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SRS doesn’t make one a woman!
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Well I think one of the best reasons to have SRS is to make your tight fitting jeans look better!
That’s why I had it, er well amongst other things. *smiles*Yes it’s a cosmetic procedure. Yes no one knows unless you tell them. It is just one thing that some people do to add to the many that assist you in making your body more feminine.
As members may know I chose to have SRS as the last surgery. The surgeries that the results were on public show, I chose to have first.
For me SRS was not a life changing nor spiritual event. I know it does seem to be for some people. For me it was just another surgery. I didn’t overate it in my mind, it was just something that I had chosen to do.
Having said that, some 15 days after surgery, putting on panties for the first time and looking in the mirror did being a smile to my face.
For me life after SRS I guess it is a feeling of having a body that matches my mindset. I know some consider it wrong but many people define ones gender by what is between the legs. Having that area ‘right’ for me does allow for perhaps a bit more relaxation.
So for me the SRS was not a HUGE event, it didn’t change me much as a person, I think. Of course the social consequences of SRS with living in society can be large; an average of 18% less pay, the ‘glass ceiling’, security and safety issues are just some things that have to be considered.
So perhaps of all the things a transitioning person does SRS can seem the defining event to some I guess but I didn’t find it like that.
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On NYE. 2008, I decided that I had to let things happen naturally as I felt a lot more comfortable as a woman (I was part-time then). Now I have finished transition and no, I haven’t had SRS. yet. I am only 40 and I will have that procedure done by the time that I am 50 but hopefully by around 45 years of age.
It doesn’t make you a woman, not at all. Being a woman, girl, female or whatever term you use is in your mind, nowhere else. The only. thing that SRS. gives you is an “F” on your birth certificate (or an “M” if you are a MTF. person) and that is not enough. You have to present yourself as a woman, not just with the clothes that you wear but in the way that you walk and talk as well as interact with people around you as well. The trouble with transition is that you don’t know what it is like once you get there. Preconceived notions are all well and good but the problem is that life steps in and throws all of those ideas out the window. There is not much more on the other side at all, it’s not all glitz and glamour, you still have to work and pay bills and so on, nothing special.
If you can handle all of this in regard to your new persona (for want of a better word) then yes you are a woman and SRS would be the “icing on the cake”. If you are having problems still after these lifestyle changes then SRS. won’t automatically make you a woman, not at all.
That is why I don’t need to have SRS. straight away, I don’t need it to be a woman in society at all but one day I would just like to have a female birth certificate.
Peta A.
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I am sorry if I offend anyone who truely believes that they are a woman, but I cannot help but realise no matter how much I want to be a woman, how much I believe that I am a woman inside and how much I try to look like a woman, I can never replace or even begin to understand what it means to be a real woman. I have not grown up as a woman, haven’t experienced my first dress, my first period, hormonal changes during puberty, real sex with a man, having babies or gone through the change of life as a real woman. So there is no way on this earth that even with HRT and SRS I could ever call myself a woman, I could never be anything more than just an inferior copy. Yes I would be happy but I still wouldn’t be the real thing.
Hugs Pamela
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Pamela ,I do think that one can present oneself as more “womanLY” and still be true to ones nature as a satisfying alternative to being a “real woman”. To live ones life in sadness and frustration at not being the ideal is a mug’s game IMO. You might just as well say I am not real because I can’t fly like a bird.
Really , I think that it is better to try and make the best of what we have and to improve on that rather than be full of regrets. It is a recipe for depression and pain. Living with the feeling that one is coming up short or failing or not being good enough ( read passing!) is the main problem with the transgender experience I think. How can we present ourselves as well , rounded , worthy people who expect acceptance and respect if we go about in a funk about what we have been deprived of? As many have said before, it is more about how we are inside that counts and that at least is possible to do something about .
I do not mean this as personal criticism of your views but I do think that as a community , we do need to lift up our faces and be more positive about our differences , not just to each other on a web chat but to the world in general. -
Pamela, you can define yourself in any way you like providing you don’t then extend those definitions to others. Christina is right though, in that getting hung up on the negatives and reasons to invalidate yourself are a simple recipe for eternal unhappiness.
BTW I can tick off quite a few things on your ‘never experienced’ list so don’t think it can’t happen if that is your desire.
Gwen -
Pamela_3: I find your comments most offensive.
You describe yourself as “a cross-dresser”, or mayber TG. I don’t see anyone dictating what defines a cross-dresser, or how you MUST present yourself when dressed.
