i identify as and AM a gay male. when i think of myself i don't think ''i'm a transsexual'', i just think ''i'm will, a pretty normal over-sexed 17 year old boy''

i have no problems with saying i'm trans around other trans people, but in the big wide world i'm just another lad.

and why not

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forum moderator

I'm with Sparkz, basically

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http://www.gamespot.com/users/Ubersuntzu/games_table?mode=own
Because I love my games and I think you should too. >_>

I've been thinking on this a little and I just wanted to ask a question, quite innocently.
This is mainly directed at the people who would identify themselves as trans post-transition:
Do you think that you can only ever be either male or female or trans? Or, can you be male/female AND trans as something completly different?
I dont know if I've phrased that one well. Somebody help me out if I've made a hash of it.

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I look back at most of my life and think "WHAT THE HELL WAS I THINKING?!??"

I think I get the jist of it. I maybe wrong tho

From my point of view. I am a man, who happens to be trans. Post-op (and even now actually) I dont enter a room and announce 'IM TRANS' bein trans is a part of who I am. When I return to work which will prob be post-op I will be just one of the lads. I will integrate with society as who I am, a str8 bloke. But that doesnt mean that I would cut myself off from anythin trans related. Like I mentioned in my earlier post I will be on hand in years to come for those who are in our positions now. If all the post-op trans people in the world didnt still aknowledge their trans past then we all would be screwed for all the great info that comes from their experiences. Just as future trans people will hopefully benefit from my experiences good or bad.

So from my point of view yeah you can be male/female and trans. Im not a revolutionary for trans issues etc and I wont be dedicating my life to bein trans. Like I sed I will just be like the boy next door kinda thing. But I will have the added bonus of bein able to offer advice on a not so run of the mill matter.

I hope that made sense. I couldnt get the words to come out as I was sayin them in my head

i don't think people are 'male, female and trans' and if they were i'd expect to be included in the 'male' catergory (i actually think in terms of gender at least there is male, female and then various gendered identities between those two, sort of within that spectrum, but thats irrelevant to this conversation).

the way i see it 'trans' isn't as a seperate gender from male or female. i'm a man (who is male, obviously), but i happen to be a trans man in the same way i happen to be a short man, a gay man, or a brown haired man, etc. except obviously being trans is a lot more of a personal thing to me than say being short or brown haired is, and not something i'd share on a daily basis with everyone, but i'm sure you get the point.

i think actually this is why i generally have a problem with the word 'trans' as a prefix to create new words like 'transman', 'transwoman', etc, instead of using it as a adjective to modify an existing word, i.e 'trans man', where trans is being used in the same way any other adjective would. it's not like we write gay man as gayman, gaywoman etc, so i dont see why 'transman' should have to be a seperate word like its something seperate from being a man. sorry for the slight off topicness.

In reply to Scaeme...

You can look at the label of 'trans' as an identity, a portion of your identity - of who you are, or as a medical/psych diagnosis

How you see that label of 'trans' really affects how you believe if you will still be trans once you've transitioned.

Think about what trans might mean as an identity or as adescriptive term about who you are.

Its not necessarily all about your body versus your brain - using the label as a descriptor of who you are can also be a reflection of things like:
-your life experiences
-your outlook on people, and on life in general
-any special insights you have into the world
-your political, moral, and ethical views

And thus, even post-transition, the label 'trans' can be quite useful, and quite relevant to describing who a person is. In this way, saying that you are still trans after transition is not saying that you aren't 'really' a man (if you transitioned to male) or a woman (if you transitioned to female).

For instance, I will identify as trans after I have transitioned. And this is not because I think that I'm not a 'real' man. Its because:

-I have experienced life being treated as a woman, and these experiences form a part of who I am, and how I understand people. For instance, I have a greater deal of understanding of women than do a lot of guys who haven't been brought up as a girl.

-for me, labelling myself as trans is a thing I do with pride. It reflects that I identify with a group of people who, despite facing great difficulties, get on with life, survive, and celebrate a part of themselves that many people don't even think much about.

-I found that, living as a guy, there were plenty of cultural rules about how to be a man that are very restricting - just like there are rules that are restricting as a woman. Saying that I am trans is a part of my way of saying that I think are whole culture's system of gender is pretty messed up, and I think there are better ways we could be working out how people should act.

-as much as I loathed living as a woman, I learnt a lot from it, and I have had good memories, unrelated to my gender, from that time. Saying I am trans is my way of integrating my past and my present, in a way which means I don't have to hide who I am to other people.

xxx
Sparkz

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Gender nut and site admin...hehe

My trans research has just been published, see it under 't' in the Tzone library: http://www.transgenderzone.com/library/st.htm
(filename begins with 'Transgender People's Identity Development').

Learning how to generate inner and outer peace in the universe and myself.

they are not the type to be mingled with.

go let the think that in their own world, completely seperate from ours...

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Gender nut and site admin...hehe

My trans research has just been published, see it under 't' in the Tzone library: http://www.transgenderzone.com/library/st.htm
(filename begins with 'Transgender People's Identity Development').

Learning how to generate inner and outer peace in the universe and myself.

Outwordly I look and act in a generally feminine fashion, but my identity, if a label had to be prescribed to match closest to how I feel would be "genderqueer feminine androgynous female". This is also fortunately reflected in my appearance - I look generally feminine enough to pass about 90% of the time but also an appearance which is slightly androgynous and not too distinctly female, which reflects what is inside. When I first started transition, I felt I "had" to transition into a "woman" but I realised that I was not entirely comfortable with this either since this image is not something that truly reflects me and my upbringing, so my internal identity is somewhat ambiguous in terms of gender, but with female being my "main" identity, and living as a woman with the physical changes brought about by transition, but not a woman in the conventional sense as I see it.

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It's never too late to be who you might have been. - Mary Ann Evans

I see myself as female, just very much affected by how i am and always have been - everyone says about supposedly it being a 'fresh' start to show the 'new' you. But i see it more as just a slide into a new look and getting everyone to accept that [yeah thats over generalising ], you still have your past ^^