How did you get to where you are today?

Blade · 05-16-2011, 02:38 PM

Dude,
I said only butch in reference to how someone comes to the place where they know are only butch and not TG, or how someone comes to the place where they are male or female ID'd butch, or perhaps it doesn't matter they are just butch. I had never heard the word butch until about 1995 or so and never heard of TG until I came to these sites 3 or 4 years ago and is also the same time I ever heard of male and female ID'd butches. Hope this explains it to where you or no one else is offended by my use of just butch.

MrSunshine · 05-16-2011, 02:44 PM

It was a long walk...

Dude · 05-16-2011, 03:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blade

Dude,
I said only butch in reference to how someone comes to the place where they know are only butch and not TG, or how someone comes to the place where they are male or female ID'd butch, or perhaps it doesn't matter they are just butch. I had never heard the word butch until about 1995 or so and never heard of TG until I came to these sites 3 or 4 years ago and is also the same time I ever heard of male and female ID'd butches. Hope this explains it to where you or no one else is offended by my use of just butch.

I get where you are coming from but
only and just mean less than, atleast to me.

Blade · 05-16-2011, 03:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dude

I get where you are coming from but
only and just mean less than, atleast to me.

Yes someone just pointed this out to me. Again only and just doesn't mean less than to me and wasn't intended to as it was posted. It was intended as a stopping point. A point where one decides they are only going to be butch and not TG or planning to transition. Or for that matter how one decides they are male or female Id'd.

Just for the record I don't think anyone or group is less than. I have a real curiosity how we each arrived at our own comfort zone of being called butch, male ID butch, female ID butch, TG, FTM, MTF. I encouraged the discussion to include all forms of butch to see and understand where one draws their personal line, as was illustrated by Bully's post

hpychick · 05-16-2011, 03:46 PM

What a long strange trip it's been.

BullDog · 05-16-2011, 03:01 PM

Blade, no offense about "just butch," but I understand what Dude is saying. Also, I just watched an interview with Chazz Bono where he and the interviewer at one point talked about how he thought he was a lesbian. They talked about how that was easy and obvious, then went on to to discuss trans. I understand that it took him sometime to put the pieces together for himself, but there is nothing obvious or easy about being a lesbian. I am putting Chazz and his story aside for now.

When I was kid I thought of myself as a boy most of the time. I rode an imaginary horse and had an imaginary girlfriend named Jenny. I had crushes on little girls from as early on as I can remember and always wanted to walk girls home from school and carry their books for them. When I was a teenager I wished I was a boy so I could marry my best friend whom I was madly in love with. Then I had a very sexually explicit dream of two women together. I grew up very sexually naive- very religious family with little sex education. I was excited. Being the nerd that I am, I went to the library. The first book I found was Rubyfruit Jungle by Rita Mae Brown. So that's what a lesbian is, I said to myself. I've happily been a lesbian ever since and not thought about being a boy or male.

Butch in and of itself of course can be a complete identity. I am butch, lesbian, female, woman and much more. They all intersect for me and lesbian, female and woman are part of being butch for me. I don't mind woman, she and her- in fact I insist on them.

I am also a butch woman who is a stone butch and consider getting top surgery- that would be a butch chest for me, not a male one. We had a discussion about this at the Dash site. Many butches who consider themselves to be woman and/or female also discussed this. I have a butch cock that is an extension of my body and my ideal chest would not have breasts- that is part of my butch body, my female body, but not a male one. There are also many butches who are quite fine having breasts. I know of many and they are indeed butch to the core.

I claim woman and female as my birthright. I claim butch for myself.

I think we all have complicated lives and complicated relationships to our gender.

Blade · 05-16-2011, 03:23 PM

Thanks Bully from your second paragraph down is exactly what I am asking and I appreciate your participation in the thread.

Dude · 05-16-2011, 04:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blade

Dude,
I said butch in reference to how someone comes to the place where they now are butch and not TG, or how someone comes to the place where they are male or female ID'd butch, or perhaps it doesn't matter they are a butch. I had never heard the word butch until about 1995 or so and never heard of TG until I came to these sites 3 or 4 years ago and is also the same time I ever heard of male and female ID'd butches. .

