Some friends of mine have questioned my support for California Bill AB1266 and there are several reasons but the most important one is personal, very personal. I guess the only way to put it is I lived it back in the 50's when one did not do what kids like me did and the thought of using a girl's room was the farthest thing from my mind.
I have two very close friends that I met and knew in NYC in the late 60's and early 70's that went through something like I did. If I had know earlier that I was transsexual and that help was available it would have saved me from my 4 futile suicide attempts and the two suicide attempts where I nearly succeeded. I used barbiturates stolen from my Grandmother in 5 attempts with the last attempt I attempted to jump into the outbound riptide from a tidal inlet that would have meant certain death due to water temperature and the powerful outbound flow.
Those attempts were not an attempt to get attention but my fear that I would grow up and look like my two brothers. I need not have worried but I did not know. Someone said that I had courage to do what I did. In all honesty it was not courageous but anger and a large dose of Welsh stubbornness. You will notice that most of the children that transition early are decidedly feminine and it goes beyond "pretty boy". Look at Jazz and some of the other children like Kim Petras.
As children kids like me will do some very dangerous things in order to prove to others we are "really" girls and it can have horrible results. Gwen Arroyo just wanted to be treated and accepted as a girl and was murdered for it. Did Gwen do something stupid? Yes she did, but so didn't most kids like us. I was coerced into playing Jane to a boys Tarzan to spoil a contest held at a local theater. I claim I did it because a certain boy stood up for me but I would have done it anyways. Why? I thought maybe if they saw me as a girl they would realize I really was a girl. I could have been killed by some if they found out. It was stupid but it changed my life.
It changed my life because I broke down and told the boy playing Tarzan all about me including the fact I "really" was a girl and I would die before I grew up to be a boy. I learned more from him than he learned from me. I had started dressing androgynously when I started the tenth grade because I got abused anyway. I was 12 1/2 and had just lived my summer from hell including several days in Boston Children's Hospital. I had tried to do what they wanted and it did not matter. I was extremely angry and started the androgyny phase and added mascara which for my time was dangerous. I passed for girl better than boy anyway so why not was how I looked at it.
It seemed the boys were confused by me because they saw me as a girl, at first, and since most were 15 or older their collective hormones were raging and I got hit on by boys who did not know me. the weird part was my High School had a very strict dress code where girls had to wear dresses and I cannot tell you how many boys asked why I was not wearing a dress the first few days in High School. Then it got ugly.
It seems boys do not like being attracted to a girl that is not "quite" a girl and confused them so they took their testosterone out on me physically which proves beyond a doubt that males cannot think straight when their hormones and mating urges are running wild. I did not help my cause by adamantly refusing to dance with girls in the joint gym sessions where they taught dancing. Not my smartest move but it seemed right at the time. The gym teacher threatened to flunk me, you weirdly needed to pass gym to graduate, and I had to remind him I tutored his star football player who was the Quarterback for the team. That was a rare moment of bravado.
If I had to use the bathroom I waited until class and had the teacher excuse me so I could avoid boys. My High School decided they would not have doors on the toilets to prevent smoking so I was open to the world when I sat down to pee. I never peed standing up in my life and I have no idea why to be honest. It just seemed to be the way I should urinate.
The irony of my Jane/Tarzan stupidity is our picture ended up in the paper, they did not expose the fraud, and my mother saw the picture if me and when she came into my room a few days later I figured I was grounded for life or certainly the foreseeable future. She took a picture out of her Wallet and it was of her as a 15 year old girl and I was her and she was me. I think that was the moment my mother stopped trying to find a "cure" for me and it changed our relationship.
It was also the first time I was kissed by a boy and it was in front of 500 screaming teenagers plus no girl forgets the first kiss. Kids like me build walls up around ourselves to ward off the outside world because we want to limit the pain of our existence. Some of us are so good at building up that wall it can last into adulthood with the disastrous side effects of testosterone. My kiss led to a boyfriend and the saving of my life, eventually.
Shortly after this we went on a month long family vacation to England, Scotland, France, Spain and Italy. I had a horrific time when entering England and it had nothing to do with them. Mom said she was with her 3 sons and I muttered I am a girl and my brother Ray agreed and the poor man checking passports looked at them and at me and then my Mom got upset and Ray got upset and I got upset and lots of people witnessed it. I was in tears because I did not want to go for other reasons and I went through this confusion of other every single day and it wears on you.
