If you could back in time and change the course and direction in your life would you do so knowing that it would dramatically alter your life form that point forward. That is a particularly intriguing and thought provoking question for those in the transgendered community that are transitioning so that our outer shell reflects our inner essence of who we are as people. The subject came up at one my recent transgender support group meetings and it invoked much discussion among us. The discussion raised issues such as whether we would retain all we have learned and discovered when we went back to that earlier point in time. I mean if we did not do so would not we simply follow the same path? The discussion also widely varied by age and the status of one’s family.
If one was single they were more likely to pursue this time travel assuming that retained all they know so they could take a different course and transition much earlier in their life like the three teenagers who are in my group. Instead of foolishly waiting for the lights to come on and realize you were born in the wrong physical shell until you were in your thirties, forties or fifties jump on in on the teenager transition express and skip all those periods of repression, denial, anguish and pain. Most of the time these teenagers have little to say in the meetings…..why should they while they are barely passed puberty and on the road to being who they truly are while they are young and free spirited. What are they going to discuss?...... ..how painful it was to miss two years of their life as a girl? Hell…at their age my concerns were driving, getting high, partying like a rock star and believing I would live forever. Don’t get me wrong……….. my transgendered nature was always there but at age 16-18 it was a small little pee in the back of my mind deeply imbedded inside me maybe to be occasionally displayed on a quiet evening in my house when the parents were away and then quickly re-shelved. So it makes sense if I was thirty or so and single to swing back to that period and get it right on my life journey.
What about those of us in the M to F alignment that are older and who, in more periods of denial and repression and the bizarre belief all of these feelings of femininity would simply evaporate into thin air if we got married, settled down and raised a family. Years later when this ill advised strategy erodes into dust, as we attempt to live life as we were meant to live it, we are left with the results of the theory of immersion into male life with a spouse we have spent an eternity with and children who now face losing their “father” as they see it and a nightmare of guilt, emotion and anguish. The question becomes would we pull that lever on the time machine and go back to a younger time in our life loaded with the knowledge these years of hard living and struggle have brought us? Take a different course- one that does not involve marriage or the production of children? If we did that the children we have brought into this world and tried to rise with a good heart and good values would not exist in this world. All of the joys as well as all the heartaches they have brought would be known to no one and their life here would have never taken place at all. Still want to pull that lever now?
The memories of the times you shared with them and watching them grow, taking their first steps, playing their first games, going on their first date, drinking your first beer or other adult beverages with them and watching them become people of character and hope would be gone. Go ahead and pull that lever now. Wipe it all out! Would it make it easier on yourself for transitioning …cut back on the guilt and pain and anguish? Yes it most definitely would and just think- beginning life as your true self at age 16. However, since you carry with you all the knowledge of the past life you would also carry with you the memories of loved ones who do not even exist and I cannot help but think it would cause so much anguish that one could not focus on their new life. If one goes back without the knowledge, who says they would take any different path and would just end up doing it all again leaving them in the same place they are now….with loved ones and the need to transition emerging in their life. DeJa Vu
If one was single they were more likely to pursue this time travel assuming that retained all they know so they could take a different course and transition much earlier in their life like the three teenagers who are in my group. Instead of foolishly waiting for the lights to come on and realize you were born in the wrong physical shell until you were in your thirties, forties or fifties jump on in on the teenager transition express and skip all those periods of repression, denial, anguish and pain. Most of the time these teenagers have little to say in the meetings…..why should they while they are barely passed puberty and on the road to being who they truly are while they are young and free spirited. What are they going to discuss?...... ..how painful it was to miss two years of their life as a girl? Hell…at their age my concerns were driving, getting high, partying like a rock star and believing I would live forever. Don’t get me wrong……….. my transgendered nature was always there but at age 16-18 it was a small little pee in the back of my mind deeply imbedded inside me maybe to be occasionally displayed on a quiet evening in my house when the parents were away and then quickly re-shelved. So it makes sense if I was thirty or so and single to swing back to that period and get it right on my life journey.
What about those of us in the M to F alignment that are older and who, in more periods of denial and repression and the bizarre belief all of these feelings of femininity would simply evaporate into thin air if we got married, settled down and raised a family. Years later when this ill advised strategy erodes into dust, as we attempt to live life as we were meant to live it, we are left with the results of the theory of immersion into male life with a spouse we have spent an eternity with and children who now face losing their “father” as they see it and a nightmare of guilt, emotion and anguish. The question becomes would we pull that lever on the time machine and go back to a younger time in our life loaded with the knowledge these years of hard living and struggle have brought us? Take a different course- one that does not involve marriage or the production of children? If we did that the children we have brought into this world and tried to rise with a good heart and good values would not exist in this world. All of the joys as well as all the heartaches they have brought would be known to no one and their life here would have never taken place at all. Still want to pull that lever now?
The memories of the times you shared with them and watching them grow, taking their first steps, playing their first games, going on their first date, drinking your first beer or other adult beverages with them and watching them become people of character and hope would be gone. Go ahead and pull that lever now. Wipe it all out! Would it make it easier on yourself for transitioning …cut back on the guilt and pain and anguish? Yes it most definitely would and just think- beginning life as your true self at age 16. However, since you carry with you all the knowledge of the past life you would also carry with you the memories of loved ones who do not even exist and I cannot help but think it would cause so much anguish that one could not focus on their new life. If one goes back without the knowledge, who says they would take any different path and would just end up doing it all again leaving them in the same place they are now….with loved ones and the need to transition emerging in their life. DeJa Vu
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