At what age did you know you were TS?

[Marleena]

They say you're born TS. Some will know as a child while others like me will know something is wrong but can't pinpoint it because of the way we are raised. I couldn't figure out myself until my twenties. I couldn't understand the concept of having male anatomy and wanting to be a girl. How could I possibly be anything but a male? It took me until my twenties to realize who/what I was. Then life got in the way and I buried all thoughts of ever getting it corrected. There was no internet or help in those days.


At what age did you know you were TS?

*EDIT*

Simply when did you come to the conclusion that you are (or were for those that have transitioned) TS? The AHA moment, the realization. The inescapable moment of clarity when it all made sense. I don't think we can remember the exact day of course.

[Kaitlyn Michele]

44 years old

then 2 years of sobbing and wailing and denial..

[Aprilrain]

I knew for sure by 29 but didn't want to accept it. Started transition at 34.

[Marleena]

I hear you about the denial part Kaitlyn! I had to be told and didn't want to hear it because I thought I had this beaten. It was mind over matter for a very long time. Once I got the message all the old memories started flooding back. I guess it never really goes away no matter how hard we try to suppress it.

[Katelyn B]

I was 30, an age the councillor found "interesting", until I told her what else happened around the same time that shocked me out of my slow decent into nothing. That was 3 years ago :D

[melissaK]

I knew as soon as I learned what one was, age 13. I saw Christine Jorgensen's autobiography on a book rack at a local drugstore in my small rural Baptist town. I read the book jacket and skimmed the text when no one was watching. Took me several trips to the drugstore to do it. I "knew" it was me.

It would take me until age 38 to get out of my mental closet enough to admit it out-loud. But I thought doing something about it was elective, and fear of transitioning, fear of losing my kids, fear of losing friends (I actually told one and he never spoke to me again) kept me from acting on it.

After 20 more years, of tears, GD pain, and counseling bill$, I am acting on it.

Looking back though, its more than 45 years of denial and repression, I had gender issues that caused me real problems beginning in 3rd grade, which I suppose is why I "knew" at age 13 when I learned a word for it. It explains a lot of my behavior throughout my whole life - - -

[Kaitlyn Michele]

Melissa its interesting the way you phrased it...

only in hindsight can i say that I "knew"...my very precise thinking process was basically that I "wished" i had been born a girl, and i was unhappy that i got unlucky and was born a boy... i had fully accepted the idea that I was a "boy" because of my body..

reading about c jorgenson, reading Conundrum by Jan Morris and seeing a ts story in time magazine had the same impact on me...incredible jealousy and wonderment... and even though i took long baths and imagined how i would go to college as a girl i still never "knew"..

..its a crazy mind F**K to go through this..makes it hard to "know" anything..

[natasha]

I knew I was "different" during my adolescent years, but never had anything to guage it against or anyway to learn more about it. Having grown up in an all male household and only "boys" in the neighborhood it was either eat or be eatin kinda atmoshpere. I thought I was the only one with "issues" of gender incongruity and had no one to discuss it with or ability to research the issue (no internet in the 70's). Flip Wilson, Cpl Klinger, and for some (what I thought) weird reason Chasity Bono were ones that I enjoyed watching back then, though it would have been the kiss of death to speak openly about it then......................................I learned that to survive I had to keep it all inside. That worked until the early 2000's when internet access became common place and crossdressing began to become more "life" consuming, I sought out therapy in 2007, hmones in 08, orchi in 10. By the way, I am 48 now.

Internally a transition is in full progress. Outward presentation is still full male :( , due to life commitments.

[stefan37]

I can remember watching a trailer when I was 13 of Christine Jorgenson applying lipstick in front of a mirror as a young man and I connected immediately. Being 13 there was no way my mother was going to let me go. I have always felt I was transsexual, but like Melissa I had the same fears of parental approval, friends etc and I would have had no idea where to even find help. As my urges to feminize myself would grow i could always find a way to mitigate them, usually through crossdressng and alcohol. I also enjoyed doing male centric activities and my friends were not alpha males so i was comfortable. My sexual orientation is towards females so that was not a problem. Finally reached a point I could not suppress it any longer and the urges became stronger to express my inner self. I am happy I made the hard decision to take those steps forward and in spite of losing my marriage as I know I am so full of energy and lust for life I will never go back.

[ChelseaErtel]

51. I knew since I was 6 that I was a bit different. Anything about TS in the news or on TV was fascinating and I'd fantasize about changing into a woman. I have always been a compliant person, so I buried those and other thoughts for years until it exploded at age 51. Here is one reason the internet is fabulous, it can assist in bringing understanding.

[Aprilrain]

I viewed it as a crazy deviant sexual fantasy and anytime i talked yo anyone about it they pretty much reinforced that idea. I never heard about Jorgensen or Richards until I came here, I guess by the time I was in high school their stories were old news. I did see the "Crying Game" and another movie featuring a trans woman the name of which escapes me. The effect the woman in those movies had on me was to bring out my homo/trans phobia, I probably protested too much ; ) meanwhile in the privacy of my room I was dressing up in my sisters clothes getting drunk and or high and masturbating. Not much changed in my 20s except my need to dress grew and I found more time to do it and it became less sexual I also had the overwhelming need to tell someone ANYONE! But I only told my girlfriends but always couched it as a sexual fetish. I got sober and just KNEW that would "cure" me only it didn't. From 28 to 34 I binged and purged, at 29 I tried to come out but got a really bad therapist, between her and my wife's (understandable) reactions I decided to purge for the last time! I think that lasted about 6 months lol. At 34 I just couldn't take it anymore, I wanted to die one day I just admitted it, I WANT TO BE A GIRL DAMN IT! (And I'm attracted to men but that's beside the point) the rest is chronicled in my post history, read it if you dare! Just kidding, I'm sure it's quite boring.

[Jorja]

I knew I was different than the other boys at 4-5 years old. I didn’t know what it was called but I was different. I gave my parents fits at 9 – 11 because I would not shut up about it. At 13 I first learned of Christine Jorgensen. That is when I stood up at the dinner table one evening and announced now that I knew it could be done, I would be a girl one day. In a last ditch effort to become a man I joined the Navy at 18. I quickly learned that was a mistake. I served my four years and was honorably discharged. The very next day I started living as a woman and have never looked back.

[EnglishRose]

34, and I still can't believe it took me that long for everything to make sense. That bell was deafening too.

[Kathryn Martin]

I knew by age nine I was born a girl with a defect. I was never trans anything. I suffered from a condition called transsexualism.

It's something I had, not something I am.

[Lorileah]

I remember at the age of 4 asking why the doctors changed me to a boy. But having a name to go with it came when I was about 23 or so and was in Human Sexuality class. That is when I really found out that I was not the only one in the world.

[Rachel Mari]

So many responses here are so similar to my life that it’s crazy.

I knew something was up (had no name for it) just before I went into the first grade at 4yo (October baby). I know I asked my mother about why wasn’t I a girl but I don’t remember her answer. The first time I told anyone (a friend in the first grade), it didn’t turn out well at all (he was no longer my friend and tormented me for the rest of grade school) so I learned very quickly not to ever say anything to anyone about this.

As a teen, it was still there but I had no one to talk to and didn’t see any examples. I viewed it as an impossible dream and pushed it away. After all, no matter how much I felt like a girl, my attraction to only girls and my body (and everyone else around me) reinforced that I was male.

At 30yo, after my divorce, I attempted to kind of come out somewhat to my GF but it became clear that I would be alone if I pushed it any farther. I went to a guy therapist and told him I didn't feel like a man and basically the message I got from him was for me to man up, so I again suppressed it all away. Looking back I couldn’t allow even to admit it to myself because I knew it would cause nothing but trouble. Part of that logic was that I couldn’t even really believe that anyone else could feel TS either. I was still very much alone with this.

It’s only been within the last 2.5 years (finding this website and starting therapy) that I felt that I’m willing to break my vow of silence & non-action and admit I’m TS.

F**k! Now I got to do something about it.

So, to answer the question: I don’t know, maybe my teens, but I finally admitted it to myself almost two years ago at 54yo.

[LeaP]

Know? What's know? First inkling? First suspicion? A hope? Compartmentalized thought? Conviction?

And of what? That one is TS specifically? (That's the OP question) That one has a female identity? That one ... what? ... wants? Needs? Must?

And if it's conviction, what does it mean if its not acted upon? I've been utterly convicted of any number of things in my life, many of which were false.

I can point to different timeframes for all of these things, but one thing knowing is not, is understanding. I didn't really know what being transsexual meant (and I'm not talking about consequences) until a few months ago. Most post-ops would tell me, as they ALL have to-date, that I yet don't understand. So what do I "know" and what have I known?

Is this question about justification?

[EnglishRose]

I knew by age nine I was born a girl with a defect. I was never trans anything. I suffered from a condition called transsexualism.

It's something I had, not something I am.

That's really only nomenclature and can be divisive if abused (re: HBSers)

[Marleena]

Is this question about justification?

Nope, a very basic question with no hidden agendas. Simply when did you come to the conclusion that you are (or were for those that have transitioned) TS? The AHA moment, the realization. The inescapable moment of clarity when it all made sense.

[kellycan27]

I suppose it was about age 13 when it started to really hit me. I have a hard time understanding how people "knew" at 3,4 or 5 years old. I have a 5 year old and an almost 3 year old who don't have a clue as to gender. They have nothing to compare themselves to in order that they make that distinction. Honestly who at 3,4, or 5 has the capacity to understand the difference?

[Rianna Humble]

I can't answer the question as put in the original post because, even with hindsight, I do not know exactly when I first knew I am transsexual.

Was it when, as a child, I dreamt every night of my wedding with me as the bride and woke up in tears because I still wasn't a girl? Probably not, because I didn't have the words to explain to anyone what was going on in my life.

Was it as a young adult when I couldn't marry the girl I loved because I was unable to envisage myself as the husband? Possibly, because by then I know what the word meant.

Was it a few years later than that when I told myself that it was no use because I would always be an ugly woman? More probably, but it could have been somewhere between those two.

Adding in the later question, I think that my major AHA moment was when I realised that I could remain alive provided that I transitioned.

So in some ways I've always known without necessarily always knowing. And if you understand that, you're better at understanding than I am.

[LeaP]

... The inescapable moment of clarity when it all made sense.

I'll let you know when it happens ... :straightface:



... So in some ways I've always known without necessarily always knowing. And if you understand that, you're better at understanding than I am.

Now that makes sense to me - even though I don't understand it, either.

[Marleena]

Lea you've started HRT right? So you must know, but that's okay. I know I don't like my answer and still struggle with it.:sad:

I've edited the original question too.:)

[LeaP]

Yes and I do.

I was making a broader point about the limitations of knowledge. In this context, that it is an example of something that can be used in revisionist narratives, hence my question (... or suggestion) about justification. So sure, I could make a statement about what I knew in my early teens, but the truth is that its worth is limited.

[melissaK]

Know? What's know? First inkling? First suspicion? A hope? Compartmentalized thought?

I love that LeaP! In my work world the response is "Ojection. Form. Vague as to meaning of the word "know."

@Jorja: Sweetie, such self confidence, and so young. Remarkable differences in us about what we each did with the same knowledge at the same ages.

@Kathryn: nicely distinguished point of view. So succinct!

@everone else: The themes of internal discomfort over a taboo subject, and the process of getting information, and then over coming the taboos are pretty universal among us.

[ReineD]

I can point to different timeframes for all of these things, but one thing knowing is not, is understanding. I didn't really know what being transsexual meant (and I'm not talking about consequences) until a few months ago. Most post-ops would tell me, as they ALL have to-date, that I yet don't understand. So what do I "know" and what have I known?

This is a good point, and my question as well. A TS may not know that what she has experienced all of her life was transsexuality, but at the same time this does not pop up out of the blue in middle age, after she has had a happy marriage, enjoyed being a father, and has otherwise led a successful male life? Surely, there must have been some dissatisfaction with being male for quite some years, for someone who feels that she was born in the wrong body? I'm asking because I don't understand late onset TS either ... although I do understand, through my SO, someone who is gender non-conforming.