I took the just's and only's out of your post and I think it stills get's your point across.
Would you say eh dont listen to her ,she's only a femme?
Or oh look it's just an ftm?

Blade · 05-16-2011, 04:59 PM

This thread is not about dissecting words or rewriting my post. The purpose is......I have a real curiosity how we each arrived at our own comfort zone of being called butch, male ID butch, female ID butch, TG, FTM, MTF.

I had hoped we could have a sharing/learning experience about how we came into our own. Perhaps a learning venue for a new person. Obviously all they are going to learn is that different people interpret words differently which I am sure is something they don't have to come to a website to know

Ebon · 06-19-2011, 01:14 AM

I knew I was trans growing up. I never felt like I was in the right body, never understood why my chest couldn't be flat like it was supposed to be and wondered where my penis was(I made my own when I was little). Then I realized that apparently I'm in a girl's body. WTF?! Then I thought ok I can deal with this. This led me to being extremely unhappy, an alcoholic, abusing my body because I didn't give a shit about it, smoking (cigs), being lazy, and eating crap. I don't give a shit it's not the right body. It's not my body.

As I got older I became comfortable in this body, not happy but comfortable. Better able to deal with it by numbing myself with alcohol.
The cycle continued. Then I met a young man that I would become really good friends with. I had soooo many questions. I had no idea that I could make myself appear on the outside, like I did on the inside. Like he did. I thought it was beautiful. From that moment on it has been my goal. Recently (within the past couple of years) the Universe have put people in my life/path that accept that part of me and that also bring it out.

I thank the Universe for these people. Right now I am working on my inner self and my physical self. Once those are complete then it will be time for the last piece of the puzzle. I still have quite a way to go but at least I am on my way.

Disclaimer: When I say abusing my body and I talk about drinking and smoking and sinning and what not, that is my story for my body. I don't care or judge what anyone else does to theirs.

SelfMadeMan · 10-17-2011, 11:01 AM

I knew I was a boy at the age of 4. I tried to tell my Mom around that time, and I just remember for years, her telling me, "you're a tomboy, lots of little girls are tomboys" and I didn't like that answer at all. I was just a boy. I used to lay in bed at night around the age of 9-10 and daydream about growing up and having a wife. I wanted to be a Dad. It wasn't because there was anything wrong with being a girl, or being a Mom, it just didn't feel like me. It wasn't what I saw when I looked in the mirror.

When I was 10, I would go stay at a family friend's apartment on the weekends. I LOVED going there because I told all the kids there that I was a boy named Larry. I even had a "girlfriend" - and this family friend was cool with it. Even to the point of buying me boy's swim trunks and letting me swim in the pool in just my trunks like the other boys. Life was so good then! At 12, puberty struck and Larry was no more. This would be the start of some VERY traumatic years for me. Traumatic because I felt betrayed by my body, and because we moved from the neighborhood I grew up in, in Houston, to a very small East Texas town.

From 7th grade until about 10th grade, I was bullied relentlessly. I was beat up, spit on, followed from class to class being called "dyke", "lezbo", "linebacker", "freak", etc. It was horrible. My parents tried to help but in the end, felt like I was bringing a lot of it on myself for the way I dressed and cut my hair. I remember my Mom saying that if I just TRIED dressing like a girl and wearing some make-up, that things would probably be better for me. Of course, I wasn't about to do that, bullying or not. It got better the summer before my Junior year when I tried out, and made the school (boys) baseball team. I was good at baseball, and earned my teammate's respect - then things started getting better - not great, but better.

My freshman year in college was bad - I wanted to keep playing ball but wasn't brave enough to try out for the team at my college. This started some major depression - I would go sit at practices and wish I looked like the other guys, wish I could play, but feeling like an outcast. Halfway through the 1st semester I would attempt suicide and lose a full ride Journalism scholarship and have to move home.

