There is no solution to this.....or maybe there is!

[dr.tina]

Jayne,

I am pretty new to all of this, however I have been reading everything that has been posted. Please bare with me if I forgot anything. From what I understand, is you can't fully comprehend your emotions which is a problem in of itself coupled with need to be sure about what you "are." I am very new to the community here as being that I have shared a bit of my story (See Introductions) but on top of just recently dropping the T-bomb on my Girlfriend of 2 years I can understand how unnerving it can be. When I told her that I wanted to start looking to change she was kind of put off by it, but then I gave her a ultimatum. Not only did I give her one, it was the same one I had given myself.

Have you ever heard of Schrodinger's Cat? Schrodinger was a scientist of sorts, who wanted to reflect how to determine something without doing anything to actually determine it. Which didn't make much since to his peers, but he did his experiment anyways. For his experiment Schrodinger took his feline companion and placed it inside a wooden box and sealed it. No windows, no air holes, nor food or water. Just a cat in a box, and left it in his lab for a week without even giving it a second though. The next week he took the box and placed it on the table and asked his peers if the cat was alive or dead. Of course his peers laughed and claimed it was dead, but here is the kicker. As scientists they can only base judgement about the cat based on what they can only observe, the could only look at the box and were expected to give a highly educated guess about the cat being alive or dead.

Stumped with this, the cat being alive or dead was inconclusive based on what observe. Now we get to why I think this is relative to you, because you are the box. The cat inside is your mental gender if you will, With out knowing if the cat is alive (male) or dead (female) and have no choice but to ultimately open the box and really see what is inside of it. You could go about it a few ways like doing low doses of HRT or eating foods that help your body produce estrogen, to talking with your wife about what is going on with you, or lastly really self evaluating yourself. The only other option is to just leave the box alone and try not to think about it (Bury it) which will only make you want to open the box even more later on.

Just some food for thought.

-James

Lovely reply I Donno what to tell, but awesomeness

Sent from my Moto G using Tapatalk

[Deborah]

I like your box analogy as it mirrors what I went through.  I was pretty sure I was trans but not 100% certain because the box remained closed.  What helped me was to examine alternative explanations.  The only two I could come up with was that I was either really trans or if not I was bat ->-bleeped-<- crazy!!!!  When I finally did go to a therapist my feeling was that if I could definitively rule out the second explanation it would confirm the first.  Well, I'm not crazy so therefore I am trans.


Sapere Aude

[Gendermutt]

I think the reason why no one really wants to give you a specific "diagnosis" of being transgender, is because it is not a thing. It is not a medical condition. It is not a mental illness. I am brand new to this forum, but not entirely new to my own acceptance of myself as transgender. I am newer than a lot of people on this and other forums (3&1/2 years) since I accepted myself as transgender. I would have said no to the question are you trans 4 years ago. I really made myself believe I wasn't, so in a way, I wouldn't have been lying. Not to them anyway. To myself, lying, denial perhaps.

Over the 3&1/2 years, I have learned just how diverse transgender really is. The reason is because transgender is a state of being. The only thing transgender people really have in common is something which takes us to the opposite gender from our biological gender. That something, can be anything that takes us there. It can be always, half the time, just very occasionally. It could be actions like dressing, or behaviors that are mostly associated with the opposite gender. It could be nothing more than a state of identity. You have to cross dress to be a cross dresser. But you do not have to cross dress to be transgender. You don't have to DO anything. You can live your life 100% as your biological gender. That is a choice some transgender people make. (not many)

I think lately, the media has got the term transgender to become something that people are starting to associate with those who will completely live as the opposite of their birth gender. (think Caitlyn Jenner) and the entire world has seen her now live completely different than when she was Bruce Jenner. There have been a few others. Kristen Beck, a member of seal team 6 who now lives as a woman. So that is how people are thinking of transgender. They changed everything, and some transgender people do, but not all of us do.

