How come our experiences are all so different?

[NatalieT]

Hi all, just wanted to express how I find it weird that the way we experience our ->-bleeped-<- is so different. Not weird in a bad way, but in an interesting way.

When did you first realise you were trans? How up did it make you feel? How long did it take for you to come to terms with it?

I thought I'd share my story and let others give their input if they feel comfortable writing it!

Basically, I'd always felt girly. As a child I loved animals, and became a vegetarian at age 5 because I felt sorry for them. I've always been an emotional person and could cry at the stupidest things (I'm scared that HRT will make me blubber non stop!) Playing as a child, I always wanted to be the female character (queen with a long dress etc) and did typically girly things such as gymnastics and playing with dolls. However, that said, I did have an obsession with cars, trains and other boys things. I find it really confusing haha. Anyway, when I got to my teens it started have strong romantic feelings for girls, and slight sexual feelings for boys. It has always been pretty confusing for me, and I've never really understood my sexuality fully. Anyway, I always remember seeing beautiful female celebrities on TV and thinking "wow, I'd love to look like that and have people tell me I look beautiful", I'd suddenly feel really ashamed about having these thoughts, which fuelled my depression. I would go on games such as the sims and make a female character to represent me, it felt so good, not at all in a sexual way but in a "this is right" way.

When I came out to my parents they weren't particularly surprised, as my mum was aware as a child that I would always sit down to wee (I still do). She mentioned that at one point I said "mummy, my willy is weird, I don't want it" (don't remember but kind of funny).

[suzifrommd]

My experience is that all my adult life, I've wished I could be a woman in the worst way. In my mind, that was that, since I knew I never could. I lived as a male best I could, though I never felt comfortable with my life. I never had the urge to crossdress or express a feminine appearance. I never thought I was transgender, because I didn't "feel" like a woman, only wanted to be one.

I found myself only comfortable with close female friendships, enjoying media and books meant for women and fascinating with everything female.

When I began exploring my gender, I still didn't recognize myself as MtF transgender, but I hatched a plan to "pretend" I was, so I would be allowed to transition and live as a woman. I now know I am MtF transgender, and I've been living full-time as a woman for five months. But I still don't feel like a woman. It still feels like I'm pretending so that I can keep living as a woman because it is so much more natural, because it's how I've always wished I could live, and because it is indescribably wonderful to see myself as feminine.

I really envy transwomen who grew up with the absolute certainty that their gender is the opposite of their birth sex. I can't imagine what that would feel like.

[Jessica Merriman]

I am one of those who knew from earliest memory my body was not right for my mind, mannerism's and interest's. I was really happy and outgoing and loved life a lot. Then as my mannerism's became apparent to my adoptive parents I was forced to undergo years and years of intense therapy and programming to be the good little alpha dog I was "supposed" to be. What this did after a while was kill all basic human emotions such as happiness, freedom of expression, empathy and joy in life. I assimilated into a VERY alpha dog career of Paramedic/Firefighter and spent the next 28 years constantly avoiding detection as "different" and never straying from my programming. I spent more time and energy being a text book Alpha than I realized. It became such an overwhelming task that at one point I was actually outed as being a male by a dispatcher who noted the my huge effort to be one of the guys. Weird, huh? You will never know the effort it took not to physically injure my co-workers when the were disrespectful to or playing games with women. I hated the whole thing and could do nothing about it without attracting the wrong kind of attention. I know, you probably think "what a coward". The programming was just that strong and has made therapy very difficult because they have to de-program me just to find a base line of my real personality. No one knows yet why the programming has failed now, but I am taking advantage of it to transition and deal with it once and for all. I honestly say I could not have started this journey without accidentally finding this family. I never knew I could ever be who I really am. HRT has brought a whole new flood of emotions I have never felt before and I like it a lot even though it is new and scary. Sorry this was so long, the flood gates just kind of opened up.

[JillSter]

I didn't know anything about gender dysphoria or hormone replacement or anything. I was completely in the dark for a long time. I thought I was sick in the head, like it was a mental illness or a perversion. I hated myself for it. The word "abomination" rattled around in my head a lot.

