Adrian colby

I think it’s down to how deep you contemplate a subject without getting attached to it as some kind of rigid justification. 5MeO is such a drastically different experience to when you sober up that the ego tends to backlash big time and Co opt the experience. I notice this happens to a lot of 5MeO users in the beginning. If you are capable of moving past it by watching how the ego behaves as you come back into the relative and evermore subduing it till it doesn’t take over when you come back, you can have a better time of integrating the experience without projecting bias onto it. What we realise maybe found within the experience itself or the act of realisation when we are in relativity consciousness but then we go on to use it to justify all the minutiae. I had the opportunity to do 5MeO under the care of Ollie Martin of ( 5MeO movie where 3 guys from Britain/Ireland went to the Netherlands for what could best be described as soul searching in a midlife crisis). He did very well by respecting my request not to interfere in any way with my trip but he projected onto me afterwards. I found him to be very fear based, judgmental with pre conceived beliefs and stuck in conspiracies. He was also still struggling with basic familial childhood traumas that should have been addressed by now. Watching how your own mind works and continuing to observe it during day to day experiences is a vital part of integration but also practicing changing the patterns that are causing problems. That really needs to get out of the way so you can get down to the nitty gritty, philosophical, hyper logic and reason deconstruction of relativity so you can have a chance at really understanding these profound experiences. I read martins book and it waffled on for ages. While I can’t dismiss what he’s saying ( that’s his perspective and how he understands it) I can’t get over a facilitator getting so intoxicated to the point of throwing up on a client when they are meant to be sitting and being responsible for the care of the client. While I understand that the infinite doesn’t care about such things, they don’t matter at all, there is a certain amount of responsibility someone should hold up within themselves while conducting themselves as a human.

it’s not the human person making the claim. It is the mind using the appearance of a person to communicate what the mind is doing when the idea of the person and its environment dissolves. That is not a claim that the ‘physical’ person is capable of magical feats within this reality. It is what the mind is capable of when it projects itself into a less finite reality and what it is potentially capable of if it were shed of all its limiting beliefs here. Again this is referring to the mind, not the human personality or ego or even the electrical sense perceptions of the body we mistake for thinking. Electrical signals are purely representations of information passing from an external environment to an internal mapping system based on Baisian inference. The whole thing is being hallucinated. Most neuroscientists claim the brain hallucinates its reality and still not sure of how it works. If I were to dissolve my reality and go and have a full blown sensory experience elsewhere, my physical reality would no longer be taking place within my awareness. I am no longer a brain or a body. If you are in the room with the body you could be mistaken that I am still physically there with you because you are experiencing and perceiving the body. The body is only taking place within your experience, not mine at that point. You are the one imagining that body. It’s part of an extension of you. I don’t see mind and matter as separate. I see matter as metaphorical representations or manifestations of the minds thinking process as it tries to know things. Knowing, direct experience is what I refer to as consciousness ( con ‘with’- science ‘knowing’) it is in itself a formation of a mind derived from infinity( awareness). Everything that occurs within awareness is not awareness itself but an attribute of it… something that it does. The godhead or mind is self created from infinity and is the part that knows. All things that are thought whether original idea or materialised as form are made of knowing/creating ( consciousness) All realities, all consciousness, all form and relativity are a part of the observer( awareness/ infinity) but not the observer itself.( it itself is formless and never changes) It’s parts or imagination is an attribute or something that it does. It’s not something that it is. I would hazard to say that the godhead is therefor also a part of that imagination and thought process which may seem infinite to us but may not be. Or even an infinity pulled from infinity. Our own individuated mind could also therefor be an infinity pulled from infinity and in the process of developing and maturing just as the godhead created itself. it would not surprise me if some one had a mind that was capable of comprehending itself as the infinite and capable of loosening itself of beliefs that keep it anchored inside only one relativity to the point it was able to step outside of it. from my own experience there is not much to be learned from the void as nothing happens there but being awareness so all the exploration and learning takes place in relativity ( some rigid like this and some less so like dreams). So while it is understood that matter has no substance to it, it’s all imagination, I do not dismiss its importance. im aware that people who go on this journey who realize that “life is an illusion” often react to that insight by dismissing reality altogether but that’s because they don’t explore further and get the point of it and why it is here. we fall into the same trap when we zoom in on the little details that we argue about ( often from a materialistic perspective) and loose sight of the bigger picture. so I’m not saying that a human ego is making a claim that it can manipulate a rigid reality as The rule set that holds it together must remain coherent for god to continue to deceive itself enough to remain in it to experience form and relationship. When it believes itself into existence as other forms, it forgets itself till it wakes up out of its dream again. What I’m pointing at is that a mind that drops the belief it is ego or personality or even a body, can step out of its reality and form a new one albeit temporarily. It can be done with psychedelic as the easiest method but it can also be done by entraining the mind using other methods like meditation, binaural beats, amongst others. It is not something provable or evident to any ‘other’ as there is nothing to see or experience from their perspective to tell them that unit of consciousness is no longer experiencing the same reality. We can’t even do that with psychedelic. All we can do is tell stories about the experience when we resolve back into this reality or encourage someone to try it and see for themselves. The result is always subjective but metaphorical for that individuals understanding.