Maybe some people can look back and instead acknowledge a long-standing form of depression, without pinpointing it to GID? But, in the interest of providing a point of view from someone who knows that she is not TS, and at the risk of posting too much in a public forum, I realize now that I've suffered from depression most of my life without being able to label it for what it was, not until my 40s. Still, I know in the deepest part of myself that it had absolutely nothing to do with any feelings of gender/sexual incongruity. I have always enjoyed my body bits.

I have also felt close to both men and women emotionally, have enjoyed doing things with both genders, have had male best friends with whom I could discuss anything, and have even enjoyed competing with men as a young woman when I was building my career. But, as a group my reptilian brain always saw men more as people to have sex with than seeing them as sitting on the same side of the fence as me. :p



So in some ways I've always known without necessarily always knowing. And if you understand that, you're better at understanding than I am.

This, I understand. :)

[melissaK]

Honestly who at 3,4, or 5 has the capacity to understand the difference?

Yea. I didn't "know" at a young age because as you say, I knew no different.

But adults told me that my behavior that displayed my interest in being like my girl friends and doing girl things was not acceptable (make-up session at age 4-5 led to a lecture about my shameful conduct; I was physically prohibited from playing hopscotch and jump rope with my girl friends at recess in 3rd and 4th grades and told to go play with the boys; my desk moved in 4th grade class to disrupt my friendship with other girls and surround me with boys).

So I knew from the adults that I had issues tied with boy/girl differences, even though I had a poor grasp of the problem.

And I want to add, these are not convenient "fit the narrative" recollections.

I can recall my grandfathers face to this day as I got my meme up lecture.

My playground incident in 3rd grade was devastating - I LOST ALL MY FRIENDS that day. I had no boys I played with. I spent recesses alone til summer came.

Following my 4th grade desk relocation I stabbed one of my girl friends out of anger in my mistaken belief that she had betrayed me and my banishment from the girl cliques was her fault. (We made up eventually, and are still friends, though I have never had my "Earl" moment and told her about the gender issues under it all ).

The forcing of gender role compliance on me in school caused me other BIG and REAL problems.

In 4th and 5th grade we did then brand new Presidents Fitness Program which included throwing balls for distance. It was gender based and I THREW LIKE A GIRL. But no one measured me against the girls - they measured my against the boys. I remember vividly when it dawned on me that they were measuring me against boys not the girls. It isolated me in a no-mans land I couldn't comprehend.

So I tend to bristle when people imply all these recollected childhood events might be me just conveniently creating a concocted narrative. This thinking I'm a girl stuff has always been me.

[ReineD]

But adults told me that my behavior that displayed my interest in being like my girl friends and doing girl things was not acceptable

Kaitlyn mentioned Jan Morris. I had never heard of her, but here is a preview to her book, Marleena. She wrote it in 1974. She also knew at a young age that she was different:

http://books.google.com/books?id=Lh_6PRUocasC&pg=PP1&dq=#v=onepage&q&f=false

[Marleena]

Thanks Reine I've heard the same about knowing at an early age. I'm not sure at what age one would know what gender is.

Looking back, knowing what we know now there may have been clues at an early age I guess.

[Angela Campbell]

I knew when I was four that I wanted to be a girl. Yes I did know the difference at the time. ( I could read when I was 5) I didn't suspect I was TS until I was a teen and heard about a sex change operation in the news. I remember thinking I wanted one.

[Jennifer Marie P.]

I knew by age 6 that I really wanterd to be a girl.

[ReineD]

Good lord ... I've just been reading a bit about Jan Morris' life, and then read my post again and I feel as if I sound judgmental against late-onset TSs. I'm not, I just don't understand is all, if there was no clue during childhood that there was some incongruity.

In the final analysis, does it matter when the condition is realized or when in a person's life it is labeled accurately, or even what transpires in a person's life that might cause a desire for transition?

The only danger is if the motive to transition stems from an (idealistic?) view of life as a female as opposed to a true sense of not being male and an abject need to not live as a male, which then might lead to irreversible changes and losses including the disruption of a long-term marriage, only to realize after some years that the transitioner is no happier as a female than she or he was as a male. This is the tragic part, that someone might be disappointed in the outcome, since the one who'd suffer most would be the transitioner. But, if there is long-lasting and deep satisfaction with having transitioned, then none of these questions matter.

BTW, Jan Morris has a remarkable son who is a Welsh poet and musician. There are beautiful videos on youtube.

[Marleena]

It's perfectly normal to wonder when the clues start Reine. I found this: I just looked up transgender kids and 5 or 6 does not seem far fetched. Article: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/11/a-boys-life/307059/

[ReineD]

Marleena, referring to the article that you've just linked, the internet is full of such stories and there are many parents who blog, advocating for understanding of their TS kids. And there are lots of support groups for the families of TS kids. And as a whole, I think the general populace is more understanding of a TS child than adults who transition, going by memory having read highly supportive comments on stories of young transsexuals. I think that insurance would be pretty high against future dissatisfaction with transition, when a child knows who he or she is before the onset of puberty, when sexual impulses tend to maybe muddle things. :p

[Marleena]

I think these kids are the lucky ones Reine. Diagnosed,, accepted and prepared at an early age.

I'm also learning there is no set of rules because we are all different. I can only vividly remember my first day of Kindergarten and a events at age 8-10. Most everything else is blurred or blocked out until my teens.

[DaniG]

This is a good point, and my question as well. A TS may not know that what she has experienced all of her life was transsexuality, but at the same time this does not pop up out of the blue in middle age, after she has had a happy marriage, enjoyed being a father, and has otherwise led a successful male life? Surely, there must have been some dissatisfaction with being male for quite some years, for someone who feels that she was born in the wrong body? I'm asking because I don't understand late onset TS either ... although I do understand, through my SO, someone who is gender non-conforming.

"...pop up out of the blue in middle age..."
That would bascially be me. I had no clue whatsoever.
o happy marriage (yes)
o enjoyed being a father (yes)
o successful male life (er, okay, maybe not so much here - TMI)

"dissatisfaction with being male for quite some years, for someone who feels that she was born in the wrong body"
I had a ton of crap going on in my life, but it was all disconnected. I didn't allow myself to see the big picture. I can give you a few illustrations. I had low self-esteem. I couldn't look at myself in the mirror. It just didn't seem right. But I told myself that no one really enjoys look at themselves in the mirror. I'd watch James Bond movies and rather than think how cool it would be to be James Bond, I'd admire the bond girls and wonder what it would be like to be that beautiful. I was only wondering, I'd justify it to myself. There were physical challenges in bed (wrong equipment). I even got published as a lesbian romance author! But in my psychotic denial, my subconscious never allowed me to connect the dots. I literally didn't see the forest for the trees.

So one day when one of my lesbian friends said to me, "You should really transition," it was exactly like that - out of the blue. But I knew it instantly. "I'm a woman."


Good lord ... I've just been reading a bit about Jan Morris' life, and then read my post again and I feel as if I sound judgmental against late-onset TSs. I'm not, I just don't understand is all, if there was no clue during childhood that there was some incongruity.

That would be me (among others). Didn't take it that way at all. :)


The only danger is if the motive to transition stems from an (idealistic?) view of life as a female as opposed to a true sense of not being male and an abject need to not live as a male, which then might lead to irreversible changes and losses including the disruption of a long-term marriage, only to realize after some years that the transitioner is no happier as a female than she or he was as a male. This is the tragic part, that someone might be disappointed in the outcome, since the one who'd suffer most would be the transitioner. But, if there is long-lasting and deep satisfaction with having transitioned, then none of these questions matter.

Well, we live in an imperfect world. There are no guarantees in life. For me, I was certainly concerned about this. For the longest time the focus of my therapy was all about whether this was real or could I get off on a technicality. But I'm fairly certain about it now. Now my focus is all about exploring my nature and deciding if transition is right for me. I'm taking it slowly. But I don't want to wait too long. At 45 I still have a modicum of youth left, and if I'm going to live the rest of my life as a woman, I'd like to start while I have a little energy left.

But in the general sense, the WPATH standards are there to protect against bad decisions. Nothing is 100% bullet proof, but there is no other medical procudure for which such rigorous eligibility must be met.

[ReineD]

o successful male life (er, okay, maybe not so much here - TMI)

What do you mean, exactly, is it this:



I had low self-esteem. I couldn't look at myself in the mirror. It just didn't seem right. But I told myself that no one really enjoys look at themselves in the mirror. I'd watch James Bond movies and rather than think how cool it would be to be James Bond, I'd admire the bond girls and wonder what it would be like to be that beautiful. I was only wondering, I'd justify it to myself. There were physical challenges in bed (wrong equipment). I even got published as a lesbian romance author!

I'm certainly not questioning who you are or how you identify, but I just want to point out that I've been here a long time, have read literally tens of thousands of posts, and I can't tell you how often I read the sentiments you describe on the CD side of the forum. Now it could be that many if not the bulk of crossdressers are in denial about being TS, it's not for me to say. My SO also does not think that s/he is attractive as a male and there is also an absence of mirrors in the house, except in her dressing room, where there are several full length mirrors! :) And, well, as difficult as this is to discuss, you are by no means the only person in this forum who feels challenged in bed and who prefers (if this is what you mean), to get into the fantasy of being a woman. Tons of CDers will say that they love to fantasize they are lesbian, and many more will say they love to fantasize about being with men as women, but only when they are dressed. :p

Still, you are the only person who is qualified to diagnose yourself, so I wish you all the best in whatever decision you will eventually make. :hugs: But I feel I need to be honest with you and say that I feel a sense of disquiet when I read that it pops up out of the blue in the later stages of life. I know of a few people who had terrible times post-transition. :sad:

... I also know some people who did transition as they were meant to and who are happy, but who have known on some levels for most of their lives that there was a disconnect, like Rianna describes above. But, the bulk of the people that I know are someplace in the middle, which is a difficult place to navigate.

Good luck!

[KellyJameson]

I do not think I'm representative of the transsexual experience. If I used the words of others to define whether I'm transsexual or not than I would say "not".

I do not consciously identify as a woman but accept that I have an intense internalized identity as female that was born from the interplay of genetics, epigentics, fetal development and early environment creating what I call an intersexed condition whose evidence is primarily locked away in the cells and brain of the person with some evidence on the outside.

I will always be this rational person who was created in response to this "female" using my rational mind to try and survive the experience.

Many transsexuals are self destructive because the thoughts in their heads become to much for them and I have always felt like I'm extremely dangerous to myself where I could destroy myself because of this "stuff" inside my head.

It creates an intense need to "escape" the self or to "fix" the self. To make the world "right"

I totally get why so many commit suicide and I'm surprised more do not.

For me there is not a day I "knew" but more a process of slow capitulation or slide into the inevitable that my rational mind relentlessly fought in the belief that otherwise I would die.

It was a struggle against self that I lost resulting in acceptance of self and all the consequences that go with it, i.e. transitioning which is just as difficult but different.

During this struggle I lived in a shadow world of being physically genderless so not man nor woman on the outside.

My body was the war zone and its status the demarcation line drawn in battle.

Of course most normal human beings will not associate with you when you live like this so you become a social outcast living on the fringes of society, but it was a mutual rejection so not particularly painful.

My whole life is "gender dysphoria". Gender dysphoria is the story of my life.

The only thing that changed was my understanding of gender dysphoria and this gave me the tools to stand outside of myself and see myself for the first time.

Many in the past told me what I am but you have to want to hear the message before you act on its meaning and accept the implications

I think the more a person relies on logic the more dangerous gender dysphoria is. I have found it to be supremely difficult to understand rationally.

I will never dismount the rational horse that I ride because that is who I am but it does come with high costs.

There is wisdom in letting the pain make your decisions.

[Nicole Erin]

I suppose it was about age 13 when it started to really hit me. I have a hard time understanding how people "knew" at 3,4 or 5 years old. I have a 5 year old and an almost 3 year old who don't have a clue as to gender. They have nothing to compare themselves to in order that they make that distinction. Honestly who at 3,4, or 5 has the capacity to understand the difference?

Kelly, some just say that so they can fit in with the crowd of "true transsexuals".
For me, I was showing feminine behavior as far back as i can remember but when I was little, I never sat around and had deep thoughts about gender. Heh, I still don't.

[DaniG]

What do you mean, exactly, is it this:

Yes.


I'm certainly not questioning who you are or how you identify, ...

You are, but it's actually a valid question. It was the focus of my therapy for quite a while. Is this real or am I imagining it?