They were actually quite wonderful and we were ushered through after a short time but I was hurt. We had to catch a plane to Scotland and when I received my boarding pass my name was listed as Elizabeth because that was the name in the paper and Mom said it would be easier on me. When we got to our Bed and Breakfast in Ayr I was happy. Mom had a scheduled meeting with certain interests of our family that wanted some rare artifacts from my Grandmother and we had to go and I ended up being called a "poof" by the woman mom was to meet with. Mom got so mad she told them to F-off and we went into town to eat dinner and when I had to go to the bathroom Mom got up with me and took my hand and led me to the girls room. First thing you notice is girls rooms are much cleaner than boys rooms. If I had used a girls room in High School there is no telling what would have happened.
It turned out as confused as I was the people interacting with me daily were probably as confused in different ways. If they did not know me I was a girl which is what happened for basically an entire month in Europe. Mom decided it was safer if we let people think what they wanted and they thought girl. As a child I was obsessed with being how I should have been but I thought there was no hope. Others around me saw me as the person I knew I was but were frightened and probably weirded out by the simple fact physically I was not a girl.
When we returned to Boston in mid July I had changed. My mother had cut my hair so it was more feminine and other more personal things happened between us. We shared a room while my brothers shared their own room and my mother saw the weirdness of my body pre hormones. Everyone now knew I wanted to be a girl which would seem to the unknowing eye to mean more trouble for me but it did not. I was never touched physically again by another boy and my life actually changed for the better. My mother did not tell me she was writing to Harry Benjamin and it was difficult for her to arrange a meeting for us with him. I never knew this then.
I now had a boyfriend but more important I was subjected to nothing more than an occasional name that usually resulted in someone telling them to shut up because "she" was okay. He was used as often as she but believe me it meant a lot. My problem was I still had these protective walls built up around myself for protection. They had to come down or basically I was headed for trouble. In some ways it was more difficult because my boyfriend and I found it hard to get any time alone even though I tutored him. It is hard for a kid like me daily watching other girls flirt with Kevin while I had to keep my eyes down and just carry on.
I never realized some girls tried to befriend me because the previous bullying kind of made me paranoid. Kevin started breaking down the barrier but it was difficult. even though I loved him in that silly little girl crush way he was more than that and constantly reminded me not to give up because I still had no idea what I was and that help was available. every time he kissed me it was like an affirmation I was a girl to him and that is important. I never knew then the mental anguish he went through over his attraction to me. I was into myself too much to see his pain which is very sad.
Sometimes the worst people to us can be relatives and I had cousins that hated me passionately. I was seeing another shrink in the fall who was supposed to help me at least try and deal with my feelings but in the middle of November just before our Thanksgiving he called me some really horrible things, got a lot of that from shrinks back then, and on Thanksgiving I had a horrible run in with several cousins and I snapped and then tried to off myself by jumping into the outbound riptide created by a tidal Marsh. I was pulled off the rocks by my boyfriend but as my Grandmother put it they had a fulltime find the "freak" search on. Ironically I nearly did kill myself since I ended up with double pneumonia and a two week stay in the hospital with a full week in Intensive Care.
I felt so out of place and incorrect in High School and in all honesty had always felt that way everywhere. everything was just wrong and sometimes for a kid it is hard to put it to words and I was no different. My family knew how I felt but before the vacation we rarely spoke about it. I think they managed to get through that first year of my pushing gender lines, appearance is gender, by looking the other way or maybe even thinking it was a phase.
The anguish in my life was palpable to me and I was in a constant state of depression along with feeling totally hopeless. Girls had everything I should have had and it hurt in an amazingly visceral way. I was shy but I was not easy to be around and I could be acerbic and nasty if given a chance when faced by someone who was hurting me. I remember this one famous shrink I was sent to when I was young. He was an asshole and mentioned constantly his seminal book he had written so I went to the Library and read his book and the next time we met I ripped his book apart along with him. I remember telling him I don't have mommy issues, like his book espoused about, because I just wanted "to be" a mommy and that was mild compared to what I said. Needless to say that ended my sessions. He was later arrested as a pedophile, who would have thunk that!!
