Shame?

[Guest Cody_T]

So I'm sorry for having yet another post and I should seriously not get time off from school because it obviously addicts me to the computer and trying to solve all of my little problems in the short span of time I have before going back to reading shakespeare and calculating torque... but I was thinking today and I realized that I'm really super ashamed to be trans. Like, I was hanging out with a friend who finds it okay to refer to how I want to be a guy and doesn't care about shattering peoples' perceptions of me by calling me she when I'm passing, both of which she did yet again today, and I know that is because I haven't emphasized this enough with her. I pretty much gave up after she didn't get it right the first time, and let her do her own thing. I guess it's because I don't want to make a big deal about it seeing as she's going to have to call me she all the time, but I should at least be correcting her on the first one... I can't. Even with my parents, they seriously wanted to know what I was thinking on this matter, and I wimped out. I just can't talk about it.

And so I do all that excusing away stuff, like "it's stupid to make her" or "I don't trust them" but the bottom line is I can't discuss this with people because I'm ashamed of it. I feel like I should be better than this or smarter than this in some way, and even while I intellectually know that's male bovine crap it still keeps eating away at me, and making it so I can't discuss it with anyone I know. And the worst thing about it is it's not like, "I'm ashamed, I want to go back to being a girl" in which case I could hide out for a few more years until I could deal with it... no, it's "I'm ashamed, I want to go back to being a guy" (in a manner of speaking, where I'm just the guy and there's no transition and no one knowing) so I'm stuck where I am. I just can't get the courage to do anything productive right now, because I don't want to call attention to it or admit that it exists.

So I don't really know why I mentioned this, just thought it was kind of interesting in a way. I'm not looking for consolances or w/e, just wondering has anyone else felt similarly?

[Guest Evan_J]

First, you never have to apologize for posting.

Second, you never have to apologize for posting too often.

As long as the posts are inside the rules that is

And in this case, your type of post is why this whole place exists.

Hmm. I'll be honest. I had so many "shame" kind of issues regarding this, its hard to remember if one of em was exactly like yours. Though I think it was. And I think it was the one that surfaced like a year and a half ago. Thats when I tried for the 9millionth time to fit in the lesbian community and it didn't work. Mind you, I'd had long runs where it seemed to, but ultimately always bombed cuz ultimately lesbians always identify as ....well....lesbians lol. But on this particular one I got mixed up in this online forum too and because the population was very much sorting out being female or male identified it became a subject. The "popular" answer was to be "female". And more and more dramatically it was obvious I actually wasn't. I brought it up to the people I'd gotten closest to in private discussions away from the site and the "hope" of all of them in each conversation was that I would "decide I was not male" , "see that I didn't want or need to transition". I felt "befriended" because of the interest and I probably think they meant well but under it and in my heart of hearts I felt like poop because I "knew". And in the end all that their well meaning made me feel was kind of like you; bad about myself and thinking "why can't I just...." I knew from rl and looooong ago that the lesbian community in my area didn't like transgendered folk of either sex and this just made me feel "wow, I'll even be not wanted worldwide" by a segment of the populus that I'd thought I'd at least fitted in amongst if I didn't fit in the mainstream. Not to sound dramatic but heck, some of those women sounded like they would cry if I transitioned.

Sorry if I "consoled" you I know you didn't ask for it but I was finding similarity.

And btw, I love Shakespeare. Now about this torque......

<--needs a tuneup and the timing reset on his car lol

[Guest Sergei]

You should never be ashamed of your situation, or correcting people when they use the wrong name or pro-nouns when talking to you. To get it wrong now and again as a mistake is fair enough, but you have to make it clear to people that it's not acceptable to constantly get it wrong. At the end of the day it's just disrespectful to you, and especially if a friend can't make the effort to switch to the new pro-nouns, then maybe you should question just how good of a friend they really are.

