Is there anyone else like me?

[elizabethamy]

I had no clue that I might be trans until I was 54. At first I thought it was a crack-up, response to getting fired, etc. Did some therapy, wrote a couple of books worth of stuff about myself on this site (sorry for all who had to read it), then decided to "be a man" and treat it as a delusion; moved across the country with intolerant of trans wife and kid. Six years later, I know it's never going to leave me alone. I'm back in therapy about it, back reading about it, thinking of hormones, etc. All that. Lots of stories are out there about late transitions, but late self-awareness that it's there at all: anyone else like me?

Perhaps I have a joint Ph.D. in obliviousness and repression, but if I have any company, would love to chat...

[AllieSF]

I am one. Discovered step one at age 60! Since then, it has been one step at a time, which continues to be my philosophy. Interestingly, I haven't found a stopping point and keep taking more steps!

[Pat]

Elizabeth - It's not a common story but it happens. Often as you work with your therapist and start looking back through your life you'll find events that you ignored or suppressed that point to this outcome. In the end it doesn't matter as long as you're sure you're in the right place now. ;)

[Rachael Leigh]

Elizabeth, not real common but it took me a long time to come to terms with my gender identity.
I’ve been through a lot of soul searching this past year and was just about to begin hormones but realized it was not what I
needed. I now am understanding I’m much more gender fluid and lean towards the feminine side.
So being in counseling can be a big help but you have to be real and understand the effects of those around you too

[2BArianwen]

Hi Elizabeth. I have a similar story - I'm 55 but only came to a place of self-acceptance within the past 2 years. You're not alone.

[Tommie.]

At 63 in Nov 2015 I finally came out to my wife. I had this conversation with Rachael the other day too.... a difference was I had desires early in my life as suggested above and recognized it as a teenager. But when I came out the cost has been high.... 43 year marriage lost, my family shunning me for the most part, my home sold off, my retirement and assets split, no longer able to work in my field, great sadness and loss at this point, and so on. What has been gained... I do love being me... I'm happier, at peace, enjoy being loved and loving, smiling, trying to build joy, a new future and me. I tried to go back three times but could not... it's been done but I couldn't... I couldn't suppress who I am any more. You are certainly not alone. We late bloomers are quite a substantial number and a lot has to do with what was available to us like just knowing how to transition much less dysphoria pushing us. I had the experience Pat describes too where you begin to look back and see all these little things you did along the way that I had forgotten. To this point counselling, HRT, an orchie, and now looking at FFS and full transition this year, I will become the woman whom I've longed to be. But consider carefully... this will affect the very core of your existence all the way from physically to religiously... and the older we are the more at stake we have. A parting hope... listen to your heart, your counselor and to Him. May Peace be your guide.

[Ceera]

I was about 56 when I realized what was going on in my head. So no, you're not at all alone.

I lived in denial of my femme side for most of my life, for fear of how parents and later my wife would react even to me being possibly bisexual. Knew in high school I was potentially Bi, but shut that down hard and tried my best to live a straight and cisgender life, with a wife and daughter.

My wife knew I felt I was bi, but we had agreed I would be strictly monogamous and mate only with her, so it was somewhat academic. I'd admit to her sometimes that a particular male seemed attractive to me (such as Kevin Costner in 'Dances with Wolves'), but I never explored my feelings in that direction.

Over the years I did find myself playing female characters somewhat more often than males in games where I could choose a gender. I laughed that off with comments like, "Well, if I have to look at my avatar's ass while I play, it may as well be a cute ass." But I also wrote fiction stories that increasingly had bisexual or even transgender characters in them...

Between mid 2012 and January 2014, I lost both my parents and then my wife - all deceased. At 56, I felt I no longer had anyone I was 'beholden to' for my actions, and I started to explore how I really felt. Within 6 months I was out socializing in public as a woman, and loving every second of it! By mid 2015 I was fairly certain that I fit the definition of 'transgender', though I was not sure if I would, at my age, ever transition fully to female. Perhaps 'gender fluid' fits me better, since I can be happy in either role. But as time has gone by, I am finding myself choosing to be female for 95% or so of my social activities, and am more and more seriously considering at least HRT and maybe breast augmentation, and getting my ID legally switched to female.

[pamela7]

yes, you are in good company. many of us are late-realisers, later-transitioners. it's down to how we hide and suppress the truth even to ourselves. chat away

xxx

[nikinylons]

I have been a CD all of my life, but it wasn't until 15 years ago when i met my wife that I finally had a life partner who accepted and mentored me. Before that, it was just pantyhose, lingerie, dress, and lipstick and purely sexual. I came out to my wife on our second date with my pantyhose fetish. To my surprise, she had one too and was open to the rest of what I had to say. I said, I have no idea what this is supposed to look like, but I do not want to look like a man in a dress. She made me up, I ordered heels, wig, forms, and other things and she began coaching me. Oh it was so wonderful. Now, the thing that made it work is that I never lost my male persona, it just got softer and I embraced my natural fem side keeping her the center of my world. Now, years later, I am fortunate enough to have a home office and dress accordingly each day. Sometimes I fully make up but most of the time I don't. We have been out in other cities a few times years ago and I'm over that now. Staying at home with someone who looks past the pretty clothes and has serious biz convos with me is perfect. It's a way of life. I don't take it away from the house because I don't need that reckless validation, and yes that is reckless. I respect her wishes and our boundaries and am happy as can be. From what I see in this forum and girls who didn't have the guts to tell their SO's early on, is that you are looking for validation, no matter how you can get it. Whether it be from this forum, girls you chat with, or sneak off to see, you need validation. My advice, man up and explain it to your SO in a way that edifies her and all things fem. Assure her that you aren't gay, and you are still the same guy she married underneath all of the silk and satin. We are who we are. Hiding it and sneaking around is counter productive. If she doesn't like it then you have more explaining to do. Ask for her coaching and help. Lastly, find a garment like we did, pantyhose, as a common denominator and grow from there. If this is truly what you want and she is dead set against it, get out, and find your own way because you will just make her and you miserable. Thinking hormones and SRS? Get out of the pink fog, save yourself and family the pain and expense, and be happyIt's overrated. Good luck!