I am an XY female, and was told often enough that I wasn’t “really male”. Der! Never was. Since forever I have stated that I AM female, and never, I want to be. I’ve stated elsewhere: COGITO ERGO SUM – I think, therefore I am.
You need to read up a little on Androgen Insensitivity – the brain does not become masculinised. Nor does the body.
No male pattern baldness. No male distribution of body hair or muscle mass. At 30 (to avoid domestic violence) I shaved less often than once a month. Simply there was no need. My former partner also objected that my skin was too soft (softer than hers at least), and complained about my ‘refusal’ to grow tummy hair. I didn’t play footy, and chose a ‘girls career’ – nursing. Does this mean I’m not male either.
At 13 I’d earned my Life Saving Bronze Medallion, but by 15 I’d stopped exposing myself on the beach, simply because my body wasn’t developing properly – I lived with my arms crossed over my chest.
At 180cm the only reason people stare at me is because I’m stunningly gorgeous.
Be content with your cross-dressing lifestyle, if that’s what you want, but don’t malign my sisters and I.
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Great posts and handled with maturity wherever there should be differences or where clarification was needed. I have seen three separate stances taken on the issue; SRS completes you as a woman, SRS isn’t necessary to be a woman, and nothing we can do can make us women. Each stance has points I can relate to. For me I would be happy to live as a woman only on HRT and not caring if the world considered me a woman or not. With the passing of time the HRT may make me desire SRS-and what the world thinks of me may or may not alter.
Thankfully I’m happy where I am, and hopefully will continue to be if things should change. I assume we will all differ in how we see ourselves and God willing we will all be content with that.
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Felicity has touched briefly on what I was going to say in this post. I’ve been reading what has come into this thread since my last post here and so I’m going to write a little more as a result.
A couple of people mentioned about the fact that we weren’t born with female reproductive organs and yes, that is very true. Unless we are a full hermaphrodite then we haven’t had those body parts as we grew up and became adult humans. It has been stated as well here that we didn’t grow up as young girls in school and so on either, that is quite true as well. Another thing that I have seen here is the evidence of a lot of different mindsets on this subject, especially regarding how we came to be or what drove us to transition.
It is true that we all had male offerings at one point of our life, some of us still do for that matter (don’t worry about reasons). That is also a point that we can never forget, the law doesn’t either for that matter because the information is out there for the authorities that check it.
The biggest point here is that for whatever reason, those of us here who have transitioned from a male life to one of a female (whether we are pre or post op) are now presenting as women in society. Even someone who is a crossdresser presents as a woman while they are dressed, no ifs or buts. This is the reason that we call ourselves girls, ladies or women and so on, if you were presenting or living as the opposite sex/gender then you would naturally want the same. I believe that we all have a gender identity issue but it is quite simply the level that it has affected us as well as the fact that there are genetic issues too that bring us to this path in life.
We are who we are in this world, we should be proud of ourselves and never ever forget our past, we all came from somewhere. SRS doesn’t make you a woman, I stand by that comment in my earlier post but yes, your mind and way that you live every day of your life do, regardless of how you came to transition.
Peta A.
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As I stated in my last post I said that I did not want to offend anyone, but it seems I have. However not for the reasons I thought would have been offensive. I have been accused of painting everyone with the same brush but if you read my post carefully you will see that I used the word “”Ï” all the way through it not We or Us.
So if you are offended at the way I see myself then does that mean I am not entitled to my own opinion of myself?
I may also add that even though I do not believe it to be possible I can be a real woman I am certainly happy with my attempts to emulate one, and will always be happy to try and be as feminine as I can be. I am happy being me.
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Hi Pamela, it’s your opening sentance that sets the scene I think. Unfortunately in these forums where there are just words and no other communication cues it’s easy for things to not be conveyed in the way we wish.
Quote:I am sorry if I offend anyone who truely believes that they are a woman, but ……This is human nature….anyone reading this will think. “hmmm you are sorry you are about to offend me” …….followed by a ‘but’ which means that you’re going to anyway, and it really doesn’t matter what you type after that.
The opening sentence also refers to someone who ‘believes’ they are a woman and then goes list mutliple reasons why you don’t think you are, which will lead people to read that you believe, by implication, that ‘ a belief that ‘someone is a woman’ in a trans sense is false even though you never said that.
I do this sort of sentence analysis for a living and still get it wrong when I write to communicate lol.
And that’s why I said you can label yourself as you like as long as you don’t apply that to me.
Gwen