I think every transperson goes through a phase where they feel ashamed of their situation. It's because of the way we grow up, and the stigma that surronds the word trannsexual. It's because of ignorance that this stigma exists, and likewise it's therefore because of ignorance that the shame exists. Yes, even we, the people who are trans are unbelievably ignorant of ourselves when we first start transitioning. I know I was. It's with time and growth that we eventually learn not to be ashamed. Maybe I've gone to the other extreme now. I'm proud to be a transsexual person. I'm out to everybody, and at the same time I won't let anybody belittle my status as male just because they know about my past. You have to stay strong, and be firm in your beliefs. Once people really understand what it means to be transgendered or transsexual I find that they are fascinated by my situation. None of them make me feel that is something I should be ashamed of, and I find that people actually gain more respect for me as a person when they see me presenting myself as a proud transsexual man.

[Guest My_Genesis]

I also really don't like discussing it with anyone and find it very difficult to do so...even with the therapist I've started working with, I really don't like when she asks me a load of questions until she gets an open and honest answer...I mean I know that's the way it's done, people can't help you if they aren't clear what's going on, it's just that I really hate talking about it with anyone. There is so much on my mind related to it that I wish I could openly tell people but instead of doing that, I end up beating around the bush, and normally i just end up feeling ashamed for doing that...like, they always have to deal with me rambling about seemingly irrelevant stuff, since i never really get to the point. and people do in general seem to be more accepting of this than i myself am...that would also be true of the one friend i have who i was actually able to tell about it a little over a year ago...

I think it's just a lot harder to talk about when you're the one dealing with it, and especially when you aren't comfortable in your own body. Like I can see myself as a guy finding it much easier to talk about things like relationships than I do now. It's a topic i try to avoid actually, even though I'm always pondering over it..

[Guest CharlieRose]

Before I figured out I was transsexual, I was really really.... Defiantly nonconformist. I realize now that was the product of being in middle school and being subconsiously unhappy with myself the way I was, but I loved to be different and I loved making people uncomfortable and I loved rubbing it in my parent's faces. I told them I was an atheist when I was ten. (They're both Catholic, and they're not religious psychos, but it's important to them) I told them I was a wiccan when I was twelve. I told them I was asexual when I was fourteen, just so I could wait years and years until I was an adult and they'd believe me and then say, "HA! I'm STILL asexual! You were SO wrong about it being a phase!" and shut the door in their faces.

By the time I was fourteen, I was having gender-related thoughts that I realized definitely weren't normal... I started experimenting with things like binding my chest and wearing masculine clothing. But a year later I also started experimenting with being feminine. I wore tons of earrings and berets and skirts, even. I joined a dancing group. It took so long for me to finally admit to myself that I wanted to be a guy. I went through labels like mad... I was an androgyne, I was genderqueer, I was a female crossdresser, I was anything, anything but transsexual. I have journal entries that say that. Going on and on about how weird I'm feeling and then being like, "But I'm not transsexual. I'm something different." It had to be something different... Something interesting but not that extreme. Something I could take care of myself, in private, on my own time. Something I wouldn't have to tell my parents. (And that was the strangest thing. Normally I'd be dying to tell them. But I didn't.) Heck, you look at my first post here I thought I was a male crossdresser! (I still wanted to be able to wear dresses... But now I don't; I realize I was just scared. And that's why I have an androgynous username... I should change that.)

It's scary. The changes you have to make, the fear of people's reactions.... Last year, the first time I wore a shirt that was distinctly male, I freaked out halfway to school, started crying, had to turn around, go home and get a sweatshirt to put over it because I could hear people asking me, "Why are you wearing that?" When I joined a GLBT group and told them my name was Daniel and they were calling me that and he and I was shaking when I drove home, every fiber of my being saying "They shouldn't be calling me that. That's not my name. I thought I wanted it to be my name but I don't anymore." Like, I reconsidered being transsexual just because of the name change!

I gotta wrap this up, but yeah, I know what you mean.

