[Miranda-nata-est]

Yes, I guess we probably are being painted as a same-sex couple also. This still causes Vivien some significant anguish at times. It's strange really, sometimes others opinions of us and thus her seem to be of total indifference to her yet at others, it is hard for her to cope with. It's not an issue for me as I am pretty much open about where I fit in the sexuality scale anyway but I do understand her concerns. Hopefully, as with so many of these things, time will bring about an improvement for her. We all know just how adaptable our spouses have been in the past, Thank God, and with luck this will be one of those things which in time to come we will look back on as something which turned out to be nothing.

So here is another starter thought ....

Over the last couple of days, I have been getting the strangest feeling that the wheel of life has actually turned full circle.

When I first started on this journey, which culminated in my joining BN some 2 years or so ago, although there were a huge number of issues in my life, I still sort of felt I knew who I was. I had a sense of 'me', the person I was and where I fitted into life, the universe and everything. Over the first 10 months or so here at BN, I found myself gradually losing touch with everthing that made me tick. Step by step, I found myself being dismantled as an individual leaving me uncertain and completely lost, there was nothing I could do to halt the process, everything I discovered led to another question until the image of self as a known identity had gone.

Enter the Oestradiol and Spiro. Suddenly, Miranda nata est (which translates from the Latin as Miranda is/has been born). Little did I realise when I picked that name quite how prophetic a choice it was - I just knew I couldn't stick with davidb or whatever it used to be. Bit by by, a new person has grown from that first tiny nuclear step - a new person with a new sensory base, with new perceptions of the world, with new understandings and as that person, I gradually, as a child would, began to explore this new world that I have opted to embrace. As I made new discoveries and learned, my horizons expanded and grew, my fears and worries receded as each hurdle was passed and gradually a new self image has begun to emerge, an understanding of the way in which I fit into the new world I inhabit. I have once again become 'me' .. a very different person from before in so many ways mentally, emotionally, aspirationally and of course physically. But, and it is a very big But, I now know, once again who I am. The wheel has turned full circle.

I found myself thinking, 'OK, so what have you actually done over the last 2 years, what have you actually achieved from all this stress and heartache - is all you have done been to destroy and rebuild yourself?' Well, yes, in some ways that is indeed all I have done, the result of the sleepless nights worrying and churning over so many issues, the searching of all available sources, the huge input of time and soon to be large input of cash have indeed just resulted in the death of the old me and the birth and subsequent growth of the 'me' I now feel.

But of course, we know that is not the whole picture, the wheel may have turned full circle it is true but we are now at a completely different place to when we started - it must have been a pretty big wheel to take us this far!!!!


Am I going to stay at BN? Well, in many ways, my time here is done. As you say, we have left most of the people behind as we travel on our way. I am still learning though and find immense empathy with the one or two people who's threads I still follow and gain support from watching similar journeys unfold. I feel a huge sadness, a sense of the impending loss that is just around the corner - the time is coming when we will cease to share the same space here at BN and our relationships (OK they are virtual, but still real despite that) will begin to deteriorate and fade. BN has made me, has saved me and I owe more to it than I can possibly begin to express and that is down to the people here.

I am not sure I am ready to bail out just yet, there are many physical stages still left to complete and still an enormous amount to learn about the person I now am. As long as there are one or two fellow travellers here to bounce things off, I shall probably remain. The people here at BN have been my major source of support during all this to date and I am not sure I wish to kick away that crutch just yet.

It had crossed my mind to hang around offer succour to others who might follow in our footsteps, to give them the kind of help that I for one know I would have had real difficulty without. I guess it is a matter of timing, but there doesn't seem to be much in the way of a follow up group at the moment (or maybe I am just not looking in the right forums), so, maybe this help isn't needed just now.