As an interesting side note, I've never really cross dressed. I got in touch with my femininity through my writing. I joined this site to actually learn how to CD. I just donned my first article three days ago! (It was great. Thanks.)

Suffice to say, I've only given you a short glimpse of a long laundry list of items. But I can tell you that I've been in therapy from the start. Three months in my wife, therapist, and I are all in tentative agreement that I'm TG. From here I have an exploration to discover myself. But I'm not making any rash decisions any time soon.


Still, you are the only person who is qualified to diagnose yourself,

Wish I felt qualified!


But I feel I need to be honest with you and say that I feel a sense of disquiet when I read that it pops up out of the blue in the later stages of life.

As it should. It certainly gives me pause. But it's the lot I've been handed. So I have to examine the evidence and make a call one way or the other.


Good luck!

Thanks! I'll need it!

[CarolynO]

I only fully realized it when I reached age 50.My GID started getting stronger with or without being aroused in my mid twenties. My cd'ing was very erotic up to the age of 25.The thing is when I became aroused,extreme GD would come with it.Between those "events",there was nothing,no thoughts of gender etc.I just didn't know what to think of it or how to understand it back then.Letting alone what do I do about it.

Lately I was thinking what was it that screwed up my life?Was it CD'ing,the GD,the constant wondering why,what if?Would've,should've.

My male life never went anywhere.So what was it?My answer is being born male is what screwed it up.

Even considering all that,I don't consider myself truly in center of the TS universe.I feel I fall a little short as there is a difference between wishing very,very much to transition and NEEDING to or die.

[arbon]

When I was real young - 4 or 5 - I very distinctly remember thinking I could not tell my mom how I felt, that I had to keep a secret, which was that I wished I was a girl. For most of my life I kept it folded up tight inside, I could not acknowledge how I really felt - and I was very confused by what I felt and thought and my behavior. There were times when it came unraveled and slipped out, in my early 20's for instance when I was deep in my drinking when I would say things and behave in ways that were very embarrassing and raised some eyebrows. And I came out as gay for a while, well a lot of people assumed I was anyway. Kinda like April though, when I sobered up I was starting a new life and I had found god and believed I could handle it and keep how I felt shoved down. Marriage was gonna seal the deal. I remember early in my relationship when we lived in the city for a couple years we saw a trans woman walking down the street and my wife said "thats a guy, why can't people just accept who they are?" (she was meaning why couldn't she just accept being a man) I felt horrible, felt like I was living lie and wished I could accept myself for who I was because I knew inside I had a lot in common with that person. But it terrified me.

Anyway in late 2008 the crap hit the fan, and I spent the next year and 1/2 or more in the worst depression and anxiety, struggling with accepting myself for who I am. It was somewhere in there I started to accept I was transsexual and what that meant - so the answer to the question sometime in the first 1/2 of 2010. I did not ever want to go there and there I was anyway.

For a while I did go back through my past and look for every little clue and detail to try and justify and validate myself to transition. But really it does not mean very much to me today. I found that living as a woman I feel good about myself, about who I am today. Its a world away from where I was. I finally let go, and let my self live ---- it just took some time to get there.

[Janie {3]

4. Remember putting on girl clothes @ 4, and loved it.

[StephanieC]

Last year .

[Jorja]

I found this: I just looked up transgender kids and 5 or 6 does not seem far fetched. Article: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/11/a-boys-life/307059/

If my parents had been able to allow me to start being a girl at 8 years old, I would have been overjoyed and they would have had the peace and quiet they wanted. However, that was the mid 50's early 60's. It was a different time. A different world. Basically, their hands were tied. I don't blame them for that. I just wish they could have acknowledged the fact their son was different than the other boys.

[SuzanneBender]

For some of us discerning the feelings that drive our emotions and behavior takes years.

I remember wishing I was a girl at a young age. I always ended my bedtime prayer with "and God please let me wake up as a girl tomorrow". Every morning I would hop out of bed and be disappointed. The feelings were there but at that age at that time there was not a label for it.

I remember seeing "transsexuals" on TV when I was a teen and in the back of naughty magazines. They were always portrayed as aberrant. I knew I was like them deep down, but the reality was too much to fathom. Like many ladies my age I spent my best years trying to prove that I wasn't one of those people. Sports, a military career, marriage, kids, achieving the American dream should have been enough to quell the chaos in my soul, but it was not.

I finally faced the truth three years ago and told myself it is OK to own my feelings of wanted to be a woman. Then it became a matter of realizing if I were truly transsexual; someplace else on the transgender scale, or just harboring a life long fantasy. Figuring this out has been one of the toughest things I have ever done.


The only danger is if the motive to transition stems from an (idealistic?) view of life as a female as opposed to a true sense of not being male...only to realize after some years that the transition is no happier as a female than she or he was as a male

Reine is wise beyond belief (as always :clap: ). No one wants to risk it all up only to realize that they were wrong especially in a case like this where there is no return to the way it was before. The day that I knew that I truly was transsexual and not just pursuing an idealistic dream was the moment I realized that transition comes at a huge cost, but so far the costs paid have not dissuaded me from continuing to want to live authentically.

I say this with a caveat. The Benjamin standards are in place for a reason and I have not started RLE, I will let you know if that feeling of the cost being worth it continues to exist at that time. Stay tuned. Same bat channel same bat time.

OR my other theory is it could have also been when I was 33 and opened a fortune cookie that said "you will go through a major transition".

[ReineD]

As an interesting side note, I've never really cross dressed.

I've heard of quite of few TSs for whom it was never about the crossdressing. If fact, the CDing made them feel worse because it was only temporary and also a stark reminder that they were not living full time as women. I always got the impression that it wasn't about being beautiful or sexy for them, although I'm sure that being passable (having others see them as women) was important, as it should be. But again I've got to be honest with you and say that these people had a deep knowledge for most of their lives that there was some incongruity about being male even if they never acted on it.

... but also, we are all complex creatures and there is not one rule, not one process that fits everyone. If you lived a happy life as a male without ever crossdressing or questioning your gender and you woke up one day in middle age with the knowledge that you are not a man, no one here is in a measure to dispute this. Those of us who give fair warning that most people do not arrive at their conclusions that way only do so out of concern, simply because transition is such a huge change that can bring with it major losses, and also there have been members who have "wanted" to be women without necessarily being TS. I dare say there are lots of members on the CD side who feel this way. You are new here so I hope that you understand if, not knowing you or your background, or all the work that you've done with a therapist, I expressed concern over having come to your realization out of the blue.

There is a strong drive in this section to support transwomen, but there is also a concern for the people who may not be TS but who are in pink fogs and who want validation (this really does happen sometimes). I personally think this is the beauty of this place ... the members care enough to use their combined experience and knowledge to be as honest as they possibly can be with others, while they try as best they can to not judge. It's a precarious balance. But, you have been working diligently with a therapist and so your bases are covered. :)

[Barbara Ella]

I have been having a meltdown the past two days, and am struggling to work up a post that does not come across as an old lady whimpering about what is. This thread topic seems to offer an opportunity to spill a bit. I knew I had the wrong body from birth, but not because of gender, but a birth defect that I struggled with well into my thirties, and just repressed until this week. The gender dysphoria did not start until i was 65, 18 months ago, and I gradually realized I was TS sometime within the past 6 months, and am just beginning to realize what went into hating my body for the first 65 years.

I knew I was different because I could not do all the things the other normal boys could do because I had been given the wrong body. With an over achieving father, i now see why I just kept on trying, and shut up. I always would migrate to the "end of the bench" and be near the girls, I would go out of my way to tutor them in Calculus class. I sought out pictures of females, to have something of the female form to draw and sketch, until my father "talked" that out of me. I was always attracted to admiring the women, well into older age, but never to be one, but to marvel at the form and function of the female body, and how everything fit together. I truly hated the body i had been given. I feel now with a whole lot of personal revelations about the things I did, that maybe, perhaps, I was just using the visible excuse for the hate, and totally ignoring the mental aspect of the mismatch. This was the 50's etc. and certain thoughts just weren't front and center.

I don't know if this makes sense, and if i ever suspected I needed therapy, it is now almost becoming required to try and explain what I was doing the first 65 years where I kept doing normal things but never felt normal or secure about anything I did, therefore I tried to do as little as I could. Maybe the developments over the last 18 months are an over reaction to my hatred of my body. Now I am confused, but I have never felt more at peace than I have in recent months, so maybe I shouldn't give a damn about it, and continue to try and make the best about finally becoming an old lady at 66 and make plans for whatever can be done given all the situations.

Is my life a dichotomy that is not really one? I am working this out, and will expand if there is any sense in it.

Thanks for letting me get a little off topic.

Barbara

[ReineD]

The baby-boom generation really had it tough. There was no language for any of this, was there. But in their middle age there was, and so all the rules changed. And God knows what prior generations did, at the turn of the last century or before. Suck it up and be male, I suppose, for most of them. I've no idea.

I think it's wonderful that that period is permanently over with for most transfolks, simply because now there are so many resources at everyone's fingertips to help them define who they are at a much earlier age, and so they can take the steps to be who they need to be before saddling themselves with male responsibilities. Even if they are not ready to define themselves as transsexual due to the ever present strength of male conditioning, they know enough to know that something isn't right and they certainly know enough to tell a prospective spouse their interest in expressing femininity, or their affinity for all things female. And I dare say there are more prospective spouses in their 20s today who, although they may prefer being married to men who do not have affinities for feminine gender expression, will not freak out and think it is a perversion should their partners confess such a thing ... not to the degree that it was 30 or 40 years ago.

So hopefully, much of the angst we see expressed in this thread will not be there to the same degree in future generations. Also, maybe if the younger folks are more relaxed and fluid with gender expression (the transpersons, their partners, and their friends), it will be easier to just be fluid for a lot of people (although not for the Type V or VI TSs) rather than feel they must make the decision to pick just one side? I don't know about this, I'm just thinking out loud.

[Saffron]

I don't think we can remember the exact day of course.

I can, I wrote a post here :D

09-30-2012, 29 years old.

Of course I had all the pieces of the puzzle years before, but I didn't know anything about transition, transsexuals, etc. Also I was scared and on denial. When I finally gave up, I came here since I though I was a crossdresser. I was under the assumption I couldn't be TS.

I'm currently living full time, but still at the start of my transition. I don't know if I gonna survive the transition...


I have a hard time understanding how people "knew" at 3,4 or 5 years old.

It's a famous cliché. That's why I always discarded me being TS. I've memories of me at 4 playing with barbies and such, or at puberty wishing to grow breasts, but I never "knew". So I couldn't be TS, could I? :-P

[Michelle.M]

I knew I was different by the time I was 7 and began expressing myself as a girl around that time. My father was a strict Catholic and my mother instantly panicked, so I went deep stealth. Didn't work very well, and a few years later she caught up with my clandestine efforts of gender expression. But this time she was much more calm (maybe she'd read something in the intervening years?) and we talked. But I was still scared to reveal myself. This was in the mid-60's and this was at a time when anyone considered deviant was being subjected to electroshock therapy and frontal lobotomies and gay people were considered mentally ill, so as you might imagine I came to the conclusion that stealth was in my best interest.

Although I knew at 7 years old that something was up I didn't have words for it until I was a teenager, but I was too scared to admit it until many years later.


In a last ditch effort to become a man I joined the Navy at 18. I quickly learned that was a mistake. I served my four years and was honorably discharged.

Wow, Jorja, your story sounds a lot like mine!

I also joined the Navy, got married and had 2 kids. But I had grown so accustomed to suppressing my gender dissonance that by this time I was pretty good at living a false life and I actually flourished. Long story short, I earned my college degree aboard ship and decided to switch services. Joined the Army and graduated top of my OCS class, eventually became a Special Ops team leader and ops officer.

Finally admitting to myself that I couldn't live in denial any longer I came to grips with my gender issues and began therapy, and this made me decide that leaving the service was the best course of action. So I ended my career and left the service almost a year ago.


The very next day I started living as a woman and have never looked back.

Same here. Drove a rental truck from North Carolina back home to Texas, unpacked it, changed my clothes and donated my entire male wardrobe. Life's been so much better from that day on. I'll be 55 years old next week and I only wish I'd done it sooner.

