What't the tipping point that made (or will make) you transition?

[Carlita]

I was reading Monica's thread about transitioning when you're married - because that is SUCH an issue for me - and I came across something Bev wrote: ' As a final thing, I can say in all honesty, if your dysphoria isn't making you suicidal, or unbearably unhappy, then  Don't do it.  Don't transition unless you are willing to see everything in your life go to hell.'

Now, that's something I heard many girls say, including good friends of mine and I guess it's one of the main reasons I've never taken the plunge. As terrible as dysphoria sometimes feels, as much as i get to points when the sheer effort of fighting it almost breaks me, still I never feel suicidal and there are still many things in my life that are incredibly precious to me. Plus, there's a lot that still works for me and that isn't particularly affected by having to be male. When I'm lost in my imagination, writing fiction, I can be any damn thing I please. That's a huge help.

Anyway, I was also reading another thread - UCBerkeley's 'How Happy Are You to Be Transitioning/ Have Transitioned?' .. can you see the theme here, ladies?? 😉 ... and Meaghan mentioned a videoblog she'd posted about 'What do I like About Being a Girl?'

So I watched it, and it was great - thanks Meaghan! - and the impression I got was that life pre-transition hadn't been suicidally awful for Meaghan, but she just had this feeling of living a lie, of not being true to herself or at all authentic. And when she transitioned, it wasn't like she suddenly saved her life. It was more a question of finally living every day as the person, and the woman that she'd really been all along. (I hope I got that right!)


So there we had two ways of looking at it. One was kind of a word of warning: don't put the burden of transition upon yourself unless you have absolutely no alternative. And the other was looking at it from the other perspective: don't spend any longer than you absolutely have to living a lie in the wrong sex when you could be true to yourself in the right one.

Both those perspectives seem incredibly valid to me and I'm sure to plenty of other girls on here. So I guess my question is: what's the tipping point?

What's the moment when you say to yourself, 'I have to do this'? Or maybe, 'I want to do this' ...

What did it take to make you take the plunge ... ?

[Beth Andrea]

For me, it was when I realized I'd been pretending to be a guy my entire life. I was suicidal (and still am), but that's due to other circumstances...my being a woman actually has kept me alive when in crisis.

[mintra]

I was suicidal (and still am), but that's due to other circumstances...my being a woman actually has kept me alive when in crisis.

(((hug))) I had that stupid thought from time to time when I felt weak and vulnerable. If I didn't transition I would've done it successfully long time ago.

[muuu]

.

[PHXGiRL]

The last tipping point for me was my Vegas trip this year with my brother and my guy friends. The second day that we were in Vegas I met some really sweet girls and ended up hanging out with them over my guy friends for a entire day. As I was hanging out with them I was thinking to myself that this is me. I was not that drunk guy that was hanging out with my guy friends and brother the day before. I thought about that day the next day all day on my drive back to Phoenix how right I felt how complete I felt being one of the girls. The entire way home from Vegas I remember watching transition videos on YouTube. I found a girl by the username JessylnGirl87. I immediately connected with her videos she was a body builder that masked herself just as I did. I hide myself by portraying a mucho image. Seeing how she transitioned was truly inspiration to me. For two solid hours on the drive home I watched all of her videos. She did it so I could too.

What else added to this tipping point was my fiance. Prior to my Vegas trip the fear of getting married again just because I was doing it as a camouflage to mask my true identity. I didn't love her. The constant bickering of how a husband is suppose to do this; a guy is suppose to do this. I wanted to scream at times; I was screaming in my head. 

This year was a real eye opener for me all together and I'm thankful for everything that has happened this year. I'm happy that I'm on the path now to my future and I'm in control of it mind, body, and spirit. No more years of hiding my thoughts. I'm out to the entire world with no fear. I'm ME.

[PHXGiRL]

I was staring at myself in the mirror one morning realizing that 1. I now had a full beard and 2. I was only going to get more masculine every day. Yup, no chance I would let that happen any worse than it already did. Started at 19 I think im doing good.

I was soooo scared of growing a full beard. Absolutely terrified.

I think another thing that hit me this year was the fear of NOT transitioning.

[Nicolette]

Information. A year into my first job I was given a PC to carry out some work at home. I purchased a modem and discovered the world of Usenet. The rest is history.

[kathy bottoms]

GID was effecting everything I did, and it was making life so miserable it drove me to take more unsafe drugs at higher doses to achieve some oddly precieved level of femininity.  I was depressed and on the verge of a nervous breakdown.  I felt I was slipping over the edge, and there was little left to live for.  I was never suicidal, but did some horrible things physically that could have easily killed me.  I went over all these things with the psychiatrist and gender therapist and that's reallywhy I kept getting calls from the psychiatrist while I was in Michigan last summer. 

