In about one month, I will have successfully saved up enough money to send Dr. Pichet in Thailand my deposit so I can secure my price and date for vaginoplasty (more commonly known as sex change surgery). This job is a full-time job at $11 per hour and with that, I think I can send a pretty sizable amount to Dr. Pichet in Thailand, get my date set, get an official letter declaring the date of surgery (a projected date for the purposes of getting a new passport) and secure the surgery in a reasonable amount of time. This would mean so much to me, including an increase in quality of life with the change of important and vital records such as Social Security records and my birth certificate. And of course, the issues that are more comfort of life oriented. But the surgery will not change a lot in regards to passing or being accepted as a woman. No, I expect that I will need FFS and possibly a move to get fully accepted as a woman in society (but considering that I plan to be out, maybe just FFS).
Regardless, I can honestly say that I look forward to the surgery for several reasons. The first is that, well, when I was doing my drug test for TalentTree, I seriously was worried that this would be a supervised drug test where someone would actually have to watch me pee into the cup. It wasn’t, but it was almost appearing that it would be, right up until the time. She stood outside the door and this allowed me the ability to have a bit of confidence while I filled the test thingy full of golden rain. It made me immensely sad and I was glad to have this part of the professional job search out of the way.
The second is that I want to have a partner as soon as I think I am mentally stable enough to handle a relationship. Right now, honestly, I doubt that I am mentally stable enough to handle a relationship. This is due to many self-esteem problems that I still suffer from and the fact that I suffered from a lot of emotional abuse from my parents. Abuse that still continues to this day, since I phoned my mom and she accused me of stealing from her jewelery box when we were both in Texas. I still do not know how I feel about this and I am still mentally sorting it out. But after I finally get all my eggs back in the basket, I will hopefully be able to date again and hopefully have a nice relationship with a cute lesbian partner. And I want to make sure that I have the right parts so that she doesn’t run out of the bedroom, disgusted and screaming her head off.
The third is that I want to change all the legal and government shit to the correct name and gender markers so that I will (hopefully) be unquestioned about who I am and to what gender I belong. With the surgery, I will be able to get my social security information changed, my birth certificate changed and I will be able to have a 10-year passport with a female gender marker on it. This would be so wonderful and I sincerely hope beyond all hope that I can finally get all this shit taken care of.
But lastly, I just want to feel more like … me. So, I am definitely going to seek grants and work my ass off until I can finally afford the surgery. And I will not settle for anything less!
Buddy, why don’t you just embrace some sanity and leave your junk alone? You’re not going to be any happier once you cut off your penis and replace it with a Thailand formulated vagina. Honestly, the fact that you are attracted to women says something. It says that you are a HETEROSEXUAL MALE.
Get some therapy, seriously, and not with some stupid supercilious therapist that “embraces your choice”. You know you aren’t happy as a transgendered person and you never will be. GET HELP. You’re problem is your screwed-up childhood, and don’t try to run a game on me and tell me you didn’t have a screwed-up childhood, because you did. No transgendered person *didn’t* have a screwed-up childhood. None.
When you put yourself on the throne of God in your life, you are aimless and being led by a false god. You seem to be a sincere person and I have enjoyed reading your blog. Take some time and sincerely look at Christ with new eyes. He is the Lord, and He is the Lord of the broken and hurting.
I wish you all the best and that you find some peace in your life.
Because of the fact that living as I am with it kinda creates quite a bit of stigma. It would allow me so many positives in my life, and when weighed with the costs, I’d have to say that it’s a decision well worth making.
I know that the surgery, in and of itself, will not make me happier. However, with an improved body image, less of a requirement for medications (I would even be able to cut down my Estradiol since there is no testosterone for it to battle against) and the ability to be in relationships such as myself. Plus, it’s a pretty big milestone for transition - not a capstone, mind you - just a milestone. True, the surgery in and of itself won’t make me happy since I am not a surgery junkie. It is, however, necessary for me to live out my entire life as a woman.
And yes, the fact that I am attracted to women does say something - that I am attracted to women. That’s pretty much all it says, it says nothing about my gender identity at all. Sexual orientation and gender identity are two different things and since I have the gender identity of a female, therefore, I am a lesbian (a woman who lives another woman). I don’t know WHERE you got the idea that I am a male but let’s put that rumour to rest now, shall we?