Being transgender is not about a diagnosis, it is about acceptance of yourself. What if anything you do about it is entirely up to you. Bigger than anything that I "do" like dressing, or doing my nails, shaving my legs, is just letting my mind be free to be transgender. Just being able to sit here and type I am feminine and be at peace with that. That is bigger for me than anything else.

[jayne01]

Have you asked your therapist this question?  "Am I trans, or something else?"  Surely they must have an opinion one way or the other.


Sapere Aude

Yes I have. Several times. I have worded the question different ways also. Each time the answer is that they don't know and cannot know, only I can answer that question.

This is coming from 3 very well respected therapists, 2 of which deal exclusively with gender identity.

Maybe I have had the wrong expectation from psychologists. It seems that they don't tell you anything. They just listen and supposedly guide you into answering your own questions. That doesn't help when the answers to the questions don't exist.

[jayne01]

Jayne,

I am pretty new to all of this, however I have been reading everything that has been posted. Please bare with me if I forgot anything. From what I understand, is you can't fully comprehend your emotions which is a problem in of itself coupled with need to be sure about what you "are." I am very new to the community here as being that I have shared a bit of my story (See Introductions) but on top of just recently dropping the T-bomb on my Girlfriend of 2 years I can understand how unnerving it can be. When I told her that I wanted to start looking to change she was kind of put off by it, but then I gave her a ultimatum. Not only did I give her one, it was the same one I had given myself.

Have you ever heard of Schrodinger's Cat? Schrodinger was a scientist of sorts, who wanted to reflect how to determine something without doing anything to actually determine it. Which didn't make much since to his peers, but he did his experiment anyways. For his experiment Schrodinger took his feline companion and placed it inside a wooden box and sealed it. No windows, no air holes, nor food or water. Just a cat in a box, and left it in his lab for a week without even giving it a second though. The next week he took the box and placed it on the table and asked his peers if the cat was alive or dead. Of course his peers laughed and claimed it was dead, but here is the kicker. As scientists they can only base judgement about the cat based on what they can only observe, the could only look at the box and were expected to give a highly educated guess about the cat being alive or dead.

Stumped with this, the cat being alive or dead was inconclusive based on what observe. Now we get to why I think this is relative to you, because you are the box. The cat inside is your mental gender if you will, With out knowing if the cat is alive (male) or dead (female) and have no choice but to ultimately open the box and really see what is inside of it. You could go about it a few ways like doing low doses of HRT or eating foods that help your body produce estrogen, to talking with your wife about what is going on with you, or lastly really self evaluating yourself. The only other option is to just leave the box alone and try not to think about it (Bury it) which will only make you want to open the box even more later on.

Just some food for thought.

-James

Hi James,

Thanks for your post. I'm sorry, I don't understand what you mean about the cat in the box. There are so many variables, how could you know if the cat is alive or dead. There is not enough information to make that determination. You could only make a best guess. How big is the box? How much body fat and how healthy is the cat? Is the box completely airtight or can air seep in through the material the box is made from? How much humidity is in the air? What is the temperature? Did the cat just slip into a coma? I'm not sure how to relate your analogy to being trans. Sorry, I don't understand....

[jayne01]

I think the reason why no one really wants to give you a specific "diagnosis" of being transgender, is because it is not a thing. It is not a medical condition. It is not a mental illness.

I agree with you that being transgender is not a mental illness, but you say it is not a medical condition? Everything I have read and documentaries I have watched suggest that it is a medical condition. It is caused by something that happens before being born where you get a mismatch in the timing and type of hormones so that your brain and body gender are not aligned. Correct me if I am wrong, but that is how I understand it which would make it a medical condition, or biological condition if you don't like the word "medical".

[SadieBlake]

Jayne,

A more 'feminine' brain in a male body or vise versa is certainly a cause but it's not the only one and more to the point it's not one there is any test for. I think that's the case with me but I could not tell you for certain whether I was more feminine brained when I was young or if the substantial abuse by my family influenced me in that direction.

I do know I'm more comfortable femme than not, I also learned a LOT of very masculine behaviors in order to survive. I'm also very comfortable participating in my own treatment and diagnosis.

