So it is hopeless!

[Rachel Smith]

So do you desire to stay married because you don't think you can support yourself or because you dearly love your wife? Be honest with yourself when/if you answer. Do you not think she will feel used if/when you get to a point that you can support yourself then say OK I am cashing out of this relationship now?

I have been there lied to myself and her for 27 years. It didn't end nicely.

[KellyJameson]

It constantly amazes me the power that clothing has. It can be used to build a presentation that teleports you into a completely different life.

Think of the clothes as being used to give expression to your emotional energy and the need to express and feel this energy.

You many want to read about the power and psychology of uniforms.

Crossdressing is donning a uniform to take you to another place. The question is why you want to be in this place. What do you experience and why do you desire or need this experience.

In my opinion crossdressing is not dangerous to transsexuals as that danger of distorting their gender identity but it is very dangerous to men as to those who identify as such.

In crossdressing you can find yourself through the clothes or lose yourself depending on who and what you are and where you are going or want to go because of this.

I think crossdressing can be an expression of sexuality for some. A safe way for a "straight male" to not be "so straight" by being "feminine sexually".

It is clear that for many crossdressing is highly sexed and sexual and they have an energy in them that needs the attention that presenting feminine gives them. Is it gender identity or sexual identity or both intertwined?

Sex is extremely powerful and can influence gender identity just as gender identity can influence sex. They act on each other making each difficult to understand in relation to the other.

For me there is a strong connection between my sexual energies and my gender identity. Both were created by the same mind and this mind was born to be this way in that I have always felt these particular emotional energies flowing through me.

This energy is what compelled me to transition just as it has compelled me to do many things.

It is both sexual but also something else. I think of it as my natural temperament or disposition.

It affects how I move, how I think, how I feel, what I'm interested in or not. It touches everything. All my relations including those relations that have nothing to do with people such as my relationship to nature and music.

My gender identity was born out of this energy and it also has acted on me sexually.

I am naturally seductive but have little interest in actively being the seducer. I draw those I'm interested in to me instead of moving toward them directly. It is a very indirect energy.

Words will confound you when trying to understand your actual gender identity because the identity is created out of something else long before there were words.

Gender identity comes out of something "primal" that the identity springs out of and is built on top of. it is not conscious but comes out of the deepest recesses of the individual before there was ever a sense of the self as being separate.

In my opinion it comes out of the same place sex does but is not sex but something else.

It is why sex does not define it but you can partially find and understand it by thinking about sex.

[MarieTS]

Anne, at this point I think you just have to make a choice and go for it--no looking back! If you cannot feel one hundred percent confident in transitioning dont do it. I straddled the fence too long. I should have done what I instinctively knew to be right, but I straddled the fence and in so doing only irritated my unwanted nuts instead of removing them--please forgive the gross play on words.
But at least now I can find solace knowing that this infliction gave me the assurance of who I am, and the appreciation of being female I might not have had as a born gg. I always regretted being born into the wrong bod, but soon I will be able to appreciate fully who I am. If you TR., perhaps you can share in that realization. In closing, dont just look at the negative side of Dysphoria, you'll go crazy. Instead, rejoice in the arrival of YOU!

[Kathryn Martin]

A. Did I think I should have been a girl because that first time I wore womens clothes it felt fun and exciting. Or did it feel fun and exciting because back when I was 5 it felt right in my mind that I should be this way.

B. Did I feel that I should have been a girl back in first grade because I felt they had it easy and did not get into trouble and it seemed like I always was doing something wrong. Or is it because in my mind I just felt I should be a girl.

C. Did I secretly wear female clothes because I liked it and wanted to escape my male life, maybe become someone else? Or did I secretly wear female clothes because It felt right in my mind?

D. Did I secretly wear female clothes because I was always trying to escape some type of conflict? Or did I secretly wear female clothes because my mind was telling me that this is who I really am.

E. Did I secretly wear Female clothes to eliminate stress and take myself away from my current life? O did I secretly wear female clothes because it eliminates stress and that elimination of stress came from my mind because I felt correct in myself when dressed as a female and trying to hide the male.

Do you really need us to answer those questions. I know, I know they were rhetorical. There is a lot of flirting with ideas in them, a lot of drama rolling around in your head. I think you have fallen prey to a most beloved idea. You should not transition if you have to ask these, albeit rhetorical question here.

[Kaitlyn Michele]

You are well served to get serious.

The questions you asked are not the important questions.

