Sometime, almost a dozen years ago, I entered the world of TG fiction. spent most of that time living vicariously through online personalities and through fictional characters (most of my own creation, though I still get a kick out of Kelly Girl). I figured that would be enough for me and wasted my time by living in a fantasy and not having a real life.
Now take it back a year. That is when I first came out to someone in real life about me being trans. If you don't remember correctly, that didn't go so well, but it also did go well. Even though the people I came out to did a lot of not so nice stuff to me, it was still a very important first step. With that step I started counseling and I think that really began my journey from the make believe into reality. Within months I started taking hormones and thought that would be enough.
I was wrong. Just taking hormones wasn't enough, but I still was in the closet to most outside of my internet family. I thought I would remain there. Then came December. Do you remember December? I certainly do. My friend John from H.S. was coming to move in with me and I thought I was going to have to box Katie away for a while. But I couldn't do it. It was too much too bear and I came out to them too, and subsequently, everyone else.
Then came January. Can you believe I met someone? Wow. Thanks Dorothy, again (If there is a wedding you're flying in, I don't care if I have to lend you my broomstick). Now I am someones girlfriend. I never saw that one coming.
So, now on to the dilemma. There are a few old ways of thinking that I haven't gotten past. Perhaps it is that I looked at the old story and had a little bit of a fall out. But this thinking has been for a few weeks.
When I transitioned, I posted a few photos. The response has been all good and that is staggering. People have called me pretty, beautiful and gorgeous (Felix, my bf especially likes that one). But when I hear all of that, all I can think is "ARE YOU BLIND".
Maybe in my prime I made an attractive male. A few hundred pounds and before a knee injury took me away from working out 8 hours a day. But, as a woman, I have to agree with my roommate on this one, I am never going to even pass, none the less look pretty. The best I can hope for is to not stand out.
People at church accept me as female. I appreciate that. But I don't think I'm fooling anyone for a second. People tell me to wait for the estrogen, lose a few pounds, get more electrolysis, but that fact remains that I don't have the goods. I'm happy with who I am. I don't have to be pretty to be me. Let's be honest about where I stand though.
And don't tell me I'm pretty on the inside. I'm yuckier on the inside, I should know. I have long since come to the conclusion that the reason people take advantage of me and treat me poorly is because I am no damn good. I have a lot of anger, am short tempered, and self centered. I hope to take care of that, but that is where i am now.
So, if you want to be kind, just tell me that I am marginally not completely ugly and I will say thank you.
EOM
Comments
Stop it
Dear Katie
Stop it, darnit (in respect for your beliefs I won't use the other word). Stop beating yourself up. It is not good for you in any way. What or better whom do you want to be? A passable women, or something else. Physically, we on this site only know that aspect of you by your pictures. If those pictures are honest and not photoshopped, then you look like millions of other women your age, who are, I will use the yiddish word zoftigh (when used as a compliment it means pleasingly plump). And the person portrayed is passable. If you want something more, a model, a beauty queen, then you know that is not you, as it is not 99.9% of all generic girls.
There is no way for us to know if the women you present yourself as, also has the voice, poise and movements to pass. Perhaps yes, perhaps no. If yes, get out there and shake it. If, no and you have to be the girl you are in the safety of your home for now, that does not mean you are ugly, or even partly ugly. It just means a) you need to be the girl you are inside, or b) learn what you need to know to go outside more often.
Don't listen to your roommate. His opinion is meaningless. He most likely remembers you as the wrestler in H.S. and won't except the difference. All he wants is to mooch off you.
Rami
RAMI
Incorrect!
(the title should sound, in your head, like Vizzini from Princess Bride)
I severely object to your reasoning. The reason people take advantage of you and treat you poorly, is that there's an advantage to them in doing so. I'd suspect that the advantage is related to your poor self-esteem ("no damn good") and your subsequent behaviour as a doormat. If you look/act like prey, predators will predate upon you.
Good! These are good places to start.
Ellen, 22nd level Necromancer of Threads
what about ....
Did you ever think they see your spirit and are telling you that you are beautiful for that reasonn. I have meet many people who are not physically beautiful, and yet when I look at them I know they are "beautiful".
THink about it.
Kendra Manderscheid
(One step at a time is working)
I am no goddess
and my beauty has been misshapen by the mental issues of someone claiming to be my parent, but I am still trying to stay positive and live my life my way for the short time I have left.
The key, Katie, is to take your life in your hands and direct how you will live and be. Roommate dissing you? Kick the bum out and toss their things out the window: escalate it as necessary.
*You need only positive people in your life, get rid of the negative naysayers.
*Your self esteem is yours. You cannot expect others to like you if you do not like yourself.
Make these two simple changes in your life. They will totally change your outlook and life as a whole.
Positivity + self esteem.
I have to live with being 'sirred' and being called 'miss' depending on how people see me because I appear as both. I have to let it slide :/
Sephrena
Miss-conceptions
Dear Katie,
Just a couple of ideas for you. Will Rogers, U.S. comedian/folk philosopher once said, "Ignorance ain't the most dangerous thing. Most dangerous is folks knowin' things.....That just ain't so." Your writing reflects and intelligent caring, sensitive woman. Be who you are.