Vivien has made me promise to print off everything I have ever posted and been involved with here. She is trying to convince me to write a book and reckons I should keep a record of the stages I struggled with and overcame as base framework. I am not sure I have the necessary commitment, but hopefully, in about 12 months time when all the physical stuff is out of the way, I will have a load more time and a mind which is not forever churning on matters concerning transition - so maybe it is a possibility.


Clara, have PMed you my Email address for future reference just in case I miss a warning that you are about to jump ship.


Miranda

[GoneGirl]

Thank you, Miranda, for the PM containing your e-mail. I'm sure there are many things we can discuss off-line of mutual importance.

I can understand being grateful for the help we've received over the years being associated with Breast Nexus and wanting to pay forward support to new members coming on-line who are trying to cope with their gender issues. I've feel that way, too. How to pay forward that gratitude is a personal decision we each have to make.

Just keep in mind that those of us who are in transition, by nature, are moving forward. Things change relative to where we find ourselves in time. There's a growth process that is taking place which needs nourishment from many different sources. Part of the transition process is managing the changing scenery.

One of the growth issues is finding the right support at the place you find yourself at any given time. There is a certain melancholy associated with leaving companions with whom you've shared many good experiences, and move on to higher learning. But it is necessary if you are to get the most out of your transition. One cannot be cavalier about it.

My focus currently is to find other trans women who are in the same place or further along in their transition than I am in mine. For example, I spent this weekend with a trans couple (transitioning husband with supportive spouse). Our discussions brought about many new insights on both sides that were very help to all four of us. There are so many things that need attention to successfully transition that are not going to be the subject of conversation here. Look to those who have traveled before you; look to those who are smarter than you; look to those who welcome your inquiries and requests for advice and guidance.

Clara

[Miranda-nata-est]

Clara,

I have a sneaking envy about your managing to find such a number of people locally who are travelling or have travelled along similar paths. It would be a very good thing for all the reasons you mention to become part of an active thriving network. As yet, I have not really managed to tap into this type of resource here despite an, albeit somewhat cursory, search. There is a Cornwall TS support group but it is not very well attended. There must be many more of us out there. However, I've not really found a place, real or virtual, where many of a similar mindset to mine gather - just because one shares a gender switch in one's past does not mean you have so very much else in common. I should probably try a bit harder to find the right group I guess.

Whilst I agree with your analysis that it is necessary to mix with one's peers to get the most from transition, I don't really define my life in terms of my transition (I guess you don't either) and rather than close off my horizons by seeking too much in the way of segregated interactions, in many ways I would rather just be part of the wider populace.

I think there is probably as much, if not more, to be learned about one's self by mixing with others outside the TG/TS sphere than there is from within it - different things.

I see quite a bit of this self imposed stepping out of society as a whole. So often you hear TG/TS people ask 'Is so and so a Trans friendly venue'. This to me is pretty much an irrelevance. As do most people, I just go where I choose to go without thought of it's Trans friendliness although of course with a bit of common sense: As any cis gendered female knows, I am aware that there are SOME places you just don't go as a girl!!. I don't want to be different and stand out as alien with special needs who can only mix with others with the same past. To be perceived as 'just another person', ideally 'just another woman' is what I aspire to be.


Miranda

[GoneGirl]

I am a female. I've struggled with having been born with male genitalia and having been assigned the wrong gender designation (male) for most of my life. The Y chromosome which we inherit from our fathers, a purely chance event like either coming up red or black on a roulette wheel, is only the start of a chain of events to produce a boy instead of the girl that we all start out as. For me, during that first 12 weeks of gestation, things that should have happened to make me a complete male, didn't happen. I was born with the brain of a female and the body of a male. My brain and body have been a war ever since.

My body's major weapon in this war was testosterone, 'T' for short. At the age of 12, with T flooding by body, the physical transformation to becoming physically a man began. By 16 there was no mistaking me for a girl based on my physical attributes. Even my female brain had been bullied into believing, begrudgingly, that I was a male. All protests were quickly beaten down by admonition and negative reinforcement. There's no incentive for boys to be like girls in our culture.

