Something I Cannot Give

Not at all. We’re simply asking that you stop forcing an “identity” onto other people’s body parts, and that you stop “identifying” as the body parts of another person.

You say this: “Transsexuals who elect to get the operation, do so because they hate the male genitalia for causing society to force them to act like men.”
 
What we are suggesting is that you go against patriarchal society and act any way you want without attributing particular characteristics, feelings, thoughts and attributes to one’s body. And certainly not to the bodies of other people against their wishes. Body parts are simply body parts. Please help us to spread self-love and acceptance for our bodies just as they are without imposing surgical amputations on them or insisting that certain behaviors or characteristics are caused by our body parts. You are male because you have male reproductive organs. If you want to be a feminine man, or wear pretty dresses, or anything else non-steriotypical- please do! Enjoy! Be our ally!
-- FAB4Life, “Transwomen” Are Merely Castrated Men"

  I really need to stop responding to this hate, but when someone attacks your identity as FAB4Life did above, although with disguised good graces, I can't hold back. My last series of replies were:

You are asking something of me that I cannot give.
I wish I could. What you are suggesting is to deny my identity, my emotions, my state of consciousness. I would never ask the same of you.

I live comfortably now 24/7. I first repressed these emotions because I first didn’t know I could transition. What little male I was able to resurrect from myself had no ability to grow spiritually. My innermost body ached with the knowledge that my genitals were wrong, and I suppressed those feelings as long as I could because people would think I was crazy. Soon gone was my hope of self-transitioning hippy-style through college, when I suddenly found myself in the military reserve just to pay my bills. The first thing I missed was my long hair being shorn off.

I went active because my job sucked. When I got out of the military at 25, I fell in love with an Asian woman, and we had a child on the way before I had a chance to tell her I envied her, like I envied the breasts of my school mates when I was 10, knowing I would never have them and be forced apart from my true friends forever. After 10 years of marriage, the need to be female had gotten so strong that I started seeing a counselor.

I tried going to meetings wearing a pretty dress and being a feminine man to save my marriage, but believe me, the others were men to me, playing Tea Party. It was fun for a time, but I needed to express myself as myself in reality.

At a Unitarian church, I was able to finally emerge, like a butterfly from a cocoon. Meanwhile, I had started taking hormones because I found out that a testosterone-inhibiting drug I was taking for blood pressure was relieving my anxiety. The effect of the estrogen hitting my brain was like a starved child receiving the sweetest candy in the world.

As my identity also emerged, I found a new level of spirituality in myself, saw my functionality increasing and was better able to interact with people. So much so that I soon found myself the greeting coordinator of a church in Louisville, Kentucky.

I began hearing that my femininity was strong enough to be cut like a knife. My sister eagerly embrace her new big sister. And I could feel when people thought of me as female, creating in me a reverberation to match, unlike the constant anxiety I feel when people uphold male expectations of me.

This sense of identity was so strong that, after I spent 3 days being emotionally and physically abused by two men a month after I went full time, I was more determined than ever to not repress my feelings again. My sense of running away from who I was in times passed shattered.

I took a chance with my career and transitioned on the job shortly after. My productivity increased as I was no longer living two lives, and being the person I was meant to be.

My confidence with myself led me into relationships with men and women, but I could not emotionally consummate the relationship because what was between my legs was not what was supposed to be there in my mind to love them with. To consummate anything sexually all my life, I have had to let myself experience the contradictory sense of the genitalia my mind insisted was there, instead of what I could see with my eyes.

I have known since I was little I was not a boy, yet I felt blank because I couldn’t acknowledge what I felt. This May, I am getting surgery. I don’t like living in between.

I live life pretty much like any other woman at my job. I typically wear what’s next in my closet, whether it’s a skirt or slacks, (although I have more skirts), I force my razor to last a week, even though it’s already dull, I update the polish on my nails every three weeks, and my toenails are a couple of weeks past due, I get horrible cramps about every 4 to 6 weeks and the morning sickness that lasts for almost 24 hours that goes with it.

Yet, this is my identity. I am not a man, nor am I a crossdresser, I am who I am, I live in the feminine zone, even though it requires more work and more harassment, because I am more comfortable there and I can now get along with the boys. I better, since I am a programmer.

My goals are for the acceptance of everyone the way they are, for people to be treated with the inherent worth and dignity they deserve, and to break the heteronormative agenda.

Is that truly different from yours?

You want an Ally as do I, but in order to have an ally you must trust them and understand that their point of view is just as valid as yours. I accept that I am biologically male. Can you accept and respect that I am psychologically and emotionally a woman?

If not, then I fear I cannot trust you as an ally for the higher cause of oppression against all people who are either born as women or identify as women and I wish you luck.