Okay, as for therapy, I plan to get some. However, unlike what you suggest, I don’t plan to go to a therapist who has a 1950s (if THAT advanced) mindset. I want her/him to understand what transsexuality is and how it relates to my other issues that I am actually seeing a therapist for. I may need to see a therapist for trans issues but that has not really been needed.
And actually, my life has been getting better and better since I transitioned. My name change, going full-time, going on hormones and even realizing that I was trans (for the third time in my life) were all healing, healthy and cathartic experiences that have helped me in my journey to fully realizing my womanhood. Since hormones have improved my body image and my mind a little more, I am taking better care of myself and I am actually exercising and enjoying life! This is all bringing me to a better place than I was a couple years ago - when I was a Christian.
And yes, I do have a screwed up childhood. I admit this freely. And what is the problem with that? So my parents weren’t around for me when I needed them, were over disciplining and were fundamentalist Christians. So what? That doesn’t mean that my life is completely fucked up. By and large, I have a small circle of friends, I have people that care about me and vice versa and I do have some remote family members that have a bit more liberal mind-set (and yes, one of them is a pastor at an Episcopalian church and he isn’t trying to convert me back into the faith - he’s respectful). There are quite a few of us that do have screwed up families and childhoods but that is because the Judeo-Christian “values” of this society are poisoning the mind of otherwise acceptable people, telling people that it is ultimately wrong to be the way you are.
I don’t put myself on the throne of God, since I don’t believe that god exists. Any god. Seriously. And I am not aimless, nor led by ANY god at all. The god of the bible is the most sadistic, misogynistic, homophobic, transphobic, infantile, genocidal hatemonger in all of fiction. Clearly that is something that I could never be since I respect life and I respect humanity. There is no God, no Lord, no unicorns, no leprechauns or pixies. I am serious here.
I wish you all the best and I hope that you soon learn that being trans is not really a problem - it’s just a state of being. And keep reading the blog, you probably inspired a couple of new posts. ^_^
Sadly, you do not understand the God of the Bible, and as I anticipated you have been terrorized by misguided “Christians”. Where you get that God is all those things you mentioned, I have no idea, but I can guess. People that don’t understand that God is sovereign, that He is the creator of the universe and is fully and completely worthy to sit in judgment of that creation always have this problem. The unmitigated arrogance that it takes for a mortal, fragile human being to stand up and say, “There is no god” is almost beyond comprehension. Even the greatest rationalist of all time (Bertrand Russell, the inventor of Russell’s Teapot, by the way, the pre-cursor to the invisible pink unicorn and the FSM) didn’t have the gall to suggest without equivocation that “there is no god”. In fact, late in his life Russell admitted that “there is a great probablity that there is a god, but he is unknowable”.
You are putting yourself on the throne of your life, and the mess that is your life is clear indication. You were born a male, that is where I am getting that you are male. Lets not play around with reality, shall we?
The false assumption that you are under is that this God is sitting in harsh judgment of you, rejecting you, wagging his finger collectively at trans folks, wrong. What He is doing is *grieving*, because you have chosen a path that leads to pain, suffering, isolation, and so forth. There is pleasure in sin for a season, but after that the bill comes due and there is only pain and suffering. You think because you have abandoned (what seems to me as) a very hateful, dogmatic and exclusive brand of Christianity that you now have peace because of what you are doing. No, you have some peace because you rejected lousy doctrine! There are no happy transgendered people, I’m sorry but the stats don’t lie.
I’m not trying to get you to come “back to the faith”, I’m trying to get you to embrace the TRUE faith, the real Jesus Christ, not the brow-beating hater that you obviously have been lied to about. God isn’t some angry deity that is sitting up there frowning on everyone except the do-gooders! If you don’t know, Jesus reserved his harshest rebukes for the Pharisees, the religious leaders that were heaping ridiculous rules and burden on people that was separating them from a loving God.
As far as therapy, who is suggesting that you go to someone with a “1950s” mindset, but also, how helpful is it to go to someone who is only going to pat your on the back for being transgender. If you want, you can find any therapist that will “celebrate” your choices, no matter how messed up they may be. No, what I’m suggesting is that you find someone who is good, who knows human nature and the human condition who will challenge you and do some digging into that scarred past.
It never ceases to amaze me that people will literally do *surgery* on their body, instead of dealing with the real problems in their MIND! There is a reason why you feel “transgendered”, there is a reason why you have turned to hormones and all this stuff and abandoned your God, and it isn’t some wonderful epiphany that you had suddenly telling you that you’re a woman. A screwed up childhood can lead to all KINDS of destructive behavior, alcoholism, drug abuse, child abuse, murder, you name it. It caused me to become addicted to prescription pain killers. Should I have embraced my addiction and looked for a therapist that cheered on my addiction? No. I needed someone to help me look into the past and discover why I was making some of the choices I was. Because being trans is not a “state of being”, it is a very destructive response to identity issues that began in your childhood.
