Women Born Transsexual

Rather than “normalness”,  something that strikes me as mandated social construct, a chmera that exists  as a little conformed to ideal what happened to me after SRS was a gradual growth into ordinariness.

When Tina and I started the WBT post-op list we made it for post-SRS women because we didn’t want to continually relive the process of change.

It is exciting and driven for people going through it.  Indeed some people feel a let down after it is all over with.  People in process expect those who went through it to have words of wisdom and guidance to offer them in their struggles with the process.  And we might if we choose to make being a guide or a counselor our life’s work or even our volunteer work.  But for most of us time and distance from that period of transition means that about all we really have to offer goes something like this, “You too can do this just as others have. After SRS you will continue to grow until one day you discover you really aren’t much different from all the women who were born female that are part of your enviroment.”

There was a time when having had the operation made on special because there weren’t very many of us.  Now it is rather common and we have to rely on talents or abilities to be special.

So many of our concerns are the same concerns  everyone else has.  Global warming, the economy, corporate  domination of our lives.  Aging, relationships.

Many of us are alienated from our families, some of us are happy, some of us suffer depression.

Some of us are in recovery, others have substance issues.  None of these things are particular to us because of our medical histories but the social stigmatization due to that medical history tends to make our lives more problem filled than the lives of those who were not born with TS.

Cathrine sez:  ““Normal” in New York City is going to be different than normal in the heavily Mormon parts of Utah, in Western Africa, or in Thailand. Dig a little and I think no one will stand up to a “normal” litmus test.”

This is a really good observation.  Because normal is something defined by conformity to the culture one is raised in.  For me the idea that someone would willingly wear a burqa or chaddor in public is bizarre beyond all reason yet women do it to conform to standards of normal within their culture.

My friend from high school was thought to be weird also and was sent off to pshrinks because she didn’t conform to expectations of normal and she too escaped the hometown for a better life.

If one lives in an insane culture or a culture viewed as insane by others, say Mormonism or fundie Xianity is it normal to embrace that culture or is it normal to reject it?

What about bohemian culture.  If one is artistic and creative and lives in a place with other creative artistic people, where differentness is common and eccentricity expected what is normal.  I met Bill Burroughs, author of  Naked Lunch, next to Allen Ginsburg he looked like a small town business man and yet he was down right weird by almost any standard.

The Japanese have a saying, “The peg that sticks up gets hammered down.”

Yet where ever we look, unless people are utterly bland and boring there are people who are pegs who stick up a little bit and refuse to be hammered down.  Who defy being hammered down even if only sticking an Obama bumper sticker on their car in an area where McCain is considered left wing and not a “real conservative”.

Some years back I used to have a fantasy I called my Ikea fantasy.  It involved having a secure income, a nice loft in the Brewery (an old Brewery converted to lofts for artists in LA.) and having a compact car that had less than 100K miles on it and looked decent.

Well now I live in a nice house in suburbia with a life partner a whole bunch of cats and just got a promotion at work.  I supervise the crew of associates when the main supervisor is off.

That’s about as normal as it gets.  Yes, I perfer museums to religion.  Would rather read political non-fiction to almost any sort of romance or popular books.  I’m probably further left than most Democrats.

I look at the people who shop the store.  Most do not fit anyone’s stereotype and if they do on the surface that is often a projection onto them.

Those that work at the store are just as varied.

When people throw out the term normal without a definition how is anyone to define the parameters?

Your mileage will definately vary on this one.