Can you live stealth for a long time in your birth gender?

[Satinjoy]

My intention is to live stealth until my dysphoria makes it too hard to do it.  I would like to know if anyone has successfully done that?  Or does our transition eventually force us to take it to FTE?

I have strong reasons to stay stealth.  Family, career.... and for another thread - fear.

I am still comfortable presenting as male, knowing my core wiring is female.

I also feel subtle changes that are startling, like my response to seeing a hairy chest- that really surprised me, I love my wife...my language is changing... and I don't want to fight myself either.  I don't really know what to expect.

Any thoughts or experiences?

[kelly_aus]

To a certain extent, many of us do it..

That said, I don't recommend it.. The life I wasted being miserable is lost..

[Colleen♡Callie]

I'm planning to be stealth as birth sex until I saved up enough for FFS, then I won't be able to really not come out at work and such... Will need to explain why I need all I'll need off, and also why my face looks so different, and (hopefully) feminine. 

After that I can switch to living full time, and hopefully won't need a new job, but that I am not so confident on...

[stephaniec]

the only thing I can suggest is a good therapist will help you. I'm just in a different position and can't help too much. I tried to deny myself and it almost killed me.

[rachel_b]

I'm seconding the suggestion of having a therapist.

Yes, you absolutely can live "stealth" as your birth gender, at least temporarily. You can also choose to live androgynously, which makes it a little bit easier to deal with the dysphoria aspect - or at least it did for me. Be aware that it'll often be painful, and it might well get worse over time - that's why the therapist is so important.

[JustEmily]

Can you just find a happy place in the middle?  You're happily married (I assume by your end script), if you are mentally wired as a female and she knows this, maybe you can be androgynous and have your cake and eat it?  Is being a woman on the outside as important as knowing who you are on the inside and finding peace?

I dunno... I'm not discouraging any path you may want;  I am wandering the same road...  I just know that where we live, if I do cross over, we won't be married anymore... and I promised her when I made the vow to stay.  She is more important to me.

By the way, I am really not that stealthy.  My children call me "mom" more often than "dad," and that's only the tip of a very long list of oddities, but I think that would be best left to another post.

[sad panda]

I don't know, I can't totally understand the life or death importance on transition. To me, before and after it's just life. There's good and bad things as a boy or a girl, and I know not being happy as a boy is one thing but maybe focusing on it makes it a worse problem than it actually is? For me the bigger question is like, what do I want to do with my life? Idk. I wanna get past gender either way, but maybe I'm just tired of it personally

[Colleen♡Callie]

An amendment my above post.  I am seeing a therapist and waiting for HRT, but will for financial reason not be out at work, i.e. living stealth as birth gender for as long as possible to avoid losing job potentially.

That said, I spent all my life ignoring the dysphoria and believing I could power through and not transition.

Ignoring it isn't enough.  It's still there affecting you, and potentially getting worse without you consciously realizing.  Everything can spiral out from under you before you realize how bad its gotten.  I can't say this will happen but it almost did to me, so it is a possibility.

I also suggest a therapist.  One thing I really regret is not seeing a therapist sooner to at least discuss and deal with my gender dysphoria.

[RainbowGuacamole]

I think it is probably possibly to stay stealth in ones birth gender indefinitely, but just because it is possible, doesn't mean that it's preferable. To be sure, there are definite benefits to be gleaned from not physically transitioning (lack of social strife, money saved, etc.), but at what cost are these things to be gained? The answer really varies from person to person. Here's a question, when you imagine your future, which gender do you envision presenting as?

[Christine Eryn]

I've been transitioning in stealth for years. HRT has really changed (improved) my face and body overall. But this year, I take my biggest steps in my transition by getting FFS, then next year SRS. There does come a point where you need to say now or never.

[Satinjoy]

Lots of good comments.  I do have a good therapist, ongoing now for over a year, and he understands my goal is to remain stealth.  We keep finding layers of "me", a lot of repressed stuff, I couldn't even remember anything good from the past until recently.  Then a whole lot of stuff flooded in.  This guy has been treating transgender for 40 years - I tend to trust experience.

