Kaiya:
I re-read your message and something occurred to me. What you said primarily deals with the socialization of trans women. It is the external, functional part of being a person in society. I have lobbied for a Social Transition section, but we don’t have one yet. The difference is that the Emotional Transition is essentially internal. The Social and the Emotional often occur simultaneously, but to me they are very different entities.
When we transition, we have to remember that are (in theory, hopefully) no longer perceived as male. It is a different set of unwritten rules concerning socialization. It is like closing one book and opening another one. Often a problem occurs around the degree to which we embrace this shift. Sometimes we want to hold onto the old rules, but all that does is create a lot of unnecessary difficulty. Effectively we can wind up in No Woman’s Land as we’re not fitting into either set of constructs. Intellectually, we know we should leave the Old, but we may not be ready to sign up for the New.
Unless we are going to be a bit radical and consciously oppose the more sexist aspects of the situations we encounter, adjustments will need to be made.
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