Trans vs GG....

[JessiRed]

I have known that I am transgendered since I was 6 years old. I always wanted to be a girl, but my parents were too stoic and narrow minded about the subject and made it a point to "masculinize" me. They enrolled me in Baseball, Football, and Soccer year round to keep me busy. Any attempt on my part to wear girl clothes or act girlie was frowned upon. Since I am a notorious people pleaser and I idolized my parents I spent most of my life trying to make them proud of me which led me down a decidedly male path.

Once I got the courage to come out to them things have gotten better between us, even though it still hurts to watch them say things like "only sissies play with dolls" to my young nephews. After all, they used to say that and worse to me.

With the background out of the way here's my problem. I have always wanted to be a girl. Not a Tgirl or a "medically manufactured" girl, a real to life genetic girl, born that way. All my life I have wished for that, and anything less seems like a waste of time. I mean no offense to anyone with these statements, it's just how I honestly feel.

Lately I have softened my stance and have entertained the idea of HRT and surgery.

My questions are: Does anyone else feel the same way or have felt that way?

If you did transition was it enough to "satisfy" the desire to be a GG?

Has anyone transitioned and found that they still weren't happy?

Any insight is appreciated. I have a loving and supportive wife who has vowed to stand by me through whatever I choose. It's important to me to make an educated, well thought out decision.

Thanks in advance

[GypsyKaren]

You can spend the rest of your life going over wishes and die in your chair, or you can live by making things work for you, that's what I chose. All I can tell you is I'm happy, SRS was the best thing I ever could have done for myself. I don't think about what could or should have been, I don't hold myself up to others for comparisons, and I never regret not having more, I'm thrilled with what I have and I make it work.

Karen :g2:

[Joan Merrie]

I think we all, wish we could wake up in the mornings, and be a GG
I still wish that, but My mind is GG, body isn't. That doesn't bother me much any more since I've started down my path to transision. I've started hrt 1 year ago, cameout to my family, and have my first theropy app. next week. I'm doing what I can to make my body match my pink matter.:hugs:

[Lisa Golightly]

That Karen talks a lot of sense :)

I personally just couldn't go on anymore... I was 39 and to all intents and purposes dead. There really wasn't a choice.

[Sarah...]

You can spend the rest of your life going over wishes and die in your chair, or you can live by making things work for you, that's what I chose. All I can tell you is I'm happy, SRS was the best thing I ever could have done for myself. I don't think about what could or should have been, I don't hold myself up to others for comparisons, and I never regret not having more, I'm thrilled with what I have and I make it work.

Karen :g2:

Yep - same here. Not messing about anymore - being myself and making the outside match the inside. :)

Sarah...

[Tizabet]

This is why we need the technology for body transplants. There's got to be an FtM out there who'd swap with me. :P

Seriously, though. I know I can't ever be GG. That's not how it works. But I'm striving toward FEELING like a GG. One of the big issues I had early on with telling anyone is that I didn't want the "trans" title to stick. I hope one day to just be "one of the girls", but I can't just do NOTHING for fear that it might not be how I imagined. The important part is that things will be BETTER, not that they'll be PERFECT. :)

[Marvina Martian]

Well I too wished that I had been born a girl when I was younger.
Inside I know that I am a GG, heck all my friends and even my therapist tells me such! I would have loved to have caught everything when i was young so the T would not have had it's effect on me but alas, like most of us I could not. So here I am, at age 36 and am one year into my transition. And you know what? It is one of the best things I have ever done for myself! I am so much more happy, more than I have ever been in my life. I feel at peace and like things are coming together to make me the girl I was supposed to have been born as.

After Aug I will be cleared to have SRS and do plan to do so at my earliest convenience, even though surgery, any surgery, scares the crap out of me!

While I may be one of the lucky ones that things are very good and smooth for me I do know that there are others that have not had such a good road to travel. Each and everyone is different and really only you may tell you whether you will be up for the journey and be happy afterwards.

Whatever you choose just keep in mind your partner. Things are going to change, regardless of what you and her may think. I know from my own experience of my wife Sheena (Miss Pink here on the forum) and I. Once we started down our roads we knew that we could no longer be together. We just took different paths and grew differently. Sure it was a hard thing to do since we were together for 18 years, but it was the right thing to do and we both are that much happier for taking the chance and doing so.
Without stepping off that ledge I would have never been able to have the opportunity and the freedom to explore a relationship with DD and find our love that we now share. As well as for Sheena to find her love of Tiffany.

