The worst thing about being transsexual?

[Foxglove]

Constantly switching back to male mode. Removing the nail polish. Double scrubbing the face to remove any hints of makeup, etc.  The act in itself is not so bad just always depressing wishing I did not have to transform back.  Once back to male mode I am okay  it's that transition backwards....

I know exactly what you're saying, Vicky.  In fact, this was the main impetus for my coming out of the closet: I could no longer deal with going back to guy-mode.  It was breaking my heart.  I needed to be me all the time.  That's who I am these days, and it is a blessed relief.

[Jess42]

Losing brothers and sisters.

I await the day when 95% trans people die of old age..

This most definitely. But honestly I think we are already close to that even though the cis population will never admit it though. But it still hurts when we lose people that aren't afraid to live an authentic life. Especially those of us on this sight which we love and cherish as actual brothers and sisters and come to know and love.

[Mariah]

The waiting is huge one my book right now. I thought once the therapist wrote the letter opening up the gate for HRT that it wouldn't be a long wait before being on the hormones. Instead I'm having to wait at least 3 months to get to see the ENDO I'm being sent to for the first time. I have learned this par for the course, but the worst part of that this doctor requires his nurses to look over the chart before allowing an appointment to be scheduled. Not knowing when I'm going to hear from them is what is really been making me anxious lately. My therapist said she has seen it take anywhere from a few days to a month for them to schedule the first appointment with this particular ENDO.

1. Being trans, and
2. All the bloody waiting

I suppose 1 edges out number 2 since (eventually) the waiting will be over, but omg before HRT I never thought that just waiting could be so difficult or take so much out of me mentally!

[LordKAT]

First, just the wrongness of it all, and second, all the social negativity.

[zero.cool.crash.override]

All the wasted years of my life.  Would that I had transitioned at the age of two.  The longing and regret that I did not get to be a young boy in school, a teenage boy during puberty, a young man in college...  All those years during which I should have been a brother and a son and a boyfriend. 

If these are the worst things for me, then the worst is behind me.  The path ahead is not easy, but it is finally going in the right direction. 

[Cin]

The worst part for me is that I think I have a good life, but it's just not that the life I want. Well, I do have problems, but there's very little I'd want to change. It seems I have everything I need to be have a good life as a guy, but it's not what I want. I feel a little ungrateful about that.

Then there's also the uncertainty part, I keep fighting myself all the time. One second I feel like I've finally learned to accept myself, minutes later, I'm pretty disgusted with myself.

Or maybe the worst part about being TG is the fact that I think about it ALL THE TIME!

and the thought of coming out to my parents, and putting them through all this. They will start wondering where they went wrong. I don't blame them.

[LadyoftheRockies]

Not accepting myself in time to stop the effects of testosterone. The years of self loathing don't help.

But the best thing is being able to have a very unique perspective on the world to allow me to better understand the entire human race, not just half of it.

[Jen72]

First off I have to say that I may be not that experienced at this since I have basically just started to accept that I am trans and finding the hope in it but.  As a fact that I am older I do wish I had not been bullied and other things that didn't put me into a shell so that I may have realized whom I really was earlier in life.  All that being said since I can not change the past I can at least change the future:) Like many here and now that I think puberty didn't overly stress me out yet I feel its when I started to get the socially taboo feelings of messing with idea that I want to be opposite gender.  I am at this point just totally stagnant in my life no job no aspirations of what to do as far as job, relationship wise never had one period and just plain going nowhere.  Yet with this realization finally hitting me it has give me finally some meaning in life and desire to do something that will make me happy for once in my life and to get out of the shell I have stuck myself into due to being caught/unaccepted. I am a realist and do understand the path set before me will not be easy by any stretch of the imagination but feel it is something I must do and to hopefully grow to be a happier and more enriched person.

To others may you find some happiness in the past at least happiness in the future there most be hope!:)

[Zumbagirl]

Since I am a post transition person, I have fixed my problem. I solved the born in the wrong body problem and now I am happy. So personally that doesn't apply to me anymore.

The only part I didn't like was taking years to figure it out and trying other things to disguise my problem. I was pretty sure what was wrong with me, but I was too damn scared to lift a finger and do anything. The "confusion" part of my life when I walked around thinking 'could I be one of those kind of people? Nah not me' just to end up at square 1 again was the part I wished I could cancel out. Other than that it's all good

[Ianianian]

The worst thing, right now at least, is that it feels like it will never be over. I had a hallelujah moment at eighteen, finally figuring out why I'd felt so weird and wrong about my body all my life, and I thought that knowing would lead directly to being. It's a longer path than I, at eighteen, could have imagined. I only just yesterday called the Howard Brown clinic to finally set up my appointments for bloodwork and conversation with a hormone advocate and I'm 21 now. And after I've started on T there's still the long process of the physical changes actually occurring and then the name change and then my driver's license and top surgery and it just seems like I'm going to be wrestling with my more feminine features for the whole rest of my life. That's the worst thing.

[ImagineKate]

The worst part for me is that either I face a choice. Continue to live in anguish with my fake life or potentially destroy my really awesome family life.