I moved to Houston shortly after this, and things got a bit better. I got very involved in the gay & lesbian community, and came out as a lesbian because it's the only way I knew to fit in. I knew I didn't feel like a lesbian, but it worked for awhile. After a couple of years, I was feeling very detached again and unsettled. I knew I was trans at this point, I was about 25, but still had NEVER seen or heard of a transMAN. I had seen transwomen on TV, and figured maybe there was a way for a biological female to have a sex change, but just had no clue how one would go about doing anything about it if it was possible. It was very frustrating. Then, one afternoon I was in a bookstore in Montrose (Houston's gay mecca) and found a gender section. I happened to pick up a copy of Body Alchemy by Loren Cameron - a photo book of FTMs including before & after pics - and I stood there with tears streaming down my face. I knew this was me. I knew there was a way. I sat there looking at the pictures bawling.

About 4 months or so later, I moved to Boston, MA and started my transition by changing my name. That was 1997. I started T about a year and a half later, had my hysto in 2000, and top surgery in 2005. It was a long, hard road to get to where I am now - but I wouldn't trade it for anything in this world! Where I am now is well worth all the pain. I have the wife I dreamed of when I was a little boy, and I am a Dad. I am everything I wanted to be

Thank you to everyone else who has shared their stories, I loved reading them all, and we are ALL brave - those who transition and those who don't... anyone who says FUCK YOU to gender norms and paves their own way - my hat is off to you

CockyDude · 10-18-2011, 08:11 AM

I've read thru this thread & come to realize we all share some commonality on more than a few things. I realized at a very young age I was a boy & having a younger brother never understood why he was different than me. It was a small town; I was expected to conform & I constantly refused. I started drinking at 12 & drugs at 13. I couldn't understand why/how God made such a huge error; I was obviously in the wrong body. I excelled at all sports & badassness. I was referred to as a " hooligan" in grade school & high school ( I was a greaser then). I fell in love with the girl of my dreams at 16. She formed the basis for what I still desire today. She couldn't take the family pressure, & moved back home after 2 years. I became involved with a Playboy Bunny @ 19. She was bi-sexual & introduced me to gay bars. But I just wasn't comfortable. I wasn't a woman, I wasn't gay, why was I here? Then I heard/found out about transsexuals. The light bulb went off, I started T, & life got better. Like most guys in my situation, the road traveled has or still does involve alcohol, drugs & thoughts of suicide. We do the best we can & hope for what everyone else does; true love.
And that's about as much as I can type with one thumb for now.

CockyDude · 10-18-2011, 08:16 AM

After rereading I realized it sounded way too morbid. I have indeed found love more than a few times. I have been blessed to gave been with sine amazing women. My first wife was pregnant when we married, & long story short, I got custody when she was 4 & I raised an amazing young woman (who only knows me as dad). In the end, life is what we make of it. Period.

05-16-2011, 02:38 PM	#1
Blade Infamous Member How Do You Identify?: TG Preferred Pronoun?: He Relationship Status: once in a while someone amazing comes along...and here I am! Join Date: Jan 2010 Location: Down on the farm Posts: 5,501 My Photo Gallery Thanks: 9,855 Thanked 14,412 Times in 4,058 Posts Rep Power: 21474857	Dude, I said only butch in reference to how someone comes to the place where they know are only butch and not TG, or how someone comes to the place where they are male or female ID'd butch, or perhaps it doesn't matter they are just butch. I had never heard the word butch until about 1995 or so and never heard of TG until I came to these sites 3 or 4 years ago and is also the same time I ever heard of male and female ID'd butches. Hope this explains it to where you or no one else is offended by my use of just butch. __________________ Yeah so what if I'm triple dipped in awesome sauce? The best way to predict the future, is to create it.

