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

[Gendermutt]

We are all trying John. Just trying to help you to accept whatever it is that brought you to this site. My suggestions are to not think long term or of serious actions just yet. I think that overwhelms you. Although I do get what autumn is saying about low dose HRT, it might make you feel a little more comfortable, without serious or permanent effects, most of which those who take the bigger doses and t blockers actually take them for, along with emotional peace and stability.

I think even the term transgender may be throwing you a bit. You do have some sort of gender variance, or you wouldn't have looked for a site or become a member of one. And Most of us understand how hard it is to accept this. Most of us have stories of taking many years to really come to terms with it. So we do understand

I suggest taking it easy on yourself. Accept yourself 1st before thinking about what course of action you may end up taking, if any. Some are happy to just occasionally dress. Some just add some femininity to their everyday lives, and some go further, and or live their lives as female  and make whatever changes to accommodate that. Maybe you just need to take a little break from it all. Or just hang out in other areas of the forum that are not so into major changes of lifestyle or actions like HRT. There is non binary, crossdressing.... A little less drastic perhaps, and may not feel so overwhelming. Many CDers do identify as male. On forums though they do often use female pronouns, but not all do. Just some thoughts.

[jayne01]

I think even the term transgender may be throwing you a bit. You do have some sort of gender variance, or you wouldn't have looked for a site or become a member of one. And Most of us understand how hard it is to accept this. Most of us have stories of taking many years to really come to terms with it. So we do understand

I suggest taking it easy on yourself. Accept yourself 1st before thinking about what course of action you may end up taking, if any. Some are happy to just occasionally dress. Some just add some femininity to their everyday lives, and some go further, and or live their lives as female  and make whatever changes to accommodate that. Maybe you just need to take a little break from it all. Or just hang out in other areas of the forum that are not so into major changes of lifestyle or actions like HRT. There is non binary, crossdressing.... A little less drastic perhaps, and may not feel so overwhelming. Many CDers do identify as male. On forums though they do often use female pronouns, but not all do. Just some thoughts.

I really do appreciate everything here is trying to do for me. This time last year I didn't even know what the word transgender was. I used to think transgender, transsexual, ->-bleeped-<- were all the same thing and were all a lifestyle choice that some people made. I now know better, but it is still very hard for me to accept that I fit in under the trans umbrella. I suppose technically, if trans includes everything from cis male to cis female and everything in between, then the whole planet could be identified as trans. I'll try and keep it simple for my overloaded brain and refer to trans as anyone that is not cis. I'm getting sidetracked again...

You say most have stories of taking many years to come to terms with it. It has been less than a year for me and my brain is in overdrive trying to process all this new (to me) knowledge. I know you have all been very patient with me, please try and keep that patience while I catch up.

As far as crossdressing goes, that does nothing for me. It actually makes me feel worse about myself. For me, it is like putting on a costume for a costume party or something along those lines. It feels very fake and does not seem to serve any purpose. I speak only for me, I know it means different things to different people. I think I would have even more trouble accepting myself as a crossdressing man than a trans woman.

I don't always have these dysphoria feelings. I often feel perfectly fine being me and even the thought of being feminine in the slightest feels very wrong. Maybe that is a life of denial, shame, fear, etc taking over and giving me a false sense of feeling right being male, or maybe it is true that I am all male and there is something else going on. I honestly don't know. I try to answer that question every day and it is confusing the hell out of me. I try reading other people's stories to see if I can relate to them to help me find the answer, but I cannot. Every story I have read, there is always some overwhelming desire to be feminine in some way, usually from a young age. Many have not done anything until later life, but there always seems to be some kind of tie to their childhood where they had a sense that something wasn't quite right. I have not been able to find that childhood link with me. I don't remember much of my childhood, which is a possible reason why I also don't remember any gender issues from my childhood. My memory is mostly blank with snippets here and there which I can recall, but for the most part it is blank.

