We’ve heard it over and over…a thousand times…said a hundred thousand different ways:
I’m a woman. I’ve always known I’m a woman. I’ve been female for as long as I can remember. I want to be accepted as a female.
And then, invariably, a version of the above is followed by the question:
Why won’t society accept me for what I am ?
Always after the “Why won’t society accept me…” part, the dumbfounded speaker, in one way or the other (generally accompanied by some word with phobia as the suffix ), proceeds to blame society for not accepting them. To these people, there is always a reason why someone else is to blame for their lack of being able to merge into society and have the acceptance they yearn for…they appear clueless as to the solution to their situation. The truth might be that society is accepting the person for what they are. It’s just that what the person is to society is not what they want to project…or in some cases, not what the person is capable of projecting.
To me, the answer is simple as to why they are not accepted; it is and has always been:
Providing one is actually female in the first place, they have not made, or are incapable of making, the jump from being what they were (male), to what they say they are (female). And, until that jump is made…they have not transitioned nor will they be accepted by the mainstream.
It doesn’t matter whether you have had the best gender surgery money can buy. Having had the very best facial feminization surgery the planet can offer doesn’t matter. Physically passing for female means nothing either…nope, that won’t help you. Until one makes the jump from being pre op and presenting as male, to post op and simply settling into being female…leaving all of what was behind…one will always be transsexual (not to mention transgender) and society will forever see you as what you were, not what you claim to have always been. And to many, even if you do succeed in intellectually making that jump, if what you say you are is simply a fantasy of what, in reality, you wished you were and the polar opposite of what you come across as, then all of the mind games you can invent in a lifetime will not allow you to be perceived as your target gender…much less give you the acceptance you desire.
Society doesn’t suffer fakes very well.
The issue is two fold and revolves around legitimacy.
First one has got to have that innate sense that they have been born with the wrong body. They will have had to have known their entire life, for as far back as their memory goes, that something was wrong…very wrong. They have to know this. They have to struggle with this…it must be beyond doubt…undebatable. Their every waking moment has to have been a living hell as they struggled, often in an all consuming quest, to not only understand the shot deck they have been dealt, but to work out exactly what they can and will do about it. In short, they actually have to be transsexual. If one is not transsexual by the classic definition, all of the posturing and surgery in the world is not going to help them.
And secondly, they must make the jump…to being female. If one is transsexual, transitions through the pre op stages, and then leaves the past behind to finally being simply female…the person they always were (the lament so many seem to yell)…then acceptance will follow.
Question: Why do so many find making the jump so difficult?
Answer: The short answer is that they are not transsexual in the first place.
To those of you who read this blog, how many times have you met another transsexual, pre or post op who, when you walked away, you thought to yourself just how screwed up the person you just met was? How many have you met who gave new meaning to the phrase “has issues”?
Consider this, emphasis mine:
So, here I am – living the life that we all dream about… I’m a woman, right? Eight months have past now since I surrendered to a future of presenting myself in all respects to the closest physical proximity of a genetic woman that a genetic male can be. Now what?
Blame it on laziness or whatever you want, but the truth is, I have “still” been trying to bring myself out of a self-induced depression carried over from my prior life of living as a male. Why?
Yes, I look in the mirror now and I no longer want to rip my flesh off like wrapping paper from my bones – but at what cost did this all come? Where is my place in this world? What am I now? Am I what I believe myself to be, or am I the product of how the world now receives and interacts with me? Before you jump to the end of the blog where I am jumping off a cliff and killing myself, hold it right there. I want to make clear that, I DO NOT regret any of my decisions! On the contrary, my eyes have never been more open to the world and the mechanics of our social dynamics, and how each of us play a part in the intricate workings, in the grand scheme of it all.
To be fair, I am facing some of the most difficult choices of my life… again. These choices however, affect the quality, comfort and privacy of my family’s lives, forever. Transition has etched expanses so wide in the foundation of our lives that I fear they can never be bridged… at least not with me remaining as part of the equation.
I won’t link to the blog, but this was written by a post op, a very beautiful lady. Her life is transgender all the way; she is one of the usual suspects. Though she says she doesn’t regret GRS, it is easy to wonder who she thinks she is fooling. If one were to read her blog it would be easy to surmise she is most regretful. At the very least, the issues that she faces are problems she should have thought about a long, long time ago. One thing is certain, she has not made the jump. She continues:
For sometime I have thought about just leaving, starting over… But you know, no matter how I sliced it, it would always come back to the same thing: You can’t escape who you are.
