How do you know for sure that you are trans?

[Jayne01]

Hello,

I am kind of back from taking a short break from this website. I need to find out if there is anyone out there like me, because right now I can't relate to anybody and feel very alone. I know many of you have tried to help me and I am very grateful for your help, but I still struggle to relate to anyone's story.

A little information about me. I am a 43 year old male, married for 14 years. I came out to my wife about 6 months ago that I think I might be born in the wrong body. My wife is struggling but also understanding and sticking by me. I never really "knew" that I was trans or "supposed" to be a girl. There have been times throughout my life where I wished I was a girl but it has never been something that constantly ate away at me. Lately it has been getting worse and my dysphoria ranges from completely off the charts to non-existent. So sometimes I think I am definitely trans, and other times I think WTF was I thinking, I'm just a guy. It is incredibly confusing. I have been seeing a gender therapist for a few months now and thought I was making progress. But over the Christmas break I seem to have gone backwards and now am struggling more than ever. I have trouble accepting I am trans and do not want it under any circumstances.

I have 2 questions.
1) How can you know for certain that you are transgender? There is no medical test to prove it.

2) Is there anyone out there that has a similar story to mine? From what I have read, people either know they trans from a young age or those that find out later in life welcome it and are happy to be trans. I DON'T want it. I just want to be a normal guy. It is ruining my life.

Thank you for reading my rant.

J

[Tommi]

Hi J!

I've replied before, that I'm in a similar boat.  41, married 18 years, 3 children.

I think I knew from early on I was different, but I chalked it up as being weird, defective, or just "wrong".  I spent my life denying I wanted to be a girl.  Over the years, my wife has accused me a number of times of wanting to be female and I always denied it to her, and myself.

The fact that I wore women's panties and shaved my body religiously was enough for her to make the conclusion.  Finally this past year after a huge fight where she again accused me of it, I admitted it to her and myself, that I am trans.  However, I don't know if I will transition, although I want to, because I will lose her and may lose the children if I do.  Many times, I wish I could be rid of the dysphoria and just have my soul match my body.  I just don't see it happening.  Funny thing is, after admitting I'm trans, my wife points out my "male" qualities and says I'd make a horrible woman...

I've purged all feminine things and acted as male as I can many times and always come back to the feminine.  That tells me I am trans, whether or not I wish to be.  In some ways, admitting I am trans, and thinking of NOT transitioning makes it worse... I look at myself in the mirror and dislike the masculine appearance.  On the flip side though, while wearing my breast forms feels right, I also end up feeling fake, and "wrong" again.

I tend to feel like I'm spinning and spinning like a top.  Just when I start to slow down and settle, something starts the spinning all over again.

You're not alone.  You can PM me anytime you wish to talk.

[AnonyMs]

You sound similar to me.

I tried not to do anything, but it was driving me crazy. I got pretty desperate and tried low dose HRT. That felt rather awesome, and then I stopped it. Stopping was worse than before I started. I started again, then stopped, and went round that a few times, and eventually just gave up and stayed on it. It was too hard. I figured that call it what you will, I can't live without HRT.

Some year later I can only say that if I wasn't trans when I started I am now.

I know I'm trans because I tried and failed not to be trans.

HRT will likely convince you one way or another.

[Deborah]

Hi Jayne,

I don't have the answer you seek but I want to clarify something I said the other day that may have been misunderstood.

I said that in looking for my own answer I hoped that it was transsexual and not something else.  That may have left the impression that I welcomed it.

But that wasn't really what was in my mind.  It was more like this.  I recognized at a fairly early age that I was not the same as everyone else.  I thought it was trans a few years later and then spent the next four decades questioning that.

So when I say I accepted myself early I simply mean that I recognized in myself that I was different and accepted that simply because I saw it as a fact.

When I say I hoped it was trans I didn't mean that I wanted to be trans.  What I meant was that I recognized the fact I was "something" and trans was to me the most acceptable answer.  Other possible answers I felt degraded me, such as being crazy or being a sex fiend pervert.   The reason I felt this way is because in the case of trans my identity was real, if out of the ordinary.  If it was the case of something else then I would be lost and unable to trust even my own mind.  I would have no identity of my own at all.