[Gendermutt]

How many frequent flyer miles am I getting for this thread John??  lol. BTW, feel free to message me too if you have any particular questions about my acceptance of myself or whatever. But I will post messages here on the public forum because I so entirely relate to what you are going through.  So much so. It is like listening to a recording of myself 5 years ago. My hope is there may be someone else in a similar situation you are feeling, and that I felt for such a long time that may be reading this.

I cannot even begin to describe the circus that used to go through my brain. The denial, the self loathing. The beliefs I really had about what I liked or didn't like. Now I am saying this only of myself.... but I used to HATE the feeling of long nails. I used to clip mine very short, couldn't stand them even coming close to even with the tips of my fingers. And now, I let mine grow a little past the tips. Why did I hate the feeling so much? Because I wanted to hate the feeling. Along with going anywhere near anything feminine whatsoever. Salons, women's clothing sections, girly movies. You name it. I was transphobic to say the least. Because my crazy brain thought it I stayed away from anything feminine, it would make me not want it. I literally kept telling myself over and over and  over again that I did not like something, and I believed it too. Really believed it.

Transgender is a huge spectrum. But the word lately is now applying more for those who are more completely internally opposite their birth gender. Which is why I am using the word gender variance a lot lately. Not for me necessarily, but it is just another term. A more encompassing term. Non binary is part of the spectrum officially, but those who are NB really do not have an identity that is female, not entirely. They may be feminine, or just not able to relate to their gender specifically.

I personally am gender fluid. I have male identity as well as female identity. CDing works for me as an outlet. HRT is not for me. Transition is not for me. I am never saying there won't be a day when it is. I say this because 5 years ago I was not anywhere on the TG map. Yet here I am. I know how I feel now, and that is all I can go by.

That is why I am saying to not put the cart before the horse. I know of CDers who are in their late 70's and have been CDing without any transition HRT or anything for nearly 70 years. They never go anywhere with it. It just is for them and it works. There are those who are just dead in the middle androgynous. NB or whatever, and they never pick a side, because for them there isn't a side to pick. There are those like me who are fluid and have been for many decades, and that is where it is. They have found their gender equilibrium so to speak. I am just trying to let you know how vast it all is, and that you may end up anywhere in all of it.

[autumn08]

I don't always have these dysphoria feelings. I often feel perfectly fine being me and even the thought of being feminine in the slightest feels very wrong. Maybe that is a life of denial, shame, fear, etc taking over and giving me a false sense of feeling right being male, or maybe it is true that I am all male and there is something else going on. I honestly don't know. I try to answer that question every day and it is confusing the hell out of me.

By asking this question, you're still viewing gender dysphoria as a symptom of something that is wrong with you, rather than a set of your innate affinities. Just like I have affinity to be female, I also have an affinity for music, and just because I don't constantly think about music and sometimes would rather not listen to music, doesn't mean I don't have an affinity for music.

Also, yeah, its your internalized-transphobia that is causing you to sometimes feel being male is right. If you do one day transition, maybe you'll want to keep some of your male attributes, because maybe a part of you does enjoy feeling male, but you definitely desire to cross through the female threshold.

I try reading other people's stories to see if I can relate to them to help me find the answer, but I cannot. Every story I have read, there is always some overwhelming desire to be feminine in some way, usually from a young age. Many have not done anything until later life, but there always seems to be some kind of tie to their childhood where they had a sense that something wasn't quite right. I have not been able to find that childhood link with me. I don't remember much of my childhood, which is a possible reason why I also don't remember any gender issues from my childhood. My memory is mostly blank with snippets here and there which I can recall, but for the most part it is blank.

Just like you're suppressing your feminine desires now, I would wager you also suppressed them in childhood. Regardless of if you did or didn't though, there are innumerable factors that shape our experience of gender dysphoria, so why do you feel your narrative needs to fit someone else's narrative?

Again, you're trying to make a diagnosis, when its your attempt to diagnose yourself that is causing your pain. Honor yourself and when you want to be feminine, be feminine, and when you don't want to be feminine, don't. You must realize that you'll eventually need to build this ability, if you're to get out of this rut.


P.S. I can see you're making progress, so I think this forum is valuable to you, but I also worry that you're unintentionally using it as a way to vent your pain, so you don't need to act upon your pain in the external world. You're at a roadblock and I don't think your current course of action is enough to break through it.

