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I had a very interesting conversation this morning. I am finishing up a graduate degree at a local university. This morning while waiting for a class to start, a girl I know pretty well from my program comes up to me and asked me "Listen, this might be a bit forward but can I ask you something kind of personal? You can say no of course, but I'm curious." Of course it's rarely good when someone opens a conversation like that, but not totally new to me. I have a very obvious physical disability, so I get curious people brave enough to come ask a few questions from time to time. Rarely is what they ask something I have any problem talking about. So I say sure, ask away. If I'm not comfortable answering I'll just say so. The next thing she says is something along the lines of "well, I was at that transgender seminar the other day". Again, still not anything too surprising. I'm kind of known as someone who keeps up on trans issues, even if most people don't know the full reason why I am. If you're curious, I usually tell people it is because I had a good friend begin transition in high school. It's true, I did. It's just not the whole truth. :) Then she finally gets around to asking me what she wanted to ask. Apparently she noticed that I always wear jeans on my hips instead of on my waist, and wanted to know if that was because of my disability or if I was on the "trans spectrum", a term she obviously wasn't quite comfortable with yet.
My reaction was of course to try and figure out exactly how far I really want to go with this conversation. I am not out, but I don't exactly go out of my way to hide my status either. I've never had anyone straight up ask before though. I finally told her that no I didn't wear my clothes that way because of my CP, and that yes I did identify as a t-girl, but that I am more on the transgender / gender fluid spectrum then transsexual. Her response was a bit of an "oh, ok" thing, not too bad. I told her if she had more questions she could e-mail me or we could chat later and I really wouldn't mind. But of course she then had to trip herself up on the pronoun issue. I finally stopped her and told her to go with what I know the social worker giving the seminar said, and to just go by presentation, and if you're that unsure to ask.
All in all, it was a weird fifteen minutes. I've been wearing small girl touches like wearing jeans on my hips or wearing a girls polo shirt regularly since middle school. If it was ever noticed, I've never been approached about it before.
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Transitioning when I did not even know it.
Having survived the hellish ministrations of a demented step father, I'd completely disassociated memories of my true self long ago. I'd "come out" as a girl when I was still a toddler, but that was met with such homicidal ferocity and condemnation that to live meant those ideas had to be abandoned.
In my late 30's, something started happening, though I did not know what. I just felt uncomfortable, and very aware that an Oscar award should have been eminent, and even told others, including my family that. None of us knew the full truth in that statement. I think that by the late 80's I had discovered JC Penny to have many items of women's clothing that, worn on a man, were not readily um "decodeable" as women's clothing. It was not very long until my wardrobe was mainly women's size 10 Cotton Khaki Pants, and size 12 women's short sleeve button front shirts. Because of my constant kneeling, stooping and crawling in performing my job, the extra relief in the hip region really helped me a lot. (I know that some of you will think that my job was performing some extremely lewd acts, but no.) I was a manufacturing electrician.
At the time, I was not aware that my body dimensions were not those of a male. Still the clothing was comfortable and I liked it. So, here I was as driven as the Lemmings to do this, and really had little idea why. I had never heard of GID, Transgender, or even Drag Queens.
Oddly, my then wife insisted that I keep my hair cut rather short, and at the time I had no idea why; it just being some sort of inscrutable male more, whose origin no one spoke of. Nowadays, I think that short hair for men originated with modern wars, the military, and controlling fleas and other louses. Now I realise that perhaps she kept my hair short because with long hair, I looked decidedly feminine.
I think that in the early 90's it all began to fall apart. Having been so long fully immersed in Evangelical Christian thought, my existence was extremely sheltered, so I did not know of the existence of the GID diagnosis, which I assume began to be diagnosed and treated in the late 60's. And, according to Wiki, the first treatment was to fix it or reverse it. Suicide rates were very high, so eventually, they went to a "harm reduction" model for treatment. You can read further on the subject at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_identity_disorder
So, my progression into transition was at first extremely gradual; I had no idea what was happening. I suppose that the real trigger was my exposure to a Mental Health counselor who gave me the book, "Co-dependent No More" to read, and in the first few pages, I knew that I was in trouble in that I had never encountered anything like this. In that book is a short check list, and I had all the traits! At first denial set in and I tried to make it all just go away because I knew that if I progressed down that path, it would lead to unspeakable changes in my life, though I still had no clue how great they would be.
So, I understand your gradual explorations very well. I am not going to encourage you or discourage you because I have finally realised that each of us must find our own center.
Much peace
Gwendolyn
I hear you Gwendolyn. I had
I hear you Gwendolyn. I had somewhat similar experiences growing up, but not quite to the degree you grew up with. My parents discouraged my early "coming out" not because they had a problem with it, but more because they were afraid what others might do to me.
One of my earliest memories is of my mom taking me to pick out my first bicycle around age five or so. I looked down the line of bikes and fell in love with this bubblegum pink girls model. My mom tried to get me to pick out other options, but I refused to even pick a second choice. She already knew at that point that my favorite color was bright bubblegum pink. Still is actually. She tried to explain to me that it's ok to like pink, but because I was a boy she couldn't let me have a pink bike. That of course was the absolute worst thing she could possibly say at that moment. Of course I did the most reasonable thing a little five year old trans girl could do in that situation. I threw a total fit. It was one of the few tantrums my mom says I ever had.
That event, and a handful of other situations like it, taught me that expressing myself fully to the outside world may not be safe. I don't remember the exact trigger, but around eight years old I went from a total chatterbox to a pretty quiet and introverted kid. The only reason I think I avoided the depression so many of us experience is that my family was always very big on intelligence, critical thinking, and individuality. I got two very different messages. Be yourself, and it's easier to keep your head down. I'm slowly cracking the shell I put up around that age, but it's slow going. It's pretty well ingrained in me to bite my tongue and hesitate before speaking.