So some times you just have to follow your heart ;)

[Kaitlyn Michele]

Jessi

I have always felt a little different than alot of my TS friends because they say "they knew they were women/girls" when they were 5...

i never felt that way....i didnt "know" anything....i wished and wanted to be a "real woman" as you ...you expressed it exactly the way i thought of it...every day ...every single stinking day for almost 40 years i thought it...

i repressed it and suffered...i felt my need to be a "real woman" precluded me being trannsexual... i thought of it as an impossible fantasy and like you, i felt that it was a waste of time to even try...so i worked married procreated, etc......i thought it might go away...i thought i could control it...so i did what guys do....

the thing is, my way of coping started to break down...of course i'd rather be a real woman in the same sense of genetic women....but thats impossible and always was impossible...but over time.....age 43 was my smash on the head...i realized that on the inside i was a real woman, and i was stuck living as a man.. (see - had a point!!!), and i didnt want to live anymore, only horrible life threatening dysphoria made me accept this...this is not uncommon

since then i've been happily moving forward, and i will never go back...once i started hormones the thought of this being impossible and a waste of time went away...it made me feel "real", and all my excuses started to melt and by the end of this year i'll be living full time..i feel like a woman 24/7 and i never think of myself as fake or manufactured in any way...and i'm not even living full time yet!

in fact, because of the way i thought of it, like a fantasy that could never happen, i would describe this as almost a dream come true..

yes i have a whole set of new issues, but at least i'm living my life for me for the first time..

btw
outside of folks that more exploring....in my therapy group, the only complaint i've heard is that they didnt do it earlier.....

hope that helps
michele

[Karen564]

Thanks Karen, I'm glad you said it, and very well said at that.

For me it wasn't much of a decision to make once I came to terms to accepting myself,

My choices at that point were very slim,,

Either live with myself in total misery and die.

OR,

Turn my life upside down and make the necessary changes to aline with my brain and be content for once no matter what the outcome.

I'm very happy I chose #2, it works for me, but may not for you or someone else, but I know what I needed to do.

But you can't just make a decision like this as some machine adding up numbers to make sure everything adds up perfect before you move forward, unless you want to have a system crash on you..

I think you need to re-evaluate what you Really need from this..

Karen

[Raquel June]

With the background out of the way here's my problem. I have always wanted to be a girl. Not a Tgirl or a "medically manufactured" girl, a real to life genetic girl, born that way. All my life I have wished for that, and anything less seems like a waste of time. I mean no offense to anyone with these statements, it's just how I honestly feel.

Lately I have softened my stance and have entertained the idea of HRT and surgery.

My questions are: Does anyone else feel the same way or have felt that way?

I think we all share your feelings. For years I would pray to wake up as a girl every night -- long before I knew what a transsexual was. I didn't really obsess about it, I just knew I'd rather be a girl.

The important part is that you have to look realistically at what transition can do for you and what you're comfortable with. The Harry Benjamin "standards of care" are pretty ridiculous, and most of the medical community says that you have to live as a woman full-time, get on HRT, and get BAS and SRS ASAP or else you're not really TS. I guess this is supposed to make sure people are serious about transition and keep crazy people from randomly deciding they want SRS, but I think it does more harm than good by not letting people do what's comfortable and transition slowly.

People dress a lot of different ways, and the whole concept of a doctor telling you what to wear is bizarre. Is wearing jeans too often not feminine enough, so now your therapist won't give you a recommendation for HRT? Obviously that's crazy.

But people are starting to look at things more practically. Personally, I'm terrified of surgery and didn't look at the whole transition thing seriously till about a year and a half ago. But therapy has helped me, HRT has been better than any anti-depressant I ever took, and just being honest with myself and not over-compensating by lifting weights constantly has put me in a much better place.




Has anyone transitioned and found that they still weren't happy?

Certainly.

There are two types of people who go all the way and get SRS. There are people like Karen (GypsyKaren) who know what they're doing. They know that SRS isn't going to turn them into a GG but have decided that it's a whole lot better than doing nothing. These people are nice people to be around.

