I really don't want to do this... First off, contrary to what you might think, I try to keep my transgender-related posts to a minimum. You don't need to read my whiny rants about how I wish I could look cuter in a skirt; it's a waste of your time and mine. Plus, I feel like I'm about to cross a line here...
It's like this. My dear, lovely, brilliant, beautiful wife KJ recently posted a blog, in which she explains her feelings on my transgenderism (or lack thereof). It is well-written and smart, as is everything she writes. But of course it also disagrees with pretty much everything I believe.
So, now I face a dilemma... let it go? Respond in public? Reply directly to her blog, or post a counter-blog of my own? Do people really want to read our arguments? If I respond, will it solve anything, or will it just escalate? And why should I sit down and type this out in my blog, when I can just say it to her? What's the point of writing a long, pointless post, when she's six feet away from me watching TV on the couch?
I guess I knew all along I'd have to put this on my blog. For one thing, I don't want to muddy up KJ's blog with petty bickering. Her page is hers, and I don't want to post anything negative on it. But I do need to make a mark somewhere, partly because it's cathartic, and partly because I've already had one friend e-mail me asking for my counter-arguments. I could answer him privately, but this way I can let everyone know at once.
If this turns into a long-running debate, so be it. I will happily play Demosthenes to KJ's Locke, if for no other reason than that I like to argue. But I'd rather this post be the end of it. KJ and I are generally mature when it comes to our disputes, and "agreeing to disagree" is one of the things we do best.
Note, don't read any further until you've read her blog. If you can't access her blog for some reason, let me know. I'll be doing a bit of snipping here and there to quote her, and I don't want KJ to look stupid because of something taken out of context.
Here goes nothing.
>>> WARNING: This is not a happy fun blog. This is also not meant for those who are easily offended, not secure enough with themselves to make mature, adult comments, or too young to take immature coarse language. This is not anything to curse me or praise me but what is on my mind at this point.
*** Actually, there's very little in it I found offensive. "There ain't no good guys, there ain't no bad guys, there's only you and me, and we just disagree." I do think the title's a little misleading, though... you spend most of your blog arguing whether or not I'm transgendered, and don't actually get to your "views on transgenderism" in general until the last couple of paragraphs.
>>> My husband is an absolutely brilliant man who could be anything he/she wants to be and that includes a woman. The whole thing boils down to this--just because he could be a woman does not mean he IS.
*** Of course not. I don't believe I've ever used that argument. Heck, I could be a bowling pin impersonator if I wanted to. Means nothing.
>>> I will not stop him from pursuing what he wants. Its not part of who I am but that does not mean that I have to agree. He acts as though I do not understand what is like to feel lost and unsure of yourself. He seems to think that I have never had to become my own person, separate from what my parents and peers have taught me. I like to think I kept some of the better parts to offset the bad habits instilled upon me by genetics and breeding.
*** I never claimed you haven't gone through anything like this. If I honestly thought I was the only one in the world to ever face an identity crisis, I probably really would shoot myself.
>>> However, he is not the first person to go through a crisis of conscience, to stop believing in everything because it just didn't quite turn out the way it should have. The one thing everyone learns and keeps learning is life is not fair, life is not predictable and bad things happen to good people. He is not the only person to look back at his life and say, "oops." I do think that his intellect has submarined him.
*** This is where you start to part from reality. Your idea - that life was turning out badly, so I invented another one - has no basis in fact. While it had been building for years, the day I actually had my epiphany was hardly one of our darkest days. Yes, my father had recently passed away, I'll give you that one. But that was about it. The other factors you mention - money, your miscarriages, etc - just weren't factors at the time. We are talking about a time when, while I was still technically in mourning, overall I was fairly happy. We were doing pretty well financially, I hadn't thought about the miscarriages in a very long time, and so on.
In fact, one of the biggest tragedies about all of this is that we were so happy. It's as if I was waiting for things to settle down - for us to get caught up on bills, etc, before I decided to throw a wrench in the works. Your "failure as a man" theory might have made sense back when we lived in Bowling Green, but I'm rather proud of the progress we've made since then.
>>> My darling hubby seems to be a text-book example. It is interesting to note that the more he reads, the more he "realizes," the more text-book he becomes. That is already a flag for most first-year psychology students.
*** On principle I can't disagree. It's a common phenomenon, and not limited to psychology. Someone picks up a book of diseases, starts thumbing through the pages, and they're sure they have every one of them. "Let's see, symptoms... 'vomiting'... well, I did feel like I was going to throw up the other day... 'pale skin'... yep, I haven't had much of a tan this winter... 'unusual sweating'... yeah, I was pretty sweaty after my aerobics this morning... I must have a deadly disease!" People do that, and it's not always just the hypochondriacs.
But you have me in a catch-22. If I were to walk around saying, "I'm a girl, I'm a girl", without doing any research, you'd say I had no idea what I was talking about. But when I actually do the research, you use your "first-year psychology student" cop-out. You've got me trapped to where there's simply no way to prove anything to you.
>>> Even laymen eventually come to realize that when dealing with the individual a text-book case is a rare thing. There is a guideline, there are examples with similarity, but to be down the line text-book is very unusual and highly suspicious.
*** Again, catch-22. Before, whenever you found ways that I differed from the "textbook example", you used them to tell me why I wasn't transgendered. Now you think I fit the textbook case too well. So what you're saying is, before you had too little proof, and now you have too much proof? What is the exact amount of proof you need to believe something?
It's moot anyway. As far as I'm concerned, it's not about "proof". When I list "symptoms" from my childhood, like how I would often pick female characters when playing GI Joe with my friends, you dismiss them because "all little boys do that now and then". In fact, most examples I could give - most examples ANY transperson could give - could be dismissed as something lots of boys do. I mean, everybody tries on Mommy's shoes sooner or later.
