Can you become TS?

[simplerhythm]

Forgive me for being uninitiated in this matter.. My best friend is TS but it's unlikely he'll ever be able to afford HRT, let alone SRS. He described it as, you know, having been born the wrong gender.

I've never felt that way about myself. I just always liked girl things without giving much thought to why. The rapid progress I've made in being out scares me when I think about it... purchases I've made, telling people. I don't know how it ends. Might I realize I'm TS after all? Any insight on how my friend feel about that, since it's not an issue I've dealt with all my life like he has?

Just curious
Kari

[kimdl93]

Kari, I don't think one "becomes" a transexual....that is a person who feels they were borne the wrong gender. TS probably IS a developmental characteristic...genetic or homonal exposure during gestation. I think we are all TG on this site...or certainly the vast majority...in the sense that we all have some desire to express characteristics not consistent with our apparent gender. Some of us are happy with our gender, some might entertain presenting Ful time fem, but most TG might not consider full transition. Again, the cause could be developmental.

In essense we are born, not made.

[Vickie_CDTV]

In the umbrella sense of the term TG, you already are TG.

If you mean go from TV to TS, it depends who you ask. There are many theories, and many opinions about whether one can be a TV and then "turn" TS. I have always believed TV and TS are not on one continuum, but are separate phenomenon unto themselves. (I miss the days when we were more accurately referred to as the "TV/TS" community.)

Being a TV myself, and having known many, *many* TS over the years, and assuming you are being totally honest with how you feel (not denying, nor being pressured into having feelings you don't have by others), I would say it is very unlikely. You probably will not "go" or "become" TS and continue to feel the way you feel. For over 14 years I have known people in the TG community who have insisted that I will eventually go TS and end up on HRT and going fulltime, but it has never happened and I remain being happy being TV. Enjoy being how you are, and don't let others tell you otherwise, or pressure you into being something you are not.

[simplerhythm]

Still picking up the lingo. My bad :p

[sandra-leigh]

I did some teenaged experimentation for curiosity, but I never then thought that it was important to me or that I was "born with it": examining the adult magazines was, for example, a much higher priority.

After that, it was close to 30 years before I had any idea that I was a cross-dresser. Not that there weren't hints along the way, and not that I didn't know what a cross-dresser was, but before my enlightenment I always had "reasons" like "checking to see how these clothes look so I'll have a better idea of what to buy for my wife".

When I finally got the idea that I wanted to do those things for me and that there was no good reason not to, I bloomed pretty quickly, out in public less than 3 weeks later.

Did the seeds of the dessert cactus blow in recently, or have they been resting there since the last rain? We don't know for sure: we just watch in wonder as they flourish with amazing speed.

[AKAMichelle]

I don't think you can become TS, but you can find out that you really are TS. Sometimes we put up mental roadblocks preventing us from thinking about such things and over time those roadblocks come down. It is very confusing becasue the more you dress, the more open you become to being TS. You might even think you are TS and find out you aren't or vice versa.

[RobynBella]

Not really become TS, if you're TS you always have been. But, as in my case, you can fight it and deny it, calling yourself a crossdresser when you know inside you're not, until it finally breaks you down and you accept it. That's kinda becoming a TS, but you don't just go from liking to dress occasionally to wanting to become a woman

[Inna]

Well, as a child I hated vegetables, the taste and just texture were somewhat, for lack of better word yucky.
Then I grew up and not gradually but all of the sudden loved veggies. Wow, where the heck did this come from!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The best explanation, my body demanded nutrients where before I was fine. Analogies shmanalogies, but lets not deny a possibility of deeply rooted unmanifested condition of femininity suddenly surfacing with strength. Perhaps more logical and characteristic is ever present state but being quietly buried beneath layers of ever present societal conditioning.

[maverick.saxena]

I would love to turn into TS but my family wouldn't accept it so I guess I will just dress and keep this discreet

[simplerhythm]

Ok, I hope this is informative to my original post

Whether or not I was TS is a question I seriously considered one afternoon when I was probably 13. Dead leaves tattered the October grass. I sat on our swingset listening to the doppler effect sounds of highway 60. I decided that no, it wasn't for me. But I was young and didn't have anyone to talk to about things. I know most of the reasons I gave myself involved complications of friends and family, not whether it was something that was right or good for me. I have learned a lot about people and this world since then...and still confused :)

[~Emma D~]

I dont know if you can become TS or not, i just think, if you are you are, i knew when i was very young who i was and then i eventually came out to my parents at 17 (bad mistake) - didn't know the meaning of the word Transexual back then or understand how others would react.

what many of us do is go into denial, sometimes for a long time, but eventually something gives. Its always there, denial or not and thats bad for us.

Not being female is so difficult and horrendous.:sad:

[Melody Moore]

I would love to turn into TS but my family wouldn't accept it so I guess I will just dress and keep this discreet
If you really do want to 'turn TS' as you put it then you won't care about what your family thinks at all.... one thing about being TS is knowing the importance of staying true to oneself. I am not saying you arent a transsexual, because you probably still havent arrived at the point of acceptance about it. When you do, you wont care at all if you lose family & friends over it.