[DaisyLawrence]

Yes you are not alone, however, Nikinnylons makes some very valid points. There is much to be gained but also much can be lost (see post by Tommie). I think many members here use this forum for self-validation of their own thoughts as they can't find it elsewhere. I see many that are clearly deluded but they get validation here none the less. It makes me wonder if the validaters are being genuine or, like much of the human race, love nothing better to lift people up so they can watch them fall. I trust you are considering full transition or you wouldn't have posted in the transexual forum so all I would say is, the grass is not always greener on the other side of the fence. Transition I believe should only be a last resort when when it is no longer optional. As Jack Nicholson once said, maybe this is as good as it gets.

[pamela7]

there's the thing Daisy, transition is not the last resort for a woman in a man's body - staying "male" to be alive or committing suicide would be last resorts.

[Nikki.]

Niki, there most assuredly a wide gulf between where you’re at and the majority of posters in this section. To project your feelings and experiences onto other folks is misguided at best, regardless of intent and past experience with a personal friend.

[Pat]

Niki -- I think all you're doing is showing there's a wide diversity of people in the transgender community and that you don't experience what others do. But it's important that in this community we believe each other's experience. You don't reach a level of dysphoria that your friend experiences. Why not believe her about what she needs to do rather than dismiss her as wrong? Why presume that your answer is everybody's answer?

[Kaitlyn Michele]

Niki...bluntly stated you have no idea what you are talking about

Your experience is what it is..its not comparable to what most of the people here go through...

we are not "mentored" by our lovers, we are not pantyhose fetishists, and to call us reckless is offensive and ignorant.

You are a man in a dress that likes to feel pantyhose and lace on his skin.
and you are a miserable troll to be ignored in any place where trans people are trying to make progress in their lives..

[docrobbysherry]

Elizabeth, u haven't posted enuff about yourself for us to know if we're like u. I wonder if you're like me?:straightface:

I began dressing out of the blue in my 50's. I dealt with it alone, in a complete vacuum. I fantasized about getting real breasts and vagina. I thot constantly of becoming a woman. I thot I had turned gay because of thots of being with a man! Since I was just separated, I had much alone time to think, experiment, and dress. Then, after 10 years of working thru all that, I came out on line here!:battingeyelashes:

It took a couple of years before I began going out and meeting other T's. Something I now do regularly. I've since discovered I'm simply a CD who wants to appear to be a pretty woman and all desires of becoming a female have vanished!

So, altho it's not likely, I repeat my question: R u like me?:battingeyelashes:

[Rianna Humble]

Some members seem not to care where they are posting. :Angry3:

Whilst it is true that every member has the right to post in the Transsexual Forum provided that it is Transsexual specific, this is not a licence to insult the TS members nor to tell us that we are deluded because you are a man therefore those who aren't need to "man up". :angry:

Equally, if you do not identify as Transsexual please do not disrupt a serious thread by asking the poster if she is like you.

Come on folks! I don't want to have to resort to wide scale moderation :hwac: neither do I want to have to close this thread prematurely.

If you want to post in here, be civil towards and respectful of others. If you can't do that, don't post.

Rianna Humble
Moderatrix

[elizabethamy]

Thanks, Rianna, and thanks everyone else for your thoughts. I have tried mightily in recent years to convert what I seemed to know intuitively was my trans-ness into a fetish or a fantasy. It would be so much easier to be a man in a dress than a 60-something contemplating blowing up everything I know. I am not in a pink fog, I know what that feels like and was in it for a brief time seven or eight years ago. Have been away from dressing and writing on this site and others to know that this thing I have is insistent and will not let go. Am I a woman in a man's body? Do I need to have SRS? I don't know. But I do know that I have never -- since my self-discovery at 54 -- felt like a CD, cared about clothes and shoes and taking selfies and such like a CD. The pain is inside. Dressing helps give me comfort but it is only marginally sexual.

I have looked back and "connected the dots," have seen both how I didn't get it until late, and also how it was there all the time. But I also know enough about literature and history to be aware that connecting dots is very selective and really doesn't prove anything. I could connect different dots and make a good argument that I'm a man. But so could most of us. I do know what the dots likely mean in my case, especially a couple of pieces of what look a lot like TG fiction that I wrote 30 years before I had any idea i might be Trans. That was truly the unconscious talking!

Since I first discovered this about myself, I have wrestled with it every way I can. I joke that I have a Ph.D. in obliviousness and repression; I have also read enough books and journal articles to earn a Ph.D. in Transgender Studies, if I hadn't done it all in secret. I have been to therapy literally hundreds of times and nothing -- brilliant talk, exercises, readings, drama, medication -- moves the needle on my depression. My life circumstances: job, kids, home, finances -- are fine. Nothing in there suggests depression.

In the past few days, just from the realization that I know I can no longer ignore my femaleness, I have felt happier than at any time in several years. The transsexual forum on this site has been a place where I've lurked and written since my first discovery. For some reason, I knew immediately to go right by the CD stuff and into where the hard issues were being contemplated and discussed. I've learned so much from so many people here, and I hope that some of the nearly 600 posts I wrote back in the day were helpful to others as well as me. (If you are in Safe Haven, which I no longer am, an unbelievably long and probably wildly self-indulgent journal buried there tells more of my story than even I want to know any more.)

