Hello, I am new here, and registered after doing a Google search on the article discussed in this old thread http://emptyclosets.com/forum/chit-chat/71180-so-you-want-t-girl.html as I am close to starting HRT and am facing new fears as laser treatments, voice training, support groups, and therapy simply are all reversible and forgettable. I've read books about regret, books about success, and all those in between on gender theory, sexuality, and the like. However, I still seek deeper understanding, not that I am a female mind trapped in a body that just doesn't add up, because that part has always been self evident to me. No, I went through the "I am crazy for thinking this right? I must be!" phase (for about 45 years) Then my most recent phase, "Okay, I am not crazy, it is real for me too, but..." phase how am I going to pass? I don't want to be a transgender vigalante but I can see me wanting to stick up for what is right and maybe be an activist on some level. I am scared of the irreversible step I am now about to start. I am excited to do it, feel I have to it has always been something I had to fix since I saw Christine Jorgenson's book around the age of ten when all seemed to make sense for just an instance (the one right before I said, "Christine is amazing and a real woman, but I am obviously crazy" at which point I suspect I grabbed my baseball glove or a toy rifle and ran out to door to get as dirty as possible in some mud somewhere.) So as my anxiety is building again, not nearly as bad as it did up to me coming out to myself and then parents, my chidren, and a handful of close personal friends. Each time getting a wee bit easier if still equally awkward each time. No this time it is more manageable, but anxiety none the less. So to deal with it, I turn to what I think I do best, research and troubleshoot. LOL yes, a sad commentary on my reality, I have always searched and then researched (it was time for a wee bit of levity) and attempted to troubleshoot the woman out of me. So one last ditch effort before I litterally let the woman out by taking away as much of the physical deformity, seen as man by everyone else, that I can. This effort lead me to the book talked about in that thread. Soon into it I wanted to stop, it became hard to read. Not so much as scary, but honestly challenging. I thought that "Hey, if I still got the balls, best use them now one last time and gut through this." So guess what, I did, but it is not so long that it should have taken me two days, but it did. As I would read always, digest it, do a few things, and then return. At times the author felt to me as indignant, arrogant, understanding, jerkish, sweet, sincere, but most of all wise. Keep in mind there are many things I could add, but what I kept out was correct or incorrect. It is what lead me to seek more about this book and thus to this site where I read the comments of that thread. It reminded me of what I have been through to this point, the easy phase but one of great attempts to define what transition is for me and what I will do during it. See, by the time I got to the end of the book I felt it connected with me, but also disconnected on some very important things. I get the whole woman versus transsexual thing for some reason. I struggle with that and feel very hypocritical about that struggle. For I too have wonderful friends from my groups and online, of which I doubt ANY are not in fact transgender. Most I am certain are absolutely transsexual. A few, and a small few I think are truly women who happen to have a thing which is not based on physical attractiveness, or feminine voice or mannerisms, but something I cannot explain (which isn't rare for me, but with something so important to me I would like to, but simply cannot.) This brings me to why I want to clarify why I think I still worry. Am I transgender? No doubt, not a shred of it. Am I a transsexual? Well, certainly, I get that now more than ever. Finally, am I a woman? Maybe? Depends on who's defining it and how? I am? I know I wish I were, but why? I do not think it matters yet. Now doesn't that seem stupid as hell? I think so, lol. See I think many (not all or even a majority) of us transgender people can easily want to explain it all away as "we are females in the wrong body" and jump to the conclusion that we are transsexual even if we are simply transgender. A state of being as valid and in my mind acceptable as any claim to be a woman born with a penis. This is also why I think it is easier yet, for any transsexual to explain it all with the same statement. Though, again, I see transsexuals (I know it is mostly about gender and not sexuality but it's the commenly used term and not sure why I feel the need to explain that so apparently it does confuse me, again not hard to do.) as a perfectly real state of being, as I through my life of experiences and observations, see the failure of the bigender system as not just rigid but unscientific and foolish at best. Which leads me to woman, born with penises, and it happens. The intersexxed condition is real and happens daily with births around the world, some times it is obvious, sometimes not so much, often enough things seem to be have figured out right by the doctors at birth, but often enough it is not. Thus, I find our author and a few others, being that rare combination of intersexxed that have no physical hint of a mix up. So they must have the same brain anomaly as anyone of those found in the LGBT complex spectrum, but