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Something that has occurred to me (it was in an email to a friend) about being transgender, how much variability there is in it.
For many people it is all consuming, but I suspect that isn't true of everyone. I consider myself transgender, but I have noticed in my life many times it was no big deal. It had a lot to do with my personal happiness. I started noticing it when I was a young teen. I liked looking at girls, but I was more curious what it would be like if I were one. When I was asleep I would dream of being a girl, as well as a boy. During my life I have done other things that were abnormal by most folks standards, more of experimentation. Makeup when I was alone, pantyhose under my cloths, that sort of thing. The constant is my dreams, but over my life this affliction has waxed and waned. Lately I have found I have become extremely lonely, and it is back bigger than ever, and it is causing me a lot of depression. I suspect if I were to find a woman who could take me as I am it would go back into the background. I mention a woman because I am not gay, just transgender.
I was wondering how many other folks had this weird relationship with their inner selves. I've also noticed there is a disconnect between being transgender and sexual orientation, they are not linked.
Discuss?
I find myself...
In an odd in-between place with transgenderism as well. In a lot of ways I seem to be wired femininely, but I still feel like I'm supposed to be a guy, somehow my wiring was just messed up.
Someone else posted a question about genders earlier, and Pippa K. posted a link to a text file that kind of explained a multi-scalar definition of gender, and I found myself feminine in almost every way except one: I think of myself as male.
I'm also not gay, though it seems that with the female hormonal balance I'm going from asexual to bi-curious.
It's all very strange, the way the human brain works when it comes to these things.
EDIT: BTW, my legal and birth gender is male. My wiring is far far more complex though.
Abigail Drew.
Variation in Causation of GID
I can really only speak for my self, so here goes.
I was born Gwinn, and that sounded like Gwen, so many people who had not met me thought I was a girl, hence assignment to Home Economics, Girls PE, and all that rot. My mom had two sons before me and wanted one girl. She frequently complained about that and how I was an accident. Until I was about 5 she dressed me as a girl too. Yet, I know men that have been through most of that but developed into fine, manly men. Hmmm
Part of it may have been that the male role models in my life were abusive monsters, and I can remember fairly early on that I had vowed I would never be like them.
I too dreamed of being the damsel in many movies I saw. I so loved the 50's version of "Beauty and the Beast" and dreamed of being Bell more than once. In my early teens, I found a pickup load, literally, in an old garage of "Woman's Day and magazines like that from the 50s. I so wanted to be one of those women.
Still, puberty swept over me like a tidal wave and along with much admonishment and many beatings, I tried to "Man UP". I think somewhere between 12 and 20 I decided that it was a moral imperative to marry, have children and be the best person I could. The years between 20 and 50 were tough, because subconsciously I wanted to be the woman I was, but life was in the way and I actually believed that God wanted me to bear the burden.
So, later in life, all the kids were married off, work was increasingly disrespectful to me because of my age, and after one nasty incident, I just folded and said the hell with it. I did not know it at the time but in retrospect, I think my then wife was having affairs.
I think I could have survived, but been miserable the rest of my life; becoming a bitter, irascable old coot, or perhaps drinking myself to death.
However several very severe stressors happened, 9/11 was one, and I wound up on really strong psych meds. Those meds disinhibit you and it was not long before Gwendolyn was kicking her way out of the closet. She's who I am today.
I've known several really nasty, combat types, who have done shit that would make most men wet their pants, who later say they are trans. I wonder if the stress played a role or if they knew it all along and had taken the tough jobs as an emotional suicide. I guess I will never know for sure.
I think that transgenderisim is genetic but there are other causations, I think. One could be an emotional break down that brings a delusional state that is brought on by life stressors of one kind or another. In my case, and I know I am not alone, I was raised to obey without argument, and any disagreement would bring on an extremely severe beating; sometimes causing me to lose consciousness. How is someone who is forced like that supposed to learn to relate to males on an equal basis. So for me, dealing with males was always a hit or miss thing.
Gwendolyn
I honestly don't know...
The following is my personal opinion based on observation, my own feelings and talks with friends. It is not based on any scientific study.
First - I don't believe there is any direct link between who you ARE and who you LIKE or are attracted to.
As to who YOU are... My belief is that our gender identity exists... It has both male and female components at different "strengths". If you could measure "relative" strength of maleness and femaleness of a person and then plot these on a graph with thousands of people, you'd find that most people are mostly one or the other... - sort of a "saddle" curve as it were, and only a small number of people with fairly balanced "maleness" and "femaleness".
So - people on one end are almost entirely "male" and the other almost entirely "female".
In the middle you have the effeminate men and tomboys - down to some who are either.
Next we take the "gender" we're assigned by our genitalia. The vast majority, again, is either male or female, but there are some in the middle where there's some of "both" - and even when you approach the ends, it's not out of the picture for people to have some bits of both (men with gynomastia, for example).
If you would find the same person on both charts - you'd find that MOST folks maleness/femalenesss location corresponds to their assigned gender... It's only when there is a STRONG variation that a big problem arises. There are people who are very female, but are assigned male at birth and vice versa... These people are transexuals. The more out of sync the two are, the more severe the case. I think there's likely some threshold where below that a person doesn't realize things are mixed up, and above it it's just obvious. But, I dunno.
The next point is that some folks may know they are different, but for various reasons THINK (intellectually) what they believe can't be possibly be true... So, they deny it. Other folks are just STUBBORN and refuse to accept it (for what to them are valid reasons). In this later case, I think it depends on how strong the identification is. In my own case, I was convinced (upbringing, etc.) that what I believed couldn't possibly be true... It was only in the mid '80s that I came to understand otherwise. Then, I used my stubborn streak to hold things off - until a few years ago...
Some with the "mix-up" don't have strong feelings - so don't feel great pain at the mixed assignment. Some may well not even recognize it.
So, yes - I believe that some folks experience the issues around being TS more than others. How much, none of us can tell. But, I also believe that it no more or less real to any of us.
If my hypothesis has any grounding in reality, it would explain were you are/have been.
>>> I mention a woman because I am not gay, just transgender. <<<
Transgender has a technical meaning - from WPATH... But, it also has a meaning that GLAD has assigned. The former is basically what used to be called "Transsexual" (thus my use of the term). If you look at the GLAD media guide, people with this condition are lumped in with those who are gender queer, cross dressers and many others. While we all have some things in common, we also have some VERY DIFFERENT needs. Any of us can be attracted to anyone else, male, female, both, neither, other...
IMO there's nothing wrong with gay or lesbian. They're just labels that have been applied. And, if you want to subscribe to labels - if you feel you're a woman and you're attracted to women, that wouldn't make you a gay, but it could be a lesbian. (One point here - my wife accepts that I'm a woman, which technically makes her a lesbian... But, it doesn't mean she doesn't still appreciate men and has no interest in any woman (but me).)
This is a slippery slope we stride. Labels can be dangerous. We should watch out what labels we use.
Best wishes,
Anne
Sounds like an old story
Lots of T-folks can kinda put it in the background while there is a good relationship. Fine, but one must ask if that is sufficient to make one REALLY happy and at peace. Or is the relationship just a bandaid or diversion. Is that fair to your partner if that is all that is. But as soon as one is alone, wham, it is back again and it is difficult to hide from that need.
It's up to the individual if they can tolerate sitting on an unconscious smoldering need and lots do. My POV is that I had to be honest with what I had to be and being a man was just not to be.
Being transgender is never the end all and be all of a complete person. But the individual has to decide how much it matters to them and whether they can tolerate the pain and incompleteness of denying that part of themselves by not expressing it enough to present full personhood.
This I think is where therapy matters.
Kim