Hi
I recently joined mumsnet in order to post some of my thoughts on another thread that was active on this site at that time. After I did so, I received, from many of you, really positive, encouraging feedback. After I did so, I received no negative thoughts from any of you. And for that, I want to take this opportunity to thank you all.
The reason why I've decided to create this thread is to expand on what it means to me to be transgender, and to share with you all my concerns in regards to issues that are being discussed currently in the public sphere. I want to say right now that my thoughts relate to my own experiences as a biological male who identifies and presents as society would dictate a biological female to present.
First of all, I want to make it clear that while I am transgender, my own thoughts in regards to being identified as such do not sit well with me at all, to the point that I actually want to "revoke" my trans identity. For what this "identity" is seemingly intent on becoming is something that I can no longer identify with. This creates somewhat of a "catch 22" situation for me in the sense of how do I actually go forward and identify myself if the label that was once most suited to encapsulating who I am no longer has any resonance with me?
The only answer I've been able to come up with in response to that question is that I have to formulate my own identity, and in doing so only hope that others can understand what that identity may be. At the time of writing this post, I've failed in that regard. For no matter what word I use, others will already have a preconceived idea of what the word that I may end up using actually means. And so it remains difficult for me to be able to correctly and succinctly express to others who I am and how I wish to be regarded.
I'm going to start by providing an analogy. An analogy that I personally think encompasses the issue that every single transgender experiences. An analogy that gets right to the heart of the very meaning behind identifying oneself in terms of the gender presuppositions that are put on every single one of us.
The analogy that I'm going to use, somewhat aptly, somewhat ironically, relates to the word "binary", and what it means in computer/mathmatical terminology. That is, "1" and "0". For the sake of this analogy, let's say biological females equal "1", whereas biological males equal "0". For the sake of this analogy, there is nothing in between. No 0.5. No 1.5. Only ever "1" and "0". Now let's assume that in the case of a transgender person who was born male, all they have ever known is 0. Yet they don't feel happy as a 0. The only other alternative that is open to them in order to escape their own unhappiness at being 0 therefore is to become (or at least identify as being) 1. Yet they have no experience of what it actually means to be a 1. All they know is that being 1 allows them to escape from their actual identity of being a 0.
What I am getting at by using this analogy I hope is clear to everyone here. To bring it down to a personal level, if I am not happy being male, then the only other alternative open to me is to identify as, express myself as, a female. And the only way I can do that is to push away my male identity and present as female, using signifiers that society and culture dictates are traditionally associated with the opposite sex. Such signifiers being pronouns, clothes, body shape, societal roles, etc.
It's for this reason that I believe so many transgendered people, after transitioning, remain unhappy. For while they may have "escaped" the gender that they can't associate/identify with, the gender to which they have escaped to doesn't resonate with them either. When the only option from escaping from "0" is to become "1", then it's only after becoming "1" that they will then know if "1" is actually what they really needed to become. Put simply, there is no guarantee that that actually is the case, and the only way to find whether it is or isn't, is to experience both.
This leads me to a conclusion that I can not escape from. That conclusion being, a transgender person is simply unhappy being with and of themselves. And that is a frightening thought, and I say that as a transgender person myself.
The only comfort I can garner from this is not to identify as either a 1 or 0. As either male or female. Not something in between, just simply as neither. To put it succinctly, not feeling like a man doesn't make me a woman. To put it even more succinctly, how can I possibly say that I feel like a woman if I've only ever been a man?
Yet this is what you will hear transgender people say all the time. I can only conclude that I, and others who have said such a thing, simply have no idea what such a comment actually means. All I can ever say is that I'm not happy being male. And I can see now that the idea that "not happy being male" must therefore somehow equate to being female is an incredibly offensive thought process to have to those that actually are female.
Feminism: Sex & gender discussions
Transgender thoughts from a transgender
ripples101 · 16/02/2016 00:14
An interesting and brave post 
All I can say is be kind to yourself in your journey. You are a valid human being however you identify.
Thank you for posting such a touching and thought-provoking post.
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Message withdrawn at poster's request.
It does seem a shame that we are "forced" to identify as one or the other rather than just ourselves
Thank you for the post 
Thanks for your post ripples. One thing I don't really understand is this need to identify as something. I have never felt like I fitted in with anyone really. Well a few people but not many. I look like a woman (because I am one) but I rarely enjoy being treated like one as in my experience that is often a negative thing. What I don't understand is what it means to identify as something and why this is so important. I don't feel like anything but me. I don't know if I'm making sense.
I hope you're able to find happiness in yourself one day.
and welcome to Mumsnet.
I've have been woken up to transgender issues recently, some of the laws and the "A transwoman is a woman" stuff, did freak me out a bit.
I spent a lot of my late teens and 20s with gay friends around the gay scene. Back then there wasn't really transgender. Their were transexuals, transvestite's, drag queens, butch, camp and some men who on occasions felt like wearing pat butcher earrings, or a tight croptop, sometime a skirt and tights paint their finger nails. They weren't classed as transvestite they just sometimes liked to wear stuff like that.
It seemed at the time it was be coming more acceptable. You could be who ever you wanted to be dress how you wanted and so on. I know that it isn't my personal experience and I am only commenting on what I saw.
Unfortunately you would get some be mused old fuddy duddy comments (not to their face) of I don't know its a man or a woman?
One male friend worked in retail, and went to work in a big fluffy white coat, had false nails and wore eyeliner.
Now though it seems very one or the other, male stuff, female stuff.
I don't know what the answer is. It would be nice not to have you are male you are female by what you do choose to wear or choose to behave.
Male and female should just be biology. Identity's should be who you are regardless of sex.
I do and always understand that for some, who are very unhappy in their own body, that it is more than that.
These were the transexuals.
OP I hope and wish you can find your happiness in yourself.
Male and female should just be biology. Identity's should be who you are regardless of sex.
This by ThereWeAreThen is exactly my thinking.
It's the relentless push for woman or man that I find frustrating - it's like we're going backwards.
I am a woman, but I've only very very rarely worn a dress, I wear makeup all the time and have my nails done, I did a traditionally male job for 20 years, I am fiercely independent and single minded.
Born in the 70s, grew up in the 80s where we were just allowed to be kids with no pink & blue, young adult in the 90s where anything went.
In all aspects of my life I am not one or the other, I'm just me - and I'm happy with that.
I hope you find peace with yourself ripples, and that you find happiness within yourself.
You don't have to 'identify' as anything at all, just be happy being you.
Society should accept people as they are and not push gender roles onto us. So much of what makes me as a woman is just what I have absorbed over the years. I believe that your sex is a fact and gender is a social construct.
Your post is interesting and thoughtful, I wish you luck on your journey to be comfortable in your own skin. 
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ripples. Inspiring post.
//www.telegraph.co.uk/women/family/meet-the-conservative-christian-family-whose-baby-daughter-wante/
Even the staid old Daily Torygraph is into transgender now. In this case "girl as boy". Big feature.
As I read it I thought about my young childhood. Hated dresses, dolls, domestic shit toys etc. Wore cords (bit pre jean for kids era), had my hair cut short, people called me "sonny", said I was going to be a boy when I grew up. That was the early 1950s.
Here I am, female, straight, golden wedding this year, grown up children, still nearly always wear trousers, hate domesticity and all that shit, love sport and more "male" interests. Dread to think what might have happened if I had been small today.
What's more, I don't know what it feels like to be "a woman" despite periods, childbirth, menopause and (earlier) rampant job discrimination. I only know how to be me. So how the hell a transgender woman magically knows what it is to be a woman is beyond me. God knows I've had long enough as one, and I still don't have a clue.
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