Do I Need A Ticket For This Journey?

[Guest yvonne]

Hello Sweet Sisters,

This is one really cruel situation in some ways. Most of us really don't feel we have good choices. Myself, as well as many others, were convinced for a long time that we'd end up as ugly people who couldn't find a place to live or a job. So, we couldn't consider transitioning because it seemed like such an awful life of ridicule and scorn.

On the other hand, to not transition meant a life of eternal mental stress and conflict from NOT doing it. Wow, great choices, huh?

One of the serious problems is that a lot of us still can't see past that great moment in time when we finally step forth into the world as "I, woman" for the first time. We're obsessed with getting made, stealth and hiding a great secret forever.

This now channels all our energies into hiding ourselves and passing as regular women.

What about the focus on developing our talents and enhancing our strengths? What about the great things we can accomplish in our lives with a brain that finally works and allows our true inner beauty to emerge?

Many of us really are adolescent girls and it's very important that we have mature heroines to idolize and work to emulate ourselves. After reading about the incredible success of many trans women on this site:

http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/TSs...Ssuccesses.html

I now have a new energy about this whole thing. I want to be the next Lynn Conway.

At my therapy session last night, my GT said that this is a great time to be emerging as a TS, due to increased awareness of GID in children and what it does to kids. This is similar to me of the "coming out" of the gay crowd and it being established that being gay wasn't a choice, but rather established at or before birth.

Today, gays are quite accepted in our society and it's time we were, too.

My shame and embarrassment over my condition is over and I'm very proud to be who I am now. We all need to work on our own inner selves to see past simply becoming the woman we want to see in the mirror and focus some effort on how we'll use that gift to advance and enrich ourselves after that day.

Read more stories about successful transitions and fewer stories of failure. Dream of success and good feelings. I know I'll get picked on, I've been picked on all my life by jealous people. It didn't stop me before and I don't expect it will stop me later.

The coming years will show more understanding about us all, it's time we got serious about understanding what we'll be after the train pulls into the station.

What will happen when we get there? It's up to each of us to be sure we're ready for that day, too and it's a lot more than how we look, talk or walk. It's the same place it's always been--it's in our heads.

Yvonne

[Carolyn Marie]

Yvonne, this is a very lovely and inspiring post. Thank you!

You are one of the most relentlessly upbeat members I know. I love reading your posts.

Keep on posting, honey. You are always a breath of fresh air.

Warm HUGS

Carolyn Marie

[Guest Donna Jean]

Yvonne.....

You know what?

I ask some women....what happens when you "Get there"?

Where is "There?"

Do we reach a day and then we stop? We're there?

You've got it right, Honey....

Transitioning is just the start, not the end...

I LOVE your 'tude....

And I love you, too!

Donna Jean

[Guest yvonne]

Yvonne, this is a very lovely and inspiring post. Thank you!

You are one of the most relentlessly upbeat members I know. I love reading your posts.

Keep on posting, honey. You are always a breath of fresh air.

Warm HUGS

Carolyn Marie

Hi Sweet Girlfriend,

"Relentlessly upbeat" is actually quite a negative statement for me, I'm much more positive than that!

My GT commented on that at my last session. I'm a combination cheerleader and Super Bowl Coach and I have to be careful of that as I make my transition. I've become very good at burying negatives and amplifying positives and effecting a positive outcome through sheer determination.

It's funny how life works, because I think it was the GID that did this. What?

As a young man just out of college, I had an awful time finding a job due to lack of concentration, lack of direction and a general failure to want to become part of mainstream society. I just didn't identify with being a man and didn't understand why at the time.

I was extremely gifted at sales, although I hated doing it, and I tried my best to convince myself I did. It was h*ll and it was all I could do to drag my body out of bed in the morning. I was very close to a mental institution or living on the street. Really. Again, I didn't know why, but I knew I'd better do something to fix it.

I found a positive-thinking book that really helped me. All I had to do was read a few pages in the morning and I could get myself wound up and enthused for the day. I carried the book with me everywhere and read little bits when I could. It really helped me cope. Soon, I finished the book and bought another and another and another. Before too long I'd read over 100 books on the subject and became somewhat of an expert on psychology and mind control myself. Too bad I couldn't accept being GID at the time, but for whatever reason, I couldn't.

At any rate, being positive has become so "me" that I just resonate it. It's helped me become very successful at many things throughout my life, except one....

On that level, I'm just like every other sister in the group--struggling to deal with something I never asked for and don't understand that stands to cost me everything I've ever worked for and hold dear in my life.

But at the same time, I see this as an incredible gift. This gift has given me a positive outlook I'd have never developed on my own and abilities to do things that most people would say are impossible. This gift has enabled me to develop relationships with people (who have no idea about me) that I would have never done or been able to do without it. This gift has given me the potential to have more inner peace than most people can every dream of having. This gift has given me the power to really be me, as I do believe that most people struggle with their own self-worth on a daily basis. Most people struggle more than any of us realize.

Part of my job has me traveling all over the country, talking to hundreds of business owners every year about all sorts of business problems and issues. Believe me when I say that the average person is screwed up in their own right. We sisters are blinded to all this due to our own struggles, but this is one of the reasons we suffer so much ridicule--those that heap abuse on us are simply reflecting their own pathetic inner sense of lack of self-worth.

Yes, Carolyn Marie, this condition that I have is NOT a curse, it's a gift. A real, true gift. I WILL be the next Lynn Conway and I WILL make a difference to our sisterhood.

This job is simple--I just start with myself and take it a day at a time (as soon as I stop crying...).

I love you, Carolyn and I love being here.

Yvonne

[Guest viv]

Hi Yvonne,

Wow !!, if ever I needed a pick me up it was now , today , bad news re our sis Angie,,, I got

news the other day I wont get to see an endo till early March next,,, wont get to see a diabetes doc

till ***next September***. So ,,I read your post and you give me that tonic I needed, thanks hun. I am

totally with you re your ideas on our transitioning , yep, reading off the same page as you Yvonne.

So , for us hun its hurdles and hoops ,,for jumping over and jumping through, ah, no problem to us,

we have been dealing with a lot tougher then that since we were six-ish. Thanks again Yvonne, Luv,viv

[Guest SusanKG]

Beautiful Yvonne,

This is one really cruel situation in some ways. Most of us really don't feel we have good choices. Myself, as well as many others, were convinced for a long time that we'd end up as ugly people who couldn't find a place to live or a job. So, we couldn't consider transitioning because it seemed like such an awful life of ridicule and scorn.

On the other hand, to not transition meant a life of eternal mental stress and conflict from NOT doing it. Wow, great choices, huh?

It's never been stated more accurately, concisely or precisely.

SusanKG