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Post by Maria on Jun 27, 2021 11:27:26 GMT
Hi, when I was young I was already very muscular and manly. The women of my family waited for me to be the man. I accepted the character they wanted for me because it was easy. But I remember very well when I was 15, I prayed very often God to change me into a girl because it was what I felt inside. I hide all my life my feminity. Sometimes I tried to open me to someone but only girls because men are really stupid with this especially with another man so muscular and who play rugby, krav maga. But inside I wanted to buy girls clothes, I wanted to be able to wear bras and even allowed to fall in love for a boy. When I wear my high heels, it feels so natural… one day, I was 25, I met a girl who was so upset because she wasn’t happy of being a girl that I proposed her to exchange, as a joke. But it wasn’t a joke for me. she would take my body and I take hers. She accepted if I find a way to do it, but I never found it. I continue to dream of this conversation with her. every dream I have, I’m the woman, never the man. Now I’m sure that on the photos I show you, It’s me. Chloé I can definitely relate to this. Especially the part in bold. It seems like just about every trans person I've ever met or even read about had this moment as a kid where they prayed that they would wake up a girl (or boy as it were). It is such a common experience, almost creepily so, for trans folks. That was me as well (although at a younger age - by the time I reached the end of primary school my repression was well under way). What amazes me looking back now though, is how I had basically even at the age of I think around 6, recreated in my mind the red button scenario. I didn't just pray to wake up a girl, but also that those around me wouldn't remember that I had ever been any different in order to spare us all any upset or difficult conversations. How messed up is the world that you can be barely old enough to know how to tie a shoe, and yet at the same time have a firm enough grasp of gender identity politics to know that "this isn't something I should talk about"? Looking back now, I of course see the issue. I prayed to be a girl, when I was already a girl, just one in the body of a boy. If only I'd worded it as "please change my biological sex to match my internal sense of gender identity", I'm SURE it would have worked then
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Post by Lily on Jun 27, 2021 12:54:49 GMT
Please, please, please don't think I'm criticising any of you for talking about this. It's clearly a very common experience. I'm not mad or anything like that.
It's just that I never had anything like that at all. No clear sign, no clear feeling, none of the common signs that others have had at a young age. It is these unrelatable experiences that made me refute and ignore my trans-ness, and despite everything give me doubts even now.
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Post by Maria on Jun 27, 2021 13:46:44 GMT
I think you hit the nail on the head there where you said they're "common" signs: just because a lot of people have them, doesn't mean by any stretch that they're universal. That's also one of the problems with thinking all this through - there's no 'one size fits all' checklist where you can get to the end and say "yup that's me," or "nope, didn't tick everything so I'm not. Well at least now I know."
Two other thoughts to perhaps bear in mind also. First, I don't know about anyone else, but I was bought up in a Christian environment. So because prayer was something that I had been brought up with, it makes sense that that would be something I would turn to as a possible solution to a problem. If you didn't have any religious influences in your childhood, then it would make sense that you didn't have that same experience. Why would you try something if you have no belief at all that it could work?! The other is that even now, years down this path, I still have relevant memories come back, or old memories that suddenly reveal themselves in a new perspective. Is it possible that as that was a very traumatic period of your life, your brain has tried to hide certain bits away (like those wishes) to try to protect you? I have no psychology qualifications whatsoever so am quite possibly talking complete rubbish, but just wondered if it might be a possible explanation.
