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Old 07-09-2018, 10:03 AM   #21
Esme nha Maire
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(Laughing) Apologies, Katztchen, you've misunderstood! No-one was being mean to me. It's just that my humour is naturally self-deprecating, and one of my good friends here was a little concerned, because when joking I am often so, that I was putting myself down and so might think myself worthless. I had to reassure her that I do value myself despite my self-deprecating humour!

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Esme? That's incredibly unfair being told off by someone in chat. That's not okay. I hope you realize that that person's behavior is about them (ie, hidden bias, prejudice, etc) and not about you.

And, thank you for disclosing in your post that this happened to you.

Trans-identified individuals are often the targets of this type of prejudicial treatment, as well as other members of the greater LGBTQ community.

It's sad, to me, that given how incredibly hard it is to find our way 'home', that one encounters this in our own community.

"We're all just walking each other home," -- Ram Dass.

That is one of my favorite all time quotes because it's true. We're all just walking each other home.

May you and others find comfort and peace in our community, each and every day.

K.
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Old 07-09-2018, 10:18 AM   #22
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(Laughing) Apologies, Katztchen, you've misunderstood! No-one was being mean to me. It's just that my humour is naturally self-deprecating, and one of my good friends here was a little concerned, because when joking I am often so, that I was putting myself down and so might think myself worthless. I had to reassure her that I do value myself despite my self-deprecating humour!
Thanks Esme for clarifying your situation in chat.

I would like to say that, aside from your disclosure about your style of communication (self deprecating humour), perception plays an critical role in how one processes internal and external types of scenarios we encounter in life and in our own journey to discovering who we are and how we choose to process issues that matter most.

Enjoy your day, Esme and Bex!

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Old 07-09-2018, 12:57 PM   #23
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Hmmn, I'm not sure what you had in mind with your comment regarding perception, Kätzchen; would you care to clarify? I mean, I agree, but it simply seems a self-evident truth to me.
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Old 07-09-2018, 01:38 PM   #24
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Sure, Esme!

I was not able to perceive the context of your statement about what happened in your exchange with another in chat. I was not able to understand, but you clarified by saying your friend was only concerned about you, which wasn't evident to me in your first post.

Thanks for clarifying what happened, so I could better understand your situation and improve my perception on your specific situation.
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Old 07-09-2018, 10:53 PM   #25
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Ah! I can be so slow on the uptake at times! I thought that might've been to do with the socialisation topic! (chuckle)
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Old 08-26-2018, 05:29 PM   #26
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This thread caught my eye...

I am madly in love with a woman who eloquently describes herself as born "girl-in-a-boy..."

We met on an online dating site a couple of months ago. She'd viewed my profile a few times, and I was adamantly opposed to an ldr, so I didn't message her, as she was a state away from me.

A month into this online experience, I was preparing to tear down my profile. I got nothing but hits from lesbians in Florida, California, Oklahoma, you name it...clearly, nobody had read my profile, or taken it seriously ( I live in WI).

I took a final view at her profile, and googled her location, and discovered that she really wasn't all that far away. Kindness emanated from her profile and photo. I took a chance and messaged her. She responded quickly, and we were "clicking" like crazy. She was very quick in revealing her medical history, which made not a whit of difference to me, and before I knew it, we had a date for the next weekend!

She informed me that she'd messaged several lesbians on the site, and was immediately blocked by every single one of them when she revealed her history.

The rejection was so awful to her, and reminded her so much of her family disowning her a few years back, she was nearly ready to tear her profile down as well. It was way too triggering for her.

I'm only grateful that I took a chance and messaged her, because I have met the love of my life! She is so beautiful, inside and out...she is a champion for all people, completely into social justice. I am deeply honored to be with her, and I sincerely hope that our community will have a change of heart at some point. I think things have gotten a bit better, but I was shocked that every single woman on the dating site blocked my gf when they learned of her medical history.

As for male privilege, I can't imagine it would feel very good to be a female trapped in a male body, regardless of how society would be treating that person based on their outward appearance. My gf was suicidal at one point, based on her dysphoria.

Anyway, this is only one woman's perspective, based on what I know from my dear one. I am so glad that I messaged her, because I am deliriously happy for the first time in years, thanks to her.
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Old 09-29-2018, 12:17 AM   #27
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Good heavens, my apologies for the tardiness of my response, introverted1; I managed to miss your post here at the time!

That's lovely to hear! It highlights the terrible effects that prejudice - pre-judging what someone will be like - due to the simple fact of their being trans can have on people. One has to be a tad careful here, because in my opinion there's distinctions to be drawn between folk who may have rejected your girlfriend due to political views on the one hand (eg: a small minority of women who feel that transgender women are not "real" women for purely ideological reasons), those who may have understanding of the subject and come to the conclusion that nope, sorry, but I definitely wouldn't feel comfortable getting into bed with a transwoman (which is perfectly fine - we can't help who or what our libido says yea or nay to), and those who in ignorance decide against because they simply have no idea what transwomen are like, or perhaps they have only encountered ones that didnt appeal and think all of us will be like them, instead of the highly varied bunch that we are.

