Do ever get mad at yourself for not transitioning/accepting yourself earlier?

[PrincessPatience]

I've been researching TS related things since I was 15. I knew in the back of my head I was transgender since I was 16-17 but never could accept myself then.  Now I feel like I should've stopped making excuses and just accepted myself then. I'm pissed at myself for wasting time and now just starting instead of 3 or 4 years ago. Everything would've went much smoother back then. However now i feel like I'm in a rush to get back on track in life. Does anyone else feel this too?   

[stephaniec]

It definitely is a terrible sense of loss.

[JamesG]

My list of regrets are legion.

[Kova V]

In a word, yes. However, you don't know what you don't and everyone does what they think is best at the time. You just have to move on from where you are and grow to make more "honest" desisions.

It's tough not to look back and hate yourself for making a bad choice but it's even harder to forgive yourself, be at peace and move forward.

All you can do is try hard and reach out for support when you need it. That's what I try to do at least.

[Adam (birkin)]

I definitely do.

[Jessica Merriman]

                                                              A BIG YES!




                                                                          But, I can't change it so I live with it.

[MadeleineG]

I came within an anxiety attack of coming out at 12. Now I'm 33. I regret the delay, but not the family I'd have otherwise missed.

End of the day, I'm with Leibniz. 

[f_Anna_tastic]

I definitely regret it,  but my life would have been so different if I had done...  Who knows if it would have been for the better.

I am much more assured in myself as a person now. 


I don't think I was ready earlier.

We all come out when we're ready, and some of us are ready at different times. 

[Jill F]

Not any more.  Playing the "what if" game never ends well.

I really didn't want to be trans and I fought it tooth and nail until it almost killed me.   I thought I could die with my deepest, darkest secret intact, but eventually the GD consumed almost every waking moment and I had to do something about it because I almost really died with my deepest, darkest secret intact.

The good thing about holding out as long as I did was that I am now in a position to transition without hardship.

[Miss_Bungle1991]

I've been researching TS related things since I was 15. I knew in the back of my head I was transgender since I was 16-17 but never could accept myself then.  Now I feel like I should've stopped making excuses and just accepted myself then. I'm pissed at myself for wasting time and now just starting instead of 3 or 4 years ago. Everything would've went much smoother back then. However now i feel like I'm in a rush to get back on track in life. Does anyone else feel this too?   

Well, I know now and I knew back then at age 10,it would have been a mistake. (Despite what my mom says now, it would NOT have went well at all.) I would have went for it if my mom had not reacted the way that she did. I still remember the day that I was sitting in my bedroom and I heard her crying in the living room and she said to herself: "I can't have kids right". Then I began to think to myself: "Well, maybe things would be better if I just removed myself from the picture." That's when the suicidal thoughts kicked in. I also know that my dad would have never went for it. Hell, he couldn't even handle it when I began to gain weight at age 14, 15 (A direct result of two years of doing nothing but staying in my room, watching TV, listening to the stereo and binging on junk food since I was sick of going out to ride my bike or go for a walk because I always had to fight the neighborhood brats since they all thought that I was a "->-bleeped-<-".) Then on top of that, I had to put up with my drunk dad saying that "It's your fault that you get picked on because you don't make any sense". Between that and his "I'm not having any fat kids" remark, it did wonders for my already low self esteem. Even when I wanted to work out with my mom in the mornings so that I wouldn't gain more weight, he shot that down since he saw that as being effeminate somehow. Yeah, he's not too bright.

So, I ended up postponing my transition until I was 29, hating myself, turning to pot and booze to keep the suicidal thoughts at bay. I was hating myself for screwing everything up and not transitioning at age 19 like I wanted to. But, after a while I just let it go because you can't repeat the past so, the hell with it. I just got on with my life and try the best I can to embrace the present, look forward to the future and just think about the (very few) parts of my past that didn't completely suck.

[Michelle G]

Not a day goes by when I don't regret not speaking up in my teens but back then our scenerio was pretty much unheard of.

I am very envious and extremely proud of our younger sisters here that have made the decision to become their true selves

[Christine Eryn]

I tried ever so badly to be a "normal" person (or at lease my mom's definition of normal) and be a masculine alpha male "bro" dude and all that other bull->-bleeped-<-. When I realized it was making me miserable and time was running out was when I acted. I always think of how many good years I could have had if I had transitioned earlier.

[K Style Addiction]

Yes, always yes. I wish I would have done it when I was 16 the oldest or maybe earlier, things would be so much easier now

[allisonsteph]

Yes and no.

