[LaneyDoll]

Originally Posted by iamkeri1

I too am in the "old" group, so listen up because I have some good advice for y'all. I am a femme who has spent more than half of her life partnered to FTM's, and I would NEVER NEVER NEVER EVER (I can't say it enough) encourage ANYONE to transition. It is the hardest thing that any person could ever go through, and for the partner, I speculate that it is even harder than it is for the person who transitions.

If you genuinely feel displaced in your body or your spirit, then transitioning will be one high after another for you. BUT - it will still be the hardest thing you will ever do.

To any femmes (or anyone else for that matter) who may encourage or pressure your friends, partners, acquaintences to transition, PLEASE stop. Almost all relationships end when one of the partners transition. In fact most end right away when one partner expresses the desire to transition. When my late husband transitioned, we were in a support group that included about fifty couples, both FTM and MTF. Out of these fifty couples only two survived the transition. My husband and I were one, the other was a couple that began their lives together as Gay men, and one of them transitioned MTF. They are a wonderfully loving couple and I am still friends with them .

I could go on for three hours about all the hard painful things that happen when your partner transitions, but you can find that information elsewhere. I loved my husband with everything I had in me, and he returned my love at least that strongly. He has been dead for seven plus years and I am still not fully recovered ... Not from losing him and not from losing me. Cause that's what happened when he transitioned. I transitioned too - from gay to straight.

Finding my way back to myself, or rather TO my new self has been a long complicated (though sometimes exciting) journey.

Finding oneself is hard and is a journey that continues throughout ones life. Let people find their own selves. Don't push them in any direction. The world had room for every variation on the gender spectrum. Make room for everyone as they are and as they evolve ON THEIR OWN.
Smooches,
Keri

I once dated a genderqueer woman whose previous relationship had pressured her to change. "N" (not her real initial) was involved with a girl who, on a daily basis, pressured her to start taking T and to start saving for the series of surgeries. But, the problem was that, although N did want to have top surgery and did want to have a hysterectomy (because of period problems), she wanted to remain a woman. She is a singer so wants to preserve her voice; she likes wearing make-up and she likes being in a woman/woman sexual relationship-amoung many other reasons. Her ex put her through HELL and N ended up being insecure about herself, her body and her mind. She realizes that she had masculine energy but had accepted that she was born into a woman's body. However, her ex was determined to make her change and all of her self acceptance was destroyed when that relationship finally ended.