Transitioning And The Internet...

For people such as my daughter P, they have never lived in a world without the "Internet".  Now I realize that it's older than most give it credit - I mean Arpanet is actually a year or two older than me depending upon what source you are taking; but the reality is that the Internet in it's current state is really less than 20 years old.

So what does that have to do with transitioning?  Well for me *a lot*.  As I've briefly mentioned on occasion I wanted to be a "girl" at an early age.  I can't put an exact date/time on it, but it was definitely early on.  My first knowledge of someone having a "sex change" (the "term at the time") was Danielle Bunten Berry and the only reason I knew of that was that it got some press in some gaming magazines as prior to her transition, she was Dan Bunten a reasonably famous game designer.  M.U.L.E. and 7 Cities Of Gold were critical if not commercial successes, but they were games I played and I had read about Ms. Bunten Berry (still as Dan Bunten) in multiple magazines.  She had become a bit of an idol of mine as I wanted to write games back then and the fact that she was born in St. Louis (I grew up in the suburbs of there and still live in the suburbs) made a huge impact on me.  Later on (1992 I believe) when I read that she had undertaken SRS/GRS that impacted me even more.

Looking back had if the Internet had been in 1992 what it is today; I strongly believe I might have pursued transitioning and eventually SRS back then.  I hadn't met my first wife yet - though I did shortly thereafter; and by then I was sharing a townhouse with my Mother and Sister, but I could have definitely supported myself if they weren't understanding and/or supportive.  Now as I've said more times than I could count, I would NOT go back and change things since I am so very happy with my current wife J, my daughter P, and even my ex-wife/de facto sister M.  However, I really do believe that not knowing how things would have turned out 22 years ago - well I believe I *would* have made that decision.  Knowing what I know now I would regret that, but since I would not have known what I had lost out on I like to believe it would have ended up well for me, especially professionally as that is the one thing now that hasn't worked out as well as I'd have liked.

But this post really isn't about me, it's about transitioning and the Internet in general.  I see so much good information out there about transitioning that simply wasn't readily available back when I could have used it; but I also see so much more poor/bad information out there that it concerns me greatly.  But I've talked about that before, so what I'm really wanting to talk about is more of the recipients of that information.

I know when I started exploring things a couple of years ago I did *tons* of research into it.  I wanted the facts - at least as best I could find them, but I also wanted personal experiences.  All kinds of them - be it things such as HRT, therapy, surgeries, and so on; but even more so relationship experiences.  My wife J meant so much to me, and even more now, that I couldn't bear the thought of losing her over me wanting to transition later in life as I did.  I like to think that all of that research helped me get to the place I am today which for all intents and purposes is pretty good.

All of that being said, and I know it's been a lot - more than I intended - a common question I see on Reddit and elsewhere is "why are people who have transitioned 'no longer around' here"?  I'm sure there are a lot of reasons, some that pop to mind would be:

• They have transitioned and as such have moved on with their lives.
• They've simply lost interest in contributing to the community(ies) in question.
• Things didn't work out so well for them and they've either de-transitioned, or they are simply so unhappy that they have no desire to be social online.
• They feel their experiences with this or that is now "dated" - things do change as we all know - and they may feel that what they can add is no longer relevant.

I've found myself contributing less and less to places such as Reddit and in other places (Susan's Place and Laura's Playground come to mind) I've either completely quit visiting or completely closed my account.  But not for any of the reasons above, although a couple of them are relevant (specifically the first and last ones).  I've found what has driven me away are a couple of things in particular.

• I've always been a firm believe in working for things and that includes doing my own research and a huge pet peeve of mine is especially prevalent on the AskTransgender subreddit over at Reddit.  I see the same few questions posted week after week, if not multiple times per week.  Is it really all that hard to do a quick search on the site itself or in general?  Now in some cases there are legitimate points that someone is looking to clarify, but in general it's flat out lazy in my opinion and truthfully I know I get tired of seeing the same questions over and over that could be easily answered by a quick search and I definitely get tired of answering them over and over so I no longer do.
• Another peeve is that if you are going to ask for advice then at least accept that you might hear things you won't like.  That doesn't mean you have to take the advice - it is after all just advice, but at least listen gracefully.  I've gotten plenty of advice myself and while I haven't always agreed with it and haven't taken all that much of it, I've always appreciated anyone who's taken the time to give it.  I just can't imagine why someone would solicit advice and be hostile about what they hear back - at least well meaning advice that is.  That doesn't even touch on the "I can't" mentality I see all the time.  Nobody can tell anyone that transitioning is the right/best course of action for them; but when all somebody wants to do is say "I can't transition because...." - well that's all fine and well and I understand that perhaps that is the case.  But if you aren't willing to make the effort and/or possible sacrifices that come with it then why are you soliciting advice?  If you *know* what you are going to do then just say it up front and ask for thoughts on that, don't waste people's time getting advice you have absolutely no intention of even considering - that's simply rude in my mind.

There are others, but those two really stand out to me.  And as I said I don't take all the advice I get - early on in my transition for example I had a private conversation with a very nice trans-woman on another site.  She's 20 years or so post-op and very pretty and always seemed very happy.  She flat out told me she would never advise anyone to transition due to the sacrifices that come with it - it wasn't specifically what we were talking about, frankly I forget what we were talking about, but I had asked her if she's make the same decision again, and that's how we got off on that topic.  That really shocked me at the time as like I said she always seemed like things were the proverbial "rainbows and unicorns" for her.  I did consider what she said, and I appreciated her brutal honestly, but I chose to continue with mine and I'm glad I did.  I didn't just blow her thoughts off or not at least give them some thought - I felt if she was taking the time to speak with me I was going to take the time to think about what she said; but it seems few people do that these days and for me enough was finally enough.  I think this blog is a better outlet for me anyway.  :)

- M