I waited too long fighting the dysphoria.  It built to a crisis point and I melted down.  I didn't understand.  I thought I could beat it.  I thought I was supposed to beat it.  That didn't work.  It almost killed me too.

The posts are encouraging.  I don't see going FTE until late in life, after retirement, but I have to be comfortable in my own skin, which is why I have a full preop transition here right now, but its hidden.  I don't feel driven to SRS - I can ignore the "thing".  I was able to find a balance my family could accept and that I could handle too without too much discomfort.

If I lost my wife everything would change.  But that is utterly unacceptable to me.  She is worth those sacrifices I am capable of making.  Hormones, however, I cannot sacrifice, I would lose my mind.

But I was worried about progression.  I understand that it is progressive, that it will get stronger - a warning from the therapist of what usually happens.  I feel my female inner nature getting stronger, subtly, every day.  Socially I can still present well male, but that too has subtly changed.  Attractions have changed.  Self perceptions have changed, I clearly see the woman within.

So when I hear people have remained stealth successfully, it encourages me as I need to function socially male right now.

It isn't like I can't let my hair down when I need to.  And I strongly believe in transitioning from the inside - I always know my core feelings, especially now that I stopped fighting it, and knowing I am transwoman inside means the surface is just a mask I wear so that those that do not understand can't hurt me, or so they see what they need to in order to continue to accept me.

So at 9 months HRT it looks like I can do this... I got lucky I wouldn't need much surgery to go full time, just a trache shave would do it now.  But its not the right time for me at all.  Very comfortable with just getting to know and being the woman within, naturally, no longer repressed.

[kelly_aus]

Yep, it is still doable at 9 months - mark my words .

For some it is..
At 9 months, I went full time as I couldn't deal with anything else any more..

[Rachel]

I am at 9 months and it is doable on HRT. However, I wear a sports bra and I expect July or August my breasts may out me, I may be wrong. My Mom was and sister is a D cup. I love growing breasts and welcome my gender; however, early on I was very scared and thought differently. I was so wrapped up in what I thought others would think I pushed out of my mind what I thought, wanted and needed.

I pushed dysphonia to the limit of my mental and physical endurance. I had a war in my head and we all know there are no winners in a war.

We are all different. I wish you well on your journey, hugs.

[Northern Jane]

For some it is..

And for some it isn't! I couldn't 'pass' as my supposed birth gender even as a child and that just got worse. I never had any problem 'passing' as my chosen gender though but that had its own problems. I was quite suicidal before SRS became available in 1974. It was doubtful that I would have lived through my 24th year if it hadn't been for Dr. Biber.

[Joanna Dark]

I don't know, I can't totally understand the life or death importance on transition. To me, before and after it's just life. There's good and bad things as a boy or a girl, and I know not being happy as a boy is one thing but maybe focusing on it makes it a worse problem than it actually is? For me the bigger question is like, what do I want to do with my life? Idk. I wanna get past gender either way, but maybe I'm just tired of it personally

I really don't know how to respond to this. You know this is a board for transsexuals. The definition of transsexuality being that your gender dysphoria is so significant that it makes it impossible to function at some point. For me, I turned 29-30, I simply could not wait another second. I build an entire life in my early 20s with the expectation that I would save money to transition. This is what I did. I just wasted a few years fighting myself to death. And by death, I mean heroin. So, excuse me if I'm a little taken aback my your kind of, meh, attitude towards the struggles of people like me.

To answer the question, yes, it apparently is possible. For me, no, it is not. I either pass as a woman or a female-to-male transsexual. When I have to dress as a guy, people whichpser and say things like "that's totally a girl." This one person I became friends with told me he saw me first dressed in guy mode and thought, "I wander why she wants to be a man." I just did it today for business reasons, which may be why I'm so snippy. It felt awful. Using the men's room and being stared at by everyone in there. Puke.

