Recently I’ve been wondering how much longer I can keep this gender transition-themed blog going. When I started the blog, just a few weeks from one year ago, transition seemed to be an endless well of ideas and experiences capable of fueling the blog’s engine for all time. But now?
I’m frankly running out of steam on the topic. While I don’t claim to be finished with transition my any means, my life isn’t about transition any longer. The distinction is important.
I still read a lot of transition blogs – though admittedly not as many as I once did. I keep looking for some hook to make writing about the same kind of stuff seem relevant to a life which has moved into normalcy. I haven’t found it yet.
This revelation pains me in a way. I never intended to become someone who transitioned and then disappeared. While I have longed for a normal life, I have always maintained strong empathy for those who still suffer from the condition I’m increasingly looking back upon.
But I’m struggling to find any relevance in joining the life I am now building with the transition culture I’m unexpectedly leaving behind. These things, I am finding, are not alike. You cannot live in them both at once. One will win out.
I don’t want my life to all be about the “trans” aspect anymore. I understand how and why that stuff remains important to some. But that isn’t what I’m about. After a certain point it isn’t remotely descriptive about the kind of person I am.
I would like to think there is nothing about my new life which is closed off to anyone – the trans aspect is neither excluded nor required. When it comes to anything important I have to say, I welcome any and all challenges to this belief.
I have not commented on your blog in a long time, but continued reading it with interest. You right so elegantly and intelligently about life, that I will miss the odd comment or thought that might occur to you. I think it would be instructive to those who visit your blog now or later, to have some comments of your life as it moves forward, if for nothing else than to offer perspective. It doesn’t have to be about transition, just about the joys and trials of your life as it has become. It think it would be an important coda. No need to post if you have nothing to say, but I have known you for long enough to know that you always have something interesting to say on a number of topics. That is just my opinion, and that isn’t really worth squat in the long term, jousting in the arena of life, but I felt compelled to say, please keep writing when you have something you want to share post transition. It doesn’t have to be relevant to anything, but your unique voice is always interesting and worthwhile IMHO.
I have said my piece, take it or leave it. *smile*
“It seems to me that what you are experiencing is the light at the end of tunnel. After all, “transition” is the state or process of “transiting”, or crossing over. At least that is how you and I see it. For us, and those of us that undertook the “process” of changing our sex, that process had a beginning and an end.
For us, transition was NOT the perpetual state of BEING “TRANS”, or engaging in “trans” activity. That is what trans genders do. They “trans” across or about or over, under, around and through, the gender “spectrum”.
What you are discovering is that you are NOT “trans”. You are simply moving through, or “transiting the process” of transforming your body to match your mind, your heart and soul. As you approach the end of that process, you are simply becoming aware of that fact.
Ultimately, you will end up being….well, just a woman, just like billions of other women.
I’ve been wondering when you would write a blog like this. I think it’s a good thing. You’re a woman, and you’re finding that living as a woman suits you, just as it does billions of other women.
If you find yourself lacking in trans topics, this is a good thing… you know this. π
Love your “mood.”
Well, I don’t always comment on your posts either…but I do enjoy reading them. I found your last post to be particularly moving. You write that you never wanted to be someone who transitioned and then disappeared. I highly doubt that you are going to disappear π However, I would think that, as a transition is a process, eventually there must be a conclusion. So … perhaps ending your blog is a part of your transition process. I am fond of saying that everything is temporary, which embraces the fact that everything undergoes change. I just hope, as you continue on your journey, that it involves writing.
What begins as a project for ourselves does seem to take on a life of its own. I feel that too sometimes.
IMHO we should write for ourselves, when the spirit moves us, on any topic we choose.
I hear both sides of thought on gender transition and being trangendered. The one that seems most logical to me is the one AnnaRosa mentions – transition is about crossing over and getting from here to there (or in your case now, perhaps, getting from there to here). The other school of thinking is that you will always be a woman who, at one point in her life, was anatomically male, and you will continue to carry some vestigial reminders of that fact, however invisible they may be to those around you. On the surface, I find that second way of thinking about it a bit disenchanting. However, there are experiences to which we are privy that most people are not. We have contributions to make that are worthwhile and good – some of which are as a result of the unique circumstances we have been through, while others may be in spite of those circumstances.
