Quote:
Originally Posted by tw
Can you really identify a transgender person from others? Or only see the fewer that are in transition?
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I've known a few TG people in real life. One was very obvious, and continues to be. She has been supported by her employer and lives completely as a woman, but she does look very much like a man. Then again she didn't even begin her physical journey until she was into her 50s and I believe this makes a difference.
Another is as Shel describes, but from the opposite perspective. People assume he is gay and are surprised he has a girlfirend. Both of them have had to deal with some cold shoulders from the lesbian community who they once viewed as family. He for not feeling being a woman was good enough, she for "becoming" heterosexual for sticking by the person she loved regardless of changing gender.
Those are statements not questions of course.
My question is, if money had been no object, would you have transitioned sooner? Or was it cultural/ societal issues which held you back? Or did you simply start to make your changes when you were emotionally comfortable with doing so? That's not really three questions, because one answer will suffice
And is there any
good TG literature out there?
Fiction or memoirs written from an informed perspective have always helped me to understand different lifestyles more than any number of texts or documentaries. For example, although I can never really feel the impact of AIDs on the gay community, I have a heck of a lot more empathy since Derek Jarman's books sent me down a path of reading various (well-written) memoirs. It was another world which only ran parallel to the one I lived in at the time.