How do you "become" a woman?

[Kathryn Martin]

As I am one of only a few here that transitioned fairly early, age 22, I really cannot understand how many of you could wait so long. For me, it was a driving need, a must, I simply had to transition as soon as possible or die. How did you manage to put off the intense feelings for so long? I understand family obligations, career obligations etc... Was it that you just did not realize it at that time?

I am going to wade here for a moment. The problem is that this is something where individual biography plays a significant role. Intensity of feelings about yourself and acting by way of transition to overcome the disconnect between your brain and your body are not necessarily a seamless cause and effect. Biographical events and issues as well as medical biography will invariably impact the progression from those feelings to transition completion. For some of us it is more a matter of surviving to transition and be whole.

So much to say - no inclination to say it here.

[LeaP]

So much to say - no inclination to say it here.

Thank God for that - and you know I mean that in the best possible way ...

[Jorja]

Thank you ladies for helping me understand just a little more.

[Frances]

I started seeing to doctors at around 15 years old to cure me from being transsexual. Based on my family's social rules and values, gender transgression was the worst thing possible. I saw doctors again at 20, at 28 and in my mid-thirties. I tried weighl-lifting, drugs, booze, anything to dull it. I went back to see psychiatrists at 39 to avoid suicide and finally see it through. I had no desire to transition. I stayed in therapy (individual and group) for five years. They had no intention on pushing towards transition.

I finally transtioned. It was never something I "wanted" to do or felt I was allowed to do. The intensity got stronger than my will to resist it.

[Aprilrain]

I thought by getting married and having kids would "cure" me.....nope that did not work.
Megan

I think we need billboards along the highways that say "no, marriage will not cure you!" It seems to be an epidemic.

[Frances]

LOVE your new avatar!

[JulieMcKie]

I think we need billboards along the highways that say "no, marriage will not cure you!" It seems to be an epidemic.

Add me to the list that thought marriage would be a cure. Now I see why most transition in their early 20's before marriage or after 40 when the kids are all old enough to look after themselves. 30's can be a very rough spot with family commitments while coming to terms with your gender identity.

[Kathryn Martin]

I don't think it's any different than becoming a Christian (or another religion) later in life. Or becomming gay or lesbian. We have life experiences that change us. Sometimes in small ways, sometimes in bigger ways.

I worked with a lady who married and had children, then at some point "jumped the fence" and became a lesbian. It happens.

Oh God give me patience. This is a terrible misunderstanding Krisi. You don't convert to female or gay because of some change in world views. It's not a conversion.

Perhaps. I would be interested in your expanding on this.

This is an interesting one. I sometimes wonder what suppression and repression really are. It's nothing of substance really it's a process or a mechanism but not in and of itself of value. Remember when I said about myself that I became the instrument of my own subjugation. I have no idea why we use these mechanisms to shovel untruth about ourselves into our own pocket. The interesting thing is that these are social mechanism, I reject the idea, that they are psychological. It is the fear of the freak when she stands in front of the mirror and someone might walk by behind and see what she sees.

[DeeDee1974]

I think we need billboards along the highways that say "no, marriage will not cure you!" It seems to be an epidemic.

This.

I actually wasn't satisfied with one failed marriage, and went in for #2. As a matter of fact I'm 99% sure ex-#1 doesn't even know about me.

And ex-#2 is the most supportive person in my life.

Despite liking kids, I do feel lucky not to have any of my own.

[Kimberly Kael]

As I am one of only a few here that transitioned fairly early, age 22, I really cannot understand how many of you could wait so long ... Was it that you just did not realize it at that time?

As others have said, I'm sure it's highhly individual. I had very little pressure to be masculine and got by as a fairly androgynous individual with my focus squarely on intellectual pursuits and romance. I can only imagine that the combined social pressures of being attracted to men and identifying as female would mean that straight trans women would feel a stronger push to transition earlier. As I was attracted to women I found the opposite pressure — I had enough apparent social conformance that transitioning would jeapordize both career and prospects in relationships.