After breaking up with my high school sweetheart at age 23, she moved out and I was left alone with my thoughts and feelings for the first time in my life. It had been managable up to that point, but it suddenly got a lot worse. My internal dialogue would always run to the same conclusion. I'm sure you can guess what that was.

My best friend had done just that a few years earlier and I saw what his mother went through. I couldn't do that to my family, so I swallowed the pain and drowned it in alcohol. My life consisted of two things: drinking, and lying on the couch with a pillow over my head imaging a life I could actually live. I couldn't live my own. I couldn't even leave the house. I couldn't look another person in the eye. As far as I knew I was broken. My brain was broken.

Over the years I went numb... and cold. I didn't have any feelings left by my 30s. Just emptiness. But the girl in my head was still there. She was always there. When I finally learned that I wasn't alone in this, that there were other people who felt the same way I did... It was like I had been locked in a dark room all my life and suddenly there was a glimmer of light shining down on me. Like, am I actually real? Can I live? I had almost forgotten.

How long did it take for you to come to terms with it?

Not long. In a way it kinda validated my existence. Learning that I'm trans meant realizing I'm actually okay. I'm not Frankenstein. I'm just another transgender person.

That was actually a much more profound realization than it sounds. The fact that all of you are here basically means to me that I get to live too. So I guess it didn't take me long to consider trans people "my people" and start feeling very protective of my tribe.

GD sucks. What trans people are put through sucks. But being trans is kind of a badge of honor, in a way.

Our souls are deeper, and the light places glow and the dark places gloom more intensely than the rest. We suffer because we're extraordinary. It's our gift and our curse.


Sorry if I'm all over the place. I'm feeling pretty moody right now.

[Joanna Dark]

I have known since I was 4. I have always known and nver denied it. It's kinda hard for me to e ven try it is such a part of me. But I have also always looked like a girl so that didn't help. I don't really get what people mean by "i came out to myself." but it prolly isn't for me to get it just is. I have wanted to do something about since age 12. Now I'm 31 so but late then never but I basically startwd transitioning 10 years ago just with no HRT. I dressed dykish. Dated a lesbian and worked as a womans mag editor. It was prretty much the most female job you could have. I wrote about fashion, beauty and pregnancy and the joy of motherhood. Something I'll never have.

[Incarlina]

I was very good at denying it to myself for a long time. Since puberty I kept telling myself that everyone wished they were born as someone else, it didn't really mean anything. And since I grew up in a fairly backwards part of the country being too girly was not a good thing, so I quickly started building up a facade to hide behind. I didn't really know I was hiding behind anything until I 20 years later had to remove all outer layers to find out who was really buried on the inside.

Other signs that I tried (and mostly succeeded) to ignore completely:
Being jealous of female singer's voices
Looking at girls and thinking "couldn't I have been born with her shoulders instead of mine?"
Always hanging out with the girls at parties because I couldn't understand the guys
Feeling really empty whenever I wasn't allowed to join the girl's gang at parties
Never really understanding sex. "That's what I'd be expected to do? Why? I don't get it"

[Ashey]

I knew I was transgendered when I was 20, after repressing it throughout my teens. Bits slipped through the cracks until the dam burst and it all flooded out. It started with the feelings and memories I had repressed, then it went into dressing up with my friends, going out in drag a few times, and just having fun with it. But after about a month of that, I sat down with my best friend at the time and told her I had to do something about it. I couldn't just put it away again, especially after the surreal elation I felt going to this big outdoor festival dressed in drag and feeling pretty and feminine. So I made a pros and cons list with her about transitioning, because somehow I had gained the knowledge about that stuff in the seven years since I repressed it. The pros won out and I came out to the rest of my friends, couple years later my sisters, and about 4-5 years later my parents. In the time I didn't tell my parents, I mostly wasted it, and lived vicariously through online avatars and game characters. This wasn't fully satisfying but it was something to keep me distracted, and I had many interesting social interactions with people who assumed I was a girl or knew I was trans. Some good, some bad. But I knew I wanted to transition, I just had no financial stability until the past couple years. When I moved out I emailed my mom. I should have started around then, and I did look for a clinic, but they said I needed a letter from a therapist and I just kinda sat on my hands for a while not knowing what to do about it. Finally my girlfriend at the time pushed me, and I found a therapist through the local LGBT center and finally got that ball rolling. So yeah, I wasted a lot of time being scared of reactions, even though I knew right along that I wanted to transition.

