First tiny step

[Cheyenne Skye]

I finally made a tiny first step on the voyage to my own self discovery. This past Saturday I went to a local transgender support group. It felt so good to be somewhere expressing myself without judgment. It gave me even more motivation to make an appointment with a therapist (despite my financial predicament making it quite difficult).

Going to the meeting also got me thinking about other things. So I have a question for all of you. At what point did you realize that there was more to the way you feel than just dressing up? Did you wake up one day and have an epiphany that got you to seek a therapist or was it one day in the therapist's office that you realized you were truly a woman inside and the dressing was just a way to show the rest of the world what you knew inside?

[Katesback]

I think that most TS girls know what they are from the day they can remember. I never went to a therapist to discover this. If you don't yet know what you are then I would suggest your probably are not TS. A dreamer... perhaps, but not likely TS. Thats my opinion for what it is worth.

Katie

[StaceyJane]

I always knew I wanted to be a woman. As a teenager I crossdressed because it was the only way knew to see myself as a girl.

[Traci Elizabeth]

I would have to agree with Katesback but as a child or even as a young adult you may not have known what to call it or ever heard of the word "Transgender" but you had to know you were not like other boys at all and that you felt more like a girl. I have always known I was a girl/woman/female but just did not know what I could do about it until much later in life.

[crystalann]

The earliest memories I have of my childhood was why am I not female? I feel no one could tell how I felt on the inside. The only reason I went to see a therapist, I thought this is what I had to do for transition. But I never needed to have anyone tell me I was truly a woman inside. :D

[AnnaCalliope]

I've been ready to start transition, in mind and body at least, for years. For a while, I was held back by family, because I know that my father's side of the family is not going to understand at all, and I'm still close with a few of them. Now its almost entirely a financial issue. Therapy and hormones are not cheap, and the job market here, while not quite dead, ain't exactly booming either.

[sandra-leigh]

There are a lot of different experiences represented on this site, and if you look around you will find a definite contingent of those who did not know their gender was different until they were adults. The medical profession, for all of its other faults in describing gender and transsexualism, recognizes this situation explicitly, calling those who "always knew" primary transsexuals and those who did not realize until later secondary transsexuals. It's not the greatest of terminology and some places refuse to use it because it implies a hierarchy that does not exist, but the point is there is no one path.

Kate expressed an opinion that if you don't already know you are TS then you probably are not; I have encountered sufficiently many people here who struggled with their identities that I cannot agree with that opinion.

I, for one, do not identify myself as Transsexual; I identify as transgender in the range referred to technically as "androgynous" (a word I personally don't care for). None the less, I recently started HRT because I need to know: I got tired of the mental dithering about what exactly I was and decided to do something to find out.

Two years ago I identified as... I don't know. A cross-dresser who wasn't happy just dressing a couple of times a month. The whole bit about knowing from your childhood kept me pinned down, since I was sure growing up that I was not a girl, but if cross-dressing is affecting me that much and I'm not transsexual then either I've "repressed" feeling like a girl, or what I'm feeling is something that only feels like gender issues and isn't really... or else the traditional definition of "transsexual" was wrong I was one after-all but didn't know it -- or else that the entire traditional male/female binary was inadequate and it was okay to have substantial gender considerations while not identifying as transsexual.

I spent a couple of months looking for "evidence" and "proof" that I was "only" a cross-dresser, or alternately that I was "more than" a cross-dresser. And I didn't find that evidence or proof of either possibility. Instead, one day, unremarkable in any other way, I realized that the need for evidence or proof had fallen by the way-side and that I "just knew" that I was transgender. Once I realized that and accepted that that was how I felt, I haven't looked back; the "decision" (or "realization", really) was the right one for me, and as I go along, I feel less and less that I am "male" (while still not identifying as "female".)

One of the questions I was tormenting myself with was "I am only one person and the only sample of 'male' that I have to go on is myself, so how do I know whether I am non-male or if instead what I feel is within the normal range of variation for being male, even if not talked about much?" I needed proof of where I stood, and I didn't find that proof: instead I found myself.