After finally starting HRT in July I having the "You now know everything" talk with JoAnn in September, she said my depression and problems were clear to her for many years.  She just didn't know how much of it was related to GID.

Kathy

[Carlita]

The last tipping point for me was my Vegas trip this year with my brother and my guy friends. The second day that we were in Vegas I met some really sweet girls and ended up hanging out with them over my guy friends for a entire day. As I was hanging out with them I was thinking to myself that this is me. I was not that drunk guy that was hanging out with my guy friends and brother the day before.

Oh, I can relate to THAT!

Three years ago, one of the times I came THIS close to transitioning, I went to see a bunch of people.One was an FFS surgeon (Bart van der Ven, for anyone who knows that field: I absolutely adored him, haha!), plus a voice consultant, a doctor who treats MTF girls, etc. I wanted to see if there was any chance of me - a guy of 50, with a deep voice and bald spot - making a successful transition. I didn't know what I wanted more: for them to say, 'Yes, absolutely,' or, 'forget it, you've got no chance.' because if they said that, then at least I could tell myself there was no possibility of doing it.

So Dr Bart told me he could make me much more feminine and much better looking. (I'd have preferred 'even better looking', but what the hell!) And then I saw the voice consultant and she was the first person anywhere who just accepted right from the get-go that I was TS, as if it was so obvious it wasn't even worth debating, and assured me that she could really help feminise my speaking voice, even though it's pretty deep.

I came away from that meeting on Cloud 9. That evening I went to a dinner-party, given by a women who'd been at uni with me. I arrived early and she was talking with another female friend from those days and so I just slipped right into the conversation. And, like you, it just seemed totally easy and natural: so much more relaxing than having to 'be the man'. Then the rest of the guests turned up and my male contemporaries had all turned into these fat, red-faced, pompous executives and I felt like I had nothing at all in common  with them. It wasn't just that I didn't work in their world or share their values, it was much deeper than that.

I often think about that day and how happy it made me being accepted for who I am ...

... but then I think of my children, and the father that I am, and have to be to them ...

Aaaaaarrrrggghhh!!

[Alainaluvsu]

Getting my driver license and telling myself "This will be the last ID of me in boy mode" ... and it was! 11 months later, I was presenting as female in on my new ID with my new name 🙂

[Bijou]

I don't post much, but something in the first post of this thread gets me. Apparently someone advised against transitioning while married unless you're severely unhappy or suicidal. That's horrible advice. Becoming suicidal and severely depressed are not something that happens overnight. If anyone even thinks they have the beginning of depression, go see someone. If It's GID,  then only one thing will ease dylsphoria, and that's transitioning.

Whether you're single, married, it doesn't matter. Im married and am transitioning, and thankful as I am that me and my wife are stronger than ever, that would not have changed my decision. I, like all of us, am human and as such, deserve to be happy and alive while I'm here.

[Carlita]

I don't post much, but something in the first post of this thread gets me. Apparently someone advised against transitioning while married unless you're severely unhappy or suicidal. That's horrible advice. Becoming suicidal and severely depressed are not something that happens overnight. If anyone even thinks they have the beginning of depression, go see someone. If It's GID,  then only one thing will ease dylsphoria, and that's transitioning.

Whether you're single, married, it doesn't matter. Im married and am transitioning, and thankful as I am that me and my wife are stronger than ever, that would not have changed my decision. I, like all of us, am human and as such, deserve to be happy and alive while I'm here.

I know exactly what you're saying, I totally agree about your right to happiness (and mine!).  I'm so pleased for you that things are working out with you and your wife.  And absolutely one should seek help with depression and/or GID as early as possible, even though for people who feel suicidal, sometimes 'help' just isn't enough ...

But to be fair to Bev and other who've said the same thing as her, I think it's meant more as a warning that transition can be very, very tough .. and at the end of it, even if one feels better in oneself, the cost to ones career, relationships and finances can be very high indeed. So one should think very carefully about whether the losses might outweigh the gains - and also whether one might in the end be better off not transitioning at all.

[kathy bottoms]

.......  Becoming suicidal and severely depressed are not something that happens overnight. If anyone even thinks they have the beginning of depression, go see someone. If It's GID,  then only one thing will ease dylsphoria, and that's transitioning.  .........

Thank you Nadine.  I'm with you on this 100%.  I'd never go back, even if my family life completely falls apart. 

