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Stuck in Loneliness [Trans Universe repost]

webmaster — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 16:51:47 +0000

Stuck in Loneliness

April 15th, 2009

By Monica F. Helms

(This is the 3rd and final installment in the “Stuck in . . . ” series.)

We all know that loneliness does not limit itself to LGB or T people. This feeling probably strikes 100% of the human population at one time of another, many living in perpetual loneliness for most of their lives. A person can feel lonely because they have no one special in their life who loves them. Others can be lonely in a crowd of people who do love them. A majority of people don’t go out of their way to choose to be lonely, yet some do. But, loneliness goes out of its way to chooses us.

Even though the feeling of loneliness does not differ between LGBT people and straight people, the causes can be different. If we can believe the figures for the number of LGBT people in the population, between 5% and 10%, then that means that there would be far less LGBT people in the world to find your special someone from. Of course, bisexual people have more numbers to choose from, as do straight transgender people. If an LGBT person lives in a rural area, their chances become zero in many cases. However, numbers alone don’t keep people from feeling lonely.

Loneliness in the lesbian community is such a large issue that it generated a joke. When two lesbians fall in love, one quickly rents a U-Haul so they can move in together. It might seem funny, if it didn’t have its basis in reality. For gay men, you’ll find dozens of cruising bars in large cities to accommodate their need to cure loneliness, even if it’s for just one night. Everyone tries to cope the best they can, but loneliness keeps its own time.

I find the Religious Right’s obsession with gay people having sex is such a far fetch and ridiculous notion. I imagine that these people happen to be so sexually repressed and lonely that they can’t stand it when someone else enjoys themselves more than they do. But, the myth of gay people having sex all the time happens to be far different in reality, otherwise the term “bed death” would not have been coined and used in the LGBT community. Bed death happens to couples who have been together for a long time, but have long since stopped having sex. I can tell you from my previous experience as a straight married man, it happens to straight people as much as LGBT people.

In the LGBT community, loneliness causes a higher incident of smoking and drinking, since the “cure” for loneliness is supposed to be found in a bar, or so some think. When a person needs to conquer their loneliness for one night, they might have unprotected sex as the result, which will lead to many other problems. Some have even taken their own lives because of depression from loneliness. I guess with unprotected sex and suicide, we can easily say that loneliness kills.

I want to focus on what causes trans people to become stuck in loneliness. What I have seen and want to address has happened to some trans people, but not all of them. Some have a multitude of reasons to feel lonely. The biggest would be the stigma from society that we are somehow not “real” men or women.

Some straight women and some gay men may not want to date a trans man because he doesn’t have a penis, or at least not a functional one. Some straight men and some lesbians would not want to date a pre-op MtF because they still have a penis. And then, there are some straight men and lesbians who won’t date any transsexual woman, regardless of surgical status, because they still consider them men. The existence of a penis at birth is all that matters to them and the rest of that person’s life or personality doesn’t. One easily sees that when it comes to romance, many trans people can find themselves facing loneliness.

Loneliness comes in other forms for trans people. Being rejected by family members can be devastating to many trans people, but gay, lesbian and bisexual people also face this very same loneliness. I experienced it myself. It took seven and half years to become accepted by all of my family members, but my father had to die before that happened. Yet, I’m one of the lucky ones.

Other forms of rejection can cause loneliness, such as losing long-time friends after starting transition or coming out, which I also experienced. And, losing work friends and have others harass you at work, even though your company allowed you to keep your job. Yep, I had that happen, too. All of these made me feel lonely at one time or another, but I got over it. Sadly, others don’t.

Another cause for loneliness is not seen as loneliness by some trans people. Body dysphoria causes many to avoid intimacy until their body fits their mind. The feeling of an incongruent body becomes a real and viable reason for a trans person to remain alone. Some trans women even refuse to touch their penis, except with a wash cloth. Once they have surgery, for the most part, they become happier and end up with enjoyable love lives.

Other trans people never get over their loneliness, even after all of their surgeries. Some start transition thinking that life would magically become better after surgery, regardless of how many people told them differently. They spend all of their time and effort making sure they reach their goal that they had no time or energy left learning how to socialize in their new gender. I see this more in trans women then trans men.

