I landed on the gender fence....

[Sarah Jayne]

Oh dear is how I feel about everything right now. So confused.....

I have been seeing a psychologist and a psychiatrist for about a year now. I have been 100% open and honest about cross dressing, stealing contraceptive pills from gf's in the past, wearing my sister's clothes as a child and so forth. About 6 months in, the psychiatrist without prompting gave me a consent form for HRT. I freaked. I felt so totally ashamed of myself. He saw me as something I did not - transgendered. I declined the offer. I wanted to be cured of being a crossdresser, not rewarded. End of last year I went on vacation to the US, and splurged up on a new wardrobe, I had ended a relationship with a GG and could freely be Sarah Jayne at home. I saw my psychiatrist and said I wanted HRT. It made sense. He agreed, wrote a letter to my GP, saw GP donated blood and got a prescription for Progynova and Spiro. I freaked. I just confessed to myself to being transgendered, and there was me looking for a cure. I purged. I dumped all of Sarah Jayne's wardrobe, but I still kept the prescription. I even lied for the first time to my psychologist about what I had been up to, said I tore it up, I was a boy and mighty proud to own a penis. I even went on a date with a GG to prove it to myself.

I took the prescription to the pharmacy tonight, full boy, 3 days of stubble and filled it. I now have progynova, spiro and half a bottle of Sav Blanc coursing my veins and the makings of a mighty fine beard on my face.

Why is this so damn difficult to reconcile??? I think I landed on the gender fence.

[melissaK]

Sweetie! Welcome to genderland!

It truly is difficult if you insist on knowing why, because no one has that answer. For me, it seems I have a mind that took to heart male role social rules and conditioning that are diametrically opposed to some female role biological imperative within me. The biological imperative always wins no matter how much I've fought it. And I fought it hard for decades.

I suspect you will come to realize you really haven't landed on a fence, you have merely started you journey across the blurred landscape between a male role and a female role. How far you journey will be up to you, and what you think is right for you. Right now you fit in genderqueer land - female hormones in a male appearing body. Maybe you will stay there. Maybe you'll continue on to a full time woman role. You don't need to decide that today. And I dare say, your ideas about where you go will change along the way as you learn self-acceptance.

I am in the middle of a book that has helped me understand the social rules and conditioning I have assimilated or led my life accepting, and the book seems to be helping me with some unwiring of those, and improving my self-acceptance. It's Kate Bornstein's "My Gender Workbook." You might give it a try. But like I said, I'm only 1/2 way.

FWIW, I've been on HRT for a half dozen years, but stayed in the closet about it to everyone. I felt better after starting HRT, and I grew B cup breasts with time. But HRT alone wasn't the whole answer for me. Anxiety about not answering the call of the biological imperative within me to "live" openly as a woman came back and just got worse and worse. Last fall I got my HRT status 100% out on the table with my wife (like she didn't know - I mean B cups aren't hideable), and being honest with her was a start for me being honest and accepting of myself.

Then about a month ago I got serious about moving ahead with some form of transitioning and I let her and other family know I had to start transitioning. It's the hardest thing I've ever done in my life to announce that. It's been scary, my whole charming middle class American lifestyle is at risk. It's a daunting task too, I don't look too ladylike.

So, yes right now I'm in genderqueer land. Anyone who looks close, might see my t shirt is really a sports bra, and my getting ever longer hair is not really just me channeling my inner hippie as part of a mid-life crisis, and they might figure it out. But the anxiety I felt has evaporated, and that's been priceless to my soul and happiness. So, it seems the right path for me to be at least here right now. I suspect (actually I kinda know, like I've known since about age 13) I have further to travel.

Have fun on your HRT Sweetie. It felt great to me when I started, and it probably will feel great to you too.

(And oh yea, even if you think genderqueer land is the cat's meow right now, do start electrolysis to lose that beard, and start propecia or minoxidil to keep your hair if you have ANY baldness or hair loss among older family members.)

Again, welcome to genderland Sarah Jayne!

[kimdl93]

Don't feel alone. I'm sure, if you're honest with your Psych, that he/she will tell you that its normal to be conflicted. After a lifetime of hiding and denial to ones self and others, how could you feel otherwise. Its hard to reconcile an inner need with the outward trappings of gender. But you can do it...if you are patient and honest with yourself. There's no rush, no timeline.

But there's one thing you should re-think. You seem to think that acknowledging yourself and accepting yourself is mutually exclusive of having a relationship. It isn't.It is possible to have a relationship with a GG - as a transgendered person who chooses to dress occassionally or to live either part of full time en femme. And its possible to have a relationship with a GG as a transsexual.

[Jorja]

Little do you know it or will admit to yourself at this time, your psychiatrist did in fact offer you the cure for crossdressing. It is yours to do with it what you will. You can continue to fight it and lose even more valuable time or you can accept it and get on with it. We all have tough decisions to make in life. Some of us, it just takes a little longer to find the correct answers for ourselves.

[Rianna Humble]

You have acknowledged to your self that you may be transgender, that is a major step forward in understanding who you are.

Does it mean that you are necessarily transsexual? No, but it does mean that you are probably suffering some degree of gender dysphoria - the mismatch between your gender identity and/or expression on the one hand and your natal sex on the other.

Even your psychiatrist suggesting HRT does not mean that you must necessarily be transsexual, he may be using it as a diagnostic tool.

You find yourself sitting on the fence, unable or unwilling to accept who you may be at this stage. Fences are not very comfortable. Perhaps you should go with the hormones for now and see whether their effects make a difference to how you see yourself?

[KellyJameson]

Sometimes I become nervous when I read words by someone saying they are transsexual but it is not for me to decide who is and who is not.

Only once have I stepped in because I became frightened for the person and strongly believed it was not gender dysphoria but something else completely different but even than I could easily have been wrong.

Your words had the exact OPPOSITE affect on me from that person and I was calm in reading them and did not experience you has being delusional but very rational and scared as any rational person would be when faced with possibly being transsexual.

The shame is a natural part of the experience and can be a huge obstacle to overcome.

There is the you that keeps wanting to be born and than the you that is trying to prevent it and your life ends up being the battle ground for this struggle being fought inside you.

The shame becomes part of what creates the struggle to keep your unborn self from coming into being.

The more I understood the shame and transcended it the more I accepted being transsexual.

The shame was really not mine but created in me by being shamed for being me which was the natural expression of my transsexuality which really was just being naturally female.

I was forced to eat a reality that was opposite my reality and it made me sick and the shame "from being repeatedly shamed" kept me locked in this sickness but the gender dysphoria was not the sickness but in my shame I treated the gender dysphoria AS THE SICKNESS.

I think you may be doing this to.

In my opinion even though shame is painful and must be confronted it is actually a good indication of who you truly are because you do what you must even though there is the pain of shame in the act.

Also the mirror reflects back to you a reality that you accept as the reality of you but the reality of your gender was there before there were mirrors so the mirror is confusing your mind.

You are using mirrors and people to define you so continuing to reject the truth of who you are but both will lie to you.

You must stop trusting what your eyes see because your eyes will not lead you to the truth of who you are until after you have changed and than it will feel "right" when you look in a mirror.

There is healthy shame and unhealthy shame.

Healthy shame is when you "dishonor the self" such as addictions that destroy your life so you shamefully hide them from others or acts that destroy or harm others such as child abuse that are shamefully hidden.

Unhealthy shame is when shame prevents you from " honoring the self" so asserting your right to life and the expression that this life will take on.

Do not run from your shame but explore it because inside this shame is where you will find many truths.