Of course it got to me eventually, but I wouldn't say I had reached a "transition or die" level of pressure even by 40. Still, I could feel it coming and was relieved to be able to ride a wave of social progress for the LGBT community while transitioning.

[Dianne S]

I really cannot understand how many of you could wait so long [...] Was it that you just did not realize it at that time?

Yes, for me I really did not realize it at that time. I thought I was "just" a cross-dresser.

Actually, from about 29 to 46 years of age, I hardly cross-dressed at all. I underdressed and wore nighties to bed, but did not go out presenting as female, and I grew a beard. We were raising three kids and had other stresses in our marriage that occupied my time and energy.

I only resumed going out as female about a year ago, and I was hit with a giant fist of gender dysphoria about 9 months ago. It was unbelievably powerful and I cannot understand how it remained submerged all these years... I really can't.

This also gives me tremendous doubts about transitioning. Is my dysphoria "real"? All I know is that when think I decide I won't transition, I start feeling rotten again and the dysphoria kicks in and I go back to wanting to transition.

[LeaP]

...You don't convert to female or gay because of some change in world views. It's not a conversion.

...

This is an interesting one. I sometimes wonder what suppression and repression really are. It's nothing of substance really it's a process or a mechanism but not in and of itself of value. Remember when I said about myself that I became the instrument of my own subjugation. I have no idea why we use these mechanisms to shovel untruth about ourselves into our own pocket. The interesting thing is that these are social mechanism, I reject the idea, that they are psychological. It is the fear of the freak when she stands in front of the mirror and someone might walk by behind and see what she sees.

Krisi's comment might be phrased in an unfortunate manner, but hers is essentially another version (albeit a more positive one) of the mental disorder or mid-life crisis explanation. It substitutes a decision or conversion experience for the irresistible motivational aspects of the others. Another, less savory version of the decision approach is the depraved, fetish manipulator who transitions to deceive men. All of them presume taking on a non-native identity. Doubtless the version that is selected depends on what naturally appeals to the observer. Someone intimately familiar with the religious conversion experience could easily project that onto transition motivation.

Kathryn, I have little doubt that fear and social motivations are important triggers, no matter whether considered as explicit, external fears or internalized mores, but I can tell you of my own hard experience that suppression and compartmentalization are real psychological phenomena. Many things can corrupt the mind. Violation of norms and expectations are among the most powerful. What starts out as – or is at least rooted in - social mechanics becomes a coping mechanism becomes corruption. This is seen in endless behavioral, adjustment, criminal, social and psychological variations.

... Which is why it is so interesting to pose Krisi's little statement against your comments on suppression or Jorja's wondering statement. Minimally, all of them call identity into question, if not outright challenge it's reality. Krisi's is obvious. Jorja asks in good faith, but the question's foundation is common among young transitioners. To wit, how can what is real and strong be held back for so long. I.e., maybe it's not real or wasn't intense?

Yours is more subtle and turns the approaches above on their heads. It invalidates a psychological coping mechanism in order to preserve the reality of the identity! It's as if you are expressing a concern that suppressing and compartmentalizing identity invalidates it somehow. There have been hints in this thread already as to where some people might take that, including the notions of dual and mixed identity. I know you reject that for transsexed people, though you accept for the gender variant. So your response is instead to question the reality of the coping mechanism to preserve the primacy of one identity.

But it is not necessary to do so. I can tell you with 100% certainty, out of my own experience that it is possible to do something, dismiss it, and not remember it. To box things up as "me" and "not me", real and unreal, permanent versus transitory. To build up these behaviors to where they are entirely unconscious. And that when you do, they are no different than any other aspect of your personality. Fully real and fully functioning in your day-to-day life. Moreover, that it is possible to accept the existence a false persona that has real world consequences, hence it's own reality as part of your identity in some ways, while maintaining that there is a core or foundational identity that is primary and which, when freed, can wipe the other away almost as if it never existed.

