(as in "Transgendered")

Part 1 of 2:

I've always identified as a homosexual male, at least from any point in time that I was old enough to know what being homosexual actually is, and from any point in time that I had started to question certain aspects of my "Christian" upbringing well enough to realize that being homosexual is, in and of itself, no more of a sin than being heterosexual is. In these new times where I can no longer be identified as either an adolescent or even, by any stretch of the the imagination, as a “young adult”, there is a new generation and a new set of identity constructs and politics. In fact, whereas I think it used to be “GLBT”, there has been a transposition - it is now LGBTQwhatever. I think it wasn’t until my early 30s which was over 15 years ago now, that I started to realize that I have a trans identity – I think that I have always felt more like a woman than I have a man..at least in relation to the vast majority of men. Perhaps I feel actually more like a “man” than I do a “woman”, in terms of what stereotypically constitutes those two “constructs”, but *in comparison to most men*, I think I feel more like a woman than I do a man.

Well, what all started this off?

April is right around the corner. A number of you have heard the saying “April is the cruellest month”. (Without bothering to look it up, I think that’s from Shakespeare, although I could be wrong.) I think there’s something to do with that. Spring. The beginning of the astrological year. Nothing more associated with the beginnings of life than the beginning of Spring, which is technically late March, but April contains more Spring in it (a whole month) rather than March (less than 2 weeks). Nothing more deceptive than the beginnings of things, as if to try to give a positive message, when nothing could be further from the truth, if you live life long enough on this planet to understand how it works, especially whereas the dealings of mankind are concerned. I am an Autumn person.

One of the first things that “springs” to mind for me, concerning the month of April, is Prince’s song “Sometimes it Snows in April”. (Funnily enough, in Jackson, Mississippi, which doesn’t have a whole lot in the way of Winter, with actual snows that actually stick to the ground overnight only happening every maybe 4-5 years, there seemed to be this odd trend that I noticed in my adolescence and 20s of there being freak snowstorms in April, which was very odd. Anyway…) Other things that come to mind for me concerning the month of April are Income Tax day, and my deceased sister’s birthday, both of which fall on the same day – April 15. The Prince song comes to mind so quickly because he was my most favorite musician as an adolescent. My 2 favorite musicians in life have been Prince (as an adolescent) and Suzanne Vega (throughout most of my 20s, all of my 30s, and pretty much until current day because I really don’t listen to much music anymore and also because nobody has come along and replaced her, and because I’ve had a little bit of a personal connection to her – she’s about as good as people come, I think). Any number of things could come to mind for many people concerning any month, but because Prince was my most favorite musician for many years (I probably bought, including repurchases from lost/stolen cassette tapes and CDS, his albums maybe 25-30 times, full retail, which is quite the “dollar vote” for a musician...I never had the opportunity to see him in concert, however) a song by him, as he was my most favorite musician for many years, and a pretty heavy favorite at that, would logically come to mind in such an association.

Well, Prince was from Minneapolis. I have a connection to Minneapolis – I have an uncle and aunt and a couple of cousins who live in the twin cities area. At the level of parents and aunts and uncles, they are spread throughout the USA in 4 different cities – the Twin Cities being one. The others are here in SW Florida (Fort Myers), Jackson, Mississippi, and Dallas, TX. It used to be 5 cities until the death of my uncle in Los Angeles last month. So, my connection to Minneapolis is somewhat strong. Funnily enough, my favorite actor or actress, Jessica Lange, is also from Minnesota, albeit the boonies (a little outside the Duluth area - not in the huge Twin Cities area).

Anyway, I was visiting my uncle in Minneapolis once. I was home alone with my Aunt. I think he was at work or something and I don’t remember where my cousins were – perhaps in school (they were much younger than me and still in Junior High or HS, whereas I was in my early/mid 30s). Somehow, we got the hairbrained idea to play marbles, which in retrospect made no sense to me, but it was fun at the time. They had a large area rug in the living room which had geometric outlines on it and one of them was the outline of a circle, and that was large enough for our impromptu game of marbles.

Well, at that time, it had been so long since I’d played a game of it that I had to relearn the rules, and it has been so long since then that I have forgotten the rules, or even the objective of it. But, well, we played. And we played long enough that I wanted to stop a good bit before the game was over. And that was because my thumb hurt. It hurt enough for me to want to quit playing a silly, inconsequential game of marbles. I know. Incredible. What a baby, right? Was I a baby? Yes, I was. And no, I wasn’t.