When I recovered from pneumonia I was in a declining state and that forced my mother to make a plea to Dr. Benjamin that they had to somehow make arrangements for us to meet. I knew nothing of this. All I knew was the day before Christmas Kevin gave me my first "girl" Christmas present, a bracelet that was meant for my wrist but I could wear on my ankle. That was pretty moving and on Christmas afternoon my mother put me in the car and drove me to Kevin's house and walked in with me and I got scared. I thought they knew Kevin was my boyfriend and that terrified me for some reason.
When they started talking I knew they knew and I panicked and ran out the front door and they had to find me. I am sure they must have thought I was contemplating another suicide attempt but they found me and it was the beginning of the end of my journey. Before this time I rarely was free enough to dress as a girl although my moms cloths sort of fit but were a shade too big. I liked how I looked but I became more depressed because I knew I would not be allowed to dress as I needed to. It was a product of the times but also I knew dressing did not mean I was a girl. I always knew that. I needed to get rid of a certain appendage.
What happened was several adults decided it might help if I could be me for a while and I went with them to the Laurentian Mountains in Quebec supposedly to allow me to "chill out" in more modern terms. I did not know I was to meet someone who would literally save my life. I spent over two weeks there and met Harry and actually met John Money, an asshole even then, but the biggest change was hormones which I pounded down in larger dosages until Harry got my attention.
Soon everyone at school knew I was this strange thing called a transsexual, since transgender was not a term in existence for us back then. I was raped by my neighbor in February and managed to survive that despite skull fractures and an emergency trip from my local hospital to Massachusetts general for surgery and recovery. I remember none of it except him ripping my cloths off and the first blow to the head. He spent not a single day in jail. It seems my 120 pound body was so threatening to this 6'-2" 240 pound man that he had to defend himself by ripping my clothes off and raping me. It was not much better for girls or women and I "got what I deserved" according to one officer. He got what he deserved because Kevin beat him senseless and he is the only one who ended up in jail. The byproduct was people now had their suspicions confirmed that we were an item and it was hard on Kevin but he handled it like the brave young man he was.
The hormones changed me quickly because they had little testosterone to battle and boys gym was still required and those boys got quite an eyeful because white gym shorts and a white tee-shirt hid nothing. That ended any issues I had in High School but it did not end my High School memories.
My mother convinced me to go to my 10th High School reunion and it was one of the better experiences in my life. I was finally me and that picture on my blog is what I looked like then and earlier and actually you might recognize me if you met me now from it. I went to that reunion with some evil intent because there was one boy who hurt me a lot. I had this thought where I would seduce him and tell him so I could hurt him but he had no clue it was me and nobody else did either.
People see what they want to see and even though the trouble stopped in my Junior and Senior years they never saw the real me. What they saw was something they could rationalize. Several teachers knew I was there and finally this one fellow "geek", now a hunk, recognized me and the look on his face was kind of priceless in so many ways. I danced with him and he would not have told anyone but I decided to leave after I visited the ladies Room and told him it was okay to tell several of his friends who I was. Initially I was this tall redhead with striking blue eyes dressed to the nines and looking quite good I must admit.
Well he told one person and in seconds everyone knew and when I came out to leave I faced the entire reunion and something really weird happened. That one boy who had hurt me brutally walked up with tears streaming down his face telling me how sorry he was. It was the day I realized other kids get us if they know the truth and it was the day I learned to forgive. I was not good at forgiveness before that day.
I ended up sitting and talking with many of them for several hours. I learned that many of the girls actually tried to befriend me but I was too walled up to realize it. The irony of this was a few weeks earlier I had done a television show in Philadelphia and a mother came up asking how to help her child who was just like me. I had directed them to Harry who was there and I decided on that evening I had to help that family because I had the money and actually the need to give back.
She was the first of the ten kids I have been involved in helping through this nightmare and it may surprise some but it is better for the child to be out and open about themselves, within reason, because all of these kids were and usually are exceedingly feminine and nobody should face what I and others went through. Trying to hide yourself is just too dangerous because of the confusion it causes others and sometimes the reaction to confusion is ugly.
I remember vividly how wonderful I felt as my body changed the way a girl body should. I got to go through a girl puberty without menstruation and its issues although I must admit menstruation was an issue I wish I had been required to deal with. I asked my close friend Lena to help and we began our methodology of helping kids like us. We found that kids seemed to get it and the real problem was parents but we also learned to quietly work within the system to get Schools and parents on the child's side.