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Post by Jessica on Jun 27, 2021 15:32:17 GMT
I can definitely relate to this. Especially the part in bold. It seems like just about every trans person I've ever met or even read about had this moment as a kid where they prayed that they would wake up a girl (or boy as it were). It is such a common experience, almost creepily so, for trans folks. That was me as well (although at a younger age - by the time I reached the end of primary school my repression was well under way). What amazes me looking back now though, is how I had basically even at the age of I think around 6, recreated in my mind the red button scenario. I didn't just pray to wake up a girl, but also that those around me wouldn't remember that I had ever been any different in order to spare us all any upset or difficult conversations. How messed up is the world that you can be barely old enough to know how to tie a shoe, and yet at the same time have a firm enough grasp of gender identity politics to know that "this isn't something I should talk about"? Looking back now, I of course see the issue. I prayed to be a girl, when I was already a girl, just one in the body of a boy. If only I'd worded it as "please change my biological sex to match my internal sense of gender identity", I'm SURE it would have worked then That is crazy and I can TOTALLY relate. I can't believe some of the things I was able to do at such a young age to hide myself. My understanding of that concept was very developed, as I would imagine it is in many trans people. Almost a survival mechanism. Even as I moved into my repressive years I still continued to do things like this. I would almost say I wasn't repressing Jessica full stop, I was just living with two different people inside me and only letting one interact with the world. But I never denied she was there.....at least to myself.
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Post by Jessica on Jun 27, 2021 15:33:08 GMT
Please, please, please don't think I'm criticising any of you for talking about this. It's clearly a very common experience. I'm not mad or anything like that. It's just that I never had anything like that at all. No clear sign, no clear feeling, none of the common signs that others have had at a young age. It is these unrelatable experiences that made me refute and ignore my trans-ness, and despite everything give me doubts even now. You seem to have had a somewhat less stereotypical experience than the rest of us, but that doesn't make it any less valid. Don't forget that.
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Post by chloé on Jun 27, 2021 16:24:35 GMT
Hi Woori, everyone here have different experiences and yours is only one among the others. It mean that your experience is just different, it just happens later. You discovered Woori late but you did and it is the most important. We are here for you and you for us. You have to know even if I know that I’m a girl for long time that I just met other girls like us only now. then the thing which is important for me is not knowing the girl we are but to meet other to share with them our experience and we began at the same time. Chloe is a little more born at the same time of Woori.
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Post by Lily on Jun 27, 2021 22:02:03 GMT
I think a lot of this might have a lot to do with the fact that my father died so early in my life, that if I'd been praying for anything it would've been for him to come back. That the loss and consquential struggles for my family took up too much of my thoughts or subconscious, that there wasn't room for any feelings about my gender to emerge. Who knows it's just a theory. What happened happened.
It doesn't make my experience any less valid, and I know I'm fully part of this group. It just adds to the feeling of never really fitting in. It's that as a child there was no-one else I knew that suffered my loss, really knew what that was like. I would like to relate my childhood experience with my friends', or perhaps with anyone.
W-M
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Post by Lily on Jun 29, 2021 14:52:26 GMT
Rather than start a new thread. I thought that this fitted in very well here. Another puzzle piece discovered perhaps. I was astonished of how much I loved that first photo of the whole Woori-Mei that Chloe made. I was looking through my laptop in search of other images, and saw one that I really liked. The body was much slimmer so wouldn't fit me now. However I have not always been so chubby, in the early years of my life I was the opposite, skinny. Therefore I thought that this body could be used for a photo of when I was young. Here's that photo. This isn't just any fashion model, it is Irene, the leader of Kpop girl group Red Velvet. I have a lot of images of her and other Kpop idols saved from when I was really into that scene. So after seeing that photo I thought I'd look for more photos of her, hoping to find another suitable photo to use. As I was going through these I noticed that I was looking at her differently than