More thoughts...

[agent_dani]

Two things I realize I need to deal with:

1: The excessive discomfort around men. I realize this really isn't doing anything to help me, that the perception of threat/danger is very much overstated due to what my experiences (with boys and men I was around, from my classmates to those who are immediate relatives) presented to me. Now the question is, how to even take the first step on this one? Perhaps I just need time to pass while living my life...don't know; I have no other ideas.

2: Sex - what I can best describe as difficulties with respect to arousal. While I am finding I like my body very much more today there are some very specific things I very much do not; areas I'm able to now see clearly because of the rest of transition being behind me. It's something I've felt for a while but the entire matter really formed into coherent thoughts only recently, in part because of something I recently read.

Less vague, it's damned hard to be able to enjoy sex when it inherently involves arousal focused on parts of your body that you're trying like hell to ignore. If I were to say there was a negative I've found in transition it's this. *blegh*

I used to be unsure about GCS and thought that I could be happy non-op. I'm thinking that less so now.

ETA: LJ readers: this was originally posted two days ago but the crosspost failed at that time.

Comments

[cmcmck]

You do choose the difficult ones :o)

I took a deal of abuse from both (male) teachers and (male) classmates-it was a single sex school.

Given those experiences, it's perhaps ironic that I turned out straight, although I have to say that my relationship experiences with guys have been entirely positive even when they didn't work out.


I found _those_ parts absolutely horrible to deal with and simply wanted rid asap. That might explain why my first ever sexual experience was at 22 after GRS!

Your issues with sexual experience as things now are perhaps explains why so comparatively few people manage to cope with non op status.

[agent_dani]

If it were a choice... ;)

There was abuse at the hands of my family, particularly male relatives, but the rest was pure, unrestrained misogyny (including from my male relatives,) which is what I believe is my stumbling-block. As I think more of what they said it was all about projecting their desires onto women in an effort to justify them (and, likely, making it women's 'fault' - heavily RC area replete with the Catholic Guilt to the point that I didn't even escape that and I was raised protestant.)

Oddly enough, I now feel, and for many months have felt, that I could actually be happy never having sex again. However, my wife isn't so high on the idea, feeling that it would be "living as sisters."

I do wonder how much is due to the various coping mechanisms I developed through the years when I believed transition impossible for me...

[cmcmck]

Ah yes, teh menz of that sort! The sort for whom it always and invariably, has to be about them. Thankfully, I have one bro who doesn't think that way and we get on like a house on fire and a husband who is both a gentleman and a gentle man (they do exist :o)

I got the Protestant guilt trip- I was raised Anglican but converted to Quakerism in my late teens and have felt much better ever since. :o)

It's a bit different for me as an early transitioner I suppose and also as one who was asexual until after surgery, but I do think it possible that we place sex too firmly at the centre of things at times, although I can see why your other half mightn't be too keen on the idea of becoming an 'accidental lesbian' (a term one of a couple of friends uses to describe her relationship after the other underwent GCS. :o)

You'd be forgiven for saying it's easy for me when I'm married and sexually active but I have know people who have gone for GCS with never an intention of having a sexual realtionship- it's simply a matter of completeness.

[agent_dani]

UMC in my case, although some of the rules enforced on me weren't from that church, e.g. no dancing, which came from my mother's youthful experiences growing-up Southern Baptist.

My first sexual experience was at the end of my teens or early 20s. I can't say I've ever really enjoyed sex, but I had a very high libido and needed release.

My wife long felt that she would be ever so happy in our relationship if my sex drive vanished because she didn't want sex and had no libido. When Spiro eliminated mine she discovered that she did have a desire for sex, just rather infrequently, and it lead to several fights in which she expected me to initiate sex because she wanted it. In this way, sex is being made an issue for me, personally, because my participation is necessary in her view, i.e. she feels that if there isn't sex the relationship is "like sisters" (using the line from "She's Not There.")

She's actually fine with being lesbian and today defines in that way.

As for individual desire for GCS: it's exactly that - individual. I've ranted elsewhere about the Standard Transition Narrative... I draw parallels here to being childfree, which was never a question for me, I wanted and needed to not be a parent, whereas others are more "on the fence." I tended to define myself as "financially non-op," which is a much debated status in many areas, because I still don't know how I'm going to be able to afford it. My then-approach was, not feeling a clear need for GCS, make a choice between the mental position of wanting it, thus letting my life be defined by a desire for something out of reach, or non-op and get on with my life. Things have since changed, but I wouldn't change that as it really helped me not focus on GCS when dealing with transition itself.

[cmcmck]

It is individual for sure although finances are a huge issue. I could have had help from the NHS here even back then although a favourite Great Uncle died and left me a bit of cash. We were not wealthy (woking class background is where I originate) but he ran a pub and that was wealthy in our book!

I often wonder what he'd have though of what I spent it on! :o)

I still yearn for the one thing I can never have- children and I know a lot of trans people find this odd, but it's a commonplace among early transitioners for some reason :o(

[agent_dani]

heee! There was no such largesse to be had in my family, and I think that will remain the case. The only possibility is my parents as the rest of the family doesn't think much of me (they truly known nothing of me; that well was poisoned by my father in my youth.)

You have my sympathies. I don't find it odd at all; you want them and a choice of having them isn't and wasn't available to you, and an association with trans people is unsurprising to me since other combinations with transition, e.g. ambivalence or active desire to not have children, aren't so affected.

I was an "early articulator", as it's called in the Childfree areas, knowing at a young age that I wanted to never be a parent - not just not have children of my own but to not parent children. I knew I'd be a bad fit and grew ever so frustrated with those who tried to convince me I'd be such a good parent.