Self esteem comes properly from 3 sources: 1 part we must simply decide to give ourselves. "I know I'm OK cause God don't make no junk"; another, larger part comes from the self we see reflected back to us in the eyes of those whom we truly respect.; the final larger part of our self esteem we must earn... from ourselves by behaving or striving to behave in a way that is consistent with our values and setting for ourselves goals and achieving them. (BTW any good behavior therapist will tell you than if you cannot achieve your goals, the problem is not YOU. It is that the goals were set wrong, usually too far ahead.)
Finally, for now, what other people think about me is actually none of my business.
In solidarity as a sister and a human being,
Joani
Stinking Thinking.
I can tell you are all girl, you have a negtive body image. You have absorbed the cultural lies, about commercialised beauty. Peoples ascetic values takes in the entire picture, then processes them. What comes out is an average of not only physical appearances, but how people see you and your personalty. That is your inner light, and it shines out through a beautiful lense. Projecting your true self out, into the world. That is what people are telling you, that is how you are beautiful. So stop trying to fog that lense, with self doubt.
Huggles
My beautiful friend.
Michele
With those with open eyes the world reads like a book
No platitudes from me, however...
I've found out that how you feel about someone changes how you see them, I don't mean if you like someone you blow smoke up their ass but when you care about them you stop seeing the wrinkles and see the face, you overlook the crooked teeth for the warm smile and you see past the glasses to the sparkling eyes. Okay okay I'll quit now while we all still have our dinner.
You don't see how people see something different to what you see each morning in the mirror (assuming you haven't found a way to avoid the mirror) well they're not not looking out of your eyes, they probably look at their own imperfections and deal with them in their own way, so just accept that's how they feel even if you disagree.
Whenever someone paid me a compliment I used to argue, then one day I was talking to a friend and he said "Honey, I just say thank you and walk away" so maybe you should try that.
Hugs
-
You can't choose your relatives but you can choose your family.
Felix thinks you're beautiful
that's the opinion that really matters. And yes, I want to be at your wedding - I'll wear the ugliest bridesmaid dress ever just to see you and Felix off as a married couple ....
To pass or not to pass; that is the question
Sorry about that Bill Shakespeare.
Katie,
I'm going to take one shot at this. I hope it doesn't come across as cruel or unkind because it's not meant that way. Know that I have the utmost empathy for you. You have indeed had a hard row to hoe.
OK, here goes: You keep going on about how you're not beautiful... good looking... or even pretty and you really can't pass. Well I'm here to tell you that line of thinking is BS. It's not about being beautiful, pretty, good looking or passing. It's all about being accepted. You are a friend on my Facebook page... go look at my pictures. You'll see I'm a long ways from pretty. On the rare day I pass, I'm sure that people are just being kind or perhaps they're just too caught up in their own business really notice me.
I've been a cross-dresser for over five decades now and even at my most feminine at any time in my life the best I could hope for was to blend in and not stand out. After a time, I came to realize that my cross-dressing wasn't just about the clothes, it was about who I was inside. When I realized that, it became more important to wear the clothes than ever. At 68 years of age, not a day goes by that I don't express myself as feminine. I wear women's lingerie all the time, women's slacks and pants, and women's shirts (albeit masculine cut) out in the world amongst my friends and my wife's family and more feminine attire at home. I go shopping, both grocery and clothes, in unmistakably feminine clothes, wearing jewelery and Lipstick and sometimes full makeup trying to look my most feminine. But you know what? Passing as a GG is not important. What is important is being accepted. I'd rather know that every person who looked at me knew for 100% sure I was a male wearing women's clothes and accept me at just that than to have 99 and 44/100% think I was a GG.
You know what? When I go out dressed in my obvious women's clothes, that's just what I get. I make no apologizes for being who I am and I get respect for being me.
Even when I'm wearing my masculine cut women's clothes I can get respect for being me. Just this last Christmas, my wife needed an outfit for a musical performance at church and we went shopping. (Me in my masculine cut women's clothes - BTW I don't own any real men's clothes) We ended up at Catherine's. In case you don't know, that's a plus size shop. They have some really gorgeous things there. I couldn't resist looking at some things for myself while she was trying on different things. So while she was in one set of dressing rooms, I was across the store looking at some pants. I found some that I thought would be nice and the right size, so I slipped into a dressing room on that side of the store and tried them on. I discovered the sizes run very large. So I went back out on the floor to find a smaller size and couldn't in that particular line, so I looked in another... long story short, I was in and out of that dressing room about a dozen times.
Now I would expect that the sales staff would be indulgent because I was a potential sale, But the lady who was sitting near the dressing room because she wasn't fit enough to be on her feet long enough to peruse the racks for herself and was being helped by an associate, smiled and apologized for being in my way. We had a small discussion about how nice the clothes were.
There was not doubt that I was a man or that I was taking women's clothes into the dressing room to try on. Yet this woman was perfectly accepting of that.
That, my dear Katie, is what it's all about. It's not about being able to "fool" anyone into thinking you're a genetic girl, it's about gaining acceptance for who you are. You, my dear, have that from those who count and the more you walk in that, the more you'll gain it from everyone else.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin eine Mann