05-16-2011, 03:46 PM	#5
hpychick Member How Do You Identify?: Feminine with a hammer Preferred Pronoun?: Girly Stuff Relationship Status: Jesse's Girl. She asked! I said yes! Join Date: Nov 2009 Location: Minneapolis! Or as I like to call it - Many Happiness! Posts: 1,364 My Photo Gallery Thanks: 5,387 Thanked 1,417 Times in 499 Posts Rep Power: 15817346	What a long strange trip it's been. __________________ *~~greeting the world one cup of coffee at a time~~* http://www.waterfyi.com/wp-content/u...nn-300x168.jpg

05-16-2011, 03:01 PM	#6
BullDog Infamous Member How Do You Identify?: Dominant Stone Butch Daddy Preferred Pronoun?: She Join Date: Nov 2009 Location: In A Healing Place Posts: 5,371 My Photo Gallery Thanks: 18,160 Thanked 22,637 Times in 4,462 Posts Rep Power: 21474857	Blade, no offense about "just butch," but I understand what Dude is saying. Also, I just watched an interview with Chazz Bono where he and the interviewer at one point talked about how he thought he was a lesbian. They talked about how that was easy and obvious, then went on to to discuss trans. I understand that it took him sometime to put the pieces together for himself, but there is nothing obvious or easy about being a lesbian. I am putting Chazz and his story aside for now. When I was kid I thought of myself as a boy most of the time. I rode an imaginary horse and had an imaginary girlfriend named Jenny. I had crushes on little girls from as early on as I can remember and always wanted to walk girls home from school and carry their books for them. When I was a teenager I wished I was a boy so I could marry my best friend whom I was madly in love with. Then I had a very sexually explicit dream of two women together. I grew up very sexually naive- very religious family with little sex education. I was excited. Being the nerd that I am, I went to the library. The first book I found was Rubyfruit Jungle by Rita Mae Brown. So that's what a lesbian is, I said to myself. I've happily been a lesbian ever since and not thought about being a boy or male. Butch in and of itself of course can be a complete identity. I am butch, lesbian, female, woman and much more. They all intersect for me and lesbian, female and woman are part of being butch for me. I don't mind woman, she and her- in fact I insist on them. I am also a butch woman who is a stone butch and consider getting top surgery- that would be a butch chest for me, not a male one. We had a discussion about this at the Dash site. Many butches who consider themselves to be woman and/or female also discussed this. I have a butch cock that is an extension of my body and my ideal chest would not have breasts- that is part of my butch body, my female body, but not a male one. There are also many butches who are quite fine having breasts. I know of many and they are indeed butch to the core. I claim woman and female as my birthright. I claim butch for myself. I think we all have complicated lives and complicated relationships to our gender. __________________ Love consists in this, that two solitudes protect and touch and greet each other. - Rainer Maria Rilke

05-16-2011, 03:23 PM	#7
Blade Infamous Member How Do You Identify?: TG Preferred Pronoun?: He Relationship Status: once in a while someone amazing comes along...and here I am! Join Date: Jan 2010 Location: Down on the farm Posts: 5,501 My Photo Gallery Thanks: 9,855 Thanked 14,412 Times in 4,058 Posts Rep Power: 21474857	Thanks Bully from your second paragraph down is exactly what I am asking and I appreciate your participation in the thread. __________________ Yeah so what if I'm triple dipped in awesome sauce? The best way to predict the future, is to create it.

05-16-2011, 04:59 PM	#9
Blade Infamous Member How Do You Identify?: TG Preferred Pronoun?: He Relationship Status: once in a while someone amazing comes along...and here I am! Join Date: Jan 2010 Location: Down on the farm Posts: 5,501 My Photo Gallery Thanks: 9,855 Thanked 14,412 Times in 4,058 Posts Rep Power: 21474857	This thread is not about dissecting words or rewriting my post. The purpose is......I have a real curiosity how we each arrived at our own comfort zone of being called butch, male ID butch, female ID butch, TG, FTM, MTF. I had hoped we could have a sharing/learning experience about how we came into our own. Perhaps a learning venue for a new person. Obviously all they are going to learn is that different people interpret words differently which I am sure is something they don't have to come to a website to know __________________ Yeah so what if I'm triple dipped in awesome sauce? The best way to predict the future, is to create it.