[Kaitlyn Michele]

saffron, me too.... i do recall "weird" thoughts as a kid..but its just a dreamy memory of feeling unsettled and afraid of all the boys ...nothing more than that... and the idea that i was supposed to know as a young tyke disavowed me of the notion that i was transsexual in my teens and beyond...i wished i knew!!!! it hurt... i

++++++
Reine/Dani...

for Dani it may help you to consider your feelings from another angle
one thing that happens all the time is people underestimate the nuts and bolts of progressing with your transsexualism....spending time with eyes closed and dreaming of what could be...basically fantasizing...that's totally cool if thats what it is...its a great fantasy...suzanne bender made a great comment about how she "knew" when she could evaluate the incredibly high costs and still felt the need to proceed or else...thats a smart practical concept...

and Dani you seem like a very practical person just based on your posts...

So if you are just waking up to cross gender feelings that truly came from nowhere, and you never crossdressed, and you are a grown up with responsibilities and an investment in your life,
you have no idea about the resolve it will take, the time it will take and all the costs of moving on with a transition..physical, emotional, mental, family, financial, pain, time, medical....etcetc..
and what's more for us grownups...the benefits of transition have less to do with feminine things and more to do with a peacefulness, and an elimination of that horrible feeling we had before...
and ts people that can't transition end up dealing with some pretty horrible feelings that never go away...ask around.....

transition can be horrible in many ways if you can't acheive it in a successful positive way...you are best off running from this and seeing what happens...let the passage of time guide more than trying to recreate and reinterpret past memories that as you can see from this thread can have many meanings...

++++

Barbara i totally get what you are saying...frankly if you've saved up some money and in retirement mode, or even close to it, its a great time to finally deal with your problem...when i was 40 i started wishing i was 30 , now i'm wishing i was 40...i'm sure you go through the same things...but you are here...its unneccessary to over think your past...those of us that had no internet when young know the difference, and we know how finding the internet has a huge impact on us...you can only be certain of what you know today, and at an older age hopefully you have the wisdom and resources to deal with your situation in a positive way for yourself...

+++

so interesting how "knowing" and "when" you knew is such a nebulous idea...

[Donnadcd]

Since 1966 - when I was 6 years old. 47 years later - and I haven't done a f%$#ing thing about it, besides getting more frustrated.

[HelenR2]

Around 6 when I craved the dresses, skirts and blouses the other girls wore. I was finally allowed to wear a kilt for a wedding but I hated it because it was a boy's kilt!

[Marleena]

@ Jorja I totally get the feeling of being let down by your parents in regards to your being TS. We expect or at least hope our parents will allow us, or help us to be ourselves. Michelle brought up a good point, back in those days any gender non conformity was dealt with in brutal ways by the medical community. Our parents really didn't know how to deal with it either. As you know parenting is on the job training for the most part. It seems recently (the past 5 years) that there is help for parents dealing with transgender kids. The internet has really helped in that regard.

[Stephanie-L]

Like many others here, I knew I was "different" at a fairly early age, perhaps 10 or 11. I suspected I was some form of transgender ever since I came upon the topic about 30 years ago. I finally admitted that I am transsexual about 3 years ago, and started planning my transition. About 2 years ago I started actively transitioning, and about 2 weeks ago totally stopped living a lie. BTW, I am now 53.................Stephanie

[Cheyenne Skye]

Well, I'll start by saying I echo a lot of what has been said. I grew up in the 70's and 80's so we didn't have the resources available that are out there now. I knew I was different than the other boys in the neighborhood as far back as I can remember. I always would rather hang out with my sister and her friends. By my teens I was sometimes left alone for a few hours and that's when the cross-dressing began. I would dress and then just sit and watch cartoons in the afternoon. And when I was alone in the morning, I would search the TV for shows like Donahue that had trans women on them. I was fascinated by them and started to imagine what it would be like to become a woman like them. By high school, I started repressing to try and fit in, though I was still an outcast of sorts. I started listening to the hair bands of the 80's and realized I could kind of be myself under the pretense that I was just emulating the musicians. I grew my hair, wore tight jeans and even went so far as to wear high heel boots. But inside I wished I could be Tawney Kitaen on the hood of that Jaguar. I met my first wife and "manned up". I still dressed, but only at home. Otherwise, I was a model of a man. After we split, I continued being a man until I met my second wife. I told her about the cross dressing and she said she was fine with it. After a few years, I started going out more and more androgynously. I would have periods where I didn't think about my dressing or gender, but each time I did start thinking about it, the feeling that I shouldn't be hiding myself just got stronger. Now that I think about it that was the dysphoria kicking in. Two years ago, I decided to do something about it. I made an appointment with a therapist, but I had to wait two months before he had an opening in his schedule. In the meantime, I decided to go to a local TS support group. When I saw those other women there, it finally hit me that this was the path I was on. It became real. Something could be done, not like when I saw those people on TV and just wished I could be like them. Last year, I told my wife what I wanted to do, but she couldn't take it and turned into a total b***h about it. We have since split and are still working out the divorce. (Yeah, more therapy!) So after about 18 months of therapy working out some other issues as well, I got my letter for hormones. So I guess there is no turning back now.

So, long story short, I guess I realized the truth of my situation when I was 41 (though my logical brain is still fighting my emotions about accepting it.).

[Saffron]

Mine is saying: "Fly, you fools!"

[EnglishRose]

As brought up in this thread, it is indeed crazy when you (or I certainly) think about it; not transitioning til late because you knew you weren't transsexual because you have to have always known which can become one of these huge barriers. Then that turns out to be false and the world just suddenly completely upends itself.

Certainly that's a part of what I went through three years ago.

[groove67]

i have felt i was a girl in boys body ever since i can recall. thank god after 40 years with your ladies post that i read every day i have started transtion and have never felt so happy in my life. i am becoming what i really was to be from birth and love every minute of the journey .i live fulltime and could not be more happy. hrt has been wonderful and the changes in my body are wonderful and in my piece of mind are the are totalloy wonderful. i live 24/7 as a woman and love every minute of my life. i will have srs in febuary next year and count the days as i am ready to be the woman i am.

[melissaK]

As brought up in this thread, it is indeed crazy when you (or I certainly) think about it; not transitioning til late because you knew you weren't transsexual because you have to have always known which can become one of these huge barriers. Then that turns out to be false and the world just suddenly completely upends itself

You raise a good point about dealing with definitions for being TS Sweetie.

I knew I was transsexual when I read about Chritine Jorgenson BUT I read on and found out she married a GUY!! I didn't like guys, at least I was pretty sure. So I didnt see how I could be transexual. I knew i wanted the change she had, but wasnt sure i qualified. I had never heard of women liking women in a sexual way. I was really confused.

I kept wondering fir another 10 years until I had a lesbian make a joking pass at me and it was no joke to me, I melted. And so what I knew at 13 got validated!

But yea, nothing linear about the whole process of knowing.

[ReineD]

i do recall "weird" thoughts as a kid..but its just a dreamy memory of feeling unsettled and afraid of all the boys ...nothing more than that...

That's a lot, Kaitlyn. Fear of an entire gender is a pretty strong indication that there is a disconnect with that gender, even if there is no word for the disconnect the way that Rianna describes? If I had been expected as a little girl to fit in with all the boys and be interested in all the things that interested them and always play according to their rules, like you I would have felt terrified. I think I would have had a sense of panic, especially when I was drawn to girl things, if had gotten the message that these things were unequivocally out of bounds for me.

Fantasy, on the other hand, is more a fun thing to get into? I mean, boys can get into fantasies without necessarily feeling a disconnect with the other boys?

It makes sense to me that both the fantasy and feeling apart from the other boys can exist at the same time ... but if only the fantasy is present with none of the feelings that a boy simply does not belong with the other boys, then it might be something other than GD?

This is what is hardest for me to understand. That someone should have NEVER experienced a feeling of being apart from or not in sync somehow with the other boys, and then wake up in their 40s, 50s, or 60s to feel that they are women.

But, because the TSs who grew up and forged their adult lives before the internet had no way of knowing about transsexuality, let alone give themselves permission to even dare hope that expressing femininity might be possible in their lifetimes, it makes sense to have simply given up and become resigned to living life as a male. But still, the disconnect with the other members of their birth sex would have been felt, again even if there had been no word for it?

I remember that someone (I believe a member in the UK) was describing her first interview with one of the gatekeepers to the process of transition. One of the first questions asked was, "How long do you trace your feelings of not belonging to your gender?"

... that said, and I think it's important to mention this, in my opinion it doesn't really matter what in the past has caused the feelings in middle age that a birth male wants to transition; whether it is a feeling of disconnect with the other members of one's sex from an early age, or other reasons that came up in later years. The importance is to make sure that one will feel whole after the transition and not wake up on the other side to discover several years down the line that life as a woman is unsatisfactory, especially if there have been irretrievable losses in order to get there.

[Marleena]

Reine I think a lot of has do with a feeling of hopelessness, at least it was for me. I wanted to transition in my twenties but could not find any help or info how to go about it. I buried all those thoughts and did the guy thing (not very well) until the GID hit me again about a year ago.

[Kaitlyn Michele]

wanting to transition in your 20's is not what Reine is focused on..you didn't just wake up and realize, this has been on your mind for a long time

she's talking about a 40-50 year "guy", that never ever worried about gender saying..OMG i'm a woman...

i agree with her..that seems reallyhard to swallow....that seems a bit like a fantasy scenario...no one can say for sure of course...

i think sometimes people write/say that they never thought of gender, but they are not being precise in either their recollection or their communication...burying distressing thoughts is not the same never ever thinking about it or even remembering thinking about it..

i know women that never ever crossdressed, that feel like idiots all dressed up, and were macho guys...but they all look back and "knew" something was going on with their gender...

[Marleena]

Yes I've re-read the question now. I retract my previous reply and change it to "no comment".

[Kathryn Martin]

because the TSs who grew up and forged their adult lives before the internet had no way of knowing about transsexuality

This is a very interesting aspect to this. Sometimes, information can contaminate experiences which may be very unique for the individual but possible are a road traveled by others as well. Imagine a narrative without information contamination. When I wrote at the beginning of this thread that I never considered myself a transsexual I meant that literally. I went online in January of 1997, I was 42 years old.

Growing up in the 60s and 70s I had heard of transvestites and seen occasionally sensationalistic photos in the papers. Sometimes they were also called transsexuals. How I experienced myself had nothing to do with what I read. At that time what later became the narrative of a woman born into a man's body did not exist at least not in my context. This entire narrative came in the late 70s early 80s. (See an interesting article by Janet Mock (http://janetmock.com/2012/07/09/josie-romero-dateline-transgender-trapped-body/)) What I experienced was that my body was disfigured, not that it was a man's body.

Much later I learned that what I experienced was called transsexualism when I came across Harry Benjamin's book. If you had asked me even 10 years ago, I would have told you that I was not a transsexual. As stated above I see transsexualism as condition that describes a physical disfigurement not a state of being.

There are many who suddenly in their 40s or 50s or even later "discover" they are transsexuals. But by and large when you dig down into their narrative it is borrowed. Emphasis is placed on aspects that "sound" good to general society in a justification kind of way, but what are the real tell tales that are incredibly variable almost never show up in borrowed narratives. And so you find so many with a dream, a fantasy with a information tailored narrative and you wonder. This is why I believe the question asked in this original post is the wrong question.

[Angela Campbell]

If I had been expected as a little girl to fit in with all the boys and be interested in all the things that interested them and always play according to their rules, like you I would have felt terrified. I think I would have had a sense of panic, especially when I was drawn to girl things, if had gotten the message that these things were unequivocally out of bounds for me.
.

Wow....this is the best description of what it was like for me to grow up I have ever seen. I can never seem to find the words. Thank you

[ReineD]

she's talking about a 40-50 year "guy", that never ever worried about gender saying..OMG i'm a woman...

i agree with her..that seems reallyhard to swallow....that seems a bit like a fantasy scenario...no one can say for sure of course...

Right, but even the first inkling as an adult without any feelings of disconnect (whatsoever) as a child might indicate that the issue is something different than GD? ... keeping in mind that in the final analysis, IMO a 50 year old must do what she must do to be happy, no matter where or when the feelings arose that she must transition, just as long as she has realistic expectations of future life as a woman.

