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Hi all. I’m Erica. I’ll be 70 in April, one month on HRT. I just came out to my adult kids (mixed results so far), and am in the beginning of transition. I’m retired, live in the DC area, play the hammered dulcimer and guitar.
Can anyone recommend a book I could give to my very conservative and religious daughter to counteract some of the misinformation she has on transgender folk? Thanks for any suggestions.
Hello , Welcome — I never got married as I never felt right personally because of dysphoria, like many of us so long ago now society was not even accepting Gay people let alone Transgender but I finally did all the HRT and surgery stuff at 61 – I never felt gay homosexual but my soul sure new at 5 years old wanting to be a girl , such a huge private turmoil , even I couldn’t understand a natural desire , had the right brain , wrong body , a cluster fk ! really growing up , not dating in the day when everyone else were dating ! – for myself I didn’t want to date women seemed wrong for me feeling hard core female and yet by societies default then I would have been Gay female minded but just was not my thing either to date a man when physically a so called male , wasn’t my deal , so I did nothing !
Many of true Transgender Female seem to get married by default to make everyone happy , have kids etc. I just couldn’t do it for myself – obviously I was hard core Transgender female so I kept to myself , just worked , shut my mouth , and drank for 30 years , Rehab 4 times , Hospitals, Institutions not an ideal life really .
There’s no book to explain a soul that just didn’t fit for the life everyone expected to see from a person – social bias never really goes away ! But one thing someone might understand with a good Honest Chat is some science why ! whether that person is religious or not !
A human fetus during the 1 st 8 weeks can have permanent changes to the brain from the mother’s up’s and down’s of testosterone then high estrogen – the fetus is the the size of a Prawn , a very tiny brain still – the size of a dime ! these changes become permanent and the basic brain is geared for the gender right from birth despite the doctor checking the box off of physical sex characteristics being a boy or girl – the one thing a doctor never knows is how the brain was formed and only later as the child learns and grows do they realize from social training from adults that something doesn’t match and as a child you don’t know either Why ! And so starts a complicated life for that person trying to make sense of everything !
Krystal:
While it isn’t conclusive yet, evidence is beginning to form that the brains of trans men and women are not like the brains of cisgender men and women. There are some key differences that show up on brain scans. However, it is very difficult to get sufficient funding for large scale research.
Somewhere else I pointed this out to someone who believed that “it’s a choice”. After they read what I wrote, it was STILL a choice. To me, that defines the BS that is out there…
Hello Erica,
Welcome to our wonderful, accepting, loving, helpful community where you can be safe and be yourself.
You can read about the knowledge and experiances of others on a similar path by reading articles and in the forums and chatting in chat rooms.
My hope is that you will become comfortable here and make many new friends.
Glad you are here. Looking forward to seeing you on the site.
Terri Anne, AmbassadorGee… Sure, I can recommend a book, but will they read it??
I guess I’m lucky. My daughter got me a book for Christmas and it’s now my current favorite. It’s called, The Transgender Issue: Trans Justice Is Justice For All, by Shon Faye, 2022. It’s about how the current transgender paranoia world-wide came to be and how it’s influencing anti-trans legislation in many jurisdictions, but the US and Canada are often mentioned as beacons of hope and kindness. It’s also a decent primer on social justice that can be applicable to any topic or country too!
Good luck!
:Barb
Welcome Erica! Hope you enjoy the posts here. I failed at the guitar and the hammered dulcimer, so now I play the ukulele. I’m considering having my third custom one done soon. I play in an all girl band called Ladies of Uke.
I hope you’ll share some of your musical experiences here, as music can be an important part of life and transition!
Hello Erica and welcome! I am another of those late-in-life transitioners. I was fortunate (very!) in gaining the acceptance – if not enthusiasm – by all of my friends and family (so far). I never had to fight the battle you are apparently up against with your daughter. I wish you the very best in working through that impasse. If your daughter’s hung up on the “a man shall not wear a woman’s raiment (clothing)” prohibition in the Bible, you could (gently) remind her that the prohibition also runs against women dressing as men (and what about those JEANS and other PANTS she wears, hmmm?). One could point her to research by biblical scholars that indicates the clothing prohibition was not originally intended to be against cross-dressing, per se, but evidently resulted from some of those eternally back-sliding Israelites joining in Baal-worshipping fertility rituals in which men and women temporarily exchanged clothing. The original point was “NO BAAL WORSHIP!!”, not “No dressing as a woman, period!” But . . . any such approach may be a tough sell with your daughter. Religious feeling is an emotional thing and is not always amenable to what others would deem “reasonable” argument.
Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Trans (but were afraid to ask)
By Brynn Tannehill
I forgot that I had captured this previously:
This is an extraordinary tour de force as is demonstrated by the length of the bibliography. There are 12 chapters:
- Trans 101
- Trans 201
- Dating and Sex
- Medicine/Mental Health
- (Bad) Science
- Law
- Politics
- Religion
- Military
- Media and Popular Culture
- Gender/Feminism
- Where We Go From Here
Erica, we have a lot of good reads in a Forum thread here: BotMC – Introduction (https://transgenderheaven.com/forums/topic/botmc-introduction/
And the Forums and Articles have a lot of personal experience stuff you can draw from as well. Michelle
- The forum ‘Introductions and new members’ is closed to new topics and replies.
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