Sophie sans scrupule

I love this band, and by coincidence I found out that the single Souvenirs from their latest album Lion the girl had been remixed and had a video to go with it. And I adore this video as much as I adore the remix and as much as I adore the original. Simply wanted to share this amazing Midnight Movies remix with you, which is done by someone called Nick Zinner.

The direction of my life is still unclear to me, mostly because I do not embrace the perspectives my study can give me. In the previous post I mentioned how this has come to be, with on the other hand the more than ever feasable perspective to be myself in full glory. No one can take away my future of personal sefl-fulfillment, my future in which I can freely be myself, unfettered from the burden my body has been all these years. This is of course only part of my self-fulfillment, the other part in general societal understandings would be making a career and personal growth, gaining money and gaining wisdom. I’ve been told to be a wise person, I’m modest but I wouldn’t entirely deny that, my life gave me a certain point of view on the world and the ability and honesty to share this wisdom with the people around me. I do think that there is still a lot of experience which I personally need to experience to really speak of wisdom. And I would be really happy if I would also be appreciated for my wisdom, bedises for being myself and an honest person. What wouldn’t make me happy is being appreciated for the career I’m making or the money I’m earning. A career  will never be a personal goal, because I do not feel like needing to achieve for personal gain to be appreciated. Friendship, love and wisdom are the only things I want to achieve, those things aren’t for personal gain, they mean nothing if I’d only achieve them for myself. Career-making in this respect is an egoistic business, which will mean entirely nothing if it doesn’t involve at least two of the three goals of achievement I mentioned in the previous sentence.
Currently I am doing a study which does enable me to achieve wisdom, the wisdom of how our world and the people on it act in all kind of situations within international developement. I will also be able to reach out to people with my love for life, my love for human dignity, my love for freedom, etcetera. I don’t know if I will achieve love or friendship, achieving these isn’t an aspect of making a career. Maybe I’m too unrealistic, because a career in whatever other business won’t make me achieve both wisdom and friendship or love directly as I would want to. The most important future perspective of being myself in full glory, still needs another future perspective, namely one of having an amazing job, but also finding true love, starting a family, admiring the beauties of this planet. In this society I live in the other ones are hardly possible if you don’t have a job, so I will go look for a job as soon as I have brought myself to finish my study. Expectations are a killer for me I suppose, but what I will be looking for is a job in which I can be creative, share my passion with the people around me and have people in need benefit from my abilities to help them.
I do believe I can become happy and achive self-fulfillment in a job which doesn’t earn me respect for the money I make. I am, though, very much pleased with the comfort of a good life with an amount of commodities that will be needed to supported by a certain income. Money does increase happyness when it takes away worries like those which the people have whom are now being evicted from their houses in the US. These are basic things, and even when you earn a lot of money you can still be unhappy when you do not achieve either friendship or love or when you fail at it. There I will need to find a balance in my life, and I will not be worrying where I will and up with my career, as long as self-fulfillment is possible entirely I will not have to fear my own future. The hardest battle has been fought, and now during the cease-fire I am certain I will find peace with myself. In the meantime I will set out to achieve those other aspects of self-fulfillment.

As a young transsexual something which has really been a strain in my life was the lack of future perspectives. Especially during these past years towards the point where I am now,  this strain put a heavy weight on my student life. In 2001 when I left my parents home to study at a university I was still in the closet, this all changed in the years to come, my life would change but I didn’t have the certainty to have the life I wished for when I would finish university. This insecurity took away all my future perspectives. I was on a path which had only one direction and without the ability to turn around, but I didn’t know if the path had a dead end or would bring me to a life I wished for. In these past 7 years I often feared for the dead end until last year when I was allowed to start hormone treatment. In the meantime the fear of the dead end inhibited me to do my study in full capacity with full concentration and full devotion. What would my study be worth if I would personally be stuck in a dead end life? I did study, got my bachelor degree and made it to enroll the master. I was persistent that’s for sure, I had nothing else to study, a switch would be hopeless whatever choice of study I would have made in that situation. I did enjoy my study, but whenever I was majorly dependent on myself I lacked the abilities to achieve what students could achieve. I am not an A-grade student, I have become a student whom has all the intelligence a student needs but isn’t motivated to study. With all the time I’ve put in my study it might be remarkable that I ever got to this point, it shows my persistence. The fact though that it took me 6 years to start my masters research, with a bachelor-degree only scheduled to do in 3 years, shows that I had a lot of trouble getting myself to this point.
So all these years of lacking future perspectives build up a heavy load to the point I have no motivation left to do my graduation research in the field of my study. My study became a burden of which I want to be freed to finally start a real life, leaving this loathsome futureless life behind me. Now that I have the life in which I see a future I cannot put myself to continuing a futureless study, I have started to question if I ever want to do something in the field of my study. It will forever be connected to the life without perspectives I lead.
It is true that my study offers me potential perspectives, for sure, when I have a masters degree I will be able to get a job and work myself up to more influential jobs. Though, what if this field of work (international development) doesn’t spark me anymore? When I started with developmentstudies I had a huge idealistic spark, but now there is nothing left of that, it cannot spark any future perspectives for me, none. I have no idea what I would want to do. Yes maybe that is because I lack a truthful image of my possibilities in the field. Due to my situation I now lack experience of doing research or working abroad, I have no ideal country nor continent to work and help the people. They should do it without me, but that’s what I didn’t see when I started studying. Now I’m left with an absence of motivation to study and work in international development on the one hand and on the other hand the future perspective to be myself in full glory. It is insane and I will have a lot to do to find out how I solve this schism in my life, what do I want with my future, I’ll go into that in the next post.

