Transitioning, Why? and What for?

[paola_gemi]

Hello all: It has been a long time since I posted something.

I have been in therapy for about 19 months, trying to figure out my Transgenderism.
I have been making a lot of progress, in the beginning was hard because for years I had different kinds of feelings. Confusions about my sexuality, and ultimately the realization that was not sexuality but gender issues.

When I started therapy, I was basically looking for an answer whether or not I was Transgender. In the process I stared to read a lot, and I found several books in the subject. Some about experiences from Trans people and some with very useful Psychological and clinical information.
The main reason why I was or I am still looking for the answer is that unlike other Trans people, I did not feel trans since I was little.
Throughout my childhood and my teen age years I went thru changed like everybody else, and in some periods, I had on and off feelings that I confused with Homosexuality.
It was later in my thirties that my urges for crossdressing lead me to inquire about those feelings, which ultimately showed me that I am perhaps Transgender. But something like that is not to be taken lightly and for the next 10 or 12 years after that, I have been struggling with that. That is when I started therapy.

One thing I learned so far is that Transgenderism has a wide variety of spectrums, and I should not necessarily fall in any category in specific.
Another thing I learned, is that if I think I am Transgender, doesn't mean I am, but there is something to look for, and most likely I am.

So ai have 3 fundamental questions. The first one is my own, which has the more worries about the whole issue.

Does anyone have to feel Transgender since childhood in order to validate the condition?

The other 2 questions are from my therapist, because we are to a point in which we thought my Transgender condition was confirmed, but the doubts keep coming back, making me not to come up with a resolution of transitioning.

Question number 2 is: Why do I want to transition?

Question number 3 is: What for do I want to transition?

I have also learned that there is no science to determine if some one is Transgender, and it is mostly based on statistics.

So please share your answers based on your experiences, so I can help me compare feelings and ind out of my fears are valid.

Most of my worries come from going up with questions about my self, but the biggest issue is that in spite of those feelings, I grew up behaving very male. All my life I have been with a "normal" male acting lifestyle, and althogh I desire the female appearance in me, it is hard for me to adjust to a female mode.
I guess that if I decide to transition, little by little I would embrace all those gestures and mannerisms.


Thank you all for reading.


Paola.

[jentay1367]

Question number 2 is: Why do I want to transition?

To live authentically and in an actualized way. Something I seemingly have been unwilling or unable to do in a male world

Question number 3 is: What for do I want to transition?

See question 2.

Hi Paolo,
I agree that it's very hard to unscrew those learned male behaviors from a lifetime. You have to want to give them up. Do you want to give them up? Do you experience dysphoria? If so...have you pondered...how? Have you gone on to try HRT? So I guess I'm taking your questions and throwing four more in front of you. This thing is like rooms with doors. You go into one room with one door into a new room with 2 doors and a third with three doors and so on, ad nauseum. This damned path is fraught with questions and very muddied answers. No one size fits all here.
I'd love to tell you there's some definitive thing I can say to give you the green light. I begged and asked for it myself. Eventually, I was simply so unhappy that I jumped down the rabbit hole. It was scary, but I was ready to do harm to myself. Some of the women here will tell you that's how you know....this beats suicide. Being a transwoman trumps being dead. Whatever you choose though, I sympathize with your plight and wish you nothing but the best in your journey

Others with more life experience are bound to chime in here soon, so be patient.......Lisa

[Nigella]

Does anyone have to feel Transgender since childhood in order to validate the condition?

Join the club, whilst my psychiatrist clearly said that I was TS from an early stage, all the indicators were there, I did not feel TS until my mid to late 40s. I had no dysphoria either in my gender or with my body. When it hit me it was like being hit in the face by a sledgehammer, ( and for those that know me, no my face was like this before ). I lived the life of a male that had been determined for me at birth and not once did I question that decision. Yes I dressed in female clothing, but always thought of myself as a CDer.

Question number 2 is: Why do I want to transition?