She’d like to make the jump…but she can’t; transgender dogma is strangling her. I suppose my question is why would someone want to “…escape who [they] are.” She claims to be a female, yet clearly she feels she can’t escape being what she used to be…a male. I think that is more indicative than might be taken at first glance. In essence, it’s my point. If this lovely young lady feels she can’t escape what she once was, then she has defined herself as something less than what she says she really is…a female. If she were able to make the jump, leaving what was in the past where it should be would not be difficult in the least. Evidently, she feels that no matter where she goes or what she does…she will always be a male and must openly acknowledge a past that should she have been able to have had GRS at four years of age…wouldn’t even exist. Making the jump from one gender to the other doesn’t mean one must deny one’s past if confronted with it, only that one’s past has no place in their future.
No imagination is needed to see why the activists can’t make the jump. It’s all about gay and transgender to them. It would be interesting to see just what kind of life these people would have if in a wave of the wand every single right they lobby for would be granted. It wouldn’t make a damn bit of difference. They would still be held captive to their transgender roots…and they still would not be accepted.
Their lives are meshed and one with the gay and transgender community. They are defined by it. No heterosexual man is the least bit interested in a trans woman who believes women have a penis. Nor is a hetero man interested in a trans woman who can’t leave her community behind. The truth of the matter is that no heterosexual male is interested in a trans woman, or trans anything at all. Hetero men are interested in straight females…period…end of story. And for a straight transsexual of operative history, that means making the jump. Most can make it, many can not.
So, it’s no surprise that many transgender females identify as lesbian. There’s only one thing wrong with that picture, however. A huge proportion of these trans lesbians are partnered with yet another trans lesbian because natal females who are lesbian won’t accept them either. Why? Because they can’t make the jump; the lesbians see them in many ways just as society does, i.e., something less than female. Truth be told, it’s a sad situation.
Many of these non jumpers blame everyone in sight for their issues. It seems more than a bit weird that these non-jumpers are not able to differentiate between identifying as female and being a female. What’s up with that? None of the answers to that question are pretty. I’m not going to go off on their fetish tangent in this piece. No matter how the issue is approached, those who continue to be consumed with the transgender community have not made the jump and are too absorbed with their issues to recognize that just because someone (themselves) say something does not mean, guarantee, imply, or assure that others (society) not only believes them, but give a damn either way. Society doesn’t accept or reject, individuals do; it’s a no brainer. And, individuals don’t accept pretenders, which is exactly how those not able to make the jump are perceived to the average person…just another pretender.
The transgender and non ops will never be accepted in women’s spaces any more than Thomas Beatie has a snow balls chance in hell at ever being accepted into men’s. I really don’t know how to address their issues other than to say that if one decides to buck the order of society, they will definitely have a cultural price to pay.
On the other hand, I have nothing but sympathy for the transsexual who can’t escape from their transgender prison. I have seen first hand post op transsexuals who are forever trapped within the overall gayborhood, preferring to call it a community instead of what it really is…terminal confinement. These people just can’t make the jump. In many ways they are pretenders, being quite comfortable around others who feel exactly as they do, but incapable of integrating into the greater society. They are held captive by their own consent, reinforced by others who share their tunnel vision of what life is really all about. In many cases they have given up much of everything in their lives that was ever dear to them to pursue an innate drive, only to find that what now serves as a future is confined to a very small group of people (other transgendered or non-jumping transsexuals) who essentially serve no other purpose but to make them feel comfortable in what they have chosen to do. It’s a self feeding loop.
Years of observation has shown me one thing: those who are not capable of making the jump, or who might choose not to, have less and less of a chance and incentive to do so the longer they reside in the GLBT community. Conversely, their chance of acceptance is inversely proportional to the time they take to make the jump. In other words, those transsexuals who make the jump early in their transition are way more likely to be accepted by the mainstream, by virtue of them living and breathing there, than those who do so later and exponentially more likely than those who choose to reside in the transgender mindset.
Is it important whether someone makes the jump or not? I guess it depends on if that someone considers themselves female…or something less than or other.
Make the jump and sign THE PETITION…now.
25 Comments
Thank you for laying it all out, this is one of those taboo subjects for tg’s that needs airing. The phrase “live as a woman” is thrown around a lot in those circles, and it’s a very troublesome mindset. You can’t live as a woman without being a woman.
The whole notion of “biological” man or woman has a lot of transitioners grieving. Those who are tg find it to be an impenetrable barrier. Those who are actually “transsexual” need to study the issue and come to terms with it. If you shy away from examining this lament of being biologically incorrect, you’ll never overcome the problems that it presents to some of us.
The thing that people never understand is that “biological” and “genetic” are not criteria that describe reality. They are a reflection of social prejudice that we use to organize the world around us.