As for starting therapy: my wife and I were going through quite a rough time, so I started general therapy for that. Then about 6 months later things got bad enough that we decided to separate, but we stayed together. It was a rocky time, and people go back and forth between my workplace and her workplace so I knew if we did break up, that the news would travel. Therefore rather than have the news potentially travel through the gossip mills and be distorted along the way, I outed myself to my Human Resources Department, including the fact that I felt that I'd like to dress at work. HR didn't have a policy problem with that, but for my own comfort because I wasn't ready for that yet myself, I told HR that I wouldn't do anything specific at work until I'd gone to gender therapy. So I got a referral from my regular therapist and have been going for over a year since then.

(Note: my regular therapist already knew: it was one of the first issues that we raised about the life situation. Indeed, for my regular therapy, the major directional question I asked was "How can I take all the good things that I've experience through cross-dressing and apply them across my regular life?")

[Melody Moore]

I have been confused about my gender identity since a very young age, but I can't say that I felt that I should have been a girl until I was going
through puberty about the age of 15 after I seen the movie about Christine Jorgenson. This was the first time I remember wanting to change
my sex. From around the age of 6 it was always a question 'Am I really a boy or am I really a girl?' and use to dress to see the little girl within.

One other thing that really sticks in my mind is how I was always expected to group with the boys when teachers separated us for group activities
such as sports etc, my earliest memories of this go back to kindergarten around the age of 4 or 5. I never really wanted to hang out with the boys
all through primary school. Instead of wanting to play football or cricket, I wanted to play with the girls in the playground. I remember teachers
chasing me away from the playground by telling me to go play with the boys down on the oval, which I only went as far as hanging out on the
sideline and not really getting involved in the activities that the majority of boys were doing. So I only had a couple of friends at school who were
more the shy & withdrawn personality types. All my life I felt like the proverbial square peg trying to fit in a round hole trying to fit in with other males.

[Cheyenne Skye]

When I said it got me thinking, I started thinking about times in my childhood that stick out in my mind. Like when my mother let me wear her boots out to play in the snow because she hadn't bought me winter boots yet that year and how it made me feel. Or wanting to play dress up with my sister. And wanting to hang out with my sister and the other girls in the neighborhood. Instead, I ended up staying home and reading a book. And I've always gotten along better with the women I come in contact with than the men. I don't know if I can say without a doubt that I've always felt like a woman, but I have identified with them for a long time. I have said in the past though that I believe my parents would have treated me a lot differently if I had been born female.
As I've gotten older the dressing has gotten away from the sexual aspect that I discovered in adolescence to a more every day comfort thing. So I'm sitting here trying to put all the pieces together and (I know we shouldn't-but) define myself in terms of where I am on the gender continuum so I can be more comfortable and stop letting my feelings stress me out so much on a daily basis.
I was hoping to see that my experiences might be mirrored in those of people who have already discovered their place in the world.

[sandra-leigh]

If obstacles "fell away" and you were able to live as you would like to live, then how would that be, and how would it differ from what you do now?

Okay, now those obstacles: what are they (in general terms)? How could you reduce or remove them? Which of them do not actually affect you much financially but instead come down to your concern about how people (who don't have authority over you) would react to you if you were to be different?

[Rianna Humble]

Cheyenne, I'm glad that going to the local TG support group has allowed you to see a little more clearly who you are and to take this positive step forward. :hugs:

Some people will tell you as an "absolute fact" that if you have got to this stage in your life without knowing positively that you are in the wrong body, then you cannot be transsexual. I class this with all the other "absolute facts".

In my experience, it is an absolute fact that all absolute facts are invariably wrong in some way - including this one! :eek:

[Traci Elizabeth]

Cheyenne, I'm glad that going to the local TG support group has allowed you to see a little more clearly who you are and to take this positive step forward. :hugs:

Some people will tell you as an "absolute fact" that if you have got to this stage in your life without knowing positively that you are in the wrong body, then you cannot be transsexual. I class this with all the other "absolute facts".

In my experience, it is an absolute fact that all absolute facts are invariably wrong in some way - including this one! :eek:


I am going to start calling you the Riddle Lady...wait...you are a Politician aren't you? Now! That explains it! :D:D:D

On the OP's statement and others, I would find it hard to believe that one could grow up as a "normal" boy and live a "normal" young adult life then one day wake up and have an epiphany - "I'm a girl!"