Ok you're a mechanic / technician and maybe you're not all that sophisticated in your thinking but try to look at it this way.

Obviously physics could explain chemistry and certainly quantum chemistry is being used to better understand chemistry and bio-chemistry, however to date it's incredibly expensive and limited in application. Chemistry as a field is understood and practiced without general reference to physics / quantum mechanics (same thing for electronics btw).

Chemistry could explain biology - same thing, there is no indication that we will anytime soon or ever be able to fully reduce biology to chemistry or physics. Genetics, population genetics etc etc etc obey rules that certainly obey the rules of physics, however we again speak in terms of the rules of biology.

Medicine does not reduce to bio and within medicine diagnosis is the hardest part - in fact most physicians aren't very good at diagnosis and it's not hard to demonstrate that there are expert-based software systems that can diagnose better than 95% of doctors. I've been mis-diagnosed often enough to have experienced this personally and when I do have a medical condition I tend to educate myself on the details to be sure I get the best care possible.

Psychology / psychiatry are even less exact sciences. The therapist is entirely relying on you for their information and you can never be fully objective about what's going on in your head. In my experience the best shrinks are pretty good about telling when a client is not being truthful or not truthful with themselves (and hence unable to be fully truthful to others). Even the conditions that are more decidedly biochemical such as depression are not always addressable by drug treatments and the side effects can be brutal (I have more experience than I care to remember with anti-depressants).

You've heard your own therapists and quite a few people here trying the help you in this all say variations on the same theme. I'm now going to say please accept that, stop whinging and accept that the path is rarely as cut and dried as you want it to be. For most of us it's a process of many years or decades and takes lots of work. Suppose you decide to transition, passing requires learning to change posture, your vocal patterns, mannerisms and fundamentally how you relate to others. It's not just about going on hormones and getting surgery.

[Gendermutt]

A true medical or biological condition would be intersex. Intersex people have true biological gender abnormality. incomplete male or female genitialia. sometimes having both. May outwardly have all the typical features of one gender, but the the genitalia of the other. There are certain medical conditions which may cause a person to have these issues. Klinefelter syndrome often attributes to an intersex condition. People with Kinefelter syndrome often never hit puberty. Have un-descended testicles. extremely small genitialia. A much higher pitched voice than a typical male will have. Often will have some gynocomastia. (male breasts.) These would be medical conditions, which also may cause some people to experience  being transgender, but not always.

Dysphoria, which you say you suffer from, is often because the brain tells us one thing, while our bodies are the opposite. Transgender people often will have nothing about their body in a biological sense that has anything wrong with it, apart from any normal medical condition. Their hormone levels will be in the typical range, males will hit puberty at a typical age. All of the usual changes resulting in puberty will take place. It is those changes which often make the dysphoria very difficult, along with the expectations of society, the identity others see us as. Our genitalia which we may feel is alien to us. Many who are TS have said to have felt that their genitalia is simply wrong, and they hate it, along with all of the rest of their characteristics.

There is very little which can be found even in autopsies which will indicate anything about a person that would show being transgender. There is no blood test, or any other physical test which will show a transgender condition. I  would agree and will assume most who are transgender will agree that something does occur in pre birth. Transgender does not discriminate based on race or geography. There is nothing in the water which causes it. Nothing which has ever been found to make or more or less likely during pregnancy. There are no predictors to being transgender.

What that something really is???  Some sort of wiring that causes transgender people to identify or relate to the opposite biological sex. It has in the past been considered a mental illness. Transvetic fetishism, or transexualism. Now thankfully the DSM has removed transgender and sub terms from it being considered a mental illness. Transgender people sometimes suffer from depression or other mental illness as a result of the difficulties of being transgender. 

There are crossdressers who occasionally dress, never in anyway feel they are women, or men for FTM. They always internally identify as male, even when dressed. some do not consider themselves to be transgender, and who is anyone to argue that? It really is a personal thing, and it isn't a diagnosis, it is just an acceptance of who you are.