I'm not sure I'm communicating that very well but it's compressing decades of intense thought into a few sentences.  When I spoke to my therapist I told him that I estimated I had already spent in excess of 12,000 hours thinking and reading about this alone.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[KathyLauren]

If you can ask the question, "Am I trans?", the answer is yes.  If you weren't, you wouldn't ask the question.

No one wants to be trans.  There are people here who are happy to have discovered their real identity, or who are happy to be transitioning.  But no one wants the suffering of having to deal with it all.  People deal with it because they need to.

Like, you, I just wanted to be a normal guy.  Sometimes, I wondered, but I talked myself out of it, thinking that I just wanted to be normal.  I tried really hard for 60 years to be normal.  Finally, I had to admit that it wasn't working.  If 60 years of effort didn't work, then there is no way in hell that I am ever going to be normal.  It's not something I chose; it's not something I am happy about.  In fact, it is something that I have a lot of trepidation about dealing with.  But now I know that it isn't going to go away.

Admitting this to myself has reduced my anxiety level considerably.  Whether it is down enough that I can just carry on is something that I don't yet know.  Whether I will transition fully or partially, I don't know.  Whether my marriage will survive, I don't know.  All I know is that this is who I am, for better or for worse.

[Tommi]

Hi Jayne,

I don't have the answer you seek but I want to clarify something I said the other day that may have been misunderstood.

I said that in looking for my own answer I hoped that it was transsexual and not something else.  That may have left the impression that I welcomed it.

But that wasn't really what was in my mind.  It was more like this.  I recognized at a fairly early age that I was not the same as everyone else.  I thought it was trans a few years later and then spent the next four decades questioning that.

So when I say I accepted myself early I simply mean that I recognized in myself that I was different and accepted that simply because I saw it as a fact.

When I say I hoped it was trans I didn't mean that I wanted to be trans.  What I meant was that I recognized the fact I was "something" and trans was to me the most acceptable answer.  Other possible answers I felt degraded me, such as being crazy or being a sex fiend pervert.   The reason I felt this way is because in the case of trans my identity was real, if out of the ordinary.  If it was the case of something else then I would be lost an unable to trust even my own mind.  I would have no identity of my own at all.

I'm not sure I'm communicating that very well but it's compressing decades of intense thought into a few sentences.  When I spoke to my therapist I told him that I estimated I had already spent in excess of 12,000 hours thinking and reading about this alone.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I know I have spent countless amounts of time reading up on gender dysphoria, and trying to determine if I had it, then convincing myself I didn't have it.

I think we all spend inordinate amounts of time denying the truth because of how we fear being perceived. 

[Tessa James]

Its not what we know, its what YOU know.  You know you are feeling increasing levels of dysphoria and the accepted conventional wisdom suggests transition of some kind is the best treatment.  You can find your unique place on the gender spectrum and you still have a supportive spouse to boot.  Your life is never in total ruin until the final gong and you have lots of time to work it out now that you know.  Sure its confusing but so are really fun puzzles we pay to play.

If you can ask the question, "Am I trans?", the answer is yes.  If you weren't, you wouldn't ask the question.

No one wants to be trans.  There are people here who are happy to have discovered their real identity, or who are happy to be transitioning.  But no one wants the suffering of having to deal with it all.  People deal with it because they need to.

Like, you, I just wanted to be a normal guy.  Sometimes, I wondered, but I talked myself out of it, thinking that I just wanted to be normal.  I tried really hard for 60 years to be normal.  Finally, I had to admit that it wasn't working.  If 60 years of effort didn't work, then there is no way in hell that I am ever going to be normal.  It's not something I chose; it's not something I am happy about.  In fact, it is something that I have a lot of trepidation about dealing with.  But now I know that it isn't going to go away.

Admitting this to myself has reduced my anxiety level considerably.  Whether it is down enough that I can just carry on is something that I don't yet know.  Whether I will transition fully or partially, I don't know.  Whether my marriage will survive, I don't know.  All I know is that this is who I am, for better or for worse.

Well said and strongly resonant for me, thank you Kathy

[Kylo]

The determining factors are different to each person's experience I guess, for some it's a strong wish or maybe a not so strong wish, for others like me it's so severe it limits my ability to live a normal life and has changed my life goals significantly from those of most people I know. They are off getting married, having children and building nests to grow old in and here I am just trying to pull the pieces of myself together to try to find what feels like a complete person.