As hard as I try, I just don't buy it~

As I stated earlier, there had to be some indications throughout one's life.

[Cheyenne Skye]

I am going to start calling you the Riddle Lady...wait...you are a Politician aren't you? Now! That explains it! :D:D:D

On the OP's statement and others, I would find it hard to believe that one could grow up as a "normal" boy and live a "normal" young adult life then one day wake up and have an epiphany - "I'm a girl!"

As hard as I try, I just don't buy it~

As I stated earlier, there had to be some indications throughout one's life.

But how do you know that those indicators mean you're transsexual or just a guy who likes to dress like a girl?
And I hardly had a "normal" childhood or adolescensce. I was socially ostracized throughout my youth for various reasons least of which was my feelings regarding my gender. So I'm trying to see how much those instances of my youth mean to my current conundrum.

[Aprilrain]

I would find it hard to believe that some one who grew up as a normal boy with normal boy behavior, ie not crossdressing on a regular basis for a very long time, would haunt this website let alone this forum.

I also find it hard to believe that a person with say a male body who believes they are a female but who lives in a society were such things are not acceptable would NOT find ways to supress these thoughts. Maybe im crazy but that just seems like a good survival strategy. For me it became untenable but it worked for a long time.

My experience is this, when ever I would get it in my head that I was a girl or wanted to be a girl this thought was immediately followed by something like don't be stupid your not a girl and somehow I'd get on with my life until I no longer could. For me personally the gender issue, which was there from an early age but very ambiguously, was overshadowed by drug and alcohol abuse. So it makes sense to me that I would not have put serious continuos thought into the gender issue until after I'd been sober long enough to start thinking clearly and create a semblance of a "normal" life. That was 2 years BTW. The gender issue took starting to deal with it, freaking out and shoving it all back in the closet and another 4 years to come to terms with the fact that this simply wasn't going to go away.

You've made the right decision seeking therapy it certainly can't hurt and just be open to what ever you discover.

[Areyan]

when i first came to the realization for myself, these "indicators" throughout my childhood were not immediately clear. it has taken me much mental and emotional work going back through my childhood to pinpoint times where i argued vehemently with my parents about my gender and indeed bawled my eyes out and prayed to God to fix the mistake he made with me. though having said this, i kept hold of one precious memory from when i was around 3 years old of identifying with a male character in a movie for the first time, realizing that my gender was the same. because i lived through my adult female life with that memory standing out above all others too painful to recall, it was the only clear one i had and i used it to prove i was NOT trans, lol. my denial was that strong.

i can totally relate with some of the responses here about how all my life i compared myself to other men and a lot of my sentences, thoughts and plans were followed up by the thought - "if i were a man" over and over again. when i was 7 years old i was obsessed with Bill Murray and my favourite movie was Stripes... lol. my parents were disturbed that my favourite film was about a man joining the army to slack off and perv as many women as possible. :lol2: at age 12 i was again obsessed with another male character in a movie - i identified strongly with Atreyu from the Neverending Story (perhaps because i looked so much like him) and it got so intense my mother tried to force me into reading other books and seeing other films. i remember bitterly crying in her work room one day as she told me she was confiscating my favourite film.

many many indications kept trying to push through my denial but i had such strong ideas as a person, nothing worked to make me realize my true identity until i lost almost everything dear to me. i suffered such a large crisis two years ago that all of my beliefs, feelings and ideas about life were shaken up until it all fell back into place, with my burgeoning masculine identity. i am still blogging about it now, putting together the pieces of my life and working through my reality.

[Melody Moore]

I don't know if I can say without a doubt that I've always felt like a woman, but I have identified with them for a long time.

As I've gotten older the dressing has gotten away from the sexual aspect that I discovered in adolescence to a more every day comfort thing....

So I'm sitting here trying to put all the pieces together and (I know we shouldn't-but) define myself in terms of where I am on the gender continuum so I can be more comfortable and stop letting my feelings stress me out so much on a daily basis.

I was hoping to see that my experiences might be mirrored in those of people who have already discovered their place in the world.
We are all different, especially how we discover who we really are, but from what I have been reading,
it sounds to me like your experiences do have a parallel with me & a few other transsexuals I know.

