Its a long story

[Joscelyn]

I'm looking for opinions from those who may be currently, or are considering MTF transition at a later time in life (I'm 52) and/or have a disability. And to say the least, mine is a long story, but interesting perhaps...

Ever since I was about 5 I knew I was different, lots of things told me that. But when I tried to explain it to my mother at 6, she said these were perverted thoughts and needed to be avoided. I loved my mom and so I tried ignoring all the various signs. I'm not going to go into this much because you've probably heard it all lots of times before and the rest explains it better anyway.

Finally, when I was 18 (1970s), in college, I found a good psychiatrist who after 2 weeks of tests gave an initial diagnosis of gender disphoria and started me down the road of months of therapy (dressing as a woman), and eventually beginning HRT. I had only started HRT at about 6 months or so when I had a very serious auto accident. One of my vertebre was smashed, my kidneys had shut down, none of the docs thought I would live more than 72 hrs after going through an 11hr surgery to repair my spinal cord. Because I was in such awful shape, no one much cared if I was on HRT, after all, I was supposed to die. Also my parents had known little of my plans to transition, and as usual, wouldn't discuss it with anyone while I was fighting for my life.

I ended up going cold turkey off of HRT, apparently causing all kinds of weird side effects as my testosterone went crazy, and I was an emotional mess along with physical. Luckily, or not, I fought through all of it, including 17 surgeries, and 13 months of hospitalization, finally getting out at age 21 as a wheelchair bound paraplegic. My parents stuck by me through this and I tried not to push things, but I still wanted to transition. I understood I was in a very weakened state, but the feelings had never left me. I begged a series of psychiatrists to consider re-starting my transition, but all said that I had a limited lifespan ahead of me and continuing my sex change was much too dangerous, so I should try to be happy with the body I'd been lucky enough to come through all of this with, and forget about changing for the years I had left (They believed then that I had 8-10 years given my spinal trama, based on insurance data.)

So I tried to do that, finishing college, getting lost in a career (a good career), getting lost taking care of aging parents, getting lost taking care of a gay sibling and their kid, and eventually now, I feel like I'm just lost as a male. Here I am in my fifties, obviously the docs were way wrong, I've outlived the docs that made those declarations! Most people still tell me I look young (in my 30s as my body always had feminine features) and I've had one after another failed relationship with hetero women (duh!) no matter how hard I try (sexual function was not affected by my disability). I tried to 'come out' to my gay sibling and was treated as if I had suddenly grown 3 heads, and I've been treated as if I must be out of my mind by them ever since. "You want to change your gender? At your age? With your disability?" well... yeah, actually I'm thinking about it and I have found a psychiatrist who may be willing to help. After all that I feel really embarrassed to even talk about this, nevertheless, I've accomplished harder things and no, I don't think I'm crazy... not just yet if I can help it.

Now... if you know of a middle aged male, disabled or not, who has attempted this, successful or not, I would love to hear any specifics. And if you are one, you would be helping a great deal if you could let me know what it took to 'get there' so to speak.  Thanks for reading.

[LordKAT]

Wow, what a story. I would think having little time to live being an incentive to complete transition in a timely manner. Anyway, Many of us are older, I know one person at least is  in a wheel chair. I'm hopeful one of them see your thread soon.

[Jessica Merriman]

Hi Joscelyn! I knew at age 7, but in the early 70s and having a parent working for the Air Force as a GS-13, I was to todays standards of care tortured until I assimilated as male. Long story short I was injured in the line of duty while working as a Paramedic/Firefighter (28 years) and retired. Yeah, I was forced to overcompensate with my career. I suppose they thought after all of the years the "silly" idea I was a female in a male body would be squashed. WRONG. At age 47, mostly recovered and normally functional, I began transition. I got to the point every second of every day was severely Dysphoric and affecting every aspect of my life. I have been seeing a gender therapist, was started on HRT and am making preparations for the rest to come. There are people older than myself in this family (Susan's) so it is not only possible to do it and be successful, it has been done by many. Today's therapy, meds and procedures are getting better and more consistent every day. Transition has gotten to where it is just another medical procedure. All one has to do is look at the bookings for surgeries, etc. to see just how many are done every day. I wish I had done this years ago. It is hard to live as a fake person and saps all of your strength and energy. Please see your Primary Care doctor and discuss your options with him. 

[Joscelyn]

Thank you LordKAT and Jessica for replying. I guess I'm throwing my disability out without any reference. So I suppose it would be easy looking back at the decisions made in the 1970s from now and thinking how strange not to continue down the road I was on. Actually I understood it at the time, because of what happened to the other guys who were in the ward I was in. Over the 13 months I was in the hospital, I shared a 4-bed ward with 7 other young men, aged 16 thru 34, all but 2 under 21. All had spinal cord injuries of some kind of other, resulting in para or quadra plegia. Some had diving accidents, motorcycle accidents, and one 18yo was simply wrestling with his brother on their front lawn, all in fun, when his neck snapped. Because we were together so long, and went thru so much, we tried to stay in touch with each other, not nearly so easy before the internet. But slowly, over the next 5 years, I found out about the death of each one. The last one I was told about, when I happened to see his parents in a shopping center and went up to them to ask why I hadn't heard from their son lately. So at that time, our life expectancy was not good, not by any means. But like a few other spinal cord injury survivors from that time period that I've met along the way, somehow I managed to live past a certain point, where if it didn't knock you down by then it wasn't going to.