[Deborah]

Nothing which has ever been found to make or more or less likely during pregnancy. There are no predictors to being transgender.

Actually it has been found.  Exogenous hormones taken in by a pregnant mother disrupts the development of the child in utero and causes a variety of problems including this one.

[itsApril]

Have you ever heard of Schrodinger's Cat? Schrodinger was a scientist of sorts, who wanted to reflect how to determine something without doing anything to actually determine it. Which didn't make much since to his peers, but he did his experiment anyways. For his experiment Schrodinger took his feline companion and placed it inside a wooden box and sealed it. No windows, no air holes, nor food or water. Just a cat in a box, and left it in his lab for a week without even giving it a second though. The next week he took the box and placed it on the table and asked his peers if the cat was alive or dead. Of course his peers laughed and claimed it was dead, but here is the kicker. As scientists they can only base judgement about the cat based on what they can only observe, the could only look at the box and were expected to give a highly educated guess about the cat being alive or dead.

I don't mean to derail the thread.  I just want to point out that Schrodinger's Cat was just a thought experiment.  It's not something that was ever done to a real cat.  No cats were harmed in the course of this experiment in quantum physics . . .

for further information:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schrödinger%27s_cat

[JMJW]

Jayne01, look at the change of Sona Avedian.

What was feminine about the before pic? Nothing.

Don't feel like you should force anything. Just relax and let it come to you. And when the time comes, and you're ready, you can enjoy it.

Until then, don't worry about the am I or arent I. It sounds cheesy but let your heart do the talking. Not the hard logic that wants an empirical answer now. That won't get you anywhere besides more anxiety. Remember, anxiety works in cycles and feeds of itself.   

[jayne01]

Don't feel like you should force anything. Just relax and let it come to you. And when the time comes, and you're ready, you can enjoy it.

Until then, don't worry about the am I or arent I. It sounds cheesy but let your heart do the talking. Not the hard logic that wants an empirical answer now. That won't get you anywhere besides more anxiety. Remember, anxiety works in cycles and feeds of itself.   

Relax and let it come to me? I am almost 44 years old. It hasn't come to me yet. Am I supposed to just sit around and watch my life go by hoping that something will just come to me?

If I am trans, I have zero chance of ever passing as female, do society will always see me as some type of freak. I have seen plenty of the before and after pictures on here and no amount of hormones will turn me into a girl. I have an enormous head, even by make standards. That alone will be an instant giveaway. As I said at the beginning, I cannot see how there is any solution to this. I was simply never meant to be. One day my life will run out and the world will keep on spinning like I was never here.

[JMJW]

 Chilling out isn't the same as doing nothing. It's quieting down your mind so you can hear your true self better. What you've been doing so far hasn't been working. Trying to force the issue hasn't gotten it closer to being answered. 

About passing,you can't look at your face now and say there's no chance because only those with exceptional genetics can pass at 44 sans surgery in all honesty.  The thing about not passing is that it tells people that yes trans people exist - get used to it -  rather than blending in and being non challenging. Many trans activists have seen that as a positive thing. 

You could still have a consultation at some point with a good facial feminization surgeon to see what can be done. But you have to get past this psychological gridlock and decide to take action first.

[Jacqueline]

I don't mean to derail the thread.  I just want to point out that Schrodinger's Cat was just a thought experiment.  It's not something that was ever done to a real cat.  No cats were harmed in the course of this experiment in quantum physics . . .

April,
Thanks. We mind melded on that one.

Joanna

[Violets]

Relax and let it come to me? I am almost 44 years old. It hasn't come to me yet.

At 44, I still hadn't fully accepted I was trans, even though I'd already tried (and failed) to transition years earlier.

If I am trans, I have zero chance of ever passing as female...

Not all trans people need to transition and/or present publicly, so the passing issue is often a moot point.

As I said at the beginning, I cannot see how there is any solution to this.

