My GD is managable with medicine for the anxiety and therapy to keep me centered. Having experienced the beginning of transition, stopping would be quite difficult. If I could not transition I would require stronger medication and therapy may no longer be effective. I could become a different person.
Best wishes
MsVal
I spent 50 years wanting to transition, held back by so many fears. When the time came, I knew that it was taking place and I simply could not stop it. I was on a runaway train.
Once I finally accepted this is going to happen, I went as fast as I could. I know of no one who went faster. It was planned, carefully and thoughtfully done and began about 2.5 years ago. I consider myself done at this point.
Fear. Once passed, I ran as hard as I could. The risk of not being able to was non existent. I was transitioning, I could not stop it. It was happening.
Last edited by Angela Campbell; 08-07-2015 at 02:21 PM.
All I ever wanted was to be a girl. Is that really asking too much?
Hi Lea,
As I am a bit of a neophyte to this part of the forum due to the fact I really don't fit in either camp (CD or TS) I thought I would still respond to your questions from my POV. I am gender fluid as many know and while I maintain I identify male some days, those days are getting harder to hold on to but they still exist. Will this mean I will transition at some point? Good question and hence the reason why I am taking the slow road to self discovery by being as open and honest in my life as both a man and woman. Specifically, I do not hide who I am and spend at least 2 days out of five as a woman at work.
1) What are your particular risk considerations? I.e., are you worried most about job, money, family, violence,…?
On this question, since you clarified it was about "risk of not transitioning" not risks of transitioning I will respond along that lines. I currently feel no hard pull to transition but I do feel a sense of well being when presenting as a woman in my day to day life (social, work, etc.). When I have to decompile (my term for returning to male for whatever reason even though I still feel like a woman), I feel sad as though my male façade is the true cross dressing. However this is not so when I am identifying as a man. So while transitioning is not in the cards right now, I still feel that pull and wonder "what if?" Heck, my work knows, my family knows and it is just one more leap to living 24/7 . . . however, I just don't feel ready.
2) Are you delayed?
Well, I suppose you could say I am. I knew when I was young that I was . . . different and saw things different. I dressed for the first time when I was 17 shortly after I joined the military. I felt ashamed, less than male afterwards and put it way, crushed it down and repressed for 30 plus years until it exploded in my face. At 50 plus years old I am wondering where the heck is all this leading? If times had been different, if I had been a child of this generation who know where I would be or which gender I would be for that matter. So delayed . . . you bet.
3) What is dangerous for you?
I am going to respond to this along the lines of "risk of transitioning" (sorry if I misinterpreted). Work not an issue, I could move to 24/7 tomorrow and still be supported at work as the Canadian military has policy to the effect. Financial . . . not an issue as I am 2 years shy of my full pension. Family and friends finding out and abandoning me . . . completely out to all with no real issues. One of the big stumbling blocks is "my wife" I love her death and while we have discussed the big "if" and she is supportive of me being out to the world . . . she is not prepared to be in a same sex relationship (huge game changer). I am not sure if I am prepared to give that up. As well, there are still parts of my male identity I love and while this could just be me holding on to a shadow existence, I am still not ready to bury this part of me and risk of doing so would be felt deeply in my core.
Cheers
Isha
I was not cautious and did not plan well (if at all). Just driven by desperation and somehow got through.
Not sure if I should reply to this so far into my transition, but for me the biggest risk of NOT transitioning was that the alternative was suicide. I had even decided the method and timing to minimise collateral damage.Originally Posted by LeaP
I was delayed by a very public event in 2010 and those were the hardest months of my life because my need had reached physical manifestations.
For not transitioning, the danger was that I would either become permanently incapacitated or permanently dead.
Check out this link if you are wondering about joining Safe Haven.
This above all: To thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any
Galileo said "You cannot teach a man anything" and they accuse ME of being sexist
Never ascribe to malice that which can be easily explained by sheer stupidity
1. Since I have separated from my wife and headed for the D, that was the big risk, and it's gone.
Employment will be ok. Even have insurance that covers HRT and SRS.
2. Delay is normal, waiting on letters and prescription.
3. Most "dangers " so far have been in my head. Not a rainbow and unicorn girl but things , other than my marriage have gone good. Saying goodbye to a life that wasn't so bad, even though the upcoming one seems so right, is difficult sometimes.
I am going to gloat for just a minute here.... I had started a thread that spawned another thread. I think that is a 1st for me on this forum, and on the TS section no less. I feel good about this, honestly.