So here I am retired on disability after being hit by a totally different problem ...(I was involved with several silicon valley .COM start-ups and finally the stress made its presence known with a brain aneurysm, so I recovered from that on top of everything else, and I knew it was time to get out of that pressure cooker while I was ahead, or at least alive)... and I'm thinking there must be a reason I've made it this far, not to get too religious about it, but c'mon... sure seems like someone's trying to explain this to me and I need to start listening, ya know? And lately the same feelings I've always had, and have repressed from fear or simply because I was forced to by other more critcal issues in my life, have come bubbling up once again. Just buying male clothes for myself, for example, can make me physically ill. There are a couple dozen more issues like that, and they are not only not getting better, many have been getting worse over the past few years. When my original Doc explained what was going on, and why transitioning was critical for me, he felt that I'd developed very good coping methods to deal with my problem, but eventually it would start a split within my personality. And I'm starting to see this, I can become very angry and then be suddenly tearful and afraid, and its happening around gender issues. So I know its time to deal with this, as it doesn't seem like I'm going to be doing what the doctors all thought I should be doing, and dying anytime soon, LOL!

I'm blown away by this site, and certainly the people who are posting here. I've known this was a good resource but have only just recently been exploring enough to understand its depth. SO much has changed and I just haven't had the chance to learn what some of the newer issues are all about. Of course the internet makes some things easier, and others harder, but none of that was available then. I had no idea a 'sex change' was even remotely possible when I walked into my first psychiatrist's office, all I knew were the symptoms I had, and I was scared to death he would have me commited or something. It took a few sessions before I could come close to really talking about everything I'd been through so he could even start testing me for the gender issues that eventually resulted in his diagnosis.

Jessica, I've just recently moved, and its been so hard to find a PCP that is currently taking new patients, that I have ended up with a very young and inexperienced doctor at this time. I think she's a good doctor, but I've just been getting her 'up to speed' on my various health issues over the years, she's been reading thru my files and making sure any preventative care has been done, etc.

So I don't want to overwhelm her with this too, I may give it at least a couple weeks or so, before dropping this on her, because she's gonna ask, and I'll have to tell her there's one other "little" thing in my medical history she needs to help me with. Gawd, her eyes may pop out of her head after everything else <sigh>.

Anyway, thanks for the feedback!

[suzifrommd]

You want to change your gender? At your age?

I would claim you want DON'T want to change your gender. You want to change your body and presentation to match your gender, which has stayed the same since you were young.

I'm 52, living 6+ months fulltime as a woman. One of the best decisions I've ever made. Do I wish I'd transitioned earlier. Of course. Is this too old? Of course not. I know people who transitioned 20 years older than we did.

Don't let what your siblings say talk you out of what you decide you need to do.

And your disability, that should have NOTHING to do with it.  Where is it written that able-bodied people get to transition while people with disabilities have to sit on the sidelines and wish?

You don't often hear people say that they feel less transgender as time goes on. For most of us it just gets worse until we HAVE to do something about it.

Good luck Joscelyn. I hope you find like I did that transition brings amazing feelings you never thought possible.

[Joscelyn]

Thank you Suzi, afraid I still, even as recent as a couple years ago, had a doc counsel the same old thing - its too dangerous, well how dangerous was an aneurysm? Life and death is a daily roll of the die. One thing I don't have about all of this is any feelings of guilt or remorse for waiting so long, I've been fighting all kinds of problems all my life, helping a lot of people in the process. Your words were helpful because I think I need to fight for this... for me. If I'm going to stay mentally well, I have to do exactly what you mentioned:

"...change your body and presentation to match your gender..."

I've always known I was female. Period. Anyone whose every worked with me knows the way I solve problems is feminine in nature, and I've been told this many times in my 22 year career. Always been proud of it, without daring to say the obvious of course. I don't understand what my sibling is about anymore, for years we always had gay, lesbian and transgender friends to our home on thanksgiving, people who's families had deserted them. I understand that they think I will lose some of my family because of this. But its hardly some question of ego, that I have, or ever had, for that matter, any choice in this. I was always afraid that if I lived long enough this would catch up and it has. They are seeing it as some kind of an ego trip and I just see as a inevitability. I've managed to straight-arm these feelings for 31 years, and I just have to turn and face it now. I'm still scared to death about whats involved, but looking forward to maybe finding a little hope along the way. What I did learn at 18 from this was patience, life is very much a journey and none of this is going to happen tomorrow, other then the simple decision to go through with it, and that's where I'll start. I'll post here again once I know the 'wheels are in motion', in the meantime, Thanks again.