I’m not so sure… having watched many people come and go from ceremonies dealing with trauma and ego related issues over and over without resolving anything, I’ve noticed that some people use a substance with the expectation that it is going to fix or heal them (thinking it’s showing them the truth when all they are seeing is a reflection of their own subconscious). They never go away and do the hard work of actually changing their thought process or behaviors. They never bother to stop and observe their own minds or free themselves up from this perpetual victim, self indulged mindset. It’s an endless loop and they never move on. Other people who approach substance use as a tool to help observe themselves and how their mind constructs the reality they experience or who are actively ‘seeking’ and discovering the nature of reality, deconstructing reality and getting to know how consciousness works prior to ever taking a substance… of course their ‘traumas’ do arise and they have to deal with them but they seem to get over that phase much quicker and go on to more coherent consciousness exploration ( more possibility opens up including deeper insights and I’m aware you know all of this as you approached it in the same way as part of a toolset for an already existing search for absolute truth). People like this often don’t have bad trips or extremely few( difficult or intense as opposed to terrifying). They are often fairly good at silencing their minds, they often don’t get visuals rather get formless impressions that fuel their insights and spend a lot of time contemplating and integrating and observing daily activities in the same manner. I don’t think @artems disposition is related to genetics as he’s previously said he’s had psychedelic experiences that are just the same as everyone else’s in the beginning but that there has been a point at which it has changed. I would have been the same so it’s not genetic. Tolerance? I would have thought that to build up a tolerance to substances, I would have had to use them either fairly regularly or over a long period of time. I’ve had the usual ‘trip’ that anyone else would have in the beginning but there was a point that it changed for me too. The dose doesn’t seem to matter whether it is high or low. And the type of substance no longer matters either. They all can be used to induce the same experiences. As time has gone on I’ve become more sensitive with smaller doses not less sensitive. I’ve also started having those experiences without substances and during a long period of time where I haven’t taken anything in over a year so it’s unlikely it’s a reactivation. I can be in an intense immersive experience surrounded by chaos and colour/ fractals or I can focus my mind and bring myself back into the room as if sober just like @artem described. It doesn’t mean we are more conscious than psychedelics. It means that consciousness has the ability to do that when it is not so rigidly bound within its mind ( or beliefs) and has a better command over itself( more focused). Eventually reality begins to resemble the trip and insights come directly from observing it. it is, after all consciousness communicating with itself. Everything becomes a metaphor for its own understanding within its own hall of mirrors. dissolving reality ( the relative) and exploring other realities ( albeit less finite) is something I’ve taken interest in recently. It’s not something that I would have perused because I didn’t believe in it. However, after coming face to face with what consciousness was and was capable of (with the help of psychedelics) I decided not to dismiss it until I had experimented with the possibility and it eventually happened. It wasn’t what people had described it to be but I had finally experienced it from start to finish without loosing consciousness and understood it from direct experience. Doing it without a substance is not easy at all and often very frustrating but it’s something I want to pursue now that I know it is possible. I maybe mistaken in what @ Artem is saying or even what you’re saying but from what I’m reading of his experiences, I’m finding similarity with my own. I wouldn’t dismiss it, I’d explore it further.

I get what you are saying. I experience more or less in the same way. Substances don’t force me into altered states so I don’t ever get fantasy and colour. What they do is subdue my body so I can do conscious work. The same with alchohol. It doesn’t affect my mind. It just subdues my body and allows my mind to be more free to explore without the distraction of the bodies sensations. I am making a guess but it might be to do with how well you can stop the process of thinking and how good of a command you have over when and how you use the thought process. Like you say, one is the ego and the other is awareness. It depends which one is in control or the master. People who are still identified with their thoughts have no control over them so taking a substance or getting drunk leaves them in a state where their thoughts run rampant, create visualisations or leave them unable to filter what they say or do. with alchohol I may slur my words because my bodies motor functions are effected but what I say is more coherent than usual because I’ve been able to use it to become a more pure mind than body. I don’t drink but just got drunk a few times to experiment with my conscious state. It’s similar to psychedelics. I’ve trained my mind to be quiet and focused. No visuals occur unless I deliberately ‘create’ them. Most of my psychedelic experience is black with no visuals but I get my insights in a formless manner. I can go through a whole contemplation without visualising anything but just getting impressions. if you do much consciousness work like developing your mind without substance use, I personally find that things like substances and binaural beats etc become a hinderence like they were just training wheels. I’ve lately found that I can relax enough to switch the body into a sleep while keeping the mind awake but quiet and my reality dissolves into what could best be described as a warm white light experience similar to 5MeO. I’m currently exploring the realities that form beyond that but it takes allot of balance between concentration and absolute calmness. Not easy.

https://youtu.be/N33B5k1QdnY I love the lyrics in this. A guy sang it at a ceremony I attended two years ago and I finally got a link to it after several of us hounded him for it.

Being ‘nice’ is not the same thing as love, compassion and understanding. Nice plays into the need to feel needed and being seen or thought of in a certain way. Like using other people’s opinions as verification towards the sort of person you are ( actually not a very mature thing to do because you’re shirking your responsibility onto the shoulders of an external force to determine the way you are). Having actual love for someone means allowing them to be as they are and to deal with their own issues in their own time provided they are not imposing on or effecting others. If they are having difficulties with their life, it requires non biased understanding of the other persons situation from their point of view without you projecting your own onto them. You may be able to see their issues and their causes quite clearly and know that being nice to them is not the answer rather it will encourage the perpetuation of the behavior they are already carrying out that is causing the problem. Sometimes what they need is a reality slap or kick up the butt to place the truth of the situation in front of them and face it. The problem with that is if you lack compassion. If you push someone to face themselves too hard, if you become frustrated, critical, angry, sarcastic and down right nasty, you will be met with resistance, reclusion or backlash to the same degree that they feel they are being attacked. A person will not face the truth unless they themselves have made a decision to actively seek it for themselves. You need compassion to know when you’ve stepped over a line and gone too far. If you are going to be mature about it you have to realise you are dealing with a lesser developed consciousness and you were once there too. “You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink”. All you can do is act as gentle guidance without imposing yourself on their life. They will reach out and ask questions when it is their time to grow up and when they desire to actually do so. It is not your job to save them. There is a balance between the two extremes I endevore to hold which makes me approachable when someone is ready to listen and learn. The only time I push people away is when they have listened enough and need to start exploring on their own. a group like this though is slightly different in that you have a bunch of people who are willing to listen and learn but keep making the same mistakes over and over and misinterpret and misunderstand. I can understand the frustration and that if you are at this level you should be able to take strong criticism. That’s not the same as being angry and nasty. At some level the angry and nasty is just a perception according to the perceiver but it is equally a reflection of the person who is being angry and nasty. a balance in teaching and learning is called cooperation where the teacher and student work together to progress( the absolute talking to itself). Anything else is coercion where both the teacher and the student will loose one another( the absolute separating from itself).

What type of person do you believe you are that you are not welcome somewhere?

