Community Conversations > General Topics

The Exit

(1/1)

zirconia:

--- Quote from: zirconia on March 15, 2020, 09:48:15 AM ---Don't both "blending in" and "passing" imply maintaining an existence separate from the girl goup? And isn't the purpose of transition to just simply join it?
I prefer assimilation.
--- End quote ---

This comment led to a discussion about semantics. But it wasn't about that.

I've more than once written how I dreaded being stranded forever in between the sexes. And how I felt remaining an eccentric man was preferable to being seen as someone just trying to be a woman.

Even getting SRS and keeping it secret seemed better than entering that twilight zone. But I knew that also would transport me there. In a different way. So I languished. And I continued to change—slowly. Not because I thought I could ever be what I needed to, but to control the pain.

At some point I realized strangers did think I was female. If the relationship was more than passing I corrected them. I did not want to have to act in order to maintain the illusion. It would have been unbearable. But the pain got worse.

I looked for information on various forums. On SRS and life beyond. And found out FFS was more popular. I felt confused. Yes... it could make life easier. Was I wrong, then? But no... the twilight zone I feared existed.

And I'd already entered it. At some point I'd begun to be seen as female by a significant portion of the people I met. In a way it did feel good. But I felt wrong. Incomplete. An impostor.

I also felt desperate. Everything I read online seemed to lead to and stop at transition... Continuous discussion of passing... or how to dress. How to go shopping. Where to buy makeup. Breast augmentation. The demerits of a male skeletal structure. Transgender rights. Political correctness. Legal protections. Discrimination. Cisnormative standards. Changing society. Bigotry. Feminism. Passing. Misgendering. Passing. Acceptance. Blending in. Equality...

But if that's what awaited me, then what was the point? It didn't interest me. All I ever wanted was to be like my sisters. A normal girl.

I needed a way out. An exit.

I also very much needed be understood. I wrote about how trying to fit in seemed better to me than attempting to change the world. How being merely treated like a woman felt immensely lacking. How I thought asking for special treatment just created chasms.

A few liked my words. Most dismissed or disregarded them or took off on tangents. And I in turn couldn't comprehend why so many embraced what I was terrified of.

Then something happened. Someone started posting in a voice completely different than everyone else. Sharply and incisively. Of life beyond. Of existence unrelated to transition. Of romance. Joy. And normalcy—and not normalization.

It was a breeze of fresh air. I asked for more. I wrote of my own views and needs...and miraculously found understanding and support.

But many others seemed to dislike her. I couldn't understand why. Yes—her replies to naysaying and dismissal were fierce. But she had decades of experience. How could people who'd only "discovered" they were "trans" recently think their knowledge was superior? I couldn't understand it.

Her message was clear. Transition is a door to reality. It's small. Too small to carry all the luggage of one's past life through. The price of stepping through was to leave that behind. And the prize freedom. And life.

I saw she spoke sincerely. Her words rang true. I also had accrued things I valued. But I had to choose between life and twilight existence. And I made my choice.

The door is open. I see the world beyond. I've cried with the pain of severance. I cried several hours just yesterday. But it is the price of the passage. Of shedding all chains. Of the possibility of being what I've always needed to be—with no pretense or effort.

The caustic, smothering mist and miasma still lap at my feet, burning them. But I know that a few more steps will take me to where I need to be. Outside, to the fresh air. To grab the brass ring. To leave the nightmare behind.

To be just a woman.
To live and love as one.

Why do people shun her? Can't they see her compassion? Is the truth of her experience so frightful? Is the price too great to contemplate? Why is she banned?

The hurt is real. The price is immense. But isn't it better to give away all one has for even the possibility to know life? Real life—and freedom—far beyond transition?

And... if one cannot pay that price, why go forward at all? Because as I see it, in reality going even halfway means losing it all anyway.

Complete:
So this was an interesting post by Zirconia whose heartfelt cry for understanding, l heard loud and clear as it mirrored in many ways the confusion and desperation l felt in my troubled youth.
Happily. l was blessed with good fortune and what l interpreted as guidance from a Higher Power. I found my way, after much pain and struggle, to a very happy, fulfilling and rewarding life, for which l will forever be eternally grateful.
A good part, maybe even the greater part of that good fortune, was the fact that what l see as the trans culture or ideology/narrative had not been completely formulated and was still in its nacient stages.
By the time l was finally driven, forced actually, to seek out professional help, that "help" was still primitive at best and mostly experimental. I was part of the research material discarded as anomalous by the likes of Stoeller and Greene. BLZB, (Blanchard, Lawrence, Zucker and Bailey), were all still doing their "research" and in my opinion getting things mostly wrong. I really can't blame them as their data base was so highly skewed.
Anyway, having said all that and wandered totally off topic, l want to say that l feel greatly honored to have been of at least some small help to Zirconia in finding her way.
I will again offer my gratitude to Dena for her hard work and perseverance in providing a safe space to explore an alternative to the established and harshly policed trans narrative. I am not disparaging it in anyway. I am just making it clear that it is not my narrative and it need not be yours.

zirconia:
Thank you, Complete... reading my own words brought back in detail the memory of the pain I carried so long. And your reply my relief at finally seeing the path and destination I thought could never be.

I doubt whether I could have found my way without you.

And thank you, Dena, once again. This is the first time I truly feel safe to be open.

I'd also like to be clear... the path that has finally given me hope is not the right one for everyone. Just like the one I thought for so long to be the only option exacerbated my hopelessness. The fact that what was on offer brought me despair does not make it wrong in and of itself—just wrong for me because I needed something different.

Like Complete I only wish to tell those looking who need to know that there is more than one path. And that the exit does exist...

Edit: Clarity

Navigation

[0] Message Index