#ihatebeingtrans

[dudejaxon]

36 year old Transman

And I am happy to announce I

Have not committed suicide yet. Life is rough, and I cant promise nadda.

Going through some rough rough times.

[hellzyeaz]

Compliment & an INSULT

"You don't look like a trans" cis ppl r so offensive, yet they think nothing of it.

[cryinggameofthrones]

Late Father's Day

Father's Day was last week, but I figured I'd post how I came out to my dad. He is kind of a religious nut who thinks he can calculate the date of the apocalypse using math, so I had to engage him on his own level. Looking back at it , I was early on and bad at expressing things, but here it is: "I think I ought to preface by saying I’m sorry that I’m not explaining any of this in person.  It’s easier for me to organize my thoughts and express them clearly in written form and I need all the clarity I can get in this case.

I don’t know if this was evident or not, but I am depressed and have been for a very long time. I look around me and it seems like everyone is able to enjoy things more than I am. I look strange in pictures because it is like I can barely smile naturally. I barely feel like I’m a part of things and it takes a lot of effort for me to feel like I’m participating in life. I feel like a stranger in my own skin.

A few months ago, I decided I needed to do something about how awful I feel all the time. It wouldn’t be responsible of me to get more serious with (ex-girlfriend) if I was just going to inflict my own mental instability on her for the next few decades. I went to go see a therapist to see if I could work anything out.

I’ve been diagnosed with Gender Identity Disorder or Gender Dysphoria. What this basically means in my case is that I have standards in my head that say I ought to look more like a woman than I do. The idea of looking at the mirror and feeling attractive is foreign to me. I’ve never felt that way because I always feel disgusting. Some days I don’t feel like I can go outside because I feel so unattractive.

If this doesn’t make much sense, then you are in good company because it doesn’t make much sense to me. It is like someone loaded the wrong software into my head. I’ve been like this since as far back as I can remember, but it didn’t really get bad until I hit adolescence and I was on a one way trip to manhood regardless of whether I felt I was going in the right direction.

 I feel like I am understating the severity of the problem. I dug up some statistics and around 33% of people with Gender Identity Disorder attempt suicide. 50% of those at least attempt it before they turn 20. I feel like an abomination before God and a freak for being this way. I feel like the punch line of some grand cosmic joke. I hate it because I know that if most people knew how I really felt, they would find me repugnant.

Please don’t think this conclusion was based on a whim. If you think I’m saying this to try and rebel against my parents or something, keep in mind I could have just got a tattoo and not risked alienating my entire family and friends - not to mention my girlfriend who is not taking this well either.

If you feel like your marital problems caused some sort of mental schism in me, I want to assure you once again that my feelings predate any incident between you and Mom. Believe me, I wish it was caused by something like that because then I would have some sort of control over it.

The best I can say is that it seems to be something I’ve had ever since I was born. Some people think the primary cause is a lack of testosterone in the womb that is responsible for “programming” a baby to think male.I don’t really know why it happens or if it happened in my case, and it’s really impossible to know now that I’m not an infant. Regardless of the cause, I’m stuck with the problem now.

I hate feeling uncomfortable in my own body and I hate not being able to be happy for being the way I am. I tried doing all the guy things. I played football and got big enough that I could pick up the back of the Civic but that just made things worse for me. I tried wearing girls’ clothes from time to time in hopes I just had some weird fetish that I could just appease occasionally and go on with my life, but that didn’t make it go away. I’ve tried losing weight and removing hair, but it still hasn’t gone away.

I prayed to God every night that he would make this awful feeling go away, but he wouldn’t do it. If it is wrong to be this way, why would he constantly afflict me in this way? What’s the point? Am I supposed to become a stronger person? If so, the plan is faulty, because I feel like I’ve been robbed of any potential I had. I feel weaker every day I have to bear this. Am I supposed to overcome this to help other people? Who? It isn’t like your average person is afflicted by this. If the way I am is a sin, it’s a sin God seems to have invented specifically for me, since almost no one else is “tempted” to be a woman.

The fact remains is that I’ve basically tried everything I can to deal with this and I am rapidly running out of options. There is a possibility I might end up having to take hormones if I can’t find a way of dealing with this. It’s not a 100% guarantee that I’m going to do that, and I’m trying to explore every other avenue of treatment, but I need to find a way to deal with this somehow. I can’t keep living like I am now where my happiness just seems to get drained out of me and I’m paralyzed from living a normal life.

When I went to the therapist, I decided to see for myself if God is even against the way I am, but I find little to no mention either way. The best I’ve found is a few verses, which I’ll put here if you’re even still reading this. I hope so at least.

First we have Deuteronomy 22:5 which states:

A woman shall not wear anything that pertains to a man, nor shall a man put on a woman's garment; for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord your God.

This would seem to indicate that I am pretty much out of luck. I would qualify this as coming from the same section of the bible that says rape is okay as long as you marry the girl you raped and give her father 50 silver pieces. By the same token, you could also interpret it to say women can’t wear pants. It’s hard for me to really apply this since so many of the Old Testament verses are specifically geared for Hebrew priests and not me.

The only other verses I could find were analogues and the closest analogue I could find to what I’m dealing with is eunuchs. It’s not the same, obviously, but if we have to accept the Bible even being applicable to modern people we have to assume it has messages even for problems that weren’t really widely understood at the time of its writing.

In Deuteronomy 23:1 there’s a verse that says:

He whose testicles are crushed or whose male member is cut off shall not enter the assembly of the Lord.

Once again, this is Deuteronomy, so I don’t really know who this verse is directed at sometimes. For all I know this could be a verse talking about a specific cult that did weird things to their genitals or it could be a warning to me. I’m inclined to think it is the former because in Isaiah 56: 4-5 it says

For thus says the Lord: to the eunuchs who keep my sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast to my covenant, I will give, in my house and within my walls, a monument better than sons and daughters, I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off.

This one seems a little more positive and directly contradicts the previous passage. It’s hard to weigh one against the other, but thankfully there are a few more references. Jesus gives his opinion about the issue in Matthew 19:12:

For there are some eunuchs, who were so born from their mother's womb: and there are some eunuchs, who were made eunuchs by men: and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven's sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it.

I am inclined to take Jesus’ word for it above other passages since he speaks about it so directly. To me, it seems like maybe there is room in God’s heart for whatever I am. I hope there is room in yours too." As a footnote: there wasn't, but I hope at least he is clear that it's his problem and not a theological one. Maybe reading this can help someone out there too.