In earning this secret doctorate in transgender readings, I have never come across an article yet that delves in any way scientifically or psychologically into the phenomenon of the few of us who had no clue until mid- or late-life. What they call "late onset" means after puberty, but as late a realization as mine is so far as I know unstudied. I'm glad there are more than just me on here and presumably scattered all across the world.

Today I'm thankful to those who came forward to help me know that as long as I can come here, I'm never truly alone, no matter what I look like or how isolated i feel in daily life. thank you! now, what to do??

elizabethamy

- - - Updated - - -

docrobbysherry,

I don't know. I'll have to do a fair bit of experimenting to find out.

e.a.

- - - Updated - - -

I didn't mean to sound rude and abrupt...

Just trying to answer everyone all at once. I am anxious to get on with the task of finding out what I need to know about myself, or more fairly, confirming what i'm 95% sure of, and then figuring out what to do about it. I'm really interested in the stories of others -- how you coped with the closet, how you became aware, what you think about connecting the dots of your previously unknown trans past, how you managed to overcome the fear and loneliness, all of that and then some. feel free to pm me if you don't want to chat in the public forum. Thanks, everyone, and especially our brave and unpaid moderator, Rianna!

[Dorit]

My story is not late onset, but late acceptance. Fifty years ago after a psychotic collapse and serious self harming, I told the psychiatrist that I wanted to be a woman and that I hated my genitals. Zero knowledge and zero understanding back then, he basically told me to man it up and besides being on top and thrusting was a pleasure. (He really said that!) So I took the path of repression, shame, and guilt for my thoughts and occasional cross-dressing. Being in a condemning religious community did not help either.

The age of the internet began to change everything for me, and I saw a very different way to relate to my life. Last summer I started therapy again after a fifty year break. After a few months, the therapist recommended HRT, and I was accepted at a hospital endocrinology clinic as their oldest transgender patient in November. This new path of therapy, HRT, and a very different religious approach has given me my life back. I cannot say I had a plan, I just followed the advice of the experts and my heart, which has drawn me deeper into the satisfaction and awe that I could experience such a personal transformation in the last chapter of my life. Just like I had no plan for HRT, I have no plan for SRS.

[nikinylons]

Whoa, I didn't mean to be the authority here ladies. We are all in our own situations with different circumstances. My story is my situation and apparently it didn't fit the thread. Sorry if I came across wrong. Best of luck to you dear :)

- - - Updated - - -

Oops, I am way out of line and stand corrected. I just noticed that this is not the CD forum. My bad ladies and you had every right to call me out. I am very sorry. Please accept my apologies. Best of luck.

[Teresa]

I do feel it's wrong to call members for being deluded and only being here for validation . This is a help forum to do exactly that , we may be deluded because we just don't know what is going on inside our heads and in those circumstances we do need somewhere to turn to understand what we do and justify it , validation is important to see our way forward , otherwise we can go round in demented, destructive circles .

As Pamela comments the outcome can be that serious .

[KellyJameson]

When you use the phrase "Be a man" you are talking about identity. To "Be a man" is masculine identity as all things that "Being a man" means for you. It is a shared identity among men but also different among individual men and across cultures.

Masculine identity is fragile at best because it is abstract and based on behavior-action-performance and the formation of masculine identity is something men give great value to (it must be earned and proven). To disrespect a man is to attack his masculinity (identity) . Women have their identity created for them by being born women. Their identity is concrete and less abstract because it is tied to their bodies. Women escape their bodies to escape the identity imposed on them because of their bodies. Women do not use the phrase "Woman up" yet do think a great deal about being "Strong women"

A stress induced crack up at 54 challenged your beliefs about yourself.

Many MtF trans people have forced down their female identity by "Manning up" until the burden of doing so becomes to much and they "Snap"

The question you may wish to ask yourself is how genuine is your masculine identity. Has it always felt false because there is another identity underneath that you have buried? Have you been living a lie?

The problem with answering this is masculine identity is already built on shakey ground and has a falseness inherent in its structure. Most if not all men are living a lie not because they are hiding a female identity but simply because they built a false identity that is inherent in all masculine forms of identity

The numbers of MtF far exceed the numbers of FtM. In my opinion this comes out of the falseness of the male life (identity) that was created by rejecting their true selves to build a false one they present to the world. Men build their identity by what they do and how they act. This makes them vulnerable to identity crisis.

This is why it is common to "experience" a man when meeting a transsexual woman. Many who transition are in fact men, not women. Probably the majority.

A transsexual woman never experiences a masculine identity crisis because she was never a man so never built a masculine identity. She could and does self alienate by trying to kill the female identity within her. This is a exorcism done to kill what exists. Not a identity crisis caused by the death of something that never really existed. The motive to "Man up" is different between a transsexual woman and a man.

One attempts to kill female identity and the other attempts to reject genuine self as person to fabricate self as gender. It may look the same but is a very different internal struggle. Both are rejecting but for very different motives and reasons.

When you understand the difference you will have the answer to whether you are a woman who has lived a life trying to kill herself "repress as identity" (something that is but must never be) or a man who has not lived honestly as the man you were meant to be (A man but not the kind of man other men are "comparative ")

Two very different internal struggles that may appear to be the same.

It can be excruciatingly difficult to find the answer. I strongly encourage therapy. An emotionally sensitive feminine man is not the same thing as a woman. Be careful what you think it means to be a woman because you could repeat the same error in what you thought it meant to be a man.

Do not make the mistake of thinking that simply because "I am not nor ever have been 'This' than I must be 'That' "

Identity is not superficial. It is your core person that has always been with you.

