transistion or die

Reading the blogs and forums over Mike Penner - Christine Daniels' suicide, I keep reading about the (trans)people who faced the choice to "transistion or die." It's always interesting to read because they always say it in hindsight. I say always because those who succeed can't speak for themselves. But those who transistioned never talked about suicide, let alone attempt it, before or during their transistion.

So, it becomes a handy excuse or reason to transistion. I had to transistion because I would die. Really? I mean you lived to the moment you decided to transistion. You lived through your transistion. And you lived after your transistion. So, exactly where was this sense of suicide?

In truth it wasn't there. They may have talked about thoughts or feelings of suciide - note it's now a major aspect of anti-depressant warnings, but suicide is about a sense of failure. It's about being so depressed about yourself, and in your world and life, that you sense it's an answer. You can argue the rightness or wrongness of it, it's real at the time.

But it's only real in those who succeeded and the few who survived an attempt. And I suspect, it's less about their transistion, than fitting it into their life and world. They knew who they were, but they couldn't reconcile that with the rest of the world and everyone else in their life. There was no place for them.

Many argue transpeople fit into the suicide potential model, and it's true for some. But it's not true it fits into suicide, only those who attempt it and sadly those who succeed. Making suicide a reason doesn't make it right or make any decision you think is based on it right. Only handy to believe you made the right decision.

Understand, I'm not condeming those who use the term. It's helps knowing the decision to transistion was right. Only, it wasn't a reason to transistion. We choose to live and then we choose to transistion. It's disingenuous to use suicide as a reason when it was the choice we made than the excuse we use.