A few months ago I sent out an e-mail to my extended family about my situation. The e-mail contained nothing more and nothing less than they needed to know. I don’t have any close ties with either sides of the family, they’re all kind people (though sometimes a bit loud). A few relatives replied to that e-mail, all respectful, which I can probably give my dad credit for.
So this past weekend my parents celebrated their birthdays together, so quite a bunch of family came over and it was their first time seeing me after starting hormone treatment and visibly presenting myself as female. I sat there with them all evening, except for the 10 minutes that I had to do some dishwashing. Over the evening I hadn’t noticed any negative responses to my appearance/presence. Not everyone spoke with me but that’s not abnormal with these birthdays. With a few relatives I had short conversations about me and at one instance I was in the spotlight of the general conversation, though that was quite early on in the evening so not all guests were there. In general I have little to no reason to complain about how my relatives repsond to me, yes it is awkward for them, but it is not like they cannot or do not want to deal with the my changed situation.
And as written in a previous post, even my grandma is eager to be true to whom I am, for which I really love her. Other family members might not be that dedicated to me, but so what, it’s not like I’m that dedicated to them in everything they live thtough. It’s good enough that they accept me for whom I am and at least try to call me by my name.
When I grow older I’ll most probably grow apart from them, I will have my own life, might just migrate and have my own family like hopefully my brother and sister will have too. They mean so much more to me, as will my future cousins then will mean a whole lot to me. I don’t mind growing apart from my parents families, I trust that they will have good lives in which there is no need for me to play a role. They will always keep thinking of me as that quiet nephew, no doubt, but I don’t mind, it’s part of what I’m going through. I can’t control everything, the only reason why I would want to control my relatives opinion and view of me is their relation to my parents. I do not want to be the reason why anyone would not want to see and speak my parents anymore. By the way, transsexualism isn’t that unoridinary anymore!

I once adored his voice, for many years, until he lost it, the divinity of his voice. He now is a casual rock singer with a great past but with little capacity to impress me like he used to impress me.
I am talking about Chris Cornell, I was one of the kids whom fell for the hit single, Black Hole Sun, of their breakthrough album, Superunknown, back in late 1995. At that time I first started discovering alternative music, and it started all there with Soundgarden, but before I knew they broke up. Luckily for me, Chris went on to a solo career, the music and the lyrics were as strange and intruiging and tempting as they always had been. Even when he went on to sing with the RATM guys in Audioslave he kept his high standard until their second album, which has some great songs, but it started to miss the magic Cornell’s lyrics always had. I didn’t buy the third Audioslave record, I won it, with an autograph of Chris on the disc, but I’ve never listened it from that disc, to be honest. All the greatness of the lyricist and singer Chris Cornell were teeming and the voice had left me. Not only don’t I listen to rock music like Cornell makes nowadays anymore, but the style the image he sets for himself it pushes me away. Of course it’s great that he’s happy with his new family, but he lost his modesty, the eclectic humm of a dreamer has been lost. He might be a big guy now, but the sad thing is I liked him better as the modest guy with the awesome voice.
I do dedicate this blog to him, the person whom has sung with an amazing band and wrote great songs and sang them with all his heart.
Here are four favorite songs on video

A short description of how I came to transition on university last year, and how I experienced this.