EDIT: When I say people sometimes think I am a female-to-male transsexual, I mean a non-transitioning or early transitioning that doesn't quite pass yet. I feel like this could be taken the wrong way and I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings. I really hope I didn't.

[Satinjoy]

"

Can you just find a happy place in the middle?  You're happily married (I assume by your end script), if you are mentally wired as a female and she knows this, maybe you can be androgynous and have your cake and eat it?  Is being a woman on the outside as important as knowing who you are on the inside and finding peace?

I dunno... I'm not discouraging any path you may want;  I am wandering the same road...  I just know that where we live, if I do cross over, we won't be married anymore... and I promised her when I made the vow to stay.  She is more important to me.

By the way, I am really not that stealthy.  My children call me "mom" more often than "dad," and that's only the tip of a very long list of oddities, but I think that would be best left to another post. "

Satinjoy: This is fascinating to me - right now the answer is yes.  But right now, I am in my bedroom totally transitioned and fully in street clothes and feeling quite attractive, really, and it feels SO GOOD.   I can live within the boundaries at the moment.  But the she within is getting very strong, and I like her/me - it was an evil thing that my true nature was crushed out of me and only now I have the peace and safety to find her- mostly by stopping trying not to feel, and nurturing her/me back to health.

I am certainly not stealthy at home, my boobs stick out, my legs are very obvious, and my nails are wonderfully long.  At work, with some homophobes, somehow I can do it perfectly.  The self preservation act is instinctive and I can pull that off easily.

It's almost like a split personality.  But it isn't, my female core is always there, no longer repressed.

I have no idea why they have not read me due to the nails.  The body I keep concealed.  The face was always androgynous and they finally got tired of picking on me for it.

[Satinjoy]

"Yes, you absolutely can live "stealth" as your birth gender, at least temporarily. You can also choose to live androgynously, which makes it a little bit easier to deal with the dysphoria aspect - or at least it did for me. Be aware that it'll often be painful, and it might well get worse over time - that's why the therapist is so important."

Precisely what my therapist said.  And what I promised my wife.

[Satinjoy]

"That said, I spent all my life ignoring the dysphoria and believing I could power through and not transition.

Ignoring it isn't enough.  It's still there affecting you, and potentially getting worse without you consciously realizing.  Everything can spiral out from under you before you realize how bad its gotten."


Happened to me big time and became life threatening.  If anyone out there is fighting the dysphoria please get help fast.

[Satinjoy]

I think it is probably possibly to stay stealth in ones birth gender indefinitely, but just because it is possible, doesn't mean that it's preferable. To be sure, there are definite benefits to be gleaned from not physically transitioning (lack of social strife, money saved, etc.), but at what cost are these things to be gained? The answer really varies from person to person. Here's a question, when you imagine your future, which gender do you envision presenting as?

I had a vision of me going shopping at age 68 or so, fully transitioned.  I also have had visions of taking care of my wife physically in old age.  I honestly can't visualize the future any more, but the older I get the more I suspect I will be presenting female.  My biggest thing is I cannot imagine going into a womens public bathroom.  My orientation is strong attraction to women- repressed because I keep my marrage vows sacred.  And men but that's all physical and not acted upon, its part of my fantasy life though, I am non functional except as a female myself.

I am fortunate right now that I can walk around in lingerie with a non gender identifyable nylon nightshirt or even tee shirt thrown over it to just barely cover up.  It is within acceptable limits for my loved ones.  I think that is amazing.  I probably will wind up pushing that more but am trying to remain within their comfort zones.

[Jenna Marie]

Once you start HRT, there's no way of knowing how things will play out...  some people find the changes happen too drastically too soon, some can wait for years; some find that they cannot tolerate living in the male role after a taste of being perceived correctly, some find that estrogen calms their mind enough to live with it indefinitely.

(Personally, I ended up full-time outside of work by three months on HRT, because I couldn't stand it anymore. I cried every day when I had to get dressed as a guy for work, and cried again when I got home and could throw off those clothes. I also came out at work and was full-time there at about five months b/c I couldn't hid the changes anymore.)