If you really feel so passionately about being TS, then nothing in this world seems to matter, in fact its very hard to think of anything else. And the issue about "being trapped in the wrong body" has been with all the TS girls I know of all their lives.

Some of my earliest childhood traumatic memories are of getting in to trouble for getting into my mother's make up & wearing my sister's clothes and getting 'belted' by my father for it. My Gender dysphoria was that bad that not even the abuse my father dished out would stop me - I just got smarter and learnt how to not get caught dressing up as the girl I always was.

I repressed it when I was 16 years old for about 10 years, but not out of fear of my father, but out of fear of losing my few male friends if they found out that I liked to dress as a girl, or I should say... if they found out I was really a girl, not just dressing up like one.

Just because you like to wear a dress it doesnt make you a transsexual female, there is much more to it... in fact the transsexual forum here is specifically for those who are genuinely transsexual & this forum describes a TS as having "external genitalia and secondary sexual characteristics of one sex, but whose personal identification and psychosocial configuration is that of the opposite sex."

[simplerhythm]

PS - thank you, admin, for fixing my thread name

[charlie]

Hello Kari!
Welcome to the forum. I hope you find this place as helpful, friendly and informative as I do. My feeling is that yes, you could actually become a TS if you find that being dressed and living as a woman full time is much more fullfulling then remaining a man. I have thought about presenting differently all the time, but change my mind just as quickly. We are both transgendered, however, being a CD is way different then TS.

[Lexine]

Welcome to the forums, Kari!

Usually being a TS is something that you discover that you are, not necessarily something you become. You begin to notice these things when you seem to have an insatiable urge to wholly become a female and not just to dress up, but to be female in every sense of the word. Transgender, as you probably surmised with all the posts here, simply means that you don't identify wholly with your birth gender and there's an eternal debate as to whether that means your sexual orientation is tied to that (I personally think it's not).

[t-girlxsophie]

I would say I spend about 80% of my time dressed,so Im well into the CDers lifestyle but It would still be a big leap to becoming TS I've discussed this with a few of my TS Friends,and hearing their experiences has only reinforced my view,Would I like to expand my dressing,definately but I wont be going down the TS route

:hugs:Sophie x

[NathalieX66]

There's that very old joke about the difference between a crossdresser and a transsexual is...two years.:battingeyelashes:

...which specifically refers to the process of HRT.

Me, I'm just a boring dumb male that likes to go out as female once in a while.

[Melody Moore]

I would say I spend about 80% of my time dressed,so Im well into the CDers lifestyle but It would still be a big leap to becoming TS I've discussed this with a few of my TS Friends,and hearing their experiences has only reinforced my view,Would I like to expand my dressing,definately but I wont be going down the TS route

:hugs:Sophie x

I agree, start living as a female fulltime which means going in public and interacting with others before you start HRT. If
you dont, you might not like the rejection you get or the acceptance dont get and might wish to go back to living as a male.

Many people on this forum are 'transgender' which is a broad term that applies to all cross-dressers (transvestites) or drag queens, as well as
transsexuals. However there is a lot to being a true transsexual & it really does take a lot of work to be fully accepted & respected as a natural
women and this is the one thing that I have noticed that really does separate the crossdressers or drag queens from the true transsexuals.

[kimdl93]

Welcome to the forums, Kari!

Usually being a TS is something that you discover that you are, not necessarily something you become. You begin to notice these things when you seem to have an insatiable urge to wholly become a female and not just to dress up, but to be female in every sense of the word. Transgender, as you probably surmised with all the posts here, simply means that you don't identify wholly with your birth gender and there's an eternal debate as to whether that means your sexual orientation is tied to that (I personally think it's not).

Some of us know...from the time we're little kids, that we are "different". I did...and so did my siblings. It was a source of conflict, teasing, and honestly years of frustration. It got to the point where I saw every difference between myself and my brothers as another sign...that I was different...and by inference..not as good.

That's what sucks about being TG...or TS. You have to deal with it before your mind is matured enough to grasp all that's happening. I mean, really, I was being called names when I was 6 for Christ sake. I was only being what I knew how to be. No we don't become TG or TS...it just happens.

[Kate Simmons]

You can pretty much "become" anything you like. Being yourself and being true to that is another story all together.:)

[Rianna Humble]

I often agree with Denise, but in this specific instance beg to differ. I am firmly in the camp that believes you either are TS or you are not. That does not mean that you necessarily admit it to yourself from the outset - I certainly did not. Anyone who has followed my journey on these forums will know that I struggled against admitting that I am TS - I wanted to just be "a bloke in a dress", but that was not who I am.

I do believe that someone in denial can spend a long time just cross-dressing before accepting their true nature and in that sense a CD can "become" TS.