Today exactly half a year ago I started with my hormone therapy, so I actually had something to celebrate, but I didn’t get to that, but I did get to writing my update .

Thursday I went for my second once-every-three-months appointment with my endocrinologist and this time the first time with my new gender therapist. Each appointment with an endo was with a different person, so on thursday I had a younger woman asking me a few questions measuring blood pressure, my weight and for some unparticular reason also my lenght. She was quite kind, so I hope to have her at least one of the next appointments. Then after that I could go straight away to my new gender therapist. She was well prepared, had probably read my entire file twice and she’d talked about me with my previous therapist, whom had been my therapist since June 2005. So we started of almost right where stopped last visit to my former gender therapist. I shared the things which bothered me and the things which made me feel more and more comfortable with myself and my surroundings. All in all, I have no reason to be displeased with my new therapist, she’s probably some years older than the other one, but she’s youthful and knows what she wants to ask me. In that sense she as just a little bit more straight forward, but I don’t mind, I’m looking forward to talking about myself more often. It won’t be as often as I’ve spoken with the previous one, but still worth to look forward too.
While I’m writing this here I feel an odd kind of mixture of tiredness and being made love with (at least it comes close to that feeling), I presume I just need to get me something to drink, not that this is an unpleasant feeling, but I need to keep focused to tell you about everything else .
So let me get to what the hormones been doing with me this past month, starting with that gorgious body of mine . I have come to acknowledge that my lips got a little bit fuller, which is good, makes them more kissable ..*haha*.. so why would I complain about that. Also I went to see how my figure has changed by making a full body picture with my webcam from behind, a picture which is of course kept very private. And what really struck me was that my outer thighs right where my butt is at its widest are almost as wide as my shoulders, so I’m really really happy about that. I don’t know how my figure is going to develop further on, but I suppose not much, at least not if I didn’t gain weight, which is not something I’m really striving for. I already gained enough, even lost some weight again, but I’m okay with the weight I have now. Anything else on my body still changing? Well of course, my breast growth continues slowly but steadily. The development is less than an inch compared to three months ago, but for some reason I am believed to fit a 38B bra now, oh well I promised not to give any figures unitl the 9 month update so I’ll refrain myself from that . They at least got more rounded, though that went along with a few weeks of more sensitiveness and sometimes painful pinches, all worth the progress!
Thus yeah my figure has clearly gotten more feminine, the sad thing is is that my body hair doesn’t seem to agree with that and still grows, though not as much as before hormone therapy, on places where every woman would love to be clean of body hair.
Despite the hair issues bothering me I still have the hair on my head issue pleasing me very much… I realy can’t wait for the day that it’s long enough to get myself those pretty bangs.
So as I said to my new gender therapist, I habe absolutely become more confident these past few months, some things are becoming more normal to do and less difficult to handle. There is still a long way to go, the facial hair needs to go, the voice needs improvement, the body hair needs to f*ck off, the adam’s apple needs a shave, my breasts wouldn’t mind to be one cup-size bigger, and then there’s that issue between my legs which needs to be reshaped and last but not least I’m still looking for the love of my life… in the longer run she’ll probably be there… I’m sure of it, just like all these other issues will get solved.

ah my future in this perspective, why would I worry? ….oh yeah, finishing my study and getting a job and a house to live in… hmm… well that’s something entirely different

