šŸ³ļøā€šŸŒˆ Paulakreuzer 2.0 is out now

Dear community,

I want to announce something personal to you all: I am a Transwoman!
It took a while for me to find out myself and then the last years to find the courage to come out to my friends and family.

I just started hormone therapy (one week before the #efct17), but until my appearance changes I will still live as a man in public.

But you girls and guys are more like friends than strangers so I feel comfortable coming out here. :slight_smile:

For technical reasons I wonā€™t change my username, but Iā€™ll change my profile pic, Title and full name to make it as clear as possible.
So please #callmepaula from now on. :slight_smile:

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Congratulations! :slight_smile:

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Hello Paula,

maybe I could still say welcome to the forum, although you are on it way longer than me :wink: And keep up the excellent work you are doing here.

Wishing you all the best and admire your courage to post this online.

Cheers,
Bert

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Hereā€™s to the good new days!

All the best on your way, Paula. :slight_smile:

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Wouldnā€™t some admin be able to change that in the forum database or something to that end, so nothing would change for the account apart from the username? Not an adminā€™s dream job I guess, but you do so much for this community ā€¦

All the best for you, Paula, keep up the courage :+1: !

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Cheer up, Paula, and congratulations! Receive my warm encourage for this special time for you, :blush:

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First of all thanks everybody for the kind words! :blush:

We discussed that option with @Douwe and he even offered to pull an all-nighter changing each reference ( @paulakreuzer, quotes, etcā€¦ ) manually.
I looked and asked on meta.discourse and there is an automatic way, where Iā€™d create a new account, transfer all postsā€™ ownerships to the new account and then run some scripts to change all referrals. But itā€™s quite error-prone and messes e.g. with the forum-stats.
I donā€™t think itā€™s worth it. Itā€™s just a username after all. Iā€™m just happy that once the time has come I can legally change my name easily.

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You are also my friend. However, I have to say that the situation itself is strange to me and makes me feel uncomfortable. It will take me more time to get used to it. I hope you can explain it to me we can talk about it in person at some point.

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I can understand your strange feeling, especially as you know her for quite some time; but I really donā€™t understand what there is to explain.
Maybe itā€™s just the wording that is bothering me and you are interested in Paulas story; which is a different thing. (I just hope, I make my point, as English obviously is not my native tongue.)
To me Paula is the same one she ever was and in my opinion wouldnā€™t need any explanation, even if would have known her since childhood. Seriously.

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Congrats Paula.
Can imagine the ā€œstruggleā€ has been hard for quite sometime, so really great you have taken the step to be who you feel you are.
<3
PLUR

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Hello Paula! Congratulations from my side as well. I hope you transformation journey makes you very happy!

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Thanks for speaking out. Oh I wish for a world where there wouldnā€™t be a need to ā€œexplainā€, but just tell. Love, Erik

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Congratulations Paula! And thank you for sharing your path with us :slight_smile: I wish you a wonderful new life!

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Congrats and I am happy this is a safe place for you to speak out.

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I love these times that we are living in where people can become their real selves. So: Yay, Paula!

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I want to paraphrase the motto of friends of Framasoft (ā€œLa route est longue, mais la voie est libreā€, www.framasoft.org) : the road is long, but you decided that your way was free. Have a good trip, Paula!

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Big respect to you Paula, I hope that your transition takes you to a happy place :smile:

@Stefan : there are lots of good sites/vids on the internet about dumb things not to ask trans people (it might help reduce the uncomfortableness)

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@srfk, Paula and Stefan know each other quite well and I donā€™t think Paula will make a problem of it. I understand Stefanā€™s post, I also donā€™t really know what to think of this. I have only met, and thus only remember, Paul ā€œ1.0ā€. I will probably have peace with it the next time I meet her, but until that I feel a bit confused because she isnā€™t the Paul I thought she was. At least, that is how it feels for me as someone who met Paula a few times.
For now, @Paulakreuzer, I wish you all the best. Like I said to you in the ICE train, I still hope to meet you again next year, and please forgive me if I have in my ignorance said anything that hurts you.

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@everybody: Again thanks for the kind words.

@AlbertJP No, not at all! Iā€™m not hurt.
I completely understand that itā€™s confusing, especially for people who have gotten to know me as Paul, though I bet it doesnā€™t compare to the confusion I felt before I discovered my real identity.

Oh and to everybody who has gotten to know me: Just because Iā€™ll change my appearance and name doesnā€™t mean Iā€™ll change. I am an will continue to be the same person Iā€™ve always been. The biggest difference youā€™ll notice will probably be that Iā€™ll feel more comfortable in my skin (if my environment doesnā€™t make me uncomfortable).

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Congrats. Enjoy life have fun. Feel free and feel you! All the best

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