But actually, the common notion that MtF transitioning takes balls is misguided, and I'd like to expound. That's a pun that isn't, and while I've always felt very free to be different, I was very timid about transition in the beginning.
For most transsexual people, there just comes a time where you know it has to be done. Period. The self-imposed ultimatum of transition or suicide (which I dealt with personally!) happens too often. Having wanted this my whole life, I bawled for six hours straight, out of terror, when I decided to give in and "become" the real me. So it's not often a real choice per se, by most definitions. It's more a cross to bear.
Thankfully, people are usually much more accepting (or just plain quiet) about it than one might assume, especially when going out dressed as yourself for the first time. But it does really help to be stubborn! Most people who begin therapy, and maybe even have a brief stint on hormones, quickly learn that they don't want to transition that badly. Whether this is due more to personal error or societal pressure is hard to say.
So, yeah. I'm not brave, I'm just female enough to have to go through with it. And lucky enough to pass!
Thanks so much for your support of the transgendered. Everyone who offers it. We need all we can get!
I'm sorry about the bad pun. I guess what I was trying to convey was that I'm glad that you and other transgendered people have found the courage to live their lives as opposed to any other ominous directions that one could take.
And as far as I'm concerned, it is a matter of courage, because I'm sure there are people who still live a lie for fear that someone might disapprove. Nobody needs anybody else's approval to be themselves and nobody needs anybody else's approval to be happy.
It's okay, I tend to like bad puns. I've used that one myself.
You are right: I really *could* have chosen the other way, on the other hand, and it probably would've been easier. Maybe it's just a matter of degree. =)
Nummy is right--it's a hugely couragious step to stand up for one's own happiness and well-being. I guess the bravery might come in realizing that you are female and that there's nothing wrong with that. Or rather, accepting the hard road of transition instead of another alternative. Admitting the truth isn't always easy!
Before I forget again, if you have access to Cartoon Network, I strongly recommend watching the episode of The Venture Brothers titled "Assassinanny 911". I believe you'll appreciate it!
Honestly, and this is only semi-related, I never, ever considered "female" or "girl" a negative or anything to be ashamed of at all, though I did worry about how my family would react.
A year or two before my transition, I took a pseudo-scientific online test (not the COGIATI) that claimed to know with "80% certainty" that I was female, a pretty high score for the test. I was so elated that I told my shifty-eyed male friends I hung out with a few minutes later. =)
Oh, and I just loved the episode. Don't want to spoil it for anyone, though!
Hi, Milla. =) This is a little bit of a tangent, but I noticed that you mentioned that most people who begin therapy discover that transition isn't for them.
As I think about and reflect on emotions that I wasn't explicitly aware of feeling, I realize that that is a rather foreign idea to me. The fact of being female has never had any status other than FACT in my head (even during those years when I actively tried to be a guy) and now that I'm formally and fully in transition (HRT, electrolysis, the works) I am experiencing such a natural-feeling sense of contentment with it that I can't imagine the horror of stopping.
So, what you said, along with my feelings, makes me wonder for the first time: What are the statistics on aborted transition (or aborted HRT even)?
Do you know of any sources or studies? Or have you any ideas?
My therapist in Ohio has been in the biz since the 70's. She said something like only one out of 20 of her clients ever made it to surgery, if I remember right.
Even if there was something concrete to cite it would be quite skewed by all the DIY folks! So nobody really knows (or can know) for sure.
But not everyone who starts to transition really needs to; that's why all the safeguards are in place.
Wow, DIY. I actually know people who attempted a DIY Orchi. Me I'm not one of them. The second I had the money, I took myself to Philly, got up on the table and watched as the surgeon removed the two nasty little cocktail onions. One of the greatest days of my life was having them removed.
Now I did start HRT DIY without going through the whole usual route. I was on HRT for about a year before I saw a doctor or a therapist about my situation. Well truth be told, while I've never seen a therapist for GD, and got onto prescription medications by using the harm reduction ethics of the medical community against it. Now, I have an official diagnosis from my therapist and psychiatrist, but only as part of documentation for my mood disorder. (Lucky me, a mood disorder too...) :-o(
Done right, DIY is a wonderful way of getting things started and short cutting the obsessive compulsive part of the SOC. It dramatically reduces the amount of money spent on therapists specifically for SOC reasons.
Now as to taking a knife to one's flesh, it is I'm told so painful that cutting off you own leg is easier. There is a great deal that can go wrong, and room for serious, and life threatening blood loss. Plus the risk for a life threatening staph infection is almost a certainty. So, it's something best left to a doctor. Thankfully there is at least one who WILL do a nice, clean Orchi for 2k. Doctor Kimmel in Philly is a board certified Urologist who's been in practice for decades and does Orchi's pretty much on demand.
