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I have just finished reading Jenny Boylan's book "She's not there."

No too sure how I feel about it.

I really wanted to clarify some issues so googled S.N.T reviews. Found 64 reviews on an Amazon site.

Interesting thing is a lot of the reviews felt Jenny to be selfish in transitioning and hurting her loved ones.

I know quite a few people who are transitioning or have transitioned and their justification is the same as Jenny's. - I had too, I had no say in it.

Is this so? Or are these people being self indulgent to the detriment of those around them?

I sure don't know.

Well some are and some aren't, in my opinion.... I know that for me it's wife and family first and if there's some time left over for Karren then great.....

Karren

Selfish? Not really, IMO.

For example, a number of transwomen feel so out of sorts with their body they commit suicide. Now that's selfish. It doesn't give others time to change and accept.

Jenny is still with her wife, and her kids have accepted it also.

Of course, there are going to be a lot of critics who say a married man should just bite the bullit and not transition, and that if he does transition, he's being selfish.

Heck, just being a CD and having the need to dressup, and doing so to relieve that need is also considered by many to be selfish. It hard enough on some of us CDs to not dress, I can only imagine how hard it is on a TS.

I guess I'm selfish then, I feel I have given my entire life to ever one doing without to provide. I worked long hours and was hospitalize once for fatigue.
Now that the kids are all grow and I have retired I have earned the right to be good to myself, my $.02

Not knowing what it is like to be a woman in a mans body I really can't comment. She did say that suicide (far more selfish) was beginning to look good. She also said by the way that she was not a crossdresser, which a trans sexual is not.

Absaroka

Hi all,

Hmmm... this is a tough one, a subject for seemingly endless debate.

I haven't read Boylan's SNT, so I can't really comment on the author's own behaviour.

Still. My take on selfishness:

We commit a selfish act (or behave selfishly) if we put our own interests first, to the detriment of those around us. Now, it's the last part of this sentence I want to examine for, as we all know, every person has a natural tendency to put his or her interests first.

There's an assumption floating around that a person expressing his or her gender variance has a detrimental effect on those people who share his or her life. Transgender folk are bothersome. The unspoken complaint often goes something like this: "I yearn to be 'normal'... why can't you be normal, too?" or "If you really loved me and/or your children, you'd stop doing this crazy/weird/bizarre/abnormal thing that you do."

Given that "this thing that we do" is either congenital or so deeply ingrained into our psyches that no amount of therapy can whittle it down;

Given that mental health can find its roots in a person only when that person feels that he or she can attain some sort of inner balance;

Given that, in the case of a transgendered person, inner balance requires some form of, admittedly eccentric or marginal, gender expression;

Given that there are some types of eccentricity or marginal behaviour that are harmless;

Given that happiness, though a "process" more than a result, is directly linked to good mental health;

Given that a person in good health, both physically and emotionally or psychologically, is more apt to tend to the needs of those around him or her;

Given that attention to the needs of others (of strangers, even) is not a selfish behaviour;

It makes little sense to me to view the outcome of a person's "gender recentering" as ultimately detrimental to others.

People who are at ease with who they are (regardless of the naysaying of the masses or of the pleading for normalcy on the part of their loved ones)--and who do no intentional and deliberate violence to others--are better equipped to be at ease with those about whom they care. Being at ease with another person means being able to give that person the room he or she needs to grow as an individual and, indeed, to love to watch that very growth itself... regardless of whether or not that growth takes the person further from our own space. This is not selfishness. It's sanity.

A word about compromise. It's simply the case that there are some things that are not amenable to negotiation. A person's core gender identity is one such thing. Like one's sexual orientation or genetic heritage, it cannot be changed. A crossdresser, for example, or a transsexual, can agree to try to repress his or her need--a need common to all human beings, regardless of anatomy--to express his or her gender; doing so, however, is asking for a world of troubles. Negation of self is violence to self. Living in a perpetual mental combat zone can lead to alcoholism, drug abuse, major personality disorders, depression, physical illness, suicidal ideation, death. We've seen it before. We know it happens.

Survivors of Nazi concentration camp atrocities, Viktor Frankl among them, found some tiny comfort in, and managed to survive because of, the fact that no amount of pain and torture inflicted upon them could rob them of the one thing they could hold on to: their very self. The very thing that gets stolen from someone unable to tell the world, "Here I am! This is me!"

If A tells B to bury who he or she is, to wipe his or her self off the map, there's no good reason, I think, for B to continue to cleave to A. There are plenty of examples--Elizabeth or SilverLady or Sunny come to mind-- of what kind of beauty can bloom when you love what's there, in front of you, rather than what you only wish were there. There is no detriment to be found here. There is no selfishness. Again, a happy person is better equipped to help other people follow their own bliss.