We found that parents that met the child almost immediately after sitting down with her and her parents either totally changed their minds or just sort of backed off and made no trouble. It is hard for any parent to hurt another child that is in no way a threat to them or their children. Toilets were a big issue and usually the school set aside a private toilet but almost universally something strange happened.
Because the child was now socializing as a girl they had girlfriends and in every case eventually her girlfriends coaxed them into the girls room because after all it was where they should go. You cannot jam things down peoples throats but they are willing to understand and to learn and it is universal. How universal is interesting.
Lena found this amazing kid in an area of Alabama that I wanted an armed guard for protection because redneck was above them in my mind. It was a small farming community and it was the local protestant ministers kid. I have no idea how she found this child but to this day she is hands down the most stunningly beautiful girl we have ever helped. She had two chances to pass as a boy and they were slim and none and slim had long since left town. Her father tried to hide her but they wanted to help her also because she had said she was a girl from the day she began speaking according to them.
I was in Alabama for some Civil Rights demonstrations in the 60's and had spent 5 miserable days in Huntsville at our Rocket facility doing testing and I was so afraid of Huntsville it took several flyboys and some techs to convince me to eat in a Restaurant with them. Those rednecks scared the crap out of me.
She flourished in that little community. They opened their arms to her because it was so obvious she was a girl only a blind man could not see it but if he talked with her he would have. Like most of our kids she had SRS at 18 and went to Alabama as a girl. Once it was over, except for her husband, it was never something she thought she had to talk about. If it works there it will work anywhere.
I see AB1266 as the first step and the most important step to helping kids like me and some of you to a safer and more sociable childhood. SRS should be covered by insurance and no kid that needs it should be denied it. Allowing transsexual children to socialize as girls is beyond important. My socialization as a girl began in college where my mentor Karen pulled me into her circle of friends and it was invaluable. I was able to talk openly about all the things girls talk about starting with boys and sex and all of the relationships girls build over time. It helped me become a better girl and socializing as a girl helps transsexual children.
I must admit I am opposed to parading them around the television and Transgender chicken circuit like some trophy but parents need to do what they need to do to survive this. All of the scare tactics aimed at the bill are silly and inaccurate in my opinion. Other boys are not going to transition so they can ogle girls in the girls locker room. It just will not happen and they "will have to transition" to gain access and anyone that thinks otherwise has their head firmly planted about a foot up their asshole.
It is tough enough dealing with this as a child when your whole world seems askew and nothing makes sense and nobody will listen to you. I see more and more kids starting hormones early. They fight for them and if they do not fight for them then maybe they are not transsexual but it does not mean they are predators. Maybe they are gay or a transvestite or whatever but they are children and they do not need to be shit on. I know what that feels like and it leads to ugly life situations.
If my time allowed me to transition I would have done it instantly. I got to sort of do that in Quebec but coming back to Boston and going back to androgyny usually resulted in a two day cry. Look at jazz or the other young girls like her. They are so clearly girls and they have not even started hormones but I will take all wagers they will. Despite what others might think it is we as children that drives this. I pushed every limit I could and was threatened multiple times in school because of how I dresses and the minimal makeup but I had my Grandmother in my back pocket because she could screw with me but nobody else had better. It is part of that Gaelic family thing.
Could the bill be worded better? Yes it could but it is worth it just as it is. Transsexual and even transgender children need the protection to find themselves and you cannot find yourself in the shadows hidden from sight. All that does is drive you into a deep depression and I know what can happen when that happens.
There will always be assholes that call you names because kids do that but once you know they know who you really are it really does roll off you like water off a ducks back. The words do not hurt as badly because you are yourself.
I do not know if it is possible to transition too early but I do know that transitioning too late is just bad because the damage is both physical and psychological. Harry once told me better too many get SRS than too few and I think it is also better that kids transition too early than too late. The younger you are the less transitioning seems an issue. Kids just seem to "be" rather than "think" about it. There is nothing that can come from that but good because "being" a girl is really what it is all about. To kids pretending has nothing to do with it. Sadly that is not true with some adults.