In a “scientific” sense using genes and such as a descriptor, all people are in a state of “intersex” with the vast majority clustered about the two peaks on the bell curves (if you take the data points as a graph). We tend to gloss over the translation of our observations (female-like) to the state of being known as woman, but it is very important to make the distinction.
Woman is a social term used to describe a gender role, it does not turn us into things called “women” as dictated by science. It is a non sequitur as well as being an insult to everyone’s personal agency and humanity. Paternalistic thinking at work. Saying someone is “biologically” a woman is similar to saying someone is “biologically” rich, or “biologically” inferior . It is a way to enforce a mindset and project it onto other people, in order to shape society in a way that pleases us.
Having said all that, what does it mean to a classically transsexual woman? You can shed the reservations you have about science damning you, it is social theorists who are your bane. Plenty of scientists in genetics (and other increasingly fuzzy areas) are social theorists though…
This was a good read;
One of the seldom spoken “truths” that winds it’s way around the transgender community is the phrase “Transition is a life long process, you can never completely transition” This is one of the ingredients in the Tranny Kool-Aid. Since you can never completely transition you are always and forever Transgender, this form of brain washing is apparent to anybody who has been in that community and I might add an ingredient in the AA Kool-Aid some of us have sipped in the past.
(I was a regular at AA meetings for two years) The group has a great deal in common with TG groups in terms of their dynamics and their self imposed hierarchy. In both instances if you want to be “normal” (a normey)and have a comfortable place in mainstream society you have to come to terms with some fairly heavy things.
Sorry for the digression…..
SO it should be evidant that nobody who has ever shown their face in a TG group can never transition in their eyes it’s not possible. Anybody who says they have must be deluded in thinking they are superior to those trannys. This brainwashing is ingrained that as you pointed out TG folk say “they live as a woman”, they are totally blind to the fact they are subconsciously telling all who will hear they live a fake life.
You just can’t make this stuff up.
S
The comment below was found at Susan’s TG Forum. After a very unpleasant experience at that site some time back, I don’t post there anymore. Occasionally, my essays are linked there and I might read the comments. The comment was place by someone by the name of Julie Marie. Actually, I agree with what Julie Marie says below. However, the point she brings up is not the point I was trying to make in my post.
Julie Marie goes on to say, emphasis mine:
Julie is right in that I have never lived in the shoes of someone who is a “…6′-6″,280lb MTF built like a linebacker with overly masculine facial features…”. I suppose I am blessed in that regard. I have, however, seen a few extremely large post ops who have done quite well in their integration and acceptance. Not to belittle Julie Marie’s point for it is well taken, I readily admit that I have seen way more large ladies with masculine feature along the lines she describes that, indeed, will never be accepted just because.
Natal females, for the most part, spend much of their lives, concerned with how they look. Some are obsessed with it. Few do not do their best to perfect their look. And, all but the most butch are more than a little concerned with presenting in the best possible way. Many transsexuals, however, don’t place a high priority on their looks and presentation. After their transition, apparently content they are now the “person they always were”, feel that is the end of it, which is hardly the case. Julie’s point revolves around the issue of passing…and that is another issue altogether and not the point of my essay. Not to continue beating a dead horse and get into the issue of passing, I will say that there is way more to passing than feminine characteristics, physical size, and beauty. Though all three of those variables are important, none of them precludes someone from passing.
Never in my essay do I say that all that’s required to be accepted by the mainstream is to accept oneself, as Julie Marie says several times in her comment. However, just as the 6’-6” linebacker has no chance of acceptance by the mainstream, neither does the 5’-4” petite, gorgeous post op…if they are unable to make the jump to simply being female.
I personally can’t see someone who does make the jump not having accepted their selves, or at least I have never met one like that. Nonetheless, there are many transsexuals who don’t make this jump who are at home with where they are in the world and most certainly accept themselves, yet society sees them as nothing more than a man in a dress. So, though acceptance of one’s self is probably a given before others will feel likewise, acceptance of one’s self, in itself, does not guarantee others in the mainstream will reciprocate.
You know, in the end I think it boils down to women know other women……period.
I’m a big gal, large hands but I have not a second’s problem being accepted and haven’t all along. Before I was disabled although I’m big, I was never the largest woman at any place I worked. My daughter has the exact same build as I do so perhaps I never fell prey to the “I’ll never pass” garbage. But in the end, the prettiest tranny who is not neurological female is gonna have problems and that I’ve seen over and over.
Society doesn’t see any of us, any more, the way they once did. The only way around that is to never let your background be known, for sure as hell once it is, your on the other side of the fence. It is in fact those that will never make the leap; those that will never pass for women but went ahead anyway; those that cling to the GLBT and the transgender ghetto because they have no other choice; those that push for laws to be changed to protect them, that in the final analysis have bought this to pass for all of us.
