexual are like them since they are transvestites and cross-dressers few of whom have had or desire SRS and we are never answered and told to again shut up because they know what is right for "all" of us. They capture a few women born transsexual who soon are in reality women born transgender because they swallow the lies and untruths. They very conveniently hide the fact they are fighting for transvestite rights and not for our rights to simply be female. They latch onto any woman that has gone public about her sex change and immediately relabel her "trans" so they can be her equal as a woman.
None of us wishes any physical harm to any of them but they are certainly willing to hurt us. They say we can never be women because we will always be male as Autumn Sandeen has said many times. They put forth agendas that harm and in many ways endanger any chance of transsexualism being considered a medical condition which is odd because for those born transsexual hormones, transition, and surgery cure everyone I have ever known. They openly attempt to redefine what sex identifies so it covers them and their penis or desire to get pregnant while claiming to be male. The truth is they are happy with their condition because it is a source of pleasure and enjoyment in their everyday lives. According to them we are wrong and they are right. Being "trans" gives their pathetic lives meaning along with bitching about the wife not understanding their need to cross-dress. They push the view that SRS is not really needed to be female and this hurts every single one of us born transsexual. It lowers every transsexuals chances for help.
They want to identify all of us as trans when all we wanted was to be rid of transsexualism and they cannot understand that. They look at being trans as a gift which is impossible for anyone born transsexual because if transsexualism is a gift please leave coal in my Christmas Stocking. They are appalled we believe that anyone with a penis should not be allowed in female spaces because they are men and they are immune to violence against women because well, they are men. They are not female so they are incapable of seeing the problem and those that see a problem are prejudiced in some way.
They are suddenly feminists when they put on their dress, heels, hose, and wigs yet cannot understand that
this simple act along with claiming they are as female and womanly as any woman is as misogynistic an act as any man could possibly commit. They are suddenly experts on all affairs we women face when they have not lived one single day as a woman. They are you typical 62 year old transvestite man that suddenly decides to try hormones and is immediately an expert. They think they are accepted when in truth they are tolerated.
The problem is one of them will eventually disrobe in an area with mothers and their daughters and the shit will hit the fan. An FTM did this at the University of Pittsburgh in an attempt to cause a problem but that is so different and the transgender crowd does not see that. This person was not a threat to the men but a man with a penis and balls in any ladies facility is a threat but they cannot see it.
I wonder if these new type of women would undress in front of their own daughters and tell them they are the same? Of course they would not because deep down they know it is wrong.
The problem is they are the problem and not us. The problem is they realize we are a big problem for them so they need to make us disappear and they manage to get some of us suffering from Stockholm Syndrome to support them like Janet Mock and Isis who denigrated transsexualism when ironically the only reason both ended up with SRS is because they were born transsexual.
Being identified as "trans" makes you less than what the suffix defines when using "trans" as the transgender do. I am simply a female and a woman. I am not a transwoman. Is Janet Mock or even Isis now trying to say they are somehow less than a woman because they are now self-described transwomen? I wonder how Janet's gorgeous boyfriend feels about being with someone that now describes herself as something "less" than a women. The truth is quite simple. Janet Mock is a gorgeous young African American woman and the only thing remotely "trans" about her is the simple fact she was born transsexual. She is as different from the Transgender loons clinging to her as night is from day. Hopefully some day she will wake up to the fact she is being used by transvestites. I would not hold my breath.
The problem is this problem is never going to go away. Men are more aggressive than women and unfortunately for us our fellow women in politics are incapable of standing up to these men.
The problem is no lesbian in her right mind will accept another lesbian packing a penis. Why would they want that horrible reminder of maleness? If you have not noticed the radfem lesbians, they hate us all by the way, are fighting with transgender radfem lesbians over this kind of acceptance and are in some ways spearheaded by Toby Hill-Meyer a self described MTF lesbian pron star that likes his/her penis.
The problem is few straight man will get into a physical relationship with a woman with a penis. Now men can be disgusting creatures when it comes to sexual habits but that one ain't happening unless they cannot see you as anything but a girl.