This is very much an individual decision, however, I think you will find that the overwhelming answer is "because I have to". I did reach the point where I could not live as a male, it wasn't me. It took me longer than most to come to this realisation, but the answer for me was "I have to do this"

Question number 3 is: What for do I want to transition?

My answer to this is to finally become who I really am, not what or who was chosen for me. This seems an odd answer because many say you choose your own path, however, your designated gender at birth do, to some extent, mark a path that you are likely to follow, hence the choice of words "chosen for me".

Most of my worries come from going up with questions about my self, but the biggest issue is that in spite of those feelings, I grew up behaving very male. All my life I have been with a "normal" male acting lifestyle, and althogh I desire the female appearance in me, it is hard for me to adjust to a female mode.
I guess that if I decide to transition, little by little I would embrace all those gestures and mannerisms.

I have responded to the "normal male" part of this quote, however, very little of who I am has changed during the transition process. Those "gestures and mannerisms" are nothing more than your own expression. What you may find in the future is that you just relax more and that is when the true you comes out to play

[Mirya]

Most of my worries come from going up with questions about my self, but the biggest issue is that in spite of those feelings, I grew up behaving very male. All my life I have been with a "normal" male acting lifestyle, and althogh I desire the female appearance in me, it is hard for me to adjust to a female mode.
I guess that if I decide to transition, little by little I would embrace all those gestures and mannerisms.

Paola, I'd like to focus on this segment of your original post. When you say that you "grew up behaving very male", did acting as a male come naturally to you, or did it feel as if it was forced behavior? Did you socialize with others more like a female, or more like a male?

Women tend to socialize and interact with other women (and men too, I suppose) in very different, but subtle ways. From my perspective, there's a physical component to gender dysphoria, and there's also a social component to gender dysphoria. Did you, and do you currently, experience both types of gender dysphoria?

[Pat]

Does anyone have to feel Transgender since childhood in order to validate the condition?

Many people seem to realize their transgender nature late. Part of it might be failure to have the information to recognize it in themselves and part of it might be denial / suppression. The prevailing theory of transgenderism these days is that it is inborn and unchanging, but that's not proven yet. (The evidence is getting better all the time, though.) What they look for is a persistent and consistent sense of being fully or partially aligned with the gender opposite your sex. If you're experiencing that, it's appropriate to consider a diagnosis of gender dysphoria for which transition is appropriate. Have you and your therapist looked into the possibility of being non-binary TG rather than fully TS?

You might also look into what you're thinking when you say "transition." In the vernacular transition is often used as a synonym for hormones and surgical changes but that isn't what transition is. Transition is whatever you have to do to stop pretending to be cisgender and come to terms with living authentically as who you are. The medical procedures are just tools. Your therapist should have gone over that but it might be worth bringing up now that it's meaning more to you. If they've never brought that up you might want to question their experience with TG people.

[Emma Beth]

Does anyone have to feel Transgender since childhood in order to validate the condition?

The simple answer is no.

In my case, as I can only speak from my own experiences. I didn't feel trans while I was growing up. I only saw the individual small pieces of the puzzle that was me. I often wished I would wake up to find I was a girl, I didn't fit into the male mold, I felt a certain way about my body and self.

But; for most of my life, none of the pieces would fit together until about four years ago and now I see how everything in my past fits together.

Question number 2 is: Why do I want to transition?

For me, I don't really want to transition. It feels more like a need to do this. Do or die so to speak. For me it has more to do with feeling more like a human being and not feeling like an incomplete creature of some kind.

Question number 3 is: What for do I want to transition?

For me, the answer is in the answer to the previous question. I have this intense need to feel more like a person. To be the true me that I should have been all along.

[Rianna Humble]

Question number 2 is: Why do I want to transition?

That is a question only you can answer.

If you are asking of others why did they want to transition, I can only answer for myself. I didn't want to transition, I needed to transition to preserve some sort of sanity.

