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Transitioning is a process that is very hard to comprehend. Why does someone want to become a person of the opposite sex? What is it that makes transpersons so sure about them being born in the wrong body? How do they know that they are a girl and not a boy (or vice versa)? Sometimes there is someone asking us the question of all questions:

"Why do you think you are a girl/boy?"

I guess we all had our fair share of experiences and moments where we knew that we didn't seem to fit in with the rest of the guys or girls. Almost every trans person could come up with an anecdote where he or she used to crawl through the closet of their mother, father, sister or brother. That aside: What is so defining that it could be labeled as typical female behaviour or typical male behaviour?

When transitioning we don't change who we are or what we like doing.  Otherwise it would be called "transforming". We start to make the outer appearance match our inner self and we want people to recognize us as the woman or man we already are. We may develop a thing for knitting or cars but we don't start doing that because we feel like we have to, now that we want to be a woman or a man.

It won't be anything particular new to anyone that there are men who are very emotional. That there are women who are very interested in cars and know a lot about them. That there are women who chase the competition and men who are more on the social side of things.

I could go on with that forever. The essence of it is: There is no such thing as typically male or female. For almost every typical male thing mentioned, one will probably know at least two women who have that attribute too.

The question above is one we get asked because we break through the pattern that people are used to. By doing that we raise the question of sex and gender. A question raised rarely.

So why do we think we are born in the wrong gender? Why are we so sure of it? If it can't be explained and described by using clichés, then how could it be described?

Find the answer after the break:

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and have a great New Year!

Merry Grishmas and happy Hollydays good folks of grishno.com! I hope the season finds you well.  I was having this interesting conversation with a friends about references to transgendered people in the bible and other ancient texts, and i remembered something from my days of studying philosophy at University. Basically i was saying how the word "Eunuch" comes up alot, and it was of my opinion that words like 'Transgender' or 'Intersex' simply didn't exist in antiquity, and therefore that term must've been used as the most relevant "Umbrella" term.

Anyways, i was however reminded of a Greek notion of Gender and Love from Plato's Symposium. The playwright and comic Aristophanes (5th century BCE) gives a speech about Love which I found rather amusing. To paraphrase the story, essentialy he says that primal humans were originally of three sexes: two men joined together, two women joined together, and a man and a woman joined together. Eventualy the mighty God Zeus split them in two with a lightning bolt, and that is why people seek to fall in love. People are searching for their "other half" to be united as one flesh. Of course, this lovely little anecdote was retold quite wonderfuly in the musical/film Hedwig and the angry Inch. And what better way than through some Transsexual Glam Rock!

Read the Lyrics after the Break

This weeks poll asks How similar your chosen name is to your birth name, but what I'd really like to know here (as a comment on this article) is where/how you got your chosen name?

Don't forget to take this weeks poll, over in the left sidebar.

I've always said that even if I could never pass as a woman that I still would have transitioned, simply because the peace and satisfaction that comes from being myself.  However, if I'm being honest with myself, I don't think I'd be nearly as happy as I am now if I couldn't pass.

So how important does that make passing to me?  Honestly, I could have chosen any of these options (except "I'm not trans") and it would have been accurate to some extent.  In the end I went with "It's secondary" since passing wasn't my primary motive for transition... it is a nice perk though.

Find out more after the break: