EPTFirst, because my forum history is mostly from the point of view of an SC2 fan, I wanted to say thank you to the Brood War community. I don't interact with you guys as much since I'm not really in to the scene but it's clear that without you TL wouldn't be what it is today, so thanks for helping to make the most awesome community on the Internet for people like me to stumble on later. I know there are posters that cause BW/SC2 issues, mostly in my experience from more inconsiderate SC2 posters, so I just wanted to let you know you're appreciated and I really hope BW can become whatever it needs to for you guys to keep getting the enjoyment from what is still an amazing game. ♥
Second I need to thank the staff of TL. I don't have such a big block of text to write, but the site literally wouldn't be what it is without you all and I love the articles, interviews, photobombs, portals and features that are always being added. The moderation is my favourite on any forum I've ever been on, strict but it keeps the atmosphere and quality decent. I'm sure someone is going to accuse me of sucking up as a result of that last sentence, but I think it's important to say it anyway, so
.Also a thank you to Liquid Sheth for being awesome. If you ever see this you were my favourite player while even in FXO and when you moved to Liquid (my favourite team) it was absolutely awesome. Your stream is great and you're still my favourite player and I'm always cheering for you. Also thanks to TLO for inspirational Zerg play, but please lose the beard soon!!! Finally to the rest of Team Liquid players, you guys all seem really cool - GL HF!
Finally a quick shout out to the guys from the Gay Starcraft Players thread/IRC for being lots of fun.
Oh one final thing, people who pronounce "herb" as "erb" need to stop it. I know that's kinda out of no where but if I'm writing a blog today, which I obviously am, it needs to be added. We don't have 'erbivores', 'orticulture', 'is and ers' or 'earts' and we don't great each other with 'I'. Just because some words use the h as silent, doesn't mean it's not a real letter and can be ignored in words at random. Herbs.
Ok so with that out of the way, I decided I'd tell people a little bit more about myself for this milestone but honestly there's not that much particularly interesting about myself and so I decided instead I'd focus on the one part of myself that is known by a few people, but which a lot of people are fairly uninformed on and see if I could maybe help inform people, or answer any questions that people might have (more on this later). So yeah, in short my real name is Chloe and I'm a 24 year old trans woman - or to be less subtle my outward biological traits were male at the time of my birth. From this point on will be nothing but trans stuff, so if you're not interested in that I'd suggest skipping this.
I've read a hell of a lot of comments both inside and outside of the SC2 community on the subject of trans people and I already did a lecture post a long while ago, so I figured I'd try to explain some stuff that people may wonder about, but I can obviously only do so through my own perspective and experiences. I've actually discussed some of this stuff already in PM's with people and generally it's the same kind of questions so I'm hoping that if I answer some of them more publicly it might help. I also appreciate I might get some crap for posting this, and I have considered all the repercussions I could think of and I don't think I really need to worry about any. No one I know in real life could stumble upon this post and not already know (I make a point of it) and I've never uploaded a photo anywhere, opened a Facebook etc or posted real personal details for a malicious passer by to dig up.
The most common question I see asked is the most obvious one, why would someone want to change their gender? The problem is that with regards to trans people it doesn't actually make sense as a question. I never wanted to change. my gender identity has always been female. I didn't choose to be a woman, and my life would have been much easier (and cheaper!) had I been a man but I wasn't. That leaves me in a position where I essentially have a full body birth defect which I need to try to treat. I didn't choose to change who I was, I chose to change my body to conform with it. The idea of someone just deciding they want to be the opposite gender is as alien to me as it is to most of you. It is, in my opinion and experience thus far, impossible to change who you are but it's not impossible to change your physical appearance.
As an interesting aside, I actually would have needed hormone treatment either way, because my Testosterone levels were below the absolute minimum for any male of any age.
"Well you'll never be a real woman". I can't even begin to tell you how many times I've seen that written about trans women. I'd love to know exactly what defines a 'real' woman. Does she have to conform to how you think she should look? Does her medical history have to include or exclude certain points? May she not act in her own interests, or how she chooses? Does she have to be able to get pregnant? Maybe she can't be born with certain physical aspects to her? Maybe she needs to be defined purely by her natural, expected reproductive abilities according to her genes (aka, purely defined as a sex object)? Trying to define us like that you end up with a very small sub section of society which excludes a lot of people who were born completely female, and what about when science catches up and none of that is even relevant? Are trans women still not 'real'? It's a reactionary view point which tries to define what men and women may be and what we may not, or based purely on what people are comfortable with. A woman is an adult female (as defined by our core gender identity, in our minds not between our legs), regardless of anyone's opinion of how she looks.
The second most common question I get asked in real life when I talk to people about it for the first time, tends to be "are you gay?" which I should add I've never been able to answer without them having to think about what they just asked, lol. The answer for me personally is that I'm a straight woman (though I tend to just say "I'm straight" to see the persons mind work it out, always gets me a cheap laugh) but the question goes deeper than that, I think. It's a confusion of gender and sexual orientation in some cases I believe. But as per the original point, I could no more decide to be a gay man than I could decide to be a lesbian. Would a straight woman be happy as a gay man or would she still be the same person without really being able to express who she was in a relationship? Unfortunately we don't get choices on this things. I should add, I know a lot of trans people, some are gay/lesbian, others are bi and some are straight. Gay people aren't necessarily transsexuals, and neither are trans people necessarily gay.
Another very common question is when did I know, and that's kinda difficult to narrow down with the advantage of hindsight unfortunately. I don't conform to beliefs that boys and girls have to act in any specific way, but I was definitely girly when I was younger (being girly in itself means nothing at all though) and there were several points where I could say "here"...maybe. First, when I was in first school and we were doing a "who am I" type thing, the room was split in to boys and girls, and I refused to sit on the boy's side. Eventually agreed to sit between the two groups, with the boys, but I don't remember the incident clearly enough to tell you my motivations at like 6. There were other points I could mention, but to skip to the end, I knew without question at 12/13. There was no instant "oh" moment, but by that age I realised the consequences of what was happening.
Hmmm...I think that's actually about it for questions I usually get asked or issues I see on the Internet honestly. I'm not actually going to post anything about surgical options for fear of scaring everyone and for the fact that I still need to pull £14k out of no where before I have any first hand experience on it. Not going to be the easiest of tasks as an unemployed trans person with no real qualifications in anything.
If any of the financial genius type people on TL have any ideas, I'd appreciate them. I suppose if anyone really wanted to hear my thoughts on the current state of the options I could add a spoilered bit later. Anyway, I'm heading drastically off topic now so yeah...Now I've gotten here I'm not really sure how to end this post. If anyone has any further questions, comments or just wants to disagree with me in a constructive/polite manner that's fine I guess. Since I'm trying to make this post an open and helpful thing, I promise not to take offence at any serious questions people may have. I love the TL community, Starcraft and the ABL so keep being awesome and once again for making this the best site on the Internet.