Good luck with your decision whatever it might be or whatever form it takes. Even if it doesn’t work out as you expect it, use the experience as part of a learning process. ❤️

Hi lonewanderer. I decided to take 5MeO ( Bufo) in 2020.age 37 I had never heard of psychedelics and drugs were a big no no at the time. I had embarked on finding out how to discern truth ( from the point of view about winning an argument about the non existence of god with a Christian). Ironically I ended up dissolving my reality during a meditation and came face to face with ‘infinity’. I had heard Leo talking about 5MeO on his videos while I was looking at them from a philosophy 101 perspective and so I went and read about what other people were saying about the drug. That it could induce the experience of no self and a state of awareness prior to reality. And so I tried it to make the comparison with my natural experience. With the exception of the intense energy, the experience was the same. Near death, no body, no perception, just a swirl of being nothingness. I had done a lot of contemplation and intellectual deconstruction before ever taking any psychedelic so I was able to observe without getting caught up in it. It is very intense especially for a first time psychedelic experience. In order to take it I had to go to an ayahuasca ceremony which I had no interest in. The ayahuasca didn’t really do anything for me but opened up a connection with other people. I’ve done 5MeO four times and I really don’t get anything from it other than this state. everyone’s preferred medicine or tool is different. I do a lot of my contemplation work with mushrooms and if I want to go further into the god head… strangely it is cannabis that does it for me ( only done it twice but most profound realisations have come from that) I can’t advise for or against other than to be careful as Bufo doses too high can be dangerous. if I’m talking to someone who’s curious about psychedelics I usually say to start with a low dose of mushrooms while being supervised by an experienced sitter just so you can learn to navigate the space comfortably.

After having the experience of awareness imagining myself into a reality, in order to hold onto it I had to believe it was real. The first self deception leading to forgetting what I was. As I form more and more beliefs and disbeliefs, the deeper into my own self deception I fall. Once I become aware that has happened I can watch out for those beliefs. Some of my experiences I can prove to my others where we can experience together and others I cannot because they only occur when I dissolve this reality. This is where personal verification is important and stands above what someone else has said or written. There comes a time when you develop your mind to a point that it doesn’t need others input to navigate through its reality. Others collapse and become one speaking to itself

Don’t forget that this is one beings process who is doing all the hard work and paving the way. If you’ve been doing this work for a long time you will start to notice patterns and changes of mind from one side to another. In order to understand these various personal opinions like loving, compassion and understanding itself, one has to directly experience its opposite immersively to make the distinction. Human love and hate can be experienced and understood from a higher perspective and a realization happens that unconditional love has nothing to do with either rather it is goi v through all of the emotions and perspectives and integrating them to eventually stop the pendulum’s swing. There is a blissful balance there. You still interact and feel it all but you remain balanced and free from its influence. Leo is going through that process and I recognise it cause I’m battling the rise of distain for people who are causing problems for everyone. I’m following that distain to see if I can contemplate those people and issues deeper because I know when I find an understanding for it and the mechanisms that bring it about, the distain will fall and an even deeper love will set in. It is not easy to go through it because you get thrown from one side to another.

@OldManCorcoran I also beared the brunt of anger from the trans support group my doctor put me in touch with when I started asking questions myself and trying to figure out the gutts of the condition. Needless to say I got called an asshole, trailer and transphobe and was kicked out of the group for refusing to conform and go along with what is called ‘cis’ bashing( where gender variant trash talk ‘normal’ people to the point it creates a culture of hatred).

Yes. It’s like being stuck inside a costume where no one can see you. No one sees you, hears you or acknowledges your existence. They interact with the appearance of the costume and project onto it according to what they believe to be correct. Until I was able to fully express through the body, let’s say going from awareness to conscious to matter to identity and final expression and interaction ( changing my body and appearance till the outside could ‘see’ me as I was. Telling me I was wrong for being as I was, was seen as a form of denial and oppression. The frustration and anger came from the egos self preservation once the identity was able to express and it would get into a habit of immediate anger over the assumption that even a simple question was a denial of my expression. ( when I realised my own thoughts were interpreting the situation wrong, I stopped attaching so rigidly to the identity and trying to insist on its acceptance because it was already outwardly changed and people didn’t know any different unless I told them, again telling people was a lack of confidence and attempt to continue trying to justify my existence) I was never a part of the lgbtq so I escaped the conformity to that cultural identity. That collective ego system does the same thing. It starts off with good intentions advocating for acceptance but because the behavior of defensiveness has become a habit, once the desired is achieved, the behaviour continues as part of the collective personality or ego trying to preserve and justify itself when there is no longer a need. The anger itself starts obviously when a person is dismissed, threatened or afraid.

Yes it’s difficult to have the conversation and I have to change my language to switch back and forth between relative and absolute depending on who I’m talking to. Even in spiritual community it has to be brought back down to earth cause a lot of people are still caught up in the visible manifestations of the mind or rather, appearance of things. The origin of the trans stuff isn’t known but like autism there’s a suspicion about mothers exposure to stress or chemicals in the environment. The autism stuff is fairly new to me and I hadn’t come across it till recently. I’ll see if I can find one of the talks about it and post it up here. I spent years questioning my condition and digging through research for answers that correlated with my lives experience but when I unintentionally dissolved my reality one evening, I stopped looking cause I was more interested digging into the workings of the godhead and how it creates reality. Once I had finished all my treatment, fought and achieved legal recognition, my problems just disappeared and I was able to marry my wife and get on living life. Unfortunately there are others still struggling and the issue is becoming more prominent and politicised so I’ve come back out of the woodwork to see if I can contribute to a solution. There was no way I could have done this several years ago as I was much too angry/triggered/offended. I understand how those “triggered” people feel but I also now know the point that they’re missing this is a talk by an autism society where you might be able to track down papers or specific specialists in this area. The comments section is even more interesting as allot of them commenting are on the spectrum and transgender. They claim the gender treatment reduced or stopped the autistic behaviors.