I doubt you will see any issues with lockers or girls teams since most kids are on blockers now and transsexual children want those blockers and the estrogen or testosterone they need to be free. Denying these children anything that allows them to be more completely girls is basically a form of child abuse but then transsexual children have become a political football that many in the Transgender community want to use to leverage the system to get rights they as men do not deserve but then that is what men do, push women around all too often.
I understand the fear some have but this is for K-12 and it is the right thing to do and it is something these children need. A society is always or should be judged by how it treats the children in its society. These children need this protection.
12 comments:
I know this post may be not relevant to the topic at hand, but I have to say this. I am glad to see more and more blogs like this calling out people on there bullshit. As a man born transsexual, us guys are having the exact same problem with a lot of these younger girls who continue to insist that men can have breasts and vagina's and that you do not need sex dysphoria to be diagnosed with transsexualism. These girls are clearly are just transgenderists who are so obsessed with being different that it literally makes up a portion of their lives, if not their entire existence. Many of them probably were just girls bored with their lives with regular school and home lives, basically a nobody in their world, both at home and school. Then they cut their hair, take on a new name, start wearing men's clothes and "BAM", now they're somebody. That is why I see so many of them making YouTube accounts and posting videos nowadays. They were a nobody and now they're somebody or have that opportunity to be somebody. Much like men such as MR who thinks their penis, I mean "neo clit", is the equivalent to woman's vagina. The rest are just suffering from internalized misogyny or conflating gender roles or how they dress with sex dysphoria.
Here is the reality folks, men have penises and women have vagina's. That's fact, not social construct. That's biological fact. Not something that was created by society like transgenderists often insist. If a man loves penis, they are gay or bisexual. They are not straight men. If they are claiming to be straight, they are lying their asses off and are either closeted gay men who have not come to terms with their attraction to men and have to have their men made up as "women" to pretend to be or appear straight, or bisexual to say the least. I have yet to meet a straight man say otherwise.
I cannot tell you how much this has effected us men who were born transsexual as well. While most of us just want to blend in with society and have average every day lives as men and women with wives/husbands, a roof over our heads, children, pets, hobbies, etc. transgender people seem to be very overly obsessed about being different to the point where it is downright creepy. They don't want to blend in with society. They don't want to be normal men and women. They're entire life is based on transgender politics and nothing more than that. They often frown on the women born transsexual and men born transsexual because what we want and what they want are two very different worlds.
At this point, I wish these people would've just left us alone. They've not only singlehandedly destroyed what transsexualism means and have a great portion of people thinking that were "one of them", they've included us into their world of transvestism, drag shows, perverts and freaks. Their world of CHOICES. When these people decide not to cross dress anymore, get tired of being an out and loud political "trans****" activist or overall get bored with the idea entirely, they can go back to being the men and women they always were and will be and have no problems with that. Those of us born transsexual don't have that luxury.
-CBowski
Liz. I always find these sojourns down memory lane difficult to read. Your pain and desperation is palpable.
My experience was significantly different from yours in many ways but the desperate need to "fix" what ailed us, was something that we most definitely shared.
Like you, I was extremely fortunate to have been able to have those life saving changes made while I was still in my very early 20's. Unlike you, I completely divorced myself from any and all vestiges of my past and moved happily and easily into a full and rewarding life as the simple woman that I simply am.
Unlike you, I have never made any attempt to help anyone like myself until just a few years ago.
The young woman that I ended up helping was brought to my attention by a school psychologist who had heard me speaking at a conference called in response to the horrific murder of Larry King n Oxnard just a few years ago.
"There were many missed opportunities to prevent the murder of a 15-year-old gay student at E.O. Green Junior High School in Oxnard.
Teachers and students saw a simmering feud between Brandon McInerney and Larry King, but said they were either ignored by administrators or did little or nothing to intervene. King’s mother said she pleaded with school officials to help tone down her son’s increasingly flamboyant behavior. One teacher encouraged King to explore his sexuality and gave him a dress.
Nearly four years after McInerney, then 14, shot King in the head before stunned classmates, plenty of questions remain about what went wrong and what can be learned to prevent future tragedies.
King’s death illustrates the difficulty schools have balancing a gay student’s civil rights with teaching tolerance to those who feel threatened by or uncomfortable about someone who’s different. It also highlighted the importance of setting clear policies to eliminate confusion among educators.
