Thank you for your kind words and insights.

Being transgendered or transsexual is such a poignantly strange path to walk.

As I’ve grown through the years, I’ve discovered many facets of myself and have described myself in somewhat different ways (though my sense of my gender has always been consistent since early childhood):

I am “queer” even among the queer, as I am a male-to-female transsexual who has chosen to *NOT* transition to female form out of love for my spouse and the commitment I made to her before God. I can only say that this path, as I have walked it so far, is for me and not necessarily for others. I desperately want to be clothed in female form, and only God can help me to endure my circumstances as they are. But love and a promise hold us together, my wife, God and myself. So, I have accepted God’s challenge to live as a female soul in a male form, and I am learning how this will be uniquely expressed in my – how I will express beauty, gracefulness and feminine sensibility in the context of a male form, without damaging this form nor denying the masculine components of my soul. In short: how would a female live gracefully withing a male body?

All of this is possible for me because I realize that my present form is only temporary, and I give-up my right to a SRS and hormones knowing that God must make this right in eternity.

Without God, I could not endure this, and would likely bring pain into the lives of those I love and who depend upon me remaining in male form. Who will I depend upon? When I cuddle with my wife, it is always I who hold her who; will hold me? Who will pursue me? Who will desire me? To whom will I abandon myself? These are as deep in the soul of a woman as beauty and gracefulness themselves are. Yet for me, they will never be met by a man. He, God Himself, must desire me, must cover me, must take me in strong arms and hold me, and as He meets these feminine needs in me, I will be strengthened to continue to meet them for my wife.

For me, beauty and gracefulness are first and foremost inner things. I long to be a beautiful and graceful person inside, and then for their shadow to be manifest in my external self. This is congruence beyond simply that somehow my sex be made to match my gender – in this life, they will not, though God has promised me that He will not remedy this by removing parts of me, rather, by adding to me.

Queerer still, I a asexual, neither attracted to males, nor females. My wife being a supernaturally-arranged exception. There was never anyone before her, nor anyone else during our twenty-one years of marriage, nor will their be anyone after her if she dies before me (she has always been seriously, chronically ill). (I should also say, that my wife is TG too: a male soul in a female body. We are both blends, nether of us being completely male nor female in soul.)

I think that some other transsexuals would read these words and conclude that I simply am not “transsexual” because if I was, then *nothing* and *no one* would keep me from transitioning as quickly as possible. But, very lately this came to mind from the scriptures: Remember “Solomon’s choice?” In grief and agony, two women came to him with a baby they both claimed to be their own. He asked for a sword with with to divide the child, giving half to each woman. “No!!! Give her the child!!!” said one, whilst the other said “cut it!!!” To the former, the child was given because Solomon concluded that the real mother would lay aside her own needs and desires for her child. (1 Kings 3:16-28) (And God *knows* that *I* have longed to be able to conceive and bear a child!)

Ellie? I’m not sure why I shared all of this; it does seem to get easier as I go, and in a very real sense, I *am* transitioning, but on a much longer time-scale than most transsexuals. Where I am today, could be comfortably described as gently transgendered – feminine, yet not effeminate. It seems God is making clear that I am to be this way, and to be this “in-between” way lived gently, gracefully, and lovingly before others will somehow help others learn the God can help them with their impossibilities too. This is gradually being confirmed by Him as it becomes known what I am and why in my conservative Christian congregation. My pastor and others cannot understand what I am, yet they cannot find fault in me; still they are a bit uncomfortable because they cannot understand how God could make a person like me, and that I could be growing distinctly “Christlike” in character and maturity. I am amazed and deeply humbled to find that He *is* making me beautiful and graceful and congruent, even here, and that despite my oddity, He is making me a person that attracts others to Himself.

Ellie, please forgive me for rambling, and I thank you for reading my thoughts.

Take Care

“gender-reassignment” is te right way to say it, because like Grace Hunter says: “Transsexuals wear the bodies of the opposite sex through no choice”

So because of that a gender-reassignment is necesary to make the genre of they bodies match with the genre of they mind.

Very nice post.

“Transvestites wear the clothes of the opposite sex through choice.

Transsexuals wear the bodies of the opposite sex through no choice.”

Hope that clears things up for you.

Kay Meddings; post op transexual and retired special school headteacher; one of those who DID seek out a sympathetic staff group.

*or, of course, ‘whatever means the good’

To clarify; the engine room was indeed an unreconstructed male environment, through which the breeze of equality has yet to blow; but most of my work was out and about, among the passengers and (mainly female) cabin crew. Which more than compensated for the dumb macho attitudes down below, if not for the treatment. I know women who work in predominantly male occupations; carpenters, car mechanics, whatever, and of course they find it challenging too. But this is what equality is all about, isn’t it? -getting out there and mixing it. I’m not asking for special treatment, any more than they or anyone else does or should. I just expect to be treated with a basic level of decency.

Anyway, rant *off*

Grayson Perry’s work does nothing for me; it’s no big issue, just my personal response. I just found it odd that you should link me with him, as I don’t *think* we’ve got anything in common.

What are you doing now, did you find more work? It would obviously be great if you could still use your skills, but would you want to go back to an all-male working environment?

I saw Grayson Perry on TV on Sunday night and thought he was such an interesting and unique person, that’s why I mentioned him too, I think his ceramics look stunning.