It’s important to distinguish the different phases you go through on an awakening/ spiritual journey( whatever term you wish to use for ultimate self discovery). When you’re deconstructing everything in reality down to the very core of what you are (god/awareness), you realise ‘the dream’ and are very quick to dismiss it. Once you become familiar with everything being imagined into existence, you then have the faculty to explore the dream and discern what is biased, misinformed or complete delusion. It’s the same discernment used to deconstruct your reality, whether something is a belief or a direct experience, bias or empirical observation. Everything in the dream is awareness exploring itself in infinately diverse ways. Other than itself in a state of wholeness, ‘realities’ are ways that it expresses itself( reality meaning to relate to or in relationship with/ form made distinct from other form) science is the method we use to explore our reality through empirical observation while we are in this state. ( consciousness expanding its knowing by creating stories and narratives about the different objects, situations and beings) I’m aware of the frustration with science at the moment as it has descended into a financially incentivised authority that has started to resemble religious organisation. But that is why it is important to be aware of what is derived from raw data and what is being interpreted according to someone’s bias to support an already preconceived belief. One has to drop all their knowledge and assumptions to see what the research is actually presenting to them. It takes honesty, integrity and a genuine curiosity to do it properly. I’ve been through my nihilism phase and no longer dismiss my experience here rather I am exited to explore it. I was diagnosed with gender dysphoria in my teens decades ago before any of this nonsense started up in the media. I had no knowledge of the condition, didn’t know anyone else with it and it certainly wasn’t being discussed openly. I wasn’t influenced by anything so I’m one of the genuine cases. before I was diagnosed It had been discovered I had congenital gonadal dysgenesis. Internal organs didn’t develop fully. However this did not explain the years of insistent opposed gender identity. Because it had gone on for so long I was transferred to a specialist team in Europe. I went through full treatment and also participated in research at the same university hospital where I had it confirmed that part of my genetics ( mutation of cytochromeP17 that is only found in males) was also a part of my genetic make up. As I was not satisfied with just being told I was transgender, I went on a mission to find out why. While I only have direct confirmation of those genes, I speculate from other studies that my neurology is also structurally male which would explain the way in which I interact, discern and identify myself ( human self or character) in “relation” to other people. It’s not that a person is separated and egotistically identifies themselves ( if they were alone on an island it probably wouldn’t be an issue) our neurology is geared towards how we relate to others while inside a ‘reality’. the study regarding neurology was discovered by a brain scientist who was conducting research into Alzheimer’s. This was done postumously. He noticed that the brains of trans patients had a neucleus count the same as that of the sex they claimed to be. He went on to conduct a proper study. So it’s suggested that there maybe a link between gender based identity and a part of the brain called the bed neucleus of the straii terminalis which is in the hypothalamus. genuine transgenderism has a biological basis where the person is neither 100% male or female but they contain attributes of sexual biology that belong to both. As a human is a predominantly psychosocial bring, their neurology will override their genitalia when it comes to determining what side of the sexual spectrum they lie on. there have been dozens of other studies into neurological response to stimulus according to gender but with all honesty. It is so wide and varied that you could use it to diagnose a person… you could only use it to support what a person already claims to be. These conditions are rare. Because interventions happened with genital abnormalities years ago and it turned out a substantial amount of those children identified as the opposite, it was deemed unethical to intervene until the person identified themselves. In light of those findings, in my country, it was deemed that genitalia could not be used to definitively tell a persons whole biological sex so process was put in place to legally change the sex on the birth certificate in the event that a person identified as such. I was part of the drafting process and argued that it should be purely medical but the human rights lot got their way and said no one had the right to tell another person who they are. To an extent I agree but something has gone wrong and that is not what we are seeing today. what started with good intentions was trying to put an education program in schools to normalise the condition so that people with it could safely integrate into society by the time the next generation came along. Middle aged men transitioning would be a thing of the past simply because help and treatment are more available now and this is something that manifests itself in late childhood to early teens ( sometimes earlier) and people don’t need to hide themselves anymore. However because the education program was aimed at junior school children whom sex or identity is not yet an issue, these kids are going home with an expectation that this is normal and will somehow happen to them. The parents are pressured by a culture of ‘support’ and get called transphobes if they question what is going on. there are plenty of kids who have transitioned and we’re not genuine cases and have unnecessarily destroyed their biology all because they were exposed to cultural conditioning at much too early an age. religious and spiritual groups have jumped on this to try and grab power back from the left but at the same time they are trying to dismiss and stamp out even the genuine cases because they don’t know they exist or they refuse to acknowledge the research. the backlash from the liberal side is trying to protect the genuine cases but dismiss the existence of the ‘conditioned’ people because it ‘hurts’ the agenda. I find myself in a unique position by both having been born with a gender disorder and having seen behind ‘the dream’ and part of spiritual communities. Both myself ( a genuine case) and the kids who have made a mistake, find ourselves in the middle of a fight between two sides who refuse to listen and only care about pushing their beliefs. This means that the safety of those kids and mine is compromised. we do need to pay homage to our underlying biology and understand that when it comes to sex, there is a spectrum.( a man cannot be defined by a penis, he is much more than that both biologically, psychologically and socially. If he were to have an accident, cancer or birth deformity, other attributes of his biology would still be active in the identity he expresses as a ‘man’) We have culturally constructed a rigid binary that we are all essentially forced to identify with but there are people out there whose biology doesn’t fit into those roles. We need to be mindful of this while we are adapting to the change in the social constructs that are appearing everywhere now including when we deconstruct them. We need to be very aware that we are currently conditioning our next generation with our own cultural beliefs. I don’t identify as transgender. I’m fully aware my biology is a mix of both sexes but I interact and identify as a man. This is for the purposes of integrating into society and in my relationship with my wife. My wife sees no difference between me and any other man she’s been with. No one knows about my condition except immediate family, not even my inlaws. If my neurology reflects male then I don’t see it as appropriate to go around identifying as trans and demanding respect for it. My condition is a mutation of sex, it’s not an illness or psychological fault. It expresses as male and doesn’t cause a problem nor is it even existent until I say something to someone. What I would get back is the sudden change of behavior of the other person based on their pre conceived ideas or beliefs when prior to the moment I said something… they were experiencing the reality of it ( non existent, not a problem). of course it acted as a catalyst for my awakening to show me that clearly identity was an attachment so I’m no longer angry bothered or triggered by the issue. I am infinite imagination experiencing itself temporarily in the form, persona, character role of “Adrian”. Underneath it all I have no name or form. I’ve gone into more depth on the thread I posted above if you want to know more. I have an unhealthy habit of writing long responses.

In an ironic twist of fate I had embarked upon arguing down a Christian about how wrong they were. In order to do that I had to find out first how to discern what was absolutely true. I’d got to the stage of removing bias by attempting the ‘no self’ and had been meditating for two years when, one day, sitting in a cosy chair contemplating and removing all the things i was still in existence without, my body and the room suddenly disappeared.if I wasn’t shocked enough at dissolving my reality I went a little deeper and enquired what I was experiencing. There was no distinction between me and the blackness so if I tried to move anywhere, I was already there, already everywhere and nowhere at the same time. I knew everything but there was nothing to know. Everything was nothing and infinite, it just, I just went on forever. A singularity of awareness. I jumped out of the chair in shock whispering to myself “I’m God! I’m fucking God! That’s what God is!”. So yeah the Christian was wrong but I was also wrong… about everything. ?‍♂️

I started a thread to answer questions about the trans issue( above). Long story short, yes there is a biological factor to the cause of genuine transgenderism ( genetic/ neurological currently known, maybe more discovered in the future) but there is also an issue with non genuine transgenderism being caused by a complex of the maturation process and cultural conditioning. Autism also has a very strong link to the manifestation of opposing identity through obsession of another person or identification with them or the idea of what they are.