before. I wasn't admiring her in the same way. I wasn't just admiring her tremendous beauty, or happy or cute expressions. I think I was admiring her aspirationally, wanted to both be as both beautiful and graceful as she was, but also be like her with that confidence that female performers have. In that moment I think I saw her as a role model. I had never really had any role models, seeing myself in neither the men nor the women that might have been that model for others. I think that this may have caused a lack of motivation in me, a lack that I have been aware of for a lot of my life. That because I couldn't see anyone to aspire to be like, I lacked any motivation because there was no end goal to achieve. Whether or not that this is the case, the feeling I had when I was looking at these photos was strong, and I knew it to be very different to how cishet men would look at her. This is all very odd, someone in the body of a 52-year old man, wanting to be a Kpop idol in her late 20's, but there it was. I believe I felt the same as a young girl might feel looking at her. Feeling how that young girl wished to be this successful beautiful Kpop idol. Don't get me wrong, I have no aspiration to actually be that now, but I think it likely that I wished this for my past self. That I found someone that my younger female self would have wished to have been. That in all of that I had found another missing puzzle piece. xox, Woori-Mei
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Post by chloé on Jun 29, 2021 16:44:53 GMT
You know, when I imagine my life as Chloé and I’m 46, very often I think I’m 25, then younger, I just want to imagine since when I began my independent life as a woman. It doesn’t surprise me if you choose young women as dreamgirl. I imagine how I meet my future husband, flirting. Having girlfriends… The difference now is that I have girlfriends 😘
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Post by Maria on Jun 29, 2021 20:29:49 GMT
I've been thinking about this this afternoon, since reading your post. I think it's probably fair to say that I didn't have any role model that I particularly aspired to be like during my early years, quite possibly due to my gender issues. I remember once we had a writing competition at school where the topic was "what do you want to be when you're older", and my piece started "When I grow up I want to do what my dad does. I'm not sure exactly what that is though" lol. (Needless to say, I didn't win the competition). It was when I was in my early teens that I saw concert footage from a rock/metal show that that arguably changed. I saw the guitarist fly out on stage, a mane of long curly hair flying behind him, wearing heeled boots and earrings. More confidence than anyone had any right to have lol. And then he started playing, and did things with the instrument I didn't even know were physically possible. In the course of that 90 minute show, I suddenly knew that THAT is what I NEEDED to do. Went upstairs, picked up my instrument, and started practising. It's interesting looking back at this now, and through this viewpoint. I still love this guy's music, have utter respect for who he is and what he does, and to this day the guitar is my passion in life, so in theory it's fairly cut and dried. But as someone who at that time was thoroughly unaware of the gender issues my subconscious was keeping from me, it feels a massive coincidence that the musician who inspired me so much more than any other was one who had a presentation that edged so close to feminine. Was it 100% the music that inspired me, or was it a subconscious thought of "okay, so if I can play the guitar that well, then I can have long hair and dress like that"? Either way I'm grateful that I was inspired, and I suspect this is a question that after so long is impossible to answer, but it's interesting to think about. So thank you Woori-Mei for your post, and making me think about it
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Post by Lily on Jun 29, 2021 21:05:50 GMT
Thank you Maria.
That's a very interesting example. The question as to whether his femininity attracted you into becoming a musician.
I think many of us here have been pulled towards different things because our subconcious recognised that it matched who we really were. This isn't the right part of the site for this, but my two of my earliest memories of "gaining wood" as a child both had elements of transformation in them.
Looking back I wonder if perhaps I did aspire to be some woman I saw on TV or elsewhere, but that I either didn't know I aspired to be her, or just blocked that aspirational thought out "I can't be like her I'm a boy". It is notable however that I cannot recall ever aspiring to be any male role model.
On my example of wanting to be this Kpop idol for my younger self. I've since noted that others have often complemented me on what good a dancer I was. I just danced from the feel of the music, not from any learnt choreography. However it does make it not so unlikely I might have wanted to be a performer of some kind, if only in an amateur way.