Now, until I've had a chance to read She's Not There, I can't say where Jenny Boylan's story fits in all this. But, that her family's stood by her (and that she stood by her family) and that she's authored a book about her own journey and had it published says a lot to me about her own strength and resilience--qualities I associate with good mental health. I can only hope that her love for her self blends well with her love for her family and children (and, indeed, for those of us who are strangers to her but may benefit from the hard wisdom she's gained on the journey to becoming who she is).

Love,
CJ

Good to have you back CJ.

I think making that transition is not selfish if you allow everyone else in the picture to make their own choices of whether or not to remain in the same context in your life. I think if my partner were to transition and expect/demand that I remain a romantic/sexual partner that would be selfish. If I demand that s/he not transition in order to keep my own status quo, I would be being selfish. Each individual deserves the right to find their own happiness.

Hi Jan and all. Yes, Transition, and even being transgender as in "just a crossdresser" is a selfish act. I guess this subject is something I do know a little about.

Really people, from the inside looking out, NO ONE would choose to have to go through this stuff. For well over 98% it is do it or die! and many do between their teen years and age 30, and others in their early 50s. There are a few very well organized individuals who might be able to hold on 'til a natural death, but I promise that in spite of what ever daily victories of life they may have in the workplace, or love of or for family, a little of them dies each and every day and every day you fight encroaching depression. Its a slow way to die. Transitioning is not a fantasy brought true, it is a harsh reality that changes EVERYTHING in your life. Oddly enough, with transition, with living as you should be, most of the depression goes away in spite of the difficulties in changing your life.

The author of the following is 20+ years post op, like Jenny Brolin, though her perspective is a bit different I guess. Elements of the following I just can't say any better than she did. This is advice that anyone thinking of transitioning needs to take to heart. 'Cause its just not easy!!

The “Dirty Dozen” Secret Teachings

1. This is not your fault. Don’t ask for permission or go seeking anyone’s blessing. This is not a moral failure. It’s probably biological, in the womb female brain wiring, but certainly no scientific expert knows why, nor do we, so how would they?

2. God is not against you. They are. Using God’s name (in vain?) is merely a way to sidestep the issue. Don’t fall for that one - - *they* are tolerant, but God is not? Hmm.

3. This is not happening to them; it’s happening to you. Don’t be convinced others come first. That thinking is what got you so deeply into this mess. Time to think, maybe for the first time ever, about yourself. Remember, time is running out.

4. Therapy, exorcisms, and wonder drugs will not “cure” you - - nor will getting a girl friend, getting married, or siring children, that’s just going along with the program and digging in deeper.

5. This is not about having sex. If you have felt this way since childhood, it almost certainly has nothing to do with having sex. Growing up alone with this, yet having it always present, sex may have turned out to be one of the very few private times you could express it - - either in private fantasies or in the special intimacy of sexual bonding.

6. People will hide their real emotions from you. In the tempest of accusations by others, people who seem steady and keep their cool might come across as supportive. This could merely be polite indifference when actually they don’t give a damn about you. Remember what someone says to your face may not always be what is said about you over by the water cooler. Once the surprise and shock has worn off, attitudes and prejudices can harden in polite silences.

7. You will be asked to give up virtually everything. The life you knew will be forever changed without hope of recovery. Be ready to profoundly grieve. Be ready for undreamed of joy. You will get both in spades.

8. There will be a set of future disappointments. No one’s life can be made blissful based on one, albeit dramatic, set of events.

9. You will have to learn virtually everything without teachers. Most of the day-to-day advice will be just plain bad. This is where transitions undergo their greatest peril, so have a contingency for at least one, if not more, restarts.

10. You will have to learn femininity as rote as tying your shoes or riding a bike. Let the back of your brain take over. It might even seem eerie and alien at first, because for the first time we will actually be ourselves and not some bullshit image we built to hide behind, but giving up the security blanket of false images will be the first step.

11. Be ready for the shock. A woman’s life and choices are more limited than we ever thought, no matter how much we imagine we are prepared. We are entering the world of women. We are not out to retool the world or straighten other women out on what their lot in life is. They are the ones who will show us “how its done,” not the other way around.

12. Be ruthless. The world is a very tough place. A halfhearted attempt will almost always backfire. “A camel is a horse designed by a committee.” There are no compromises. Go for what you are. Your immortal soul is not up for negotiation. If you won’t sell it to the devil, why sell your soul to anyone mortal?


© Kate Grimaldi, 2003, all rights reserved.


Epilogue. I leave you with an image that has haunted me for years. It is the last shot from the 1959 film, “On the Beach.” The city street is windswept. Everyone has died from a terrible radiation sickness following mankind’s final war. In the last days, people put a banner to call the faithful to prayer. Now the tattered banner hangs over an empty street. It reads, “There is still time.”