Just circling around the roadblock isn't a tenable course of action, as you'll eventually run out of fuel, and then who knows where you'll end up. Therefore, in order increase the probability that you end up on a relatively auspicious path, you need to add more positive influencing factors, so at the very minimum, follow through on joining a support group. 

[LizK]

As far as crossdressing goes, that does nothing for me. It actually makes me feel worse about myself. For me, it is like putting on a costume for a costume party or something along those lines. It feels very fake and does not seem to serve any purpose. I speak only for me, I know it means different things to different people. I think I would have even more trouble accepting myself as a crossdressing man than a trans woman.

I don't always have these dysphoria feelings. I often feel perfectly fine being me and even the thought of being feminine in the slightest feels very wrong. Maybe that is a life of denial, shame, fear, etc taking over and giving me a false sense of feeling right being male, or maybe it is true that I am all male and there is something else going on. I honestly don't know. I try to answer that question every day and it is confusing the hell out of me. I try reading other people's stories to see if I can relate to them to help me find the answer, but I cannot. Every story I have read, there is always some overwhelming desire to be feminine in some way, usually from a young age. Many have not done anything until later life, but there always seems to be some kind of tie to their childhood where they had a sense that something wasn't quite right. I have not been able to find that childhood link with me. I don't remember much of my childhood, which is a possible reason why I also don't remember any gender issues from my childhood. My memory is mostly blank with snippets here and there which I can recall, but for the most part it is blank.

Jayne seriously I am sure you plucked that thought about crossdressing straight out of my subconscious...One of the very many reasons I began to look harder and harder at myself in early 2000 was because of this reason...I was a crossdresser and nothing else...so why did crossdressing leave me so upset? It kind of felt like playing at something, wearing a wig felt like I was a "bit player" in someones comedy sketch..but I couldn't control the strong need to dress this way...but in the end the issue was fairly simple...I didn't want to look like a woman I wanted to be a woman. Simple answer but a lifetime to get there.

I think memories from younger days can be tricky, if you had asked me when I was 10 I don't know that I could have articulated it any other way than, I think I want to be a girl but you would have had to have pulled my nails out to get me to say it because at this point in my life I began to realise very slowly that I felt differently about things than my brothers...all the other stuff I remember is only significant to me because of particularly strong emotions that went with it. As a youngster of 5 or 6 I didn't have the capacity to really understand how or what I was feeling and had no reason to think it wasn't normal to feel this way...everyone felt this way didn't they??? Looking back I can see it now but then.... Puberty is the time in my life when I gained the real sense of who I was, as opposed to who I was supposed to be. Its easy to look back at childhood and interpret things in a certain way but at the end of the day, what does any of that have to do with how you feel now? Would having those memories change how you feel now or give how you feel validation?

Since making the decision to go forward with transition all those questions have become less important to me and questions about my future are more prevalent. It was my Psychologist who put it to me and asked the question, what difference any of the childhood memories really made to how I was feeling now. I had a number of things that I couldn't quite get a hold of from my childhood but they could easily have had no real significance, other than what I was putting on it now. I didn't want to hear this because I thought I needed those memories to support/validate why I was Trans...as it is I do have early memories that relate to being a girl and my desire...many of them I can't even put an age on and are not particularly clear. (Too many years of booze and drugs)

I hope some of that helps

Liz K

[JoanneB]

...Every story I have read, there is always some overwhelming desire to be feminine in some way, usually from a young age. Many have not done anything until later life, but there always seems to be some kind of tie to their childhood where they had a sense that something wasn't quite right....

Chicken & Egg, Which came first

Retrospectively speaking I have no doubt the a majority eventually came to recognize events of the past and their repression. On woman in my group swears she had zip, zilch, nada, zero idea till some time in her 30's when her SO while role playing got her into a dress. Who am I to judge?

