WillSheKnow
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I Know free porn video
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I KNOW
Copyright (c) 2001 by Kim EM
All rights reserved
Who am I?
What am I?
I moved into a new demographic group this week, something I seem
to be doing with dismaying regularity of late. Well, okay, some
of the changes aren't all that unwelcome. For instance, this is
the first birthday I'm celebrating as myself. "He" seems to have
stopped having them-- matter of fact, crises of confidence aside,
"He" doesn't seem to show up anymore.
It's my first birthday legally female, something I'd ached for,
for more years than I care to remember. Before, even as recently
as last year, for all the celebration of a birthday, there was
the bitter knowledge that another year had passed while I was
still just hoping and dreaming, and that I was still hiding my
true face away from the world. This year, for the first time,
that's gone.
I'm ME, Goddamnit! For the first time, now and forever, I'm
finally able to be ME!
One thing I've spotted amongst T*-persons, they all have a
tremendous inner need for validation. Generally for a very long
time they sensed something "different" about themselves from the
mainstream. For some, this difference has been an irritant since
early childhood, for others it was realized in adulthood. A lot
of persons might even have not been able to define that
"difference" for quite a while, merely knowing it exists.
Eventually, though, they start figuring it out. They have a need
to dress as the opposite gender, privately or publicly... or they
need to find ways to express themselves, one way or another, as
the opposite gender. In more extreme cases, the person comes to
the realization that, mirrors notwithstanding, they ARE of the
opposite gender from the one their genetics and physical
appearance dictate.
Everyone has an ego, some more well-developed than others, but
it's always there. And every last person has a self-image they
need to maintain. EVERYONE. No exception. No matter how timid or
down on themselves they are, no matter how much self-hatred they
seem to express, there is that self-image, and the need to
preserve it at all costs.
In some cultures, "face" is an important concept. One cannot, for
any reason, "lose face". Okay, there are some cultures on the
planet where "face" seems the paramount goal, but in reality it's
every culture, everywhere, every person who needs to preserve
their "face".
So (assuming we're talking about someone M-to-F here, to whatever
degree), society and the world is telling person "A" that they
are male, and should act male ("Take it like a man, damnit!"),
and that a man is strong and important, and a woman is weak and
less than a man... Yeah, it's a bad, old stereotype, and it's
still the message that boys get.
And the person, on the inside where it counts, feels anything but
"manly". And what they feel like is something they have been
taught is "less" than what they are expected to be. They're
taught that what they need, what they are, is a degradation of
their selves.
Even in popular culture, the message is there. Crossdressers are
faggots and fairies and sissies. People who've had "sex changes"
are freaks and perverts. And heaven forefend they should ever be
in a position where they have contact with children! Heaven knows
what the degenerate might do!
Someone (our hypothetical "person A") sees all this, and gets the
message. They might believe it outright or dismiss it out of
hand, but at some level the message sticks.... what they need,
what they are, there's something horribly wrong with them.
Something they should be ashamed of.
Yeah, the message is horseshit. So?
The popular image of people with gender differences comes from an
era when people tried to put moral approbation on medical issues,
if they even recognized them as medical.
To vent on a tangent here: Insurance companies still provide
lesser benefits for people with "psychological" problems than
they do for "medical" ones. Why? Aside from the fact they it's a
way to cut their claims payouts, it's accepted because somehow
psychological ailments are somehow "less worthy" than purely
medical ones. This ignores the fact that many-- most?--
psychological issues are caused by brain chemistry, not from
moral failings.
Matter of fact, it's the rare insurance company that provides
coverage for "treatment" of transsexuality. Why? Because they see
it as something someone does voluntarily, frivolously, for
cosmetic reasons. Because in their arrogance they think that
someone would transition and want to have their genitals
corrected for reasons of sexual gratification.
And there's another club on the ego of someone who is
"different". With so many blows to the ego, its no wonder so many
transgendered folks have crappy self-images. I don't except
myself from this:
As wonderful as my parents were, I took lots and lots and lots of
body blows from those around me growing up, sometimes in the
literal sense. From second grade onward, I was treated as
"different" by the other kids in school. I know a lot of the
treatment stemmed from the actions of a certain teacher (thank
you, Sister Lea) and kids picking up on the signals that it was
okay to pick on me. I never knew the nature of the difference, I
just knew it was there. Before the age of twelve I did have some
clue (but not much more than that) about my gender differences,
but after the events of Thanksgiving week 1967, I pretty much
lost all that during my teenage years. (You can find more detail
on that elsewhere.)
So, is it any wonder that, after being told repeatedly and
forcefully over many years that I was basically a waste of
perfectly good air, I didn't have a very high opinion of myself?
It wasn't until my sophomore year in college, where I was
somewhere that nobody knew me or my past, that I didn't have that
burden any more.
As I grew up, too, over the years I absorbed the message from the
media that the transgendered (not that such a word existed back
then) were freaks, fitting subjects for humor and derision.
And in college, when I put all the pieces together, and figured
out what and who I was, I was pretty upset with myself and the
cruelties of fate. Like I didn't have enough problems, I had this
to deal with too? I hadn't figured out that pretty much all the
other stuff stemmed from this one source.
Once I had figured things out, putting things pretty much back to
where they were at the age of twelve, then came the question of
what to do about it. Remember, I'd grown up with the messages
that the transgendered were some sort of perverts, mainly meant
to be the object of ridicule (Does anyone remember jokes about
"making a trip to Denmark"?).