Carolynn

That was a good post, Carolynn. Thanks for putting that up there.

A web acquaintance wrote about her teenage daughter screaming at her after she came back from SRS surgery. Before daughter "Jill" had seemingly accepted "Mary" when Mary did the hormones and went fulltime. But the surgery brought out all the venom. When Mary asked why Jill had not spoken up, Jill said, "Because I knew you were going to do it no matter what I said or felt."

Jill was right--Mary was not going to compromise on the surgery, after her wife divorced her. That was the last remaining element that MIGHT have made Mary question the surgery.

One thing the family members don't recognize, is that the TG woman has been compromising all of her life. The family is only aware of the compromises that have happened after they learned about it.

So for them, it seems like the transitioning is going at break-neck speed, while for the woman that it's happening to, well, she's making up for 20 or 30 or 40 years of lost time. The two sides are not on the same page at all.

To me, it looks like a double-edged sword. If the TG person lives the way they feel when very young, they get persecuted by classmates and family, for being 'different,' and not conforming. They wouldn't be called "selfish" at that point, because they're only children. They don't have spouses and children and work responsibilities, and children are naturally pretty self-centered anyway--you'd expect that of a five year old.

But it's hell to be that different. So most TGs just swallow it all inside, and then it comes back at some point, when they're deep in the middle of parenting and relationships.
They're called "selfish," because they can't keep pretending. And I suppose it's because they were so good at it that people can't believe it when they say "No, I can't do it anymore."

We all have to do some pretending to get by. So people get angry when one of us opts out of pretending so completely, in one area of living.

I can think of any example. One of my women friends is highly skilled as a legal secretary, but is terrible at answering the phones. In smaller law offices, it's almost a given that all the secretaries have to answer the phone at times. She couldn't avoid it. At one job, they threatened to fire her if she didn't adopt a better phone personality. (There were other problems, too, but this is the one they chose to focus on.)

So my friend reached inside herself and found what she called, "A Barbie voice," and she was GOOD at it. I wanted to hang on the line just to hear her talk. I praised her, and said, "So it's an act. Many things about business life are an act. It's working, and it's not like you're the receptionist. You only have to do this occasionally."

But she couldn't stand what she saw as a pretense, and soon she was fired. She really, really needed that job. But so great was her dislike of phoniness of any type, that she refused to pretend even a little. At least that's how I saw it; it was not a 'morals' issue for me. No one was being deceived in an evil way. But for her, it was a matter of integrity, and being herself. In this case, her friends could argue that that "self" was not serving her very well. I'm sure the families of TG people would argue the same thing.

Thing is, I felt angry at my friend for sacrificing herself that way, and refusing to bend at all. Families of TG people, with LOTS more at stake, can get into this same mode of thinking, I can see that. To them, it looks like the transitioner is throwing away everything--and they are, in many cases! They're forced to do so--it's not like they want to lose family, friends, and jobs.

But as someone pointed out, (and I can't find it at the moment), being selfish involves more choice than a transgender person feels they have, for one thing. By the time their feelings have reached the coming-out stage, there's very little choice left, if there ever was before.

Hi ladies
What would call living your whole life as the person you are not to make all around you comfortable at your expense? Hugs

Love
Jeannie

PS Rent the movie"Ma Vie En Rose" A Belgian film "My Life in Pink".

Related I think, to the question of selfishness, is a kinda flip side, being ashamed and guilty. Much to my consternation, a friend of 4 years, and post op for 5 months, told me this weekend she is ashamed of her trans history. I asked for amplification, and she said she is ashamed because she couldn't tough it out, meet the expectations of her family, and her now estranged wife and adult son, and her only brother. I was somewhat stunned, though I well know that transition and surgery does not magically cure all of the baggage you carry into your journey.

I was wondering, how much does guilt and deep feelings of shame on the part of the individuals in the community control behavior and relationships? Coming out? Surrendering control to another of how much, when and where you dress? etc. Can in fact, surrendering control, in effect making it someone elses problem, be an act of selfishness?

I have a link to a site

http://www.firelily.com/gender/gianna/guilt.html

where the therapist (who is also transgendered) discusses (briefly) the effects of guilt on various trangender folks. See the link for more info, and for a lot more information on trangender matters:

From the above:

"Crossdressers, trangenderists, transsexual, and other transgender persons frequently experience deep feelings of guilt. This article will briefly cover the dynamics of guilt as well as propose solutions for reshaping guilt into a healthy medium. I will do so by using mini "case scenarios," however first here is some background about our subject.

No one enjoys feeling guilty, this feeling can however play an important, healthy role in social survival. When we do something inappropriate we may feel guilty about it, particularly if we are conscientious (or aware) of the difference between right and wrong. In part this mechanism helps us from repeating the same mistake twice.