It takes many of us many years to finally connect all the dots and understand who we truly are.


My experience is this, when ever I would get it in my head that I was a girl or wanted to be a girl this thought was immediately
followed by something like don't be stupid your not a girl and somehow I'd get on with my life until I no longer could.
What April says here about the repression of gender issues is so true for many of us as well.

As I mentioned on my earlier post about how I was always expected to group with the boys when teachers separated us for group activities
such as sports etc. I always thought the teacher was doing the right thing for me because I looked like a boy, however I never felt comfortable
because I never felt like I identified with other males on an emotional level. This got much worse as I got older, especially as an adult when I
could really understand the differences in the emotions of both males & females. Like April I also got into using drugs & alcohol from about the
age of 16 trying to fit in and become 'one of the boys' which also numbed me to the discomfort I always felt when I was around other males.

I become very homophobic/transphobic and would join in the chorus of abuse with other males running down homosexuals & trans folk, but
I understand now this was obviously something I was doing to protect myself after being bullied & abused right throughout my school years.

I pulled out of this drug & alcohol fuelled haze by joining the army and getting involved in ultra-masculine type activities, but I was still trying to
prove to myself & the rest of the world that I was a 'real man' which also seems to be another fairly common trait amongst members of the TS
community. Quite a few of my TS friends including myself have been bikers, my best transsexual female friend is a motorcycle mechanic & custom
builds Harley Davidson motorcycles for a living. She was also one of the state's most promising motocross riders a few years ago & did tests
reviews for the national 'Dirt Bike' magazine here in Australia. Even though I was hanging out with guys, I never really felt comfortable being
with guys, so everything I did was purely an 'act'. I even got tattoos which was part of my 'mask' to protect myself from abusive males.

Deep down I always knew that I was living a lie & not being true to myself. Eventually the guilt of not being honest about who I really was
got to me & nearly destroyed me because I pushed myself to try & become someone that I always despised - I had become another bullying
& dominating stand-over merchant as male. This is when I realised that I truly was more of a submissive female stuck in the wrong body.

The funny part was despite establishing myself as a very strong male & not one to be messed around with, I withdrew into myself again,
and become the shy & repressed person I was a child. I guess this was part of the process with shedding the mask & not acting anymore.

[Stephanie Anne]

'm glad you found a support group in your area. A therapist can be an excellent tool to help sort out your feelings and help relieve anxiety. Regardless of people's expressed opinions on the worthless nature of cognitive therapy, it is proven time again to be valuable.

Good luck and enjoy discovering yourself. Nobody is saying you aren't one way or the other.

[sandra-leigh]

I would find it hard to believe that some one who grew up as a normal boy with normal boy behavior, ie not crossdressing on a regular basis for a very long time, would haunt this website let alone this forum.

Whether you believe in my existence or not, I exist.

My crossdressing experiments as a teen grew out of me knowing that I was not female, and wondering what it would be like to be female -- experiments inspired by having read Black Like Me (in which a white man dyed himself black in order to experience what it was like to be a black person in the USA in the 1950's or so.) I knew I couldn't actually transform into female to do the experiment properly, but I could at least test things like whether the clothes were as uncomfortable and restrictive and patriarchal as was being claimed in the newspapers and magazines of the day.

The experiments were irregular, and the boldest I ever got was to wear pantyhose to the mall one day. And the experiments stopped when I moved away from home.

But then you defined "normal boy behavior" in terms of cross-dressing regularly over an extended period. There are other things that go into "normal boy behavior". It was obvious to me from observation that I was a boy and that girls existed and I was not one of them. It was also obvious to me from observation that I was not sports oriented (not that I didn't like a good game of Red Rover), and it was obvious that the boys my age did not especially want me around. The girls my age didn't especially want me around either, but some of the older ones were willing to put up with me playing with them from time to time for my sister's sake.