This is just my humble opinion and I do not mean to offend, but from reading your previous posts, you seem to be going around in circles. Personally, I don't think you're ready to accept who you are yet. Acceptance needs to come from the inside, not from the findings of a therapist.

I think you'll finally be able to fully accept yourself as trans when the pain from the dysphoria gets to the point where it's totally unbearable, at which point you'll be forced to take meaningful steps to reduce that pain. Most likely, this will involve trialling low dose HRT. It's then that you'll begin to find the solution you're searching for.

[SadieBlake]

Relax and let it come to me? I am almost 44 years old. It hasn't come to me yet. Am I supposed to just sit around and watch my life go by hoping that something will just come to me?

If I am trans, I have zero chance of ever passing as female, do society will always see me as some type of freak. I have seen plenty of the before and after pictures on here and no amount of hormones will turn me into a girl. I have an enormous head, even by make standards. That alone will be an instant giveaway. As I said at the beginning, I cannot see how there is any solution to this. I was simply never meant to be. One day my life will run out and the world will keep on spinning like I was never here.

Yeah exactly. I was in fact 44 when I'd made enough progress in therapy to feel OK with myself as trans and decided I wouldn't then proceed with transition and simply live my life being femme in private, publicly presenting as male and also out about orientation where it felt appropriate. Getting to that point involved getting quiet enough inside to feel comfortable in making my decision -- not being thrown by every passing emotion.

My decision was certainly influenced by some practical considerations. I didn't have health coverage, finances were pretty tight and lime you I felt passing would be difficult ** not impossible ** I know how to make myself passably femme in spite of being 6', 220 lbs and quite muscular. I also decided the time involved in passing for female is more than I could commit.

Today part of my decision to start HRT and reconsider full transition is that my surgery etc would be fully covered by insurance. I still don't think I'm going to proceed to GRS, however I've told the world I'm transitioning and that my endpoint is probably gender-fluid.

It took another 16 years to get to that point, so what? I don't regret the time, the difference is only that I'll be expressing gender fluid generally rather than only among a small circle.

[jayne01]

How can you live life not knowing what you are? It is torture for me. I always feel like I am an outsider, an observer. I'm in a glass bubble watching other people live their lives but I'm not included because I'm not real or something like that. I keep waiting to one day wake up and be told that I was part of some cosmic science project. I don't even know where to go for help. This website is great, but is very anonymous. It is just words on a screen. I know you are all real people that are trying to help, but I have never met any of you and you don't know me just like I don't know any of you.

My therapists seem unable to help me, not from lack of trying either. They are trying very hard, but so far nothing is working. I sent them an email earlier today telling them how angry I am at them for not telling me what is wrong with me and not wanting to help me. Who does that to the very people who are trying to help? It all just makes me think I am an awful person that has done something terrible in a past life (if there is such a thing) and now I am being punished for it.

I just want to be a normal guy! Why is that so much to ask for?

[Rebecca]

Have you had any bloodwork done?

Might be a long shot but low T in men can cause unrest potentially even a degree of dysphoria.

Bear in mind this is a guess at a possibility only.

In the end only you can say who or what you are but the mind is affected by the body.

If your brain is designed to run on E then T can seriously mess with your head (probably just me though) and vice versa.

Only other thing you might want to try is taking a T blocker and E for a month and then review.

[jayne01]

Have you had any bloodwork done?

Might be a long shot but low T in men can cause unrest potentially even a degree of dysphoria.

Bear in mind this is a guess at a possibility only.

In the end only you can say who or what you are but the mind is affected by the body.

If your brain is designed to run on E then T can seriously mess with your head (probably just me though) and vice versa.

Only other thing you might want to try is taking a T blocker and E for a month and then review.

No I haven't had any kind of tests. I keep getting told there are no tests available. Having said that, judging by the amount of body hair I have (think gorilla!), I am guessing I don't have low T.

[Deborah]

I don't think body hair is a reliable measure of T level.  I had pretty high T along with really sparse body hair all my life.  The genetic component is much more influential than just the T level.


Sapere Aude