The bottom line is this, you’re traveling down a road that you won’t be able to turn back from. Why begin modifying your body with hormones before you’ve begun trying to heal your hurting heart? You’re doing it ass-backwards, my friend. GO seek therapy, with a qualified professional (someone preferably who is a psychologist - a doctor of psychology and licensed by the state). Then, if you do that and you still want to be trans, at least you have put the horse in front of the cart instead of how you have it now which is the cart in front of the horse. Because it isn’t your BODY that makes you “feel” trans, it is your MIND. And if your mind is still messed up from your childhood then you are making some VERY huge decisions based on a very skewed mindset.
I know I’m talking to a blank wall here, but I hope that one day you will come to a point in your life where you realize that all this stuff your doing leads only to suffering and you remember me. You’ll remember there was this guy that reached out to you in love, maybe a bit of tough love, but love nonetheless.
You are obviously an intelligent and kind person (you put up with my comments) Listen to someone who has survived a horrific childhood and gone through tough times (addiction) before I finally got my act together and sought help. I’m older than you and you should listen to your elders.
Good luck my friend, I’m sorry your family (and whoever else) exposed you to a false christ. I’d love to introduce you to the *real* Jesus. Only He can bring true peace into your life. Thank you for being kind and thoughtful in your response to me. May you truly find peace in your life.
First off, as I keep trying to tell you, I was born with a male body. Just because one is born with a male body, it doesn’t mean that they are male. It could also be a sign of a hormonal imbalance in the womb during the formation of the brain, which resulted in the brain developing in manner which would resemble femininity more than masculinity.
Fortunately, medical science has advanced to the point where we can turn a transsexual that has overwhelming issues with the way that they are being presented to the world and give them a chance, a hope for a better life. Through modern vaginoplasty procedures, we can create a fully sensate, natural appearing vulva and vagina. Through facial feminization surgery, we can repair the bone structure of a face that has been mutilated by testosterone and by all appearances, appears female. Hormone replacement therapy can help to develop secondary sex characteristics such as breasts and wider hips (but through fat redistribution, not wider pelvic bones such as genetic women are fortunate to have). If started early enough, hormone therapy can help to avoid the development of male secondary sex characteristics, such as a deeper voice, facial hair, bone growth, etc. This helps transsexuals to integrate better into society.
I doubt there is a god or a goddess. If there is, none of the world’s religions have got it right, and instead, painted the portraits of a depraved, immoral and sadistic monster as their god, and told their followers to worship and to be afraid. Why, if god is altruistic, should we be afraid of her/him? There may be a god, just as there may be unicorns, leprechauns, giants and pixies. I mean, wouldn’t by the same coin, you say that it is fairly arrogant to say that there is no such thing as pixies? Or faeries?
And I would have to say that many transsexual people are very happy in their lives now. Especially once they have the monolithic practice of transition behind them and start living their lives as the way that they were meant to live them. We are correcting the mistakes of our birth and we are now living lives where we love our body image and have finally manifested the truth of who we really are. Once one has shaken the last of the lies that we are forced to live with off and starts to live her life, she becomes happier and more well adjusted.
I seek surgery because I feel it is a necessity to improve my day to day life. Will it make me pass better? Hardly. Will it make me more attractive to lesbians? Hardly. So, what will it do for me? Well, besides allowing me to change my passport (among other government documents) and the health benefits? Well, nothing much, which is where Facial Feminization Surgery will take over. And once I have that, the hardest parts of transition will be over and done with.
I do not deny the issues that I do have on my mind and I am working hard to take care of them. But the issues that I do have do not drive me into enough of a psychosis to think I am female. I don’t THINK I am female, mind you. I KNOW I am female. I know this because it is who I am and I am actually surprised that you haven’t met me, yet propose to say that I am actually a guy. This is compleat (there is a reason I spelled compleat like that) hogwash and not one of my friends would agree with you.
I do realise the fact that I am travelling down a road that I can’t turn back from. Such as the nature of many decisions in life. But in this case, I must quote Robert Frost:
Everyone claims that the “real” Jesus is loving and kind, when the bible says that your god is a sadistic butcher and you can’t ignore that fact.