Question number 3 is: What for do I want to transition?

I'm not sure that I understand this question fully, but the main thing I aimed for when starting transition was to live as the real me whatever the cost.

[LeaP]

Childhood and validation: You'll do better by focusing on the here and now. Your childhood may or may not be interesting, but it won't help solve the problem. Ask yourself what validation means and why validation matters to you.

Why: The DESIRE to transition can come and go. Sometimes it's appalling or frightening. Sometimes an overwhelming drive. Post-transition, it's common to hear people wonder why they had to do it. The best I can do is that it's an outlet for a reservoir of life-long pressure. Pull that cap off just the littlest, teeniest bit and it blows. You can try to put it back on, but it never fits quite right again.

What for: I think this is the question that Rianna answered (quite nicely). Motives - or maybe perceptions of motives - differ. Not all of them proceed from cross-sexed identity. You'll have to make peace with yours, whatever they are.

[KymberlyOct]

Hi Paola, My opinion to your first question is that NOTHING has to validate whether you are transgender - not age of realization or anything else. You do not have to validate yourself to anyone period.

Your 2nd and 3rd questions are interesting to me especially that they come from your therapist - I am sure all therapist share somethings in common and vary on others regarding their technique. My therapist asked me more about me and my life and past and thoughts. She seemed to just innately know that I was TG - I asked later and she said that is not usually the case but there were tip offs to her right away regarding my history. Such as consistency and duration of thoughts feelings and actions.

If the view is more unclear for you I don't think that invalidates you - I think they are just reasonable questions. My litmus test would be - 1. What do I want my life to look like in 'X' number of years? 2. How will I feel if I DON'T do this? That is what has motivated me to transition. I would feel like I gave up on life and what I wanted.

I also think one more good question that your therapist could have asked you is not just WHY transition and for WHAT? But equally as important IMHO is why are you NOT transitioning? Is it fear? Is it being unsure regarding your feelings of gender? I think the WHY NOT transition is equally as important as the WHY transition. Your therapist is trained. I am not. But I think my final question to you is also a reasonable question.

[arbon]

My therapist asked me why not too the answer that escaped was that everyone would hate me.

Prior to that though she had asked something along the lines of what were the things I liked about women that made me want to be one. It was something like that and I was supposed to write it out the answers. Went home thought it all over. Next appoint told I could not answer it was not about specifics. There was no answer.

I had every reason not to transition.

Op question 2 - I did not want to. It terrified me. I was more prepared to kill myself.

Op question 3 - I just wanted to be me in the world not even knowing who me was yet.

[ClaudineD]

For me it was a state of mind that was acted upon with some GREAT assist by my Bohemian, Well educated Mother and my Aunt(both graduates of Smith College)......I ran through the usual turmoil as a child into teen years, questioning if i was "queer" as the term was back then, evolving through therapy( on unrelated rebellion issues ) to resolve that this was what I was, a girl, and that was what I had to face, for myself, to rid the mind of conflict, self doubt and terror or interaction in the real world.
So.....it is was not a "need" but a lifestyle/genetic switch that had to be turned on.....the "what for" in answer to your second inquiry, was to achieve a calm in my life......with the help of those two WONDERFUL Women in my life, I got through the struggles and overcame the fear. So rare to have had that support at an early age (16), so I empathize with other girls' struggles/conflicts/doubts over the age spectrum......grab what your life needs.......work on resolutions with professional intervention......seek friends and family who will support..........then make those hard decisions......

[ReineD]

I can’t contribute to your questions about why and what for (I’m not TS), but I can share with you a well-explained webpage that describes the symptoms for gender dysphoria, from the National Health Service (NHS) in the UK.

http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Gender-.../Symptoms.aspx

They do discuss GD from childhood, suggesting that GD does start early (even if kids don’t know how to define it), and is not to be confused with the more commonplace experiences that children often outgrow, for example girls who are tomboys or boys who occasionally dress up in their mother’s clothes. They also describe how children with GD feel. Further, they suggest that by the time a gender dysphoric person is a teenager or adult, they have no doubt that their gender identity is at odds with their biological sex, and there is a strong dislike and strong desire to hide or be rid of the physical signs of the biological sex.