The problem is they will always be outside looking in. It is why they stay with the wife if they can. They want to push their way into society but society will never accept a female having a penis on the whole. If they took that poll in the United States it would be very interesting.
In reality the problem is they are a group of pathetic men hell bent on living their fantasy to the fullest and if truth be told they were not trying to crap on everyone born transsexual I do not object to them living as they wish and I certainly wish them no harm but unfortunately that is not how it is. When their world comes crumbling down around them, and it will eventually, I fear for those children born transsexual and those older transsexuals on their way to SRS because it will only get harder.
21 comments:
That is pretty much the whole current scenario in a nutshell Liz. Interestingly, even those "activists" who may mean well cannot see why they are condemning all of us to a life of less than when in reality it is not necessary. I despise the "transwoman" label far more then I despised being referred to as male prior to my SRS. We have perverted creeps like Jack Molay dismissing any protest as well that is what you are isn't it and then blithly claims to be a "feminist" who wishes to defend our rights. He seems unaware that he just denied us the most basic of our rights and that is to simply be as normal a woman as it is currently possible. Ironically all society needs to do is to leave us alone we are all capable of looking after ourselves. If you can overcome being born transsexual there is nothing that we cannot do.
Cassandraspeaks
You know, not everything you say and write always rings true for me Liz (different circumstances influenced my life), but SO many things I read here cut straight to my core (and there aren't many people who's writting I've read, that manage to do that)
It's not really important for the purposes here what they are, but I'd like you know know that I appreciate (on a personal level) many of the things you write.
hope you're well.
You know who I am.
I am glad you wrote this. I have two thoughts. Embracing trans-ness is my view an inherent part of being gender variant. Otherness wanting to be accepted socially is one of the foundations of gender variance, this location in which gender is fluid. The expression of this particular brand of otherness is to be trans.
For some of the gender variant, especially those that are locked in their sex but fluid in their gender experience, guilt and shame are an integral part of the condition. The irreconcilability of fixed sex and gender fluidity is like this never ending search for an anchor in a unstable world. For some reason transsexuals are a perceived anchor because social acceptance is so unattainable. They hope that tying themselves to transsexualism they might find just that. The lack of diagnostic differentiation as expressed by DSM 5 just perpetuates this.
OMG, K.Dumke! I never realized how learned you are. Having told all women how to be proper women you now grace us with your expertise on everything trans and this particular brand of otherness. Please define a singularity of sexual arousal, in terms of phenomenological and biological emergence, as well as how both interact.
"Embracing trans-ness is my view is an inherent part of being gender variant."
Quite correct! .. and exactly the correct path for someone who is gender variant and does not consider themselves a woman, such as in your case.
You may now go sit in the corner and suck your thumb while those of us that don't consider ourselves gender variant indulge in some grown up chat.
Leigh
Kathryn;
The only issue I have with what you say is it only applies to those who refuse to conform to the gender / sexual norms. True transsexuals in nearly every case will conform to the sexual and gender norms for the sex they should have been to begin the first place. They have no desire to be "other" or stand out like a sore thumb or the sunflower that is turned away from the sun.
NYF
You clearly are the Tee-Gee Apologist.
@Cecile
You obviously have reading comprehension problems. My french is not as good as it once was or I would actually try and explain it to you but then we both know you are part of the problem, don't we!!!
From my point of view, to be associated with fetishist CD's could be the only downside, that's why I wanted to clarify this.
As for the rest, a society tolerant toward male feminity and taking transexualism out of the psychiatrists and lawyers hands is exactly what's needed for transexual peoples to blossom peacefully.
For the first part, see Asia, for the second, see France (well, on the psychiatry side).
Even though I'm an outsider to the US transgender movement, it's seem to be their exact agenda.
I understand the context is different for you, you have to deal with private healthcare, a powerfull porn lobby etc, but the direction to follow is still limpid and led toward social acceptance and self determination.
I deeply resent people who aren't ts trying to define those who are... for their own benefit.
