Tranny here. I recently remembered Kafka's Before the Law, and I was upset by realizing the similarity between the man of the country side and my own experience being trans. I felt so stupid having read this years ago and not realizing it's relevance in my own life to use it as a lesson until today.
Do any other trans people feel like they can relate their experience being trans to the man's experience trying to gain entrance to the Law?
For anyone who's forgotten the story and anyone who's never read it, this is it:
>BEFORE THE LAW stands a doorkeeper on guard. To this doorkeeper there comes a man from the country and prays for admittance to the Law. But the doorkeeper says that he cannot grant admittance at the moment. The man thinks it over and then asks if he will be allowed in later. "It is possible," says the doorkeeper, "but not at the moment."
>Since the gate stands open, as usual, and the doorkeeper steps to one side, the man stoops to peer through the gateway into the interior. Observing that, the doorkeeper laughs and says: "If you are so drawn to it, just try to go in despite my veto. But take note: I am powerful. And I am only the least of the doorkeepers. From hall to hall there is one doorkeeper after another, each more powerful than the last. The third doorkeeper is already so terrible that even I cannot bear to look at him."
>These are difficulties the man from the country has not expected; the Law, he thinks, should surely be accessible at all times and to everyone, but as he now takes a closer look at the doorkeeper in his fur coat, with his big sharp nose and long, thin, black Tartar beard, he decides that it is better to wait until he gets permission to enter.
>>6561126
(Continued)
>The doorkeeper gives him a stool and lets him sit down at one side of the door. There he sits for days and years. He makes many attempts to be admitted, and wearies the doorkeeper by his importunity. The doorkeeper frequently has little interviews with him, asking him questions about his home and many other things, but the questions are put indifferently, as great lords put them, and always finish with the statement that he cannot be let in yet.
>The man, who has furnished himself with many things for his journey, sacrifices all he has, however valuable, to bribe the doorkeeper. The doorkeeper accepts everything, but always with the remark: "I am only taking it to keep you from thinking you have omitted anything."
>During these many years the man fixes his attention almost continuously on the doorkeeper. He forgets the other doorkeepers, and this first one seems to him the sole obstacle preventing access to the Law. He curses his bad luck, in his early years boldly and loudly; later, as he grows old, he only grumbles to himself. He becomes childish, and since in his yearlong contemplation of the doorkeeper he has come to know even the fleas in his fur collar, he begs the fleas as well to help him and to change the doorkeeper's mind.
>At length his eyesight begins to fail, and he does not know whether the world is really darker or whether his eyes are only deceiving him. Yet in his darkness, he is now aware of a radiance that streams inextinguishably from the gateway of the Law. Now he has not very long to live. Before he dies, all his experiences in these long years gather themselves in his head to one point, a question he has not yet asked the doorkeeper.
>He waves him nearer, since he can no longer raise his stiffening body. The doorkeeper has to bend low towards him, for the difference in height between them has altered much to the man's disadvantage. "What do you want to know now?" asks the doorkeeper; "you are insatiable."
>>6561126
>>6561141
(Continued)
>"Everyone strives to reach the Law," says the man, "so how does it happen that for all these many years no one but myself has ever begged for admittance?"
>The doorkeeper recognizes that the man has reached his end, and to let his failing senses catch the words, roars in his ear: "No one else could ever be admitted here, since this gate was made only for you. I am now going to shut it."
>>6561126
>implying I'm not too depressed to read books
>>6561285
I read it for the first time at 14. What's your excuse for that, anon?
>>6561307
I basically have no memory of that time, so who knows
>>6561151
I don't really get it
How does this relate to being trans?
explain your reasoning op
>>6561126
>not reading it in the original German
Dropped.
>>6561347
>>6561388
Well, first off, getting the feeling of frustration from the story is number one, that feeling the man had wasted his life. If you don't get that, you won't really understand. I think everyone who reads Before the Law gets that. Now, you are the man who's come to access the Law. Except for you the Law is transition/masculinity/femininity/inner peace, whatever the case may be. The gatekeeper represents to you the looming threats you see in transitioning. Your family and friends would abandon you, "I'll never be a real girl so transition isn't worth it anyway," you can't afford it, "Look at how bad the other gender has it, I think I'm fine right where I am," others would see you as a freak, etc. You stay to the side yet wish to be let inside. You think that if it weren't for this standing in your way, you would have already done it. In the end, you were supposed to go inside regardless of the guard at the gate. You have to brush off all these excuses you tell yourself to get to the other end, or you'll find that you've wasted your life, because in the end, this opportunity, your life, was meant only for you. It's either risking going against the gatekeepers or getting nothing at all.
In my case, I haven't waited until the end of my life, but I've definitely missed out on a lot by waiting until 20.
>>6561624
Polgbt isn't strong enough for most of /lgbt/ to learn German.
>>6561679
Ok that makes a lot more sense, I can see where you're coming from.
>Well, first off, getting the feeling of frustration from the story is number one, that feeling the man had wasted his life. If you don't get that, you won't really understand.
I think this is why I didn't get it at first, since I started transitioning at 20. It's relatively late and my skeleton has already gotten too big to ever reliably pass, but it doesn't feel like I've wasted much time because I only found out about transitioning when I was 17-18. I took action fairly quickly so it didn't seem that frustrating, even though all the challenges have been quite costly.