I wouldn't lie, my life is not perfect but my kids are my world. My wife also understands me like no other and has always stood beside me.

Why couldn't I have been cis or at least transitioned early?

There were obviously people in my life who knew, the people who let me wear girl clothes, play girl games, paint my nails, pierce my ears and even pretend that I was a girl (well, pretend for them. I AM a girl.) Right down to probably my mom who bought me girl clothes without telling me they were.

Well, at least I am still alive so I can make things right.

[Chamillion]

The worst thing about being transsexual is the mental torture you have to go through because of it. When just existing in your own body is so painful, that feeling of deep depression and dysphoria is inescapable... Even when you're having one of your best days ever, there is always that awful feeling holding you back from feeling truly happy. There's nothing worse than that, nothing that society or any external source could do that would be worse than the constant anguish I lived in for years.

[Misato]

Nothing.

Is it easy? No. Has it been hard, painful even? Yes. But the payoff has been so worth it. Transition forged me into someone I love being. Transition opened my eyes to a wonderful world I was too blind and prejudiced to see before. Transition, was a healing.

Being cis would have certain advantages, true. But I don't know if I could have learned things I needed to know if I were cis. Being trans has been a blessing for me and the tough parts, they were just part of the path and now they help me know I did the right thing for my life.

[MajorTom]

Guilt and confusion over if I'm taking something away from my mom who raised who she saw as her daughter, if I'm doing something wrong

[adrian]

Right now for me it's the guilt I feel for doing this to my husband. And the feeling that I have to choose between being true to myself and our marriage, the life we have built for us together. Feels like a lose lose situation.

[Arch]

Losing people.

[Felix]

Lately it's been people's reactions. Pity, awkwardness, assumptions that I'm deceitful, etc. I look forward to when awareness has increased enough that I don't have to deal with people working out all their opinions in person.

[VictorHbx]

Not accepting I was trans earlier,because in the meantime I did everything I could to destroy the body I was born with instead of taking steps towards transition and finally getting more confortable with myself. Also knowing intimacy will never ever be an easy thing for me.

[ImagineKate]

1. Guilt of doing this to my wife, but based on how she's accepted other things about me I am hoping for a good outcome.

2. Fear of kids being bullied because of who I am (your daddy is a tr***y!!!)

3. Not growing up in my correct gender, especially with regard to school. This is a big one. I went to boys only schools, but we did have a few girls in 6th form who were there by exception, they were there to do specialized subjects only we offered. I so badly wanted to be one of them, but I also wanted to attend either a co-ed school or one of the girls' schools. I really did not have a choice though. I am pretty smart and the schools that offered the subjects my parents wanted me to do and were close enough to home were boys (and girls) schools. I was actually not only top of my class but top of two primary schools I went to, by far, in fact. So I passed my entrance exam and could have gone to any school that I wanted. My parents chose the school for me pretty much. Co-ed schools were the Government run schools and while I could go there, I was told that I would never realize my full potential there.

So I went to the boys school... and I pretty much became a mess when the T started poisoning me at puberty.

I missed out on a lot of things, including girls school uniforms, dating and boys, girl scouts (I tried boy scouts, hated it) and the teen years, the malls, and maybe even my mom or aunts and cousins coaching me into womanhood.

4. SRS and surgery scares me. Maintenance post SRS also scares me with constant dilation being required to maintain what should have been a natural part of me. But it's a path I want to take.

5. Transitioning is expensive! And it's not always covered by insurance, if at all.

6. You're torn between wanting to be out and wanting to be stealth. Both have their benefits. Stealth allowing a more or less normal life, but with some fear that you'll be outed eventually. Out allows you to get rid of that fear, but some in society view you as a freak, and my fear is the "Tr***y" word being constantly thrown at me.

7. I enjoy some "guy" activities and I'm afraid of what will happen to the friends I enjoy it with when I'm fully into transition. Will I lose my friends that I go to the shooting range with? A lot of time it's just (pardon the expression) cock and balls out there. Yes, there are women who shoot, and I shoot with them sometimes but when you're with the guys it's different.

8. I am really scared of any diagnosis of mental disorder, for various reasons. Thankfully attitudes towards transgender are changing immensely and that helps.

9. Not being able to reproduce as a woman.

Things I will NOT miss:

Dysphoria (go FAR away, DO NOT come back, EVER!)
Men's clothes (boooooooring)
Health problems associated with anxiety and dysphoria
Living a lie - it's cliche but it fits
Having too hide who I am
Men's restrooms

[ImagineKate]

NOT PASSING 100% of the time. BEING AT THE RISK OF BEING MISGENDERED AT ANY TIME. That is the worst nightmare for any transgender/transsexual person. If you're a stealth transsexual and pass 100% of the time, that's it, you've got it all and IMHO you have nothing to complain about related to being a trans person.

That's a fear to be sure. Even stealth people run the risk of being outed unless they transitioned while very young. But I doubt I will be able to avoid my past unless I completely disappear, even if I "pass " 100%