(22-04-2015, 01:03 PM)flamesabers Wrote: Lisia,
Thanks for your feedback. It's good to hear others can relate to me. 
Quote:If you take normal male on the far left and classic transsexual on the far right, I would put you and me to the left of centre and and mid-life-late-transitioner/"lesbian transsexual" to the right of centre.
Quote:How would you classify those in left-center of this spectrum?
Quote:I think they defy classification - that's why I think it is a spectrum.
What I meant was you described the center-right as being a "lesbian transsexual" however, you did not apply any sort of nickname to those in the area of center-left.
Oh, I see. Well, as you know, I have a lot of time for the definition of autogynephile. Heterosexual in the cisgender sense, but with a strong desire to actually _be_ an instance of the kind of woman that you find desirable.
Since the definition incorporates those who go on to be "Lesbian transwomen", I suppose I could call myself a pre-op or non-op autogynephile.
Quote:Also, I'm not quite seeing as how our differences can be a generational thing. I grew up in a conservative Christian household where homosexuality was deemed sinful. It wasn't until I did a lot of searching on the Internet in my youth years that I found out about transsexuality and variances in gender identity.
Yes, well that was your household, but not society in general wasn't it? Unless you were tucked away with the Amish and had no access to TV, Radio or magazines, you were exposed to the way the world had changed from when I was your age.
Some context: I was born 5 years after the end of WWII and most of adult society had existed in a time when men were men and supported their wives who looked after the kids.
When I was in my early teens, homosexuality was still a crime in the UK. People had changed their sex (as it was called then) but were still legally their birth sex and could not marry. They could live with someone, because homosexuality had been legalised by then, or they could marry in Europe, but such a marriage was not recognised here.
Things only started loosening up in my mid-20s, and although I found out about my "problems" there was no way I could have told any of my family about it. There was no political correctness then. People could be and were bullied with impunity. No anti-discrimination rules. If you felt you did not fit in societal norms then, you knew that you were weird! Taboo and stigma were far more powerful before social networking on the internet replaced them.
And the thing is, even though intellectually I worked through all that stuff over the years, the deep set desire to be normal is so ingrained, so much part of the culture that developed me as an individual, I still find it hard to be comfortable about what I am.
I can accept it, like I would learn to accept an amputation, but I fear that I'll never be comfortable about it.
What I said was
Quote:It's probably a generational thing. You are more comfortable with the hand that life has dealt you than I.
Once you had access to the internet (only commonly available when I was in my 40s) you could see how many people there were like us - even a very small proportion of a very large number is still pretty big. Without that sense of being alone, without even a support forum like this with people to talk to, without familial commitments undertake a generation ago when "normal" ruled, you can feel comfortable being what you are.
B.
