How long in denial?

[Henna]

Mixed, joining this forum and getting feedback on my chances to pass (overwhelmingly positive) have made me feel so happy lately! like this really could happen, but then it's almost a tease because I still haven't got the guts to come out about it in real life yet plus apparently in England on the NHS you have to be full time before you can get any help from them. The thought of dressing up girly pre hrt so that I stick out is too much right now, and I can't afford private now either :/

Hazel, just wanted to comment this dressing up thing. I changed my clothing to feminine even when I don't stand a chance of passing, without a ton of make-up, which I don't want to wear.

The thing is, that dressing feminine doesn't mean just skirts and dresses, bright colors and bling-bling  . I wear tight jeans, trousers, shirts, shoes and a nice looking winter jacket, all from women section.

I know it does attract some attention from people, mainly from teenage/young girls, who are very conscious of what they and other people wear. However, nobody else really pays attention at all to my clothing, not even at work.

You could try it. Change one piece of clothing to feminine, one at a time. If you don't over do it, I doubt that anybody really pays attention.

[spacial]

Hazel, just wanted to comment this dressing up thing. I changed my clothing to feminine even when I don't stand a chance of passing, without a ton of make-up, which I don't want to wear.

The thing is, that dressing feminine doesn't mean just skirts and dresses, bright colors and bling-bling  . I wear tight jeans, trousers, shirts, shoes and a nice looking winter jacket, all from women section.

I know it does attract some attention from people, mainly from teenage/young girls, who are very conscious of what they and other people wear. However, nobody else really pays attention at all to my clothing, not even at work.

You could try it. Change one piece of clothing to feminine, one at a time. If you don't over do it, I doubt that anybody really pays attention.

This, for so many of us.

[Elspeth]

You could try it. Change one piece of clothing to feminine, one at a time. If you don't over do it, I doubt that anybody really pays attention.

Realizing this part is actually a bit of a mixed blessing, or was for me.

Plus side, doing it desensitized me to my irrational fears about being attacked for expressing myself over a very long span of time.

Minuses: I could always find something more femme that I wanted to wear, but felt was too obvious to be overlooked by all but the teengirl police. And make myself feel bad about that.

Cure (or  semicure): Was finally coming out to a large group in a way that left me no exit. I made sure to pack only women's clothes, and almost none of the more unisex items before leaving for the event. It was nearly 250 miles from home and my wardrobe, so there was no way I was going to chicken out and drive back to get something less obvious. Of course it also helped that my trans son was going to be coming out, and that I find it very hard to tell overt lies. Shading things, speaking selectively, those I'm fantastic at. But it just did not feel right to come out about my son and not also come out about myself. It would have been unfair to him and incredibly depressing and a loss of integrity for me.

Since coming back from that, I have a lot less anxiety about worrying over what anyone else will think about what I'm wearing. That may actually be a scary thing, in practice, but at least I'm learning as I go, taking it day by day.

[Elspeth]

I told my parents I wanted to be a girl when I was 6 and they then set about "curing" me (My father is a doctor and has clearly and unethically decided to appoint himself as my psychiatrist in this respect - I am furious but that is a different issue).  Life moved on and although I couldn't put my finger on what was wrong I don't think an inner part of me ever stopped seeing itself as female.

Sounds just a little bit like my ex. With a twist.

She's a doctor. And she was a psych major in college. She did an internship one summer in college at Bellevue, the infamous NYC psych hospital. Someone put her on a ward trying to interview patients with almost no guidance or supervision and she was very nearly attacked by some fairly scary patients. When I think about it, she might even have some PTSD surrounding that event? I know she has it from an early experience of nearly drowning in a frozen pond in early childhood -- she once had a panic attack at a spa when the treatment involved running water around her face, and she has always avoided swimming... she did get some desensitizing treatment about the water panic. I'm not sure she has ever addressed the stress of that incident at Bellevue. I should really ask her about that soon.

Anyway, that petty much ruled out psychiatry as a specialty, but with both me and my son, she has a vested interest in maintaining denial, and using her incomplete psych training at times as a means of putting down resistance that can be hard to work around. Most of the time she knows this is a problem for her, and she's doing much better with our son than she did with me. Some of that is even healing wounds inflicted during the time her wishes were overwhelming her ability to listen and understand.

In most areas of medicine she is very cautious to be sure that she doesn't try to practice in a specialty where she's not certified.

But it's very hard for parents to go through the mourning process that is usually a part of coming to terms with a child or loved one who is expressing a gender other than the one they assumed was true because the child or loved one adapted to social pressures from an early age, and learned to hide in plain sight. Harder still when they have some training in tools used to mess with people's minds.

[Elspeth]

I haven't had a moment's denial since then but the sense of lost opportunity and anger at my family is overwhelming. They have managed to manipulate me into a situation that any kind of self-expression is going to be very difficult and transition most likely impossible (ironic realy given when I was 18-24 all I would have had to do is wear a skirt, change my name & I would have been effectively full-time without even realising it). Now I am just trying to work out how to live with it as succesfully as possible and make up for the incredible damage that my own family have inflicted on me.

I don't know if it will help at all directly, but this story of manipulation also reminded me of the story of Ernest Hemingway's youngest child, who I'll call Gloria, who was by many accounts almost certainly a transwoman. Some question, in my mind, whether maybe that described Gloria Hemingway's father as well?

Where it may help is in recognizing that whatever feelings you have about transition being "impossible" now, at some level it may be necessary to consider ways of coming out and making peace, even though they might be less than ideal. I hesitate to suggest a specific course of action, but the recognition you're expressing is a first step, and probably more than Hemingway's child ever entirely succeeded at, given the barriers she faced?  You'll find a lot of accounts drawing into question Gloria's condition and gender identity, but I think most of them say more about persistent anxieties in the community and uncritical acceptance of some of the demeaning labels than they do anything to inform or respect her experience and struggles.