The important questions revolve simply around your nature and those questions can never be answered in an objective way... the feelings of GD you have now are what you are working with and its leading to you to consider the meaning of all those thoughts in your head.... surely your past informs your present, but you can't go back and really get the answers you seek..

what you are going through is really really hard. there is no benefit to sugar coating it. transition can be brutal for those us that are lets just say "not as young"... face up to that and see if that is more daunting than living how you are now?

I think Kathryn made a really sharp point to you. I like how she said it...have you fallen prey to a most beloved idea??? Remember that a female life is better because you are a female, not because its "better" to be female or its "worse" to be male.

What do you think?? Whatever you think, its good fodder for you therapy but i'd urge you to focus on actionable questions..

[Veronica_Jean]

I have to agree with my old friends Kathryn and Kaitlyn.

This is one of the most difficult things you will face in your life. But if you are able to embrace who you have always known you are, it gets easier. Frightening to the core, but for me I found peace. That was what drove me to continue..... Stopping the internal questions, struggling and fighting.

I am by no means a model for publication, but I sometimes do feel attractive and flirt with the guys at work. They flirt back so even as much as I can't see it, they moust see something worth flirting with.

Veronica

[Anne Elizabeth]

You all have valid points there. I guess I was searching to find if others have had similar thoughts. Yes I have been in counsoling for quite a while. My very nature has always been to find out all I can before making a decision. In this situation I am positive that this is a ride and figure out some as it goes. I like your points Kathryn and Kaitlyn. Very valid and thought provoking. I know I am a woman at heart and really desire to become the person I should have been all along. I guess by asking and thinking I am still in the process of making sure I am right about myself. More likely I am working on the final stages of admitting to myself what I have to do and accepting the reality that I will have to let my past go and move on to the future. I also know the other problem is letting go of my relationship with my wife and accepting that it will not go any farther. All very tough things to do. I wish I could erase the thoughts and dissonance in my head. I will have to find something to fill the void and well see what the next year shall bring.

Thanks

[Kaitlyn Michele]

I have to say what you are saying Anne rings true to me.

You are in the process of "finding out", and I have been through it. I denied my transsexuality until the very end, and believe it or not its so ingrained in me that sometimes I think to myself if I am the only non transsexual to feel so great about their transition.LOL...I have no rational doubts but I do have irrational feelings that come from the deep feelings I have about myself.

Even if we all gave you detailed answers to the questions, it wouldn't mean anything. You'd get every type of answer anyway.

I urge you to focus on actions and tangibles. What can erase the thoughts? How important is it to you to erase the thoughts? What are your options for filling in the void... Don't wait for the year to bring it to you.

[Contessa]

I have always believed you grow into your name. Who are you now? If you can't call me Contessa I can not answer you that's my name. I call people by their name or the one they want to be called by so. Isn't that who you are, when you look in the mirror who do you see. Ann with two n's and one e. Is that right. You are who you are now not who you used to be you may have used that other name but do you still need it. I don't believe you need to read this I just feel myself I have to say it.

Tess

[Veronica_Jean]

While I know it feels there will be no connection between your future and you past, that often isn't true. I think closer to the truth is the further will be different than we expected and dreamed it would be. The relationship you envisioned to have with your wife will change. Will it become a void? Perhaps. But people often surprise us when confronted with the reality that this is not something that can be changed about us.

I believe many of us would have loved to take something that just made us comfortable as we were. But there isn't anything that does that. The choice you get to make is continue in the fight, (which you likely will never stop fighting), or pursue a path that has a chance for peace. Once you settle down inside, then dealing with the outside is less daunting. All the same problems and issues of life remain, but we can face them with this on behind us.

There is nothing to be gained by revisiting what you already know can't change. in your own words you said "I know I am a woman at heart" and that says it all.

hugs

Veronica

[Jadine]

I just want to be ME!

Have you figured out who "ME" is? Are you Anne, or are you a husband and the father to your kids? Can you still be yourself without having to change your body/lifestyle or potentially losing everything that you have created so far? Why could you not support yourself if you transition? Are you not supporting yourself now?

These are tough questions I know, and I imagine that you have worried them a great deal over the past several years. My guess is that these are the questions that countless others on these forums have worried, some, literally to death. Nevertheless these are the questions that you, and only you, can and must answer.