But the proof means NOTHING. If I couldn't list a single example of how I fit the profile, I would still know that I feel female inside. If my list of childhood memories was nothing but NASCAR races and NFL games, I would still know that I'd rather be a woman.
>>> Hubby is brilliant and can put himself in any situation or on either side of any argument. What happens if you are putting yourself into an argument and you don't know yourself enough to separate who you are from what the topic is? You become Spock doing a mind-meld with Nomad, "We are Nomad. We are Nomad."
*** Well, I am a master debater. But are you trying to tell me that the fact that I'm good at arguing, somehow proves that what I argue is wrong? I can see how it would give my arguments less weight, sure. But that doesn't make me flat-out wrong.
>>> I say because he was searching for answers he found one that was as close to getting away from his old life as possible.
*** And I submit that I love my old life, and want to change as little as possible. I'm not even trying to "change" myself, so much as "find" myself. The fact that I like my life is reason I've been able to stay this way for such a long time. Some transfolk are from broken homes, had difficult school lives, were beaten and humiliated for being different, and so on. I'm sure such people can't wait to break out and establish their own identities. I had a great childhood, and I have many happy memories. Between playing female characters with friends, and living vicariously through characters in the comics I drew, I had some outlets for my femininity. Enough to keep me from questioning my happiness, anyway. I believe that this is one reason it took me so long to become dissatisfied with my identity - I just had too many reasons to be happy.
> 1.) He is effeminate.
*** And your point is, being effeminate doesn't mean you're transgendered. I totally agree.
> 2.) He hates males in general
*** I say that a lot, but it's really not true. I like men just fine. What I don't like is MEN. I trust I don't need to spell this one out for you, but what I don't like is manly, chauvinistic, muscle-headed he-men who only care about sports, cars, and sex. I suppose the opposite would be empty-headed girlie-girls who don't care about anything but nails, clothes, and makeup. I can't say I like those either, but I don't mind being around them nearly as much as the men I mentioned.
The reason I hold a particular grudge for manly-men is the fact that I've had so many negative experiences from being around them. The girlie-girls are at best entertaining, and at worst offensive to my intelligence. But the manly-men actually scare me - it's guys like these that beat up people like me. It's cause-and-effect time. They sensed my femininity, they made fun of me, I stopped liking them. You seem to think it's the other way around - that I disliked them first, then made myself feminine so I wouldn't be like them.
>>> I don't think the concept of its okay to like pink and have a dick was ever explained to him until there was just no way he could accept it as true.
*** Please. My entire childhood was an esteem-building excercise. "Different is better" has been my mantra since, well, since before I knew the word "mantra". Yet another reason I came out to myself so late in life: I always knew I was "different", and I was comfortable with that. What wasn't explained to me was that "wanting to be a girl" was okay. In fact, it was specifically explained to me that "wanting to be a girl" was a very bad thing that would cause the ground to open beneath my feet, dropping me straight to Hell. So if you're looking for a good example from my formative years, that might be one to examine.
>>> 3.) Low self-esteem
*** Comes and goes; probably the same with everyone. Having a poor view of one's identity is no ego booster, but this is another one of those "chicken-or-the-egg" scenarios. The hard part is, you don't even know what you think you know. I don't even know myself that well. I've been wearing masks since I was a child, and I'm so used to them, that I don't always know when I have them on. If I look like I'm on an ego trip, it's probably because I'm kicking myself inside for doing something stupid. If I look like I've lost the will to live, it's probably because I'm proud of myself and don't want to look like a show-off. This might make me seem a bit deceitful, but when you've been told that one of your core personality traits is a mortal sin, you too might decide you want to be harder to read.
>>> Where is the line drawn for reality, for the quantitative data that cannot be changed and must be accepted? In this day and age it gets smaller and smaller. Welcome to the world of plastic surgery!! Think you should have been born with horns and a tail because you know, just absolutely know, you are the prince of darkness? Do you have the money? Just step right up and we'll check it out! You say you have at least five people who truly believe you are the prince of darkness or that you should have been born with perfectly white razor sharp teeth? Have you acted like you have razor sharp teeth? Do you have the money? Oh you're a bird man too!! Where should we put the feathers exactly, please pay the girl on you way out. Enjoy your new life disco duck; you'll get just about as much respect and prestige.
*** Well, arguably, the Prince of Darkness should have the power to make these changes without having to resort to surgery. And if not, well, he's probably better off keeping his ability to blend in with the crowd.
The line you question is drawn by psychologists. Remember psychology, that subject you once majored in? A person who believes he is the Prince of Darkness has serious mental issues, which ought to be addressed before he gets any surgery. And hey, guess what, transpeople DO go through therapy first (assuming they follow the rules). The irony is, that I could probably walk into the plastic surgeon's office right now and have horns by the end of the day. Depressing, but true. But unlike the delusion that you are the devil (or a bird), transgenderism is a real, psychologically accepted condition, and yet it's incredibly difficult to be allowed the surgery that corrects it.
And why are you so focused on the surgery, anyway? You understand that's the very LAST step, and one that not every transperson even takes. Your mind is who you are. A woman born in a man's body IS a woman. She was born a woman, and she will die a woman, regardless of whether she ever gets the surgery. If it makes her happy, and her therapist is sure she won't regret it later, what's the downside? Typically, by that time she gets the surgery, she's already gone through all the tragedies that would "ruin" her life. She is required to live as a woman for at least a year first. During that time, she will have already lost any friends/family/jobs that this condition will cause her to lose. When the time comes around for the actual surgery, that's just something that makes her feel more complete.
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