The relationships I know here are either a transwoman + lesbian or a transwoman with another transwoman.
So, I´m afraid you´re right Sandra. And my experiences show so far that once a decent man learns about my past, I´m dumped. Even if he would have really chased me before that.

Laura

I face this problem over and over again.

If I don´t tell my background to my partner, he can accuse me later on about cheating him.

If I tell my background openly right away it can work as a tranny-admirer-magnet.

I want that my future boyfriend likes me in spite of my past, not because of it.

Why is it bad if somebody likes me because of my ts-past? It is because my background becomes the main thing, more meaningful than me myself. I would be drawn back to the phase I would like to forget and maybe wished to join some sex games with switched roles, or something else I´m not at all interested.

I would be grateful for your opinions.

Laura

Yeah we dont live in an ideal world and we have a greater chance than many of losing a relationship just because we are who we are, but you'll NEVER get anywhere with your negative attitudes.

Think you may be considered a freak and people will think you a freak. Act like any other person and get treated like any other person. Yes relevaling a past canbe hard, but thats the same for everyone. There are things that people would rather you didnt know.

If you dont give yourself a chance how can anyone else?

Well said, Fiona.. It's not that I'm excactly an optimist, but I won't give up. So, this dilemma has been on my mind for some time. And have made me think of the problem women have faced since time immemorial: Giving in too early and be considered a passing pleasure or waiting him out and be looked upon as a cheat - for one reason or another. Or even worse: Being locked into a bad relationship. So, in this respect we are like any other - female - person.

Of course, the transpast is a major story here. Making chances slimmer. But can the solution be any other than the wellknown ? Passing pleasures are women's pleasures too, sure.. But if we want something else we'll have to try making an early guess and still make the right man wait for some time. Somehow, I think, there may be men out there, waiting for someone willing to wait for them..

Thinking about it... why is it that women, on average, are so much better than men at guessing the meaning of facial expressions ? Certainly not a simple solution, but still my best guess at it: Furtive glances, game.. of patience, and then - honesty. If he's sincere and worthy of attention he should stay. In my view we have a right to expect some understanding for an extra measure of caution - postponing disclosure - if only for the reason mentioned by you, Sandra.

Linda

Who says women can't be hunters ?

Well, I never were much of an optimist. In fact, I'd say I'd been very much a realist all my life. But still dreaming of better days. And it has in fact worked if I compare with the living hell I come from.

I may have got the wrong impression, but some months ago I read this at Lynn Conway's site:

Basic TS/IS/TG Information

...thousands of transsexual women have married men during these past four decades. In most states the lack of an updated birth certificate is not an obstacle to marriage, since a driver's license or passport works just as well as ID for marriage licenses. Those marriages have been no different from any other marriages between men and women. Some have turned out to be very happy ones, some are so-so, and some led to divorce.

Of course, for what I know every single one of the men involved here may be perverts - whatever that may be - depressives or afflicted in other ways. But I find it prejudicial simply assuming this as a fact. And what Laura is saying is in fact the opposite. (Thank you for that.) My guess is that fear of society's reactions - peer pressures - if things come out, is at least part of the explanation for the sudden farewells. The transpast does represent a threat to their position too.

Now, if you are a catholic you have an extra problem, of course. You're not really allowed acting out your transsexuality at all, are you ? But that's not really the issue here, is it ?

As for reading TG and TS pages... Can we expect to meet those doing their utmost to assimilate as women at these websites ? Probably not. Not as regulars anyway. Which means that statistics cannot be read from the activity at such sites.

And as for old age.. I see no reason to frown. Our most famous poet was 70 when he found his first girlfriend - a few years younger than him.

I have no illusion of a straight family life.

I see the problem here as people seeing what they believe to be the same for everyone else.