05-16-2011, 02:44 PM	#2
MrSunshine Senior Member How Do You Identify?: The Gardner Preferred Pronoun?: Ummmm Relationship Status: Nah Join Date: Nov 2009 Location: Sunshine State, State of Sunshine Posts: 2,616 My Photo Gallery Thanks: 1,577 Thanked 3,891 Times in 1,155 Posts Rep Power: 21474855	It was a long walk...

06-19-2011, 01:14 AM	#10
Ebon Senior Member How Do You Identify?: With my souls eyes. Preferred Pronoun?: He Relationship Status: lol Join Date: Nov 2009 Location: Here Posts: 3,476 My Photo Gallery Thanks: 10,524 Thanked 11,143 Times in 2,757 Posts Rep Power: 21474856	I knew I was trans growing up. I never felt like I was in the right body, never understood why my chest couldn't be flat like it was supposed to be and wondered where my penis was(I made my own when I was little). Then I realized that apparently I'm in a girl's body. WTF?! Then I thought ok I can deal with this. This led me to being extremely unhappy, an alcoholic, abusing my body because I didn't give a shit about it, smoking (cigs), being lazy, and eating crap. I don't give a shit it's not the right body. It's not my body. As I got older I became comfortable in this body, not happy but comfortable. Better able to deal with it by numbing myself with alcohol. The cycle continued. Then I met a young man that I would become really good friends with. I had soooo many questions. I had no idea that I could make myself appear on the outside, like I did on the inside. Like he did. I thought it was beautiful. From that moment on it has been my goal. Recently (within the past couple of years) the Universe have put people in my life/path that accept that part of me and that also bring it out. I thank the Universe for these people. Right now I am working on my inner self and my physical self. Once those are complete then it will be time for the last piece of the puzzle. I still have quite a way to go but at least I am on my way. Disclaimer: When I say abusing my body and I talk about drinking and smoking and sinning and what not, that is my story for my body. I don't care or judge what anyone else does to theirs. __________________ In Lak'ech Ala K'in I'm a Soul Rebel http://wannabereverend.wordpress.com/ Spirituality is not a belief system or ideology, it is the surrender of one's ego to the infinite wisdom and knowledge that is the universe.