I had mine done by him in July of '06 and it was the best 2k I've ever spent on anything. I wrote it up here:
As to transition being something that takes balls, I think of it more as a pun that is, especially back in July of last year when I was having them removed.
I KNOW the torture of sitting there trying to decide what to do, how to live, survive even another year of a life that wasn't mine. In the purest sense of the meaning, it does take balls. Something ironically I never had in my previous existence. Don't get me wrong, I was a crazy DOB (Daughter of a Bastard) when I wa trying to fake it. I did the whole tough guy over the top thing way, way too well because frankly I was insane. Jumping out of planes, walking into firefights, and the list could go on, but it's not the point. When something "takes balls" it more means that you have to have a level of personal fortitude, or as they say in yiddish, Chutzpa.
When I had balls, I really didn't have "balls" or Chutzpa, I was just nuts, crazy, three fries short of a happy meal, WACKO!!! Frankly that's just not the same thing. Curiously enough when I'd been on HRT for a while, I started growing a spine, something I'd never really had. Then I had real balls, even as I was having the physical ones surgically removed.
Yes, taking this route, standing up for what is RIGHT for us, and for the first time in our lives really worrying about ourselves FIRST is an amazing and powerful personal statement. No, it's not easy, nor is it always the right thing for all people to do. However for those of us that this is the RIGHT thing, it's trans-formative on so many powerful levels, in the end it has less to do with gender than we'd have believed starting out.
Me, I'm amazed at where and how my life has gone and what it all means. I thought when I started that my journey was about gender, and while yes, I've unquestionably changed that, it really is so much deeper than that. Freedom, my own, to live, be, and feel what I want, when I want or need to, for reasons all my own. Not having to say "I'm sorry" for how I feel, or what I want or need to do is an amazing thing for me. Having a spine, or "balls" now is okay for me personally, which it never was. So in a way one could easily say I had to have them removed, to get a set!
As to who does, or doesn't finish transition, it's such a strange numbers game and because it isn't taken seriously there's precious little data to make sense out of it all. Recent looks at this subject by experts reveal some startling numbers and point to why it's become a hot button topic politically. Roughly it is figured that 1 in 100 people are suffering from some level of "atypical" gender identification, and 1 in 300 go on to have surgery. Which means if you get 1200 people at a concert, 4 will have had surgery or be well on their way to it, and a DOZEN will not be either fully male, or fully female.
My own experience since I started my own journey bears this out. You don't really think about how many people buy a particular car until you have a reason for it to be in focus in your mind. Then when it is, either you're about to buy one, or just did, you notice how many are the road with you.
For all the years I actively FOUGHT transitioning, I thought I was a freak and all alone. I live in a small suburban area of Jersey for the moment, though I'm moving back to Denver in the next couple of months, and I'm simply amazed how NOT alone I am. I've met, or at least seen, a couple of dozen people in my town who have, or are transitioning. It's amazing.
So I think it comes down to awareness, and how the whole thing works. I mean honestly I'd have missed being an official statistic diagnostically if I didn't have other issues in my life. I've been seeing a therapist now for four years, and a psychiatrist for two of them, but official diagnosis of "GID:NOS" was kind of an after thought, just part of the paperwork when I was applying for disability. So, yeah, I'm officially GID:NOS but never had therapy for it, and started on HRT DIY before I even started therapy.
It's kind of amazing how many people just deal with it and move on. How many women (and men) go on to perfectly normal lives after transition, and how quickly it becomes something that is part of our past. I had a wart once, went to the dr, had it dealt with, but it doesn't define me. I used to be (way past tense) a guy, but that doesn't define me. I'm just a 40 something woman dealing with life, and that is a full time job right now.
I have friends now that never knew I was a guy, and don't even believe it was possible. Never wanted to go into stealth, honestly wanted to be a bit more of an activist than I am, but right now it just isn't a big enough part of my life. So I meet people, get to know them, build relationships and it's not really anything that ever needs to be brought up. Like my wart, it's in the past.
So I guess my question would more be, how many people DON'T start therapy but DO change their gender?
Testicular Fortitude - 07/27/06 03:33 AM
A reader (and Stumbleupon friend) recently posted kind words of support for me and the transgender community at large. Thank you, Nummy!
But actually, the common notion that MtF transitioning takes balls is misguided, and I'd like to expound. That's a pun that isn't, and while I've always felt very free to be different, I was very timid about transition in the beginning.
