I am hesitant to post in this thread, but oh well, I'm going to do it...
1. I am transgender--male to female.
2. I am also a veteran of the US Army with a tour of Iraq from Operation Desert Shield/Storm on my service record.
My hope is that everyone reads this and attempts to put themselves into my position. It is long, but please read it all. All of my experiences are of male to female transitioning. Females transitioning to males can have completely different experiences.
I have a rather long, and complicated story so I won't dive too deep, just enough to give my thoughts. This is an incredibly broad topic with seemingly an infinite number of things I could say regarding my experiences. I want to start by prefacing that every thing I say here is my personal experience and I do not speak for anyone other than myself. I know a lot of transgender people have had many similar experiences to me, but that does not mean it is uniform across all experiences.
I have so many jumbled thoughts here, I am struggling with trying to put them into a logical, and coherent order.
The scene in The Last Jedi, where Rey says, "There's something inside of me, it's always been there, now it's awake and I don't know what to do with it." That really hit me hard emotionally because I have had these feelings all my life and I had no idea what to do with them. So I did what most other "men" with these feelings do: I buried them. I joined the Army out of high school and while in the Army I did everything I could to be try and be the man society expected me to be. After the Army, I went to college, joined a fraternity, and continued to put up that ultra-male front. But it was all a thin facade. The thoughts and feelings I experienced from the time I was about 6 years old, as I grew older, did not go away. In point of fact, they grew stronger. I did many things, looking back on my life, where I honestly think I was low-key trying to kill myself. I continued to hide, lie to myself, and pretend that these feelings weren't real. That, through sheer force of will, I could ignore these feelings and ride it out. I couldn't and one night several years ago I actually did attempt to kill myself. It was the lowest point in my life. I was broken in every conceivable way: physically, mentally, and emotionally.
Then I started a job where I was making over 5,000 a month. I decided that now was the time time to begin my transition. I went through the entire process to change my name, get everything in my changed over to my female name. Things were progressing well and for the first time in my life I was genuinely happy. I felt so much at ease in my female form. The buzz/noise from thoughts and feelings that I had suppressed for two decades plus finally went silent. I was transitioning, I had a great job, and my life was finally on the upward trajectory I had always dreamed about. Then, the company I worked for unexpectedly closed. It's like the owner one day just said, f*** it, I've made enough money, and I'm done. Just like that, I was out of a job. I thought, no worries, I made some good money, I have some cash reserves, I can get a new job. Well, I couldn't get a new job because literally no one would hire me. I would walk into an interview, I would get "read" as a man in a dress, and the interview would become nothing more than a courtesy. I did manage after a while to get a job as a convenience store clerk. I told the owner that I would come to work as a "male" and pretend, even though all my personal information was under my female name. The worst part was I had to stop my transition because I literally did not make enough money to continue. Just suffice it to say, transitioning is really, really expensive. T-androgen blockers, estrogen, regular visits to the doctor, endocrinologist, therapists...there just wasn't the funds to continue. So I went into a holding pattern of sorts where continued to present as "male" all while having my drivers license, credit cards, social security card, everything in my female persona.
Concurrently, during this time it really opened my eyes to just how much bigotry LBGT people actually go through. I had an instance where I was out with a few friends at a bar downtown. I was of course dressed as my female persona, my driver's license had my female name, etc. I used the women's bathroom as I always did, but that night, I damn near got beat up by a group of guys. What happened was, one of the guy's girlfriend took exception to my using the ladies room. She felt "threatened" even though I was walking out as she was walking in. And the two friends I was with, both tiny 5'3" 110lbs lesbians, would have been no help whatsoever had I needed backup in a fight. Suffice it to say, I high-tailed it out of there because while I can usually handle myself with some bigot one on one, attempting to take on him and three of his friends would more than likely not have ended well. Then there was another instance where I was out shopping at the local mall, minding my own business, and I hear someone shout, "crossdresser." I did not turn around, or look to see who it was that said that, because that would have confirmed to them their suspicions. Neither did I increase my speed of walking, but again figured that it was time to leave before something bad happened. I have so many instances in my life where I am walking down the street, minding my own business, and out of nowhere I get verbally harassed and threatened. Being transgender means you can never let your guard down, even for a second. I may be in a situation where everything is fine, but it can turn into a dangerous, life-threatening, situation in the blink of an eye.
A couple of years ago, with the emergence of these "Bathroom Bills", as if trans women's lives weren't hard enough, and fraught with enough peril, a group of religious, bible-thumping lunatics down in North Carolina literally threw made an entire mountain range out of what had previously been a molehill.. All of a sudden, across the seemingly entire nation, there was a national uproar over transgender women using the bathroom. I'm just here thinking, all I want to do is using the bathroom. All through this, I have altered drastically how I live, who I let into my life, and how I conduct myself socially. I basically refuse to go into any public event where I am in female form. If I want to go to a Nebraska football game, I go in "stealth mode" where I present as a male. I do so because I do not not want any trouble. The irony of these bathroom bills is the proponents say they don't want to uncomfortable with a trans woman in the bathroom with them. It is as if my being uncomfortable their bigotry and stupidity doesn't matter. The weird thing about the entire "bathroom" debate is the fact that females transitioning to males always seems get a pass. I doubt you will never hear any anti-trans bigot say that he doesn't want some female dressed as male in the bathroom with his little boy(s). I mean maybe that has been said, but I haven't heard it--and this is a subject I tend to follow pretty closely. The criticism is always, "I don't want some man in a dress in the bathroom with my little girl(s). The stupidity of these bathroom bills is that the people who advocate for such ludicrous laws don't seem to understand that if someone (regardless of gender) wants to go into a bathroom to commit a crime, such as assault, rape, etc...no law is ever going to stop them. Here is the cold, hard truth: trans women attacking someone in a public bathroom is like the existence of bigfoot: many people claim it is true, but no one has any direct evidence. But let's say it does happen. For literally every one instance of a trans woman attacking someone in a bathroom, I can give you hundreds of examples of straight, cis-gendered people attacking, assaulting, raping, and even murdering trans women. And for trans women of color, the danger of being assaulted and/or murdered is three to four times more likely than if they're white. When I go out now to a restaurant in my female form, I make sure I go to the bathroom before I leave my house and I consciously limit the amount of beverages I consume and I wait until after I get home to go to the bathroom.