While others, such as me, knew full well they just wanted to be "Normal". Yet..... The prime directive was always "Normal", though some pushing the envelope may have taken place. Sometimes with disastrous results. Suppress and move on

[jayne01]

By asking this question, you're still viewing gender dysphoria as a symptom of something that is wrong with you...

Not necessarily wrong with me, but it is certainly a symptom of something.....

...so why do you feel your narrative needs to fit someone else's narrative?

It will never fit someone else's narrative. We are all different. I am looking for common ground. We are all different, but not entirely 100% different. There has to be some kind of overlapping common experience that would place us in one group or another. It is that commonality I am trying to find.

...when you want to be feminine, be feminine, and when you don't want to be feminine, don't...

How is that even possible? HRT takes years to work. How can you just switch back and forth between being feminine and masculine? There is not one single feminine feature about me. I am hairy, have a gigantic Neanderthal looking head, hairy, have a deep voice and act just like any other guy. No matter how drunk or high on drugs you may be, you will never mistake me as feminine. So how can one just switch between feminine and not feminine without any help from HRT/surgery, which makes the switching back and forth part kind of impossible.

[jayne01]

...Its easy to look back at childhood and interpret things in a certain way but at the end of the day, what does any of that have to do with how you feel now? Would having those memories change how you feel now or give how you feel validation?...

Yes, it would give me some kind of validation. While these feelings seem to exist now, if I could link them back to my childhood I would be able to see that this has been a lifelong thing and it would make more sense to me. If being trans was not something determined before birth and instead was something that randomly occurred at any age due to whatever, then I would understand my feelings now in a better way. However, all the research shows that being trans is determined during pregnancy before birth, so it stands to reason that at some point in your early childhood you would have these feelings of something not being quite right. 43 is well past childhood age!

[ryokohimura]

Yes, it would give me some kind of validation. While these feelings seem to exist now, if I could link them back to my childhood I would be able to see that this has been a lifelong thing and it would make more sense to me. If being trans was not something determined before birth and instead was something that randomly occurred at any age due to whatever, then I would understand my feelings now in a better way. However, all the research shows that being trans is determined during pregnancy before birth, so it stands to reason that at some point in your early childhood you would have these feelings of something not being quite right. 43 is well past childhood age!

It took me till 32. I turn 33 next week. I would have fought you tooth and nail upto as soon as a year ago if someone said I was trans. "No, I'm just you average dude." Nope. I really don't know what prompted my realization last October, but it did. It saved my life. Looking back? Prefered hanging with girls, especially after thirteen. Didn't understand what the guys around me were going through. How they could behave the way they did. At 12-13, wanting to develop into a full fledged woman. Male puberty was just...something I didn't want. I had no clue what was going on. No one around me had any clue what being transgender was. It was the 90s. The 90s sucked, especially for a young girl trying to play "boy". When I did learn about us, I was oddly ok with the idea. Maybe something clicked subconsciously and took another years to surface?

How are you supposed to know you are something, if you don't know what it is? Most professionals are going to assume depression or anxiety. That's what they did with me. I'm beginning to think a lot of it is meditation and reflection. I wish I could say something to help, but honestly....I dunno.

[jayne01]

...Looking back? Prefered hanging with girls, especially after thirteen. Didn't understand what the guys around me were going through. How they could behave the way they did. At 12-13, wanting to develop into a full fledged woman. Male puberty was just...something I didn't want. I had no clue what was going on...

Thank you. That is exactly what I am trying to say. Everyone that identifies as trans always has some link back to their childhood where they knew something was up. Even if they didn't know it at the time, thinking back retrospectively, the feelings were there.

You say that you didn't believe you were trans into your 30's and have only started accepting it within the past year, yet you have memories of wanting to develop into a woman when you were 12-13. I don't have any such memories.

I didn't ever really fit in with the other guys at school, but I didn't fit in with girls either. I just didn't fit. I was a bit of a nerd though, so maybe that is why I didn't fit.

I wish there was something in my childhood memories (what few I can recall), that could give more credit to what I am feeling now. It would all make so much more sense to me.