[joanne2b]

Hi Anne,

Your last sentence summed it all up in my case, having read through your 'dilema' which mirrored my life from just about the same age as yourself I in the end had to make a decision (after nearly 60 yrs) all of the feelings and yearning will not go away we may put it on the back burner of our mind but it will always be there. Now with a 36b bust no prizes for guessing my decision, a decision I had to make with time running out !! and time to fully enjoy being what I had yearned for for so many years, a woman, no regrets I am ME!

[PaulaQ]

Anne,

Of course it isn't hopeless, but that depends very much on your definition of hope.

We are powerless over our gender. It is a core part of our identity, and for many of us, to ignore it is to face unimaginable mental and emotional anguish. It will make your life insanity.

What you need to do is really face who you are with rigorous honesty. Are you a man? Are you a woman? Are you somewhere in between? (Unfortunately, this is a possible outcome, and it is very confusing.) Really, though, what made it hard to be honest with myself about who I was, was a few very unpleasant facts:
1. Most of the world reduces people to their genitals. If you have a penis, you are male. If you have a vagina, you are female. End of discussion.
2. Most if the people I met in my life felt very strongly that any variance from #1 was intolerable.
3. I bought into these lies, and told myself "I must be a man!" And I did everything I could to convince myself that this was the truth.

But none of that was the truth, and in my case, the lie was literally killing me. I'd tried to destroy myself at least a couple of times during my life. The first time with alcohol 25 years ago. And then with much more direct methods last year.

I had reached a breaking point.

I realized, in a moment of clarity, that my life was unmanageable not because I was a man who fantasized about being a woman, but rather that I was, and always had been, a woman with a terrible physical handicap - I had a male body. My life was insane not because I found comfort in wearing women's clothes, but because I was a woman trying desperately to convince the world, and myself, that I was a man.

Only you can answer these questions about who you really are. Only you can know how miserable you really are. I would caution you that I found much of the advice I received on this forum from many sources to be singularly unhelpful. Many here asserted, even as I attempted my own life, that I must simply be a man with a fantasy.

NO ONE but you can answer these questions about yourself. We can share our opinions and our personal experiences, but only you truly can know what's in your mind, and who you really are.

As for hopeless, far from it.

For me, transition was really the only course that offered any hope. I had reached a point where my life as a man was intolerable. Death was preferable over a life like that. It would've been a relief.

I won't kid you that this is any easy path. It isn't. Many people who profess to love you would ultimately rather see you suffer, or die, than face the truth about who you are. You can lose relationships, employment, material things, and sadly even your life for choosing to be your true self.

Externally, my life as a man was great. My marriage was great. My kids were great. I was materially well off. And yet I spent the last six months of my life as a man trying to find ways to end my life where my life insurance would pay off - so that my family could keep all the stuff, but the pain would stop.

I'm happy now, for the first time in my life. I've lost a lot - a home, a marriage, children, friendships. I'm actually one of the luckier ones. But I am living the life I always should've lived. The friends I have are better, and more genuine than the ones I had before. I know who I am for the first time in my life. My life has purpose and meaning. And it is finally MY LIFE!

There is hope, Anne. There are no promises, but there is hope.

[Michelle789]

Hoping for reincarnation? if you KNEW you would come back as a girl, with full memories of how much you wanted to be a girl, would you want to wait 30 more years?

Yeah, I can totally relate. I wished I could die to be reincarnated as a woman, pretty persistently from late 2011 through 2013. And even if I knew I would be reincarnated as a girl in my very next life, the thought of having to wait potentially 50-70 years terrified me. There was just no way I could wait that long to be a girl.

To make matters worse, what if there is no reincarnation?

What if you come back as a male in the next life? What if you came back with all these gender feelings, but in a repressed country with no opportunity to transition or even cross-dress? That would suck, wouldn't it?

I placed all my power and trust in the psychic. A psychic who couldn't address my gender issues. Who told me to "man up". Who told me that I have more male energy. Who told me that I will be reincarnated as mostly male lifetimes in the future. Who told me that gender confusion comes from the devil. Who clearly had no interest in trying to help me. So forget reincarnation. I realized that I needed to eliminate the psychic out of my life, and start taking real steps towards my transition. Like joining this forum, or seeing a therapist, and joining a TG support group. Oh and actually leaving the house dressed as a woman. And eventually starting hormones.

This is the path for me. It may not be the path for you, but if you have serious gender dysphoria, than there is hope. Even though it is a difficult path. Even though you might lose a lost. There is hope. No matter what your age is. It is never too old nor to young to transition. If you need to transition, then let nothing stop you.

If you're just a crossdresser, than my hats are off to you. Go drink like a gentleman!!!