[pamela7]

Hi Kelly,

Your post is worthy of its own thread, or maybe this could divert the OP. You make many valid points, and while I agree on the plausibility in many cases of your argument, I have also seen the converse. By this I mean that the concept of being a woman is also constructed, or can be, by limiting scopes for example (e.g. being predator-aware, keeping out of harm's way), and not every culture has the american "man up" false ego type of construct either. I have observed close-up, over many years my F2M step child. And behaviourally all I ever experience from him is "girl/woman/female"; there is very little of observable male in him, clothing apart. As my SO agrees about this observation this is not just one m2f saying it, it is also a GG.

A person with a lifetime of behavioural conditioning as a male is going to require considerable effort to deprogram those overlays before others will give confirmatory accepting of "all that is definitely womanly", if indeed any judger will allow that. Unfortunately, misogyny is strong and vibrant in both genders. Being defined/judged by one's body is not really better than being defined by behaviours.

All i'm saying is that it's more complex, and not a black-white split. The reason for the different proportions could be manifold: 1. women can be so socially suppressed that the idea of transitioning might engender far too many fears and dangers to be allowed out, 2. yes, as you say perhaps some m2f might be doing their best to express their feminine side - however mostly these would be satisfied by CD'ing, 3. there are twin spirits, there are female spirits in male bodies, there are male spirits in female bodies, there are intersex bodies, 4. the default body chemistry is female, grown in a female body, meaning the probabilities in transgender are biologically stacked in favour of m2f in terms of brain sex.

We have the lovely processing task of sorting this all out, and if our brain is female-wired, then that's what we have to go with. Once I "knew", that was it, identity-wise. Everything made sense finally.

So, it is complicated, but please don't write off 80% of m2f as males who failed to integrate their feminine side appropriately for that would be disrespectful to the suffering of our community.

xxx Pam

[elizabethamy]

What an interesting thread this has turned out to be! Stooping low enough to quote myself: "The transsexual forum on this site has been a place where I've lurked and written since my first discovery. For some reason, I knew immediately to go right by the CD stuff and into where the hard issues were being contemplated and discussed."

To me, the transsexual forum has been the place where hard questions, like those in Kelly's brilliant post, need to be asked. It's also (in other threads) a place for support to those who have made the leap and are moving across the gender binary. Those threads are sobering to me -- do I want all that? Do I need it? Someone at my age, wrecking a marriage and a career just to have a feminine body? For a long time I had decided that it just wasn't worth it, ergo I must not be truly trans, but as the depression deepened I began to re-ask the question.

I know there's tons of stuff on this, but some of us believe it's a binary and others a continuum. Still others believe one's identity changes over time. I think what Kelly has to say about masculinity is very interesting. I'm doing therapy, that's when this all reopened, when my (non-gender) therapist noted that the first time in her office that I had looked happy was when I talked about how I might be a woman.

So now onto gender therapy with a very seasoned person in that area...and, I hope, more amazing, sometimes difficult, often wildly generous and intelligent, discussions on here. I'm really grateful to all who write and who care.

e.a.

[Nikki.]

EA,

Based on your description it doesn’t sound like you fit into either of Anne Vitale’s groupings but I think this (and her other essays) are worth a read. As always thanks to Kaitlyn for posting this a couple years ago when I first found it.

http://www.avitale.com/developmentalreview.htm

In the middle of a crisis it’s often difficult to really have perspective, but keep in mind there are endless ways to experience being trans, and there is no right way. Ignore anyone on the internet or IRL who tells you there’s only one way or your way is invalid. you be you.

[rachael.davis]

You can't kick yourself for not recognizing / allowing yourself to be you - even 15 years ago there was a very limited vocabulary for transgender, a couple of books in the library, magazines / newspapers were out there, and if you were willing to walk into a porn shop you could buy them - but they were written primarily for male creepers, not transgender women.

[Mirya]

I had no clue that I might be trans until I was 54.

Given this statement, I believe it's extremely unlikely that you're a TS woman. Gender identity does not change during one's lifetime; actually it is usually formed by age 3. Our identity is the essence of who we are, and it is very difficult if not impossible to ignore completely. There should have been signs throughout every stage of your life. And in fact the statistics bear this out: the 2015 US Transgender Survey (PDF link to survey (https://transequality.org/sites/default/files/docs/usts/USTS-Full-Report-Dec17.pdf)), which to date is the largest survey of trans people in the US (27,715 respondents), found that 98% of people surveyed said that they began to feel their gender was different from the one on their birth certificate by age 25. Only 2% began feeling differences past age 26. If you had no clue all the way up until age 54, and you just happen to be a TS woman, you are a tiny fraction of a tiny percentage of people. It's statistically possible, but extremely, extremely unlikely. (Figure 4.3, page 45 in the survey)289356

It's possible that you're still transgender. Maybe you have a non-binary gender identity. Maybe you're two-spirit or gender fluid or some other multi-gender identity. And maybe you repressed that partial female aspect of yourself. But, if your gender identity is completely female (which is what a transsexual woman is), then I don't think it would have been possible for you to have been totally clueless about it for 50+ years.

[pamela7]

Mirya,

Statistics are only that, manipulated in many ways including survey methods; we are already a 0.1% demographic.

Being late onset myself, having met many others, i think we lived in a highly-suppressed world where certain thoughts and behaviours were dangerous to have. It's easy to dismiss us all, and many lifers have, but it's just another prejudice we face and deal with. So we have to plumb those psychic depths significantly more than others, right?

Self-denial, suppression into the deep unconscious, self-delusion are powerful forces. It takes years of processing, but for sure when it feels so right, it is right, and we don't do this if we have doubts.

[elizabethamy]

In my case, I had no sisters, no close female cousins, no hip young aunts, no one to model anything but rigid sex roles (male) for me. My mother and I didn't get along very well, so it was hard to see her as a role model. If you're good at repressing things and there's no one you admire except girls in school and such, and there's nothing in the media, I can easily see how I repressed the whole thing. Then once invested in a marriage and kids, it's not a thought you want to contemplate. It took a total breakdown at age 54 (losing job, marriage almost falling apart for other reasons) for me to begin to ask myself: who am I exactly and why do I feel so terrible and what makes me feel better?