[warlockmaker]

I was a very good looking male with fine features and small feet and only 5ft7ins. My whole family are drop dead georgeous - my sister was voted the most beautiful in our City and and wife won it the next year. Didnt know there was a third gender (BTW they will take a population census in my city and it will have 3 genders - M, F and Transsexual for the first time). We are a very wealthy established family. So 3 wives and 4 children later I discovered who I was- a transsexual Had a long therapy session of two years, difficult to really accept as I was a true Alpha male, it was all one big act though. Now 8 months plus on HRT I would never go back - this is me, even though i'm still in stealth mode. I see alot of Alpha males who are transsexual in the forums so there is one possible common thread.

[brianna1016]

I didn't know anything about gender dysphoria or hormone replacement or anything. I was completely in the dark for a long time. I thought I was sick in the head, like it was a mental illness or a perversion. I hated myself for it. The word "abomination" rattled around in my head a lot.

After breaking up with my high school sweetheart at age 23, she moved out and I was left alone with my thoughts and feelings for the first time in my life. It had been managable up to that point, but it suddenly got a lot worse. My internal dialogue would always run to the same conclusion. I'm sure you can guess what that was.

My best friend had done just that a few years earlier and I saw what his mother went through. I couldn't do that to my family, so I swallowed the pain and drowned it in alcohol. My life consisted of two things: drinking, and lying on the couch with a pillow over my head imaging a life I could actually live. I couldn't live my own. I couldn't even leave the house. I couldn't look another person in the eye. As far as I knew I was broken. My brain was broken.

Over the years I went numb... and cold. I didn't have any feelings left by my 30s. Just emptiness. But the girl in my head was still there. She was always there. When I finally learned that I wasn't alone in this, that there were other people who felt the same way I did... It was like I had been locked in a dark room all my life and suddenly there was a glimmer of light shining down on me. Like, am I actually real? Can I live? I had almost forgotten.

Not long. In a way it kinda validated my existence. Learning that I'm trans meant realizing I'm actually okay. I'm not Frankenstein. I'm just another transgender person.

That was actually a much more profound realization than it sounds. The fact that all of you are here basically means to me that I get to live too. So I guess it didn't take me long to consider trans people "my people" and start feeling very protective of my tribe.

GD sucks. What trans people are put through sucks. But being trans is kind of a badge of honor, in a way.

Our souls are deeper, and the light places glow and the dark places gloom more intensely than the rest. We suffer because we're extraordinary. It's our gift and our curse.


Sorry if I'm all over the place. I'm feeling pretty moody right now.

You are awesome. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I needed to hear that.

[Acodé]

I knew I was different when I was between the ages of 5 and 6. My sisters and mom would paint their nails and I would fight tooth and nail to get mine painted. It's about that time I would rummage through the closet and try on clothes from my sisters' and our cousin's cheer leader uniform that we had for some odd reason. That made me feel feminine! Even though I was confused on the way I was treated differently from my sisters, I figured there wasn't much of a difference between girls and boys until I had 'the talk' about the birds and the bees. Talking about periods and wet dreams, wet dreams TERRIFIED me and periods seemed as normal as grilled cheese sandwiches. I didn't cross dress that often during this time, I was more interested in just having fun being a wild kid. Big issues like gender identity didn't impact my life until puberty hit. At that young age, I didn't think I could ever become a girl. One of the first memories of the possibility was a commercial I saw just once on TV. A middle age guy walked in a machine similar to the one on The Fly, and came out and he was a hot chick. I thought "Wow! I would LOVE to do that!" Soon after, I went back to playing with our massive lego collection.