The male persona that I slowly built, layer by layer, burying my female psyche deep down and far from view, was artificial. It lacked the conviction, the assuredness of an authentic self-image. The stress and the anxiety of having to maintain what was effectively a charade exacted a heavy price on my relationships with others and my personal well-being.

I found that I could cope with the mental discomfort this contradiction created by focusing my conscious mind on pursuing challenging goals -- academics, career, family, etc. It seemed to work as long as I could maintain the distraction from the gnawing sense that I was not a real man, while at the same time shoring up my fake self-image. I could only imagine the turmoil that giving into my inner woman would produce in my life. That possibility was terrifying, so the war waged on.

When I retired and began to run out of things to distract me from the reality of who I truly am, my conscious defenses were quickly overwhelmed. The dysphoria that a female brain bathed in T and deprived of E (estrogen) was causing became too much to bear. I had to resolve the mind/body conflict in the only way possible, namely change my body and my place in society to match my true gender identity. The tipping point had occurred. I had to take action.

I learned that T is poison to a female brain, and adjusting my body chemistry to that of a female had a miraculous effect on me. Hormone therapy produced nearly instant relief from my chronic mental stress and anxiety. Then, over a period of many months, the physical effects of E, the surgical interventions, and the behavioral changes brought nearly complete relief from gender dysphoria. The joy of just being me for the first time in my life is indescribable because no other experience in my life compares to it.

Transitioning as an adult is not easy. It has the potential to turn your life upside-down. Society is only beginning to understand and accept transgender people, so the loss of family, job, social position, etc. are often the price we have to pay to find resolution. Every transgender person must decide for him/herself whether the trade-offs are worth it. In many cases there is no option; it's successful transition or suicide. Gender transitioning is not just a physical transformation, it's also integrating effectively into society as one's preferred gender. Society can make that very difficult by denying transgender people their civil rights. It's getting easier, but there's still a long way to go.

Clara

[Miranda-nata-est]

I am a female.

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I learned that T is poison to a female brain, and adjusting my body chemistry to that of a female had a miraculous effect on me. Hormone therapy produced nearly instant relief from my chronic mental stress and anxiety. Then, over a period of many months, the physical effects of E, the surgical interventions, and the behavioral changes brought nearly complete relief from gender dysphoria. The joy of just being me for the first time in my life is indescribable because no other experience in my life compares to it.


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Clara

Snap!!!!!!.


There is nothing, but nothing on earth which can prepare you for the experience.

There is absolutely no way you can begin to adequately explain it.


Miranda

[GoneGirl]

There are many events in one's life that bring about fleeting periods of happiness, joy, or euphoria. Achieving a long sought after goal, one's wedding day, or the birth of a child to mention just a few. But none of these compares to finding the freedom to live honestly as yourself after being deprived of that experience for a lifetime. For me the feeling is not temporary. It's with me every day from the moment I awake each morning.

I think I understand the reason for this. My GD was manifested as a constant level of mental 'noise' that I can only describe as stress and anxiety. It was so persistent throughout my life that I assumed it was normal (although in later years it became worse and then unbearable). I treated it as a baseline against which day-to-day feelings of happiness and unhappiness were measured, like a DC bias voltage on an AC signal (for the electrical engineers out there).

When I began my transition, first with hormone therapy and then with surgical modifications to my body, this mental anxiety-bias dropped nearly to zero. It's not a temporary condition. Against the memory of how things were before, it represents a permanent change in my well-being.

Clara

[Miranda-nata-est]

My experience was a bit different.

Ever since my teens, I knew I was different to the rest of the gang. I had friends, male and female, but always felt myself to be on the fringes of the groups I mixed with, never at the heart. This has been a trait throughout life.

The real problem though has been that until I managed to sort out my brain chemistry eight months ago, my whole being revolved around a dark void at my core. It was as if there existed a black hole in the centre of my 'soul' which was sucking the life out of me. Nothing emotional escaped it's pull - I was existing rather than living.