Was I giving off subtle gender signals that led the boys my age to not care much about me? Who knows? What I can tell you is this: I was giving off rather unsubtle cues about being intelligent, the brightest in math and science in my grade (in my school) and pretty decent in most other subjects too. In my school, in order for a boy to be both relatively bright and socially accepted, the boy had to be a decent athlete. I wasn't an athlete in ways they could understand; I wasn't socially suave, and I was bright and responsible and a teacher's favorite. There is no need to invoke gender dystopia to explain my behavior differences in school: being smart and a non-athlete is enough to explain my being shunned and wondering over to whom-ever would put up with me (i.e., the girls in my sister's grade.)

It's late and I'm tired now, so I am going to stop at this point.

[Rianna Humble]

I would find it hard to believe that one could grow up as a "normal" boy and live a "normal" young adult life then one day wake up and have an epiphany - "I'm a girl!"
...
As I stated earlier, there had to be some indications throughout one's life.

The OP has given some of those indications in other messages in this thread. There is also the fact that many people repress those inconvenient memories until they have some sort of cathartic event that brings the memories to the fore.

We even had an example on this boards a few months ago, someone who thought they couldn't be a "proper TS" because she couldn't remember the dysphoria in her infancy until she went for counselling with her partner and on the way home suddenly started remembering events long ago hidden in her memory.


But how do you know that those indicators mean you're transsexual or just a guy who likes to dress like a girl?

In my opinion, it can be hard to know or knowing to accept what they mean.


And I hardly had a "normal" childhood or adolescence. I was socially ostracized throughout my youth for various reasons least of which was my feelings regarding my gender. So I'm trying to see how much those instances of my youth mean to my current conundrum.

Could it be that you compartmentalised the memories? Some people put bullying or ostracism down to other causes because they don't want to admit to themselves at the time that this was caused by giving off mixed gender signals. Others attribute the cause wrongly because they do not understand what transphobia is.


I would find it hard to believe that some one who grew up as a normal boy with normal boy behavior, ie not crossdressing on a regular basis for a very long time, would haunt this website let alone this forum.

I'm sorry,but I think that your definition of "normal boy behaviour" is very restrictive. When I was young, I never had the possibility to cross-dress on a regular basis for any length of time. That never stopped me knowing that I didn't fit in.


I also find it hard to believe that a person with say a male body who believes they are a female
...
would NOT find ways to suppress these thoughts.

I think that you are right about this point, but can you see how someone who has suppressed those thoughts over a prolonged period might end up lying to themselves that they had lived a normal childhood?


We are all different, especially how we discover who we really are

I couldn't have put it better myself (and in fact I didn't :heehee:)


It takes many of us many years to finally connect all the dots and understand who we truly are.

:thumbsup: :yt: :iagree:

[Inna]

Hey Cheyenne, seems that almost every one so far keeps on calling you a "normal boy". The thoughts you have explained from your childhood would indicate not so normal in my standards. Feminine associations, feeling different all indicate some degree of feminine brain. There are some transsexuals who are entirely knowing of them selves, despite of mirror reflection, since age 3, but are fairly rare. For the rest of us the path leads through burying feminine self deep inside our subconscious imprisoning our true self for a life time until one day comes where the strength to keep her locked up looses hold and femininity emerges bursting out from within. For some it is a day, for others weeks or years. I felt a gradual increase in pressure to surface my true self and was driven near suicide to finally admit my life's failure to recognize woman within. We build walls, quite literal emotional walls to keep functioning within society, pressure is immense, so even though we have a female brain, suppression of such can be quite successful. Don't doubt your self!

Do this exercise to determine set point:

Imagine you just have won lottery, money is no object. You no longer are dependent on income or human relations to obtain income. You grow confidant and sit down with your family and explain the situation. Most are accepting, some are skeptical but willing to go along because they love you. You will lose some along the way but your understanding of this is that "you never had true love from them in the first place". Others even though stepped aside will eventually return in love( believe me I know!!!!!!!!!!!!)
Now, said that, it is all about you!!!
What comes to your mind?

[Traci Elizabeth]

The OP has given some of those indications in other messages in this thread. There is also the fact that many people repress those inconvenient memories until they have some sort of cathartic event that brings the memories to the fore.

We even had an example on this boards a few months ago, someone who thought they couldn't be a "proper TS" because she couldn't remember the dysphoria in her infancy until she went for counselling with her partner and on the way home suddenly started remembering events long ago hidden in her memory.