Then there are people who think SRS is a magical surgery that will turn their whole life around and somehow change everything about them. These people can only be disappointed. They seem to be the same people that always referred to themselves as intersexed when they were pre-op (even though they never get a genetic test to see if they actually are intersexed because they likely aren't), and when they're post-op they still seem to be pretty pissed off at the world.

[Sharon]

With the background out of the way here's my problem. I have always wanted to be a girl. Not a Tgirl or a "medically manufactured" girl, a real to life genetic girl, born that way. All my life I have wished for that, and anything less seems like a waste of time. I mean no offense to anyone with these statements, it's just how I honestly feel.

Until I realized as a mid- to late-teen that wishes like this cannot come true, I also always wished I was born with the body that matched my brain. However, to continue this unwavering desire can not do anything but depress you to no end. Do I still sometimes wish I had been given the appropriate body at birth? Sure, but it accomplishes nothing. We need to deal with the reality we have been given.



If you did transition was it enough to "satisfy" the desire to be a GG?

Has anyone transitioned and found that they still weren't happy?

I fully transitioned two-and-a-half years ago, though final surgery is still on hold due, mostly, to finances. I cannot begin to describe how much better I am doing emotionally. Excepting my genitalia, I have probably just about achieved all the physical changes that I am likely to get. But, more than the physical changes, I am just a better person now because I am happy and comfortable with myself. The upcoming (I hope) surgery will be the final cherry on my dessert, but even without the cherry, things still taste awfully good.


Any insight is appreciated. I have a loving and supportive wife who has vowed to stand by me through whatever I choose. It's important to me to make an educated, well thought out decision.

I am so happy for you to read both of these points. :)

[melissaK]

I love the thread ladies. Needed a positive thread.
Hugs,
'lissa

And BTW, Karen, "rehabbing a whelping box?" That's a word I haven't heard used in years . . . in fact I am sure I have never heard whelping and rehabbing used in the same sentence before. . . . :heehee:

[Carole Cross]

I have always been fem on the inside. I just feel that at 40, i can no longer live as I am and have started on the road to transitionig.
Hopefully get a referral to a gender therapist next week. :daydreaming:

[JessiRed]

Thanks so much for all the input ladies.

Let me be clear that I do not take any of this lightly. I have been in therapy for years dealing with this issue and have made great progress.

I had also been struggling with my wieght and that caused a period of self loathing that sapped my desire for anything, after all, how could I be a pretty girl when I was fat?

Things are improving for me now and I have a renewed outlook on my life and gender. I have lost a little weight and I have been working out more, so my self image has improved. Now that I believe I can be a pretty girl again I am ready to continue on my path to womanhood.

Thanks again for all the great advice ladies!! :love:

[emily_21]

I've always pondered on and wished I was a female from birth. This is a side of me no one knows about. Fortunately I was never pushed to do sports, because they never interested me much.

I don't let it get me down, because for the most part life isn't fair. Will I ever be a GG? No. However I am grateful for the resources that we do have at the present moment.

[jruiz]

When I read the title, I though that I was going to find a cat-fight... :D:D:D

Now talking seriously: during a period of my life, I really thought about transitioning, specially when I discovered in a TV show (no Internet by these days), that surgery and hormone therapy was available and that many other people wished to do so. It was shocking and it took a lot of my thought for a while.

But not anymore. I'm quite happy being a man, with a feminine side. I think that if I'd go after it when younger, I'd have regret it... And I'd never know the wonderful life I currently have, with my wife and kids.

I learned later that I didn't understand what crossdressing was, and that there are a many shades of gray, not everything has to be black or white. I'm happy with my balance (well, most of the times).

To be honest, my dream would be to be able to morph between boy and girl... but it's just a delusional fantasy.

[Empress Lainie]

Like Tizabet also want to be just one of the girls. I have achieved that many many times over the time since I transitioned overnight. Except for people that knew me before, I am just another woman (in love? well!).

It is a very bitter pill to me that my medicare says male and doctors and hospitals have to bill as male, and my doctor writes male pronouns in his files. Also that I can't change my birth certificate to who I really am either.:sad: