What does it feel like to be transgender?

[Ice Maiden]

This has been raised in our live Skype group - join us here http://media.transgenderzone.com/

But it is/was simply to good a topic to let lie.

So here we are.

Transgender people have described it in a number of ways and I personally find it fascinating.

Here are just a few:

1. It felt like being in prison but like the 'Truman Show' you never really understand what the outside world is like, until you escape!
2. It is like sitting in a railway station watching the world go by and not really feeling you are part of it - disassociation.
3. It felt like a knot in the gut that was so powerful it makes you feel ill, and you try everything possible to avoid feeling it, everything that is than face it full on and deal with it!

There are more but the rest I'll leave to you.

This perhaps is one of the most important threads I have ever started - please do engage with me and it :)x

[Steffi]

All of the above at different times and to different degrees.
I always felt like I was outside everything in some subtle way.
It took a long time to realise that my gender feelings were at the root of it rather than a side-issue and just another aspect of my oddness.

[madannie]

For me it was like the knot in the gut - the feeling of "otherness" was there, in the background for much of my life, becoming more prominent as time went on until a point came when it could be ignored no longer.

My initial thought was that of being an outsider, observing the world but not feeling fully a part of it: I spent a long time trying to engage with it, and to some extent succeeded until that feeling of otherness became too insistent. I have always felt apart from what is regarded as "normal life" and still do: whether this down to being transgender I am not sure, as my partner feels much the same way.

[Ice Maiden]

It is interesting and this and other trans behaviours are very autistic traits, yet when trans face their demons the cloud lifts and the real world everybody else understands is revealed to us - and some do not like what they see

Such is the irony of being trans.

An all consuming behaviour that can cause self injury. repetitive behaviours, dressing despite the risks and driven to do so beyond our control in some instances and case.

[JustMe]

and some do not like what they see

I didn't understand what you meant there Ice . I hope I am not one of them .

On the original thread - for me it has been like watching all of the other kids playing the ball game but I was not allowed to join in. . But now somebody has thrown the ball my way and it's my chance to pick it up and become part of it .

K x