Getting back to kids, I'm not a psychologist although I am a mother. :) I know that kids are deeply connected to themselves while young, deepest of all at birth, and it is unhealthy socialization (for the more extreme examples, abuse or codependence in their families) that causes them to not know or become disconnected to how they feel as they age. But, a child would still know at an early age that there was some sort of disconnect between him or herself and the members of her birth sex, even if he or she had gotten the message that it was unacceptable to cross the gender boundaries, don't you think? He or she might engage in all sorts of different coping mechanisms, some more quiet and others more violent, but the knowledge that something wasn't right would be there?

Kathryn in #66 frames it in a different way. She knew that her body was disfigured at a young age because her body did not look like the other girls. It was always my impression that in the purest sense, this is what "transsexualism" means. The need to align birth sex to brain gender, in other words, having been assigned the wrong sex in utero, as opposed to having transsexualism develop as an adult ... even if a child has no language for this.

I'd like to post two short excepts from Lynn Conway's site. For those who do not know who she is, Lynn transitioned in 1968. She lived stealth for about 30 years after which time she decided to disclose her past. She is rather brilliant (look around the site) and she has written extensively about transsexualism. She is now happily married to her husband Charlie.

http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/conway.html
http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/TS/TScauses.html



What Causes Transsexualism?

... current scientific results strongly suggest neurobiological origins for transsexualism: Something appears to happen during the in-utero development of the transsexual child's central nervous system (CNS) so that the child is left with innate, strongly perceived cross-gender body feelings and self-perceptions. We still don't know for sure what causes this neurological development, and more research needs to be done. But the neurobiological direction for these explorations seem clear.



What if there is no cause? Could gender transition just be a "lifestyle choice"?

Transsexual women often appear to be completely normal males before announcing they are going to "change sex". ...

What most people cannot comprehend is the extreme gender distress these transsexuals have endured during their entire lives.

[groove67]

I never thought i was a crossdresser as no sexual feeling being dressed just felt right. Now fulltime on my way to srs wearing dress just seems normal and it is just me. I knew at 7 i was totally different and never ever gave up hope that a day would come and here i am.

[Kaitlyn Michele]

In the scheme of things, looking back is of some value, but its limited... i've chatted with Kathryn off line a bit about her description of her past feelings are so consistent with what L Conway is saying...and mine are not...

my own coping with all this impacted how i experienced emotionally shameful feelings that are difficult to understand, undependable to remember, and are also difficult to describe in words.. it impacted how i presented to therapists, and it impacted how i thought of myself over many many years... i can't say for certain that the feeling i was disfigured ever occured to me once...and it still doesnt feel that way to me...

am i misrembering? did i lock down and cope in my own way(even tho i felt the same thing)? is there more than one way to experience transsexualism??
who knows..

what i do know is that i was in a lot of distress (a great simple word used by lynn conway)...and after transition I am no longer able to generate that feeling inside me...

when i privately talk to people i encourage them to think out of the box...don't think, "am i transsexual?"...think "will ibenefit from transition?? what will i get out of transition??"...and when you consider the benefits of transition, focus on only one benefit...the only guaranteed one, which is the eradication of gender distress...(theres can be lots more, but its dependent on how well you transition..no guarantees)......it helps eliminate all the emotion around labels and self identification....and its good to lay bare the false ideas people have about how we look to others and how we are treated by cisgender people...

.its interestesting to talk to people over this because it becomes just so obvious where people are coming from.....its just a mind trick to think differently to test and idea, but my couple of friends that tend to wax on about how they will transition someday end up sputtering around and transsexual women simply say.."Crap..."...

it changes this question to one that to me has more practical value ..."when did i know i would benefit from transition??">..

[Aprilrain]

Thats a great way to put it Kaitlyn.

I knew I "wanted" to transition at 29. I didn't really know wether I'd benefit from it or not until I'd already traveled down the road a bit. I was compelled to start the journey when I was 34. To be honest I didn't know wether transition would destroy me or not but it was a risk I was willing to take, frankly I've harbored doubts until recently. Early transition can really suck, we were not meant to go through puberty twice!

It never occurred to me to think my body was somehow deformed either. I "KNEW" my mind was what was broken, CLEARLY! I could see that I was a boy there was nothing wrong with my body it functioned quite well but my brain kept telling me I should be a girl, not all the time mind you but a lot of the time. How could i logically conclude that i was really a girl when my body clearly said otherwise? To be so convicted to me sounds like the definition of insanity, however that is the "traditional" TS narrative therefore there was no way I could be TS. Right?

[melissaK]

"when did i know i would benefit from transition??">

My first answer was 2005. Age 51. When I began HRT.

But I reread Aprils post and I get the distinction of starting vs knowing it would do some good.

So I "knew" after I quit HRT and fell apart and went back on HRT --- circa 2008. Ever since then its just been having the courage to keep moving forward.

[elizabethamy]

This thread addresses what for me is the most maddening aspect of the whole thing. Answers are of course elusive -- Kaitlyn's way of thinking about the benefits of transition vs not transitioning is a good way to look at it, but it doesn't solve the essential mystery. People have been dealing with this for thousands of years but only in the last 50 has physical transition (with full surgery) even been possible. Now that it is possible and effective, it raises the prospect of mistaken and borrowed narratives -- which were probably less likely when you couldn't transition. You coped in one way or another. I'm one of those midlife people so many posters say could not possibly exist -- no clue as a little boy that I wanted to be a girl (though my mother constantly said she wished I had been, but I figured at the time that was her problem). No prayers at night to be magically switched. No dolls or jacks or posters of boy bands on my bedroom wall. And yet, without question, a lifetime of feeling like a misfit, of consciously always not being "man" enough, of not belonging no matter how much I tried, of being picked last for every sports team no matter how much I practiced. Of being more easiliy able to relate to females all my life, though without ever consciously thinking I should be one. Never crossdressing or even paying attention to it until age 50.

Then, pow. All the therapy and introspection and suffering over gender identity that I can eat, with little relief. What Reine says ought to be self-evident on its face -- surely this doesn't just appear in midlife -- but here it is, at least for me.

Do the misfit feelings serve as a lifetime mask for TS? Or some sort of comorbidity? What kind of "escape fantasy" would consist of divorce, poverty, mulitple surgeries, and fergawdsake, electrolysis? Perhaps we borrow the narratives of others and look for ways out of lives we don't want or regret having built, or perhaps we are just plain TS and somehow the proverbial bell rang. Or perhaps -- as I increasingly suspect -- this is a continuum in which we are forced to make a binary choice as an outcome, so my situation essentially doesn't contradict what Reine, Kathryn and others are doubting about us midlife awakeners. Obviously, I'm not all the way over on the continuum with those who knew in kindergarten, but something's going on, and if I've borrowed this narrative, could someone please tell me where to return it?

Going back to the beginning, I suspect that for many of us, the moment of "knowing" we're TS comes when the decision to proceed with transition occurs, because the previous evidence is just too murky to produce that aha! clarity.

[melissaK]

Nicely said Elizabethamy. I'm persuaded. Not that I needed to be. So maybe I am further persuaded. :)

[Laurie Ann]

The aha moment for me was in my early fifties but I have known for as long as I can recall I should have been a girl. Having been raised in the fifties it was not conceivable to think that way. I remember telling my parents I was a girl at a very young age they, mostly my mother, tried to beat it out of me that I was a boy and that was that.

[Kaitlyn Michele]

so Eliz you are well served to focus on your distress.. you need to calm that distress. you know you need to calm the distress....to me that's "knowing"....

focusing on the idea of simply transition or dont, and leaving out all the other stuff eliminates the need for a narrative...surely a narrative can help..it helped me to hear others had sexual feelings(i met a therapist over the weekend over drinks and she said in her experience ..100s of ts women, the MAJORITY had some element of sexual feeling!!)...it helped me to hear others thought they were cd's at first...etc... but for you Eliz you don't have that right now...would it help you to find someone that is delighted with a successful transition that had the same narrative?? or would it just make you feel worse? how would it change your thought that transition would be a good thing for you? all this is to say that as much as its hard to beleive it could just be your repression was absolute for whatever reason...we'll never know..you'll never know...if going back there doesnt help, dont go back there...

++++++++++++++++++

this is right on topic...

THis weekend on demand I watched an amazing documentary called Still Alive...about Paul Williams...if you don't know, he wrote some of the most enduring and popular ballads of the 70's...he scored movies and his songs made him millions upon millions...he was wildly popular on tv shows and movies and guest hosted the mike douglas show...he was a superstar personality, frequently on Johnny Carson...he was beloved ..he also drifted into obscurity after alcohol and drug addiction ...

the filmaker had a point of view that was about how low he sank in the 2000's to the point no one even knew or cared if he was alive except for a circuit of fan clubs in Canada and Asia!!!!!! (where he had some rabid fans)....at first P Williams was distant and unsure.... it was awkward..but over time Williams energy came out...he's a very entertaining and emotional guy....honestly his night club gigs were pathetic as entertainment...but he was clearly enjoying doing them...

Near the end of the film, Williams sat with the film maker, and watched a hosting gig where he was drunk and high...he made a total ass of himself...he said offensive things and was surly and obnoxious.... you could see P Williams sinking in his chair as he watched.... this was the night that killed his career... and finally he freaked out and turned it off...but he said a wonderful thing...

he said (paraphrase)...that was one night in my life...it was a moment in my life...i had a great time...i made money, i had fame, i lovedit...but then i blew it.... today i am happy...i am offended you think i've sank lower...I'm doing great and i love my life...
I see NO REASON TO GO BACK THERE>>>IT DOES NOTHING FOR ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ...(end of paraphrase)....does that mean anything to anyone here??

at the end of the movie...P williams disclosed that he had a storage locker, filled with a mountain of old song sheets, movies and videos of his performances, orchestras doing scores for his movies and people singing his songs... he loaned them all to the film maker as archive footage...and he never asked for them back

[DaniG]

It makes sense to me that both the fantasy and feeling apart from the other boys can exist at the same time ... but if only the fantasy is present with none of the feelings that a boy simply does not belong with the other boys, then it might be something other than GD?

This is what is hardest for me to understand. That someone should have NEVER experienced a feeling of being apart from or not in sync somehow with the other boys, and then wake up in their 40s, 50s, or 60s to feel that they are women.

But, because the TSs who grew up and forged their adult lives before the internet had no way of knowing about transsexuality, let alone give themselves permission to even dare hope that expressing femininity might be possible in their lifetimes, it makes sense to have simply given up and become resigned to living life as a male. But still, the disconnect with the other members of their birth sex would have been felt, again even if there had been no word for it?

I remember that someone (I believe a member in the UK) was describing her first interview with one of the gatekeepers to the process of transition. One of the first questions asked was, "How long do you trace your feelings of not belonging to your gender?"

I had no idea until last year. But looking back on my life, there's a mountain of evidence, all of which can be explained away, of course, item by item by a skeptic. This was all blocked out by a very deep denial. And I knew the minute it hit me that I was female.

I feel like my TG nature is genuine. But how does one know for sure? There's no smoking gun. There's no scroll lowered down from Heaven. I discussed this for months with my therapist. She refused to lend her own expertise, but instead helped me to work through my situation. My feelings didn't change. The whole time I felt genuinely TGed, yet the seed of doubt was there nagging at me until one day, I called her on it and asked her to give me her opinion. Grudgingly, she said she thought I am probably am TG because of two things. First, I crave sex from the female perspective. I have as long as I can remember. I don't from the male perspective. She said that this is very a primal thing. Second, she said that I'm not on good term with my member (or any other part of my body for that matter). Apparently, men identify with their junk. I've heard of them naming them, etc. But this was a surprise to me. I don't even like to talk about it. I wasn't aware that I was even doing it. Again, I'm sure a good skeptic can explain it all away, but that gave me a lot of comfort.

Nevertheless, it didn't quite do it. Here in Portland we have a well established gender therapist named Reid Vanderburgh, a F2M, and someone who's written extensively on TS therapy. I contacted Reid for a second opinion. He doesn't consult anymore, unfortunately, but did assure me that my case is not at all unusual. He's treated a number of genuine TSs like myself, who have been in utter and complete denial until a latter age.

But my unusual situation has been a constant worry to me, and I intend to take things slow.

I have always felt out of touch with men. I've certainly had cases where I've said, "I don't understand men." I've even said many times, "I'm glad I'm not one." It was one of my favorite jokes. But I was in denial. How could I know what out of touch meant? I'm actually been alienated from everyone but my wife and kids. Does that count?

