You are not your fucking khakis :)

Was just chatting with D'arcy, and this post came to my mind.

The thread title is an homage to something from the 90s by the way

We here are, I think, all transgender as of this moment.

But, you are the sum of your life, and you are not just transgender.

And if you try to make all of your life all about being transgender, you likely will fail yourself eventually.

I am in addition to being transgender.

A scientist of many disciplines.
A parent.
A divorced person coming from a 27-year marriage.
An ex-Canadian Anglican.
I have also the status of being an ex-Mormon. I'm an ex-Aaronic Priest as a result.
I am today, an atheist. Which needs specific clarification. I am not spiritual. I am merely denying God's existence. And I am not interested in alien conspiracies, or flat earth nonsense, or an obsession with a host of other nonsense.

I'm a Canadian, and it makes a difference.
I was born Caucasian, and it has impacted my life.
I was born AMAB and that matters.
Because being originally Caucasian Canadian Male is no small thing.

If I had been born a black AFAB American from North Carolina, chances are my life would suck a lot more than it currently does. Because they have greater challenges than I do.

We here on this forum, need to remember we are a lot more than just a handful of transgender people. Celia our host is British. It makes a difference. Her laws are different than my laws.
She lives in a small-sized nation geographically speaking. Being a rural Canadian makes a difference. My home town is surrounded by a lot of nothing much and lakes for 30 minutes in any direction east and south. To the north, well it just heads for hours and hours of increasing levels of nothing much. To the west, you eventually reach a Great Lake that might as well be the Atlantic. The point here, is I live in a very sparsely populated country. It impacts social dynamics. Outside of our 10 biggest cities, Canada is a totally different experience.

I am a highly creative, highly educated individual living in a country that values each and every person equally. And we have laws to punish those that forget it.

But just because we have those laws, doesn't mean everyone obeys them willingly.
But that's why jails exist. Because people don't always obey all the laws of the land.

But our laws are a reflection of the majority values of our nation.

And as such, I am able to be transgender, without it being the be all and end all of my life.
I am post-op not because I was lucky to be able to afford it. I didn't pay a cent for it.
So, it hasn't dominated my life any longer than it had to.
Yes, I had to wait patiently. And no, I didn't like the wait at all.
But, it is now an increasingly distant memory. It wasn't last year. It was the year before last year. And it was the first of that year. It's now almost 2 years ago.
If not for my transgender fiance, who is now doing her own journey, and waiting her long wait to join me in being post-op, I'd likely have almost no real specific need to even acknowledge much of the transgender world.

Yes, I could just as easily just drop the label transgender, and just walk out on the whole experience. I COULD just say "I'm a woman", and leave a person to wonder why my voice was so odd.

That I have no desire to hide my transition, is a matter of character I suppose.
I suppose there are many than might just wish to walk away from what might have been a source of pain loss and discomfort. And I'd understand any that might do so.

Being Canadian, makes it a lot easier to be me.

Being Canadian, allows me to focus on the other parts of me.
The disabled person that wishes she could write a successful transgender romance novel, or become a successful selling landscape artist. Or just a person hoping to invest in a Tiny Home so she can finally, in her 6th decade of life, finally get to see something more exciting than the places within a few hours walk.

I am trying to make being transgender, no more interesting that being left handed.

Lesley Niyori wrote:I am trying to make being transgender, no more interesting that being left handed.

Where is the thumb up emoticon?

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We've a few things in common. Indeed I might have been been Canadian. Dad had a job offer in Canada but turned it down. How different my life might have been. I have some Canadian cousins though, newly discovered.

In an aside I find it interesting how many people in 'new world' countries attach such importance to their identity, Canada, USA, Australia etc. Being Irish is something I wear lightly. I'm just Irish and I live less than an hours drive from where my ancestors originated. People here tend to identify by their county, tribalism in fact. I think your way is better.

Anyway I agree that being trans is just one facet of a life not the be all and end all. I personally just want to be seen as female and get on with my life otherwise. Sadly it's not to be, not yet anyway so being trans looms larger in my life than it deserves.

The other problem is that it impacted my life even when I was suppressing it, leading to poor decisions and disappointment.

Very hard to get away from it.