[Jacqueline]

Jayne,

I am me tooing on it all sounding fairly familiar.

I am 51. Married for 25 years with 3 daughters. I never "knew I was a girl the whole time". I felt other and outside my whole life. I thought I was an occasional pervert for most of my life because I would buy (or borrow, when younger) panties and bras. I forgot that when I started doing this, it was before puberty and might have had some sexuality built in but not like later. I was in such denial and confusion that it wasn't till last January that I could approach the idea I was a cross dresser. The problem is that it didn't all fit(so to speak). I didn't want to go back to being a guy, I didn't ever feel like a guy, I just felt like an other or a puppet.

After therapy started, I came to the next conclusion, I am transgender. Not because I fit the mold. Because I could ask myself that(as has been previously stated), and because it felt right(note I did not say good). There are times now where I (I think most of us) rebound and question this thought. However, the symptoms(hate using that word) never go away and often come back stronger.

When I first looked at the idea of being transgender, I was pretty sure it wasn't me. There are a series of questions and mini essays I found that helped me answer for myself and my therapist. Not that it is absolute and measurable.

I think I have rambled enough. I guess I can't answer #1 for you but #2? You don't seem so different from my experience. I wish you love, and acceptance wherever your journey takes you.

With warmth,

Joanna

[Jayne01]

Hi J!

I've replied before, that I'm in a similar boat.  41, married 18 years, 3 children.

I think I knew from early on I was different, but I chalked it up as being weird, defective, or just "wrong".  I spent my life denying I wanted to be a girl.  Over the years, my wife has accused me a number of times of wanting to be female and I always denied it to her, and myself.

The fact that I wore women's panties and shaved my body religiously was enough for her to make the conclusion.  Finally this past year after a huge fight where she again accused me of it, I admitted it to her and myself, that I am trans.  However, I don't know if I will transition, although I want to, because I will lose her and may lose the children if I do.  Many times, I wish I could be rid of the dysphoria and just have my soul match my body.  I just don't see it happening.  Funny thing is, after admitting I'm trans, my wife points out my "male" qualities and says I'd make a horrible woman...

I've purged all feminine things and acted as male as I can many times and always come back to the feminine.  That tells me I am trans, whether or not I wish to be.  In some ways, admitting I am trans, and thinking of NOT transitioning makes it worse... I look at myself in the mirror and dislike the masculine appearance.  On the flip side though, while wearing my breast forms feels right, I also end up feeling fake, and "wrong" again.

I tend to feel like I'm spinning and spinning like a top.  Just when I start to slow down and settle, something starts the spinning all over again.

You're not alone.  You can PM me anytime you wish to talk.

Hi Tommi, thanks for replying, again.

I don't actually remember a time of "wanting" to be a girl. The feeling has been there but never a welcome feeling. Always a feeling of wrong, shame, embarrassment, etc. I think I have buried this stuff so deep that I am having a real problem knowing if it is even real anymore. It kind of feels like a bad dream.

I have shaved my legs a few times over the years and as much as I like the smooth skin feeling, it always leaves me thinking "what have I just done" and end up wearing long pants for next 6-8weeks. My wife and I went shopping before Christmas and we bought a dress for me to wear at home. When I wear it, I feel like a guy wearing a dress and it feels all wrong. Especially when I look in the mirror and see a somewhat overweight guy in a dress looking back at me. There is nothing remotely feminine about my appearance.

And what complicates things even more for me understanding this is that there are times where I am quite happy to be the guy I was born as. I don't mind the way I look (losing some belly fat would be good though), but then there are other times where everything about me is just wrong.

I am so confused! My therapist is working hard to help me, but sometimes I just feel like a lost cause.

J

[Jayne01]

You sound similar to me.

I tried not to do anything, but it was driving me crazy. I got pretty desperate and tried low dose HRT. That felt rather awesome, and then I stopped it. Stopping was worse than before I started. I started again, then stopped, and went round that a few times, and eventually just gave up and stayed on it. It was too hard. I figured that call it what you will, I can't live without HRT.

Some year later I can only say that if I wasn't trans when I started I am now.

I know I'm trans because I tried and failed not to be trans.

HRT will likely convince you one way or another.

