I recently found myself engaging in some more arguments over HBS identities and politics on a messageboard. I must admit, I actually feel that HBS is a neat idea, but the ideology it’s wrapped up in frightens and disgusts me.
Anyway, the discussion led to another thread where people were encouraged to state whether they had existed on the ‘trans-spectrum’ prior to transition. This was done to defame the political stance of HBS that everybody who engages in transgendered behaviour of the less than purist TS type are absolutely separate from those pure-as-snow HBS people.
Now, I’ve got some investment in this, because my life history and behaviour has spanned pretty much the entire trans-spectrum. I don’t feel that I fit into any of the current psychological models. Sure, I might be wrong and I might be easy to classify, but none of them feel *right*. Hence, when another tightly policed model or definition comes along I find myself resisting it, fiercely, because I lived a lot of my life feeling quite ashamed as there seemed to be no place for me. This, in turn, fed my denial and hampered my own efforts to fully realise my own situation.
Hence, over the previous few years I’ve been doing my best to become more comfortable with being open about my past, in an effort to try and fight the shame that I’ve internalised over it. So, when given a chance like this thread I couldn’t help but expound on how I’ve my behaviour has encompassed everything from closeted fetishistic transvestitism to crossdressing to transsexuality.
I still feel a bit icky about writing that, but whatever. I now know that my gender dysphoria became sexualised through *fear* and denial and, in this sense, I prefer to be open about it now, just in case anybody else is in the same trap I was. Don’t be afraid, you’re completely normal; once I’d started to realise this the sexualised aspect lost it’s grip massively and, honestly, I started to feel like I was actually being me. This is why I abhore pathologication based on sexuality aspects, such as the AGP theory, because once you’re trapped in that model it becomes harder to see out of it (as i found when i was having my head shrunk by a gender psych).
And, I have to admit, this is a major driving factor between my own attempts to understand sexuality, because I’m trying to normalise my own trans-sexuality and make it healthy, rather than the deeply unhealthy version I experienced as a closet fTV.
Furthermore, the fun thing about all of this is that I have never identified as a TV, a CD, and I only identify as TS through neccessity, because I guess I am.
Anyway, all that being said, you can imagine that I felt rather, well, *disappointed* when my post was replicated on another message-board, by a proponent of HBS, with the following comment:
People like this serverly damage the TS/HBS community and public image when quiote clearly they have no medical condition just a MAN who WANTS to be a woman, SO annoying and angry at people like this I cant even make an attack in the forum this is from as I will be told who am I to decide if they are TS and probably get a ban.
Typos are left intact.
Not everybody thinks like this, I admit, because some people have been kind enough to show their appreciating for my pilfered post, but still……..
I’m not rattled in my sense of gender, or my history, or anything. I’m beyond giving a damn, to be honest. I is what I is, and this individuals opinions don’t mean anything, but I am *so* tired of the bullshit. I am *so* tired that this continues, as it has been continuing for years. I am *so* tired of these people, full stop. I am generally *so* tired of the trans-community, especially when it seems to feed itself from fires like these. What would we do if we stopped fighting ourselves, for just one second? Who would we be then?
As a friend of mine said last night, ‘does it *matter*?‘, and I honestly wonder if it does.
I know I’m not particularly active, but I think I’m going to (try and, because i keep on feeling myself drawn back) take a break for a while and reassess why I give a damn about all of this.
Love xx
you know, i thought i was a cross dresser for many years, perhaps because i didn’t know of any other language to describe what i felt, and my need to cross dress. on the other hand, i have no desire to describe myself as “hbs” either, perhaps because i don’t particularly see myself as a woman. perhaps that’s because i still don’t know what a woman actually is, unless we’re talking about people who produce eggs. and i was never a fan of biological essentialism.
i’ve come to know that i disagree with anyone who sets stringent criteria as unquestionable boundaries across the board when it comes to lgbt labels.
You know, it’s not even the ideology that’s so disgusting about the HBS cabal, as how obviously, pathetically desperate an effort it is on the part of mostly really ugly people – ugly in spirit, deeply twisted after decades of self-loathing and hideous repression – to establish unassailable justifications for their behaviors.
Most of the people who just “get it” and who are essentially comfortable with themselves – notwithstanding the odd neurosis here and there – just don’t have the need or the time for such bullshit.