So today the VOX was released with in it the interview with me about my initiative, GenderQontrast, and about myself. It didn’t struck me at first, but there was something wrong with the title, something very wrong. The article which is of course in dutch and has a dutch title is titled ‘Sophies keuze‘, which is simply translated as ‘Sophies choice‘. Now I knew this title was their first title as it was written in the draft of the article which I saw on monday, after pointing to some inaccuracies within the text, that title also drew my attention, and it wasn’t quite positive attention. I was very disappointed in that title, and I e-mailed the guy whom interviewed me and whom had written the article that I wasn’t happy with that title and I proposed different ones which would suit better.
So why would Sophies choice not be suitable for an article in which I am interviewed about my transsexuality and my initiative? Not only had I not mentioned the word choice in the context of my transsexuality, I am of opinion that there is no choice in being myself. The fact that I can’t take my gender for granted is no choice, the fact that I was diagnosed as transsexual was no choice, the fact that I transition is thus also no choice. My gender differs from my birth sex that makes that I can’t take my gender for granted as non-transgendered persons can, they never feel wronged by their body as I feel, they never have to hide whom they are in the aspect of their gender, I have no choice in feeling what I feel, it’s there. Okay then I decided to seek help at the genderteam in Amsterdam, also not a choice, continuing the situation as it was or going to a genderteam for the purpose of gender reassignment, that’s no choice. How would anybody willingly choose to keep themselves stuck in a life in which body and soul are out of sync? Choice, *pah*, don’t talk to any transgender or transsexual about choice in this regard. It is a want maybe, a desire for sure, a necessity undoubtfully, but it is not a choice. The diagnosis naturally reflects this necessity to undo the wrongs my body does to my soul, starting hormone treatment and official transition is a continuation of this necessity to do whatever is possible to solve what needs to be solved.  Let me compare it this, suppose you are The Almighty God, you have created a marvellous world full of the beauties of life, but something in your creation went wrong, you created a species with very destructive traits which harm you creation, would you undo the wrong to save that which resembles you? You are almighty, if I were almighty I’d do so, not a choice but out of raw necessity to be true to yourself and your creation. Taking harm to be harmed on and on is not what an Almighty God would do, too bad for all of humanity that such a being doesn’t exist. So that’s how it is to me, I can save myself from further harm, desolation, selfdestruction and a life of psycological crisis. Choice? No, no choice!
The nasty thing to me is that I corrected this magazine editor on this false representation, I pointed to other possible titles if he wanted to stay on a literary connection to it’s title. By the way, I never read the book nor did I see the movie of ‘Sophie’s choice‘, already enough reason not to pick that title. It neither became Sophies world nor Sophie without hesitation, connecting with either a book I did read and the title of this weblog. I do not know if they simply forgot that I made a remark about that, or that someone on the editorial staff likes to poke at me or transsexuality in general. I do not know. Either way though it is very sloppy that they didn’t change the title. I even find it offensive to be honest, have to do justice to my weblog’s title, even moreso that the word choice is in fatter print than Sophies (yes I now it’s called bold).
An apology would be nice for their sloppyness, but with this post as pat on their fingers I am equally pleased.
Gawth, this is my second rant in two days, not healthy, luckily for them that I wasn’t displeased with the picture that went with the article. Though I am not entirely happy with my hair, should have looked in my little mirror a second time before the photographer took his pictures. Oh well, Saturday 20th I will be exactly 6 months on hormones, much more reason to be happy than to be irritated over a title. I stick to my point though.

“Any choice here? No…come, choice, choice where are you? No choice isn’t here! Where’s the choice??? Seems like there is none!”

