I am offering this simply to see if it is time to expand our thinking, to end the denial, the guilt; to see if we can somehow be led to happier lives.

There are some phrases I hear and read that simply make me cringe, so I would like to offer the following. When we say we should have been a girl, or boy, if that statement has credibility then perhaps we always were the gender of our preference? In most Earth cultures we are strongly programmed, conditioned to be and act like other people's ideas of how we should be. Lots of us do not break out of that prison until later in life. (Some call it Midlife Crisis). And we don't actually know the percentages of how many of us choose to change, to remain the same, but write about it, join a crossdressing group, or suicide. Many of us live out our lives without fully ever getting to know ourselves.

Sadly, most religious institutions just make our lives more painful, rather than be the help and comfort the were called to be.

I know of one group, now mostly dead or scattered around the globe, who lived in the swamps of Southern Iraq, who are neither Muslim or Christian, for whom the matter of gender expression is fluid. No surgeries were involved, but if a girl wanted to live as a boy she did. If a boy lived as a woman she could. My understanding is that once the choice was made by the child, there was no floundering. One either "did or did not, no try". I'm not sure but I think they were called Mandeans. Saddam did his best to kill them off, drain the marshes and get the oil there. It is my understanding that many of them went to Iran. Khoda hafez (God Bless)you children. This may hint at the reason that Shia Muslims are much more open to Transgender folk.

There may be other cultures of a similar mind set. In some Native American cultures so called Transgender or Intersex folk were called Two Spirit, and no the gay culture of San Francisco did not originate the idea in the 90's. What they did was simple cultural hijacking. I've never heard of African, or Asian TG expression, though I know it must happen. In Bangkok T folk are called Girly Boys, and the ones I have seen are astonishing, but in reality I think their lives amount to slavery, and early death by predators.

To those I missed, I apologise. The limit of my knowledge about T matters is disappointing. It is my hope that in the life time of my grandchildren, the whole GBLTI idea will simply run out of energy and people will simply begin to be who they always were since birth. There really is no need to discuss it at all. It is simply by the persecution of the frightened and narrow minded that we have been forced to shout out who we are.

Oh, I expect the gender counselors, the psych med companies, and the SRS surgeons to throw a right bloody fit over the matter, and to them I say "away from me you evil spawn; back down into the flaming pit from which you came, along with the religious bigots and homophobes who were your accomplices.

May our sisterhood continue to support each other and to help the hurt and lost find themselves.

You weren't meant to be a girl, you always were.

Gwen