Reply #18: Thank you :-)

[UncleSepp]

Congratulations, and a belated "happy birthday"!

I think there needs to be a new tradition of a second birthday party for someone who starts transition, with a cake with a new name on it, and little cards that go out like birth announcements with the person's new name. Wouldn't that be fun?

It seems to me that making peace with one's body, distinguishing between what can be changed and controlled and what can't be changed and controlled, and determining one's own identity on one's own terms is something that every person has to do. The conclusions and actions to be taken are different for every person, and for some people, it can mean recognizing a gender conflict and taking steps to resolve the conflict. I see being trans as a particular manifestation of a universal experience.

Looking at it that way, parallels emerge to other particular experiences. An FtM coming out of feminist dyke culture can face some of the same identity issues as a deaf person choosing a cochlear implant. There can be resistance, lost friends, and accusations of social treason and there can also be acceptance, love, and an opportunity to bridge social groups that often do not communicate with one another. People whose bodies have been changed against their will by illness or injury have to deal with a similar anger over being betrayed by their bodies. Every child who becomes an adult eventually has to become something other than the fulfillment of the expectations of their family; every person changes with time, testing friendships and relationships. We seem exotic, even to ourselves, but we're not fundamentally different.

I feel that I have a responsibility to myself not to help the rest of the world with building a wall around me as some kind of strange variety of person known as transsexual. So far, it has been my perception that while I see myself as being mostly ordinary, other people see me as being mostly ordinary. I had a chip on my shoulder for a long time before I started transition, and the conflict I expected never failed to appear. It got heavy and I decided one day to put it down, and the conflict I stopped looking for stopped appearing so often. It won't always work, and it's as much in my own mind as it is in the external world. Illusion or not, it sure feels better this way :-)