“Something was brewing and lots of people were uncomfortable and people didn’t know what to do and where to turn,” said Eliza Byard, executive director of the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network. “It reflects a profound inability for the adults to provide them with support and intervene when problems are developing.” From: http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2011/11/24/larry-kings-murder-could-lead-to-approval-of-anti-discrimination-bill/
con'd.
What I learned was this. Protocols need to be developed o help not just TS kids, but also gay and gender variant/confused kids.
At the time of these murders the individuals involved had already been sent to a "special" school for 'special' kids. Unfortunately this "one size fits all" approach simply does not work.
The young girl that I ended up helping had, with the help of a good and caring school psychologist, essentially transitioned when she started high school.
She used the nurses bathroom for her personal needs as well as changing for the required gym class. I was brought in to help interfacing with her parents and to assist her in finding a knowledgeable medical doctor. This young woman already had her act together and just needed a little help getting those essential life saving services.
Getting the necessary help was accomplished with the help of a few compassionate individuals, not a statewide "transgender rights" initiative, subject to all sorts of abuse by the TG Brigades.
@CBowski
Thanks for your comments. I have actually never met a man born transsexual so I do tend to not mention them for which I must apologize.
Yes the world is crazy where men can have breasts and a vagina and women can have a functioning dick and deny us our rights to safety.
There are lots of crazies on both sides of the equation I sad to say.
@Anonymous
Mo child should have to fight any of this alone and as much as I love my private life after it was over I also firmly believe kids need to be open because it is safer.
The two kids being helped now our probably our last two. At some point age does become a factor. Larry Kings death reminds me of one of our sad stories or rather my partner and close friends worst nightmare.
Lena is Hispanic herself but she is well off and a friend of ours in California heard about Gwen Arroyo and her being Hispanic hit close to home because Lena survived Spanish Harlem.
She tried to offer unlimited support and was either rebuffed by someone close or the messages did not get through because Gwen was murdered shortly after it. Lena never had a chance to do anything and Gwen was older than most of our kids but Lena would have helped with everything. Lena took that one really hard.
The way Lena and I look at it is we won. We both survived and have led productive lives as girls and women in a man's world. Both of us have set precedents for women that were quite important in both business and life.
I'll be 68 in a few months. I still look a lot like that picture but with a few lines and some gray hair. I remember telling my surgeons that I just needed to be a girl and I would take care of my life after that. I am proud to say I did. I was married twice and raised a stepdaughter which is my proudest accomplishment.
I find it so ironic that all I and my friends needed was the opportunity to be girls and it was all we needed to live a good life while the transgender crowd cannot even decide what genders are relevant and want to be called "transwomen".
The irony is they cannot understand it makes them less but then most do have a functioning dick so as I have said before they are either men or she-males and they can have their choice but they are not female nor will they ever be women.
I love coming here and finding that I'm not the only one who feels this way. Most of my contact with the TG community leaves me frustrated and sad. There are so many people now claiming the label transsexual who have no idea what it is to literally not be able to function as the sex you were born, and misrepresent and contradict our needs to suit their whims. They tell themselves they're not hurting transsexuals, but then again they tell themselves that they're not hurting their wives and children either.
So I guess the question which needs addressing is how to help these kids and how to provide for the "differences" in their differences.
In other words while all these kids are in one way or another different, they are clearly not the same and have different needs.
Obviously they all need help, but I see AB-1266 doing more harm than good. In essence, all it does is expand the poorly constructed protocols of E.O. Green Jr. High, with its "anything goes" permissiveness, to the rest of the state's public schools.
No doubt there will follow a slew of lawsuits from reactionary, predatory lawyers, of the sort brought against "The P Club" in Portland, OR.
The issues that surround the "P Club" are ones that I am sure Liz could come up with a whole new post.I have some sympathy for the club owner because I know what groups like the one that filed the suit can be like. These "crusaders" have scant regard for anyone save their own sorry backsides.
Cassandraspeaks
Thanks for this story, Elizabeth. It fairly well parallels my experience in high-school, although separated by perhaps a decade and a bit from my time.
Given the chance, I'd have snapped my fingers and been done with it on the spot, but I still had to wait until I was legally emancipated -- then as now, the docs were chary of helping minors.