Surely this is why, in the end, what you do is more important than what you think when it comes to identity. Although it is true that the sense of what you are is inborn and cannot be changed, it is also true that every manifestation of its existence, whether good or bad, cis or not, normal or twisted, or something else, is a real part of you. Put another way, that means my "false" persona was a necessary – and real – manifestation of female identity for me. Not that it was female in itself in any conventional sense, of course, but that it came out of the combination of a female identity, male physical circumstances, and my psychological makeup. The "man" is just as real, in a way, as the woman. But that does not mean I have a mixed gender identity.

[Donna Joanne]

As I am one of only a few here that transitioned fairly early, age 22, I really cannot understand how many of you could wait so long. For me, it was a driving need, a must, I simply had to transition as soon as possible or die. How did you manage to put off the intense feelings for so long? I understand family obligations, career obligations etc... Was it that you just did not realize it at that time?

To answer your questions Jorja, I too have been thinking about transition since I was 16, but unfortunately we didn't have all the resources that are available today. But I did pursue further knowledge the best way I could. I remember writing to the only transsexual that I knew about at that time, Jill Munro, who wrote a column for an adult magazine in the 70's. She had the distinction of being the first MTF transsexual who was able to break into "mainstream" adult videos. She did write me back a personal response, and after telling me how much it would cost to transition, I lost all hope. I also had no one else to turn to. I sought counseling, and was told by a psychologist that "I should focus on finding a nice girl and put such thoughts out of my mind" and "that I was 17 and sexually confused". So three marriages and five kids (two bio and three step) later, I have finally been able to get the help and treatment I need to transition. My first marriage ended because she was a hetero woman and I could never be the man she wanted. My second marriage ended because she was a bisexual leaning more toward lesbian woman and I wasn't the woman she wanted. My current marriage is built on tenderness and love, and I feel quite sure it will survive my transition.

So this is my reason for not beginning transitioning until now. I can't speak for anyone else but myself, but I'm sure there are those out there who have a much more tragic story than mine. Not asking for sympathy, just wanted to honestly answer Jorja's question.

[Rachel Smith]

When I look back on it Jorga it makes me feel like crying, I was so miserable and unhappy.

Like others said fear was a huge one, along with not understanding what was really wrong. I just thought I was a sick, perverted, messed up person, that everyone would hate if they found out about me.

This would describe my experience. I mean who wants to be perceived as a sick pervert and I too felt that's what I was. So I succumbed to societies pressures to be normal. I found out normal for me is not normal. It makes me sad too to when I realize I spent most of my life sad and depressed not being able to fit into a mold. I have been internally happy or truly happy, whatever you want to call it, for almost 2 years now and it still feels new to me.

Edit:

Thought marriage would fix it, NOT. Don't get me wrong I loved my ex and honestly still do and wish her only the best. If I had been honest about all this we both would have been better off just being friends.

[Kaitlyn Michele]

Lea that is how I experienced compartmentalization and denial..
I LITERALLY was not consciously able to think about my nature or my behavior...even though pretty much my entire internal private dialog was about being a girl..

I would see a transsexual woman on television or read about it in a magazine and I would not connect the dots from her to me even though I squirmed all night thinking about it, even though I earmarked the page in time magazine about some teacher that transitioned in 1972 and read the article almost every day for years!!!... and even tho sometimes I would wake up at 3am and put on my moms gowns (which she kept in the back of my closet!) and walk outside... then wake up the next morning smiling and not thinking about the craziness of it..

Another concrete example was I recall being out on a business lunch and we had a window table and two transgendered people walked by and went into lane Bryant... they didn't look very good and the guys noticed and there were lots of hearty laughs at them..
haha... anyway, it wasn't that I did or didn't chime in with their derisive comments...it was that I didn't think of myself... their laughter didn't make me feel bad.. it didn't apply to me...I was blocked...my nature was locked up tight in a box... the box was locked soooo tight .... now I think of it and it makes me sad..

I lived that way until I was in my 40's.. its hard for me to believe it myself so I can actually understand why others would not believe it..

I have spent time going back and trying to figure it all out but I don't think its time well spent..