Does all that mean I'm a pure TS? Not necessarily, but IMHO it's enough to justify that I'm not crazy to think so. YMMV! By the way I read a study during my "I'm not ever going to think about this again" period about two years ago, so didn't save it, but it basically studied the way trans women and trans men were treated in the workplace after transition, discovering that mtf's were suddenly ignored and ftm's suddenly thought to be worth listening to. Not surprising -- but the author of the study commented that this would be the last period in history when you could do such a study, as the information is now out there so that if someone feels TS they'll know what that feeling is before they get to be 50.

As to gender identity changing over life, i don't buy it either, but I have heard it from people I respect.

[Kaitlyn Michele]

Hey last I looked, im about 1 in 7 billion...pretty unique...

the whole "true transsexual" thing has some merit...there is a lot of non binary folks out there but I always felt transsexuals were binary...decidedly NOT non binary...that's a pretty big difference and its playing out in the politics of many countries today..

anyway...I prefer to think in terms of gender dysphoria... my own path to self awareness was mine...I had all kinds of clueless ideas and plots and plans and fantasies in my head...my ability to repress is at a Hall of Fame level..I certainly didn't identify as a transsexual...I viewed as a sad fantasy of mine...something to hide..

I would have never called myself transsexual until I read some articles written by and about TS women that made me say OMG....those articles took my gender dysphoria to 11. FYI gratuitous spinal tap reference..

and its that GD that led me to act...

so I would never care or dare to say to anyone what's likely or possible or even what they "are"....but i will say if the GD is there, it must be reckoned with or it will just keep coming at you like a hammer on a nail...

eliz....you really do know all the answers...you dont have to go through it again...you dont need peoples permission or acknowledgment...there are no more questions to ask that will really help you feel more secure in what you already know......its likely that some people are "like you" and others are not...who cares...

the GD is the thing...everything else comes from dealing with that..

[Nicole Erin]

Elizabethamy -
It sounds like you are maybe seeking permission to be trans? Do not even worry about it. What you need to do is decide how you want to live your life.
Some people think the "true TS" are a certain age when they start or at least realize it, or how well they pass or what they had to sacrifice or whatever personal struggle they went through.
It does not matter how much you had to struggle or not. How well you "pass" or not. Whatever age you start.

What matters is that you are living YOUR life according to your desires and perhaps what you can afford. I mean money dictates most of anyone's choices. But that aside...
What if someone said, "No you are not trans". Is that going to stop you from wanting to transition, to live as your chosen gender? Does anyone else have the right to tell you how to live?

So the question is NOT "Am I really trans?". The question is, "How do I want to live my own life?" If living in a new gender role suits you, take steps to make that happen.

[PamelaRI]

Elizabeth,

Obviously at this point on page 2, it's clear that your experience isn't off-the-wall unique and that there isn't a right time and place to come to the realization that you may not be OK with the gender role that's been foisted on you. While in retrospect, I've "known" since before I was 10 that I didn't fit the prototypical male mold, it wasn't until I was 51 and dealing with a life threatening, never before diagnosed, birth defect that I started to realize how outside that mold I was. As Kaitlyn mentions, before that point I never would have thought of myself as TS or even thought of the idea of transitioning, but as I read more about gender dysphoria, I came to realize that I've been suppressing it for decades. And while I continue to suppress the idea of transitioning or seeking therapy, I do try to find a more comfortable spot on the gender continuum where I can be more me, but not torch the apple cart (aka Nicole's comment on money being a limiting factor).

[Janna]

Statistics are only that, manipulated in many ways including survey methods; we are already a 0.1% demographic.

Consider, too, that the older we get, the more set in our ways we are. If someone suppresses something for 50 years, why not 55? 60? Or until they pass away? It could be that we'll start to see more older folks transition simply because they can now come online and find out it's not so unheard of.

Even if it is somehow proven to be vanishingly rare for someone to "not know" they want to transition till a late age, so what? If you can't get it off your mind, experiment. Go out dressed female. See how it feels. Keep a log of your emotions and thoughts. Look back on it for clues or to see how consistent your feelings are. Does simply dressing femme from time to time sate your desires? What about dressing daily at home or in the evenings? If not, go farther. How do you feel on hormones? Better? Then keep going. It's a long process and many changes can be reversed right up until final surgery. You'll learn along the way if it's right for you. Some people only go partway, say, growing breasts, and stop there, feeling satisfied. It really shouldn't matter if you were born wanting to be female, or if you just now want to be female. Either way, you're free to be female now if you want to.

[Sara Olivia]

Hi Kelly,
What you have written is probably one of the most insightful comments I have ever read on that subject. I really just wanted to tell you that.

[MarieTS]

I support all who share our unique experience. I believe people can have varying initiation cycles. But... I think we most closely believe what we experience, and I have to side with Mirya and the statistics provided in her chart because I was only 2 when I had my first inclination. And although I didn't/couldn't do anything about it at the time the realization was present at a very early age and grew from there. I do have to wonder what percent of very late onset is related to a combination of emotional challenges/trauma and age related naturally occurring endo changes.

[elizabethamy]

Marie,

Thanks for your thoughts. I can assure you that what you surmise is exactly what I told myself for eight long years -- a delusion, a mid life crisis, all that. That's why I threw away all my clothes and jewelry (not for the first time) as well as my books, stopped coming here, discontinued my activity elsewhere, closed down my femme email, all of that, to live the non-delusional life of a married man with a good job and kids. But the dysphoria kept coming, and truly it was never gone for even a day. So either we late-life transpeople are just wildly delusional and need hospitalization or something, or it's real. I feel a hundred times better when I accept that it's real, and it's easy to see looking back how it remained hidden for so long, and all the things I did either to submit to it (fem profession, etc) or overcome it (marriage, kids, sports, etc).

