Started Therapy, Can't Transition (triggering)

[Rachel]

There are things you can do to halt the receding hairline such as finasteride or dutasteride and minoxidil. Trans or not no one want to lose their hair.

HRT reduces dysphoria and it will stop the testosterone poising, even low dose.

Sometimes it takes years to accept ourselves and be comfortable with who we are, loving, creative, giving and sensitive females.

Yes there is a beauty culture and all woman question their beauty. FFS can and HRT can do wonders. Do not sell yourself short.

I thought I could control my dysphoria and in the end I could not. It just continued to get worse, year after year. I suffered from depression, addictions, extremes of weights, suicidal ideation and then at age 50 the pain got too much and attempted suicide twice. I got help and started to transition and deal with my demons. 

For me, regardless of weather I ever pass, I should have gotten help at 18.

[Mara]

I'm going to a support group in a few days for the first time (assuming I don't chicken out like I did last week).

I'm kind of worried that it will get worse when I get older or that I'll hit a point where I feel like I have to do it or suicide, but I've had thoughts of suicide for 13 years now and have learned to deal with them. They're pretty much normal I think.

[big kim]

I wish I'd started treatment at 25 instead of 32.It won't go away,it get's worse the longer you put it off

[ameliato]

As others have said, dysphoria gets way worse as you age. Only you can decide what's right for you. Whatever path you choose, you have started therapy and from my personal experience, it can only get better from here.

Good luck.

Amelia

[Mara]

If I thought I could pass well, I'd do it. I don't want to do it because I know I would not look like a woman.

[Beverly]

Do you want to look like a woman or do you want to be one?

[Mara]

Do you want to look like a woman or do you want to be one?

I am a woman, or at least that is how I've come to understand myself. It is tough to be accepted as a woman without looking like one, which is why I'm discouraged.

[Beverly]

I would be willing to bet you look less like a woman now than you would after hormone treatment. It can only improve your feminine look.

Mostly how others perceive you is more about how you interact with them. If you look even remotely feminine and sound a bit feminine and behave in a vaguely womanly way then people will treat you as a woman.

Believe in yourself and all becomes possible

[Monica Jean]

I'm 44 and starting transition. Don't be too hard on yourself, I would wager that most people transition from the age of 24 and beyond.

[Bran]

This is what therapy is for :-) Not to be flippant, but you've *started* seeing a gender therapist.  Your concerns are very common, more normal than not in fact.  While you see your chin as being a defining masculine feature, most folks have someting that they feel will make them impassable-- some of us are right, but most aren't.  That specific dysphoria about parts of our bodies is part of why therapy is a good idea.  Your therapist isn't just a gatekeeper, they can actually help you with this stuff.  They can help you either get past the belief that you'll never pass, or get to the point you're OK with transitioning and not passing, or that you're OK with not transitioning at all.  And, as you see here, 25 is younger than many people.  You've got time to figure this out.  Your chin doesn't have to be a decision point right now.   

I'm not going to add to the chorus of "lots of women have strong chins" because, while it's true, it won't help at all unless you believe it.  Believing in your gender presentation and living it is far more effective than any physical changes, and the physical body is only a tiny part of what makes a person attractive.  There's also more than passing as a woman-- there's beign *accepted* as a woman.  I've been in several social groups where people's gender of presentation was accepted without question.  If somebody asked me if Jane X were trans, I'd think and say "I guess so, probably, never really considered it," because what everybody went by was the presentation, not the anatomic markers.  Jane was a woman, and her adams apple, her chin, her chromosomes, or the gender she was assigned at birth didn't matter.

(FYI, I'm 34, FTM, also feel like there's no chance I'd ever pass because I'm so feminine.  Wish I could trade you!) 

[Ive]

Hello Mara
hello to everyone

Here is... well I don't really have a name still, but Eva i think is a kinda nice second name.
So, Eva here. I'm a transgender woman, 32, from Italy, living abroad. It's 6 months since I understood being a woman with a male body, but just a month I'm really feeling it.

I already thought a lot, already in analysis (although is not making any difference ), read a lot and come out to my nearest friends and my sister and cousins.
It may sound stupid, but the hardest part for me was to believe in myself.
I reached many times the "darkness", as many times I went back, and did not believe that this is happening. That I am a transgender person.
You may know better than me how is though.
In those moments I do two things:
1) I accept my going back. I am faulty, and not perfect, everyone is. But started to do not blame myself to have fallen, or failing, one, two, several times. It's OK.
2) I stop doing what I'm doing and take the time I need to do whatever I need (even sometimes I just don't know what to do).
For me it's simple. I'm a woman, I want to show the world who I am, and I can't do it with this body. Sometimes I wish to take it out like a suit (never been too "dysphoric", but kind of being now).

[TRIGGERING about passing]
About passing... well, this is something that I started worrying in advance (in the very first months), and I found a great reading (still unfinished), enlightening: "Nobody Passes", by Mattilda aka Matt Barnstein Sycamore. It's worth reading something from it.
The point there is that "passing" in part the reflection of the society standards in ourselves, and it's a violence.
Think about stereotypes which all kinds of persons have to adapt to, to please the "others": women to appear feminine, men to appear masculine, for example, or tatooed people having to "pass" daily, covering their tatoos. Immigrants passing as local people (this happened and still happens to people from south Italy going to work to the North, and trying to pass, as you are from the South...even in the supermarkets). Violence.
I'm starting to think that passing is a violence.
I feel I never pass. This is a problem on so many levels.

Guess what? Big deal. I am what I am. I will be the ugliest, fattest, disgusting piece of woman on this earth, but that's what I am.
I repeat this like a mantra. It works, and when it doesn't, I stop, I cry, and I know that I want to go on.
I will not pass, I will be what I feel to be.
I will be influenced by the masses, I know this. But I'm conscious of this.

Mara, find her.
Find your path, and be kind with yourself. You deserve it.
You deserve all the colors and joy and feelings of the world!

A big, biiigggg hug! :*
Eva

[Emerald_Marsh]

I started at 45 on hormones and I am going to find a way to be the true person I am. I is not about being pretty I am far from that but living a lie to protect feelings of small minded people. You are you so you are beautiful no one else's opinion matters we need to be the brave ones. It is my mission in life to bring true equality to all of humanity we all need to just be ourselves and quit hiding our true face to others. So go get a dress wear it proudly and know you are part of a more important reality what none of us have to fear being true to ourselves. I almost killed myself just cause of fear or others. I'm now a proud beautiful unique person who loves God with all her heart because she decided to make me unique and more beautiful than I ever imagined. Hope to meet you someday at a rally for true human rights. It is not us that needs to change. The fifth amendment gives us ALL the right to be ourselves if we don't fight for it now our children will have no rights at all. Love you all. May Gods love and blessings follow you always

[Ive]

Hello Hanazono,

You are totally right. Of course the world I'm talking about is ideal, but I still think this is a fundamental point.
Understand gives you the power to think differently, no matter what the world is.

Anyways, what is EEOC? :-)