I wasn’t implying that anyone else had to pay for your transition…

You’re right, and I’m sorry it came across as if I thought that. Rather, I am asking for whatever public health care I hope Obama eventually passes to help pay for my transition, so it seemed like a worthwhile thing to comment on. Sorry for the confusion.

Of course, because I’m cis, you and everyone else is going to say that it’s not the same thing! Oh really? I seriously didn’t want to be female. I was seriously depressed. I seriously wanted to be male. How is my experience less valid than yours? (Emphasis added)

You’re right, it’s a huge cultural and social problem that lots of people have very serious issues with their assigned genders, particularly in their teenage years. Likewise, lots of them (maybe even most of them) are able to reconcile their own sense of self and gender with their assigned sex, and transitioning would be the wrong choice for them.

But here’s what I don’t understand about your perspective. I am not using my experiences – as someone who identifies is trans, is transitioning, and is happier for it – to dismiss your experiences. While I’m sorry if others are doing so or have done so in the past, I don’t think I’ve said anything to indicate your experience is less valid than mine.

So why are you turning around and doing to me the very thing you imply I’m doing to you?

As I said in my post, saying things like “It seems that all the resources used by individuals to change their physical bodies and processes to “change gender” could be spent better.” That implies that you disagree with my decision to transition. And the quotes, “change gender,” implies you don’t believe it’s possible to do so.

Both of those seem pretty invalidating to me.

As I said, I’m very much trying not to invalidate your experience, and please let me know how or if I’ve done so. But I am going to note when it feels like you’re invalidating mine.

What, did you Google my questions too? I did Google, and found nothing of value. This is something I’ve been sorting for a while. Thanks for calling me ignorant, I appreciate that.

And guess what? I spent my teen years wanting to be a boy. Longing to not be a woman because of the strict gender roles and oppression I experienced while growing up in my parents’ house. But I realized the best way to cope with things was to forge my own set of rules for how to be a girl, a woman, and be okay not being a man. I think more straight people feel funny about their gender while in their teen years than you might think. I seriously wanted a penis, I seriously didn’t want boobs or a period, I seriously was unhappy with my body. But I didn’t decide to become a man. I spent years unhappy, and then I slowly decided to embrace my body and discovered that it wasn’t so bad. I could have gone off on the wild goose chase, but it has proved more worthwhile not to have done that. Instead of spending my money on HRT and phalloplasty, I spent money on an education, I’ve found a career that fulfills me, and I enjoy being a woman.

That doesn’t necessarily mean that I fit into the neat cis box that you’d like to put me in. My brain and body didn’t automatically match up. My mind was very resistant to being a woman, but the more rational I became, the more I realized it was better to find happiness with what I had, rather than going on an expedition to change everything.

Of course, because I’m cis, you and everyone else is going to say that it’s not the same thing! Oh really? I seriously didn’t want to be female. I was seriously depressed. I seriously wanted to be male. How is my experience less valid than yours?

In the same way, transition doesn’t make life happier. Surgery doesn’t even necessarily make life happier. It (transition, not necessarily surgery) does reduce the obstacles to finding happiness. You still have to do the work to find it, though. It just means you have no harder a path than anyone else, for a change.

I’ll be reading, certainly. May turn up on the blogaround at Shakesville, if you’re not careful.

I think you really hit on the root of the issue, that transitioning doesn’t so much make people happy as it (hopefully) removes lots of junk in the way of being happy or content. I’m so sorry that your life took you on such a rocky path, but absolutely thrilled to hear that you were able to find what you were looking for.

I hope to continue seeing you around here! =)

An interesting dichotomy has arisen around my transition, for me. Before I did, I was perceived to be a very, very angry, very dangerous young man. I’d been in the military, been in jail, always for physical violence in defence of my “masculinity”. Long, long time ago. I hurt people, and I know it.

So for me, when I discovered the rage ebbing, as I transitioned, and then began hormones, and so on – seventeen years ago, so this was a slow, slow process, having to get approval from the hoop-guardians before each step. When I discovered that, I began to want to make the world better, in the ways I’d harmed it before. I started working with volunteer programs, in various fields, and have never since ceased being a volunteer. I’ve been President of two major organizations in my city. I have a business of my own, supporting me and soon a couple of employees.

All of that is because I was able to lose the rage, the inchoate rage, that flooded out in damage to society, and because I have a desire now to return to the world the peace and contentment I’ve been able to find.

Have I had a perfect life? Fuck no. Not hardly. Sometimes things have been really hard, I’ve had the same issues anyone does, of love and loss and keeping oneself and one’s loved ones fed and sheltered and all of it. Wouldn’t trade it for the rage, though.

So…for those who say that government health care shouldn’t pay for this: who would you rather pay for? Surgery for Rebecca, a one-time expense less than the cost of a single year’s detention of someone like me, or life-detention costs for me when I finally snapped and killed someone? Because I would have. Them, me, maybe more, if I were desperate enough after the first one.

Which sounds like the smarter choice, for society? Because sure as hell, some of the people doing that kind of damage are people who simply cannot find the way to themselves, and some of those will be trans people. Not most, nor even many – but how many horribly disfunctional lives can be improved, turned to the betterment of themselves and the world, through what is, in the end, a pretty small expenditure?

How many useful lives self-destroyed in despair? Either terminally, or through the use of self-damaging behaviours?

False economies.

Well said, Rebecca. Adding you to my blog roll. Sorry about the mini-rant. This one touches deep for me. :/

Likewise, I totally think that – just like self-esteem in general – it’s possible to feel ‘more’ or ‘less’ transitioned depending on how things in the rest of your life are going. Case in point, today I decided to wear a nice sundress I bought recently, and felt very transitioned as I got complimented by friends and coworkers all day. But I’m sure something else will come up that sometime later this week that will make me feel “less” transitioned.

I remember my cousin called me one day to tell me she just realized that she had gone 3 or 4 days without thinking about transitioning or worrying about her gender presentation at all. She said “maybe this means I’m done transitioning” and we were both like “Yay!” Then a week later she called back after a depressing clothes-shopping expedition to say that she was definitely not done transitioning. We tentatively concluded that for some people transitioning occurs in stages and a bad experience can set you back a bit.