Being trans-gender isn't a mental illness, if anything it's something that isn't easily defined in a physical sense. I'm trans-gender, wrote a blog in this site about it in my profile.
The best way I can describe it in a very short and simple context is this: Being forced to live a life that isn't yours because of a mistake that couldn't be prevented.
I hate having a male body, I have always hated it. Ever since my self awareness kicked in when I was very young back in the early 80s I have always known that I don't fit with the physical gender of my body. It is very hard to explain the metaphysical side of it since society and the media enforce us to only see the outside, never the person within and to judge them only on what we see on the outside.
But it isn't that easy, a person is not defined by their outer appearance. To define someone because of how they look on the outside is flawed since for all you know someone who's beautiful or handsome beyond words could really be a really horrible person, or they might not be, it's hard to tell when you just look at the outside.
For someone who's trans-gender, their gender identity - The aspect of all of us which defines the gender we identify as and how we develop within that gender identity - doesn't match the physical gender appearance. That can lead to confusion as they grow up as they wonder why they feel so different from what they're being taught to be.
I was brought up to think and feel as male due to my physical birth, but inside I didn't feel like the way I was being made to be. Even though I love Transformers and Star Trek and video games, my interests didn't come from a male aspect, but from the curousity of the young girl within who found such things to be much more interesting than the gender stereotype toys she saw.
That young girl grew up feeling out of place with herself, she watched as her body matured and she knew, somehow, that she was developing wrong but she couldn't understand why. Not until she learned of the physical differences and she understood what waswrong, and why she wasn't fitting right with the body she was born with.
And now that young girl is a woman trapped within a man's body and forced to be the man she can't be day after day, not just in life in general, but even in her favourite past times because of outdated gender stereotypes that constantly force the notion that being male is the way to be.
It is a living hell to live like that, I know full well how I was supposed to develop, all my life I've had an image of the woman I am - from childhood up to adulthood - and how I'm supposed to be. The woman in my profile, that's me within, that's who I'm supposed to be but didn't because of a random mix up when I was developing in the womb.
Being trans-gender wasn't and isn't a choice, it's just one of those things. And making the difficult life choice of proceeding with the hormone treatments, the operation and the transistion isn't an easy one to make due to the sacrifices such a choice requires.
And then there's the stigma towards trans-genders, the attacks, the fear of their family disowning them - which happens sadly - their friends turning their backs on them. It can be a very lonely and emotionally painful life.
So one of this site's staff has a trans-gender history, so? She does good reviews, from what others have said, the haters who refuse to think beyond their limited concept of how people should be really need to grow up and understand that life isn't easily defined just because they demand it to be.
Me and many others who are trans-gender or have a trans-gender history did not choose for our lives to be this way, but we had to make a painful choice in what to do about that life.
Life happens, in all of it's many ways.
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