Zinnia Jones's depersonalization essay (www.genderanalysis.net) struck a powerful chord with me. To one degree or another, that's been my whole life. Could accepting and acting to overcome the dysphoria make the depersonalization a thing of the past? It's worth it to try, I think.

p.s. My T levels were 463 last time I tried to blame that for the dysphoria. Looking forward to dropping that number!

[Pat]

...all of that, to live the non-delusional life of a married man with a good job and kids. But the dysphoria kept coming, and truly it was never gone for even a day. So either we late-life transpeople are just wildly delusional and need hospitalization or something, or it's real.

It's real. It's rare, but you're born with it encoded into you the same way you might be born left-handed or green-eyed. You can't stop being green-eyed. You cause horrible learning disabilities when you try not to be left-handed. And you get this angst when you try to stop being who you are. And the most important thing of all is that you can be transgender and still be a good husband and a great father -- it's not an either/or thing!

[Kaitlyn Michele]

Im a great ex husband and great father... LOL

that was not easy to be truthful....we went through a lot of downs and few ups for quite some time...but over that time I demonstrated two things... that I could thrive as a woman...and that I was the same constructive person as before...

it took years, but at some point it just became the norm...and frankly I feel just as much a dad as a woman...

[Janna]

I asked my therapist about this topic and she said what I've read elsewhere - gender is a spectrum. You can be a 100% female mind in a 100% male body and in that case you'll probably feel wildly out of place from a very young age and face a lot of depression and dysphoria. But you can also be 51% female in a 49% male body and be pretty happy in your birth role, have a family, and rarely if ever consider a gender change. Or you can be anywhere in between.

If you're in that less dysphoric range of the spectrum, it may be rather common to follow societal pressure to live in your birth gender until children move away and you start to wonder... Maybe your hormone changes caused by aging or weight gain (fat produces estrogen) push you a little farther one direction or another. Whatever your personal experience, everyone should have the right to make a change when and if they want to.

[elizabethamy]

Janna, thanks for that, and thanks to your therapist. There might be something there - but I did find that getting my T levels up (as others have found for many years) just made the dysphoria worse. Sometimes I think: this is crazy, I have to be deluded, but it goes on and on and on, day after day and year after year....Jack Molay, the guru of the "cross dreamers" site, describes in his dictionary: Dark crossdreamers*

Some crossdreamers have suppressed
their other side completely.

Dark crossdreamers are people who have managed to suppress their transgender side completely. They are not even aware of splitting (i.e. a mental compartmentalization of their other side).

The dark crossdreamers are as mysterious and invisible as dark matter, although some dark crossdreamers may have a breakthrough, as the suppressed side forces its way to the surface. (That's me.) This is why we know they exist. Jack ends with this interesting thought:

The existence of dark crossdreamers makes it impossible to determine how large a proportion of the human population is actually crossdreamers.

So, to your point about a gender continuum: I believe it's true, and that the millions of crossdressing men who never feel enough angst to begin to think they might well need to transition, well, those are the people near the middle of the continuum. I don't know where I am on that line, but I'm pretty sure it's far enough toward the female end that I have to do something about it, because I've put a mighty effort and many years into not doing anything about it.

cheers,

e.a.

[pamela7]

As a terminology a crossdreamer is anyone on the transgender spectrum, as perceived by someone wanting to use terminology probably from the Arnold Mindell/Jungian perspective. The site fails to then give any insight into the late-onset transsexual, which is disappointing. What particular food for thought did you find there?

[Teresa]

Elizabeth,
All this is a minefield, I don't relate to the crossdreaming idea but I certainly do to AGP. OK I get into deep water everytime I mention it because of dear old Ray Blanchard .

When it all started for me at the age of 8-9 years looking back AGP fitted my thoughts , feeling and reality of how it all started and the continual gut feeling 24/7 that something isn't quite right .

We have had some heated debates over AGP and other similar related ideas, the one thing I have learned is they just labels that we may or may not apply to us to find our way forward . They actually become superfluous because they don't change how we feel or the way the people around us see us or deal with us , they are meaningless to most people . If you transition you do it because the way you feel inside and not because a label has suggested you should . I admit I needed those labels to try and explain it to myself and hopefully explain it to others but it's still a confusing situation and with conflicting views so there is always someone prepared to tell you you are wrong even if your gut feeling tells you you're right .

For whatever reason I have a deep need to dress as woman , it goes right back to my early childhood , the bottom line is society told me as a man it's wrong , my brain gives me a mixed message , my gut feeling is only satisfied when I do dress , my mind and body feel totally comfortable when I go out in public dressed, and yet a part is still saying this is wrong . I still haven't discovered if it's an inner conflict or years of social indoctrine ? I wonder if any of us truly answer that question ?

[Becky Blue]

What a fascinating thread and what insightful points so many have made. I CD from about age 12 to 40, then literally overnight I lost all 'turn on' factor and thats when Becky emerged, for a few years I was convinced I was heading for transition, but then again she disappeared. Since coming back I am somewhere on the spectrum and consider myself gender fluid. The point of my story and hopefully relevance, is after reading a fascinating book called 'Alice in Genderland' I realised that the signs were there from a very early age. I just did not recognise them. One example is for a number of years around age 5 playing pretend I was a girl, I played this game frequently and even had a name for myself Karen. Perhaps some later onset trans people had the signs too, but have forgotten them or even suppressed the memories.