When my legs started growing hair more prominently during 7th grade I started shaving it. I stopped wearing shorts to hide my shaved legs from my family, I was terrified what they would say. Still continued to wear my sisters' clothes in private, sometimes I didn't even put them back but hid them for myself. From this time on through high school, I would cross dress quite often and maintain shaved legs. I was in conflict. While I cross dressed in private to ease the internal battle, I was the withdrawn kid failing at school. I didn't apply myself because I didn't see the point. I'd say I was highly depressed during high school. I couldn't (and to a degree, still can't) be social with others because I felt like I was lying to everybody. Lying about being a guy, lying to myself about being a girl. I had a huge desire to present myself a girl. I came out to my mom during high school, and that didn't go the way I wanted. My mom used my actions as a kid to justify my maleness, things my sisters didn't do. Said we could get therapy, as long as it was church provided - NO WAY IN HELL! After that, I withdrew further into myself. It was all I could do.

With all my internal frustrations and no known outlet to express myself, I put all that negativity into white nationalism. That lasted for most of high school and year after when I didn't do anything but wallow in my self hatred. Obviously, I no longer identify with that 'movement' if you could ever call it that, and am deeply grateful I came to terms with my transsexuality and learned to embrace it. I'm out to both sisters, and the one friend I actively have. Mom has yet to know I am still transgender and plan to transition. What she does is in the air, but there's nothing that'll stop me from finding my happiness. To become the woman I've always been, to be the mother & wife I've always dreamed.

[Janae]

I first realized I was trans at about 11, even though I've always been aware that I wasn't like other boys. I didn't have a name to match what I was feeling I just knew something about me was off. I used to clip hair styles off different women in magazines and put them over my 6th grade student pix. I did a lot of other odd things up until the age of 15 when I first went outside as a girl.

I didn't feel bad once I noticed something was different. In all honesty I liked who I was just not what I was. I thought I was just gay for a long time because I didn't know any better. But living as a gay boy seemed to not be it either. I was to articulate, emotional, and feminine. I would trade different girl clothes with my bff, I'd buy makeup from the store and practice the application in the bathroom, When I went to the mall I always looked through the girls stuff and tried to modify my look as much as a 16yr old could at the time. I was already going out with friends in full female attire by 16. When ever it was time to take it all off and go back to reality it always made me sad.

It didn't take long to come to terms with it. But it did take 29 yrs before deciding to seriously start transition after starting and stopping at 18.

[Northern Jane]

I was a bit extreme I guess because I started life with total conviction that I WAS a girl, was pretty typical for a girl, and it was obvious to the adults from the time I was VERY young that there were going to be problems. I picked my female name at about age 4 and it took until age 8 to put any cracks in my identity. From age 8 to puberty I was simply unsure what I was and when my body didn't cooperate at puberty, I was desperate to find medical help to fix my body. I had heard about Christine Jorgenson and knew it could be done. I first heard the term transsexual about age 14 and was diagnosed by Dr. Benjamin at age 16. At 17 I started HRT and had SRS at 24 (1974) as soon as Dr. Biber opened his practice in Colorado. I was the standard narrative for "complete psycho-sexual inversion" in the 1960s and 70s.

[big kim]

When I was 14 one of the older boys at school rode past me and one of the few friends I had on a BSA motorbike with his girlfriend on the  back.My friend wished he was  the boy on the bike,I wished I was the girl with long blonde hair streaming  behind her,arms round his waist.I'd always felt different and wanted to be a girl and knew one day I would somehow.I cross dressed and wore make up from 13 onwards,hated having boy's haircuts and sports.I realised no one must ever know my secret and covered up by being a  brat from hell.I started drinking at 13 and skipping meals and cutting,got into a ton of fights,my Dad offered me £5 if I could go a week without fighting(a lot of money for 1972) sure enough I never got it.I became a caricature of a man a badass hard drinking dope smoking speed taking pool playing biker with a string of girlfriends(and flings with boys) who drove muscle cars.I fooled very few people when I came out,so many had seen through me.When I was 21 I realised I was transexual after reading a newspaper article  and it wasn't going away.I lost myself in booze and dope for the next 10 years I lacked the confidence to transition feeling I would look like a monster.I eventually got HRT,electrolysis and started to live part time in role in 1990 and went full time the next year.

