Hi!

[JeanetteK]

Hello everyone!

So, I guess I'll start with my story a little bit. I've known one way or another that I was trans from a pretty young age. Up until I started school, I was pretty comfortable exploring my gender. Once I started school, I was confident that I "wanted to be a girl" which later solidified into understanding that I was one the whole time. However, my family was very religious and conservative, and so shame and guilt and questions tried to keep my gender identity buried.

About a year back, I finally told someone about my real gender identity, and that release and the joy of accepting my true self started my transition. I picked my name, came out to all of my close friends, and was even out to a few online communities. This summer, I decided that the pain of living an unauthentic life in some areas was too much and I came out to my family. They are struggling with it greatly, but they ultimately want me to be happy.

I'm 23 and living in NJ, and I'm currently exploring my options for getting a gender therapist, hormone replacement therapy, and some of my legal stuff changed while I transfer from my previous super-conservative college to one that would allow me to be myself on campus full-time. I thought that connecting with this community would be a good step on my journey.

Happy to be here! <3

[Rachel_Christina]

Hello Jeanette, you are starting young which is great, gives you a good advantage!
Your parents sound abit like mine, though I haven't managed to work up tge confidence to talk to them, I did once years ago to my mother, it went OK but then she completly stopped talking and i went reclusive again.
Living a big fat lie for a life is no fun, its so devoid of happiness, and years seem to go by uneventful, however I had coping mechanisms to put some Spark in my life, to get me passed, to keep me going forward.
Anyway I hope you get looked after in the whole hoohaa that it takes to get hormones, at 23, you have great chances, after talking to my mother at 20 it took another 6 years to accept myself and get hormones finally!
I wish you all the best on this Journey!
Hugs, Christine

[V M]

Hi Jeanette 

Welcome to Susan's    Glad to have you here, join on in the fun

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Hugs

V M

[JeanetteK]

Thank you for the welcome!

And thank you for sharing your experiences, Christine! I'm happy to be starting this journey young, though there's always that little voice that reminds me that if I had the courage, I could have possibly gotten started much earlier and dodged some pain. But the past is in the past!

I'm sure that you'll get the confidence to talk to your parents again when you're ready.

And coping mechanisms help a lot when it comes to dysphoria. I think the only way that I survived in the closet during my teens and young adulthood was through acting and roleplaying which allowed me to get some distance from myself and even explore my gender identity in a safe environment.

Wishing you the best and hugs!