[elizabethamy]

I agree, it's a fascinating group of comments. I'm learning a lot at a really critical point in my journey. All these terms: AGP, cross dreaming, non-binary, etc. -- they are so useful in the process of figuring yourself out, but it seems that while we can be described as fitting into various types and categories, in the end we are each on our own to make our own way. I find the "crossdreaming" stuff interesting because there needed to be some way to describe the (how many? millions?) of people who are gender-variant but at the moment not acting on it, which is where I was for the past five years or so. It's true that the site doesn't attach itself to any research that helps me know more about folks who were unaware until late, but there's something powerful about being a member of a group that someone else has identified when you wondered before if you were all alone. I hope Jack Molay et al will find and post more information about the phenomenon as their work continues.

Sometimes you find transsexuals who "overmasculinized" by being cops, military, bodybuilders, etc., until they couldn't keep up the facade. I appear to have been the other kind, engaging in feminine-dominated professions and activities as an adult in some kind of apparent attempt to make a deal with my invisible gender issues. Now that they are visible to me and starkly so, I'm still (and maybe will always be) trying to figure out how I got here, but here I am.

Looking back, the signposts seem fairly clear: everything was there since puberty, except crossdressing and the conscious thought that I might be transgender. My guess is that mine is the last generation of folks who figure out they're transgender this late in life, as it's so easy now to access the information you need to figure out who you are. That's probably why there are so many more transgender kids today. I would have been one in this era.

Now -- on to the first appointment with a gender specialist, after too many years of talking about this with sympathetic but not professionally gener-trained therapists...in advance it feels like crossing a river, but I'm aware there are lakes and maybe oceans beyond it.

elizabethamy

[Teresa]

Elizabethamy,
One conclusion I came to about counsellors/therapists despite them being professionally trained they still rely on us to give them the first hand insight , they need us as much as we need them . We are their source of information that they then rely on to form their opinions . We may not be professionals but we are the ones actually living it , what we pass on to others here on the forum or in reality is first hand information so don't discredit it or underestimate it. The majority of the professionals are outsiders , they haven't lived it , we often see members here advise finding another professional if they feel they aren't getting to the crux of the problem . One question I did put to my gender counsellor , was I only using her to validate my CDing , was she just telling me something I wanted to hear , she was professional enough to know how to deal with that question but I still feel it's a valid one that should be asked . After the sessions you will still do what your gut feeling tells you , most of us know what we feel inside it's just we sometimes need help seeing it clearly, that is basically what they can do for you .

[Kaitlyn Michele]

that's like saying the point of drinking water is to drink water because you're thirsty..being professionally trained is a big deal... and their information is often much more broad based and unbiased..
its true, they help you think clearly...that's a big deal

frankly for people that have gender issues, especially transsexual people. they often have big time issues thinking clearly....and also people in the throes of gender dysphoria, thinking clearly is one of the hardest things in the world to do...
and also for people that have no decision to make but they are overcoming all kinds of comorbity and bad habits that will negatively impact their transition or their expression..
thats what therapists do..

first hand advice is excellent as well of course but its a complement to well trained counselors/therapists that have known a lot of gender variant people...

advice from first hand folks is inherently biased .and being here a long time sometimes it even seems biased in a mean spirited way....ie this is who I am and what I did.... if you dont do it this way, then you are not like me...very rough on people struggling with a crisis of identity or a crisis of what to do about it..

[Pat]

One conclusion I came to about counsellors/therapists despite them being professionally trained they still rely on us to give them the first hand insight , they need us as much as we need them . We are their source of information that they then rely on to form their opinions .

Indirectly, perhaps. But most of their training is based on controlled studies, not personal testimony of their clients. And those studies are usually done by hospitals and universities, not one person sitting in their office. So let's give the analysts some props -- they do hard work teasing the information out of the noise and they distill the hearsay into science.

[Teresa]

Pat,
I'm not saying they don't have real value, they got me through a tough spot .

The first counsellor I saw some twenty years ago made light of the issues simply because he had one client that attended dressed and his first action when entering his office was to masturbate in the corner of the room . He also ruled out of hand that we were born with certain female traits , he didn't come cheap either after two sessions I stopped seeing him but that was more down to his need to consult me with my wife present, she refused so there was no point in continuing , he referred me back to my GP suggesting I was prescribed a high dose of Prozac .

My comments are more based on talking to members of my social group rather than comments from members on the forum , it's not a help group but it certainly does help to meet others in reality .

To take up Kaitlyn's comment people aren't mean spirited as you put it , they tell it as it is in reality . I have now a more balanced opinion on transition than I've managed to glean from the forum, they don't treat it as an exclusive club which some of us have no entitlement to , they are honest and open and gladly allow us to support them through their issues as much as our own .

[Devi SM]