[ryokohimura]

Jayne, I think a lot of what gets to me about your situation is that I see a bit of myself. I grew up in Southeastern Massachusetts during the 90s. Kennedy Country. You didn't even come out as gay there. I remember hearing about an expose on lesbians Channel 5 (or was it 7?) Could your neighbor be a lesbian? Find out at 10!

And here's the thing, all those things I mentioned? Never thought of them as more than a passing oddity. I was always told "some guys have those feelings" and that I was just odd. My friends and family were not only clueless but useless. I love them dearly but they just made me feel worse. My memories weren't some assurance leading to a revelation. They didn't even make sense till after October 11th, 2015. It was a sunday, it was overcast and for some reason I had gone out wandering that day.

If I sound hostile, I don't mean to. I wish one of my therapists had told me years ago. I could have avoided years of torture, unnecessary anti-depressants and mood stabilisers, false depression/anxiety/bi-polar diagnoses and suicidal thoughts. I could be married, have a family, contributing to society in a meaningful way, anything really.

If the memories are there, they'll surface. It may take time. There's still so much that is not known about the mind.

[Michelle_P]

Frankly, I think questioning ones own nature in a productive (not self-destructive) manner is a good thing.  It's how we find out what we really are, what drives us, and what will lead to our being happier in the long run.

We all question, we explore, we seek to know ourselves.  Many here on this site came to conclusions about our true nature only after many years, or decades of effort.  Many others who asked the same questions about themselves undoubtedly came to other, different conclusions.  Some didn't like the answers they uncovered and stopped searching.

In my case, I didn't have much about my childhood that I wanted to remember.  I had walled off the more unpleasant parts, leaving me with a few happy memories and some huge gaps.  I spent my later teenage years in an angry haze ("Vitamin shots, so you'll grow up right."  Thanks for the testosterone shots, Dad.). I joined the military, because what's not manly about lethal weapons and huge deadly machines?

I didn't ramp down from the T until I was in my 20s, and even then, I didn't consciously realize what was up until I met a transwoman in my early 30s, who was interviewing for a job on my team.  She was having a rough time passing after our all-day interview process, but I tried to respect her as a person looking for a position with us.  I found my self thinking that she was doing something pretty darn hard, but I still wished I could do that.  Wait, what?  Where did that come from?

That started me on my own path of questioning myself.  I figured out my true nature, but buried her deep as I now had a wife and small children that coming out would cause grave problems with.  That lasted almost 30 years, but I didn't quite make it to the grave with that secret.  (See avatar...)

Those buried childhood memories started bubbling up from the mental swamps a few years ago, bringing anxiety, dysphoria, and depression along for the ride.  I needed and got help, came out to family, and and preparing for a big transition. 

So Jayne, keep asking questions, and look deep at the possible answers and paths open to you.  I sincerely hope that you'll find a path that leads to your long term happiness, wherever that lies.

[Sno]

Everyone that identifies as trans always has some link back to their childhood where they knew something was up...

... I just didn't fit...

I trimmed the quote because 'not fitting', yes, thats it. Something fundamental meant that we didn't fit with the gender stereo-types, which are being role-played, trialled and tested at that age. Where we are, outside that mix, is up to us to determine.

Sno

[jayne01]

One of the things that scares me the most is that I might one day discover and truly accept myself as trans but not for many years to come. So I would have wasted so much of my life for nothing.

I know that when people say to be patient and I will know when I'm ready, whatever age, they are just trying to help. I find it very difficult to read things like that. To me it is like saying let your life just tick away and eventually it will come to you in your own time. Meanwhile, life is just going by and I'm not part of it.

[autumn08]

Not necessarily wrong with me, but it is certainly a symptom of something.....

(We've been through this many times before, but if it helps, I'm happy to reiterate.)

Why waste time pondering the material origin of your gender dysphoria, when no one is currently capable of unraveling what it is, or altering it?

At one point, you called it the worst thing that could possibly happen to you. To heal yourself, you need to view your gender as an essential part of your identity and respect yourself enough that if someone attempted to remove this part of you, they would encounter a hell of a fight.