I started my transition when I was 45, but had been thinking about and wishing for it since I was 12. 

Part of me regrets waiting so long, saddened that I missed out on being the real me for far too long. The other part of me knows I couldn't have transitioned any earlier than I did. The world is a far more tolerant place for transfolks than it was thirty years ago. It would have been extremely difficult if not impossible to find the help I am receiving now back then.

[Miyuki]

Yes, but I'm afraid I have to plead ignorance on this one. I always knew I was a little different. From the time I first started school to time I was I teenager, I never fit in very well and always ended up getting bullied or picked on for reasons that I didn't understand. But I never saw myself as being transgender, and even when I got older and the dysphoria really started to kick in, I just didn't know enough about being transgender to figure things out. I never knew anyone who was transgender (or even gay) while I was growing up, so all my assumptions about what being transgender meant came from popular culture and other less than reputable sources. I wanted to be a girl, not a man wearing a dress, so the image of being transgender that I had in my mind never fit with my reality. I also didn't understand that it was even possible to be transgender without being attracted to men. So I never looked into being transgender that deeply, and it wasn't until I was in my mid-twenties that I actually learned about hormone replacement therapy and things like that. If I had ever gotten a chance to learn more about what being transgender meant when I was younger, I would have been demanding anti-androgens the very next day. But sadly that never happened, and I ended up spending ten years depressed and miserable as testosterone rotted away at my mind and body. I've said this before, but I'll say it again, they should be required to teach kids about gender identity disorder in sexual education class. I know that it would probably be very controversial at first, and many parents wouldn't tolerate it. But if even one person could be saved from going through what I went through just because they didn't have the right information, I think it would be more than worth it.

[antonia]

When I was 13 I ran away from home, travelled 300 miles to my grandparents summer house and lived as a girl for a week until I got discovered, arrested and spent a night in jail before being sent home escorted by police officers. Now I wonder what would have happened if I hadn't lived on an island, if I had lived on the continent I might have just kept going. But it was a different world and I had no money or skills to fall back on and life could easily have turned out ugly.

I do have some regrets but now I'm surrounded by people I love and are supportive, I have a good careerer in which I can transition without difficulty and the financial means to pay for the whole thing. I also wonder if I could ever have transitioned in the small community I grew up in, where everyone on the island would have known and recognized me, would have been very difficult back then while I now live in Toronto which is very liberal and laid back about these things.

In an ideal world I would have transitioned back then but the world is far from ideal so I don't think it's fair for me to expect an ideal life from myself.

[JoanneB]

Having tried or experimented twice in my 20's with transitioning and now very well into my 50's  I can say I do not regret not transitioning back then.  It would have been a disaster, I would be dead right now. No way was I equipped enough to succeed. 

[Miyah48]

After drug addiction, rehab, psych wards, suicide attempts, Self mutilation, bullemic tendencies, and high school failing.. Yeah kinda wish i was like, "hey mom and dad im kinda a girl."

[Christine167]

That feeling of regret comes and goes with me. But then I think about my son and how much I love him. And then I think about how my dad would have reacted and what state my family would have been in as a teenager with this. It wouldn't be good, my parents probably would have divorced. I would probably be caught in the middle and allowed to live as a girl with my mom but forced to live as a boy with my dad. Time split between them and under even heavier economic and emotional abuse than what I was as just a boy who didn't like to hunt or do yard work.

Yeah the only regret that I have is how I came out to my wife. I still feel rotten about it but it needed to be done. She couldn't live a lie any more than I can. And really it was over between us long before now.

I just hope that I have enough girl left in me to pull this off.

[Androgynous_Machine]

I've been researching TS related things since I was 15. I knew in the back of my head I was transgender since I was 16-17 but never could accept myself then.  Now I feel like I should've stopped making excuses and just accepted myself then. I'm pissed at myself for wasting time and now just starting instead of 3 or 4 years ago. Everything would've went much smoother back then. However now i feel like I'm in a rush to get back on track in life. Does anyone else feel this too?   

Sometimes I get pissed at myself waiting until I was in my early 30's but then I remember all those years helped me build a personality unlike any other.

Sure, it might have cost me "passability" points (I pass well enough even pre-hormones) but at the end of the day I like who and what I am, and if I could go back, I wouldn't change a thing.

I am who I am, finally I love who I am, and I wouldn't change a thing other than the vessel who carries me.  If I had transitioned earlier, I may very well have been an entirely different person on the inside.  I don't like that.

-AM