So yes, I'm not sure if I will ever fully transition. I know I am more feminine in mind and soul then male, but I just don't feel that drive that I have to do it. The thought crosses my mind every few months, but it quickly gets dismissed as "not worth the trouble". I am convinced that I would be happier as a girl, but I'm not unhappy as I am. Just not quite as happy as I could be if that makes sense.
Oh, I very much "get that".
In time, as things improve, and I think they are improving for T folk, perhaps many us can find our center in a sort of mildly androgynous expression; mixing clothing and expressions of both genders until we feel comfortable. Perhaps one of the reasons I went to such extremes is that the years of total repression caught up with me and when release came, it happened with such violence that I went way too far, as some of us do.
After 7 years, I do not know if I am there yet. I still do not ever wear pants unless I am almost forced. My skirts are mostly waltz length, and I have become savvy enough to know how to cover up the non-existence of my womanly hips. Muslim women's attire suited me quite well for a long time. It was about faith, concealment and security.
I do hope that you find kindness along your path. I don't think you will find it very often in the faith community, though I have been amazingly fortunate.
Much peace
Gwendolyn
Dang, Gwendolyn
> So yes, I'm not sure if I will ever fully transition. I know I am more feminine in mind and soul then male, but I just don't feel that drive that I have to do it. The thought crosses my mind every few months, but it quickly gets dismissed as "not worth the trouble". I am convinced that I would be happier as a girl, but I'm not unhappy as I am. Just not quite as happy as I could be if that makes sense. <
It makes perfect sense to me. Heck, I could have written it. The whole paragraph. That's me too, for the last five or ten years. Before that, I was still figuring out what I am, still hung up on the false dichotomy that you're a crossdresser who likes expressing your feminine side occasionally but still identifies as male OR you're a full-on determined transsexual who must want to transition at all costs... Then I realized it's a spectrum and we all fall somewhere between the extremes.
I've even written variations of the following paragraph to several people on here to try to explain it:
I believe I do have some gender dysphoria, and more of a woman's mind and emotions, but not enough that I feel driven to transition before I go crazy or die or something... Sure, a big part of me wishes I'd been born a girl instead. And if there were an alien body-change device with a button I could push, or a newly invented pill I could take, or a nano-bot filled syringe I could inject, or a spell I could cast that would let me be a "real girl", I'd do it in a f*ing second and not look back. Too bad those things are only in stories, though... *smirk* Lately I actually consider myself as having more of a "two spirit" thing going on, masculine and feminine traits to my psyche, although some days I definitely feel a lot more feminine. I'd still prefer being a girl externally, even with the male side being here too (and hey, women can express their 'masculine side' much easier, without the same stigma). But that's not the case so I try not to cry about it too much. (although some days are harder...)
Sure, there are things about being a man that I like, and things about being a woman that I wouldn't... but I'd happily give up the former and gain the latter for the "whole package" if it were possible, which it's not with today's technology. What IS available for me today isn't satisfactory (certainly not what's available within my price range), considering what I have to work with presently. So instead I just try to enjoy life as I am, and express my feminine self where I can get away with it. So yeah, I can definitely empathize with "I'm not unhappy as I am. Just not quite as happy as I could be."
Some of the other things in your post resonated with me also. Including saying or doing girly things in childhood, and being made fun of for it or whatever. Just a few years ago, one of my (male) cousins said to me, "remember that time we were kids and you said you wanted a sex change when you grew up?" Damn, I'd hoped he'd forgotten that. We were younger than ten (I forget the exact age), and I'd just heard about such things. I just kinda fumbled it away, saying I didn't remember that, and if I said it, I probably didn't even know what it was. I don't know if he believed me, but I don't care anymore.
I also went from being pretty outgoing and chatty to introverted, slow to open up and trust people, probably around the same age. I do suffer from bouts of depression, though, but more because I inherited it from my mother than from my gender issues (although that influences it, no doubt).
Lisa Danielle
same here on the introversion...
According to my entire family and close friends of the family, when I was muuuch younger I was the biggest ham on earth. (Or was that starlet?) Around I want to say 8 as well, though no one quite remembers and I still don't really, I was reading our Oxford collection (medical encyclopedias), anatomy stuff mainly, and ever since then I had become so completely sealed off from the world that I was literally in my own personally designed hell. It wasn't that I was slow to open up and trust people, it was that I NEVER opened up and trusted ANYONE. I built my walls, hid, and made myself like a rock and an island. Completely.
Oh, there WERE layers of defenses, and I'd allow some people to get just close enough to see the fortress walls from the other side of the moat, but no one, not even myself, was allowed across the moat.
It's funny, the defensive mechanisms the human mind is capable of constructing...
Abigail Drew.
Abigail Drew.
I was like you on the pants
I was like you on the pants thing while growing up. By Jr. Highschool boys jeans (the local school uniform for boys in the south central part of the country) wouldn't fit me. If they fit in the waist, too tight in the butt. If they fit in the butt, the waist was so wide they would tend to fall off with the least bit of exertion. So I went to mens work kahkis for awhile that alleviated the problem, but then had to go to "full fit for extra room in the butt, and then to tight belts to keep Those from falling off. The first pair of pants that I had that Ever fit right, was a pair of girls jeans when I started trying to "fix" things with limited transition. My shirts and t-shirts were always one or more sizes larger to accomodate and hide my A cups.
CaroL
CaroL