For most transsexual people, there just comes a time where you know it has to be done. Period. The self-imposed ultimatum of transition or suicide (which I dealt with personally!) happens too often. Having wanted this my whole life, I bawled for six hours straight, out of terror, when I decided to give in and "become" the real me. So it's not often a real choice per se, by most definitions. It's more a cross to bear.
Thankfully, people are usually much more accepting (or just plain quiet) about it than one might assume, especially when going out dressed as yourself for the first time. But it does really help to be stubborn! Most people who begin therapy, and maybe even have a brief stint on hormones, quickly learn that they don't want to transition that badly. Whether this is due more to personal error or societal pressure is hard to say.
So, yeah. I'm not brave, I'm just female enough to have to go through with it. And lucky enough to pass!
Thanks so much for your support of the transgendered. Everyone who offers it. We need all we can get!
Posted in transition by Milla | Comments (9)
I'm sorry about the bad pun. I guess what I was trying to convey was that I'm glad that you and other transgendered people have found the courage to live their lives as opposed to any other ominous directions that one could take.
And as far as I'm concerned, it is a matter of courage, because I'm sure there are people who still live a lie for fear that someone might disapprove. Nobody needs anybody else's approval to be themselves and nobody needs anybody else's approval to be happy.
Posted by nummy at August 1, 2006 10:16 PM
It's okay, I tend to like bad puns. I've used that one myself.
You are right: I really *could* have chosen the other way, on the other hand, and it probably would've been easier. Maybe it's just a matter of degree. =)
Posted by Milla at August 2, 2006 01:26 AM
Nummy is right--it's a hugely couragious step to stand up for one's own happiness and well-being. I guess the bravery might come in realizing that you are female and that there's nothing wrong with that. Or rather, accepting the hard road of transition instead of another alternative. Admitting the truth isn't always easy!
Before I forget again, if you have access to Cartoon Network, I strongly recommend watching the episode of The Venture Brothers titled "Assassinanny 911". I believe you'll appreciate it!
Posted by patita at August 2, 2006 10:15 AM
Honestly, and this is only semi-related, I never, ever considered "female" or "girl" a negative or anything to be ashamed of at all, though I did worry about how my family would react.
A year or two before my transition, I took a pseudo-scientific online test (not the COGIATI) that claimed to know with "80% certainty" that I was female, a pretty high score for the test. I was so elated that I told my shifty-eyed male friends I hung out with a few minutes later. =)
Oh, and I just loved the episode. Don't want to spoil it for anyone, though!
Posted by Milla at August 2, 2006 04:15 PM
Hi, Milla. =) This is a little bit of a tangent, but I noticed that you mentioned that most people who begin therapy discover that transition isn't for them.
As I think about and reflect on emotions that I wasn't explicitly aware of feeling, I realize that that is a rather foreign idea to me. The fact of being female has never had any status other than FACT in my head (even during those years when I actively tried to be a guy) and now that I'm formally and fully in transition (HRT, electrolysis, the works) I am experiencing such a natural-feeling sense of contentment with it that I can't imagine the horror of stopping.
So, what you said, along with my feelings, makes me wonder for the first time: What are the statistics on aborted transition (or aborted HRT even)?
Do you know of any sources or studies? Or have you any ideas?
Posted by Gwen at August 3, 2006 04:01 PM
My therapist in Ohio has been in the biz since the 70's. She said something like only one out of 20 of her clients ever made it to surgery, if I remember right.
Even if there was something concrete to cite it would be quite skewed by all the DIY folks! So nobody really knows (or can know) for sure.
But not everyone who starts to transition really needs to; that's why all the safeguards are in place.
Posted by Milla at August 3, 2006 04:20 PM
DIY? I just got this horrible image in my mind of someone sitting at home with a scalpel in their hand..... :S
Posted by surrealmonk at August 3, 2006 10:19 PM
Eek! =P
Posted by Milla at August 5, 2006 06:03 AM
Wow, DIY. I actually know people who attempted a DIY Orchi. Me I'm not one of them. The second I had the money, I took myself to Philly, got up on the table and watched as the surgeon removed the two nasty little cocktail onions. One of the greatest days of my life was having them removed.
Now I did start HRT DIY without going through the whole usual route. I was on HRT for about a year before I saw a doctor or a therapist about my situation. Well truth be told, while I've never seen a therapist for GD, and got onto prescription medications by using the harm reduction ethics of the medical community against it. Now, I have an official diagnosis from my therapist and psychiatrist, but only as part of documentation for my mood disorder. (Lucky me, a mood disorder too...) :-o(
Done right, DIY is a wonderful way of getting things started and short cutting the obsessive compulsive part of the SOC. It dramatically reduces the amount of money spent on therapists specifically for SOC reasons.