[Kathryn Martin]

Yours is more subtle and turns the approaches above on their heads. It invalidates a psychological coping mechanism in order to preserve the reality of the identity! It's as if you are expressing a concern that suppressing and compartmentalizing identity invalidates it somehow. There have been hints in this thread already as to where some people might take that, including the notions of dual and mixed identity. I know you reject that for transsexed people, though you accept for the gender variant. So your response is instead to question the reality of the coping mechanism to preserve the primacy of one identity.

But it is not necessary to do so. I can tell you with 100% certainty, out of my own experience that it is possible to do something, dismiss it, and not remember it. To box things up as "me" and "not me", real and unreal, permanent versus transitory. To build up these behaviors to where they are entirely unconscious. And that when you do, they are no different than any other aspect of your personality. Fully real and fully functioning in your day-to-day life. Moreover, that it is possible to accept the existence a false persona that has real world consequences, hence it's own reality as part of your identity in some ways, while maintaining that there is a core or foundational identity that is primary and which, when freed, can wipe the other away almost as if it never existed.

Maybe I did not express myself very elegantly. Because what you describe in the second of the quoted paragraphs is nothing strange to me. In thinking about and feeling my way through all of the untruth I encountered in maintaining the survival of my self, I always experienced the mechanisms, the strategies, the tactical moves, that attempted to ensured survival in the most fundamental sense. I have always had the inability of not seeing or suppressing because of this procedural awareness. I used to call it my laughing double, who would pour sarcasm and contempt and rejection on any attempt to fudge the outlines or veil the reality.

Anyway, you and I, we need to talk more about this .......

[Marleena]

Just put me down as DUHHH. I only knew "I wanted to be a girl" back then and had no idea it was GD. I wish I had the clarity some of the ladies here had. I couldn't make sense of it all on my own. Only with the help of a therapist in the last couple years do I know what's going on, finally.

[Jorja]

Again, Thank You all for your responses to my question. I am learning a lot about late transition.

[KellyJameson]

Forget the physical body for a moment and ask the question of whether gender identity is fixed or fluid.

It's possible that it is both. For me it was fixed as female, evidenced by the pictures I drew at five years old specifically showing that all girls had a penis because I was a girl and so were they so they must have a penis.

At five years old it did not occur to me that I was anything but a girl but I had the genitalia backwards.

Of course this caused great consternation and hand wringing among the adults who made it clear I was not a girl because I did not have a vagina.

This opened the door to me looking for magical solutions to change my body to "be a girl" because "I was a girl"

My identity did not change but only my need to conform to adult definitions of what makes a girl a girl. I knew what I was as my identity so according to adults than it was only my body that was wrong not my identity.

My female identity was always there and extremely persistent in it's need to be acknowledged but so was my need to survive by avoiding social ostracism or putting my life at risk physically.

Ostracism is experienced by the brain the same way physical pain is. You will do whatever you have to do to avoid it until you transcend the pain experienced by it.

People move toward transitioning partly by how they learn to cope with pain ( by their relationship to and with pain). It is your relationship to pain that significantly defines the path taken in relation to transitioning. You are always trying to take the path of the least amount of pain experienced (pain avoidance) and why so many are driven to the edge before they make the plunge into transitioning.

Transitioning is not a choice but always defined by the circumstances that forces people to choose between different forms of pain, motivated by pain avoidance.

You transition or don't according to the dictates of pain, not choice. Contrasted against the will to live or the desire to die. You live with a sense of your own imminent destruction if you cannot fiqure out a solution soon but than seek escape from this realization by going into a blank non-thinking state.

You do not choose to transition or not but only choose between different forms of suffering as "pain management"

Getting married is a form of pain management. Using alcohol or drugs or sex is a form of pain management. Repression is a form of pain management. Until the identity is recognized and brought into physical being so that it can be lived, you only have "pain management"

Not living your identity equals pain and you pay in pain to transition. It leaves the person in the paradoxical position of suffering and than needing to suffer even more to escape the suffering. The whole thing seems like an exercise in insanity because you are going against the instinct to avoid pain such as risking humiliation or social ostracism.

The pain of unlived identity is held in tension against other forms of existential pain so the person lives in a perpetual state of crisis that clouds the mind causing confusion making the conscious interpretation of the pain almost impossible.

