How often do you think about being trans?

[Violets]

My girlfriend mentioned to me that I talk about trans related issues a LOT, and upon reflection, I would call it a lifelong obsession. The thing is, gender is such a fundamental part of one's identity that when there is incongruence, it's hard not to be constantly reminded of it. Unless I'm engrossed in something, there would rarely be an hour go by where I don't think about it in some way. I don't seem to obsess about anything else.

Is this normal, particularly if you haven't fully transitioned and the dysphoria is still raging? How often do you think about it?

[Megan.]

I'm the same, it has always been that unless my mind is distracted on other tasks, it always focuses back to the Trans* issue. I'm still pre-HRT and not yet full-time. I have probably spent 1-2 hours every day for the last 25 years thinking about it. I could have taken over the world!

[Deborah]

During my first therapy appointment I told my therapist that I had spent at least 14,000 hours thinking about and studying the issue.  Even that may be an understatement.  So, at least for many of us, I think this mental obsession is pretty normal and a strong indicator that someone is trans and not something else.


It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not.
André Gide, Autumn Leaves

[KathyLauren]

I don't remember ever not thinking about it.  Even when I was in denial, I put a lot of effort into wondering and then denying it.

[Megan.]

I'm the same, it has always been that unless my mind is distracted on other tasks, it always focuses back to the Trans* issue. I'm still pre-HRT and not yet full-time. I have probably spent 1-2 hours every day for the last 25 years thinking about it. I could have taken over the world!

I've decided... Once I've transitioned, I am going to take over the world! 😈

[TonyaW]

I don't remember ever not thinking about it.  Even when I was in denial, I put a lot of effort into wondering and then denying it.

Yeah. Even when I'd have a period of a few months where it wasn't an obsession and I thought I was ok being male I'd realize that  I hadn't thought about the trans thing for a bit.  Then it's how long will it last this time and there I am thinking about it even if just to deny it again.

TLDR;

Almost always.

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[Kylo]

Rarely.

It's there, but thinking about it doesn't help once you've made the decision to transition and are waiting for surgery and hormones to do their thing. It's not something I'm comfortable talking to friends and family about. I talked about it more back in the pre-decision stage. Now it's a given, and I don't feel like discussing it with them as it feels like a dissection of myself on a table. I've never taken the view gender ultimately defined me so I don't believe it defines me even now, it's just a matter of comfort and getting rid of feelings of humiliation or exposure.

It was a pre-occupation as a kid, I spent time thinking and raging about it back then. But only to myself. I guess all these years I learned to dissociate from gender enough that I only think about it practically.

...Think about it more lately because of course things are happening to me that means I have to, and I have to get used to these changes. For the last 10 years I've thought minimally about it all though until I decided to go down this path. I must have compartmentalized this thing and thrown it into some dark corner most of the time because honestly thinking about it at the moment and implications and challenges are exhausting. I'm still dealing with a lot of other wounds that are fresher and easier to think about.

[Raell]

Since I don't plan to transition physically, being non-binary/parital transmale, I don't think about being trans explicitly, as much as being dimly aware of a vague unease, and of making sure that I'm taking my derris scandens capsules, acknowledging and respecting both my genders, and feeling like a blend.

When I socialize with fellow American expats, there tends to be a slight gender polarization expectation, but generally, here in Thailand, nobody really expects me to act like a particular gender.

[Dena]

After coming out, it's common for us to talk about everything that's going on in our life. One of the reason why a transgender group is so good is because it keeps us from driving everybody else nuts with all of the talking we do. I spent many a night in the parking lost after the meeting talking about anything subject that came to mind. Given time, it will reach the point where you will rarely talk about it, but what you are doing now is normal.

[Amanda_Combs]

It's absolutely constant!  As far back as I can remember I was always thinking about women and femininity.  At the time, I thought all boys did that.(All we ever think about is girls, right?) I worry about wether or not I'm trans*, but if I'm not, I have a very specific ocd, that never let's up!
     Even when I can clear my mind, via strenuous physical activity or really jamming out to music, all it takes is the sight of a pretty girl to tear it all down.  Night and day, waking or sleeping, It's exhausting!


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[DawnOday]

Not Trans per se. For years I didn't know what I was, just that the pieces did not fit. I actually bought into the theory I was a pervert undeserving of understanding. Fast forward to 8 months ago when I decided to finally check out my life long obsession although I only did it in my room for my own enjoyment. I realized that fear was the only thing holding me back. Now I constantly think about it, thanks to the information I've gotten here. I'm not a perv but misgendered and it all started long before I was born.  'I wish that I knew what I know now When I was younger."

[Sephirah]

For me it's like a persistent toothache. A lot of the time it's a dull ache. Sometimes I get distracted enough that I can ignore it, but sometimes I bite down on a hard reflection, or a particularly chewy interaction and it flares up something fierce, then it's all I can think about for the next few days. But it doesn't really go away. Until the tooth is pulled.

I guess you could call it a Truthache, lol.