Now as to taking a knife to one's flesh, it is I'm told so painful that cutting off you own leg is easier. There is a great deal that can go wrong, and room for serious, and life threatening blood loss. Plus the risk for a life threatening staph infection is almost a certainty. So, it's something best left to a doctor. Thankfully there is at least one who WILL do a nice, clean Orchi for 2k. Doctor Kimmel in Philly is a board certified Urologist who's been in practice for decades and does Orchi's pretty much on demand.
I had mine done by him in July of '06 and it was the best 2k I've ever spent on anything. I wrote it up here:
http://www.greeneyedggirl.com/~samantha/Kimmel-orchi.html
As to transition being something that takes balls, I think of it more as a pun that is, especially back in July of last year when I was having them removed.
I KNOW the torture of sitting there trying to decide what to do, how to live, survive even another year of a life that wasn't mine. In the purest sense of the meaning, it does take balls. Something ironically I never had in my previous existence. Don't get me wrong, I was a crazy DOB (Daughter of a Bastard) when I wa trying to fake it. I did the whole tough guy over the top thing way, way too well because frankly I was insane. Jumping out of planes, walking into firefights, and the list could go on, but it's not the point. When something "takes balls" it more means that you have to have a level of personal fortitude, or as they say in yiddish, Chutzpa.
When I had balls, I really didn't have "balls" or Chutzpa, I was just nuts, crazy, three fries short of a happy meal, WACKO!!! Frankly that's just not the same thing. Curiously enough when I'd been on HRT for a while, I started growing a spine, something I'd never really had. Then I had real balls, even as I was having the physical ones surgically removed.
Yes, taking this route, standing up for what is RIGHT for us, and for the first time in our lives really worrying about ourselves FIRST is an amazing and powerful personal statement. No, it's not easy, nor is it always the right thing for all people to do. However for those of us that this is the RIGHT thing, it's trans-formative on so many powerful levels, in the end it has less to do with gender than we'd have believed starting out.
Me, I'm amazed at where and how my life has gone and what it all means. I thought when I started that my journey was about gender, and while yes, I've unquestionably changed that, it really is so much deeper than that. Freedom, my own, to live, be, and feel what I want, when I want or need to, for reasons all my own. Not having to say "I'm sorry" for how I feel, or what I want or need to do is an amazing thing for me. Having a spine, or "balls" now is okay for me personally, which it never was. So in a way one could easily say I had to have them removed, to get a set!
As to who does, or doesn't finish transition, it's such a strange numbers game and because it isn't taken seriously there's precious little data to make sense out of it all. Recent looks at this subject by experts reveal some startling numbers and point to why it's become a hot button topic politically. Roughly it is figured that 1 in 100 people are suffering from some level of "atypical" gender identification, and 1 in 300 go on to have surgery. Which means if you get 1200 people at a concert, 4 will have had surgery or be well on their way to it, and a DOZEN will not be either fully male, or fully female.
My own experience since I started my own journey bears this out. You don't really think about how many people buy a particular car until you have a reason for it to be in focus in your mind. Then when it is, either you're about to buy one, or just did, you notice how many are the road with you.
For all the years I actively FOUGHT transitioning, I thought I was a freak and all alone. I live in a small suburban area of Jersey for the moment, though I'm moving back to Denver in the next couple of months, and I'm simply amazed how NOT alone I am. I've met, or at least seen, a couple of dozen people in my town who have, or are transitioning. It's amazing.
So I think it comes down to awareness, and how the whole thing works. I mean honestly I'd have missed being an official statistic diagnostically if I didn't have other issues in my life. I've been seeing a therapist now for four years, and a psychiatrist for two of them, but official diagnosis of "GID:NOS" was kind of an after thought, just part of the paperwork when I was applying for disability. So, yeah, I'm officially GID:NOS but never had therapy for it, and started on HRT DIY before I even started therapy.
It's kind of amazing how many people just deal with it and move on. How many women (and men) go on to perfectly normal lives after transition, and how quickly it becomes something that is part of our past. I had a wart once, went to the dr, had it dealt with, but it doesn't define me. I used to be (way past tense) a guy, but that doesn't define me. I'm just a 40 something woman dealing with life, and that is a full time job right now.
I have friends now that never knew I was a guy, and don't even believe it was possible. Never wanted to go into stealth, honestly wanted to be a bit more of an activist than I am, but right now it just isn't a big enough part of my life. So I meet people, get to know them, build relationships and it's not really anything that ever needs to be brought up. Like my wart, it's in the past.
So I guess my question would more be, how many people DON'T start therapy but DO change their gender?
Sam
Posted by Samantha at September 17, 2007 09:32 PM