That was my point, that there had to be some indications in the past that the child had gender issues be them remembered or not. We just don't wake up as an adult and out of nowhere and proclaim that we are now a woman.

[Rianna Humble]

Hey Cheyenne, seems that almost every one so far keeps on calling you a "normal boy".

Not me

[Cheyenne Skye]

I suppose perhaps then my original question should have been re-phrased. When did you realize that you could no longer live in the male role and needed to seek assistance in changing that?

PS. Thank you Rianna

[Stephanie Anne]

I suppose perhaps then my original question should have been re-phrased. When did you realize that you could no longer live in the male role and needed to seek assistance in changing that?

PS. Thank you Rianna

At age 32. as a teenager and young adult I was unaware of what options were open to me. 20 years ago there was not the wealth of information and understanding there is now. I had repressed myself for years and years and I finally had enough by the time I was in my early thirties. I finally found what I needed and got a great support structure going. I found a wonderful therapist who did understand what I needed and was able, on my own to stop being afraid and come out.

My view is you are never to young or old to start. The only hurdle is don't go rushing into something you are not ready to work through.

[Inna]

Not me

hance, "almost every one", love ya :-)

[danielleb]

I suppose perhaps then my original question should have been re-phrased. When did you realize that you could no longer live in the male role and needed to seek assistance in changing that?

I got to a corner where I could die as I am, or try to live as I need to be. I didn't know much about "the path" until coming here and seeing so many other girls like me. I'm in a limited finances situation as well, and assistance is limited for me, but I know what I am, and have been working hard to just accept myself as I am. The roller coaster of emotions that follows is an overwhelming ride, but you can see others here have made it through, so there must be a way those of us starting out can get there too.:daydreaming:

[sandra-leigh]

It was the reverse order for me: it wasn't until I was in gender therapy that I realized that could no longer live as male. Before that, I knew I was transgender, but I didn't yet know that going "back" was no longer a realistic option for me.

The question as put could be construed as dealing with changing how one lived in every day life, the necessary emotional and psychological adjustments. There is a natural extension to the question, which is "At what point did you realize you required body modification (e.g., hormones or surgery)?" For me it was the day of my 49th birthday, six-ish months ago; though even then I was not convinced I required it: I was only convinced that I needed to examine it seriously and find out what it would entail. It is only within the last few months that it become "inevitable", that I reached the point where I had to know -- and I'm still prepared for the possibility that it won't work out for me.

[Aprilrain]

Too your second Question about 4 months ago.

Basically I was saying the same thing Tracy Elisabeth was saying, there would be some life long indications of gender confusion or a desire to express your self as the other gender or something along those lines no matter how suppressed or ambiguous it may seem now. In no way was I calling the OP a "normal boy" none of the statements I made were a judgement on the OP or any other persons statements they were all based on my own experience or my opinion of gender issues in general.

i guess it was wrong of me to assume that we all have been cross-dressing to some degree or another for a good portion of our lives. for me this was the part of the whole gender confusion that was overt enough to not be able to ignore. i would come up with rationalizations for this behavior but none of them really explained to my satisfaction why i was compelled to do it. also occasionally dressing up as a woman was not fulfilling for me, in many ways it made the situation worse because it only served as a painful reminder to me that i was not a woman no matter how much i wished to be and further more i knew it meant that i was a freak or pervert or mentally ill.

It is hard for me to imagine growing up in an environment where an adolescent boy with gender confusion or whatever you want to call it would feel comfortable expressing this to anyone. i would rather have died than not try to fit in when i was that age. thats probably why i took to drugs and alcohol at 14

[sandra-leigh]

I only recall one cross-dressing incident from my 20's to early 30's.

There was something that was going on in my life in that time period: I was being called "fag" by random strangers, even when I was dressed in stereotypical male clothes (e.g., "lumberjack shirt" and jeans and sneakers.) That was frustrating and disappointing, but it also acted to build up a core of strength, in that I learned to not care so much what ignorant strangers thought of me -- and to not bother trying to act to "fit in" since I didn't fit even when I was doing the socially expected. It was a period during which I formed some good friendships, especially with lesbians -- once you know that people are going to perceive you as homosexual no matter who you hang out with, then you are freed to enjoy the company of anyone without regard to their sexuality.