But all of this pales in comparison to the nearly 40% suicide rate of trans people. This is a subject that many people talk about, but few actually understand the
why of it. Imagine for a moment that you're constantly told by the larger hetero cis-gendered society that you are:
- an abomination
- sick
- a pervert
- disgusting
- not a "real" woman
- unworthy of being hired for a job, regardless of how qualified you are
- disowned by your parents
- subject to bullying while teachers and other people in positions of authority do nothing to protect you or punish those who bully you
- someone who should be killed and/or eradicated off the planet
- not worthy of any protections under the law
How long would it take you to begin contemplating taking your own life? Larger cis-gendered society talks about the high suicide rate for trans people, but almost none ever want to admit their culpability in it. Because on an individual level, cis-people often don't see how their little footprint is all that big of a deal. But it is a cumulative effect that creates a society where trans people, specifically women, are too often portrayed as pedophiles, sexual deviants, and corrupt, amoral, abominations who will sexually abuse and assault women and little girls at the first chance we get. Nothing could be further from the truth. All I (and I assume all other trans women) want is the freedom to live my (our) life (lives) without being harassed, assaulted, and/or murdered.
Mike Huckabee, in an all too familiar instance of stupidity, has said more than once, "If I had known at age 15, that to get entrance into a girls locker room, all I had to do was pretend to be a girl, I would have have done it."
Mike Huckabee's Idiocy
Mike Huckabee's Idiocy 2
To me, this kind of thinking reveals a mind of a psychopath. To be transgender, here are the absolute minimum things one has to do in the state of Idaho (other jurisdictions may be different) you have to do:
1) Change your name legally which usually involves running an advertisement in a newspaper of record in the county you live in once a week for four weeks.
2) File paper work with the court to schedule a hearing for a name change.
3) Go to doctor for years who specializes in gender dysphoria.
4) See an endocrinologist and be on hormones for years.
5) Get all your personal information changed: social security card, credit card, etc.
6) Put up with the verbal and physical harassment from people like Mike Huckabee.
The biggest irony of all though, is just how much hate, bigotry, and transphobia I encounter on a daily basis from cis-gendered gays and lesbians. I hate to admit it, but in many instances they are just as ignorant and bigoted as Mike Pence, Mike Huckabee, etc. It's the biggest reason why I never go to Pride any more. It sounds weird to say, but I simply do not feel safe at Pride. Being a transgender woman means I literally have a near impossible time trusting anyone. I have encountered people who are nice to my face and behind my back hate my guts. Again, I realize a lot of people experience that, but it is I think far worse and more prevalent for someone like me. A lot of people like to think they're open-minded. But when it is time to put that thinking to the test, they're really not. Being friends with a trans woman carries a social price far too steep for many cis-gendered persons to pay. If you're a guy and you're friends with a trans woman, you'll get asked, "Are you a ****?" There is the social taboo of dating trans women. I don't necessarily think that's wrong or "transphobic" to not want to date trans women because sexual attraction is just who and what you like. But outside of sexual preferences, many cis-gays have just as much hatred towards trans women as the larger hetero society. And in the larger society, I am not singling out hetero republicans here because many supposedly liberal democrats are just as closed-minded and bigoted as others are.
So what does all this mean?
I feel like there are so many more things I could say and worry that I haven't extrapolate enough on the current points I did make.
When I see a beautiful woman, my first thought is always, "I want to BE her." It is never, "Oh I'd like to have sex with her." Well that's not entirely true, but it is probably 5th or 6th on the list. And I like men as well, but definitely prefer women.
Today, I mostly present as "male." I want nothing more to resume, then finish, my transition. But honestly, at this point, I'm not really sure I'll ever get there. I'm now at the age where I'm beginning to think there's no point. That time has passed me by.
In summary, being transgender is not easy. It is "easier" if you are white and have money, but that's true for most everything in America. I guess I am typing all this because I want cis-gendered people on this board (and in overall society also) to realize that we are out there. We are just as normal as you, we have thoughts, feelings, hopes, and dreams just like everyone else.
If anyone has any questions, please feel free to ask.
Edit: I meant to mention this the first time around but with everything else I wanted to say it slipped my mind...
Please do me a small favor: next time you come across a story about a trans woman...
If there are comments left, like on Yahoo or MSN...
If anyone thinks I am joking or exaggerating about what trans women go through...
Please, please, PLEASE take time to read as many of the comments as you can. You will (hopefully) be absolutely appalled at what you read. And the horrible comments won't be from one or two people. The horrible, bigoted comments will come from a large majority of people across presumably all walks of life.