Take good care,
an anonymous elfchick from far away
Liz, I would not profess to "know" more than you (or any other woman or man for that matter), I WOULD profess to know only what I personally have seen and experienced in my own journey
As such, I must preface my comment by stating that it is MY opinion alone, but also that my experience with treatment for this condition and attitudes towards it by mainstream society (and the medical community) are much more recent than your own or the few others of your era that care to contribute online.
I respect your experiences as you recount them here, and understand that no doubt (like every individual), your opinion (as stated here) MUST be based on those personal experiences.
I'm compelled to ask: would you agree that in life and society, things/times change?
would you agree that many of the statements you make are based on your own personal experiences and that not all of them may be absolutely accurate for ALL that are born transsexual (or indeed the category, type VI, that you write of specifically?)
Do I believe the bill is good or bad?....
A law is a law, in EVERY case there are those who WILL benefit, those who will find a way to exploit the law/system, and those who will suffer as a result, so it makes no difference what I believe really.
What concerns me are some of the other statements you proffer as truths and absolutes of being born transsexual (or type VI), and later, of being female or, a "woman"
I find the idea that, as children, transsexuals (or type VI TS's) are almost ALL outwardly feminine, and (what most believe to be) feminine in demeanour, to be quite damaging to those young type VI TS who may happen upon your blog, who are unsupported, desperate, and in need of answers, help, and direction and who are NOT those things.
continued
Many of the feelings and experiences you recount hit home for me, they cut me deep and take me back to bad times, HOWEVER! I (personally) was not genetically blessed enough to have been overly feminine in a physical sense and as you no doubt understand, people see primarily outside appearances and their mind interprets the rest in the easiest possible fashion.
I was never recognised by anyone, despite my efforts, never helped by supportive parents, I experienced a full and (even by most MALE standards) rather extreme male puberty.
by 23 I was 230lbs, had thick body hair, had shoulders like a line backer, large feet and hands, and rapidly advancing male pattern baldness.
my parents rejected me and my assertion that "I AM a girl" for the third time at that same age.
the fourth time they rejected me (25, telling me that asking them to help would be like asking them to help kill their son) I packed what little I owned, moved to the city (where I could get the treatment I needed) with little qualification no job and only knowing my aunt, who was kind enough to keep me off the street for a few weeks.
I was post-op, post-transition, 3 years and over $100k later.
I had a steady boyfriend within a year of surgery, not "perfect", but! a good man, the manager of the local division of the company I now worked for, with his own home, cars, money etc.
I'd met his family and friends, all of whom seemed to think I was the best thing to happen to him in years, but at the same time they questioned why someone young and attractive was dating a man 10 years older than her (maturity! that's why)
all before I'd turned thirty, and from a starting point of being only high school educated, and as ugly as a bag full of assholes.
any woman, any REAL woman, knows that although looks are important, they are NOT what makes one female, NOR what makes one a "woman".
THE WORLD! knows that, knows that (although important) looks and sexual attractiveness do NOT earn one TRUE respect as person, a female or a woman.
it is a man's way to reduce women and females to the physical, and that is what concerns me about many of the things you state in your posts as if they are of high importance.
I understand WHY you do it, but the fact is it does not help TS's, although we are girls and women, we will only ever be if we can accept ourselves, history and ALL and move on with our lives with as much internal peace as possible.
although it DOES matter how she looks, in the end a woman is only truly discernible by her actions (one of which is ensuring she is PHYSICALLY female, not negotiable if you ARE a woman).
Nnng. Sorry to hear, Liz, that you might be getting out of helping the young'uns.
I'm sneaking up on 60, and have had a remarkably good life since I ran away to 'get on with it' in my late teens. Wrinkles, laugh lines, indeed; but also damnfine career and decent paycheque and the ability to help those young'uns who are just starting to walk the road we walked.
I work with emancipated youth, those who've follwed my tack and gone before a magistrate to be considered as legally adult before the deemed age of majority. If they are mature enough to pull that off, they are also mature enough to know their own way forward. All that I can further do for them is to help them make the connections to caregivers who are well-practiced at working with young transitioners, and of course to offer a living, breathing role model of what life could be like on the other side of that proverbial scalpel.
The secret criterion? Oh, that's simple: ask whether they put the seat down after going to the loo. The ones who look at you in horror and exclaim, "but why would I put the seat up in the first place?", those kids? They've **got it**.
Yours cordially
a far-away and necessarily-anonymous elfchick
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