[Kaitlyn Michele]

So some time has passed...have you taken any advice?? have you made any progress? are you feeling a little better or worse? have you come to any realizations or had a moment of clarity??

This is what life is about... moving forward, growing...succeeding sometimes, failing others...it can come in fits and starts and sometimes we get so caught up in the existential madness of how we experience our gender that we forget that we are still alive and still have a meaningful future if we take steps to procure it...

[Anne Elizabeth]

Kaitlyn:
I believe that I came to the point of feeling hopeless in my belief that through out all my life I have felt like I was a female and wanted to become a female. I had spend uncountable hours researching in university library stacks trying to figure out myself. All along I have know that I should have had a different body. Unfortunately I was born this way. So after all the thought, all the pain, all the discovery I got to the point thinking that there was no way out. In a sense I have felt hopeless in my fight against changing into the woman I have always felt I should be. Hopeless, because I don't what to loose my wife which I have mostly already have. Hopeless in that I am afraid of loosing the financial security of divorces retirement. Hopeless that I really want to get back into full time art. And really hopeless because I took on a part time job approximately 2 years ago in order to finance and possible become financially independent of my wifes' income. A job which turned into management which allows myself approximately no free time. Therefore, I also have a feeling of being trapped in that I have to work to finance everything and trapped in a job that only provides money and if I were to continue until retirement all I would have left in retirement and quite possible no physical health left. I will solve the job problem shortly because I will be giving my notice at the end of the year. I will sorta solve most of my problems in the first few months of next year. I will spend some time cleaning out and cleaning up our house here getting it ready to rent, Moving my workshop 6 hours away from here and moving back in with my wife as we really don't want a divorce and want to live together. However, in order to do that I will need to rein in my feelings of wanting to become a woman and how i present myself in the community. ( why because my wifes' occupation is a visible community wide and having a openly transgender spouse would not mix well with that at all.)
Basically It all stems on what do I give up and at what cost. My daughter feels I am making a mistake. I understand that totally. I can move in with her and my grandson and live as I want and have my art work alongside it. In essence I can have it all by just moving in with her but my wife. Sounds promising but as I look at it form this side. My daughter has a life of her own and needs to develope that with out mine being around. She has been totally enthusiastic in my plight but something doesn't feel right in this either.
Can I move back in with my wife and live a somewhat double life? I hope so. I think things can be much better on most fronts with both of us knowing who I am and what I am like, and why. My energy has to be spent developing a better relationship with my wife in this situation. I know it can because there will be total openness and not the hiding and sneeking around as well as her fully understanding my situation rather than her thinking I am a broken pervert for wanting to be a female.

Will it work? I don't know.
Can It work? I don't know.
Should I do I? Probably not.
Do I have to do it? NO
Do I want to do it? I want to try.
What will I lose? Maybe a year and some money saved up?
What will I gain? Maybe a relationship with my wife that should have been there years ago.
And if it doesn't work I will fully know that I should have transitioned and done my own thing.
O what a tangles web we weave.
Anne

Ps. Thanks to all who have presented and shared their feelings and experiences. It helps to know that I am not the only one. Yes I know I have to make my own decisions. I just appreciate all the input from all of you ladies.
Thanks
Anne Elizabeth

[PaulaQ]

Can I move back in with my wife and live a somewhat double life? I hope so. I think things can be much better on most fronts with both of us knowing who I am and what I am like, and why. My energy has to be spent developing a better relationship with my wife in this situation. I know it can because there will be total openness and not the hiding and sneeking around as well as her fully understanding my situation rather than her thinking I am a broken pervert for wanting to be a female.

Anne, in my opinion, your energy needs to be spent understand who and what you really are. If you aren't honest about this with yourself, if you aren't true to yourself, it's utterly impossible, in my opinion, to have honest relationships. You need to understand who you are, and BE who you are, whatever that turns out to be. Worrying about the feelings of another is not the right thing to do - the world rarely grants us permission to be ourselves, especially those of us who are trans.

Losing a relationship is less important, in the long run, than losing yourself.

[Inna]

Sad story Anne, like all of our stories begin, sadness and sorrow.
Your daughter sounds as though she knows true love, and she sees the world in such way, kudos to you for having a part in her life.

Though, I must say for you: those who not know love within, know not how to love without!

[MonicaJean]

That's a great way to summarize staying healthy emotionally. I'm sure it speaks not only to Anne, but many of us who are struggling as well.


Thank you Paula!