Hi AnnonyMs,

I've thought about HRT. It scares me a lot. I have always resisted taking any form of medication unless absolutely necessary. I rarely even take a headache tablet. And how could I start HRT before I even know if I'm trans and want to transition. Wouldn't that be me getting way ahead of myself?

J

[Jayne01]

Hi Jayne,

I don't have the answer you seek but I want to clarify something I said the other day that may have been misunderstood.

I said that in looking for my own answer I hoped that it was transsexual and not something else.  That may have left the impression that I welcomed it.

But that wasn't really what was in my mind.  It was more like this.  I recognized at a fairly early age that I was not the same as everyone else.  I thought it was trans a few years later and then spent the next four decades questioning that.

So when I say I accepted myself early I simply mean that I recognized in myself that I was different and accepted that simply because I saw it as a fact.

When I say I hoped it was trans I didn't mean that I wanted to be trans.  What I meant was that I recognized the fact I was "something" and trans was to me the most acceptable answer.  Other possible answers I felt degraded me, such as being crazy or being a sex fiend pervert.   The reason I felt this way is because in the case of trans my identity was real, if out of the ordinary.  If it was the case of something else then I would be lost and unable to trust even my own mind.  I would have no identity of my own at all.

I'm not sure I'm communicating that very well but it's compressing decades of intense thought into a few sentences.  When I spoke to my therapist I told him that I estimated I had already spent in excess of 12,000 hours thinking and reading about this alone.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Hi Deborah,

Thanks for clearing that up, because I did misunderstand your reply the other day. I have also wondered whether I am crazy, or some kind of sick sex pervert.

I never felt like I fit in from a young age, but being trans didn't enter my mind, or if it did, I have buried those memories so deep that I don't remember. I currently do feel lost and I don't trust my own mind. That is why I am looking for proof that I might be trans, because I don't trust myself. I have often thought of myself as not having my own identity. I am easily swayed by other people's views because I don't have any idea what my own views are.......on any subject. I am a non person! I can relate better with a machine than another human.

Maybe I am some kind of experimental robot that escaped from the lab before being completed.

J

[Jenelle]

I have 2 questions.
1) How can you know for certain that you are transgender? There is no medical test to prove it.

2) Is there anyone out there that has a similar story to mine? From what I have read, people either know they trans from a young age or those that find out later in life welcome it and are happy to be trans. I DON'T want it. I just want to be a normal guy. It is ruining my life.

1. A very long time ago I asked this question and I was told "You just know." At the time I did not understand but now I do. You just know if you are.

2. My story is pretty similar. I did not know from an early age that I am a woman but I always knew something was just not right. It took me FOREVER to figure out what that was even though the answer was just screaming at me. At that point in time, I just could not accept that I am trans.

Like you, I dont want this and for about a year after acknowledging I am trans, I would go through cycles where I was okay with it and desperately looking for any way not to be trans. I finally realized no matter how much I wanted to wish this away, it was not going away. Now I focus on where it is going to take me. Will I fully transition or will I find a spot somewhere along that path and just be happy there? Only time is going to answer that even though I am pretty sure the answer.

[Jayne01]

If you can ask the question, "Am I trans?", the answer is yes.  If you weren't, you wouldn't ask the question.

No one wants to be trans.  There are people here who are happy to have discovered their real identity, or who are happy to be transitioning.  But no one wants the suffering of having to deal with it all.  People deal with it because they need to.

Like, you, I just wanted to be a normal guy.  Sometimes, I wondered, but I talked myself out of it, thinking that I just wanted to be normal.  I tried really hard for 60 years to be normal.  Finally, I had to admit that it wasn't working.  If 60 years of effort didn't work, then there is no way in hell that I am ever going to be normal.  It's not something I chose; it's not something I am happy about.  In fact, it is something that I have a lot of trepidation about dealing with.  But now I know that it isn't going to go away.

Admitting this to myself has reduced my anxiety level considerably.  Whether it is down enough that I can just carry on is something that I don't yet know.  Whether I will transition fully or partially, I don't know.  Whether my marriage will survive, I don't know.  All I know is that this is who I am, for better or for worse.

Hi KathyLauren,

At the risk of sound inoffensive (I have offended people before by saying this), to me being trans is similar to being diagnosed with cancer or having a brain tumour. What I mean by that is that nobody would want those illnesses, but if they have the misfortune to have them, then they need to find a way to deal with it. The same with trans. You don't want it, but if you are trans you have to find a way to deal with it. Does that sound like a reasonable comparison, or am I just wrong and way off the mark?

