People Magazine: Jenner "transitioning into a woman"

Some people I've discussed it with also had this issue watching the interview. They kept asking, essentially, "So is he gay because he likes women?" It was very frustrating that they seemed to need to label it.

He's attracted to women. That's it. Is that not enough?

 

I think it is reasonable to use previously made and understood labels to comprehend something that can feel or appear pretty complex to the uninitiated. And I actually think it is a good thing. It means those people are doing their best to understand his situation rather than write off Jenner as some weirdo. Eventually, hopefully, that will lead to empathy. But it has to start somewhere.

I say this as a person who is still struggling to wrap his head around the concept of someone being transgender. It is so foreign to me that it is difficult for me to just say "ok, he's a woman." I've certainly had the thought "would that not make him a gay woman stuck in a straight man's body"?

If that is how I have to start the process of understanding, so be it. At least it is starting.

 

To each (their) own.

 

I blame the Village People:
http://wrongsideoftheart.com/wp-content/gallery/posters-c/cant_stop_the_music_poster_02.jpg

 

I can understand this feeling. I don't think anyone can appreciate the sensation of knowing you're trapped in the wrong gender unless you have had to live with it.

 

Or at least been close to someone who is transgender. I don't know if it is fortunate or unfortunate, given the difficulties for transgender people, that I haven't been close to anyone who is. I wish I could just accept it and move on. I hold no ill will for transgender people, want nothing but happy lives for them. But my brain continues to want to attach their experience to something I can understand.

 

I don't see what's hard to understand.

He's felt he's been a female trapped in a male's body since an early age. He is also attracted to women, which has nothing to do with his gender identity.

Are those two things that hard to comprehend?

 

The fact that he's attracted to women, and that that attraction has nothing to do with his gender identity, is not hard to comprehend. The fact that I'm attracted to women has nothing to do with the fact that I'm a man. That makes sense to me.

I was speaking about the life of a transgender person in general. The fact that he feels he's been a female trapped in a male's body, that is hard for me to comprehend. For the large majority of my life, I believed one's gender was strictly tied to the bits and pieces he or she was born with. I can't wrap my head around the experience of someone who was born one way but believes he or she is another. I wish I could just flip a switch and say "I get it now!" But it has not been that simple for me.

Admittedly, I come from a fairly conservative background during which I wasn't exposed to many "alternative" lifestyles. I wasn't really around gay people until college, and even then only sparingly. Ashamedly, it probably took me longer than most on this site to see being gay as something other than a mental perversion. In middle school and high school, calling someone "gay" or "fag" was the worst offense imaginable. It wasn't until I truly got to know a few people who are gay and are now close friends that I realized they are just people with a different attraction. The same way a person might like strawberries over pineapples, a man may be more attracted to other men than women. Not by choice, just by nature.

But to me, being transgender is something different entirely. It isn't a simple matter of attraction or preference. I can't fathom how it feels for someone to feel betrayed by their own physical makeup. I can't understand how someone can look at what they were born with and think "that's not me."

And there is nothing that says I HAVE to understand it. But I would like to.

 

My former place of employment was known for being a very open place to work.

About a month ago I was forwarded an e-mail from a friend there saying a former co-worker is transitioning from a man to a woman. The e-mail came from a VP and was cosigned from his director. I have known this guy for 12 years and is not something I (or anyone who knows him) would have seen coming.

He is divorced with 2 kids in elementary. I know you have to live the life you need to in order to be happy but I am sure it is confusing for his children. Obviously I don't know what he has gone through but part of me thinks that you suck it up until the kids are out of school.

 

One of my old housemates transitioned several years ago.

As a man, he was moody, depressed and generally unhappy. As a woman, she is confident and very happy. Best thing she's ever done.

 

You can not change your sex. You are not Napoleon. You are not Jesus Christ. You are not a Dolphin. This is not hard to understand at all.

Delusions, whether we want to label them as mental illness or not are beliefs that are untrue.

Bruce wants to pretend to be a woman, I am OK with that.

 

I went to school with Eve, who is now Evan.

Seems like female to male is less common.