[Jamie D]

You know, Joscelyn, it is never too late to be your authentic self.  I am also in my 50's, got my gender dysphoria diagnosis late, even though I thought something was amiss for decades.  Because of my medical conditions, I am not prescribed HRT - not a doctor for 1,000 miles around would touch me.  But I personally view "transition" as occurring on several levels, only one of which is physical.  So I move forward as best I can.

I am in awe of how you have overcome that bad things life threw at you.  It has made you the strong person you are today.  We have other members here with "disabilities" (I don't even like that word).  And we have many transitioners in the 40's, 50's, 60's, and even 70's.

You are among friends. 

[amber1964]

I wont pretend to understand what kind of bravery it takes to overcome the obstacles life has presented to you.

First, your age means nothing. I started HRT at 53, my avatar is how I look today at 56. Pre-op, no surgeries. Eagerly looking forward to having the surgeries i want in the spring.

Second and this is not something I talk about often. At age 51 I was diagnosed with colon cancer. Terminal. Maybe 10% chance. I wont bore you with the details but after surgery and three rounds of chemo therapy I was declared clean. I survived. I was one of the lucky 10%, beat the odds.

At the same time I had this gender issue. I could have done nothing about it and considered myself lucky to be alive. But I didnt. I felt sad. I felt that my cancer could recur at that I would die without ever getting to experience life as what I preceived to be my authentic self. It may sound silly, but I thought it would be an undignified death, people gathering around celebrating my male life when it was all a big lie. It was a very low point for me, sounds strange but its how I felt.

I found a trans doctor and asked about going on hormones. Not a good idea at all he told me. Definetly not, I was lucky to be alive, even if I was bald and ugly, hideously male. I persisted and told him I would get them illegally and take them anyway. I dug my heels in and got my prescription.

I started HRT three years ago this January. A year later, who knows why, I developed a life threatening thrombosis. In fact, they did not expect it to resolve. My health of course has never been the same and this was quite a blow. The pain was bad. I was scared because I could have died at any moment. Obviously I didnt, Im still here. My hair has been growing out three years and has been styled but never cut. Thats why its not so long, I started out bald.

Now I am almost finished. For me, its like a race. I dont want to die as a man, I was never meant to be one and I never fit in as one. I came to the conclusion that in the end we all die anyway. Thats certain. But I felt determined to die dignified, as a female and so that is what I chose. I am fortunate to live in ontario canada and so this year i was able to get all new identification - without surgery - including a birth certificate that says female. In another few months my body will be as female as I can make it. I dont have a death wish, I have a life wish, but on my terms. Not on any terms. This is the choice I made and I have no regrets over it even though it was not exactly easy.

I dont know if this helps or resonates with you. But we only have this one life to live and I believe we should live it without regret and authentic to our own true selves.

I wish you well sweetheart, whatever path you choose.

Amber Anne

[Joscelyn]

Hi Jamie & Amber,  Thanks so very much for opening yourself up to help me with my problems, its meant a great deal to me. You have given me great hope that I can do this. Nothing, and I do mean nothing has come easily for me since becoming disabled. I simply don't think about 'level of difficulty' much anymore and your words have told me this is something thats possible if your stubborn enough and want it badly enough. I know there will be fallout, I will no doubt, have family members that I thought would love and support me always, disappear because of their religious beliefs. I also know that its their issues, not mine, even though it will affect me terribly. But continuing on in any case doesn't make me an idiot, I know I'm not doing this because I'm trying to just 'find myself' or something. I'm doing this because I'm a survivor and I've reached a point, like so many other times where I have to deal with what life's dealt me. If I hadn't gone through what I have, I wouldn't be the survivor I am today. Maybe my original transition would have gone very badly, I'll never know, but I know I'm a lot better prepared today than I was then, and hope I can see this through as well as you all have. As I said, I'll post back again soon! And thanks again! --- J

[amber1964]

Based on your story I would say you can do whatever you set your mind to. You sound sensible and prepared for the consequences. There are hard times ahead, but joy as well, not just happiness. Please come here whenever you need help.

[Jamie D]

Joscelyn, I wrote something earlier to another member, who had a religious family.  I will repeat it here for you:

I have found from our Christian members here, that one can be devout and trans at the same time.  If your family has a scriptural problem with you, ask them if they disagree with Rev. Pat Robertson, who said,

"I think there are men who are in a woman's body. It's very rare, but it's true. Or there are women in men's bodies...."

"I don't think there's any sin associated with [transitioning from male to female or female to male].  I don't condemn somebody for doing that."

[Joscelyn]

Amber: Thank you for the compliment! It was very helpful after reading your post earlier.

Jamie: I never knew... never would have believed that he had said that, and I will very likely need to use it, so thank you for quote as well!

[amber1964]

I am a wiccan but studied the bible a long time. There is not one scripture which speaks for or against transition. The bible has nothing to say on the matter one way or the other. It does have some very limited commentary on gay men, but nothing about transsexuals.

In any case, religious objections are usually just an excuse.