[Ms Grace]

When I was about 4 or 5 my family went to a beach on a little island west of Perth for the day (yes, Rottnest Island, for my fellow Aussies). Before we caught the ferry back to the mainland we had a quick shower to get the sand and salt off. I still remember so clearly having to go with my father to the mens' block while my mother and younger sister went elsewhere. It was possibly the first time I really experienced gender segregation and I really hated it. I was scared and somewhat freaked out by all the nude dudes in that shower block, my god it was like a wall of willies! For me my gender dissonance is triggered most strongly by segregation and I've tried my utmost to avoid situations where I'm going to be compelled to follow those stupid rules. Hasn't always worked - I was forced to go to a boys' high school and feelings of segregation were essentially at the core of my February meltdown.

[Jessica Merriman]

In my case being an Alpha male was over compensation at it's best. I don't think more Alpha's are trans, just doing what they have to do to appear as normal and well adjusted as they can. This was true in my situation. Maybe I was also trying to exorcise my gender demon and match my exterior. It was a miserable failure though. Gender Dysphoria is more of a monster than Godzilla and can't die!

[evecrook]

I'm pretty amazed by everybody's comments . You all have gone through the same thing as me. Starting from the age of 4 to present. Hiding that incredible secret. That secret caused so much pain. I always thought I was so alone with this thing. I'm very happy to have .started to heal that incredible wound. It's pretty interesting how absolutely all your stories are so close to mine. I started at 4 cross dressing with my sisters clothes in the dark so nobody would know. I was extremely introverted through grade school and high school. never talked to anyone until junior year of high school. I felt so different from every body . Any time there was a story on tv like police officer dressing as womon to catch criminals my brain would kind of explode. I had a pretty extreme case of cross dressing from 4 through grade school ,high school college and beyond. I thought about transsexuals since high school. Puberty was hell. I tried to stop the pain by cross dressing more. My family Knew about my secret ,but never confronted me about it, except for a weird comment from my grandmother once about wearing a blouse. After high school I did a lot of lsd to try to stop the pain of being so in the wrong body. It just made my dysphoria incredibly worse. I basically totally lost my penis mentally. Mentally I haven't had a penis since then. I've had quite a lot of psychotherapy mostly because of the lsd. I was never really able to talk about my gender problem until recently. I've got a good accepting therapist now  through this change.

[Talitha Cumi]

I'm pretty amazed by everybody's comments . You all have gone through the same thing as me. Starting from the age of 4 to present. Hiding that incredible secret. That secret caused so much pain. I always thought I was so alone with this thing. I'm very happy to have .started to heal that incredible wound. It's pretty interesting how absolutely all your stories are so close to mine.

I agree, there seems to be a great deal of similarity of experience.

What is also amazing is the near universal feelings of shame, embarrassment and guilt, which for me keep rearing their ugly heads .

Are these unwanted feelings a normal product of social conditioning?

If so, how long do they take to dispel, or is it a forever battle?

My wife keeps telling me to get over, she is so lovely 

At the moment I'm feeling on top of the world because I've managed to slay my dragons  , but if the past is anything to go by they will resurrect again 

[Zoe Louise Taylor]

Although i didnt 100% know i was different at a young age, i was definetely more girly than a normal boy. I didnt realise at the time, and it really wasnt something that effected me massively! But i definetely wasn't a typical boy. I used to hate doing boyish things, and i used to dream of a machine that would turn me into a girl! I played with both boys and girls toys, and i had both boys and girls as freinds! I used to cry more that a typical boy would, but i think my parents thought that was just normal!!

I used to dress as a girl a lot when i was younger, however i remember when i was about 7ish, i was at my grandparents house and i was dressed in a dress! my dad came to pick me up, and went mad! :/ that i thnk was when i sort of thought that this isnt a "normal" thing for a boy to do! and so i started just confiding to social norms!