BTW, I don't claim to be TS, but only TG. I don't know if I'll transition or not. I'm still trying to figure out who I am. The rest will come in time.

My challenge to you, Reine, is to ask what you would do in my place. Are you discounting me as TS outright? What criteria would you set for deciding that you are indeed TG? I'm not taking your tough love offensively. These are questions that I wrestle with, and I'm curious to know the skeptic's opinion. It's one thing to sit on the sidelines and say, "I don't buy it." But I have to actually find a solution for my new life.

[kellycan27]

How does one know what" benefits transition may bring"....Pre- transition? Who really knows? It seems to me that without prior experience ( hindsight) one can only speculate on what the benefits may or may not be. Best laid plans are a crap shoot at best. For me personally it wasn't a matter of weighing the pros and cons of transition.. they didn't enter into the picture. It was more a matter of faith... Stepping off into the abyss.... Come what may. I had no clue... I took my best shot.

[Kaitlyn Michele]

thats why you have to talk to other transsexuals and hear what they say about transtion...meet people in real life to learn...and if you go forward or don't go forward...learn from others mistakes..if you aim towards transition...execute on a good plan if you can..

look you have two choices...deal with the problem or run around inside your head for the rest of your life...

its not a good solution in every case...its about making the best with what you've got...

in your case Kelly you missed out on dozens and dozens of years of distress hiding inside your head... you worked hard and deserve what you got..you avoided much of what people older go through(or maybe condensed in your early years)
..you took an incredible chance many of us didn't take...
its good advice that if you really want to leap, you really should leap...i'd speculate it gets harder and harder to leap, and the rocks get craggier as you get older...

my perspective is clearly skewed by my own analytical nature and the fact that i had an "outside the ts box" experience...

[elizabethamy]

...would it help you to find someone that is delighted with a successful transition that had the same narrative?? or would it just make you feel worse? how would it change your thought that transition would be a good thing for you? all this is to say that as much as its hard to believe it could just be your repression was absolute for whatever reason...we'll never know..you'll never know...if going back there doesnt help, dont go back there...


Now there's something to think about! We're always looking for paths that have been walked by others. Pre-surgery option, I suppose the only thing you could do was just suck it up and be a girlyman and shut up about it until you either fell apart, died, or learned to live with it. I'm growing a perverse sense of pride in my repressive abilities. Damn it. Perhaps what I and other midlifers did was simply find a path to avoid knowing, and, therefore, having to act. Yes, it would be a help to know that someone had the same narrative as me. Perhaps I'd feel bad if I didn't have the courage to follow the same path, but don't most of us live that story professionally at one point or another, else we would all have the career of our dreams? I don't think it helps to spend much time going back, either. And I don't, really, except when this "you couldn't possibly be TS or you would have known all along" idea comes up, which it does frequently on this board, and, um, about twice a week at home.

I think you frame the question correctly for these times and with the procedures and options, difficult as they are, available. Which is going to be better, transition, or not transition? I am going to meditate on it that way instead of the previous (and wheel spinningly unproductive) "what am I?" question. Thanks for that reframing, Kaitlyn! And Dani, I recommend similarly -- that is, not what was and what category, but rather, what now? (even if it takes a while to get the answer).

elizabethamy

[Saffron]

How does one know what" benefits transition may bring"....Pre- transition? Who really knows? It seems to me that without prior experience ( hindsight) one can only speculate on what the benefits may or may not be. Best laid plans are a crap shoot at best. For me personally it wasn't a matter of weighing the pros and cons of transition.. they didn't enter into the picture. It was more a matter of faith... Stepping off into the abyss.... Come what may. I had no clue... I took my best shot.

That's exactly who I feel right now.

You can do all the thinking and planning you want, in the end it's like a leap of faith.

[DaniG]

my perspective is clearly skewed by my own analytical nature and the fact that i had an "outside the ts box" experience...

Kaitlyn, would you be willing to share with us newbies what you mean by that, please?


And Dani, I recommend similarly -- that is, not what was and what category, but rather, what now? (even if it takes a while to get the answer).y

I think that's wise. I also have a lot of exploring to add to my meditation. But you're absolutely correct.

Thanks, Elizabeth. (Luv ur name, btw!)

[ReineD]

... And yet, without question, a lifetime of feeling like a misfit, of consciously always not being "man" enough, of not belonging no matter how much I tried, of being picked last for every sports team no matter how much I practiced. Of being more easiliy able to relate to females all my life, though without ever consciously thinking I should be one. Never crossdressing or even paying attention to it until age 50.



What kind of "escape fantasy" would consist of divorce, poverty, mulitple surgeries, and fergawdsake, electrolysis?

The path is indeed tortuous and painful ... (obviously not that I've experienced it but I'm well able to get a sense of this from reading all your stories). :sad:

But, the need to follow the path must be (logically) propelled by one motive that overrides everything else, and this is, "My life will be better at the end of it all". My big question in this thread is, "What if it isn't?" What if at the end of it all you still are the last one to be picked for the team even if this time it is the girl's team? Would the fact that you have a feminine body, an absence of male genitals, make you feel whole no matter what your relationships are like with others, and how much kinship you feel or don't feel with either women or men?

I may be all wrong in my thinking, since this situation and human beings are so very complex, but in all the literature that I have read outside of this forum, a sure way to know that a transwoman will feel whole years after transition, after having survived (potential) losses, even after realizing that the embrace into the female gender by the other females might not be happening, or finding a hetero male (or a lesbian female) partner might not be happening, is if she had a sense as a young child that her body was not right. If her motive to transition is to correct her body rather than "fitting in better" or being happier as a girl because she is not happy as a boy, then surely she will be happy no matter what her life looks like post-op and how she fits in with other people? If she is or if she thinks that she would be happy under those circumstances, then by all means she should transition whether she can trace the discomfort with her body back to childhood or not.

I'm sorry if my questions seem painful, or if it seems to some or all of you as if I am not believing you. I know in the deepest part of me that I am in no position to make any judgment of anyone here, because I do know how complex we all are as humans, whether we are trans or not. But, I do care deeply, this is a great discussion that can potentially help people who are on the fence, and my concern is about long term well-being and not at all about determining who is more transsexual than who.




My challenge to you, Reine, is to ask what you would do in my place. Are you discounting me as TS outright? What criteria would you set for deciding that you are indeed TG? I'm not taking your tough love offensively.

I repeat that I am not discounting anyone. If you are taking it this way, then I respectfully suggest that you are reading things that are not there. My biggest flaw is that I obviously cannot adequately address all facets of this very complex situation in a few questions, points, or posts. :p As previously mentioned, there are all kinds of people who do want to transition and not all of them do so for the same reasons, as we've seen over the years in this section of the forum and also in the older version of the Body Issues section before it was changed for TSs only, with people who asked how they could feminize themselves but who also believed themselves to not be transsexual. I also know people who realized post-op that their lives didn't turn out the way they thought they would.

What would I do in your shoes? I would absolutely live full time without undergoing any body modifications, for at least 2 years and if this is not doable, then at least present as a woman a significant portion of the time, going out regularly and frequently in the mainstream to do errands and other ordinary things again for at least 2 years. During this time, I would not tell myself that post-op life will be significantly different, not if I were beginning to do this at middle age and I had had no prior inkling that I was not connected to the male gender. Sorry if this seems harsh, but IMO it seems like a pretty safe thing to do.

[kellycan27]

That's exactly who I feel right now.

You can do all the thinking and planning you want, in the end it's like a leap of faith.

My point was that in the end.. No matter how much we are educated, no matter how much we read and no matter how much we analyze things to the enth degree we can't predict the benefits or pros and cons of transition. It's a guess or even an "educated guess". This (IMO) is where the leap of faith comes in the decision whether to transition or not. In part.

[Kathryn Martin]

..... if she had a sense as a young child that her body was not right. If her motive to transition is to correct her body rather than "fitting in better" or being happier as a girl because she is not happy as a boy, then surely she will be happy no matter what her life looks like post-op and how she fits in with other people? ........ and my concern is about long term well-being and not at all about determining who is more transsexual than who.

Interesting perspective, Reine, especially in the first portion of the quote. The entire issue of fitting in better is a human issue rather than a gender issue. There is a lot of fallacy in the idea that one might transition to female (body, mind and soul). Being female (or male for that matter) is not a matter of choice but rather of biology in the first instance and later to some limited extent of socialization (such as certain expected behavioral patterns). To be accepted as a female post transition requires some shared experience which is unique for both genders. And that is not playing with dolls when you were four years old. In a sense non acceptance, which is a lot more common than one might think, is the lack of such shared experiences, because it is social. But the capacity for shared experience is rooted in biology.

These issues are never about who is more trans than who? If you take health care seriously, then what constitutes healing is different depending on the condition that someone is suffering from. The distress of not finding your voice is different than the distress of disfigurement. If you take aspirin to cure a stomach ache then it will get worse.

The interesting thing is though, that if you select the R*I*G*H*T treatment for your condition then your life will be better and you will fit in better with other people.

[Jorja]

One does not go through transition and GRS without doubts. You never really know what life will be like afterward, until afterward. This is why so many of us that have been through it try to tell others to go slowly. You take a step and then see how it is. You decide when the next step can or if it should be taken. Eventually, you hit a point where anymore changes makes it permanent so you need to be damn sure this is really what you want.

For myself and most of the others I have talked with, by the time you get to this point, you are sure this is what you want. I have met hundreds of girls that made the same decisions and all have felt their life is in fact better for it. Granted, there are a few along the way that for some reason are not happy with their decision. It does happen. From talking with some of them they would not be happy no matter what. In large, I think part of this is because there are and were other reasons in their lives that were not good. Maybe they were not truthful in therapy. Maybe they have other mental problems. Maybe they were abused at an earlier time. This list can go on and on. The main thing here is you must be stable mentally to take the final steps if success is to be had.

[Badtranny]

My history is fairly well documented but I don't think my story qualifies me as TS any more or less than anyone else's story does. You know what does? My transition.

I don't recall every asking anyone if I was TS or not including my therapist. In fact, I basically told her to talk me out of it. I really don't understand this waffling. When I realized what my problem was, I got busy fixing it.

Frankly I would be concerned about somebody who needs the approval of any person or community before embarking on such a personal journey. Plenty of people have expressed their contempt for me and my transition. I've been called everything from disgusting to delusional by people on this very forum, but it just slides off like poop on porcelain.

Transitioners are tough and fiercely independent, so are you TS? There is only one way to know for sure.

[DaniG]

The path is indeed tortuous and painful ... (obviously not that I've experienced it but I'm well able to get a sense of this from reading all your stories). :sad:

I for one don't discount anyone's opinion. I don't think you have to go through it to offer an opinion, and you obviously have a great deal of experience with this issue.


But, the need to follow the path must be (logically) propelled by one motive that overrides everything else, and this is, "My life will be better at the end of it all". My big question in this thread is, "What if it isn't?"

Absolutely. I am not expecting much for myself.

1. At 6'8" I've been looked at all my life in public. I don't ever expect to pass consistenly.

2. As an author of lesbian fiction, I've already experienced discrimination in that community first as a straight male and now as a trans woman, so I know I won't be consistently accepted there either. Obviously, mainstream straight society is not too hot on transsexuals, so I'm not expecting much there. Then again, it's one thing to experience it online and other in living color.

However, I am hoping that my family will accept me over time. And I hope that my wife can stay in my life to some degree. At this point she's committed to staying with me, but we all know that no such promise can be guaranteed through a tranisiton. Losing her would be a blow, but if we stayed together I could probably weather anything else.


I repeat that I am not discounting anyone. If you are taking it this way, then I respectfully suggest that you are reading things that are not there. My biggest flaw is that I obviously cannot adequately address all facets of this very complex situation in a few questions, points, or posts. :p As previously mentioned, there are all kinds of people who do want to transition and not all of them do so for the same reasons, as we've seen over the years in this section of the forum and also in the older version of the Body Issues section before it was changed for TSs only, with people who asked how they could feminize themselves but who also believed themselves to not be transsexual. I also know people who realized post-op that their lives didn't turn out the way they thought they would.

I think others said it best.


You can do all the thinking and planning you want, in the end it's like a leap of faith.