I'm sure there are people who are able and happy to crossdress in
the privacy of their homes. For them, I'd guess things aren't so
hard, since they can do what they need at minimal risk of
discovery and condemnation. Anyone beyond that point takes a lot
more risks. And if someone isn't a crossdresser, but feels the
need to transition, well, it's not just the risk of discovery,
there's a guarantee.
Parents will know, at what godawful risk? Relatives, friends...
and of course strangers who can "read" one as being physically
male. What will they think? What will they say? What, in God's
name will they DO?
The fear is tremendous, even in 'normal' circumstances, but when
one has spent the past nineteen years having the ego smashed
flat, the possibility that what little support there is will
vanish is just too much to bear.
I applaud those who were able to get past all this and transition
at an early age. I couldn't. I knew what was going to have to be
done, and I just couldn't face up to the people involved. After
everything that had happened, it was just too much to be faced,
the idea of telling anyone about it and opening myself up to
further ridicule and scorn.
So I kept it quiet and did what little research was possible in
those days. In the mid 1970's, even a big-city library or
university library had maybe four items that showed up in the
subject catalogue as "Change of Sex". There were no other
categories at the time, and no Internet to get information,
either.
Even those four items? Usually there'd be one with an article
that had at least a few nuggets of information, and the other
three, despite being theoretically on the shelves were among the
'missing'. Of the stuff that I WAS able to find, a
disproportionately large part was written either by or about John
Money. At the time he was a respected researcher; nowadays he's
considered to have been clueless and tragically wrong.
I was 26 before I was able to tell anyone about it. He was my
roommate and best friend, and later my business partner. It took
me the best part of an evening to be able to haltingly tell him,
and, wonder-of-wonders, he didn't freak.
Tom took the news pretty calmly, actually. After the big build-
up, as difficult as it was for me to force the words out, I
suspect he thought it was going to be something much worse. ("You
hid the body WHERE?")
That was at least a small validation. I'd finally told him and he
was still my friend. Maybe it might be possible to open up just a
little... not much, but....
It took me close to three years, but I finally had resolved to
tell my mom. As I've told before, there was finally the right
place, the right time, and then I discovered that I just couldn't
go through with it. I couldn't face the possibilities of her
disappointment in me. As it turns out, I never did find the
courage to tell her.
It all goes back to the question of maintaining "face". After
having been so universally disregarded and despised, and then
having had things somewhat better when I'd reached adulthood,
maintaining people's regard for me became all-important. I
couldn't face the possibility of going back to that place where
everyone thought I was kind of strange.
It took me a long time to get over that. Long time? Yeah. I came
out to a few people, privately, in the late 1980's. In the early
90's I got involved with a gender program in Milwaukee, went
through all the sessions and groups and testing, and finally had
a firm diagnosis (which, of course, only confirmed what I'd known
all along).
I was married at the time, something that in hindsight was a
mistake. I was in love with her and she with me, but we both had
issues, and in the late 90's things fell apart. Yes, she knew
about my gender issues, since before we were married, and at the
time that was not a problem for her. Later it became one.
In early 1994 I was finally recommended for hormones, and that's
when Teri started throwing up barriers. She started showing
reluctance, and ultimately flat-out begged me to not go ahead
with things. To please her, and to avoid her disapproval I put
the prescriptions aside and dropped out of the program, figuring
that at best I'd be able to eventually resume, and at worst I was
fated to remain in male form.
We broke up in 1997, and I started thinking about moving forward
again. By early 2000 I'd made my decision and started taking
steps. It had been roughly 25 years since I rediscovered my
'gender differences'. Over the course of 2000 I started
positioning myself for the transition, and in January 2001 I
started living full-time as a woman.
To put it more simply, I wasted 25 years of my life trying to
work up the courage to do what I needed to do, just because I was
afraid of the opinions of others. Parents, spouse, friends, total
strangers; the opinions of all of them outweighed my need to
assert my true gender.
I've had one friend tell me repeatedly that I'm better off for
not transitioning early, as she did, because over that quarter
century I was able to build a good career.
I seriously doubt it. Yeah, I made good money, and had stuff, but
I was never happy. How does the biblical line go about profiting
the world at the cost of one's own soul? And besides, now, at the
end of the 25 years, what to I have to show for them? Not stuff,
that's for sure. I've basically got my personal effects and
that's about it. I've got memories, some good some bad, and a
load of experience in things that nobody wants. The only thing I
have of value to show for the past 25 years are my friends.
Truth be told, using 20-20 hindsight, I'd much rather have
transitioned in 1975 and spend time struggling for a career. The
time spent as the person I should have always been would have
been immensely better than the time I wasted wishing and
dreaming.
I know that, given the upbringing I had, the way my ego had been
mangled throughout school, it was impossible for me to do back
then. As it is, it took me 25 years to undo enough damage from
2nd through 12th grade for me to finally move forward.
So I spent the time from before my 20th birthday until my 45th
cursing the fates, and watching the long years tick by. Each
birthday that passed I saw my dream dimming and the chances of my
living out my life, as I should diminishing.
I just had my 46th birthday, and I finally was able to see a
birthday where I no longer had to wait and dream. This was the
best and happiest birthday I've had in many, many years. Yeah, my
career has vanished, and this HAS been a tough year. I know,
though, that in the larger scheme of things, these problems are
ephemeral. Being myself, living as myself at last, this is
something that will endure. The problems of self-image that had
kept me away from myself for so many years are finally gone.
Blaze
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