When i reached high school, i just felt so jelous of the girls and i used to daydream alot about being a girl and going through puberty as a girl! i wanted to look like a girl and i wanted to dress like a girl!! It was at this time, that i started crossdressing, and would feel so great as a girl, just to feel a great feeling of shame soon after!
Also at this time my sex drive started developing, and i think for quite some years i just thought that what i was feeling was some sort of perverse fetish, and just thought i was a transvestite!

When i got my first job at 15, i started buying my own womens clothes! only to throw them out soon after, after persuading myself that this isnt normal, and that i was just a transvestite, and i thought that i could control these feelings if i didnt have any womens clothes!!

Uni was perhaps the time i started to realise that this isnt just a fetish, and its a bit more than transvestism! St this time, it was 100% clear that i wasnt like all the other "lads". i studied civil engineeriing, and just found it hard to fit in with the boys on the course! i lived in a house of girls and just felt alot more comfortable around them! I was still throwing clothes away on a regular basis, in the hope that i could control these thoughts! However the pain i was feeling was becoming more and more, and i felt like the ugliest human on the planed! i would leave nightclubs early as i just felt so ugly! It really was in my last year of university that i started to realise that im a transexual!!

After uni, i found a job 300 miles away from the family home, and started to experiment with my transgendered part of my personality. And just felt so good going out and walking around as a woman, like its a natural thing and i dont have to try! It felt like it was just who i am!!

So that takes me to the present day! I came out to some of my best freinds about 2 months ago! and ive been seeing a councellor! I move into my new flat next week, with a housemate that accepts me, and i will be living as a woman!!!

im really happy, and am so glad that ive come to terms with being a transexual!!

Its taken 25 years for me to realise, but i just think that gender has always been something that ive questioned to some extent!
I just never thought that i could possibly transition and become a woman! But now ive started the adventure, its becoming something i realise i can do, and something i feel that i need to do!

There is only one path for me now! and im gonna follow that path, until im a happy woman!!

Zoe
X

[FrancisAnn]

 I was always a girl since childhood. In the first grade I thought I was a girl until the teacher told me I was a boy & needed to sit with the boys. I dressed, painted my nails, wore my mother clothes & did every thing normal as a girl my entire life thru junior high & senior high. My parents "caught" me lots of times & my mother was ok with it, she took me to some doctors & I told them what I felt & they just said it was a stage that he will grow out of. My father was not happy at all & tried his best to make me a man. I had several sexual encounters with boys during junior & high scholl as quiet as possible. It felt very good being a girl for these boys. I left 1 week after high school & went off to college.

Numerous attempts to live full time as a woman, acquired HRT whatever way I could. I did "drag" shows at gay clubs just to dress & be normal. (very little sex since I was scarred of any disease) I looked very good & felt very good when a woman. Hated a male job with a stupid coat & tie however it was the only way to make decent income.

Fast forward. Now I'm age 55 & finally maybe settled in on normal HRT & Fin for hair loss for the past 3 months, I just started electrolysis for facial hair, living full time normal 90% of the time. I look fair however I'm older & sure not as pretty as I was in my early years. I may have a face lift after my facial hair is removed.

The question is will I finally stay on track to become a total woman?

I'll never be a "pretty" woman. 5' 9", weight 190 pounds, small feet & hands, nice face, but not much hair on my head, what their is very fine. I have to wear a wig to look feminine. I have some relatives that I ignore because I cannot seem to tell them anything. I'm open to some old friends but not many. My electrolysis lady is great, she sees a beautiful woman behind all the facial hair. I miss being with a man & have considered dating again even before my SRS if I ever get approved. I'm nervous about blue cross blue shield insurance. I have no idea what happens if any doctor reports my gender issues & use of HRT. I cannot lose BCBS health coverage. Financially secure & I do not have to work for anyone ever again.

My life story so far & I have no idea what the future holds for me.  Become Francis 100% or what/who?

[evecrook]

it's  pretty interesting on pseudo scientific basis that both FTM and MTF have this common linkage through this creature called dysphoria but are personal stories have a multitude of variations and sometimes not.