It wasn’t until a couple of years ago that I finally put it all together that I have been incredibly testosterone deficient my whole life. Over the years, I have kept an increasingly long list of minor-to-moderate health (physical and mental) complaints that I’ve suffered ***that are all more common in women than they are in men***. Those health complaints include, but are not limited to:1) My persistentbedwettingthat lasted longer than about 99% of bedwetters (I stopped around the age of 12, which was the beginning of puberty for me, which saw me finally get enough testosterone to stop it), and yes, I was punished and embarrassed in my childhood for being a bedwetter; 2) suffering from a full-blown case ofTrichotillomania, which started when I was 13 in the 8th grade, and has been a big enough case of it and has seen me pull out enough hair over the years to where it has been mentally and physical debilitating – well, congratulations William Bryan Noel, now that in your pubescence and post-pubescence, you finally have enough Testosterone to stop wetting the bed, this is also just enough Testosterone to give your hate just enough fire to physically manifest, also due to your personality structure being inwardly directed, to obsessively and impulsively pull out your own hair, and this will affect your everyday life for the rest of your years, including but not limited to messing up your High School Senior Year graduation portrait and your ability to sit down and read a whole book without pulling out at least a few hundred strands of hair; 3) chronically reoccurringapthuous ulcers(in the mouth – gums and lips) enough to where it has been a chronic pain and irritation-inducing problem, and has led me to discover the nasty triad of dairy, gluten, and toothpaste with sodium lauryl sulfate; 4) the specific kinds oflifelong mental health issuesI’ve had that are specifically more common in women than in men; 5)nerve pain issuesfor which I have been on Gabapentin for 6 years now and which I would say, although I haven’t had a professional diagnosis for this, but I am intelligent enough to know what severe “referred pain” in my Left arm means and what a day or two of heart palpitations mean – it means a HEART ATTACK (following a few days or a couple of weeks after what I now realize was a stroke), that I suffered nearly 7 years ago, and I know it was externally induced due to neurological issues, which I have, ***and this type of heart attack is most common IN WOMEN IN THEIR 60S AND 70S, and I was a 39 year old male when I suffered it*** ; 6)low bone density, including teeth,which is *part* of the reason that I am missing 7 teeth, with another 4 that I know are too far along enough in their problems and that can’t be saved; 7)cellulitethat started to appear on the backs of my upper thighs a couple of years ago; and 8)a whole host of inflammation issues(joint pain, asthma, and other issues including but not limited to brain/mood issues, and dry/bad skin and hair), and this is also surely what caused my lungs to burn severely when I was an adolescent and that made it very difficult to run for much distance (sprinting was fine, but running anywhere near a mile - forget it, and yes this spilled out into problems in the athleticism department, which made being a soccer player in HS not very easy) which I correctly self-diagnosed as long ago as about 32 or 33 (I am 48 now), and which I correctly attributed to not having nearly enough Omega 3s in my diet, and all of which those symptoms were alleviated once I started taking good quality fish oil and had been on it for a few weeks. But it took me a much longer time to realize that those inflammation issues were at least partially attributable to an even deeper problem – my serious lack of testosterone, which I needed and do need, as a man. ***ALL of these health complaints are more common in women than they are in men.***

Part 2 of 2)

So, I think that all of those things combined, along with my sexual orientation, and my overall socialization (I think I’ve been socialized, in a lot of ways, to be more like a woman than a man) are certainly enough to qualify me as having a “trans identity” even if it means that I only did a little bit of cross-dressing in my 20s, which I haven’t done in a really long time, and even if it means that I don’t really want to have anything to do with a sex change.

Back to playing marbles with my aunt. Well, another thing – I’m just weaker, overall, in a lot of ways. I don’t recall exactly, but I would say probably less than halfway through that game of marbles, I wanted to stop. Because my thumbnails hurt. Yes, they hurt enough to want to stop. But I don’t think I said anything, although I might have been the one to say that I was tired of the game. Also, when I started really getting into my appreciation for the sport of gymnastics (when I was in my early 20s), I liked to do all sorts of impromptu cartwheels and handstands against the wall. Even in my early 20s, if I was to do just 1 cartwheel in my front yard, afterwards, I would feel a little faint and see stars in front of my eyes. Only after 1 cartwheel. Well, more than 25 years later, I don’t even want to think about what trying to do just 1 cartwheel would do to me now. Also, because I do have one finger that has been semi-broken for 7 years due to a snapped Extensor Tendon which I haven’t been able to get repaired, I can’t even really do a cartwheel, anyway. ALL OF THIS IS AT LEAST PARTIALLY ATTRIBUTABLE TO LOW TESTOSTERONE.

Well, I don’t want to stretch this post out much longer. But I do want it to be educational and informative.

I have only known a couple of trans people in my life. One was in my early 20s, and he/she was only peripherally in my life – a friend of a couple of friends, and who I was only around 2 or 3 or perhaps 4 times, for maybe an hour or two. One was in my late 30s and early 40s, and we got to know each other somewhat better than that. He/she has since moved to LA and become something of a minor star. Through him/her, I got to understand Trans issues a little better. One time we went to the state fair together, I and realized that He/She made a number of decisions throughout the night, and I eventually put together that they were all centered around Him/Her not wanting to use the bathroom at the fair because of His/Her gender identity and expected harassment.