I thought this would be a good video if anyone was interested in the research that has been underpinning the condition. This is the researcher who discovered the anomaly in the brain of transgender people while looking into Alzheimer's. There have been many studies since. I don't agree with some of the things that he is saying in this interview especially things like girls favoring dolls and boys favoring truck etc. as some indication of gender identity because it certainly isn't. What is interesting is the raw data gathered from the studies before anyone applies a bias to it. People can interpret whatever way they will and the professor is no exception. It doesn't invalidate his findings and I do think it is important to notice the biology behind transgenderism seeing as it has become a highly politicized and polarizing issue. Most people are fighting from only one perspective that's based on their beliefs, biases, or pre-conceived ideas and have no clue about what has been studied or found underlying the condition. It's threatening to the idea of identity and we know people don't like questioning their identity and attachments. People with the condition don't like their identity being attacked or questioned just as much as a normal person does but transgenderism itself pulls at the strings unraveling the idea of rigid identity anyway and I guess that's why there is such an aversion to it. Having the condition myself certainly acted as a catalyst in realizing there was no such thing as identity. I thought this comment below the video was well articulated so I will quote it here "People are talking about gender identity because it's a neurological phenomenon that somehow got politicized. Chromosomes, although they somewhat affect the formation of whether or not you feel male or female, they are not the main driving force to why people feel comfortable socializing and / or sitting alone as the gender they're currently labeled. Prof Swaab's work shows that the brain and genitals differentiate in sex independently in two different trimesters of pregnancy. Gender identity is proven as a mental sex dimorphism by the neuron production in the Bed Nucleus of the Stria Terminalis ( part of the hypothalamus). Those with a male gender identity (trans or biologically male) grow twice as many neurons as those with a female gender identity regardless of hormone replacement. Brains and bodies are complicated and sometimes they don't match up with each other. It's similar to how most people's hands inherently have different levels of coordination, hence left and righthandedness". A great deal of variety can be found within one species but I will also put a nod to Jordan Peterson for raising concerns about the people who mistakenly identify as trans and end up the victims of misdiagnosis because they are being influenced by the issue being in their faces due to an attempt to normalize it for safety and integration of genuine cases into society. But he cant see beyond that and misunderstands the issue from a higher perspective. Somewhere in the middle of extreme liberalism that wants to be good and inclusive, that calls anyone that questions a case as a transphobe or biggot.... and the other extreme that thinks there is a conspiracy to neuter all the children, lies the truth that experiences itself through the likes of me, a genuine case, full surgery and perfectly happy with life and the misdiagnosed girl that Peterson interviewed who felt pressured by culture and the difficulties of adolescents. Both she and I are being dismissed by the extremes on each respective side. We are the ones caught in the middle of everyone else's bullshit. We both exist as unique experiences and we both need services and support at critical times in our lives. it's not one or the other. Everyone tries to push their point of view and no one at least rarely ever stops to listen to the ones actually experiencing it. most of if not all the trans people and misdiagnosed people are still conditioned within the social matrix and also fight their sides to an extreme. I find myself in a unique position to be able to see both sides and highlight some things from inside the experience itself and I'm greatful for the questions and opportunity to respond in here so far as it has allowed me to contemplate it a little deeper using those questions for direction. I have narrowed my own exploration down to a point that doesnt have a dot linking directly between biological anomily and social construct. somehow the biology expresses itself but as identity itself is questionable... how does that expression transfer into the social construct. hmmm?

After reading the blog post from April 10th, I wanted to offer my direct experience of being born with a gender disorder. I don't know how I am going to react but I am open and willing to answer questions as honestly and unbiased as possible about my experience and how it has affected different aspects of life including social, personal development, and endeavoring to understand reality. I will have to leave it up to your discernment as to whether this information is of any use at all. It is, after all, just one perspective but it comes from a place of being stuck in the middle of anger from the liberal/ activists including other trans/LGBT people and the dismissal of my existence as some kind of conspiracy according to people within my spiritual community. ( people from both sides cannot see through the issue because they are so identified with their own worldviews and cannot rise above the 'us versus them' mentality to see there maybe multiple things going on at the same time) I do not identify as transgender but that seems to be the term used by both social and medical circles.( I have my quams as to its use as it's not morphologically correct) I'm a man. Nobody in my life apart from my wife and immediate family know about my condition. I was the youngest in my country to be diagnosed at the time (late 90's). I am now 40. I have a few differences from regular trans people regarding my initial biology but I have had full treatment. There were things I was not happy about regarding the medical profession but since everything was over and done with, I've been perfectly happy with my life. I wouldn't change a thing as the condition itself (owing to placing me outside societal norms) acted as a catalyst to the awakening process... first to conceptual constructs and then onto observing consciousness itself. I cannot answer questions that would identify me as it can potentially affect not just myself but the other people in my life so I'm sorry in advance if I seem a luff to some questions. Likewise, I am referring to myself as Adrian even though that is not my name. I hope that is ok? @Leo Gura

Certainly and I would agree. The more conscious of a being you become, the less any of this matters because it becomes nothing more than a superficial appearance. Something to experience but not get so attached to. If I was still holding onto it so rigidly today, I would still be suffering with the mindset of a traumatized victim and have learned nothing from it. It's one reason I decided to come on here and answer questions. I'm at a stage of development where I'm not so attached to my own 'story' that I can contemplate it more openly and not get triggered by questioning. Before I started doing personal development or truth-seeking, I would still have been attached to my identity with the added complication of gender identity on top of that making me even more defensive of myself for my own perceived safety and survival. It was only several year ago I was a very angry and reactive person. Most of that is gone now.