Sandra, you know yourself that your country isnt very Tfriendly. If its not going to change laws to help a t girl, its because there isnt the pressure from the people of the country to make it happen. For the most part people on this site are Brits or Yanks, where the laws are changing to give people of a transgendered status equal rights to all other citizens. Why are they doing this ? because the people who live there demand it. Therefore there are people there with a much more liberal and reasonable mind. If it sucks being a tgirl where you live, why not get out and protest politician and show people that Tgirls are just the same as anyone else, we are just going through a medical issue? Please stop trying to tell everyone how hard things are. We know we're transexual to! We deal with it each in our own way, but I think you telling the world that its impossible is making things harder for everyone. Its not *reality* its *YOUR reality*

Laura, just be yourself. If a guy dumps you because you were once trans, then he isnt the right one. The question to ask here though, was it the way in which you told him or the transexuality itself ? Do you consider yourself to be a womyn? or do you consider yourself to be a transexual getting away with people not knowing your past ? Think long and hard about this Laura. I think once you accept your past and just get on with things, you will become more comfortable as yourself and therefore give a partner every chance of seeing the real you. I would hate for anyone to focus on one facet of my life. I dont care which facet it is. There is no one part of me that sums me up. I am all of it.

Negativity the fact the people here choose to wallow in it was the reason why I left this site in the first place.

WE ARE NOT FREAKS UNLESS YOU BELIEVE WE ARE!!!

well thats my thoughts on the matter.

I don't know, but it could be of some value mentioning it: I checked the statistics on infertility in my own country and in the US and was a bit surprised. It's higher than I expected - 9 % - and the same for both sexes. So here we're simply having the same problem as a lot of women - and men. Which doesn't mean it's not a problem.

Linda

Lucy,
Your comment on laws not changing by themselves - it's certainly true. And what's happened in my country confirms the value of individual effort. It's to a large extent thanks to a few individuals that the general conditions here have changed to the significantly better. One doctor appearing in his female persona on national TV repeatedly over the last fifteen years - and last year even risking his licence when helping a young girl. The other one a transwoman - founding our national organization in 1996. And in january.. a documentary movie on the transition process of a girl from a small norwegian town. There are others too, in the background, but giving us a public face has great importance.
Without these people conditions would have been much worse. Also tells me that every one of us has a responsibility for keeping up the good fight.

Linda

Sandra, I just wish you could take on board what Fiona has said instead of responding with more negative suggestions of what people in general supposedly think about us. I wholeheartedly agree with Fiona, that what you believe is not the same for everyone else, it may be your reality but it isn’t everyone else’s. Sometimes you come across as almost trans-phobic, so extreme is the way you describe other people’s opinion on all things trans-related. That is not their view, that is your view of their view, basically your own imagination. Has any man ever told you your past is contaminated…?

“If you were a man, i mean an average good looking and young man, would you like to be involved in a relationship with a sterile trans-woman…?”

Yes, when I was an average, good looking(ish) and young man interested in women I would have had no problem with it. Of course I’m biased having always known I’m trans myself, but there ARE men out there who don’t have a problem with trans-women, just as there are men who do. The point is that I, and it seems I’m not the only one, just wish you would stop harping on about how (some) people see us as freaks and that we have no chance of a normal life. Whatever you want from life, you have to go out there and get it, not complain about how difficult it is for us.
“EU don't care us at all, there are no laws or directives, nor are expected in the near future, to help us…”
So what are you going to do about it? Whinge? It won’t help. The new laws in England didn’t just change themselves.
You don’t have to live in a fantasy world to be positive, and being SO negative on this site really doesn’t help anyone. Things do need to change more, but they have changed and they are still changing for the better. The best thing we can do is encourage newcomers to this site to be brave and stand up for themselves, not scare them away by claiming that life as a trans-woman can never be a “normal” life. The potential problems that you state, are your problems, not mine. I am not a freak, I am not a “B-person”, I do not feel that the world is against me. I am just me.

As for the boyfriend issue, you say, “The only valid solution seems to stay alone, or usin men for sex and then dump them, without revealing a bit about you. I can't see as very realistic the chance to live a full romantic love, given our situation. I'd like if there was ANY solution.”
Dear me, the only solution is to stay alone or just have one-night stands? What rubbish.
Laura, I agree with Fiona - just be yourself; either a man loves you for who you are, or he doesn’t. I read of one girl who married without telling her husband of her trans past, I for one wouldn’t like to exchange living one lie for another, and were I passable enough for it to be an issue, I would tell any partner before things got intimate. Any man who had a problem with my past is not man enough for me. There are plenty of pebbles on the beach, no doubt we all will have to turn few over before we find the right one.
Think positive, be positive, live your life the way you want, no-one else is going to make it happen for you.
xx