Sharing time
Sep. 18th, 2007 11:34 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
garlicfiend.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
transSomething happened recently. Some sort of important shift that I think is worth sharing.
A couple days ago, for the first time in a long time, I dressed up a bit and took a couple pictures of myself. I posted two of them on![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
transphoto. I liked those pictures, especially this one:
Now, the thing with this pic is that it's not a great pic. Aside from the whole MySpace style, I need to shave my face. I just threw on some lipstick, no other makeup. My hair was just up in a ponytail all day and I hadn't even brushed it. And we won't even get into my eyebrows. But I like it nonetheless. I even made it into an icon. Just this evening, I figured out why.
I look like a trannie in it. And for the first time, I'm not afraid of that. I'm okay with being exactly as I am right now.
It's something of a conversion for me in a way. For most of my life, I have been very pragmatic in the way I deal with my issues. Shit happens accept it and deal with it and move on. So I didn't get the body I wanted or role in life I wanted. Success to me always meant mastering that reality, getting past it to the more important things in life. And I hate to admit it, but transsexuals always represented failure to me, failure to cope with reality. It all seemed very much a big game of pretend and denial. Of course I was wrong, but I didn't want to research the issue because that view was part of my defense mechanism.
Transitioning, in the end, was also a pragmatic decision. Emotional issues as a whole were overwhelming me, and it became in impossibe to just accept and deal with the situation. And so I began to educate myself about transitioning, and the larger trans community as a whole and all that. Intellectually, my understanding of it changed and underwent a correction. But eversince making the decision to transition, there has remained this deep emotional conflict over it. There was an embarrassment, a shame over what I was becoming. The very idea of going out in public unless I was able to pass 100% was absolutely terrifying to me. There was this cartoon stereotype of a trannie in my head, and it was something that I did not want to be.
There has been a sort of shift in me now. I won't claim I am completely over it, but it's changed now. There is some give. It's progress.
A couple days ago, for the first time in a long time, I dressed up a bit and took a couple pictures of myself. I posted two of them on
transphoto. I liked those pictures, especially this one:Now, the thing with this pic is that it's not a great pic. Aside from the whole MySpace style, I need to shave my face. I just threw on some lipstick, no other makeup. My hair was just up in a ponytail all day and I hadn't even brushed it. And we won't even get into my eyebrows. But I like it nonetheless. I even made it into an icon. Just this evening, I figured out why.
I look like a trannie in it. And for the first time, I'm not afraid of that. I'm okay with being exactly as I am right now.
It's something of a conversion for me in a way. For most of my life, I have been very pragmatic in the way I deal with my issues. Shit happens accept it and deal with it and move on. So I didn't get the body I wanted or role in life I wanted. Success to me always meant mastering that reality, getting past it to the more important things in life. And I hate to admit it, but transsexuals always represented failure to me, failure to cope with reality. It all seemed very much a big game of pretend and denial. Of course I was wrong, but I didn't want to research the issue because that view was part of my defense mechanism.
Transitioning, in the end, was also a pragmatic decision. Emotional issues as a whole were overwhelming me, and it became in impossibe to just accept and deal with the situation. And so I began to educate myself about transitioning, and the larger trans community as a whole and all that. Intellectually, my understanding of it changed and underwent a correction. But eversince making the decision to transition, there has remained this deep emotional conflict over it. There was an embarrassment, a shame over what I was becoming. The very idea of going out in public unless I was able to pass 100% was absolutely terrifying to me. There was this cartoon stereotype of a trannie in my head, and it was something that I did not want to be.
There has been a sort of shift in me now. I won't claim I am completely over it, but it's changed now. There is some give. It's progress.