If I'm to go from what the studies are suggesting (owing that I have one of those aspects confirmed) I'd say it was more suitable for me because it would seem to be derived from the underlying biology and inherent from the beginning. There does seem to be a link between neurological structure and the way a person expresses themselves. What is missing is the explanation between the expression (the body as a whole system including cognitive function) and the social construct (the interaction and identification of one's self relative to others or in differentiation to others and expectations that go with that). What it felt like was being trapped inside an avatar unable to interact with people because it was as though they were talking to me as if I were someone else. Like; perhaps I was mistaken and they were talking to someone behind me. It's something very subtle you normally wouldn't be conscious of but it is there. That's what it felt like. If I couldn't remain as I was or if people couldn't see my body as the whole system, then I would have to try and change my appearance in some way to meet the expectations of what I was inside so that others could see it too. I'm sure if there was a social construct that correlated to whatever my biology is on the spectrum between male and female then there may not have been a problem. If that construct is trans then I may have a problem as I don't identify with that (probably because there is a preconceived idea about what it means and the expectation associated with it is wrong or there genuinely is a correlation between male neurological structure and male expression and I am rigidly aligned with that ). If I am being brutally honest though, even now when I dissolve all those concepts and say I could easily wear a dress and not be bothered because it means nothing but cloth, I still would not opt for changing my body back. I can claim to be awake and know I'm God and still be that consciousness experiencing itself as Adrian in the odd but diverse way it came into existence. Adrian the character or identity even though it knows it is only an imagined construct would still not change itself back and would still have had the surgery or perished early in life if it wasn't an option. Take Leo for example. He has dissolved his reality and discovered the infinite imagination behind it that is creating everything and holding it in consciousness and that is what he truly is. On one hand, consciousness has imagined an entire world with perfect ideas and those ideas diversify out, Part of that consciousness attaches and immerses itself in the experience of one of those diverse ideas called Leo. On the other hand If the character it is playing called Leo realizes it is a character and can drop some of the limitations of its form, did Leo change his identity or anything associated with it when he realized he was less limited than before? no. He has the inherent ability to play with and change that around but he won't because part of the story that consciousness is telling about that character is that its biology is that of a congruent male and that is expressed as a man called Leo. Just as consciousness is also telling a story about Adrian. The story it tells is to justify its existence. All the studied attributes through scientific research are an expansion of those stories to support and justify the existence of the form or the character. Science is as close to observing, as objectively as possible, the stories of consciousness from a human perspective. It is us that project our subjective expectations onto the forms we see when what lies underneath may not be the case at all. I may have appeared female but if I were to be studied, it would unfold that I have biological attributes of both the male and female sex. I was not what I seemed. We used to think the sun traveled around the earth but it only appeared that way. It was not deliberately deceiving us rather we did not have the same understanding that we have now. It looks that way because that is how it looks to someone standing on a rotating earth. Our understanding and the resulting perception of it have now changed. The same is happening in western countries now as we've studied and come to notice that humans don't have a rigid sexual binary but a spectrum. It looks like only male or female from the outside but sex is more than just external appearances. The constructs, pronouns and identities that are appearing now are reflecting that expanded understanding. People are bursting out of a prior limitation And Jordan Peterson is not happy about that because it doesn't fit with his worldview. It is challenging to adapt to change if you are so identified with an idea that you are used to. I do understand his concern and he has a valid point in that not every person who is breaking their limits of identification are honoring or even acknowledging their underlying biology. While respective governments and education systems are trying to introduce and normalize gender variance so that society is safer and more inclusive for those who are, they are introducing it in schools at a highly influential age when sex and gender issues should not even be a concern to a child. The genuine cases are very rare in the grand scheme of things and the kids in my country are going home to their parents after hearing the fairytale-style bedtime story about Joe who woke up the following morning as Joan and wondering if this is going to happen to them too because it has now created an expectation that this is a normal occurrence. The children are much too young. They are still in the middle of their own differentiation process and they need years of direct experience to learn and navigate. Parents are feeling pressure from peers and culture to support the child for fear of being called a transphobe. Allot of kids in this situation are like the girl that Jordan Peterson was talking to in the video Leo put up on the blog post. There is a cultural conformity issue happening where so much attention is being placed on normalizing trans people That kids are starting to identify with the label because they are going through a normal but uncomfortable phase in life and feel like they don't fit in so they must be one of these. So there are more than one type of person who is going through transition. The genuine cases that have a biological basis to it and teens who are being influenced by a new socially accepted identity or construct. The difference between the time I went through my ordeal and now is 'influence'. I had no influence. I was not taught about trans. I had never met a trans person, I didn't even know what it was. I had no dealings with the LGBT till after I started my treatment and I didn't stay in contact. We had nothing in school about gender variance so it is not something I could have come into contact with and decided hmmm? I must be that. Now it's everywhere which is bizarre for a rare condition.... Sorry for ranting, that was a bit long and off point.

