Is there anyone else like me?

[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), 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)age noticed page 45.JPG

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