At least for this forum, which although called CDers.com, the majority it seems are people such as me, caught in some sort of gender purgatory. More than CDers, with a real gender identity issue, but not quite enough to transition. I have questioned myself not all that long ago, which is sort of a reason why I started the thread I did, because I was sort of what ifing with my own situation. (didn't come to a conclusion) but realizing that even if I wouldn't have transitioned, life would be different and I would have spared myself a lot of difficulty in being more genuine with my own gender issues. That of course only magnifies for you guys and girls in this section.
Obviously great advice in being cautious.... clearing away the fog to get to real gender needs. It still pains me to read so many sad stories of years if not decades of such struggle before eventually transitioning. Paula Q has written her story probably the most detailed, but I would bet many here would or can or do relate to a lot of it. Heck I can relate to some of it.
Interestingly enough, and Paula I hope you do not mind me mentioning you for reference sake- but by the time she "knew" she had to, there was no more caution left, really. All the life she had built had more or less come crashing down on her anyway. It was simply time to cash in, or cease any meaningful life, if not as she has stated, face death. So many get to the point where life becomes unbearable, and I am thinking that once in that situation, hard to even think all that clearly anymore. So wrought with struggle.
While as a younger person, say 18, 19 or so, without having really lived much life of either gender, now that thought, transition with caution truly makes for great advice. How did so many come to know they "had" to? because no matter what the cost, and likely a very grave one, they are or were willing to pay it. Lose basically everything in life up to that point, because life wasn't livable anyway. What is there really to be cautious about at that point? But as a confused teen or tween, who feels they relate far better to the opposite gender than their own, caution makes so much sense. Now you have an entire life ahead of you, and you have a chance to get it right, or wrong. Most who transitioned later in life did in fact get it wrong.... sort of. Years, decades of struggle, addiction, failed marriages, jobs, or will possibly fail once transition begins anyway. Most on here who transitioned later on do say they gave up substantially in their life. So much can I think now begin to be avoided, albeit with caution.
Last edited by Rianna Humble; 08-21-2015 at 12:05 AM.
Chickens should be allowed to cross the road without having their motives questioned
GM (sorry for the unfortunate abbreviation) ...
We all agree on some notion of caution. After all, who would defend being precipitous or arbitrary? Your last response, however, both misses the point of my OP as well as perpetuates some ideas with which I disgree.
This thread concerns dangerous risks to transsexuals (cross-sex identified, i.e., binary) who have already determined transition need. Caution in this context is different than the caution needed to avoid blowing up your life if you are not cross-sex identified. Concepts like fogs, flings, not quite enough, gender purgatory, etc. in the sense your are using them don't apply. Nor do (IMO) suggestions of spectrum suggested in your phrasing. Caution for cross-sex identified people is different even taking the context of determining transition need and timing.
Paula properly answered the concerns of the OP. It reduces to (my paraphrasing) delay for her being dangerous to the point of risking life. In context, she is not being incautious in assuming what might be important and relevant risks to someone else, she has taken a decisioned approach to REDUCE risk. I'm certain, even without asking, that other risks - perhaps to job, finances, relationships, etc. - are quite important to her. But they pale in comparison to suicide risk to the point where they perhaps no longer meet the context of the OP in being things that have to be subordinated. (Forgive any misrepresentations, Paula, I'm interpreting to make the point.)
Perhaps we need to define "cautious." It is to be mindful, prudent, and careful. When someone knowledgeably prioritizes and assumes risk, they ARE being cautious. In no way does it mean eliminating risk - or even actual damage and loss.
Returning to my own priorities, dangers, and cautions, they are (or have been) an interrelated mix of finance/retirement concerns, risk of immediate bankruptcy, fears stemming from my social anxiety issues being off the charts, and marriage survival. ... all weighed against growing psychological pressure from delay that's felt like sitting on a bomb. Growing depression, despair, return of suicidality after being long gone, GD and internal dialog resurgence, even panic attacks.
Your last paragraph speculates on what-if, life-long scenarios. I understand the temptation to engage in that kind of thinking. It seemed important to me to do so at one time. But I would caution (!) against it, TS or not. Any conclusions I might posit about other paths I might have taken would be unknowable and, therefore, irrelevant. That specifically includes many things you mention. I had a 20-year marriage fail. There is no way to know if I might have had a 20-year marriage (or relationship) fail had I transitioned in my 20's, either. The same applies to other issues in my life, including those related to GD. There are plenty of cis people in the world with the same issues. And finally, remember the caution of cautions from virtually all who have transitioned: transition solves one problem only, it will not fix your life for you.
Lea
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