Comments on: Being Transgender is not a Choice

By: transmanaz

transmanaz — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 12:00:00 +0000

Thanks Mabel. As long as you give proper credit for any materials of mine you use, I’m glad it can be useful to you. Michael

By: Mabel

Mabel — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 02:46:03 +0000

Hi Michael! How are you? Just to let you know that I will include your name in my research paper and your blog “Being Transgender is not a Chioce” I hope you don’t mind. I am thinking about maybe publishing my paper in this web page when I am done with it. Well, let me know what you think. Thanks!

By: Mabel

Mabel — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 03:46:28 +0000

Hi again Michael!
oops! I just realized that I already mentioned the title of my paper =p

By: Mabel

Mabel — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 03:42:19 +0000

Hi Michael!
Thanks so much for your reply. I really appreciated it. Actually, I will write a paper for my Queer Film class at UTEP about how beauty affects queer people: drag queens and kings, transgendered, and bisexuals. Thanks to your very well explained reply, I can understand better a transgendered perspective about how you felt. In your situation it was like even tough you were happy for who you are, your physical appearance was not reflecting that idea, like if you were always hiding something. I was wondering, how other transgendered people might feel when they do not think that changing their physical appearance is necessary?

By: transmanaz

transmanaz — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 12:45:49 +0000

Hi Mabel,

You’ve asked a good question, and I’ll try to answer the best I can coming from the perspective of a trans individual (which is all I know LOL)

I wrote about looking in the mirror for many years and seeing a strange “ugly” person. I couldn’t look at this person in the mirror, this person wasn’t ME. It wasn’t so much the physical attributes, because realistically, I wasn’t “ugly” – I just FELT “ugly”.

I SAW “ugly” because that person I saw in the mirror didn’t match how I saw myself. That person staring back at me was a “shell” and I felt unattached to that shell. When I looked into that person’s eyes, I saw … nothing…. blank… emptiness.

And that hurt deeply, emotionally and mentally. I couldn’t understand how other people saw me, because I couldn’t get past seeing the shell.

It wasn’t that I spent my life feeling “ugly”. I just didn’t feel RIGHT. So in not feeling RIGHT, I felt wrong, so therefore, I LOOKED wrong. I FELT unattractive, so therefore, I WAS unattractive (illogical reasoning, but common amongst trans people).

Once hormones began having their effect on me, I began seeing LIFE inside that vacant shell. The hollow emptiness (that I saw) in my eyes began to take on substance, and there was LIFE. As the physical changes to my facial features, and my body began to align with the way I FELT, I began to see “beauty”. I began to see a person who was smiling and full of life and dreams and possibilities.

“Looks” should not matter. Whether one is tall, short, thin, large, hairy, balding, pointed nose, or webbed feet, the looks don’t make the person. But the looks DO affect the person’s outlook on life and on themselves.

We’ve all heard it dozens of times in our lives, “until you can love yourself, you can’t love anyone else”. And for a transperson to be able to love themselves, sometimes it takes the miracles of hormones and surgeries to help them in that journey of self-love and self-discovery.

What I’ve been saying all along here, to sum it up, is that looks ARE important to a transperson – for themselves, inside, how THEY perceive THEMSELVES. Once they can love the person they see, others see a beautiful person too.

By: mabelmikami

mabelmikami — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 06:17:58 +0000

Hi Michael! My name is Mabel Villa. I was requested in one of my classes at The University of Texas at El Paso to join a blog and begin a discussion. So, I will really appreciate if you can answer me. I really found your blog very interesting. Actually, I am writing a paper on how beauty affects drag queens and kings, transgendered, and bisexuals. I got interested in your blog because I believe that physical appearance shouldn’t matter, what matters is who you are, but in your blog, you are saying that how you look was really important. I would like to understand this more. Thanks and have a good day Michael!

By: Robyn

Robyn — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 17:15:31 +0000

Hi Michael, yes, this seems the general feeling of most transpeople I know. We have a considerable number of people with intersex conditions in our organisation and some of them never had the chance to put things right as their parents had decided for them at an early age: they had no choice. Unfortunately quite a few had got it wrong too. I really glad things are going well for you mate. Robyn