10-17-2011, 11:01 AM	#11
SelfMadeMan Member How Do You Identify?: Transsexual Man Preferred Pronoun?: Male Relationship Status: Married to The Woman of My Dreams <3 Join Date: Nov 2009 Location: Minnesota Posts: 802 My Photo Gallery Thanks: 796 Thanked 2,668 Times in 527 Posts Rep Power: 18972346	I knew I was a boy at the age of 4. I tried to tell my Mom around that time, and I just remember for years, her telling me, "you're a tomboy, lots of little girls are tomboys" and I didn't like that answer at all. I was just a boy. I used to lay in bed at night around the age of 9-10 and daydream about growing up and having a wife. I wanted to be a Dad. It wasn't because there was anything wrong with being a girl, or being a Mom, it just didn't feel like me. It wasn't what I saw when I looked in the mirror. When I was 10, I would go stay at a family friend's apartment on the weekends. I LOVED going there because I told all the kids there that I was a boy named Larry. I even had a "girlfriend" - and this family friend was cool with it. Even to the point of buying me boy's swim trunks and letting me swim in the pool in just my trunks like the other boys. Life was so good then! At 12, puberty struck and Larry was no more. This would be the start of some VERY traumatic years for me. Traumatic because I felt betrayed by my body, and because we moved from the neighborhood I grew up in, in Houston, to a very small East Texas town. From 7th grade until about 10th grade, I was bullied relentlessly. I was beat up, spit on, followed from class to class being called "dyke", "lezbo", "linebacker", "freak", etc. It was horrible. My parents tried to help but in the end, felt like I was bringing a lot of it on myself for the way I dressed and cut my hair. I remember my Mom saying that if I just TRIED dressing like a girl and wearing some make-up, that things would probably be better for me. Of course, I wasn't about to do that, bullying or not. It got better the summer before my Junior year when I tried out, and made the school (boys) baseball team. I was good at baseball, and earned my teammate's respect - then things started getting better - not great, but better. My freshman year in college was bad - I wanted to keep playing ball but wasn't brave enough to try out for the team at my college. This started some major depression - I would go sit at practices and wish I looked like the other guys, wish I could play, but feeling like an outcast. Halfway through the 1st semester I would attempt suicide and lose a full ride Journalism scholarship and have to move home. I moved to Houston shortly after this, and things got a bit better. I got very involved in the gay & lesbian community, and came out as a lesbian because it's the only way I knew to fit in. I knew I didn't feel like a lesbian, but it worked for awhile. After a couple of years, I was feeling very detached again and unsettled. I knew I was trans at this point, I was about 25, but still had NEVER seen or heard of a transMAN. I had seen transwomen on TV, and figured maybe there was a way for a biological female to have a sex change, but just had no clue how one would go about doing anything about it if it was possible. It was very frustrating. Then, one afternoon I was in a bookstore in Montrose (Houston's gay mecca) and found a gender section. I happened to pick up a copy of Body Alchemy by Loren Cameron - a photo book of FTMs including before & after pics - and I stood there with tears streaming down my face. I knew this was me. I knew there was a way. I sat there looking at the pictures bawling. About 4 months or so later, I moved to Boston, MA and started my transition by changing my name. That was 1997. I started T about a year and a half later, had my hysto in 2000, and top surgery in 2005. It was a long, hard road to get to where I am now - but I wouldn't trade it for anything in this world! Where I am now is well worth all the pain. I have the wife I dreamed of when I was a little boy, and I am a Dad. I am everything I wanted to be Thank you to everyone else who has shared their stories, I loved reading them all, and we are ALL brave - those who transition and those who don't... anyone who says FUCK YOU to gender norms and paves their own way - my hat is off to you

10-18-2011, 08:11 AM	#12
CockyDude Timed Out How Do You Identify?: FTM-man Preferred Pronoun?: He, Him Relationship Status: What is today? Join Date: Sep 2011 Location: Midwest Posts: 239 My Photo Gallery Thanks: 151 Thanked 420 Times in 141 Posts Rep Power: 0	I've read thru this thread & come to realize we all share some commonality on more than a few things. I realized at a very young age I was a boy & having a younger brother never understood why he was different than me. It was a small town; I was expected to conform & I constantly refused. I started drinking at 12 & drugs at 13. I couldn't understand why/how God made such a huge error; I was obviously in the wrong body. I excelled at all sports & badassness. I was referred to as a " hooligan" in grade school & high school ( I was a greaser then). I fell in love with the girl of my dreams at 16. She formed the basis for what I still desire today. She couldn't take the family pressure, & moved back home after 2 years. I became involved with a Playboy Bunny @ 19. She was bi-sexual & introduced me to gay bars. But I just wasn't comfortable. I wasn't a woman, I wasn't gay, why was I here? Then I heard/found out about transsexuals. The light bulb went off, I started T, & life got better. Like most guys in my situation, the road traveled has or still does involve alcohol, drugs & thoughts of suicide. We do the best we can & hope for what everyone else does; true love. And that's about as much as I can type with one thumb for now.

10-18-2011, 08:16 AM	#13
CockyDude Timed Out How Do You Identify?: FTM-man Preferred Pronoun?: He, Him Relationship Status: What is today? Join Date: Sep 2011 Location: Midwest Posts: 239 My Photo Gallery Thanks: 151 Thanked 420 Times in 141 Posts Rep Power: 0	After rereading I realized it sounded way too morbid. I have indeed found love more than a few times. I have been blessed to gave been with sine amazing women. My first wife was pregnant when we married, & long story short, I got custody when she was 4 & I raised an amazing young woman (who only knows me as dad). In the end, life is what we make of it. Period.