Some of these trans women never learn the skills socializing as a woman and decide that being lonely is much easier than learning those skills. Some even become bitter and lash out at others, blaming them for their loneliness. Socializing with others takes the edge off of loneliness, but it may not fully remove it. I play in an all-women’s pool league to help take the edge off of my loneliness. It’s the highlight of my week, even if I lose. (But, I don’t like losing.)

Loneliness can be a debilitating feeling that causes depression, isolation and in some cases, death. I feel it is one of the least known human feelings, but one that therapist have spent a lot of time talking about. Loneliness hits every individual for different reasons and at different intensities. However, it can be conquered. Some cases, the “cure” takes a lot of work to overcome. If you are without friends, then an effort has to be made to bring new people in your life. If you just broke up with someone, then go through the grieving process, but keep hope alive. If your family has rejected you, then don’t cut off communications, or you can make a new family with close friends. No matter how loneliness has taken a hold of your heart, its grip can be broken. Time is usually the answer.

For me, I hold out hope that she is out there, waiting to pry the loneliness from my heart. I just know she’s there, waiting to prevent me from being stuck in loneliness.

Doubts and Dysphoria

jamie — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 19:58:16 +0000

Doubt and Dysphoria

Dysphoria is a constant in my life at the moment, but so is doubt of my trans status.How can these two things coexist, I ask myself a lot. I think it’s because the dysphoria is a horribly uncomfortable physical sensation but I can never quite identify whether it is a discomfort with having these parts, or a discomfort with the idea of losing them. This sounds stupid, I know I overthink, and over-obsess about all this, and will eventually end up self-destructing because of it. I’m not comfortable with the body I have, I’m not comfortable with the person that I am, but I don’t know how to change it. I feel like I’m wasting my life in this desperate space between happiness and unhappiness, clutching at straws that might help me sort my life out and feeling as if I fail every time, and maybe as if I don’t deserve to be happy.

‘There’s no point sitting here going crazy on your own’

I need to sort out three parts of that

*sitting here

*going crazy

*on my own

*sitting here

I need to find something to do with my life, I need to stop sitting around doing nothing the whole time, I need to stop my life being this wait to transition, because that’s not helpful for me, or for the people around me. There’s two types of depression, the type that’s caused when I sit and mope about things I can’t change, like transition, and the type that’s caused by trying to deal with stuff I can change, or at least stuff I can change my thinking regarding. That’s the type that I can work with and deal with, because even if it’s difficult, there’s a start-point. For now though, I need to find things to do. I have youth group, kayaking, and am preparing for snowboarding, so it’s not all bad…but… it’s not all good either. I need to concentrate more on my college work I think (he says, sitting writing this in a lesson), and do the amount of work I need to do to maintain my grades, because they’re…important and because maybe focussing on them will make everything else a bit more managable, and it’ll find me something else to do.

*going crazy

Something I make a bit of a habit of, apparantly. Michael, who I now just call ‘dad’ and I are working on how I c an reframe situations that would otherwise have upset me, but we haven’t got very far yet, and I think I find that in itself stressful. I feel as if I need to deal better with the ‘crazy’, the ‘head squirrels’ that actually leave me so battered on a day to day level. What are these? The insecurity that makes me believe that I really really don’t matter, and that nobody could want me in any way. The belief that anyone who appears to care wants something from me. The remnants of tiredness left over from my depression that make me believe every time that I get depressed, I should just cut myself and kill myself. The tiny part of me that still believes I’m nothing but a worthless whore, it’s that instinctive twisted thinking that I need to deal with.

*on my own

I’m not alone, I have a wonderful support network really, but most of it is online, and there’s not so much locally accessible support. I think I need to find myself an older brother type transguy in my local area, so here’s a callout for transguys near the Surrey/Hampshire border, UK

Thanks for reading

This tranny worries far too much about passing

jamie — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 09:38:00 +0000

This idea was sparked off by Kiunna’s wonderful post on “I think trannies worry far too much about passing”.

What is ‘passing’ in a trans* context? I’m trying to work this out for myself. Or, more, I know what it is (being read as the gender you identify as) but I can see two rather distinct problems with it:
*What if you identify as non-binary? People don’t typically think “ah, they’re an androgyne” and address you with the title Mx, or at least, not where I live.
*How do you know when you are passing? It can be pretty obvious, ie if you’re called “sir” or “ma-am” in a shop, but as a transguy I get paranoid that I’m not passing if someone holds a door open for me. It seems to be pretty hard to identify whether you’re being read as male or female most of the time, unless people are helpful enough to tell you. I was about to write how much I wished that English had more gendered words, had three genders, male, female, neuter, but then I thought about my pesky French lessons, and how hard I find it knowing whether I want to use the female ending or the male ending. I’ll argue that there are indeed some advantages to a language where you know instantly if you’re being read as male or female, but I think those might be outweighed by the awkwardnesses.