perhaps to a point where they basically are woman born with he wrong body. So what, right? Then they are transsexual, why would this author make such a distinction? To be a complete ass? To justify her sacrafices and suffering? To give moral excuse for lies that were obviously told and propped up? I think not. I think she is a woman who was born with a penis the poor girl. I think I get it, even if I am uncertain as to if I am it. I have grappled with this with my therapist, a little in my groups, and now online with this post. But why? Because I, like most humans, am selfish and want to believe I know myself well enough to admit I do not know myself well enough yet if ever. I am reserving the possibility that I may discover I too ama woman who was born with a penis. For one I recall my issue was never about baseball gloves, rifles, or mud. It was first about expectations as a child. A boy child at that. But hey, I followed the rules, I mean we do that don't we? Sure a few rebellious transsexuals throw tantrums, or are brave enough and stubborn enough to shuck all the rules. I am not sure that is good or bad, maybe they are just rule breakers who happen to be transsexuals or women born with penises or men born with vaginas (yes, that happens too duh!) So I followed rules, and never really had a problem with all that boy stuff, but I did have a problem with not being able to address the girl stuff but that was minor. See, my issue was always why do I think I am not a boy? Lack of confidence? Of course not! I knew I just wasn't, but was I a girl? Yes.. Wait n.. I must be crazy. Then I learned about Christine, and then met some transitioners, saw some on TV, and always felt a connection, an understanding. So why do I write this? It is therapeutic, plus posting it outside of my journal gives it more power (naively, but it does to me) which right now I need. Plus, I want to sympathize with the author, as I think she is a woman, but more important was the time when she wrote this. Sure, it is not some ancient script, or even mus older than a decade as is she mentioned 9/11. However, it was written when the only people out there working openly for change where somewhat novel. I am not saying the author would change her mind about activists, even if one were not simply a transsexual but an actual woman born with a penis. I guess what I am hoping, is maybe this book is already dated, yet at the same time enough of it still echos in my mind that I want to stand up for the rights of my transgendered friends, but at the same time I want to blend in as a woman if that is at all possible for me. Then there is the lies, and those weigh on me for the silence I kept for so long which were not even lies as much as me just following perceived rules to the point of distraction aided by thoughts of "I am crazy for thinking this." However, even IF I am a woman born with a penis, which I very well may be, can I lie? About my past, my present, and to myself about the future? I cannot, and it pains me, because I would love to hide, to blend in, to just be a woman who gets treated like shit by some and a process by others, sometimes the same from some. Why? Because let's face it, I am certainly not a boy, for sure a transsexual, but guess what author, I too am probably a woman born with a penis. If I question it, I cannot be a woman right? Wrong! I question it because I was born with a penis. I question it because I followed the rules. I questioned it because I read your book. Most of all, I question it because I think transsexuals, just like men born with penises, and women born with vaginas, and all those intersexxed in between, and then the women born with penises, and the men born with vaginas are all legitimate, are all realities, even endorsed by God (to those assuming I am an obvious heathen) who did make us perfect with all our imperfections just like you, whoever you are. And being made perfect my mean you need to exercise more, wear glasses, take insulin, need a transplant, so there, enough on that. Yet, I also emphasize with the woman author, as I understand wanting to blend in too, to just be the woman she always felt she was and needed to be. I do get that. I also agree, there is much that can be done i silence on an activist level. Certainly help those that come after you, but that too carries risks. But hey, you've learned how to move at a moments notice, and I guess I have an advantage there as the Marines taught me that at a young age too, and hey it looks like the DD214 is now changeable too! I don't say that to poke fun, or be argumentative. I do it to show change is happening, it is a great deal why I was able to come out. I was not brave enough before, or enough of a rule breaker to take this on before the rules started to change. Now this is where I thank the activists, and though I do not want to use the restroom with perverted men dressed up like woman if I can help it. I will say, I owe a debt of gratitude to the transsexuals who were not women born with penises but simply transsexual. As human as you or I, and most deserving rights and protection not previously afforded, and certainly still not enforced with enough attention. Sorry for this self serving, theraputic rant. In and of itself, probably makes me some kind of activist, eliminating me from the possibility that I am a woman who was born with a penis (which mind you, in Minnesota, is inverted most of the winter anyways. Thank God for little things. lol.) Sincerely, Less stressed now, Jj
