Is it normal to take so long to find yourself?

[Bird]

I was doing some heavy thinking today. I only really knew I had to change my gender when I hit 26, and it was because I had a nervous breakdown.

Sometimes I wish I had done this earlier, but don't we all? Anyway, when I was in my teens I was a confused mess and couldn't find out what was wrong. I knew I wanted to be BORN a female, but the gender change thing didn't hit me yet. It just seemed like too much of a stretch, a jump towards the unknown, and if I could live my life in my born gender and be happy with it, it was worth a shoot.

Of course, since I am here, it means my attempt at being male failed (because I'm simply not a male, first of all) but I had to wait until 26 to realise what I was doing wrong. Sometimes I wonder, how things would be had I transitioned earlier, as all of us do. I can't change this, but I wanted to know if this sort of thing is normal, transitioning between 25 and 30 years of age, or am I an oddity for changing so late in life?

[Beverley]

I wanted to know if this sort of thing is normal, transitioning between 25 and 30 years of age, or am I an oddity for changing so late in life?

No. I am in my late forties and until recently the median age for MTF was 48. I understand that due to better medical intervention the median age has now dropped into the late 30s.

So if anything, you are not a LATE transitioner, you are an EARLY one.

[MacKenzie]

  Mid-life crisis maybe? I feel like that sometimes, i'm 24 but I feel old lol. I came out in my teens and even then I was kicking myself in the butt for not coming out and doing this sooner. It's something that is really hard to do at an earlier age because of peer-pressure and what not. =P

[Laura26]

Your story is literally the same as mine - same ages and thoughts

It is one of the problems we face though, the odds are so high that nobody else we know growing up has the same thoughts and problems we do.  The internet certainly helps for that.

[JoanneB]

I knew since I was 4 that I should have been born a girl. Thought a lot about transition in my early 20's after finishing school. Now in my mid 50's, living part-time as female and thinking hard about full-time.

Fifty years go by fast 

[Ashley_C]

I didn't start thinking realistically about transition until my 20's and now I'm in my early 30's and finally taking the next steps.

You just need to go at your own time.

[Sephirah]

Sometimes it takes a whole lot longer, hon. It depends when people decide to start actively looking. The mind is good at providing distractions to deter us from comtemplating the meaningful stuff, and things which may be difficult to deal with.

Knowing something is wrong, knowing what that is, and knowing what to do about it... well, they're distinctly different things. And knowing the first of them doesn't automatically lead to the other two straight away.

[JoanneB]

Sometimes it takes a whole lot longer, hon. It depends when people decide to start actively looking. The mind is good at providing distractions to deter us from comtemplating the meaningful stuff, and things which may be difficult to deal with.

Knowing something is wrong, knowing what that is, and knowing what to do about it... well, they're distinctly different things. And knowing the first of them doesn't automatically lead to the other two straight away.

Very well said. Distractions like a career and SO worked great to keep my mind off my trans issues. Loosing my job at the peak of my career, having to take a job doing totally mindless, non challenging work 350 miles from home and wife, left me with lots (or should I say way too much) free time to contemplate the meaningful stuff I avoided for decades.

Knowing with certainty and what to do about what is wrong is a LOT more difficult problem to crack. Never have I been challenged with a problem that I felt had no best path forward. At least I have a lot of free time 

[Cadence Jean]

I had a similar experience.  Teen years were a crap load of turmoil - there was so much coming at me from all directions that it wasn't possible to understand it all and separate it out into distinct issues that needed to be dealt with.  GID was always in the mix, applying different forms of stress to my coming of age.  I new that I had a feminine soul and that I would rather have been born a female, but I never considered that I would go through with transition: transition was something other people did(which I was always drawn to).  I was 29 when I realized that maybe I was indeed transgender, and began to explore my gender identity.  So, no - we're not late bloomers.  I know a lot of transgirls in lower Michigan in their twenties and early thirties, that are going through transition.  I think it might have to do with acceptance being higher in society in general, and more information and resources being readily available via the 'net.  That info makes it easier to go through transition - it becomes surmountable instead of impossible.

I was doing some heavy thinking today. I only really knew I had to change my gender when I hit 26, and it was because I had a nervous breakdown.

Sometimes I wish I had done this earlier, but don't we all? Anyway, when I was in my teens I was a confused mess and couldn't find out what was wrong. I knew I wanted to be BORN a female, but the gender change thing didn't hit me yet. It just seemed like too much of a stretch, a jump towards the unknown, and if I could live my life in my born gender and be happy with it, it was worth a shoot.

Of course, since I am here, it means my attempt at being male failed (because I'm simply not a male, first of all) but I had to wait until 26 to realise what I was doing wrong. Sometimes I wonder, how things would be had I transitioned earlier, as all of us do. I can't change this, but I wanted to know if this sort of thing is normal, transitioning between 25 and 30 years of age, or am I an oddity for changing so late in life?

[Bird]

It is good, sometimes, to find relief in not being so different As I said before, I was in a bit of a guilty trip, feeling that had I started earlier things would have been different.

I'm not ashamed of being transgender at all, matter of fact, I quite easily lift my head up and say I am proud. Not proud of TG per se, but proud enough to be a human being and not lower my head to take crap for it. Despite this, the amount of bull->-bleeped-<- I have been going through in this first and second year of transition is quite staggering, and sometimes it brings me down. I begin to wish to pass 100%, just so people would stop giving me a hard time. As we all know, it takes a lot of work to pass 100%, tenfold more than say, 95% and this prospect makes me feel a bit hopeless. But there is nothing wrong with not passing now and then, or with taking some of our time to find out who we are. It takes a lot of courage to admit to yourself you are from the different gender you were born into, and much more to pursue the changes despite all odds.

[justmeinoz]

I ended up waiting over 50 years to start living the life I should have been allowed to all along.  Sometimes things take as long as they need to take. 
Like the rest of us, you didn't fail at being a bloke, you just got handed the wrong software so no wonder there were bugs.
You are definitely one of the younger transitioners, so don't stress about it.  You are now at an age where you can make independent decisions about the important things in your life, and still young enough to really capitalise on them.

Karen.

[Jamie D]

Is it normal to take so long to find yourself?

When I am in this situation, I try to think where I last was, and in most cases, that's where I find myself.