a deeper question that almost moves away from the idea of there being a condition at all. speaking honestly, even though it was not always the case, my reality is perceived as the projection of imagination itself, a dream or illusion of a rigid and finite world of limitation within which to experience and extract meaning. The word 'reality' to me means relative to or the experience of how we relate to other and try to derive meaning from the interaction of forms. The more diverse the forms, the more meaning can be extracted. The more adverse the push of opposition, the greater the opportunity for overcoming and evolving, learning from the experience. "was the idea that you were born "a man in a woman's body" entriely uncaused and just some sort of abstract fact you found to be the case one day?" I never got the idea that I was born in the wrong body. I found myself in the body I found myself in and it acted as a catalyst for me to learn, adapt and evolve as the situation unfolded. it has been with me since the beginning of this experience. I don't reject the body I am experiencing rather I rejected the label or construct that I was conditioned to attach to it. I was not born with the label, I was taught it. The body didn't develop according to what is considered normal. it was just not running on all cylinders because it was being forced in one direction that it clearly wasn't suited to as it was going through its transition to maturity. There are complexities within our biology that we dont yet fully understand and maybe never will but I confirmed for myself at least one of those attributes found in males was a part of my biology. It can be interpreted in many ways and used by biased opinions but it is still there nonetheless whatever it means. I needed my body and identity to be coherent to relate to others or to have meaningful relationships with others. I missed critical stages of development as a child and a teenager and that transition into adulthood because of this. When I perceived that I had no way of meaningful interaction, no solid identity and no one was listening, I separated myself from the experience and nearly ended it as I was getting no meaning for it. Was it because of me being this way biologically or was it because of there being no appropriate social constructs reflecting my biology that I could conform to to justify my existence within the culture I found myself in? our world is full of probability and what is most probable seems to occur over and over to create some kind of coherence or adherence but there are those who lie on the curve where the chance of mutation is rare but possible. I did not suddenly decide the fact one day rather I slowly noticed it unfolding as I learned to relate to others and differentiate others and the story I was told of how we should be did not correlate to what I was experiencing. it started as an intuition that couldn't be explained away but it grew into a story to justify the existence of my being as I was. Of course, as my curiosity grew, I was not satisfied even with the answer I had settled on then, I continued to question and tear everything apart until I was staring infinity in the face and that was so profound that my little life story wasn't such a big deal anymore. The pain and suffering, the self-victimizing, all the lack of personal responsibility vanished and it was no longer a trauma but a lesson. It was a horrible experience to go through living feeling like that but I wouldn't change it for anything. The lessons I got about life from it were priceless. If I had been born into the same situation at a different period in history, I probably wouldn't have survived. "what makes you think that you have never experienced what it's like to be a woman? which aspect(s) of an intrinsically "female" experience do you think you never got in touch with/never understood?" I can only go off my own experience and that is when observing differences it boils down to conforming behavior. Woman itself is a construct with an expectation of conforming behavior that draws a whole host of actions and reactions when relating to others and most of that is constructed from within a culture. Some of it derives directly from biological abilities but most of it doesn't. peoples behavior towards you changes if they see you as one thing or another. I have long hair (always have) so sometimes I get mistaken from the back and when they realize it's a man on the front the behavior changes immediately. It's interesting to watch. Because I identify as a man and that is what is perceived by others, there is a specific interaction that takes place that conforms to expected behavior. As I don't identify or appear as a woman or even female, people don't interact with me as such and so I don't experience what it is to be on the receiving end of that behavior. We may be wired to interact that way or we maybe conditioned to interact that way I don't know( there are plenty of neuroimaging studies into this showing differences but I have no interest in it anymore). I don't include my childhood years or what should have been adolescents into that as I rejected the label of girl so much I actually cut off communication and stopped interacting. The anger and the shutdown was instant. This was so harsh that I literally have no childhood friends. My social circle started in engineering class. My mother would say I was a very quiet child that got worse during my teens I was a shell with no substance. There was almost no one there. nothing to interact with. I survived by immersing myself in composing music and staying in my room doing nothing but. There were a few years when I cut certain members of my family off and didn't interact with them at all either. If I think about female physiology, I can close my eyes and try to imagine what it is like for a woman to have sex but I can't. I have never experienced it and I have no reference of sensation in that way with which to imagine it. I'm not in touch with it physically and I'm not in touch with it mentally so while I would endeavor to understand It is a far cry from being able to experience it. I'm not fully biologically and I don't identify so I can't. I'm fully aware that if I go beyond all of that, the man/woman concept collapses and even the body is not identified, I am just being when I'm alone. Identity it seems to be a problem that occurs when relating to and interacting with others and how much you are attached to that identity increases or decreases the level of distress you experience when trying to justify it or not.

"Do you think you could have learned to accept your biological sex and pursued your life as a woman?" I do accept my biological sex and this is the reason that I am 'not' identified as a woman. I was not born biologically female or biologically male but somewhere on a spectrum between the two. I had several years of doctors medicating me with female hormones and anti-depressants, trying to force me to adopt the female gender but it ended in a suicide attempt. Had 'they' known or bothered to test my biological sex and accepted it, then this would never have happened. It turned out I had gonadal dysgenesis. Although I had female genitalia from the outside, I was underdeveloped on the inside. The uterus was not an average size, one ovary was missing and the other seemed normal. This was not linked to transgenderism, it was still considered underdeveloped 'female' and didn't explain the persistence in rejecting the gender role of a girl or a woman. The Irish doctor insisted that the low hormone levels were the reason I was feeling de-feminized and had continued to sweep it under the rug using hormones and antidepressants hoping it would just go away. It wasn't till I attended a gender team in Europe that I first heard the term Gender dysphoria or transgender. After my mother went to the health services executive arguing that adequate services were not available in our country to treat me properly, she came home and told me there was a doctor in London who was interested in my case. As far as I was concerned it was just another doctor and I had already given up so that's when I attempted suicide. I stabilized in the hospital and was let home but instead of going to London, I was passed onto the European gender team at a university hospital that was involved in ongoing studies into the condition. When I traveled there with my mother they ran the scans again and discovered a 3cm growth protruding from the ovary and it was not producing estrogen. After talking with the team for two hours, they diagnosed me with congenital gonad dysgenesis and Gender dysphoria (AKA transgenderism). I was immediately booked in for a full hysterectomy and ovaranectomy soon after that because of the possibility of oncogenesis/cancer). I was back in the hospital a week later having the surgery as the Irish hospital said they couldn't carry out the procedure by laparoscopy and would have damaged blood vessels and nerve ending needed for the genital reconstruction surgery in the future. They would not consider starting gender realignment surgery as it was protocol that I attend the clinic at least three times over the space of two years and satisfy that I was living as a male full-time while on testosterone with no adverse effects. They agreed that mine was an exceptional case but even still they had to follow their protocol. I started my HRT and went into education for an engineering-orientated discipline followed by university. I was 27 by the time all the surgery was completed. I also involved myself in a genetics study at the same clinic in the early 2000's to discover that I had a genetic mutation that is only found in biological males. I was not ever satisfied with the level of explanation about my condition, how it came about, what exactly was known about it so I started exploring that myself. I was interested to find out another study showing that the neurological structure of the brain was sexually dimorphic and that when they looked at transgender brains, they were the sex that person was claiming to be. I never bothered going for any more tests or research because I saw it as just more attempts at me just trying to justify my own existence. I knew what I was so it was time to get back to living it. "What if hormonal treatment didn't work properly and left you in a weird (ugly) shape?" "ugly" is subjective. As a teenage boy in my head, I was pumped full of female hormones and expected just to accept it. I couldn't have imagined anything worse than the way I felt. When I finally started HRT with testosterone, it took a few months but I started to feel great. Whatever way it was interacting with my body and neurology, it seemed to be working just fine and agreed with me. ( it's not the same for everyone.... I know that). On the female hormones, I was lucky enough that my body didn't change. all I needed was a little bit of liposuction on the chest but I didn't need anywhere near a full mastectomy. I was booked into a local hospital for gynecomastia removal (something usually done for men who have hormonal problems or serious weight issues) I was just lucky enough that I escaped any scarring, gland removal or sensation reduction in the nipple. everything is as normal as you would find on a man. Even the team in Europe asked me why my chest was normal because most transgender people in for surgery don't look like that. Most guys actually put on weight to hide breast tissue and require a good deal of surgery to remove it leaving visible scars. even if I were 'ugly', If I felt ok and was able to get up every day and function, the ugly would be beautiful to me. "You had penial reconstruction, right? does your penis work properly? Did you have kids?" Yes, I had 'forearm radial flap phalloplasty. This option was chosen from a few as it was the one the gender team had the best success rate with. I asked them to disclose their failure cases and the professor in charge openly handed me the case files so I could read them. It was an active university hospital that continued to monitor its cases as part of the classes for its students. There were 2 failure cases on file. One person had a complication because their blood vessels constricted and cut off circulation and the penis necrosed. They were a heavy smoker who had been warned about the risks but didn't do anything to kick the habit and they also didn't stop their HRT testosterone and let it run out before the surgery. Testosterone is a steroid and constricts the blood vessels so it is asked that patients stop their HRT before surgery. The second failure was caused by a friend of the patient who brought in a bottle of whiskey and the patient drank themselves into a stupor and ripped their appendage off. My surgery lasted 11 hours and I was in bed in the hospital for one month. I had to learn to use my bladder ( not penis) bladder again so it took a while to learn how to go to the toilet again. I think this was because I had a catheter and my bladder muscles had stopped working properly. There were no complications with my surgery. I had an erectile implant and testicular implants put in the year after. The erectile implant broke so it was replaced with a different type but that was the last time I had surgery. I haven't been back since and have had no complications. My penis works perfectly for all of its functions. My wife says that it looks like a circumcised penis and feels like any other normal penis. I told her to be brutally honest about it so no bullshit. She says it's indistinguishable from any other guy she's been with other than it's her favorite of the lot. If I hadn't told her about my condition she would never have known other than the lack of ability to have a natural erection but there are plenty of guys who can't and need various remedies for it. Shes is intrigued by the ball skin around the testicular implants as it's not a case of it looking real but that it is actually ball skin and she can't understand how they did that. I'm aware that there are surgeons out there that are not very good at recreating a penis so I could just be very lucky and landed with a surgeon with phenomenal skill. I have full erogenous sensation. I never experienced sexual sensation before I met my wife so it was a giant learning curve for my brain to recognize and respond to these. It was like teaching it to reconnect to a lost limb. It's hard to explain. I cannot and have never been able to have kids. My wife and I had discussed the possibility of finding other ways but when we were honest with ourselves, we decided we really didn't want any and are happy as we are.