But during that time period, I did not doubt that I was male. And I did not doubt that I was male during the following period from my early 30's to early 40's, during which I was regularly in clothing stores "keeping up" with what's available, buying clothes for my wife, studying varieties of bras to know what to get her, trying on combinations of her clothes to develop a better sense of style coordination so that I could buy for her more effectively, trying on her bras to study how they looked and the elements that went in to a proper fit... and so on. Yeh, they are obvious clues now but I didn't doubt my gender as I was doing those things. And I didn't doubt my gender the day that I realized that I wanted to wear the clothes myself.

It would certainly be fair to say that by now I have a long history of things that are obviously cross-dressing related in retrospect (but that doesn't necessarily mean gender-identity related). Still, there was a good 15 year gap during which next to nothing happened (that I remember anyhow), and the repressed impulses didn't show up until my early 30's.

Thinking back, it would probably be fair to frame my experiments in my teens as conscious experiments about the meaning and experienced effect of gender. I didn't feel confused, though: I was trying things in about the same sense that I would try experiments with my chemistry set.

[Rianna Humble]

Warning, long post - please feel free to skip to next post in this thread.


I suppose perhaps then my original question should have been re-phrased. When did you realize that you could no longer live in the male role and needed to seek assistance in changing that?

I guess I got to that point fairly late - around the age of 53, but then my feelings sort of snowballed.

Ever since my childhood dreams about being married as the bride, I have known that I was not like normal people. To a greater or lesser extent this has affected my whole life, and is in great part the reason why I have never had any meaningful relationships.

Despite this, I managed to lie to myself and to others that I was a man for over four and a half decades. In that period, I only had fairly rare opportunities to cross-dress but whenever I did, I would feel a great sense of peace and well-being followed by a massive guilt trip largely laid on courtesy of a religious group persuading me during my adolescence that being transgendered was a "sinful choice".

For many of the last 10 years I lied to myself that it was not possible for me to live as a woman, reasoning that since I knew that I was a very ugly man I would also be a very ugly old woman - and no-one wants to know a very ugly old woman.

It is coming up for two years ago now that my sense of "not being right" began to get so strong that I was losing sleep and becoming really down about myself and about whether I had a future. I even got to the stage of planning various ways to commit suicide. The only thing that prevented me acting on these plans was my compassion for those who would have to deal with the consequences.

Over several weeks, I came to see that the root cause for this depression was linked to my gender, but I still didn't want to admit who I am. Things came to a head one night when I decided that I had no option but to choose between suicide and admitting the fact that I was not a "normal man". So I went out at about 1 a.m. and bought some female clothing which I put on to walk home. Even then, I was afraid to admit who I really am and thought I could shame myself out of the need by dressing in public and being ridiculed.

The first time that I went out somewhere that there were a lot of people dressed as "a bloke in a skirt", instead of ridicule I got support from strangers for what I was doing. I found that the more I dressed in that way, the better I felt about myself.

Over a period of about 5 or 6 months, I got to the point where I could hardly bear to be dressed fully in drab, but I was scared to admit that I am really transsexual because of the lie I had been telling myself about being an ugly old woman; but also because of (unfounded) fears of how it would affect my father's health.

I even found excuses to stay away from home overnight so that I wouldn't have to spend evenings and nights dressed in drab.

That is roughly where I was when I joined this site fifteen months ago. Unbeknown to me, I had started giving off so many signals about being TG that a girl from work asked me why I went to the 2009 staff xmas party wearing a suit not a dress. That really opened the floodgates and I knew that my days of pretending to be a man were numbered.

For fairly complicated reasons, I was not able to seek help towards transition for another 6 months, but the time since I did seek help has been the best period of my whole life so far.

[Melody Moore]

I was being called "fag" by random strangers...

it also acted to build up a core of strength, in that I learned to not care so much what ignorant strangers thought of me
Sandra, please don't take offence to what I am about to say, because I do care about you, but you know very well
that isn't a true statement you just made & I know this from what I already know about you. The reason I say this
is because you expressed your concerns about what people might think of you if anyone was to know that you were
a transsexual in a thread just over 2 weeks ago. Do you remember this thread & this comment (http://www.crossdressers.com/forums/showthread.php?145828-All-I-want-for-Christmas...&p=2360193#post2360193) that proves this fact?


unless you want to stretch the truth and say that you are a transsexual?! You'll get laughed at, and gossiped about, and people will think you're a sexual pervert, and some of the women will probably be upset thinking that you are 'competing' with women!", and "Your mother would really have trouble with that!"