The subconscious seeks relief and understanding and will be drawn to answers. One form is the interest the person takes in those who transition. The mind wants understanding and relief but this is contrasted against the primordial fear of survival and avoidance of further suffering.

Gender dysphoria and life circumstances create a trap leaving the person constantly living between a rock and a hard place.

It is not about "becoming a woman" as creating a gender identity because the identity is already there but simply developing a healthy relationship to pain "as physical transition" to the point necessary and possible for each person instead of a unhealthy relationship to pain as alcoholism, repression, depression, anixety, suicide,ect..

Transsexuals are notoriously self destructive or at a minimum unstable for a reason.

I leaned toward being very unstable but largely avoided self destructive acts and I consider myself one of the lucky ones.

Those who have kept their gender identity fully conscious since early childhood did so because they avoided painful experiences that would have forced their identity underground into their subconscious. They probably had a safe environment where mine was very unsafe so I hide the truth.

The pain of not living their gender identity remained felt and known (conscious) because of the absence of other forms of pain that would have forced the mind to choose between various painful experiences resulting in "pain management"

Every transsexual practices some form of pain management so it becomes learning how to have a healthy form of pain management which usually means some form of transitioning.

Transitioning is escaping from pain by going into it.

The "becoming" is the changes brought about by the changes in attitude and relationship to and what they think is pain.

An example is the humiliation or rejection (pain) many go through to live their gender identity but yet they feel strong in face of this humiliation and rejection. Their lived identity protects them in that by living it they are experiencing less pain so can now tolerate more.

There are many varables leading down the path to transitioning but some aspects of the path must be walked by everyone.

A series of epiphanies that shapes what they are willing to suffer or not, changing how they manage and relate to pain and even what they define as painful.

[Aprilrain]

LOVE your new avatar!

Thanks

[Pink Person]

Cisgender men and women don’t change their gender. Transgender people are the only ones who sometimes transition from one relative transgender type to another. In addition, transgender transitions are never as dramatic as they are commonly described. We overstate the changes to validate our new selves and to validate the process of making changes. These are things that don’t require objective validation.

The sad truth for transgender people is that they are usually virtually invisible to themselves and everyone else. This can be a significant source of cognitive dissonance. We want to see our true selves and have them seen by other people. It’s a perfectly natural impulse that most people don’t have to struggle with very much. How we manage this problem varies from person to person. It doesn’t matter how you cope with the problem or when you cope with it as long as you are satisfied with your efforts and the outcome.

[Rianna Humble]

Pink, your assertions prove once and for all that you have absolutely no understanding of transsexuality.

This is not the "transgender" forum, and your words add nothing but to belittle the very real experience of a large proportion of the membership of this forum.

[Kathryn Martin]

Cisgender men and women don’t change their gender. Transgender people are the only ones who sometimes transition from one relative transgender type to another.

I am sorry but I have no idea what you that means when you say that transgender people transition from one transgender type to another.

In addition, transgender transitions are never as dramatic as they are commonly described. We overstate the changes to validate our new selves and to validate the process of making changes. These are things that don’t require objective validation.

Again, this makes absolutely no sense to me. What was the purpose of making this statement? - and in this context?

The sad truth for transgender people is that they are usually virtually invisible to themselves and everyone else. This can be a significant source of cognitive dissonance. We want to see our true selves and have them seen by other people. It’s a perfectly natural impulse that most people don’t have to struggle with very much. How we manage this problem varies from person to person. It doesn’t matter how you cope with the problem or when you cope with it as long as you are satisfied with your efforts and the outcome.

This is applicable to every person living on this planet that it is to the point of being trite.

[Frances]

I did not change my gender. I changed my sex. Then again, I am not a "transgender person."

[Jamie2]

I read all of the items in this thread, and could quote many of them word for word to tell my story.
I have just started this journey with the proper medical consults and DRs. guidance.

I too am a late in life transitioner, and am starting to feel better about myself now that I understand whats what.
Stay safe, and have FUN !!!