Ch 9: How others May view our transitions

  Today I feel like sharing a poem, a self creation really but still helps to add some art to the 'drab' world.  So many of us are artists, creative and innovative but have a hard time being able to express that artistic ability for very few are lucky enough to be able to live off of art alone.


            We stand on the edge,
            The wind whipping through our hair,
             Looking for the rush,
             Looking to feel alive.
             Should we not always feel this way?
             To be ourselves,
              fully accepted,
              Understood and not ridiculed,
              But as we peer over the ledge,
              it is a long way down,
              will we survive the fall,
              so we can discover and be our true selves.


   I would like to say that I have come to accept my own reality and that it does not match everyone else's as we all tend to pick out what is important to us.  I forgive those in my life who have hurt me and realize I have to be the bigger person, in the end fighting fire with fire rarely works.  And honestly when others are angry at you they tend to try to goad you and bring you down with them.  Don't let them, don't fight back with fire, don't become what you despised so much in others.

   Relating a bit to bullying please refer to the link from last nights post in Ch 8 if you wish to review the stats on both in home and in school discrimination.  Again I'm not here to tell you how easy the journey is, it is incredibly difficult, and only through strength of will and support may we perceiver.  I know many of 'us' as gender dysphoric individuals hide who and what we are and many just want to be female if MtF or male if FtM but as we see that gender is on a sliding scale and can all relate to the idea that there are many facets of a person we need to band together to find a way to stop the hate, educate the public and in the end help all current and future gender non-conforming individuals.

   I have to be honest and let you know from personal experience and from things I have read but also been told by others, most families have a real hard time dealing with a change like this.  Naturally people don't like change and have a hard time accepting the fact in many cases that the person they knew is now 'someone' else.  In reality we remain the same people in many ways and the large difference is how everyone else views and treats us.  So, some teenagers report being kicked out of their homes when coming out to parents, some parents get divorced over arguing about what is going on with their child, relationships with siblings can become fractured and lost completely and that is just the immediate family.  For others not so vested in our future who rarely have to interact with us some may talk out against us, others may ignore the situation and distance themselves.  But as the quote from yesterday said, remember we as the gender dysphoric individual have been struggling with this our whole lives, our parents, friends and family all are dealing with these issues for the first time in many cases.

   Again while it is not completely true I will state that others have written and view the transition in some ways as a death and rebirth.  For many we know it may seem that way because they operate on a while new set of rules on how to interact with us based on what society prescribes.  Regardless of how things are viewed the standard for men and woman is still largely viewed as 'separate but equal.'  Granted women have earned many rights and fought closely for equality and some may now argue that women are fastly surpassing their male counterparts.  However, this all still shows that as society views things in male and female, black and white we want everyone to fit in a nice box but unfortunately we are all in some ways grey. 

to be continued ...