xox,
Woori-Mei
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Post by Jessica on Jun 30, 2021 16:59:54 GMT
Rather than start a new thread. I thought that this fitted in very well here. Another puzzle piece discovered perhaps. I was astonished of how much I loved that first photo of the whole Woori-Mei that Chloe made. I was looking through my laptop in search of other images, and saw one that I really liked. The body was much slimmer so wouldn't fit me now. However I have not always been so chubby, in the early years of my life I was the opposite, skinny. Therefore I thought that this body could be used for a photo of when I was young. Here's that photo. This isn't just any fashion model, it is Irene, the leader of Kpop girl group Red Velvet. I have a lot of images of her and other Kpop idols saved from when I was really into that scene. So after seeing that photo I thought I'd look for more photos of her, hoping to find another suitable photo to use. As I was going through these I noticed that I was looking at her differently than before. I wasn't admiring her in the same way. I wasn't just admiring her tremendous beauty, or happy or cute expressions. I think I was admiring her aspirationally, wanted to both be as both beautiful and graceful as she was, but also be like her with that confidence that female performers have. In that moment I think I saw her as a role model. I had never really had any role models, seeing myself in neither the men nor the women that might have been that model for others. I think that this may have caused a lack of motivation in me, a lack that I have been aware of for a lot of my life. That because I couldn't see anyone to aspire to be like, I lacked any motivation because there was no end goal to achieve. Whether or not that this is the case, the feeling I had when I was looking at these photos was strong, and I knew it to be very different to how cishet men would look at her. This is all very odd, someone in the body of a 52-year old man, wanting to be a Kpop idol in her late 20's, but there it was. I believe I felt the same as a young girl might feel looking at her. Feeling how that young girl wished to be this successful beautiful Kpop idol. Don't get me wrong, I have no aspiration to actually be that now, but I think it likely that I wished this for my past self. That I found someone that my younger female self would have wished to have been. That in all of that I had found another missing puzzle piece. xox, Woori-Mei If young James saw young W-M at a bar, he would have definitely hit on her. And would have gone back to his table rejected (like usual haha). You were a hottie!
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Post by Jessica on Jun 30, 2021 17:02:42 GMT
I've been thinking about this this afternoon, since reading your post. I think it's probably fair to say that I didn't have any role model that I particularly aspired to be like during my early years, quite possibly due to my gender issues. I remember once we had a writing competition at school where the topic was "what do you want to be when you're older", and my piece started "When I grow up I want to do what my dad does. I'm not sure exactly what that is though" lol. (Needless to say, I didn't win the competition). It was when I was in my early teens that I saw concert footage from a rock/metal show that that arguably changed. I saw the guitarist fly out on stage, a mane of long curly hair flying behind him, wearing heeled boots and earrings. More confidence than anyone had any right to have lol. And then he started playing, and did things with the instrument I didn't even know were physically possible. In the course of that 90 minute show, I suddenly knew that THAT is what I NEEDED to do. Went upstairs, picked up my instrument, and started practising. It's interesting looking back at this now, and through this viewpoint. I still love this guy's music, have utter respect for who he is and what he does, and to this day the guitar is my passion in life, so in theory it's fairly cut and dried. But as someone who at that time was thoroughly unaware of the gender issues my subconscious was keeping from me, it feels a massive coincidence that the musician who inspired me so much more than any other was one who had a presentation that edged so close to feminine. Was it 100% the music that inspired me, or was it a subconscious thought of "okay, so if I can play the guitar that well, then I can have long hair and dress like that"? Either way I'm grateful that I was inspired, and I suspect this is a question that after so long is impossible to answer, but it's interesting to think about. So thank you Woori-Mei for your post, and making me think about it This is really cool and interesting story Maria. Thank you for sharing. I knew you were a musician but I didn't realize it was the passion of your life. That is so cool how you saw the performer and instantly "knew". If I were to guess, it was the music first.....since music seems to be a huge passion.....but the hair and dress didn't hurt haha. Thank you so much for sharing. I feel like I know you a lot better now.
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Post by Jessica on Jun 30, 2021 17:04:47 GMT
FWIW, my feminine idols growing up as a teenager were Lindsay Lohan (before she sort of went off the deep end) and gymnast Carly Patterson.
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Post by Lily on Jun 30, 2021 17:10:57 GMT
If young James saw young W-M at a bar, he would have definitely hit on her. And would have gone back to his table rejected (like usual haha). You were a hottie! <BLUSHES> On the subject of my hotness (you brought it up not me) I'm genuinely surprised by the fact I actually think I would've been hot with oestrogen flowing through me. I think it may be because I've got a fairly womanly body already. I've got a good basis for an hourglass figure that I already go in and out in that regard. So I think that would go to the max I guess. My mother had a very attractive figure certainly up top, and I know I have those genes. It feels so odd saying that in my 52-y.o. male body though.
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