That women are used and can be observed as sexual objects in modern day society is nothing unfamiliar. I am a woman and I am aware of this, and I disagree with this image of women because I am a person not an object. Sexualization is a process in the eye of the observer, mostly men indulge in this to make touching themselves easier. Men whom do that not only lack a healthy sexual fantasy, they have no regard of the women’s physical integrity. Though now we transcend to an aspect of me which is not purely physical trait but moreso a mental trait of those (mostly) men whom sexualize this. It is my transsexuality. Now I am very much aware of sh*-m*l* porn, and fetishist crossdressers whom like to show their little hobby on diverse websites. I do not and cannot personify myself with these people whom purposely sexualize their skewed gender and sexual identity. They make themselves the object of sexual desires of others, I on the other hand do not so, I am simply myself, not showing any parts of my body in such a manner that a healthy sane man would get aroused by it. The sad thing is that this world has its large collection of insane men whom can’t make that difference when looking at someone who’s changing or has changed sex, as transsexuals do. The sexualization of transsexuals whom don’t make themselves purposely sexual objects happens entirely in the heads of these men, it’s an internal process. This can be observed within subscriber lists of vlogging transsexuals on youtube. If you check other subscriptions or simply the collection of favorites of certain subscribers you’ll see that they in majority subscribe or favor vids of crossdressers/sh*-m*l*s, but also certain transsexuals whom think it’s normal that women are sexual objects and act like it. By both subscribing to these sexual objects and plain transsexuals whom simply show themselves as a person, these subscribing men proof that they sexualize them all. It is difficult to believe that for the sane moments they would want to watch unsexualized vids of transsexuals, their line of thought that changing sex is erotic and should be rewarded with some eerie white goo, will simply not be out of function. As mentioned the sexualization happens within these men’s heads, it only needs the image of either a crossdresser/sh*-m*l* or plain transsexual. The questions is though why they don’t stick to the first two whom purposely sexualize themselves. Their sexual thoughts must be really intrusive to them that they grab everything that slightly resembles the thought they have sexualized. The problem though is that transsexuals don’t slightly resemble the idea they are the true realization of this idea, but how come? What is really behind this observable sexualization, are these men only closetted crossdressers, or do they truly have Gender Identity Disorder and simply have fetishized their own personality, being actually closeted transsexuals? Researching this is a little too obscure for me, so I’ll theorize about this.
Sexualizing your own deepest feeling of being a woman is something commonly observed and even attempted to use to set up transsexuals against eachother. These possible closeted transsexuals for one make no difference between sexualizing crossdressers and transsexuals, that would mean they themselves have unsuffiiently tried to understand themselves. They are stuck in the thought that changing sex is erotic and not something personal which they can deal with effectively with therapy and maybe in the end gender reassignment. The thing is that you can’t continue sexualizing part of your deepest being and at the same time turn it in sane reality to be yourself. Handling the sexualization of a thought might just be easier to cope with than being aware that you sexualize your own person, in which you might feel yourself harassed by yourself.
Though what about those whom simply are closeted crossdressers or chasers, these are plain fetishists whom simply ignore the integrity of transsexuals because they have probably seen everything every crossdressing sexual object or panty-fetishist has produced on the web and are left with the plain transsexuals. They use their fantasy to undress one and imagine a dick on everyone. If you ask me they could just as well watch any woman and fantasize a dick on us. For some reason they prefer ugly awefully dressed crossdressers, maybe because they really have dicks but most don’t have real breasts. Should these closeted fetishist crossdressers not ask themselves if they are not perhaps gay men whom don’t allow themselves to enjoy their true gayness? Who’ll tell, I acctually am not that interested to know.
Know this though, any subscriber on my youtube channel whom has a hint of being a sexualizing pervert won’t be accepted. I won’t let myself be sexualized for their pleasure, and I won’t be observably brought into connection with those whom purposely make sexual objects out of themselves.

So far my rant, I thought of doing this as video-log, but the thing is my written English is simply better than my spoken English

“Will you stay with me?” Annie angrily asked Nicholas.
Nicholas was quiet, he was afraid to answer, because he didn’t know the answer.
“I’m here now.” he finally said. “No you’re not” Annie replied “You’re never here, you were maybe some time ago, but I have actually no memory of it. Nicholas be honest to me, you were never part of me.”
“You’re right” he said “I was never there and I am not here now, but can you explain that to all those people whom have known you for so long?” Nicholas tried to look Annie in the eyes, but they were hidden behind her wavy locks of hair.
“Leave, Nicholas leave, leave me alone! If you’re not here then leave me alone!” Annie shouted without moving anything more but her mouth.

He opened his eyes, and turned on his left side, making his mattress squeak, a second later his alarm agonied Nicholas with its awful tone. It was friday morning August 31st 2001, after the weekend he’d start university. He got up to push the snooze-button on his alarm, but right before he did that he recollected his weird dream, the conversation with an older girl, she could have been his sister by the looks, he remembered. He then turned off the alarm instead of choosing for the snooze. It was strange that he recollected that last part of the conversation he had with that girl so vividly, normally he’d forget entire dreams in less than a minute after awaking. He picked up his trousers and a sweater from a chair and got dressed for breakfast, but first he walked to the sink in the corner of his room. He turned open both the warm and cold water and washed his face. “You’re not here, you don’t exist.” a girl’s voice whispered, making Nicholas jump away from the sink, splashing water all over his sweater. “What the fuck! Who said that!!” Nicholas yelled towards the mirror above his sink. It stayed silent, but Nicholas was still shaking for some reason. He walked back to the sink to turn off the water, he watched at himself in the mirror, but something seemed out of place. He went up close to the mirror, and watched himself in the eyes. A loud rumbling sound was coming closer, but it sounded like it was only in his head, because he felt no vibrations froom the floor nor from the sink he was leaning on. Nicholas stepped back from the sink, the rumble was awefully loud now and he was unable to open his mouth and scream, at least he couldn’t hear it even if he did yell out. Than out of a sudden….. nothingness.

“I said so” Annie joyfully said out loud “you are not here, you simply don’t exist, you never have existed”. Full of happiness she looked at the white ceiling above her bed on that beautiful morning of Sunday October 21st 2007. “All those people love me because whom I am” she silently whispererd to herself. There was a sparkle in her eyes.