Guilt also can change form. For example, when an individual's guilty feelings stay around awhile, they may become translated into a negative judgment of self worth which is called "shame." Guilt and shame are powerful feelings, which at times others may attempt to exploit in an effort to get someone to do as they wish.

Like other feelings, guilt can take on many forms to meet a variety of situations and circumstances. In the transgender world I have heard hundreds of reasons why individuals feel guilty about their activities, behaviors, thoughts, beliefs and also self identity. Persons may also have guilty feelings for not doing anything, such as in the case of persons who know they have gender needs and feel guilty for having waited long periods of time before seeking support."

Do you see a relationship to the concept of "selfishness"?

Thanks Anita and Carolynn for some wonderful posts. Carolynn your 12 points were a breath of fresh air by the way.

Here's another way of looking at this. If those of us who are comfortable in our chosen gender were by some strange twist of fate turned into the other gender (like if I inexplicably woke up female one day) what would I be willing to sacrifice to regain my proper gender? Given a choice between sending my kids to college or spending the money on corrective surgery what would I decide? If it meant several years away from the career I have worked so hard to build and not being there for my family during times like the death of my spouses parents? Dealing with all the emotional fallout of SRS? Taking the physical risks? (often absent from discussions like this is the fact that this is not exactly out patient surgery....)

The correct answer is of course "I don't know". And I am extremely grateful not to have ever had the opportunity to know such a thing. With regards to people like Jennifer Boylan and her family I am in awe of the emotional strength all of them have shown. And I think from reading her book that she would be the first to offer the deepest respect to all the sacrifices this entailed for her family.

Absaroka

What a wonderful thread, I believe we all learned a lot.
Way to go girls

As a side note this is what makes this site so great

Hi all - especially Carolynn,

Your comments - actually essays - are incredibly insightful. Thanks for stirring my mind.

I know of guilt and shame, having lived with it for years. Partly the effects of my mother who beat me unmercifully if she caught me, a 6-year old, trying on her lingerie. The feelings of being alone, perhaps perverted, are devastating and persistent. In spite of an otherwise happy marriage, I was repressed and closeted for many years.

I only discovered myself after my wife died, and now in a close relationship with a loving woman who says she loves me no matter what I am wearing. The guilt and shame are just memories.

I am basically a crossdresser, with no desire to actually become female, so I don't fit into the mainstream of this thread. However, Carolynn's 12 points strike home and I find them mostly applicable to my position on the CD-TG spectrum.

This forum has been a critical factor in my life, and I read the posts carefully - especially threads like this one. You are so right, Carol Ann, this forum is an educational treasure.

Hugs,

Lydia

Hi all,

My partner Marie has been transitioning for 12 months now,we have 6 children between us.
Life for us both has been a huge roller coaster ride,both sadness,grief,guilt and fear plagued both our minds,our lives.

Yes I did say Marie was selfish...but as time went by and I read and I listened I could see that really I was the one being selfish,I was wanting a person to be something I wanted them to be,just because it made me feel complete,happy and dare I say it NORMAL....

Well time has gone by and I have flipped my life scenario's over and over,our children don't cry any more in fact they have become very strong within.I have become involved with an organisation called the Australian Transexual Network and through that we have had many,transitioning and transitioned friends to our home for tea etc.Each person comes with their own personality and our children recognise that before their sexuality.

From this I have become a stronger person...sure I was negative at the outlook of being alone,but I was scared.However in the same thought I kept thinking why does this need to be the end of our relationship.
Well we are still together and believe it or not I feel really fine and normal,people want to know more about our life and that is giving me the greatest opportunity of all to educate people on Gender and Transgender issues.

One day I woke up and said to myself..'I choose to be happy,I choose to walk my life now with Marie and I choose to grasp every moment we have together.I choose to learn and in that choosing I have reshaped myself as a person,and as I do I provide a solid foundation for my children to accept and embrace diversity on any level.

Sure the intimate side of things is still work in progress,but I just can't switch the love button off.
For any relationship to work especially in regards to Transitioning each person is forced to open themselves up,to show the raw side of themselves and in doing so they find who both truely are.Each persons life is important as the next,for me their is no option for my relationship to end,I see a different path,an unknown path,before I was scared,but I had forgotten just how scared my partner was,now we have each other for strength,we have opened every possible situation up,we have spoken openly about them and still we keep coming back to the love we have.

Selfish is when a person clings onto another not allowing that person to breath,not allowing that person the right to survival...I am not clinging anymore,because I know we will all survive the transition process and the future can only be grasped in knowing that we have come through so much together.The future will be as we promote each other to reach our highest potential,the future will be together as we watch ourselves and our children grow into the best possible human beings.
After all we owe it to each other to have the best of any life...as life is to short to spend your time hating.

Hugs Penny