No matter how adamantly I support a trans-inclusive ENDA it is really something I do because I care about the rights of others.
No matter how much I support hate crimes laws that offer protections based on gender identity and gender expression I am not doing so for myself but for people I think of as “them”.
Sex change operations, Cybelle’s Knife separates me from transgender people. Most of their concerns are not mine.
Sometimes I find myself supporting things that contradict my politics. Like the repeal of DADT. My gut instincts are to oppose war as usually being in the interests of the rich at the cost of the lives of the poor, who are turned into murderers. Rich men speak of the glories of wars they never fight. The poor serve as cannon fodder to die or be maimed to serve the interests of the wealthy.
During the era of the draft being queer was a pass to escape being pressed into service, a way of avoiding kill or be killed.
I hear so many activists talk about a community that I am supposedly a part of. Except it is more on-line than in my 3D life. It is true that my life partner is another WBT, it is equally true that we have a mere hand full of other WBTs as friends. Mostly long term friends of mine.
Once beyond transition, transworld is excruciatingly boring. Now it is filled with people endlessly blithering on about their imaginary intersex conditions. Or the surgeries they are facing.
Mostly I’d rather talk about work or what I do when not at work.
The oil spill disaster or the insanity of the Tea Baggers.
Even young people in the transition process are extremely boring. They know it all. Yet they haven’t even had their surgery yet and the real transition is life itself.
Getting old having a lifetime of experiences to draw upon when looking at a situation.
Sometimes late transitioners are the worst because they have so much baggage to let go of, such a heavy set of defenses to put down.
Often times it is much easier to relate to those who have not only made it through the process but are far enough beyond so it has become a historical fact rather than a current event.
Some time it seems like transgender folks, those who define as non-ops are stuck in the middle where all those aforementioned concerns are a real element of their lives and not something one supports because supporting those things are the right thing to do.
05/26/2010 at 12:15 pm
Yeah Suzan,
A lot of what you say is true,
“Sometimes late transitioners are the worst because they have so much baggage to let go of, such a heavy set of defenses to put down.”
this particularly. You should probably be thankful you have no need to understand all the possible dynamics involved.
05/26/2010 at 5:09 pm
errr — as a late transitioner, as someone who had to recognize my baggage and make the effort to let it go — and as Suzans partner — she does have some idea of “the dynamics involved”.
Unfortunately, I firmly believe SOME late transitioners make almost no attempt to look at themselves with a critical eye. Some are not very good at doing, or even thinking of doing, a through and searching inventory of themselves.
In some cases it does happen with time. I also think some folks are too prideful to admit they just might have been mistaken at one point or another.
It’s too bad.
05/26/2010 at 6:18 pm
Hi Tina,
I am in strong agreement of the quote of Suzan’s that I used. I don’t know what Suzan knows or doesn’t know. I don’t mean to be presumptuous. Sorry if I come across that way. Over time a lot of things look a lot different. I won’t argue with that.
05/26/2010 at 6:35 pm
Yeah…
There is this horizontal hostility that is often envy based on the part of both the “deprived and dispossessed” kids who come out young after often being run out of school who resent the economic power and eduction of those who come out later. Then there are those who come out later and envy those who came out young for having all those years that those who come out later often see as wasted.
It takes getting past the envy to see the common roots and how small things can change the life paths of folks.
And if you read any books at all about the “second half of life” you see the reason why people often make those changes either upon entering adulthood or entering middle age.
05/26/2010 at 7:30 pm
Suzan,
I am sorry but. . . there I go, I am qualifying my apology, so, how sincere is it? I have to respond, however, by saying I don’t understand your last sentence. I don’t think envy has much to do with it. You would have to be there to understand. You weren’t. Neither, was I where you were. I have done a lot of apologizing, however. I am used to that. Now, that I am older, I feel less of a need. As far as envy goes, I am of the school of thought that warns to be careful for what you wish for because you could get it. I have my own problems. I know what those are. I wouldn’t want someone else’s problems, the depth of which I have never plumbed.
05/26/2010 at 8:59 pm
I transitioned late, in my 50s. In some ways, it was a huge change. In other ways, surprisingly, not so much — and my partner of 29 years agrees. I was usually not afraid to be myself when around her. During my transition, I did find baggage I hadn’t known I was carrying. I think most of it is gone now.
I can’t speak for anyone else, but yes, I sometimes envy those who transition young. I blend now, which amazes but pleases me most of all, but I was a lot prettier back in the day. Then again, if I’d transitioned young, I might well have got myself into heaps of trouble. I didn’t have the maturity to deal with this until I finally did deal with it. So I try not to be envious. I love my young friends, and I’m happy they have so much of life ahead of them.
05/27/2010 at 10:21 am
As for late transitioners changing or not changing — one of my ex-girlfriends told me (when I asked her – I was SO insecure) “You’re the same — it just fits better.”
She had come out as lesbian about the same time I came out. Again, she once said that we had been seen as “the odd couple”.
I was totally unaware of all this. I thought I was repressing all the “gender crap”.
Obviously, the folks that knew me thought differently.
There are times I do envy those who came out younger — but, I was such a mess I think I would have screwed that up.
I did mess up most other things in my life — until I got sober.
05/27/2010 at 9:30 pm
“You’re the same — it just fits better.”
Yes, Tina, that’s really about the size of it. I have a lot of baggage. I knew it was going to be inevitable. I have to say things are much better than I imagined they would be but after you have lived a while a lot of things get left behind that will never go away. I haven’t shocked anyone, though.
Like you Veronique, I have been with my partner for a very long time. We met in our teens. I probably would have been dead if not for her but maybe not. I could paint the picture with a lot of different colors – bright colors, dark colors. I had to stay silent for decades while I sat many nights listening to wild stories from people we were both close to. I know a lot of survivors. I knew some who didn’t make it.
I had to learn the hard way, a long time ago, that just because someone else was able to do something didn’t mean I was going to be able to. Freedom comes at a cost. I could say I wish a lot of things were different for me. They weren’t. Sometimes different can be good different. Sometimes it can be bad different. Sometimes in between different. It was the way it was. Now it is the way it is. It’s a lot better. It would be great if fifty were the new fifteen. Oh, well.
05/29/2010 at 2:41 pm
I’m a late transitioner as well, but rather than lament the fact that I did not transition in my youth, I’d rather just be grateful for the life I have today. And the future? That’s an unwritten page.
05/30/2010 at 12:05 pm
I too am looking forward to new adventures — sometimes I’m afraid those “new adventures” might be incontinence and Depends.
I know I got here as soon as I could.
I also know I am MUCH happier, more content, than ever before. That feeling of something missing, of being incomplete, is gone.
There are times I think back to my early childhood — early meaning as far back as I can actually remember, and have remembered all my life (to me, that’s important, it’s not a recently “recovered” memory) — and realize my hopes and dreams have come true.
As “they” say, “better late than never”. Also, how many folks can really say their childhood hopes and dreams have come true?