J

[Asche]

One of the problems I see here is: what exactly does it mean to be trans?

For me, being trans means that living as a man is incompatible with my nature.  I can do it, but it doesn't work very well, and it hurts a lot.  (A TG story I like has the trans character describing it as being like walking around with shoes on the wrong feet.)  And it's been that way all my life, long before I'd ever heard of "transgender" (or "transsexual.")

As I adopt more and more "women" things -- clothing, attitudes, etc. -- I simply feel better.  The world looks brighter.  (Not that all my problems have gone away.)  And since I've started transition, people have remarked that I look happier.

In the long run, what matters isn't whether you fit some canonical definition of "trans."  What matters is whether seeing yourself as trans helps you make sense of and improve your life.

[Dena]

While I didn't have the word for it, I knew I was transgender very early (age 13) because what I felt wasn't normal. I had the word transsexual at the same time and I though that was what I was. When I was in therapy and facing the fact that someday I would have to face a decision on surgery, the doubt started creeping in my thoughts. The decision on surgery was made by weighing my life as a woman against my life as a man and it was clear that I could no longer be happy with the life of a man but the doubt remained up to the moment of surgery. Waking up from surgery was the first moment that I no longer had doubt.

I think it's an issue if you don't have doubt. You need to question everything and if the place you wish to be life requires cross living, try it  so you can weigh the different lives against each other. The person who has no doubt may not be looking at all the facts and risk making a mistake as the result.

[Asche]

What I mean by that is that nobody would want those illnesses, but if they have the misfortune to have them, then they need to find a way to deal with it. The same with trans. You don't want it, but if you are trans you have to find a way to deal with it. Does that sound like a reasonable comparison, or am I just wrong and way off the mark?

Well, I don't feel that way.  While in some ways it would be nice to fit in with the herd, it would also mean that I wouldn't be me.  If someone ever had a magic cure that would make me cis male (or maybe even cis female), it would feel like they were exterminating me and replacing me with some more socially acceptable construct that just happened to look like me, sort of like Stepford Wives.

I've suffered a lot for being the way I am, but I refuse to blame my suffering on my nature.  I blame it on the narrow-minded bigots that spent my formative years tormenting me for being different.  There's nothing wrong with being trans, nothing wrong with my being trans, and nothing wrong with my not being the way other people insist I have to be.  There's something wrong with a society that makes life hell for people simply because they don't fit some people's stupid prejudices.

[KathyLauren]

to me being trans is similar to being diagnosed with cancer or having a brain tumour. What I mean by that is that nobody would want those illnesses, but if they have the misfortune to have them, then they need to find a way to deal with it. The same with trans. You don't want it, but if you are trans you have to find a way to deal with it. Does that sound like a reasonable comparison, or am I just wrong and way off the mark?

I would say that is a fair way to put it.  Gender dysphoria (i.e. "being trans") is a medical condition caused by pre-natal hormones with possibly genetic or epigenetic influences, and the way those physical influences interact with society's expectations.

The challenge is to find a personally suitable way to deal with it.  Just as there are a whole range of dysphoria experiences, there are a whole range of solutions, from doing nothing to a full transition and everything in between.

[Devlyn]

I had no torture associated with the discovery that I am transgender, just a period of learning. It's an overly broad generalization that all transgender people hate being transgender.

Hugs, Devlyn

[Jayne01]

Its not what we know, its what YOU know.  You know you are feeling increasing levels of dysphoria and the accepted conventional wisdom suggests transition of some kind is the best treatment.  You can find your unique place on the gender spectrum and you still have a supportive spouse to boot.  Your life is never in total ruin until the final gong and you have lots of time to work it out now that you know.  Sure its confusing but so are really fun puzzles we pay to play.

Well said and strongly resonant for me, thank you Kathy

Hi Tessa James,

The thing is I don't know! My mind is in this fog that I can't seem to escape out of, so I can't see anything clearly. Everything is confusing and I'm just not certain. To do something as huge as transitioning, I would thing you need to be 100% certain of what you want. I don't even know what I am, let alone what I want to do about it.

J