I have spent the last 40 years trying in vain to find fulfilment. I have thrown myself into ever more self destructive pasttimes (and dragged Vivien along with me for the 18 years we have been together). I don't know how I survived the excesses I have endured, the hedonistic pleasures I have sought and the tanker loads of red wine I have consumed and anything else mind bending that I could get my hands on - all in the forlorn hope of satisfying the deep seated need to find that missing 'IT'. I certainly don't know how our marriage survived. Paradoxically, I also threw myself into an exhaustive study of the Abrahamic religions which I adopted one by one until each time I studied my way out of them.

I look back at my early posts here and cringe at the crap I was writing, often in a drunken haze - no wonder Abi wanted to throw me off as a troll!!!


That has all changed. The day the oestrogen hit my system, everything, but everything changed. It was literally as quick as that. The void has gone, the black hole has dissipated.

People say to me 'but of course, you are the same person really'. How wrong can they be. I am a million miles from that person. None of these changes have been brought about as a result of deliberate intent by me - they have just happened.

Whilst I don't think every moment of every day about the journey any more, I do very, very often and the joy of life just floods my every cell. Yes, life still has it's day to day problems just as it does for everyone, but they pale into insignificance and now seem much easier to resolve than before.

Every time I reflect on the 'me' of today and the 'me' of yesterday, I just cannot get my head around the difference that one little blue tablet, 4 times a day (plus a bit of T blocking) has made.


Miranda

[Shae]

It's political feminist elitism to distinguish between women as a sex and women as a gender, between physically female and socially feminine.

Unfortunately, you have to look real hard to find people who know the difference between sex and gender, and even harder to find people who know what either of those words actually means. Perhaps that is because, when you look closely, neither of them has a solid, definitive meaning.

Political feminism is a control fetish, but it can be gotten around by simply stepping outside their game, which is the game of sex and gender labels.

You may want to look up Morgane Oger, the woman who is behind a human rights case in British Columbia that seeks to have sex removed from birth certificates. Her reasoning for this is compelling. Basically she says that birth certificates are expected to be 100% accurate, but sex on a birth certificate cannot be accurate because it is unverified information. To which i would add that no one has yet found a definition of sex that covers everyone. It is largely a constructed category.

At the very least sex is a spectrum, a range, and not a binary situation. Just as everyone's body makes both testosterone and estrogen, so too in the womb there are many possible E/T combinations at various times throughout fetal development, many possibilities for tissue sensitivity to these hormones, and many possibilities for the hormonal (maternal) environment in which the fetus is enveloped. There is also a range of possible genetic combinations too, not all of which are strictly male or female. That is without counting the possibility of a mixed karyotype.

No one can convince me that sex is a binary when there are so many possibilities. Just as we need to get beyond identifying people by so-called race, we also need to stop categorizing people by all physical features. Doing so is inherently discrimnatory, and i think that's primarily why people do it. Because, at a practical level, there is very little need to know what's between someone's legs.

I realize that many transgender folk have fought hard to get their gender marker changed, so there's a lot invested and it's hard to then step outside the gender box entirely and just be who you are. But i think this is where things are headed and we should get ready for it. The current generation of kids are breaking the gender binary in a big way. And, to get back to the topic, this is a huge monkey wrench in the works of political feminism. They have no way to deal with things outside the sex and gender boxes. Without these labels they become powerless. Yay!

I'd like to add that i think, eventually, the whole system of sex and gender is going to fall apart because these concepts have no clear definitions, are conflated and are easily confused. I noticed lately that government agencies in Canada are saying that gender is shown on (their) documents as "sex". Now how is that for clarity. In Ontario, for example, you can apply to have your gender changed, and what they do is change the sex code. They consider them different but the same. Great fun...

The answer i like best if someone asks what my sex or gender is (although no one has ever asked that) would be something like this : Sex is a category. Gender is a category. I'm not a category. I'm an individual. What is it you want to know about me?