Pointless really to blog about it since the damage has already been done. The motto of the activists is “no tranny left behind”, and they don’t really care who suffers because of it. Just stealth it out the best you can, never admit to anything, and keep on trucking. It’s no longer a case of settling into being female, because unless you can do that without anyone knowing your background, your just treated as another tranny… yeah it’s sad but thems is the truth of it.
SA;
That first quote is nearly word for word something Anne Lawrence said in a forum I was in before it was deleted by Yahoo. That is when I knew for sure Lawrence didn’t have the female inside, she was never borne with it.
You can’t be something you are not.
I have a good friend who is struggling to save money to have the birth defect fixed. She is 6′+ and there is no doubt she is female.
Leigh;
You are right about the past, that is what God made court orders for, and why God gave us lips to keep our mouth shut.
S
catkisser, perfectly said, “…in the end it boils down to women know other women…period.” I agree.
I came across this quote on a webpage:
“I don’t know why, but I have always rejected these biological explanations for transgenderism. There has always been something deep in my gut that has not been comfortable with them.”
Huh.
And why would a “transgender” be comfortable with biology origin when they are fetishes?
Seems quite natural to me.
You don’t have to go too far to see that.
They are not comfortable with any biological explanation for TG or TS.
They cling to the mental health model.
This is how they legitimize themselves.
“I’m mentally ill I need special rights.”
OH Please.
Sandeen just referenced this blog on Pam’s Blended Transvestites. Prepare to repel boarders.
I love the line “”As a new media journalist who identifies as transgender and transsexual, I write a great deal about trans people and issues.”" Sandeen has not had genital reconstructive surgery what makes Sandeen knows anything about the latter?
Drunk on Tranny Kool-Aid.
S
I know it is not politically correct for me to say this, but I am absolutely fed up with self proclaimed transvestites and drag queens speaking to women’s issues. I’ll respect SA-ET’s policy of not using the actually appropriate gendered pronouns for these people but I find myself increasingly less inclinded to do so elsewhere. Sandeen is a particularly nasty piece of work that doesn’t hesitate to slander and libel and defame, just google “her”.
Well Sandeen is no threat to me.
I know where Sandeen lives.
It’s within walking distance of here.
S
I had to delete yet another signature this morning from the petition by some TG who rambled on and on about classic transsexuals being deluded men with XY genetics, inverted penises etc. The whole TG kool-aid crap denying our womanhood. This coward did not sign with an actual name. He ended with “you are transgender”. What is it with these idiots?
When they cannot climb on our backs to validate themselves they try and tear us down with name calling.
I think all of us have said it at one time or another their own insecurity and low self esteem is their worst enemy. They need a crutch to prop up their sense of self worth, we are that crutch.
S
People who hurl XY as some sort of accusation are the last ones on earth who should be throwing stones. What they don’t know about genetics could fill volumes. And does.
Some very interesting studies are coming out of the fMRI work being done on men’s and women’s brains, over in Europe. (Notice how nobody here does this sort of thing do to political correctness?) The last one I read detailed 12 pre-transition people, no hormones yet, who showed consistency with the “other” sex in the specific measurement of the study.
The naysayers like to accuse us of needing crutches and that sort of thing when we point out the science. But that just shows their ignorance. These things aren’t needed for personal validation, as most post-transition people have come to terms with themselves. The science is just a confirmation of what we already know.
It’s nice to have it though, and it could prove critical in the days and years to come. One of the things that has me here talking about the tg garbage is that I am going to get married, and I am absolutely furious with how this GLBT crap threatens me. I would love for them to drop the T and leave me alone. But I think at least part of the agenda is motivated by anger and jealousy at our marriage privilege.
I found this interesting…but one point eludes me. May I ask just what you mean by “making the jump”? I’m not sure just what you mean by that…it obviously isn’t living the life as a woman/female, nor is it any type of surgery. Is it a mindset? An attitude? Both? Something else entirely?
Again, enjoyed the essay…
If I may, it is as simple as actually identifying as a woman…..no cis garbage, no trans anything identity…..just woman. I’m not sure it’s possible unless you are neurological female to begin with but that allow isn’t enough either.
catkisser, would you stop using `cis`,
its a made up term by a gay man and seems to used alot by the transgendered people.
To me its like a finger nail scraping on a blackboard.
No such word, get it!
Holly…….read what I said, I think this whole cis thing is utter garbage.
Amen Cat;
Along with the whole transgender construct.
ya’ll are just insensitive
Who Me?
I came across another thread that is interesting and is sort of similar to this one.
http://jessicalive.wordpress.com/2009/02/15/who-names-me