[Tessa James]

Being here is a clue but certainly it has been a pleasant obsession for me.  Prior to coming out this thinking was heavily repressed.  Once out, there are enough steps to take to reclaim our identity that it makes sense for us to focus. 

The more difficult part of this thinking about being trans so often is the weight we might visit upon our significant others.  It is often said that no one transitions alone.  My spouse and friends have certainly asked for a time out or two when my obsession bubbled over, especially the first year.  Now starting my fifth year out life seems more settled and I am happy to forget about being trans more of the time.  Still not a day goes by that I am unaware of who I am and how I got here.

[Miharu Barbie]

Yup, being transgendered was an all-consuming obsession for most of my youth.  I have been writing in journals since I was 13 years old, so I did a lot of belly button gazing on the subject all through my younger years.  Fortunately, not long after I transitioned 19 years ago, I crossed paths with a group of monks.  I spent a lot of time with these monks over the course of several years, and even lived among them for one year in 2006.  They taught me some extremely powerful meditation techniques that have been part of my daily routine since 2002. 

Since meeting those monks and learning what they had to teach me, I have spent the past 14 or 15 years completely obsessed with my own power over and within my environment as a living being immersed in this Universe.  I do still think about being transsexual at least once every day, but mostly I think about what I can do to improve the experience of other transgendered people living in this world.  Sadly, over all these years of contemplation, I have been mostly unsuccessful at improving anything of substance for anyone beyond those in my daily life.  And maybe bringing smiles and laughter and support and loving kindness to those I see every day is enough in the grand scheme of things. 

Still, I go on dreaming of how I might lighten the burden of living for lots of trans people, whether I ever meet most of them or not.  There are worse things to dwell upon.

Love,
Miharu

[Steph Eigen]

If my mind is not consumed with another pressing thought or task, I'm thinking about it.

[Sno]

If my mind is not consumed with another pressing thought or task, I'm thinking about it.

Exactly.

Rowan

[AnonyMs]

Constantly, but isn't that why most of us are here? I'm hoping one day I'll move on and stop thinking about it, and like so many I'll probably drift away from this site.

[zamber74]

Since coming out to my wife, it is constant.  Before that, I would try to block out such thoughts to the best of my ability, I would try to focus on other things, although it has always been in the back of my mind how much better I believe my life would have been, if I had been born differently.  I would often day dream about the craziest of things, such as alien abduction, magic incantation, anything really where my gender were to be changed and how great it would be.  I don't think this can possibly be healthy, it is why I am taking steps now (very tiny ones, mind you) toward transitioning.  I would read about transhumanism, and dream of the day when it would be all so simple to just change gender at a whim.

If I had one constant desire in this world, it was never fame, it was never wealth, it was never anything outside of being a woman.  That is it, it has always been like that.  Every birthday I had since the age of 9, I would blow out the candles, and wish I were a girl, then proceed to quickly take the first bite of cake.. realizing full well that wish would never come true.  Every Christmas, I would wish I would wake up right.. realizing full well it would not come true as well.

When I turned 42, last month, I did not get a birthday cake.. and it hit me.  I was incredibly depressed, I lashed out at my wife, telling her it was the worst birthday of my life, I had a melt down and felt horrible.  I had to do something, I can't keep living like this.. It was on my birthday, that I finally took a stand against it all, and take matters into my own hands.

I always put such desires upon the will of something greater than me, hoping something would come along and save me, realizing it was not likely to happen, but fooling myself regardless with the "what if" factor.  Always dreaming, always wishing, always hoping, never doing though.  Now I have come to realize, there is no one who will save me, there is no magical pill that will change me automatically, it is hard work, it is going to take a lot of time, but I am tired of sitting around on my fat behind, hoping something would happen..

Prior to this change in me, my determination, I would just insult myself, convince myself it is never going to work, and move on to something else, with that desire of being a woman always nagging at me.

I would hate to see the my activity log on this site, I must drive the admins crazy with all of the browsing I do.  I have so many questions, I seek so many answers.  I have a lot of work ahead of me, and I have not even begun the first steps.


PS:
The cake is a lie
(some of you will get the reference:) ) 

[josie76]

I would say I tried not to think about it. The eeary feeling of it would creep up with every subconscious thought to appear. See a woman with kids at the store. Boom I wish I could be like her. Over and over again. I did everything I could to occupy my mind with logical tasks, for a time video games. But then when there was a choice for a female character I would always always choose her. I tried burying myself in work. It didn't matter it always crept back in if only in a nonliteral feeling. Like many others I hid it from everyone. No one I have come out to say they even had a clue.

From time to time I researched the biology of it. As the internet became more complex I started seeing images and videos of those who had transitioned. I kept thinking I'm too old, my chance was long past. I just kept trying to deny myself. I finally came to the point where I had to tell my wife. I had to at least tell someone else. The moment she told me I wasn't defect for being, a switch flipped and I knew transition was my only path aside from eventual suicide either by action or inaction.

So no I tried not to think about it but yes it was omnipresent in my mind.

[LizK]

If my mind is not consumed with another pressing thought or task, I'm thinking about it.

+1 and even if it is pressing some days I can't shake it at all...drives me batty