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the_fantastic_ms_fox) wrote2008-04-05 10:13 am
the_fantastic_ms_fox) wrote2008-04-05 10:13 am
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Question 9: Rerdanging into your gender identity, do you ever wonder/fear/think you'll get to a point where you just want to say "Fuck it", discontinue (if even for a brief tme) anything you are doing to maintain your chosen gender appearance/biology, and just exist as you are (or have come to be)?
From conversations with another trans friend, this individual expressed a desire to have a society in which they could be comfortable live out their/any gender identity without having to necessarily maintain accompanying outside changes in order to even achieve the small amount of acceptance that they had. They felt at times tired of all the extra work they had to put into who they were, and wanted at times to be able to just let it all hang out and not really have to care so much either way, but felt it impossible in reality. They referenced ancient socities and their acceptance of/idea of a 'third gender'.
Funny you should mention it. I will actually be discontinuing hormones for a short time. Starting in... ten days; lasting for eighteen to twenty -two. I'm not exactly looking forward to it, but because of how I indentify, and how strongly I identify, it doesn't bother me as much as it used to. But I'm only doing it because there's something greater to be had.
(see subsequent post).
I would certainly like to live in a society where you could name your gender and we'd all just get it and honour it. But even if this was the case, I would still be changing my sex.
(I think that this hypothetical is one of the best questions to ask if you're trying to tell whether you should change your sex.)
I am in awe of societies that accept transgender without body modification, and I can see how that could do wonders for transgendered people and cisgendered people, but I can't see myself feeling non-dysphoric without body modification.
I understand the feeling of exhaustion. I remember feeling thank G-d that I have more faith in my own gender identity, because I need something to give me a break from the stress of transition. It feels like it never ends. It also feels like I am over the hump now, and it's heavy maintenance rather than renovations (and I'm looknig forward to light/negligible maintenance) .
(and now the short answer) I might slow down if I was burning out, but I would never give up physically transitioning. Not under any circumstances. Not if my life depended on it.
I would take a break only if I though that there was ultimately greater non-dysphoric embodiment to be had. Life saving surgery for example:
- two months without hormones for an extra sixty years of living? In-gender living? Done.
Or, transgender surgery
- a month without hormones for a greater feeling of having my own body for the rest of my life? Yes.
For me transition is primarily a bodily exercise, and secondarily social. Some part of my brain does not get that I do not have a cissexed female body, and as time goes on it gets harder to muffle. I have increasingly frequent moments were I do not understand why I cannot open my mouth and speak in my voice without having to contort my larynx, or what that is in my pants, or why my ovaries don't work (oh... right... I don't have any - I keep forgetting), or I'll lean my head on my hand and think that bone flare shouldn't be there, maybe I should see a doctor - oh right, I am seeing a doctor - that's why I have to be off of hormones soon.
This extends to the point that I forget sometimes which way I'm transitioning. I have a female body, and I'm transitioning, and I feel comfortbale on the FtM spectrum, so I guess that I must be shooting T, right? But I don't want to be a guy. So what am I doing shooting... oh right, I'm going the other way!
Q10. Also, I really liked what you had to say about religion/spirituality in your previous post. Were you raised with religion in your life? Do you have any personal issues/experiences with rejection of or from major relgion (either you reject them, or they reject you)?
I was raised in the United Church of Canada; a liberal Protestant sect with strong ties to social justice issues. our congretation also had aspects that are best described as the mirror image of messianic judiasm, only that we were bascially Christian with some Jewish aspects: Passover, greeting people "Shalom" or "Peace be with you," emphasis on a personal relationship with G-d*, deemphasising the afterlife, etcetera.
Church was one of the loci of our social circles. This said, I found it boring. It also regularly failed to answer my need for investigating supernature. I see how strong this hunger is now, and then I think of how much I, as a literalist twelve-year-old would want answers to questions:
- what happens when we die?**
- how do we know that G-d exists?
- where did the universe come from?
and later on
- prayer: WTF?
- disasters, cancer and so on: WTF?
The United Church, to its credit and its discredit doesn't try to answer such things. As a child, I felt that we were constantly circling the issue without tackling it; that the adults around me were a frustrating impediment to answering some important questions.
So when I was fourteen, I stopped going regularly.
When I was twenty-two or so, I started going to the occasional meeting of Sokka Gakkai International. They're Messianic Buddhists more or less. I liked their beliefs, and still do. But I was turned me off by the organisational culture surrounding them.
Two and a half years after that, I took a class on classical Chinese texts, including the Dao De Jing. Our prof was a Daoist. As is appropirate for Daoism, he didn't try to convert anyone, he was just his affable self and I came around to agreeing with his faith, more or less.
Two and a half years after that, I took a class with a heavy focus on ecstatic states. Then I had a couple.
See here for gender and religion.
*Not to mention spelling G-d with a "-"
** especially important to a child who losthis her his her his a father.
From conversations with another trans friend, this individual expressed a desire to have a society in which they could be comfortable live out their/any gender identity without having to necessarily maintain accompanying outside changes in order to even achieve the small amount of acceptance that they had. They felt at times tired of all the extra work they had to put into who they were, and wanted at times to be able to just let it all hang out and not really have to care so much either way, but felt it impossible in reality. They referenced ancient socities and their acceptance of/idea of a 'third gender'.