I couuld may be count myself in this group of laters come out. Did I say it right? Please help me with my English if I don't say it in the right way or I sound confuse in my states.
My life has been a transition and as someone said, therapy helped me in a great percentage to connect the dots but there were other things too. This forum, beginning with the crossdressers area, several biographic books, research papers and scientific books about trasgenders helped me to first: realize that I was different, I don't know yet what I was not a "common or normal" man, second I wasn't wrong.
Resuming my life on few words, now after "connecting dots I found out that I was a trasgender since my childhood but there's no way I could know it because I didn't know what was to be a normal boy.
I had curiosity for girls bodies but something sparks me on the boy's bodies too. My sexuality was greatly influenced for a very graphic sexual father, so my life took that path, heterosexuality, together with a huge religious influence, so whatever could be out of that normal masculine pattern was inconciously reppresed.
Being married and living with a woman produces some changes and open my mind to new things, the access to internet let me explore more on pornography and I found pleasure watching both bodies female as well male, we're now in my thirties. Before that, in my twenties, being married, and as a joke, I began wearing my wife's panties and she knows. Neither she or me to find anything weird on that except the pleasure I find contemplating myself in a mirror and began tucking.
Late in my thirties the curiosity on males bodies and having sex with a man made me cross that barrier, now I'm very confused, I don't know who I am and I feel really guilty and dirt but I don't want to renounce to the opportunities I have in front of me and I turn very sexualy promiscous.
In my forties, we moved to USA that opens new opportunities. I had a romantic adventure with a woman that makes even think on divorce, luckily I realize that that woman didn't worth the tragedy.
I tried to repress all these bisexual feelings. At that point I'd had sex with more men than women in all my life. The sexuality with my wife needs that homosexual component at least in my mind to achieve a climax.
I have the opportunity to explore about that great feeling on wearing panties and add mini skirts, bras with a sock to create volume in my chest. One day I buy women shoes to my size and a hallowen wig at walmart, I add some make up and that day, even thought no liking what I see I know that deep in my chest I feel a comfort and release of years of represion.
I survive several times when I put all my girly stuff on the trash can......I let my beard grow but I always come back to look for that women inside me. Some men make me feel really great and experience the pleasure of satisfying a man.
Every time I'm alone at home is an opportunity to be she and look to have sex with a man.
They love seeing me as a woman and I love too much watching myself as woman.
It's been around 10 years and I cannot keep living a lie, especially with my wife who I deeply love.
I know in this point there will be who condem that I say I love my wife while cheating on with many men but it's part of my crisis.
So 2 years ago I out to my wife.
It's hard. It's sad but at least now someone knows who I really am.
These last two years, with some more freedom to experience this inner woman I find that sex with men was just a part of the search for my identity.
Since a child, I grew up with this strong male identity that was expressed having sex with a woman. At age of 15 my first sexual experience with a woman. Interestingly, the next heterosexual experience is with my wife, then in a reunion with classmates of high school, sex with a prostitute and lately, living on USA sex with that woman that wasn't worth to break my marriage.
So having swx with a man is a confirmation on my identitu as a woman.

Now I can explore my feminity and she, Vanessa, takes great control, kind of addiction, my mind, after gender therapy and reading a lot show me who I want to be, a woman.
I'm 58 and thinking and evaluating all pros and cons but I feel false, fake being a man.
Wife agrees with let me live sometimes as Vanessa but at the end of the day she wants her man.
Our sex had already disappear, for her side there is no motivation to have sex with a woman, neither do I.
April 16th, 10 am endocrinologist appointment.
Why we came to late in our lives with who we are?
I can say that there was a huge religious and third world mind set that hide in my mind who I am.
Someone used the word delusions.
Are mines just delusions?.
If something can add is that always in my life I've been obsessive about doing the things the best possible way or more fully done.

[Lygophilia]

Never thought that it took you until that age to figure it out. Based on statistics of early ages I'm referring to. Whatever...

[elizabethamy]

I could write a really long thing about my first ever visit to a gender specialist today, but what's relevant to this thread is that she has seen and read about many late-aware transsexuals and believes that the WPATH standards combined with the media have created this stereotype of "I knew since I was 3" as applied to pretty much all TS's. She knows that not to be true and believes that because WPATH often blocked people from getting medical care, many TS's essentially made up stories about themselves as lifelong-sure-of-it in order to get medical treatment.

So we are not alone! And I am moving on a path, starting now, possibly hormonally, starting sooner than I had expected.

elizabethamy

[Kaitlyn Michele]

I really dont care that much how you get to the point...or how old your are or whether you statistically fit in any category....or what you think about true TS or masturbation or anxiety and when you knew...and I especially dont find categorizing very helpful because it a very complicated and confusing situation ......too biased...personal experience is valid but it gets projected...we all do it...I think my own bias is easily guessed by my experience...and I think that's the best way to share it...as clearly and objectively as possible...and person to person....the details matter ....its hard to get honest answers and even harder to fit yourself in somewhere when your brain is scrambled eggs...

so to me only one thing matters.
do you suffer bad gender dysphoria??? yes or no.... if yes, then you are like me for sure!! but you are kind of screwed(lol), and pretty much the only way to get better is to present as a woman as much as you can ....to allow yourself to accept your fate, and do whatever you feel you must to "feel like" and "exist as" a woman... that may include invasive surgeries...that may not...it may include HRT or not.... mitigate it or eradicate it?? which is better for you?
and sometimes I think the true test is electrolysis...if you can afford it and you dont do it...then dont bother...like the pain is a rite of passage ...I know that's not totally true but its a felling ive thought about when people get excited and happy and fantastical about the future...try 200-400 hrs of pain ..

and its so confusing and distressing to some of us, and those are the ones that need the most help.... I totally get why somebody would desire and crave the validation... the need to feel included in a group.. and the need to express and kind of defend the way they came to their own conclusions and their own realizations..the whole idea of "is there anybody out there like me" is so powerful and it seems to me that finding that comfort can be life changing in a good way

[Robbin_Sinclair]

This is such a good question. I am going to have to mark it and read all of these posts. I look forward to people’s opinions.

Clock me in at 65. Looking through old picrues of me from a camera happy set of families, I can see now what should have been obvious to me. Mom and dad had special male friends who did not have a spouse My mom loved her legs. (See photo) Both mother and father were as obsessed with pleasure as I have been. I have a (very nice) feminine body. I overcompensated with manly mannerisms for most of my life to overcome a short leg that I didn’t even know about.

Life is not a race. Nobdy will win or lose pleasure points by learning a real sexuality early.

I could never think about ignoring the promise of lovingkindness that I made to my wife...it would be awful. If I was whoever I wanted to be and live anywhere I want, it would be right here in the US Virgin Islands. To me, the bigger tradegy is to live a life in one place that is not exactly where he/she/them wants to be.

I’m bi in the islands. Loving it and not trying to understand it. 289865