I hope you will find this helpful.

[Kate T]

Q1 Answer No. Frankly I doubt that many late transitioners (i.e. >30yrs at transition) "knew" they were TS as a child. They knew that they were different, but I doubt they would have clearly defined it as GD otherwise they would have persued transition earlier. I personally believe most individuals gender is innate it is just that for some of us it takes a while to work out that it isn't neccessarily directly correlated to our physiology or anatomy.

No one can "diagnose" you as TS. Only you can say that. Therapists and psychs will help you ask the right questions and give you information on possible answers that you may not have had experience with but only you can answer the questions.

A useful question I think to ask yourself is this. Take away the clothes, the social interactions, the mannerisms, the physical body, strip it all back, what gender do you feel your soul / anima / id is. If you were completely alone on this world would you be male or female? If you can answer that you usually have the answer.

[Kaitlyn Michele]

one thing to consider is the "persistence" of cross gender feelings..
mine were never ending...never.... like a constant barrage....

but they were not feelings of what i "knew"...they were feelings of what i "wished" were true...my most common thought was "i wish i was a girl" or "why am i not a girl?????"....

its amazing i survived it... when i wasnt thinking those thoughts i was planning, plotting and being secretive about my next chance to "dress"... this went on from 7yrs old to 47yrs old...
i lived my whole life outside of what was really inside my head (parse that out)
but by my 40s i was out of gas...my gender dypshoria was overwhelming and i started to not care if i lived or died... that's when igot serious...

and STILL I FOUGHT IT!!!! for about another year or so... i went to therapy to explain it away i recall theorizing that i was an "uber crossdresser"...

As i went thought transition my feelings of shame got worse, and i numbed myself with recreational drugs and booze..

i worked very hard during this time to keep to internal dialogs going... one was the this one im describing... the other was kind of an inner source that planned out and executed the transition..

[Christina Kay]

Wow Kaitlyn ,,, were you in my head??? That's a very similar scenario.......

its amazing i survived it... when i wasn't thinking those thoughts i was planning, plotting and being secretive about my next chance to "dress"... this went on from 7yrs old to 47yrs old...
i lived my whole life outside of what was really inside my head (parse that out)
but by my 40s i was out of gas...my gender dypshoria was overwhelming and i started to not care if i lived or died... that's when i got serious...

For me its and added 9 yrs. Thank You Kaitlyn for expressing my thoughts, so beautifully explained.

[Eryn]

I managed to go over 50 years before acknowledging to myself that I was TG. Looking back, the signs were there, I just refused to acknowledge them. Once I started to look at it, the floodgates opened.

As for the "why" questions, only you know in your heart your true path.

[paola_gemi]

I really want to thank you all for replying to my thread.

My intention writing this thread, wasn't to get straight answers as to what should I do, but to get your own individual experiences as a reference.
I totally understand that everything has to be decided for my self, and all the answers to fundamental questions should come from what I feel I am.
But knowing who I am or trying to identify who we are or what we are, becomes so confusing and so complex, as we dig more and more.
For me, I think that one of the reasons is because of the life we live since childhood, being expected to do things and behave accordingly to the sex assigned at birth.

I understand that my three questions are not to be answered by any of you, for me to make a decision, but since Transgender issues can not be determined by taking a blood test and "VOILA the test show you are Transgender", determining if someone is Transgender is more based on statistics, since there is a broad variety of gender spectrums.
Getting your feed back with your personal experiences, helps me compare my feelings and perhaps to relate that to my doubts and fears in order to recognize if what I am feeling is Ok.