Sometimes I feel tempted to get or make a t-shirt saying “I’m a goddamn boy” so that at least people can see and know, but that would bring its own issues, that starting to pass has certainly brought – parents. I’m officially out to them, but I’m living as if in the closet due to their reactions, and it’s getting rather awkward when I pass maybe 40% of the time.

It’s also hard to know sometimes how to pass, or what I need to do. Growing a beard might be one way of quickly and easily managing it, but that takes testosterone, and I’m rather short on that in my system. Maybe asking people that know me would help. Since I had a new haircut (a mohawk) I pass rather better, but I think that’s more down to me walking a lot more confidently, and seeming a lot more self-assured, because I have a haircut that screams “look, see?!” and I need to seem vaguely confident to pull it off.

I’m finding this whole being pre-everything lark quite depressing honestly. A lot of my total body-hate has come flooding back recently, even with a wonderful boyfriend that does succeed in making me feel attractive, and I’ve needed a lot of support from him, and from Michael (who I now call ‘dad’). Self-medication was a consideration, but it’s not something I’m going to do at the moment, although I’ll keep it in reserve as an option, I just find that it’s hard to keep going in the same old patterns of being read as female. I’m hoping to re-enroll as male in college next year, as James, but that depends on my parents. When will my life even be my life? I don’t know. Maybe I need to work more on passing, maybe passing instead of failing would help me more.

Thing is, I don’t have any real confidence deep down, and maybe that’s what stops me passing, that I’m too shy, or that I might walk like a girl, or my height, or my voice, or my face shape. Or maybe Kiunna’s right, and us trannies do worry too much about passing

I think trannies worry far too much about passing.

Kiunna — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 12:09:09 +0000

The other day in class, my teacher told me I have a strong voice and that I might wanna be more careful of my tone in the future. I took it pretty hard. Granted, I’d had a pretty bad day leading up to that point, but I immediately started wondering if he knew, if someone had told him, if someone hadn’t told him and he’d just found out, if nobody had told him but he’d suspectd all along because he could see my penis through my pants, if nobody knew and I’d just outed myself in front of the entire class by accidentally speaking too deeply and ruined my reputation forever. All kinds of stupid thoughts.

I didn’t go back to class after break because I was just too messed up. The next day my teacher popped me an email asking why I never went back and I told him that what he said about my voice really got to me and he seemed pretty confused about why exactly that would get to me. He didn’t know shit, still doesn’t, and neither does anybody else.

There’s a moral in this somewhere. I’m mostly posting it so I can poke around and see how things work, but enjoy. Also hey guys I’m new and stuff.

Stealth Consideration

jamie — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 21:04:06 +0000

Being “stealth” means very different things to different people. You get some people who choose to be stealth, and see the bounds of that as telling their partner, but nobody else, whereas other people can see being stealth as not wearing the transgender logo on every single item of clothing, or maybe not shouting it from the rooftops. There is quite a noticeable divide in the trans* community between people who think being stealth is a good idea, and what should be aimed for, by any self-respecting trans person, and people who consider it cowardice, and denying ones heritage. I’m not out fully, but in areas where I present male, I’m typically not stealth, but more about that later.

I think that the trans* community is one that’s open to divides occuring (I’ve got another blog planned regarding those divides), but I think this one is an odd one.

From a stealth perspective, looking at people who are not stealth

They aren’t assimilating, they are displaying their trans* status, therefore they are not proper men/women (the assumption that goes along with this is that to be a “real” man or woman, one should wish to hide the fact that one might have a different biological make-up to others)
They make it harder for the rest of us to pass, because people are more aware of trans* people (on the other hand, they raise awareness, which helps when people want information or understanding, and surely people transition to be themselves anyway, not to help or hinder others passing)
They just want the attention of being different (it seems a rather risky sort of attention to crave)

From the perspective of people who are not stealth, looking at people who are stealth

They are ashamed of being trans*, and are hiding (choosing to protect oneself by not disclosing ones biological make-up and chromasomes does not equal being ashamed of it)
They are doing nothing to help the next generation of trans* people (transitioning carries no obligation to help other trans* people)
They are making things harder for themselves by not accepting that there is a difference between them and cispeople (to a lot of people genitals are irrelevant, so it might seem as if, on a day to day basis, there really is no difference between a trans* person and a cis person)

I’ve seen all those points made, from people who I had always tended to think were considered and rational, and it feels like in taking sides in this debate, people are ignoring the basic fact, that you transition because you need to for yourself. Transitioning is a basic selfish act, and that there is nobody who has the right to tell you to hide it or exploit it, any more than anyone else has the right to tell you to transition, or not to transition.