I have to make my evaluation and search my soul.


What would I do in your shoes? I would absolutely live full time without undergoing any body modifications, for at least 2 years and if this is not doable, then at least present as a woman a significant portion of the time, going out regularly and frequently in the mainstream to do errands and other ordinary things again for at least 2 years. During this time, I would not tell myself that post-op life will be significantly different, not if I were beginning to do this at middle age and I had had no prior inkling that I was not connected to the male gender. Sorry if this seems harsh, but IMO it seems like a pretty safe thing to do.

I don't think I'd trust my test to part time. I might dive in full time and have a trach shave after six months. I'd never miss that as a man, and that's a key gender indicator. Plus, it's cheap (relatively). I might have FFS after a year or so. If I went back, I would simply look like a feminine man. That would be livable. But that's actually the point at which life would be like post-op, I'd argue.

Other than that, your approach seems cautious and reasonable. Add to that a prolonged exploration and meditation (tip to Liz) phase beforehand. And I'm still not delcaring TS anyways. I just want to.

Your comments are appreciated, ReineD. I claim TG, but, of course, I still wrestle with this question. In addition to "Why am I TG?" I also have "Why can't I clearly be TG?" So I think I push back on you hoping that you'll provide some nugget of wisdom that'll give me an 'aha' resolution. Of course, there will be no such final resolution. I'm going to have to find my answer through the long process. I hope at least that it becomes clear at that point.

[ReineD]

My head is spinning. I received a PM from someone who quoted part of what I had said earlier, and who confessed to hating the idea of being stuck between a rock and a hard place. I don't blame her and if anyone thinks this is what I am suggesting, I'm not. I'm actually saying much of what Kaitlyn, Kathryn, Misty, and others have said in here over time. Anyway, my response to her was rather short and to the point (I think), so I'll post it here. It reflects what I'm trying to get at in here.



I hope that you will start seeing a good gender therapist who is able to separate the proverbial wheat from the chaff. I gather that therapists vary in terms of training and ability, and also perhaps bias depending on their own life experiences. I'm not a gender therapist, but this is the way that I see the choices in a nutshell:

1.Obviously if you are not TS, then it would be a mistake to transition.

2. If you are TS, if living in the male gender role with your male primary and secondary sexual characteristics is severely and negatively impacting the quality of your life causing you a deep sense of emptiness and depression, then NOT transitioning would be a mistake.

3. If you are one of the rather large blocks of people who are not part of the gender binary, if your gender is rather fluid and your male life is not causing you the deep distress described above even if there are aspects of your female life that you enjoy infinitely more than being male, then it might OR might not be a mistake to transition, based on your life circumstances and how much you stand to lose job-wise and relationship-wise should you go ahead with transition (combined with your ability to cope with the potential losses). I think there are people whose sense of well-being will be the same no matter what gender they live as and much of this depends on how others will see them post-transition and how much their expectations of living in their target genders will come true.

4. Conversely, if you are not yet sure whether or not you are TS, then beginning a transition right now would be a mistake just in case it turns out that you are not TS. But if you are TS, then it will eventually become unbearable to keep your male body and continue to live as a male.

If you don't mind, I'm going to post just my response to you in the thread without mentioning your name. It illustrates the fundamentals of what I'm trying to get at.

[LeaP]

The only way for whom to know for sure, Misty? Like you, I didn't need anyone else to tell me who I am. And like you, I told my therapist, not the other way around.

So sure, transitioning is pretty definitive – for everyone else. But you would not have transitioned if you had not already known.

[Marleena]

Melissa, this is or was just supposed to be a harmless discussion nothing more.

In my case I don't give a crap if anybody thinks I'm TS or not. The only difference is I do not need to transition (SRS) just to prove it. I'll deal with this slowly and how I feel is right for me. I refuse to be talked into anything by anybody. Yes, I have a lot of baggage.:D

[DaniG]

...and who confessed to hating the idea of being stuck between a rock and a hard place.

In my mind: TG = being stuck between a rock and a hard place. The question is whether you choose the hard place or the rock.

ReineD, I loved your response. I think someone should stick it up as a quick reference guide somewhere. "If you're not sure..." Well said.

[PaulaQ]

My head is spinning. I received a PM from someone who quoted part of what I had said earlier, and who confessed to hating the idea of being stuck between a rock and a hard place. I don't blame her and if anyone thinks this is what I am suggesting, I'm not.

...

I think there are people whose sense of well-being will be the same no matter what gender they live as and much of this depends on how others will see them post-transition and how much their expectations of living in their target genders will come true.

I don't think you were suggesting this - but the conclusion that "there may be no satisfactory solution that involves happiness for some individuals, regardless of the gender identity the choose to express" is certainly a possiblity, right? Someone could be miserable as a male, and discover, 'yup, still isoloated and alone' after transition, right?

Your statement:


What if at the end of it all you still are the last one to be picked for the team even if this time it is the girl's team?

struck a cord with me, this has been my experience growing up, for much of my life, and it is an ongoing fear. Felt like you plucked that thought straight out of my head, actually. Suppose none of the options a person has are very good, or at least liveable? What then? Rhetorical question - I know perfectly well the outcome for people who suffer from pain they can neither endure nor escape. I've seen it many times, albeit not in this context.

My goal, of course, is to find some solution that is liveable for me. I hope it exists. (Always has so far - so I'm hopeful, btw. :))

[Jorja]

My goal, of course, is to find some solution that is liveable for me. I hope it exists. (Always has so far - so I'm hopeful, btw. :))

This is all any of us can do. If that means having or not having GRS, fine. We each need to do what we feel is best for us. Only you have the control over that.

[ReineD]

I don't think you were suggesting this - but the conclusion that "there may be no satisfactory solution that involves happiness for some individuals, regardless of the gender identity the choose to express" is certainly a possiblity, right? Someone could be miserable as a male, and discover, 'yup, still isoloated and alone' after transition, right?

Right, except there is actually a workaround for this for those who are not TS and who are also not men who crossdress, and this is, redefining gender as being "not binary for some people". The WPATH uses the term "gender non-conforming". And this means getting to a place of peace with where you're at currently, while constructing your life in such a way as to express your femininity unfettered, especially if changing your life gender role and sex (i.e. transition) would involve huge losses that you are not prepared to weather, and again, especially if you do not know where you sit at the moment.

This thread is not the place to describe how to do this but I will say that I have seen my SO and others in this forum accomplish this successfully. Maybe the people in this forum who do not identify as men, yet who are not sure if they are genetic women born with male disfigurement and who have achieved some measure of peace and happiness in their lives, can describe how they did this in a separate thread. You would need to ask the question in the CDing side though (even though there are CDers who do identify as men), since the TS side of the forum is mostly populated by people who do see themselves most definitely on either end of the gender binary (male or female), and who have made or are making the decision to transition. But maybe you could limit your question to people who identify as "TG".

[Marleena]

Plenty of people have expressed their contempt for me and my transition. I've been called everything from disgusting to delusional by people on this very forum, but it just slides off like poop on porcelain.


I hope it's okay for me to quote.:)

All I can say is I've never seen that type of thing go on here in the public forum and I find it alarming. You've put your transition out there for everyone to see. I could never see you as delusional or disgusting. In fact I see you as quite the opposite. You challenge people with a no BS type of attitude and you have your shit together. You are doing what you need to do for you and you're not ashamed to let others know how you feel. That is brave to me.

You owe me 50$ now.

J/K.:D

[JessicaM1985]

I'll go out on a limb and say that I don't think too many of us come right out of the womb with a burning desire for SRS. Not because we aren't trans, but because our brain hasn't even developed to the point of being conscious of what it is that is bothering us. We are born with a weird disconnect, a dissonance if you will. But that doesn't necessarily mean we are born with an understanding of what that dissonance means. This is why I think there is a discrepancy for what age people have that "Aha!" moment when they realize that disconnect occurs because they are transgender. The degree of intensity of that dysphoria brings is pretty much the determining factor as to whether or not they need to transition, or if they'll be fine with just dressing in their preferred gender role. For some people they figure it out at a very young age (good for them too!), but for people like myself I didn't really have that "aha!" moment until I was 14, and even then, I wasn't comfortable doing anything about it until age 26. (that's what happens when you have super strict and religious parents)
So that's my theory on why people have different ages when they "discover" it. It's not that they weren't born trans, it's that their brain needed time to develop the logic and reasoning needed to figure out what that dysphoria was and what it meant.

[ReineD]

We are born with a weird disconnect, a dissonance if you will. But that doesn't necessarily mean we are born with an understanding of what that dissonance means. This is why I think there is a discrepancy for what age people have that "Aha!" moment when they realize that disconnect occurs because they are transgender.

Right. And this was the discussion in the first few pages of this thread. There is a difference between knowing there is a disconnect during childhood but not knowing what it is called (and therefore not being able to identify it as transsexualism until some years later), and having it pop up out of the blue at middle age, not having any prior clue whatsoever that there was some disconnect, as was mentioned in a post on page 2.

[PaulaQ]

You would need to ask the question in the CDing side though (even though there are CDers who do identify as men), since the TS side of the forum is mostly populated by people who do see themselves most definitely on either end of the gender binary (male or female)

Thanks, my apologies for using the wrong section. I don't seem to fit in especially well in either place, so perhaps that is telling. I am still new though, and trying to understand what I am going through.


Only you have the control over that.

Well, we can certainly hope that is the case.

[Kathryn Martin]

I'll go out on a limb and say that I don't think too many of us come right out of the womb with a burning desire for SRS.

That would be a very strong limb. I would be very interested to know more about your "aha" moment around age 14 if you care to share.

[stefan37]

We had an individual at our support group last night and she was very uncomfortable. She came to the meeting dressed and fidgited the entire time. she had many doubts who she was or where she was headed. She felt that she was 2 people and the most voiced opinion is it was ok to have doubts and to not know. I explained that she needs to take a slow approach and try to find ways to express herself and try to find a point she is comfortable with. I think it is that way with most of us due to the social pressures imposed upon us and the expectation to act as your biological self. I can not say I knew at an early age i was trans, as I really had no idea what it meant. I do know from an early age I wanted to be the opposite gender than I was born, and since I grew up in a time period that there was no real information except for sensationalism and scorn I was forced to hide and suppress my true emotions. I kinda felt i would transition if the right circumstances came about, but they never seemed to and I was somewhat content to engage in activities that mitigated my distress. As those of us that do start transition know I reached a point where I had to explore the feasibility of freer expression. Not wanting to upset the balance of my life as I knew it I fought my acceptance of my condition. I asked many questions and was hoping my therapist would talk me out of it or say I was deep in the fog and would see the hear the buoy to guide my way out. I am thankful I had a very insightful therapist that guided me and gave me the questions to ask myself to determine if what I felt was real or fantasy. The reality was I was not in the fog but in clear skies and my path would open to me. As I progressed and came to forks in the road, every turn I take to transition feels right and fills me with great joy. I have many moments that I experience guilt and sadness regarding the change of dynamics with my loving wife and realizing our future will never be what we or 'she imagined. It causes me great pain and a burden that will always be with me as I alone am responsible for the changes that are forcing her to make decisions at this late junction in her life. Decisions she never thought she would have to make. In the midst of my sadness I am experiencing exhilaration and have a tremendous amount of positive energy that allows me to function and interact with others in a more dynamic way furthering my thirst for life. Once I was able to accept who I was and realize how long I keep her under wraps, Only at that point could I take real control of my destiny and do what I feel is right for me. and in the long run be a better person.

[ReineD]

Thanks, my apologies for using the wrong section.

No, no NO! LOL

I'm not at all suggesting you shouldn't post here, of course you can if you're questioning things. Just saying that if you ever want to know the nuts and bolts about how people (who do not identify as men) have found peace living their lives without transitioning, you should ask the question in a different place that is meant for discussions about transition. You were asking about a workaround for the dilemma of people who are not happy as men, but who might not be happy as women either, .

:hugs:

[Badtranny]

In my case I don't give a crap if anybody thinks I'm TS or not. The only difference is I do not need to transition (SRS) just to prove it.

If you don't know already, I wasn't addressing you specifically, I was speaking more to the zeitgeist of the thread. ;-)

Nobody here has anything to prove. Certainly not to me anyway, I'm just another nut in the peanut gallery.



... and you have your shit together.