If you perceive dogma in what I say then please let me know. This is as much a learning exercise for me.

"How your relationship with your wife works? (Emotionally/Sexually)" It works exactly the same way as any husband and wife but that depends on the individuals in any relationship and their level of maturity, respect and self-awareness. Physically it is the same with the exception that erection doesn't occur naturally and there is no possibility of pregnancy for us. ( there are plenty of men who experience the same exceptions and receive similar treatments to try and remedy this). I feel the tingling sensation prior to an erection so I know when it is happening. I have full erogenous sensation in my penis and I orgasm from that stimulation 'I assume' the same way any man would feel it (to be honest, I would not know what that is according to a male or a female specifically, all I can experience is my own sensations. Other than the descriptions we offer one another, there is no way to know you are truly feeling what another man feels in the same way). I have a semi-rigid erectile implant. I used to have an inflatable implant to mimic the process of an erection but the implant was prone to breaking. I did not want to keep having surgeries to replace it each time it broke. It's not perfect and it never will be but there is ongoing development happening with implants and also stem cell tissue/structure growth for men who have had amputation/cancers or underdevelopment ( I doubt this will be perfected in my lifetime ) I don't put so much importance into only one aspect of my life. if I were to focus intently on that as a defining factor of my identity, I would slump into a depression. I am more than just a penis, I am an entire experience of ones self relative to others. My own personal experience goes beyond the concept of a 'man' and can become confusing to the reader owing to my discrepency between the normal cultural concepts and experience of a trans person and pushing beyond that with consciousness work where the idea of a man and the underlying biology collapses altogether. "Do you feel desire for her as a man/woman? " Desire is something that I would have felt in my formative years. Something I would describe as being an inexperienced teenage boy influenced by porn, role models, and cultural expectations of what it means to be a man and I found that in hindsight to be damaging. When I brought those expectations into a relationship, I found myself imposing it on both myself and her and getting angry and hurt when she didn't react the way I expected her to. While desire is necessary for experience in life, it is ultimately unquenchable and selfish. Before that realization, I was trying to manipulate everything to conform to my own 'conditioned' expectations of reality and getting frustrated when that didn't happen. When I started doing my consciousness work, my desire to satisfy myself in a relationship eventually disappeared and was replaced with unconditional love. She does not need to do or be anything for me to love her. I accept her as she is and importantly I also extend the same acceptance to myself. Once I found satisfaction from within my own being, I found that I could extend that outward to anyone and anything giving me a sense of peace and contentment. I do not desire her as a man or a woman. I love her as consciousness. If I were a dimly aware human I would desire her as a man. I could not desire her as a woman as I have never experienced being a woman. As I had never been with anyone before my wife, I have no comparison to offer. However, my wife was with others before me and she says that when she met me, there was no difference between me and any sexually frustrated, immature teenage boy. She said the way that I thought and behaved was indistinguishable from any typical expectation of a man. When she slept with me she said there was no difference. But she said there was a distinct change when I started doing consciousness work. As I became more aware of my own damaging behaviors and the thought processes, I began to tear myself apart and rebuild myself. essentially having a complete personality change which upset her at first but realized I had become more respectful, compassionate, and understanding... but above all the biggest change was my own personal confidence, honesty and integrity. This was very attractive for her. She now says I'm more of a man than anyone she's ever been with and its not because of my penis. it's because of my behavior. Sex is not the foundation of our relationship nor does it determine a fault in me if she doesn't desire me rather it is something that naturally occurs out of our mutual love for one another( not human love/desire but unconditional love). When that love reaches a stage where we bond and both our 'selfs' melt away, we become one being experiencing itself in ecstatic bliss. She says she has never experienced this before now (of course she's biased but this is significant as she has had difficult sexual experiences in the past and a problem with intimacy as a result of her upbringing. She was not abused in any way rather it was a lack of physical embrace and support from her parents that left her with a long-lasting claustrophobia in intimate circumstances. This is now gone owing to the work I put into myself and has allowed her the space to open up and grow into her own sexuality). you cannot force someone to carry out your expectations. you have to accept them as they are and allow them to be. That is actual love. That space made her feel safe and unpressured and allowed her to heal herself. our relationship has grown stronger 10 fold. she did not marry me because I was a man or a woman but because I was now living as 'genuinely' me. "Sorry if I’m being extremely naive, but I really don’t know how your direct experience works." Don't apologize. There is nothing wrong with questions to gain knowledge and understanding. A person who takes offense to a question still has work to do on themselves.