In regards to my childhood, is not validation what I am looking for in my first question. May be the questions was not properly written.
What I meant, was that since I was young I did not feel different from other kids, I always behave male because that was what I was supposed to be since birth.
I always felt like a boy, if that can be described by doing boys things.
Regarding my sexuality, I always liked girls,so I did not have issues of questioning my self up to a certain point in my childhood.
When I was a teen, that is when things started to change. I started to be attracted to other boys, and a few times I started experimenting with females clothes.
(Please I know sexual orientation and gender are totally diferent things, that I know)
It is just that at younger age that is not comprehensible. My teen age years went on questioning my self if I was bisexual or gay, and never crossed my mind to de Transgender.
For one thing, because information was not available to understand. But I did have some sort of dysphoria, I would always find my self trying to find female features in me, as i was changing during puberty. I did;t like hair on my body, so I would shave my legs, my changing voice I did't like. But the dysphoria was not so strong.
My point is that if I only were a bit more of a sissy and more feminine behaving, during my childhood and teen age years, I would more easily validate a transgender condition, for me to accept my self.
Now I know that one does not have to have those feelings since childhood.

I have mention that Transgenderism has a wide variety of spectrums, and I know I fall into one of them or many of them, I just want to be clear in which one i fit more comfortably in order to feel more secure about my decisions.
To describe a transgender person, a lot of time the word Dysphoria is used. But not all transgender people suffer dysphoria parse. In my case I notice my dysphoria only in recent years, and let me be clear that when I say that, I mean dysphoria with my body. for the last couple of years when I look in the mirror, is when I notice that I want a different body, (Female like) other than that, my condition has been mostly driven by "Gender Euphoria" that is a term that I use for my self to describe my Transgenderism.
My transgenderism comes more from desiring to be like a female, than hating my body or my male features. Does it make sense?

For me to answer the second and third questions it is still hard, because at my age 47, in my circle, I am still expected to be a men, have like a male, and do all the things up until this point in my life, I am used to do as male.
I know I am wired as a female somewhere in my brain, but my hard drive still holds a lot a male memory.


Love, Paola.

[Kaitlyn Michele]

Christina!! I hope you are not fighting anymore!! its pointless..I hope you are doing greatnow!!

paola I like the way you asked the questions and made this comment...and OF COURSE WHAT YOU ARE FEELING IS OK....

It can be so confusing and its like you dont know if you can trust yourself...just hearing about what other people thought and did is a big plus

i would urge you to consider the persistence of your thoughts and how much of those thoughts are distress...how much of your day is taken up by it? are you ok with that?

if you are mostly euphoric...then lets hope it stays that way!!!
having those cross gender feelings is a positive good experience
enjoy them as you will!!! plus
you can always grow and evolve and learn through experience...

but if you are feeling distress... or if you tired of these thoughts are dominating your life, making you look back and question your past....in other words causing dypshoria and pushing you start to take actions on your feelings and see what happens...
one step at time so you can learn to undertand yourself and be good to yourself...

[Teresa]

Paola,
You don't mention if you are in a relationship or not, but the point is the questions you ask are often dictated by having a partner possibly with children .

Through my married situation and having children meant these questions didn't get asked for many years , when I did enter counselling my wife simply said it's your problem , you sort it !, Not easy when you don't know where you are on the gender road, and you're on your own with it.
So now I've worked enough out to come to terms with my situation , I know what labels I have so now I come to terms with them.

Like you my childhood was normal apart from the CDing starting at 8-9 years when the influence of a GF, clothes and sex all came together , looking back it's when I became bi-gender and the start of my GD. I know I'm close to the TS line, the conflict that has gone on everyday since the CDing started is beginning to finally subside now I know what I am, I'm learning how to live with what makes me tick and trying to stay in the lifestyle I have around my family. I know I would prefer to live full time dressed but I'm prepared to compromise my life to support my family, I personally feel at 65 it's too old to walk away from the life I have built up.
I know some will disagree with that idea and talking recently to a TS at my social group she reminded me you're never too old, some at her clinic are in their mid eighties and still wish to transition . None of us achieve 100% happiness so maybe what I have is as good as it gets .