In a world that often seems to like folk to be neatly and simply categorised, transfolk might just be one of the least homogenous but still identifiable groups of people one can encounter, so the tendency to judge all of us by just a few examples, and is particularly problematic.

Think, for example, of what the word 'lesbian' conjours up in peoples minds - or has done, over the years. Now, I'd hope that anyone reading this thread knows just how varied a bunch lesbiansactually are! Tomboyish, andro, high femmes, regular femmes, soft butches, stone butches, switches, 'just me' and so on... - and those are terms mostly just to do with outward appearance and behaviour. People sometimes wring their hands over why some people fit certain stereotypes or not, for example are femme women simply bowing to a patriarchal stereotype created for them by the patriarchy? Are butch women trying to be men? Well, not necessarily, no, and no! And some women are lesbians and trans as well..

The fact is that humans are so variable that almost no matter what sort of image or way of being you can imagine, there will be some out there for whom that is simply just them, or it's within their comfort zone to be like that. So here we are, just born into a particular society, and we start getting influenced by the society we are raised in. Girls and women look like this and behave like this and do these sorts of things and boys and men look like that and behave like that and do those sorts of things - gendered expectations of people has certainly been the norm in the vast majority of societies so far back as we have records.

Currently, Western society seems, thankfully, to be trying to push back against such restrictive stereotyping, but that's been a fairly recent thing. The world I was born into (late 50's in the UK) still had pretty restrictive views regarding expectations of men and women. Being female, even if the world didn't see me thus, I spotted (and resented) the limitations of societal expectations on girls fairly early. Being trans, I encountered the limitations of societal expectations placed on boys early on, too.

I wanted to be just like the other girls, for the most part. Although nah, dolls, don't interest me, but the sciences do! Pretty clothes - oh my yes! I wanted to look pretty, same as most girls did. That aspect of societal expectations of women was well within my personal comfort zone. Which wasn't a bad thing, given I was born trans.

I had to take metalwork and woodwork classes with the boys, whilst the other girls were doing home economics. I loathe the scrape of metal on metal, and was never very strong, so sawing stuff went very slowly with me. I was pretty hopeless at metalwork and woodwork, (and would much rather have done Home Economics instead) but didn't give a damn about it. I wasn't any kind of failure as a boy, in my mind, I was simply in the wrong class, I should have been in the Home Economics class with the other girls, but of course, the world didn't see me as a girl then.

I encountered feminism in books, and was overjoyed. But I still wanted to look pretty and be a fairly conventional woman in a lot of ways in the society I was amongst. The pain of not being seen as and not feeling oneself to be able to be accepted as "just one of the girls" was tremendous. Some sneered at me for failing to meet expectations of males in society, but I frankly didn't give a damn about that, except insofar as occasionally my personal safety was threatened. You might as well sneer at a giraffe for not being an elephant. And all this on top of the searing, life-threatening bodily dysphoria.

Fast forward to now. I dress rather middle of the road dykey, aside from my tendency to wear a brimmed hat, from my long hair and that I still use foundation and lipstick (although I note I am using lipstick less often as I grow older), and use handbags (hey, theyre practical, I like practical!). I mourn the fact that I can't seem to do a conventional femme look the way I used to - last time I tried, I looked like a butch trying to look like a femme and not quite succeeding, somehow. This despite my being , though I say so myself, conventionally femme and quite pretty in appearance in my 30's and 40's.

I've recently become aware that, feminist though I've been since my teens, I still managed to invest a large chunk of my feeling of self worth into my image, an image that used to conform to that of 'conventional femininity'. Now, a chunk of that, I suspect, may be due to my being trans - "woohoo, look at me, FINALLY being, looking, normal, just like all the other girls!" - but that's not the story entire, not by a long way. Being conventionally femme of appearance was well within my comfort zone, and I love the playfulness of image, the subtle nuances that changes in style of clothing can convey that are so exemplified by the variety found in womens clothing.

The realisation that my inability to do femme of appearance well recently has dented my feelings of self-worth really bugs me - as does the further realisation that some of that has to do with the fact that I'd become a size 22, huge compared to my former size 14 of my 30's. Am I less a woman due to what I am wearing now compared to what I wore 20 or 30 years ago? Hell, no! Am I less a woman because I am some particular weight or shape rather than another? Again, no! So why the heck do I feel as I do?

Answers on a postcard to...

.. meanwhile, my size 20 jeans are now rather loose, and I can nearly wear my size 18's again, woohoo!
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