The reason I came to write this blog was because everywhere online that I interact as James Alexander Casimir Greyson, as a man, I internact as a transman. Or, should I say, everywhere except one place, where my boyfriend introduced me to his cisguy friend as male, not seeing the need to mention what was in my pants. However, we progressed to swapping photos of ourselves in varying levels of dress (or lack thereof) and I was shocked, astounded, surprised that the cisguy friend never stopped to realise that I wasn’t a cisguy, and hence that he’d seen me in boxers alone, and still seen me as male, not as trans*, but as male. (He hasn’t figured out that I’m a transguy yet even). This is my first experience at being stealth, and I’m not sure I like it, for myself it feels uncomfortably decietful, that he doesn’t know.

Does there honestly need to be a divide between people who choose to leave their trans* identity behind them, and people who don’t? I’ve seen some people who pass amazingly, and choose still to be relatively stealth, and I’ve seen people who are totally stealth do activism, and successfully. The community seems almost, as a whole, to seek out petty divides within itself, and cause argument for the sake of causing argument, for the sake of showing that everyone who is not identical to themselves is weird.

I will never be a “normal” man. I will never have a “normal” penis. I will never have XY chromasomes, I will never have had primary male socialization. What a lucky guy I am, I’ve got to grow up experiencing female socialisation, I get to have XX chromasomes, I’m lucky enough to have a sensate chest, to be able to bear children, and maybe I need to remember these benefits, rather than considering whether I’ll display or hide my differences. They’re still a part of me, whether I accept or reject them.

A Boi’s Perspective (on transitioning at a young age)

jamie — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 18:36:59 +0000

To all the older transitioners who tell me I’m doing what’s right

When I came out to myself as trans, I thought “okay, this makes it easy now. I’m trans, everything makes sense, I’ll go on testosterone, get top surgery, and then be happy”. I was an idealistic sixteen, and hoped that it was that simple. Nothing ever is.

I’m now 17, I call myself Jamie online, and by my birth name offline. I’ve been out to myself for a year, pretty much exactly (give or take about ten days), and I almost wish I hadn’t come out to myself.

I really do see how it can be harder for older transitioners to transition in many circumstances, and especially male-to-female, but I fail sometimes to see how that is easier than living a double life, living a lie to keep the people that you live with happy. My parents haven’t accepted the idea of me being trans at all well, and I’m choosing to live as a girl until I leave college probably. Every week I have maybe one chance to present male, and then I tear myself apart getting dressed as a girl again, because it’s not me. People who barely know me have figured out I’m a transguy, where my parents call it a phase.

It’s not impossible to just live as a girl, maybe surprisingly it’s quite possible, but it isn’t a life worth living, and I’m going to be looking back on these two and a half years as the wasted years when I could have been getting on with my life, but instead spent them stuck in a rut waiting for a chance to get out. Alternatively I could see them as a place where I could deal with my issues.

Issues, yes. I have a lot of them, trust issues, abuse issues, eating issues (minimal, thanks be) and self harm issues, I could use this two and a half years to deal with those, so that I can start life as a well adjusted young man when I get out, but that doesn’t work, not when I go back into this unhealthy environment. Because it is unhealthy, I’ve gone back to being clinically depressed thanks to all of this. I say I can live with it, I can, so if it’s “transition or die” then I have no right to transition, because I can manage without, but that’s not how it works, I won’t live unless I do that.

There’s a lot more support out there for trans teenagers than there used to be. I’ve got amazing friends, and an amazing mentor, but sometimes it’s not enough, especially when people see me as trans before they see me as male, and I just want to live my life as a guy. It’s hard being young, I know exactly what I want and need, but I’m not allowed to go out there and get it, because I’m too young, so I’m left in this limbo instead.