Perhaps you are reaching the end of transition, and life has become routine, and normal, and there’s little to write about that seems relevant to a “transition blog”. That makes sense. I’ve wondered about my own blog’s eventual destiny for that reason. However, I sense that you, like me, love to write, and enjoy the expression of your inner life in this setting – sharing your intimate thoughts and experiences with a group of peers and observers. So, maybe SALAD BINGO is due for a transition of its own – to become not a “transition blog”, but “just another blog” written by someone who happens to have transitioned in the past, and happens to be a woman, but is definitively a writer with style, perspective and intelligence uniquely her own.
I personally welcome the day I read “just some blog” and find out incidentally that the writer happens to have transitioned in the past. I find that a very cool and hopeful thing to think about!
Do you still feel you want to share about your life? My suggestion would be to keep your blog and have it be about whatever you want to talk about…and sometimes that might be about trans topics…but open it up to all of who you are. Does that feel right to you? I want you to do what feels right to you , but I hope you continue to blog or write. You have a unique and beautiful voice that the world needs to hear…just my 2 cents.
@ Everyone: Thanks for all the supportive comments. I’d just like to respond to a few common themes.
1. It feels like the mental part my transition is coming to an end, but I actually have more to say about life as a whole. I’ve just never considered this blog to be a place to talk about non-transition-related topics.
2. I always knew transition would have a beginning, a middle, and an end. I just didn’t think the “end” part would come emotionally before I finished the physical work. But you know what I will never, ever blog about? The messy details of my surgery. So really, what more is there to say?
3. I will most certainly keep writing. In fact there are still at least a couple of posts still coming to this blog (e.g. I haven’t finished the TS Facts not Opinions series, and it would be a shame to leave it without an ending). I’m just kind of torn over whether to re-purpose this blog or to end it and start anew. That topic is likely worthy of its own post, so I’ll leave it there for now.
@Teagan: I was hoping someone would notice the status. I’ve been waiting for ages to use it. But it had to be when it was true.
You’ve written an amazing number of very insightful posts on the subject of transition. It stands to reason that there comes a point where you burn out on the subject. Unless you were planning a Ph.D in it somewhere down the road, there should be other interests to explore. Perhaps write a novel π
xoxo
It sounds like you’re rather where I am. My transition took longer – nearly three years for social transition, mostly for delays by the various professionals with whom I dealt – but now I very much see it in the past, even as I deal with the matters like getting my name updated on most things (a weeks-long process; so many places make this unnecessarily difficult.)
For my part, seeing people who were long post-transition who stayed so active in trans communities was motivation to not do so myself. Most that I saw had many issues to resolve and were there about seeking validation for their own lives and choices, arguing endlessly with anyone who did not agree and often invoking their post-op status in the belief that it proved they were right and everyone else was wrong.
My suggestion probably mirrors what is written above. Write a blog as the woman you are, about the womanly things that you go through…. Have it be a blog about the life of YOU!
Keep the blog-it helps keep you grounded.
Transitioning is something we are all doing throughout our lives. There are still some gender “hurdles” to come but they are becoming part of our “normal” life transitions.
I haven’t really seen any blogs that deal with parenting from a “new woman” perspective. Your family role has changed and grown (all positively I might add) but now the children are going to start their transition into pre-teens and unfortunately teenagers. **shiver** We are lucky that good communication already exists. It had to.. But now, you have a unique opportunity to share your own experiences, as a new mom, even though you have always been a parent. Most kids haven’t seen their parents go through quite as many changes as we have AND still get along. Most children do not play such an active roll in their family life.
Instead of your tag reading “Diana’s thoughts about navigating gender transition” it can be modified a little. Strike the “gender” and make it “new life”. You have a new and promising life ahead of you. Your gender is only a small part of it. xoxo
At a certain point (for me, a few months post-op), I shut down my transition blog. I felt too exposed, and I didn’t have anything left to write about. I started a “my boring life” blog, in which I still post, because I love to write. But I found that I still wanted a blog in which to write about issues having to do with sex, gender, etc. So now I have two!
I’m glad you will continue to write. I love your writing. If you want to write about different topics, all the better!