Well, as I have briefly started to touch on already, the Trans movement is something that “belongs” much more to the next generation (people in their teens and twenties) than it did to my generation when I was about that age. I think that Gays and Lesbians being at the forefront of Social Justice Awareness was more my generation than it is in the current generation of people who are in their teens and 20s – I think that being “CIS-gendered”, whether being a Male Gay or a Lesbian, is something that, as “trends” go, is something that right now is more “passe” and considered not as “relevant” to social justice. I have thought about trans issues a little bit, even moreso since my brief “friendship” with the Trans person I alluded to in the preceding paragraph. I have to say that there is a lot that I don’t understand. If I were somehow to have “anything to do” with “The Trans movement”, the first thing I would have to do is engage in questions and dialogue with enough Trans people to get a better understanding of what “the general voice” is for “Trans people”. I do have a number of questions: 1) Sex Reassignment surgery – is this something that “should be covered by health insurance”?…I would not really have that much of a problem with just that – that is fine by me, as I can see it being a necessity for a few people here and there, but complications do arise because it is costly and time consuming…it consumes both physical resources as well as the time of professionals, and I think that one should be of the age of majority to get one because it is a major decision not to be taken lightly, but I also think…well…what if one regrets it?...should a reversal of that sex reassignment surgery be covered if a person seriously regrets getting one?...where does the line get drawn?...after a while, a person needs to take responsibility for their decisions, rather than making any sort of health system pay the price for their never-ending indecisiveness, because after all, resources are FINITE, and do not “grow on trees”… and 2) Bathrooms. Bathrooms are a problem. My former trans “friend” thought that bathrooms should all be unisex, which to the Conservationist in me sounds like a fantastic idea, because it could save resources and would make everything more simple. But I would also say that a number of Trans people would take an opposite approach and want Trans bathrooms (understandable...to a certain point), which would make me think…well…there would then need to be a separate bathroom for Men-Women Trans individuals and another for Women-Men Trans individuals. And that, my friends, would be an *extremely* demanding complication, because in many instances, it would call for *doubling* the number of bathrooms in a lot of buildings and institutions, which would call for a *tremendous* outlay and consumption of resources – an outlay and consumption of resources that the Conservationist in me would deem as Unnecessary and Unacceptable. At some point, PEOPLE have to take some sort of responsibility for HUMANKIND, rather than raping the earth for every little whim and complaint we have. As for security issues, well, unless we put surveillance in every bathroom, which I think a ton of people would object to, we can’t solve the problems of bathroom harassment of any sort, really. We can’t solve it with technology. We have to solve it with growing mature individuals. We have to solve it with creating a health society. Well, good luck on that one.

So, as I have articulated above, I do have concerns about Trans issues. I mean, I certainly don’t want to look or sound unsympathetic. For Trans individuals who can demonstrate a genuine need for sex reassignment, I do support such a reassignment being covered by health insurance (which I think should be automatically covered because I do believe in Socialized Medicine). I also understand the need for other medical support due to my historically low testosterone and the health problems that poses (which, in my case, are also attributable to problems of oversight of the adults who have been in my life) because they really are unacceptable, to the degree I’ve had them, and have caused me to be a burden (mostly to myself). I also think there should probably be more dialogue about supporting people who have trans identities and getting them the medical and other support they need, rather than just thinking that a sex-reassignment will be the panacea for everything, which it certainly isn’t. Also, there are issues with playing with hormones. My not having nearly enough hormones, as a man, to be a man, has led to gigantic health problems for me – ones that have seen me have a lot of problems with depression, and this has spilled over into social situations, and my just generally being an EXTREMELY UNDER-SELF-ACTUALIZED person (thinking about Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, here). I literally hate my life to the extreme. It could always be worse, but it SHOULD be MUCH, MUCH better than it is and pretty much always has been.

I mean…seriously…being in my early 20s and not able to turn just a single cartwheel without paying a price for it…being in my early 30s and not being able to play a game of marbles without paying a price for it. On top of the other chronic problems I’ve had… This is just really, really, messed up. It’s a life that I just don’t want anymore.

But I also think that looking at all the health issues I’ve had because of my quite low testosterone, I would think that it should make people who want to play around with hormones (either greatly increasing or greatly decreasing them…one way or the other) reconsider. Either be a man or be a woman…but whatever it is that you’re going to be, find out what the healthy hormone levels for your intended sex should be, and stick with them. Anything that it too far out of balance will result in you having a whole host of health issues like I’ve had, and that’s something that nobody in their right mind would want.

So, that is my bit of information and education regarding certain Trans issues and the importance of healthy hormone levels. My life can certainly lay testament to this. I have paid the price for this for a long time, and I should have the right, especially with the suffering I’ve endured and the intelligence I can manifest, to voice my life story. Other people can and most definitely SHOULD learn from it.

Trans people are sick in the head and a danger to society and our children especially.

/thread

Op is a ****ggot

bump

Not reading all that

Prince wasn’t transgender or gay he was known for being a big ****boi srs and was engaged to like 4 different women at one point iirc

Plz make better threads or rope , k ? Thanks.

Since you didn't read the thread, what you just typed here makes it look like you *ASSUMED* that I was saying something along the lines of Prince being Transgendered. If you had bothered to read the thread, you would see that nowhere did I make that indication. So, rather than trying to put words in my mouth, you have only showed yourself to be ignorant. You were also quick to turn your quick response into a personal attack. So, looks like the egg is back on your face BIG TIME. Or perhaps you are anti-Transgendered or anti-something or just plain hostile?