I think too many who are on the edge and start searching for answers think about transition and believe it always needs to end with SRS.  Not everyone wants to got that far, and even if it's my goal, it's not realistic for a whole lot of others.  After all, everyone has an end point where they're satisfied. 

Kathy

[Beverly]

I do not know that I had a tipping point but at some point I realised that I had had enough of being irritated by my own existence. It began to get harder and harder to force the dysphoria out of my head, to force it down to a level where I could ignore it. Eventually I just became weary of fighting it. So I gave in.

I have always been very self-reliant and I always try to take a positive viewpoint but even I was finding it harder and harder to stay happy. It was apparent to me that eventually I would lose the fight and become a morose, sad individual.

The thought of losing everyone terrified me, but the thought of staying male terrified me even more. I chose the lesser of two evils and then worked very, very hard at bringing people with me. So far it seems to have worked.

[Kadri]

I started dressing and had no idea why I had the urge to do it other than that I obviously wasn't 100% male inside. I made contact with crossdressers and a few months later with a transitioned trans woman. I couldn't understand why it had become such an obsession since I had never exhibited any kind of GID in earlier years. Stories I read of people transitioning had a very strong emotional effect on me even back then.

The tipping point came about five months after my first dressing session. I had already started to remember things that I'd hidden deep inside for a long time, but one particular day about lunchtime I remembered my mother getting upset when I was about twelve when I told her I hated my penis and I wanted to cut it off. That was the point at which everything I knew and thought about myself was destroyed. At the same time, all of my questions about why i had felt weird and disgusted with myself were answered.

From that time onwards I had few doubts about what I was going to have to do to keep myself happy. The good reactions from friends about my dressing made the future seem less frightening. Every move towards a more feminine appearance brought me joy. If my circumstance had prevented transition I think I would have felt that life wasn't worth living any more, but I never allowed it get to that stage.

[Jamison]

This is a great post. Like many others, I don't think you have to be suicidal or severely depressed to transition. All you need is dysphoria that would benefit from transition and the willingness to accept the risks and consequences.

My tipping point started a year ago in graduate school. There, I was becoming closer and closer to getting my final degree before entering my preferred career field and as each day passed, I became more depressed with this prospect. When I imagined who I would grow old to be, my role in my future family, how I wanted to be perceived- this wasn't it. I didn't exactly know that I was trans at this point; I just knew I needed to change something and I needed to get to the source of my feelings. I started googling things like "feeling uncomfortable with my body," "is it normal to want to hide your feminine shape?," etc, etc. I came across transgender sites, surfed youtube for transition videos for a month straight, and checked out nearly every trans related book from my university library. A month later, I was convinced transitioning would put me on the right path and immediately I made an appointment with my GP. Two weeks later I had a prescription for T and had begun counseling. I was depressed and horribly dysphoric, but my life was not awful. If I never had the option to transition, would I survive? Of course. Will transitioning allow me to live a exponentially happier life? Absolutely. Always strive for the best.

[Kevin Peña]

I was suicidal, but the simple aspect of being able to transition soon keeps me going.

I'm the type of person that over-thinks just about everything. Eventually, I got to the point where my mind was exploding in a firestorm whenever I had to write my male name on an assignment, when I looked in a mirror, or whenever someone called me "him" or some other male term. "Why couldn't I have just been born with 2 X chromosomes? Why can't I just be one of the girls?; why do the girls act so differently with me? Why is this bugging me so much? Why can't I just be happy for once?"

I just can't take living a lie and having to hold back my feelings whenever I just want to scream, "For Pete's sake, I'm not a guy!!!" Seriously, I can't even find the motivation to let scars heal properly, so now I have several of them all over.

I want to live a life that will make me happy, and having to think, "What if?" on a constant basis is so nerve-wrecking. For me, transition is something for me to use as a tool to mellow me out so I can finally express myself honestly and live life to the fullest.

[suzifrommd]

For me, it was the realization that I could.

[Nicolette]

For me, it was the realization that I could.

Snap. And information was the key for me. I knew what I was for years. I knew people did such things, but I didn't exactly know how. Once you know, it's like opening Pandora's box. There's no putting it back.

[RachelH]

Mine was actually caused not only by the irritation of my entire life, but from the girl who was also giving me my only joy in life.  I thought I could cope with been her boyfriend (I did for 5 years), but when she got ready, I was jealous, when she got angry and said it was her prerogative as a women I got upset and jealous. When I  thought she will carry the  child I wanted to carry through pregnancy it broke me.  Something within my life changed and I could no longer handle what was happening.  I couldn't be a full women who could get pregnant 🙁 but I could live as near as I could and at least be truthful to myself.