Funny you should mention it. I will actually be discontinuing hormones for a short time. Starting in... ten days; lasting for eighteen to twenty -two. I'm not exactly looking forward to it, but because of how I indentify, and how strongly I identify, it doesn't bother me as much as it used to. But I'm only doing it because there's something greater to be had.
(see subsequent post).
I would certainly like to live in a society where you could name your gender and we'd all just get it and honour it. But even if this was the case, I would still be changing my sex.
(I think that this hypothetical is one of the best questions to ask if you're trying to tell whether you should change your sex.)
I am in awe of societies that accept transgender without body modification, and I can see how that could do wonders for transgendered people and cisgendered people, but I can't see myself feeling non-dysphoric without body modification.
I understand the feeling of exhaustion. I remember feeling thank G-d that I have more faith in my own gender identity, because I need something to give me a break from the stress of transition. It feels like it never ends. It also feels like I am over the hump now, and it's heavy maintenance rather than renovations (and I'm looknig forward to light/negligible maintenance) .
(and now the short answer) I might slow down if I was burning out, but I would never give up physically transitioning. Not under any circumstances. Not if my life depended on it.
I would take a break only if I though that there was ultimately greater non-dysphoric embodiment to be had. Life saving surgery for example:
- two months without hormones for an extra sixty years of living? In-gender living? Done.
Or, transgender surgery
- a month without hormones for a greater feeling of having my own body for the rest of my life? Yes.
For me transition is primarily a bodily exercise, and secondarily social. Some part of my brain does not get that I do not have a cissexed female body, and as time goes on it gets harder to muffle. I have increasingly frequent moments were I do not understand why I cannot open my mouth and speak in my voice without having to contort my larynx, or what that is in my pants, or why my ovaries don't work (oh... right... I don't have any - I keep forgetting), or I'll lean my head on my hand and think that bone flare shouldn't be there, maybe I should see a doctor - oh right, I am seeing a doctor - that's why I have to be off of hormones soon.
This extends to the point that I forget sometimes which way I'm transitioning. I have a female body, and I'm transitioning, and I feel comfortbale on the FtM spectrum, so I guess that I must be shooting T, right? But I don't want to be a guy. So what am I doing shooting... oh right, I'm going the other way!
Q10. Also, I really liked what you had to say about religion/spirituality in your previous post. Were you raised with religion in your life? Do you have any personal issues/experiences with rejection of or from major relgion (either you reject them, or they reject you)?
I was raised in the United Church of Canada; a liberal Protestant sect with strong ties to social justice issues. our congretation also had aspects that are best described as the mirror image of messianic judiasm, only that we were bascially Christian with some Jewish aspects: Passover, greeting people "Shalom" or "Peace be with you," emphasis on a personal relationship with G-d*, deemphasising the afterlife, etcetera.
Church was one of the loci of our social circles. This said, I found it boring. It also regularly failed to answer my need for investigating supernature. I see how strong this hunger is now, and then I think of how much I, as a literalist twelve-year-old would want answers to questions:
- what happens when we die?**
- how do we know that G-d exists?
- where did the universe come from?
and later on
- prayer: WTF?
- disasters, cancer and so on: WTF?
The United Church, to its credit and its discredit doesn't try to answer such things. As a child, I felt that we were constantly circling the issue without tackling it; that the adults around me were a frustrating impediment to answering some important questions.
So when I was fourteen, I stopped going regularly.
When I was twenty-two or so, I started going to the occasional meeting of Sokka Gakkai International. They're Messianic Buddhists more or less. I liked their beliefs, and still do. But I was turned me off by the organisational culture surrounding them.
Two and a half years after that, I took a class on classical Chinese texts, including the Dao De Jing. Our prof was a Daoist. As is appropirate for Daoism, he didn't try to convert anyone, he was just his affable self and I came around to agreeing with his faith, more or less.
Two and a half years after that, I took a class with a heavy focus on ecstatic states. Then I had a couple.
See here for gender and religion.
*Not to mention spelling G-d with a "-"
** especially important to a child who lost
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I didn't really grow up with religion, we never went to church, but my parents (mainly my mom) expected us to believe in god, and I read the bible a lot as a kid.
As a teenager, i rejected the idea of religion in general, and especially Christianity, especially because the area of the suburbs I grew up in were very Evangelical and that scared me, a lot.
After I met my recent boyfriend though, I was introduced the the Anglican Church, specifically the cathedral downtown. Although I had rejected religion, I understood the need for spirituality and moral focus (outside of mainstream society) and was fairly well read in these issues. This church was the only place I'd ever been in my life wehre I felt that my ideas were wrong - in fact, their approach to theology felt more like tibetan buddhism than any Christianity I knew. It blew my mind and has changed my life.
Anyways, they are very open minded and their approach to spirituality and education of parishoners is amazing - last year they had a prof from UBC who taught religious studies and was an expert on Islam come and do a 6 week series on the Koran. It was amazing.
Anyways, if you are looking to get the "organized" back in your spriritual life, you may want to give this place a try. They were the first church in Canada to bless homosexual unions, the head of the church is an openly gay man, and seriously it is an amazing place.
Anyways, I'm not trying to evangelize, but I do know what its like to crave a spriritual life and feel like there is no place to go.