My shit is nowhere near together, but I'm okay with that. ;-)

My secret to success is learning to be happy with the here and now, while being dissatisfied with the status quo.

[Kathryn Martin]

My secret to success is learning to be happy with the here and now, while being dissatisfied with the status quo.

For that, Misty, I will declare my love for you.

[JessicaM1985]

That would be a very strong limb. I would be very interested to know more about your "aha" moment around age 14 if you care to share.


Fair enough. My moment stemmed from my discovery of autogynephilia. I enjoyed crossdressing and doing certain other things while watching certain kinds of videos. Do I still have it? Nope, yet I still have a burning desire to transition and live life as a woman. Getting dressed does nothing for me anymore in that way, but it certainly does help me feel like I "fit".
I started "borrowing" my dad's (then) wife's garments and stuff. It was due to the AGP that I was very confused for a while as to whether I was a CD, TG, or TS. Add in religious brainwashing and conservative socialization that it took me 12 years to actually address the issue. Ironically enough I recently discovered from my older stepsister (who I lost touch with from the age of 10 up until two years ago) that her and I used to play dress up often when I was about 2-3, although I have no memory of it.

For the sake of argument, I'll stick with saying my moment came at age 14. I found myself incredibly jealous of other women, their fashion, and the way the could feel so comfortable in their body and just be themselves. Due to the AGP, I also grew VERY jealous of sex from their perspective. It was how I knew I was at least bisexual, and probably trans in some shape or form. Of course even then, I still didn't have a name for it. Having been raised by religious nuts, there was no distinction between gay, bi, or trans (which is not an orientation). All of them were considered "that gay crap" and any time I demonstrated that tendency I had the living hell beaten out of me. (I'm talking fists, boots, and belts)
So that would explain how fear and brainwashing caused me to wait so long in life to attempt to do anything about it or try to understand it further. That may also explain why the AGP feelings were so intense then and why it literally does nothing for me now; there is no massive danger or fear involved anymore because where I'm at, I'm 100% free to look anyway I choose and be completely myself.

As a side note (because I've seen convos head in this direction towards me before and on several occasions):
Even if none of this "convinces" anyone here of my trans-state, no cares (<---a necessary editing of the actual word here) will be given on my end. I know who I am now and I'm happy with that. :)

[DaniG]

I'm very sorry that you had to go through that.

[JessicaM1985]

Thank you Dani. I'm sorry I had to go through that too, but as I learned in life, we can take our negative experiences and turn them into positive ones that others can benefit from. In doing so we regain control of our lives from those that tried to destroy us.
I also share this because I had a great many mental issues, brainwashing, and conditioning that I had to undo before I could ever be anywhere near ready to deal with my gender identity and the things that come with it. It is for this reason that I believe that may be a plausible reason why you have some people that don't transition until late in life.

[Rianna Humble]

Fair enough. My moment stemmed from my discovery of autogynephilia.

It always saddens me to see someone has been taken in by the discredited pseudo-science of Blanchard. He only invented the term to validate his contention that there are no true transsexuals and then in his BS "study" discounted all evidence that we do exist.

You have suffered enough at the hands of people who would not accept you and your intrinsic value as a human being, I hope you can also break free of the haters such as Blanchard and truly discover your own self worth.

[JessicaM1985]

Oh well at the time I had no idea what the term was for it. I just liked to dress up and...er... relieve those particular urges while dressed. I didn't know there was a medical term for it until last year. You can imagine the shock on my face when I used to do was exactly the description I was reading. Still, as I've said I'm not really into that anymore. Strange now that I have complete freedom to be that way if I so choose, I have none of those urges anymore. It's through living as a woman that I find my confidence and inner voice; something I had lacked my whole life. The hows and whys do not really phase me and I'm not pushing too hard to seek them anymore. I just know it is what it is, and that by working my way through transition, I can continue to be the happy and confident woman that I am. :)

[Badtranny]

For that, Misty, I will declare my love for you.

...and I will accept.

;-)

[ReineD]

It always saddens me to see someone has been taken in by the discredited pseudo-science of Blanchard. He only invented the term to validate his contention that there are no true transsexuals and then in his BS "study" discounted all evidence that we do exist.

A transwoman who experiences her sexuality is just like everyone else who is sexual. Being sexual and AGP are two different things.

Although Blanchard was misplaced in labeling a transwoman's natural sexuality as a fetish, the concept of AGP in itself is not pseudo-science. Blanchard did come up with a term that is widely applicable to fetish crossdressers. A lot of people on the other side of this forum have confirmed that the term fits them well. There are a significant number of fetish crossdressers who get off sexually on the mental image of themselves as a woman (usually when they are dressed), and some take it further when they say they are hetero yet they want to be with men *but only when they are dressed*. Furthermore, this fantasy also displaces the sexual energy with their partners. It is a rather contentious issue in some relationships.

If a transwoman notices the same behaviors within herself as some of the Cders, I don't blame her for questioning whether it is fetish for her as well and I think it is good to work through this, as Jessica did. If someone felt they were TS, but they were unable to work through the auto-eroticism, if it continued to be a major motive for wanting to "be" female, then would you be of the opinion that they were TS?

I think that being aware of AGP and determining that it is NOT behind a person's desire to transition is rather a useful tool.

[JessicaM1985]

I agree Reine. I don't think that a TS is incapable of having that particular type of fetish, but if that is the predominant motive behind the transition, I don't think that transitioning will be successful. I reflect on some of the things said to me in the past on here regarding that, and yeah you guys were right in that regard. I feel it's prudent and smart to really question your motives for wanting to transition, and as such I spent much time in personal reflection on this. I poked and prodded every argument I had in favor of it with a counterargument for a while, and there are times I still do this. Btw, the shower is a great place for me to think, as is when I spend time resting and reflecting before I actually roll over and go to sleep. I wish I still had my old recliner because there were some days on the weekend that I would spend all day just looking at the ceiling while lost in personal thought. The topic of my gender identity is one that I have spent the most time on out of any other.

The conclusion I came to is that even when I had my "dry spells" where the urge to dress was not on me at all, there was still dysphoria. That feeling that there is something wrong with me, that feeling that I'm out of place in my body but I have no idea what it was, is something that I've had my whole entire life. I just never knew exactly what it was until I discovered that there were a group of people that were called "transgender". Even then, my religious upbringing was a barrier to my learning anything more about it. Fear is a very powerful tool for the tyrannical to keep the oppressed at bay, and my father and his (now ex) wife were no different. Even after I had turned 18 and had moved out, I still kept their horrid beliefs trapped inside my skull. It took the next 8 years for me to undo that tinkering and brainwashing before I was even comfortable enough to confront what I secretly knew was wrong with me. It's weird to because while I had a very good hunch that I was transgender in some way, I still was having trouble placing myself on the trans spectrum. My gender identity is female, the way I dress is predominantly female, but my expression is somewhere in between. I liken myself to be similar to a "butch" female. Because I still did have some minor male tendencies, I didn't know what I was. Then I realized that "hey, there are ciswomen like beer, extreme metal and raunchy humor just as much as any guy does, so that does not make me any less of a woman."
Still during those 8 years of pretending I'm a man, I found myself making plea deals with myself. "Well if I don't make it as a famous musician, then yeah I'll go ahead and get that sex change." (forgive me, I was pretty ignorant back in the day. Like many, I thought a "sex change" was a one time operation and that I magically had boobs and a vagina afterwards with a girly voice and would be universally accepted by all. smh)
When things didn't work out, I'd alter the plea deal with another condition, followed by another. It wasn't until July of 2011 when I came out to people as a bisexual male that I felt comfortable enough afterwards to tackle my gender identity issues. Even then, it took me until around christmas of that year to accept that I'm at least an avid crossdresser and actually come out to people about it and sign up on this forum. Funny how my introductory post here showed me being so afraid and timid of the subject that I actually had a hard time even picking a female name because I thought I'd dabble with crossdressing willy-nilly like it was some random hobby and no thought involved to it. (in hindsight this is disrespectful to CDs and I apologize for that)

I've come a long way from that, and even then, I've barely even passed the first stretch. But I at least know who I am now, and with that knowledge I can do what I feel is necessary to live the way I feel that I should. :)

[melissaK]

Really? The whole AGP discussion again?

Reine, I'm sorry to hear AGP is alive and well anywhere on these boards. I lived through a period of my development thinking it fit and made sense, but in the long run it didn't and doesn't. IMHO it sets a trap for those who desperately want an explanation AND a reason to deny larger TS issues. And ALL of us pretty much want to deny we have to transition.

I'd wager a lot of CDers are exactly that, TS in denial working their mental ass off to avoid following through on what their inner voice is telling them. It's one thing for them to do this consciously, it's another thing to create the AGP category that denies them a logical way to move on when GD worsens in their life. AGP is the Sirens in Homer's Odyssey.

[Rianna Humble]

Although Blanchard was misplaced in labeling a transwoman's natural sexuality as a fetish, the concept of AGP in itself is not pseudo-science. Blanchard did come up with a term that is widely applicable to fetish crossdressers.

You and I will have to disagree whether Blanchard's widely discredited paper based on so-called research that excluded consideration of all alternative explanations of what he observed was or was not pseudo-science. He did not coin the term to describe what fetish cross-dressers do, he coined it to discredit transsexuals.

Blanchard failed to apply the most basic principles of scientific study, therefore I persist in the view that his paper was and still is pseudo-science.

The fact that a population who were not intended to be covered by this so-called study may now have become convinced that a term that was not intended to describe their experience may nonetheless apply to them does not make Blanchard's methods any more scientific.

[ReineD]

You and I will have to disagree whether Blanchard's widely discredited paper based on so-called research that excluded consideration of all alternative explanations of what he observed was or was not pseudo-science. He did not coin the term to describe what fetish cross-dressers do, he coined it to discredit transsexuals.

I do agree that Blanchard's sample was small, the subjects were self-selected and this is why his research was so widely criticized. Using the concept of AGP to describe a transwoman's motive for transition under these circumstances is ridiculous, in my opinion.

But, surely you must have seen the numerous posts on the other side of the forum over the years, from the crossdressers who do say that the concept applies to them? I'm saying that the condition of AGP does exist, separate from any discussion of its applicability to transwomen, and in this respect it is not pseudo science. Many people do, in fact, dress for fetish and autogynephilia is as good a term as any to describe this.

I further think that if an individual is aware of the existence of AGP, and she notices within herself a consistent drive to dress, year after year, for reasons that are purely sexual (with no accompanying motive to express an inner female identity), then it would be correct for her to determine that she is not TS. I think it can be potentially disastrous should an individual who is strictly motivated by a powerful fetish, come to believe that she is TS and seek transition, don't you?

Maybe we're saying the same thing. :p



Reine, I'm sorry to hear AGP is alive and well anywhere on these boards.

The rules in this forum explicitly prohibit graphic, sexual posts. So the bulk of the crossdressers who join aren't prone to wanting to hang around, if they are strictly fetishistic and wanting only online thrills. Still, some of our members have in the past freely admitted to dressing for fetish even though they are prohibited by forum rules to discuss their fantasies in detail, and this should not come as a surprise? We all know that if you google "crossdressing", you will see tons of sites that cater strictly to the sexual aspect of the CDing?

That said, Jessica introduced the topic to this thread, Rianna responded, I commented on something that I did not agree with, Rianna responded to me, and now there is a discussion about AGP in this thread. Maybe the three of us can take it to a PM. :)

[Kathryn Martin]

I believe that greatest fallacy of Blanchard's research among those mentioned by Reine was the design of the survey used then on the 362 patients of the clinic. Firstly, the survey questions excluded any answers that did not in some fashion associate the feelings of the survey takers with arousal. As a result the survey pre-supposed the hypothesis and permitted only answers that in some fashion confirmed the hypothesis. There only a few questions that permitted: no arousal! as an answer. Those were weighted and those that answered with: no arousal! were considered liars in the conclusions.

Secondly, Blanchard specifically says it is a hypothesis not even a theory. Since it has been elevated to so much more, so that we now speak of it as a condition although the hypotheses has never been proven. It's really a flawed kind of quacky dilettante piece of work. That it happens to describe experiences some have does not make it a valid condition. Just my 102 cents:D

[pickles]

Early 20s was when I figured out gender was part of why I was so different. Being a boy was okay but a man:........nooooooo