>>6561679
>Polgbt isn't strong enough for most of /lgbt/ to learn German.
Did you at least read it in German? Because IMO the translations are not perfect and much of his nuance can be lost, for sure.
>>6561812
I'm part of the "most." I have no use for learning German beyond this one thing either. If Germany produced something I consume a sizable amount of like my Chinese cartoons and manchild games, then it would be worth it.
Personally, I've been thinking Kafka was probably closet trans: the existential terror prevalent in his works is quite reminiscent of dysphoria. The Metamorphosis is by far the easiest of his works to link to the trans experience. Gregor Samsa is hated by himself and by his family after his "transformation". He obsesses over a picture of a woman, and acts ashamed of it; mainstream analysis claims this as a secret lover, yet why should he be ashamed of this? His family would very much welcome if their son had found himself a potential wife. His shame is likely not that it's his lover, but rather an ideal vision of himself. Furthermore, after her malformed brother is beaten to death the view shifts to Gregor's sister, whose life is now nothing but joy and freedom; here, Kafka idealizes and longs for the life of a cisgender woman.
But that's all just speculation, of course.
>>6562438
>OPs life goal is to become a tranny
lol what a faggot
>>6562438
What you say is interesting.
>mainstream analysis claims this as a secret lover, yet why should he be ashamed of this?
Wasn't this the period between the late 19th and early 20th centuries? I think it would make sense there's some shame behind having a partner you are not married to. Despite that, I don't think the picture of the woman he obsesses over being the image of his ideal self is indefensible.
>His family would very much welcome if their son had found himself a potential wife.
Wouldn't that be because they were all living off of his income and if he got himself a wife, children wouldn't be far behind? And naturally, he would stop supporting his parents and sister because he has his own family to support. The family was totally dependent on his job.
The most interesting thing you said was the sister's emergence into womanhood symbolizing a desire in Kafka to be a woman. I found that part of the story so strange, it just came out of nowhere. I definitely felt some kind of longing from the description when I read it, but I interpreted it more as Kafka sexualizing her nubility. It seems so plausible.
>>6562479
It wouldn't have been if transition were treated by society like getting asthma medication instead of some perversion against nature that if propagandized will brainwash children into making a decision they're not mature enough to make so a lot of barriers have to be put in place.
>>6561126
This is great. Thanks for posting that story Anon.
>>6561679
I always interpreted the story as that there was no inside to go to.
The promise of there being more guards is just the illusion of there always being higher grounds to reach for. The carrot in front of us or the sword dangling over our heads.
The man was not supposed to go inside because there was no inside to go into.
>>6561328
Just how long have you been depressed?
>>6561732
You don't get that feeling from reading the story, without taking into account my interpretation entirely? I thought that was a pretty basic emotional reaction to have to the tale before even considering anything.
>>6563960
You're welcome. So you found it relatable or was it just interesting?
>>6564020
>I always interpreted the story as that there was no inside to go to.
I can see how you would interpret it that way if you read it in the context of The Trial, but I think it would be rare to come to that conclusion when read on its own. How did you read it?
>The promise of there being more guards is just the illusion of there always being higher grounds to reach for. The carrot in front of us or the sword dangling over our heads.
But aren't the guards what actually dissuade him from continuing while the Law is the carrot? It doesn't seem like the guards represent some material possessions or positions of authority that the man could obtain. It seems like they're there to push him away, not draw him near.
>The man was not supposed to go inside because there was no inside to go into.
So what does the gate and shutting it mean to you? Like what does the gate stand for? Something like the window into materialism?
And I don't mean this to sound like "I'm right, you're wrong" and I apologize if it comes across that way. My interpretation's not perfect, and the Law is ambiguous.
>>6561126
Lol
>>6565224
>There were not too well hidden gay bars and lesbian bars
This is the only thing that I think really suggests some level of tolerance for LGBT people. The wealthy lesbians don't mean much, because we all know wealthy people have been doing things poor and middle class people would never get away with for a long time. The other lesbians who were notable but not wealthy might have been accepted, unless the news coverage about them was more like, "Look at what these strange women are doing!" I am aware of Lili Elbe, but perhaps what a bunch of surgeons do has anything to do with what the public is willing to accept. I haven't read much on Lili Elbe, however, so what do I know. I don't even know when IRBs became commonplace.
And I don't mean to sound extremely confrontational, I'm trying to play Devil's advocate.
>>6564796
What I mean by the carrot in front of our faces or the sword over our heads is where the push to change comes from.
Either as a promise of a treat or the freight that something will fall and kill us so we must push on.
The protagonist does neither, he only sits and observes and internally tries to make sense of the situation.
In the end he is told that this was all for him, so it really didn't matter how far he went or not.
I don't see it as them being there to push him away but to represent his fears that he must chose to confront or not.
I remember seeing a show when I was little and the episode was about a girl fearing her parents where one day going to die. She could not stop thinking about it or feel sad about it. In the end her dad said that they were in fact gonna die but so spending her time worrying about it would only rob her of experiencing anything but the worry and sadness before it happened.
I see this as the same thing. It isn't really important to move on past the guards, the important thing is whether you do or not you are content with where you are right now and let that decide if you push onward or not.