The most important thing for me, though, is not the question of whether someone is TS, TV, CG, GQ, GD or any other variant of TG, it is who the individual is and how I can support and encourage him or her.

Kari, only time will tell whether you will finally realise that you have been a TS in denial or whether you are a cross-dresser. What is more important is how we can support you to become the person you were meant to be whoever that is.

[Kate Simmons]

I pretty much agree with you Rianna just from a slightly different view. Regardless of the "label" you are always yourself. If that happens to fall within the spectrum of being TS, it really has to be an individual determination in the end.:)

[sometimes_miss]

I'm going to disagree with most and say yes; because over a lifetime, we grow and change in all sorts of ways. While there are generalized differences between how the two genders stereotypically think, behave and feel, there's always a bell curve of percentages of each who fit into all the variables. There are straight women who are very masculine and behave and think very much like men, and there are gay women who are completely feminine. Just as there are straight men who behave and think like women, and gay men who are very masculine in every sense of the word. It comes down to whatever and whoever you feel you are at any given point in your life, and that can change as well. Be what you want to be, and be all you can be (credit to the armed forces for that last part).

[simplerhythm]

Thank you, friends
:hugs:

[KarenCDFL]

I have to say in my opinion that those of us who feel trans gender were born that way. I remember "fantasy's" even as a 3 or 4 year old going someplace to become a girl.

You know those magical "conversion" boxes we dream of as a child that you can walk into a boy and out a girl.

I can't remember all of the fantasy's I came up with to make this happen but there were a lot untill I was old enough to realize that it was just not that easy!

In later years I discussed with my therapist about my cross dressing and the one thing she did say is that from her experience, the cross dressing would become more of a center point of my life and my need to be feminine would increase. She was right on the nose and I had not yet discussed my being transgendered till a few short years ago.

[pamela_a]

Ignoring what you think or what you want; who do you need to be?

I lived for many years feeling "something" was wrong with me but not knowing what. Crossdressing helped and so I believed I was a crossdreser. As time progressed so did my crossdressing, to the point where my entire wardrobe was female. Even then it took me several years to allow myself to accept I was TS and begin transitioning.

It was a progression of sorts, but the crossdressing didn't lead to me being TS. What it did was allow me to better understand myself until I got to the point where I could finally accept who I really am.

Are you a crossdresser, TS, or somewhere in between? Only you can answer that question. There is huge Transgender spectrum. My only advice is to find the place on it where you are comfortable and at peace with yourself.

[Nigella]

Transexualism is something within you, it can lie dormant for ages and not become an issue until the time is right for you.

For as long as I can remember I considered myself to be a crossdresser, in essence for me "a bloke in a frock". Others saw the TS in me. Recently circumstances dictated that I saw what I was and recent visits to the Gender Identity Service has shown me that I am what is known as a Primary TS, i.e it has always been there, its just that I would not let my mind accept it until things were right for me to do so.

[Tina B.]

Forgive me for being uninitiated in this matter.. My best friend is TS but it's unlikely he'll ever be able to afford HRT, let alone SRS. He described it as, you know, having been born the wrong gender.

I've never felt that way about myself. I just always liked girl things without giving much thought to why. The rapid progress I've made in being out scares me when I think about it... purchases I've made, telling people. I don't know how it ends. Might I realize I'm TS after all? Any insight on how my friend feel about that, since it's not an issue I've dealt with all my life like he has?

Just curious
Kari

Kari, so much to digest when you start out, when you learn you are not what everybody told you, you where. Crossdresser, transsexual, or somewhere in between, it takes time to figure it all out. At first you admit to yourself that you like wearing womens clothes, and everything else a woman wears. Then you want more and more, going out learning how it is to be treated like a lady, maybe even finding out what it's like to be with a man. Then maybe you don't want to go back to boy mode, BAM! you just became a Transsexual, or maybe you just discovered who you where all along, only you can figure that one out.
Just remember you are what you are, and that does not change, it's all about what you do with what you learn. Be what you are, and be happy!
Tina B.

[kimdl93]

Kari, ....
Just remember you are what you are, and that does not change, it's all about what you do with what you learn. Be what you are, and be happy!
Tina B.

Great advice, Tina. all I can add is to live in the moment. One can spend an entire lifetime worrying about tomorrow, and missing out on today. Be who you are today, enjoy who you are today and let tomorrow take care of itself.

[Christina2008]

I’ve always wondered if some TV/CD’s have become TS through their love of their “hobby”?

Although even if some have (which in my opinion a small percentage may have) generally TS are born that way. If you follow your gut instinct you may just always be a TV and never come close to wanting to be a TS/woman.

Dressing as a woman is fun, feels good, can feel right, but doesn’t always mean you “should” be female.

[NathalieX66]

Dressing as a woman is fun, feels good, can feel right, but doesn’t always mean you “should” be female.

Yay!
that's the way I look at it. For my friends who want to be female....good, make yourself happy! You are not any less of a person. I am still your friend.:)

I'm just a boring dude who likes to wear a dress & put on makeup every now & then.