It will never fit someone else's narrative. We are all different. I am looking for common ground. We are all different, but not entirely 100% different. There has to be some kind of overlapping common experience that would place us in one group or another. It is that commonality I am trying to find.

The only thing you need in common to be considered transgender, is a desire to cross the border between genders. The source of this desire doesn't make a difference, and someone's experience of being transgender is just commentary.

How is that even possible? HRT takes years to work. How can you just switch back and forth between being feminine and masculine? There is not one single feminine feature about me. I am hairy, have a gigantic Neanderthal looking head, hairy, have a deep voice and act just like any other guy. No matter how drunk or high on drugs you may be, you will never mistake me as feminine. So how can one just switch between feminine and not feminine without any help from HRT/surgery, which makes the switching back and forth part kind of impossible.

Its too bad that social stigma and a body that is relatively distant from our ideal make quenching one of our desires so arduous, but just like everyone else, we must try to quench our unquenchable desires, by envisioning a compelling compromise that we believe is possible and having conviction that we have the right to pursue it. It may take more than a lifetime to arrive at our ideal, but we must take this opportunity to develop an indomitable character, so we are capable of making the attempt and thus, enjoying the process of our lives.

I can hear you saying, "but I don't know what I want." Well, since you haven't been able to do it alone, you to need find influences that will urge you to experiment (preferably, start with a support group). Living is too complex for any expert to know what your best path forward is, but its evident that there are a lot of failures you still need to experience and move past, in order to develop the requisite fortitude.

[autumn08]

Yes, it would give me some kind of validation. While these feelings seem to exist now, if I could link them back to my childhood I would be able to see that this has been a lifelong thing and it would make more sense to me. If being trans was not something determined before birth and instead was something that randomly occurred at any age due to whatever, then I would understand my feelings now in a better way. However, all the research shows that being trans is determined during pregnancy before birth, so it stands to reason that at some point in your early childhood you would have these feelings of something not being quite right. 43 is well past childhood age!

Life is a realization our innate selves, so yes, you were born with it. If its the same thing I was born with, we will probably never know, but we can never really know the origin of anything, just how it interacts with it's environment.

Most likely you suppressed this desire in childhood, just like you're suppressing it now, but if you did or didn't doesn't make difference.

[autumn08]

One of the things that scares me the most is that I might one day discover and truly accept myself as trans but not for many years to come. So I would have wasted so much of my life for nothing.

I know that when people say to be patient and I will know when I'm ready, whatever age, they are just trying to help. I find it very difficult to read things like that. To me it is like saying let your life just tick away and eventually it will come to you in your own time. Meanwhile, life is just going by and I'm not part of it.

Again, you're making yourself miserable by longing for the impossible, and allowing your propensity for denial to deny you the happiness that is possible. It is a difficult situation we've been put in, but we must accept our lot in life.

[jayne01]

Again, you're making yourself miserable by longing for the impossible, and allowing your propensity for denial to deny you the happiness that is possible. It is a difficult situation we've been put in, but we must accept our lot in life.

I often cannot relate to what you are saying and have trouble seeing your point of view, but one thing that you are definitely doing for me is increasing my vocabulary. Rarely do I read one of your posts without having to consult a dictionary. So thank you for that.

I keep hearing that I should just accept what is. It would be a lot easier to accept if I knew what I was accepting and why.

[autumn08]

I often cannot relate to what you are saying and have trouble seeing your point of view, but one thing that you are definitely doing for me is increasing my vocabulary. Rarely do I read one of your posts without having to consult a dictionary. So thank you for that.

Lol, at least I'm having some sort of effect.

...what I was accepting...

If not for the costs, you would want to cross the border between genders.

...why.

You should accept it because by denying it, you're believing an innate part of yourself is unworthy of acceptance. Also, this self-hatred is preventing you from finding a better compromise than the one you're currently experiencing.

[Fresas con Nata]

Thank you. That is exactly what I am trying to say. Everyone that identifies as trans always has some link back to their childhood where they knew something was up. Even if they didn't know it at the time, thinking back retrospectively, the feelings were there.

Not me. I discovered this last year at 38yo. I even asked my parents and there's nothing.