I’m an intelligent boy, I would be looking at going to one of the best universities in the country if I hadn’t let being trans take over my college work, if I didn’t spend this whole time in a funk about not being able to be who I am, or at least not being able to be him, and have a managable life. I know things would be a lot harder if I forced coming out, I’d probably end up on a friends floor, but I’ve reasoned that that’s not going to work for me, that I’m not someone who could function so dependent on anyone for everything, and that I just have to do my best.

Sometimes, it’s easier just to stop, and think of how lucky I am, that I can live my whole life as a man, but often I can’t even do that.

This is a letter to all those older transitioners who keep telling me that it’s easier transitioning young.

It’s not easy

Jamie

Being Transgender is not a Choice

transmanaz — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 14:18:25 +0000

I can’t count the number of times I’ve been asked “Why (or When) did you decide to become a man?” In the beginning, I felt angry when someone asked this. I’ve since realized that they are asking because they have a need to understand, they are asking for education. Turning my initial anger into seeing the opportunity to give a positive response has helped enlighten the minds and hearts of many.

I did not “decide” to become a man. Transgender is not something you wake up one day and think “Gee, I’m tired of being a girl, I want to be a boy from now on”. One cannot “become” transgender, one is born as transgender. Somewhere in the whole scheme of genetics and biology, a female-bodied person comes out of the womb, but in all other aspects, that person is male. Same goes with a male-bodied person, who knows within their hearts, souls and minds that they are not what their bodies are reflecting.

Going further with this, some people are born as “Intersex”, with parts of both male and female organs/anatomy. More often than not, the “choice” of which gender role this child will live is given to the parents, who in many instances make the “wrong” choice. The child is raised in the gender role forced upon him or her, sometimes to the extent of having “corrective” surgeries to reinforce this choice. When the child comes to an age of thinking on their own, many times the forced gender role is not the true gender identity.

The term “transgender person” means a person who does not fully identify with the gender they were assigned with at birth. I was born in a female body, but have never thought of myself (identified as) a “female”. Yes, I lived in a female “role”, since that’s what I was expected to do. But it didn’t happen without its consequences. As a young “girl”, I fought wearing dresses, I hated purses and gloves and patent leather shoes. As I got older, I became shy and embarrased about my body, and tried to hide it by wearing clothing that came up to my chin and down past my ankles. I couldn’t look in a mirror, (ever, for years) because that person looking back at me was NOT me. It was a strange, “ugly” person who I didn’t know.

I played with GI Joes, not Barbie. I had Tonka Toys, and race cars. I made up a name for myself, a boy name, because I couldn’t relate to the female name I was given. When my sister and I played together, we were “John and Julie” (not her real name, but the actual name of our “game”). I was the Man, the Protector, the Strength, the Husband. I “took care of” Julie. We went on our imagined journeys across the oceans and escaped into our world of fantasy. I put on my dad’s clothes, she put on my mom’s dresses and shoes, and we faced the challenges of our lives as the “married’ couple we thought we were.

Outgrowing this phase of our lives, I went on to live the next twenty-odd years in a non-typical “female” sort of way. I realized early on that I was bisexual, but in order to enjoy women, I found I had been given a label, I needed to “identify” as a lesbian. I lived in a few “lesbian” relationships over the years, but I was never comfortable with others labeling me “lesbian”.

I was NOT a lesbian. I knew that. I didn’t relate in any way, shape or form to the other lesbians I knew. I was often told through the years (usually in anger or disgust) that I sounded like, and thought like a man. Inside, I jumped for joy, because I KNEW I was a man, but something was dreadfully wrong on the outside.

It wasn’t until I was around 44 years old that I finally heard of the term “transgender”. Looking into it and researching deeper, I realized with an overwhelming sense of awe, excitement, peace, joy and happiness that THIS was my “problem”. I was simply born with the wrong anatomy, and with the help of science and medicine, I could become outwardly the man I had always been within.

I can look in the mirror now (too often, I’m told) and really SEE myself, I can smile and laugh and be proud of the person I am. There is no longer shame, there’s no anger, sadness, loneliness, despair. There is simply the knowledge that I am a valid human being, my body has been aligned with my mind, and for that, I am grateful.

Being transgender is not a choice. “Transitioning” physically into one’s true gender is a choice. There’s a huge difference, and I’ll talk about that another time.

Seize the day!
Michael