- an old aunty
I am a trans woman and a transsexual. My life is not your heterosexist, Harry Benjamin worshiping, desperate to be accepted by cis/straight society. I wasn't aware what was going on until I was 13 or 14, and didn't accept it till I was 23. I didn't have the feelings of disgust at having sex prior to SRS that you describe, instead it just felt awkward and not fufilling. My depression didn't go away after SRS because I have other issues that growing up trans compounded, and I still have to deal with those. I am not "deluded", I am not a crossdresser, and I am not ok with your attempts to push internalized cissexism on the rest of us.
So you can take this and shove it, every sneering, holier than thou, strawmanning, frightened paragraph.
So, you must hate most psychiatrists to death.
Well said Old Aunty! Well said!
@Cecile
Yes I do hate most Psychiatrists.
You might want to delete the reference to Playboy showing genitals in 1957. Never happened.
@Deena
Playboy was one of his magazines and it is really the only name I remember and since I never had any interest in that kind of stuff as a boy I will leave it to your expertise about Playboy not exposing genitals but several of his magazines did.
Still didn't happen. Obscenity laws in all 48 states and postal regulations at the federal level prohibited it. Doubt me? Do some research. Check Roth v. United States 1957.
Ray, believe fantasy if you want to.
@Deena
What fantasy would that be Deena?
You mean like Prohibition magically caused alcohol to cease to exist, Deena? What exactly *is* your point in nitpicking somebody's story and using that nitpick to engage in such a puerile argument over it?
To the Polerin-esque crowd: there is no 'trans women' that includes transsexuals. 'Trans-' is an intermediary prefix that indicates crossing to something else (i.e. another sex as in transsexual or what should be another gender as in the literal meaning of the word transgender).
One is not a 'transsexual' for life, they are only a 'transsexual' until they have completed 'transition' and have a F on their documentation. That F indicates a change of sex by the way, it's not a 'gender marker' like all the other wacky shit your community makes up.
The 'trans-' prefix is not an identity for those who want to remain permanently 'in between' and 'not really a woman' to the masses. That's what a 'trans woman' really is to those who aren't politically correct enough to humor you: a special 'not woman' snowflake who wants to be hailed and recognized for their supposed gender nonconformity.
You want to be a special class of person apart from everybody else, not a boring 'cisgender' woman like any other.
You yourself highlight just how correct this is when you stated, "...desperate to be accepted by cis/straight society." So in other words, you consider a 'trans woman' to be some kind of outside radical who bucks societal norms.
All the rest of us 'not so special' folks with transsexual histories must be pandering to the 'cis' enemy. As Elizabeth said about the gay marriage, "Convincing them otherwise is not done with baseball bat but with rational dialog which seems missing altogether." This easily applies to the transgender community, which is as collectively intolerant toward others as many of the 'cisgender' folks it wants so badly to be apart from.
...and nobody here -- least of all me -- gives a fuck about all that community terminology (cis-insert word of the moment here) that you like to guilt the masses with.
Sorry if all this truth hurts your delicate sensibilities. I ended up in this due to my internal need to be female, not to be in your special group of ex-gay men and cross-dressers. I know for a fact that a lot of your community's 'leadership' is one or the other.
Deena, handguns have been illegal in UK since forever yet still people get shot and murdered by handguns. Banks and stores get held up with them. So just because explicit porn was illegal it doesn't mean it was impossible to obtain. There were an awful lot of servicemen returning home from overseas where explicit porn was not illegal. Don't you think they may have traded these magazines for a few extra bucks? Come on Deena you know better than this.
Kinda neat you read this Ray and don't pay them no mind. Look after the "Beast" my hubby would kill for one of those!
Cassandraspeaks
No anonymous, transgenders simply claim to be transsexual and seek to redefine what transsexual is so that it matches their own particular version of freak! When we protest they refuse to post our protests and visit blogs like this one and spew accusations at us. All you have to do is check out the venom spouted by TG's in the archives here and places like TS Si. All they have to do is stop claiming transgender is transsexual or is a part of the transgender paradigm.
Cassandraspeaks
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