I held off from transitioning until I was 48. There was certainly no shortage of excuses for me to use and say "not now." There were many times when I was baffled that cis women, heterosexual or otherwise, more often than not couldn't see me as a woman too. In all fairness, not only did I not present in the culturally accepted form of femininity, but I also would rarely claim to be a woman. And the few opportunities that occurred other fears came up, such as losing access to my children, prevailed and I backed down.
Three-plus years into my transition and I'm much happier than I have been in many ways. I do not doubt that I made the right decision for me and would encourage any trans person suffering from dysphoria to seek therapy and seriously consider transitioning, even if it's only socially transitioning. Because transitioning will not mean medical interventions by way of hormones or surgery for everyone. Any work to align your presentation with who you are inside will be sufficient given your individual goals.
If I had to do things over again, would I transition when I was much younger? Ostensibly, yes. But my life experiences have shaped who I am today, and I hope that I have become, and continue to become, a good person. There is certainly no way to tell if that would hold true or not if things had been otherwise. Still, I wish I had made the move to act on following the truth I knew about myself since I was at least 5. Perhaps, if the Many-Worlds Interpretation is true, there are versions of me who did have the courage to transition young and are thriving and happy. I hope so.
You haven't posted anything since 2016, so I have little faith that you'll read this. I hope that things are better for you now. I wonder if you decided to transition in some way after all or if you still try to repress it. And I wonder what the virtue in suffering was that I thought it was worth doing, as you did in your diary entry. I can't speak to your experience with cis feminists, all I know is that misandry, trans misandry, and trans misogyny all spring from misogyny; That some cis men aren't masculine enough, trans men are women wanting to have male privilege by aping masculinity and shrink the supply of "breeding stock," and that trans women aren't even human because they reject some or all of masculinity. Let's face it, the majority of misandry is men inflicting it on other men! But I don't agree that pointing out men's behaviour for being caught up in the patriarchy is an act of misandry.
Those are just my $0.02 CDN.
No comments:
Post a Comment