Ask a transsexual anything

[TaraJo]

I'm not sure I understand this transgender carry on. Had I been born a female I would have just "adapted to the physical form" I happened to find myself in I wouldn't have been particularly desperate to be man. I may have been homosexual as a woman I suppose but I don't know. Was there some kind of influence on you in early life?

Well, first off, there's a huge difference between being homosexual and being transsexual. In fact, I know a male-to-female transsexual who is a great, big, butch biker dyke and I know a female-to-male transsexual who is about the queeniest, femmiest, gay guy I know.

As for why I'm like I am, I don't know. I wish I did. So do lots of people, but even if I knew why I'm trans, what difference would it make?

I never really tried to resist transition, mostly because I always held a good respect for science and research and academic officials and nearly all of them say fighting it isn't gonna do any good. That belief was just reinforced when I actually did start my transition and I found several other trassexuals who knew for years but fought it and just hurt themselves in the process. Hell, I'm dating someone who has fought against it and hurt himself because of it. Besides, I was already suicidal when I decided to get started, so it wasn't like I was going to really lose anything from transitioning, right?

Can you touch your toes without bending your knees?

Yes, I can. It used to be a lot easier than it is now, though.

What is the worst stereotype you think the public has of transgendered people?

Personally, the thing that hit me the hardest was the 'pathetic transsexual' stereotype, but I have a bit of a story behind that.

Before I transitioned, like I've said before, I was a bit of a psychological mess. I was in a mental health program and one of the other participants was trans as well. However, she was the type of transsexual who does little to nothing to attempt to pass but dresses in hyper-feminine clothes. It scared me, meeting her, because I was afraid that if I transitioned I would wind up like that. Then, though, I wound up meeting more transsexuals about town and found out that she was the exception, not the rule. Most trans women put a lot of effort into passing and most of the ones I met were pretty indistinguishable from any other woman (or would be, if you had no t-dar).

Overall, though, I think a lot of the more low-brow stereotypes are the ones that hurt us the most. The drama queens on Jerry Springer or the 'they're all turning tricks' stereotype, specifically. That's the kind of stuff that makes it hard for us to find jobs simply because employers don't want to take on that extra baggage. It also means we have to work that much harder to get around those misconceptions.

No questions from me - just wanted to say thanks to you and Lilly for being yourselves, and sharing openly and honestly. I'll admit that I had some mistaken ideas about trans persons and that I've learned a lot.

You're more than welcome. I just figured we have unique perspectives here and I'm more than willing to share my view and hopefully educate some people.

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Given Chuckie the super troll's recent idiocy and his inability to see the irony in unjustly judging a group while simultaneously belonging to a group(bisexuals) that faces similar, unjust judgement, I have been wondering, do you often find yourself being discriminated by individuals that ought to actually sympathize with your plight?

Yeah, there's a lot of that, actually. There's a big split within feminism between trans friendly feminists and transphobic feminists; Janet Raymond is probably the best known specific example of this with her book 'The Transsexual Empire.' That makes for a lot of gay and bisexual people who are hateful towards us. Fortunately, they seem to be in the minority.

Anyway, Chuckie was just a troll with no real hostile intent towards us.