Other members of this forum replied (http://www.crossdressers.com/forums/showthread.php?145828-All-I-want-for-Christmas...&p=2361229&viewfull=1#post2361229) to you telling you that it appears to them you were still making lots of
excuses. So I have to ask you a very blunt question, Who do you think you are really trying to fool here?


I have a long history of things that are obviously cross-dressing related in
retrospect (but that doesn't necessarily mean gender-identity related).
Once again there is a lot contradictions in your very own words that suggests to me that you are still in a lot denial & are still
having a very hard time accepting who you really might be. This next part of the post really does ring alarm bells with me and
also strongly suggests to me that you do have a very serious gender identity disorder you are struggling to come to terms with.


Some days my heart just aches. I look at pictures of women with beautiful breasts, implants; and even more than wanting to be with them, I start to feel sadness and longing and I-don't-know-what, that I don't have anything even remotely similar and that I'm not brave enough to go and get nice-sized implants myself.
...

Sadly, that thinking mind isn't helping much. No matter if it is a completely unrealistic fantasy, the fact is that my heart is aching and that I feel like going back to bed and crying, and I don't even know really what it is I'm wanting to cry about.


Still, there was a good 15 year gap during which next to nothing happened (that I
remember anyhow), and the repressed impulses didn't show up until my early 30's
Sandra, this does not mean that you are not transsexual. I had substantial gaps in the times I dressed as a female as well.

During my childhood it was very sporadic & sometimes up to 2 to 3 years between dressing episodes that would occur mostly
as one-offs or for a couple of days. The biggest limiting factor with dressing up was getting the opportunity when noone else
was around. I had this huge fear about being caught after my father beat the crap out of me for getting into my mum's make-up,
which he found out about after he seen that I still had make-up still on my face around the age of 6 or 7. My sister also told him
that I was wearing her clothes which is what also made him really angry. My mother was a nurse & I can recall how she would
leave home about 3.30pm most afternoons to work evening shifts after she made sure we made it home from school. My father
would get home about 2 hours later, so my sister & I were left home alone for a couple of hours most afternoons. My sister use
to enjoy our dress-up games, however she also figured out how to use this against me, and would often blackmail me to get her
own way. So it got more difficult to dress up as we grew older because of the fear I had about being caught or 'dobbed in' to my
parents by my sister & being punished by my father again for it.

The longest dressing episodes I can recall from my childhood that went on for about 5 days maximum was between the ages of 14
to 16. The only reason I could get way with it for so long at this stage was because it was during the week when both of my parents
were at work & my sister would be at her girlfriend's place most afternoons after school. But I was still gripped by the fear of being
caught. So I would be constantly listening for the front gate being opened & looking out my bedroom window for any signs that my
sister or parents were coming home. Around the age of 16 I stopped dressing up & the next time I got dressed up was at the age
of 26, so there was a 10 year gap there. I only did it the once because a former girlfriend who I dumped a couple of days later had
encouraged me to do it. I dumped this girl for fear of my gender dysphoria being re-awoken. Then came the longest gap of nearly
20 years between dressing episodes when my gender dysphoria came steam rolling back & I started dressing again very regularly
around the age of 45. By the age of 46 I was dressing in secret everyday and wearing female clothing under baggy clothing virtually
all of the time. This is when it become impossible for me to ignore any longer. I dressed to feel comfortable within myself, so it wasn't
a sexual thing. This is when I knew without any doubt that I was a transsexual & I see a similar pattern to this in the things you have
been writing here. So I have to ask you Sandra... how long are you going to continue to be in denial about being a transsexual?
You will also find Sandra that many of us also led ultra-masculine lives while repressing our gender identity issues. :hugs:

[Jennifer Marie P.]

I knew I always wanted to be a woman thats why I transitioned to be the woman I had to be.