[Megan G]

None of us achieve 100% happiness so maybe what I have is as good as it gets .

That's an interesting statistic/claim Teresa, I'm curious what you are basing that on. I know for me I am happy, while I am not completely finished with my transition yet (waiting for surgery) I am genuinely happy. The struggles I face are not trans related, they are the same struggles everyone in this world faces, both CIS and Trans.

So what are you classifying 100% happy?

[stefan37]

Transition accomplishes one thing and one thing only. It silences the internal war we wage with ourselves. Happiness is relative. And it's very possible to win the internal struggle and still feel unhappy. All the other BS stuff that goes on in our lives remains. The difference being without wasting energy in the inner struggle. We can then redirect that energy into dealing with the other stuff life throws at us.

[Teresa]

Megan,
Life has it's highs and lows whether we are TG or not as Stefan also points out, it can't be 100% total happiness .

Again I had this conversation with a TS at my social meeting, she's now reached the point of dressing full time, her partner is accepting but she's still moved out to continue on her road. She has children and grandchildren and won't be cut off entirely from them , she's finding happiness now but is regretting losing so many years of her family life.

When life's a compromise it can only bring partial happiness and most of us do live compromised lifestyles.

[Kaitlyn Michele]

Transition is not about happiness, nor is it a lifestyle.
who said transition brings 100% total happiness?? ...

doing good things for yourself can lead to lots and lots of happiness but thats not the point...the point is to feel alive and able to pursue happiness and feel it...to reflect it back at people and have it reflected back at you in your real gender

so the question is about transition
why? what for? its a good question

your guess being a non transitioner is happiness...you cant be 100% happy, so you compromise like everything in life..so not for you... maikes sense..
but sorry thats not it...thats not what its for....

[jentay1367]

It's helped me to actualize my feelings, be more comfortable with how I demonstrate as well as allowing me to rid myself of a lifetime of secretive nonsense. So I would have to say that it is partially about happiness. At least for me it is. It's such an individual journey that I can't and won't speak for others experience or motivations.

[paola_gemi]

Wow, My thread is starting to take different paths.

I think I get what Teresa meant as far as 100% happiness, and I agree with anyone who thinks that there is not such thing as a 100% happiness. Whether you are trans or not. But I can respect anyone who claims to be 100% happy in life, I just haven't met anyone my self.

Although the thread had nothing to do with happiness, in the way we all do things to accomplish some sort of happiness in anything we do, either for a very short term, mid term, or long term, in the specific subject we are dealing with.

Teresa: Yes, I am in a relationship for over 15 years, I just came out to her about 2 and a half weeks ago. I think it went well. We still have a lot to talk.
being in a relationship, surely gets things more complicated for me. But the only upside is that we have no children, so in any drastic event, I will have one less thing to worry about.

I have always been a sort of strict person. At times I would seem to be an angry person, I have been thru a lot in my life, starting from being abandoned by my mother when I was 5 years old, I grew up with my dad and 4 siblings. That situation really made mi skin get thicker.
But my quest for answers, perhaps is really in search for some degree of happiness, whether it is the satisfaction of expressing my self in the world, jumping an obstacle and live my life as a woman, or simply accepting fully who I am, even if I do not change my appearance.

Caitlin Michelle is right. For me right now, the fundamental questions are Transitioning, why? and what for?. I can understand that for everyone will be different, just like the concept of happiness. We will all have different reasons to answer those questions. And my hope is to understand my self a bit more, learning from your experiences and perspectives.

For me, the key to happiness,is to always look forward to something. When I am able to answer those questions to my self, and continue on the next level for transitioning, I am sure it will make me 100% happy in that specific struggle.
As to the rest of my happiness, I will have to continue formulating more questions, making my self happier avery time I get the answer for each one.


Thank you,


Love Paola.