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Normally I don't cross post between here and Facebook, but I thought this warranted an exception
I keep seeing these post about people not choosing to be gay or choosing to be transgender. Whether or not you choose to be anything is irrelevant. It is what you do with the fact that you are gay or that you are transgender matters. Do you know what you sound like when you say "I didn't choose to be transgender?" It sounds like you have cancer and are powerless against it. You make sound like being transgender is a negative and you should be pitied. If being transgender is so bad, then quit acting on it and resist the disease.
I don't feel that being transgender is a disease. I don't feel that it is an affliction. I don't think it is something I should ashamed of. I'm not going to hang my head and say "I was born this way," as if I have some kind of deformity that should be pitied. I'm transgender. It's a wonderful thing. It is a blessing. I get to have my feet on both sides of the gender divide. I am transgender and I choose to embrace what I am, I choose to live it out. I am not ashamed of who and what I am and I'll be damned if someone else is going to shame me for something that they don't understand.
I am transgender. It is not about clothes or makeup or surgery or sexual orientation, those are simply outer projections of an inner truth. I am transgender because that is what I am on the inside, that is what God made me, and if you have a problem with that, take it up with Him.
Comments
Transgender
Good for you!
While that may work for you
It is a wide spectrum. I do volunteer work, I have yet to meet someone who wanted to be born trans.
Fact is, I resisted it until I was 55 years old. I didn't cross dress, I didn't act on it, but it was always there, making me more and more miserable. I still have yet to find a firm citation for the 31% suicide rate for untreated trans, but I would have been one of them if not for special circumstances where I felt I had to choose to live. Even then I had one impulse attempt that I regret. I spent almost a year thinking about killing myself while I dropped my weight from 240 to 155.
Just saying no or trying to ignore it is not an option. It is the way to death. I was indeed born this way, and I wish to God I had not been. But my wishes mean nothing. The only choice I made was to live, and transition. If I had tried to remain as I was I would be dead.
Mine is the more common story of the survivors. It behooves all of us who care to remember that. I know you care, and when I was OddPOV on this site I reached out to help you, just as I do the other folks I reach out to locally.
I have finished my transition. I am a happier person for it, but I still suffer from depression. If I had been allowed to transition as a child I would be much healthier mentally, but it is what it is.
It may not be politically correct.but I describe being transgender as a minor birth defect to people who can't seem to get it. Since it is in the brain where we can't see it it tends to be poo-pooed, but for those of us who have been born this way (and it is a physical difference) the consequences are devastating.
But I do have this deformity
But I do have this deformity between my legs.
No its not a choice, the only "choice"
is to transition, or die. not many of us can live a full long life without SOME kind of transition, even if it is just at home, etc. doesnt mean it HASNT happened, but no one has ever come out on their death bed and said "See, i beat it, so can you".
I dont see it as anything to be pitied, but it IS a "birth defect" in one way, general body blueprints were NOT followed in our construction, so that IS a defect, not that it is bad (although as others have said, a lot of us wish we had never had it, etc.) but it is what it is, just as someone born intersex, its a physical difference, with nothing to fix it but surgery, at the appropriate time. I am sure in the past some were just called transvestites, cross dressers, etc, but now its more understood AND there is a method of treatment for it. as more and more "famous or well known" persons transition, it will become more mainstream, less issues (NOT no issues, just less) and future generations will NOT have to face what we have had to face in our lifetimes, unless we fail, and crumble under the pressure.
We even have to fight against those WITHIN our ranks, there is a couple with an internet radio/tv show who are totally wacko, supposedly BOTH are intersexed have transitioned surgically, but feel the rest of us are just crazy, but its NOT hypocritical of them NOT to de-transition .
so no its NOT something to be ashamed of, its NOT cancer, etc, but like cancer or other issues (born with an immunity disorder, colitis, bad lungs etc) but i didnt mope, i was a singer, i did sports, until a year long episode of bad things where i blocked most of my memories of trans, etc.
Teresa L.