Transitioning has no appeal to me

[Lolz99]

I only realized I was like 5 or 6 months ago. I'm young, 17, which is supposed to be when you almost certainly will turn out passable, a very good age to start HRT where you get amazing results. But it definitely is already WAY too late for me. I have now worked out that in order to have turned out OK with transition, I would have needed to have started  HRT at the age of like 13-14 or younger.

For a long time now, my shoulders and my rib cage have been really broad, not even close to the female range. My hands , my head and my feet are massive. I am 6 foot 1 but that doesn't really bother me as much as there are some 6 foot 1 cis women out there.

It's not just that I have zero chances of passing, but due to my ruined skeleton, I will always feel dysphoric no matter what I do. I would just feel like I was a gorilla in a dress, or a box with boobs. I have no interest in now blocking off my androgens and replacing them with estrogen as T has already irreversibly damaged my body so much, I've gone too far in the masculine direction with testosterone, that the way I see it, it's just the path that I should stay on forever. I'm now trying to accept that no matter how feminine I feel and am mentally, physically I turned out very masculine, so I just need to accept being just a gay male.

I have discussed this with my therapist and we agreed that it was too late for me to be happy transitioning, I had missed the bus.

[stephaniec]

I'm 5 months shy of 65 years old I truly wish the fallacy of transition before 18 as the only way to have a life as the proper gender would die a natural cause. I'm alive because I transitioned . Yes of course my life probably would of been a hell of a lot better if I was allowed to transition in grade school , there is no doubt in my mind about that. It didn't work out that way, but I exist and am happy now. It's up to you totally to find your path and congrats to you that you have found it.

[Cindi Jones]

I'm 5'11". I have broad shoulders and large feet. I don't wear dresses. I look ridiculous in a dress. I look stupid in shorts. I don't wear shorts.

If this is the determining factor for you and it is enough to turn you off to the idea, then I applaud you. If you don't need it, don't do it.

[Dena]

It's your decision but the dysphoria will not get any better. A story I keep hearing on the site is "If only I had transitioned at 20-25-30".
I am 6'2" and have a slim build with broad shoulders. I am never going to be the cute little thing but I pass well enough and people don't question me. Some of it is watching what I wear, some of it's the right hair cut and a good deal of it is my attitude. I act like I belong so people don't question it. Until you try it, you will never know for sure.

[Chloe]

A story I keep hearing on the site is "If only I had transitioned at 20-25-30".

I started 'bout 18 with 'Premarin', only thing at time I could find available.

I am now 60, still at it and feel and look as young as ever!! The way one 'presents' or 'dresses' really has absolutely nothing to do with it.

If your therapist 'AGREES' with you (duh, of course he will) then perhaps he thinks your being unrealistic about 'expectations' . . .

. . . or not the personality type up for a lifelong challenge?

[CarlyMcx]

Lolz99:  In the world I grew up in, there was no such thing as transitioning.  (I was born in 1962).  I did not find out it was even possible until I saw Dr. Renee Richards on TV when I was 19  (in 1981).  At that time I was a broke college student, and back then, health insurance didn't pay for anything.  You paid cash out of pocket for the whole deal including therapy and hormones, if you could even find any hormones.

I tried again in 1989 after I finished law school.  But back then "gender identity disorder" qualified as a mental illness.  So, get diagnosed as mentally ill, goodbye law license.

I tried again in 1999 after the end of my first marriage.  But I knew then if I came out, I would lose custody and visitation of my kid.  So I waited until he grew up.

By then (2009) I had been suffering panic attacks for five years.  I held out another five on the same basis you did.  I was a good looking, popular, successful alpha male.

But the panic attacks caught up with me. 

If you can be happy being a guy, good on you.  But be advised, it may have health consequences you are not aware of at your young age.

At this point for me it is not about being beautiful or sexy or passable.  I've been on hormones for a week, and the anxieties, worries, and panic attacks are gone.  That alone was worth the price of admission.  However girly my body gets, I'll make it work some way or another.  I figure I am going to need some nose and forehead work at the very least to make my face passable.  And my voice ranges from male baritone to gender neutral on the high end.  So maybe I will never be passable.  But I have already found the peace I am looking for.

Just remember, you are very, very young.  And if you are truly transgender, this is a decision that has not been permanently made.  It is one that you will be revisiting periodically for the rest of your life.

[AnxietyDisord3r]

If you can be happy being a guy, good on you.  But be advised, it may have health consequences you are not aware of at your young age.

As someone who waited until 36 to start hormones, this is very, very true. Not transitioning has had all sorts of negative health effects as well as just negatively impacting my life in general and I feel a sense of loss over that alongside the joy of finally seeing my body change the right way.

Your brain is telling you something, it is that being flooded with androgens all the time is not the right way to go.

When I decided to start on T finally I spent a couple of weeks feeling dysphoric about my hips, which, traitors, spread in my early 20s. But I found out that fat deposition impacts what your shape looks like, that and muscles, much more than hip angle. At 18 you are at an age where a bone expert, absent DNA, would not be able to definitively sex your skeleton. That's because they rely on hip angle, but for young women that may hit later in life (and a few women's hips never spread), and virilized facial features, which come even later than that. Your shoulders are almost entirely a muscle thing.

Your therapist is trying to support you in your choices but they're not a medical doctor. They give advice about your mental health, not your endocrine health. You do you but to me you sound very unhappy and dysphoric. I guess my advice to you would be, transition or no, learn to accept your body as it is. It's the only one you've got. You're the only you in the world.