[Guest My_Genesis]

Before I figured out I was transsexual, I was really really.... Defiantly nonconformist. I realize now that was the product of being in middle school and being subconsiously unhappy with myself the way I was, but I loved to be different and I loved making people uncomfortable and I loved rubbing it in my parent's faces. I told them I was an atheist when I was ten. (They're both Catholic, and they're not religious psychos, but it's important to them) I told them I was a wiccan when I was twelve. I told them I was asexual when I was fourteen, just so I could wait years and years until I was an adult and they'd believe me and then say, "HA! I'm STILL asexual! You were SO wrong about it being a phase!" and shut the door in their faces.

By the time I was fourteen, I was having gender-related thoughts that I realized definitely weren't normal... I started experimenting with things like binding my chest and wearing masculine clothing. But a year later I also started experimenting with being feminine. I wore tons of earrings and berets and skirts, even. I joined a dancing group. It took so long for me to finally admit to myself that I wanted to be a guy. I went through labels like mad... I was an androgyne, I was genderqueer, I was a female crossdresser, I was anything, anything but transsexual. I have journal entries that say that. Going on and on about how weird I'm feeling and then being like, "But I'm not transsexual. I'm something different." It had to be something different... Something interesting but not that extreme. Something I could take care of myself, in private, on my own time. Something I wouldn't have to tell my parents. (And that was the strangest thing. Normally I'd be dying to tell them. But I didn't.) Heck, you look at my first post here I thought I was a male crossdresser! (I still wanted to be able to wear dresses... But now I don't; I realize I was just scared. And that's why I have an androgynous username... I should change that.)

It's scary. The changes you have to make, the fear of people's reactions.... Last year, the first time I wore a shirt that was distinctly male, I freaked out halfway to school, started crying, had to turn around, go home and get a sweatshirt to put over it because I could hear people asking me, "Why are you wearing that?" When I joined a GLBT group and told them my name was Daniel and they were calling me that and he and I was shaking when I drove home, every fiber of my being saying "They shouldn't be calling me that. That's not my name. I thought I wanted it to be my name but I don't anymore." Like, I reconsidered being transsexual just because of the name change!

I gotta wrap this up, but yeah, I know what you mean.

In a way I was kinda the opposite. I'm such a mega-conformist that all my "regular" friends seem to want to be unique, like unique is the best thing in the world, and I've really developed an aversion to that word. I also never brought myself to do any of that typical stuff like binding and crossdressing for that reason. It just seems...unconventional to me I guess, for lack of a better word. I don't want to be asked questions. I"m not very good at reading social cues (not sure if thats a masculine thing or a lack of socialization thing, or both) but what i get from people is that there's nothing that makes me distinct from others, there's nothing they're seeing that makes me interesting as an individual. And that's probably because of my OCD-conformity, but right now I'm debating whether Id rather have it that way, or be seen as "different" and "unusual"..then maybe people would find me more "interesting", but how do I know it will be in a good way? that's kinda why im afraid to tell anyone about this...maybe I'd rather be boring with nothing special to offer, in the eyes of everyone else, than unusual and unconventional. It does kinda suck to have to choose between two extremes though...

[Guest bronx]

I really needed to give a reply. There were times when I felt the same way you did especially in the begining I kept questioning myself, and wondering if I would ever fit in. Just like Evan I tried the lesbian community and knew deep down this wasn't where I belonged. I love women but I love women as a man not as a woman. I thoght I was a freak. that I was somehow cursed. I'll never have any friends and know one will truely see me as I see me. After I got the nerves to start living my life for me and not for what other people said I was It got better, but I had to make some dessions, I had to find out who my friends were. For one if you called me the other pronoun once I would correct you, maybe even twice people have to get used to it as well, but when you continue to do it and then say oh my bad that's not okay with me. Now your disrecpecting me and you don't respect this friendship so I have to do what's right for me and let you go. Cause when it all boils down to it you don't even know who I am and how can I be you're friend. You're gonna be okay, your feelings are valid. just be you, love you and everything else will fall into place.