For Older Transitioners: How do you refer to yourself in the past?

[KarynMcD]

I'm 49, so I have a lot of history. I transitioned a few months ago.

It feels odd to refer to my past self with my new name and pronouns, but it also feels like I'm a hypocrite for making others use my new name now when I refer to my past with my old name, but the stories don't seems right if I use my new name. It's kinda like I'm talking about another person.

How do you refer to your past self and and how do you feel about it?

[TinaVane]

As a young adult I call myself as "boy " since man sounds to harsh to me or I say "other ". I'm 42


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[kittenpower]

I just refer to that time as pre transition

[KathyLauren]

I am trying to imagine a situation where I would be talking about my past and needing to use something other than "I" and "me".  Can't come up with anything.

[Barb99]

I am trying to imagine a situation where I would be talking about my past and needing to use something other than "I" and "me".  Can't come up with anything.

Yep, I did this, went here... of something like "back in my younger days..."

[KarynMcD]

I am trying to imagine a situation where I would be talking about my past and needing to use something other than "I" and "me". 

It usually happens when retelling a story where someone else referred to me either by name or pronoun and I'm resaying what they had said.

I was known as "the pizza guy" for silly reasons when I first started working at my current job. If I retell this, saying I was "the pizza gal" seems wrong.

This probably matters to the issue: I can't hide that I'm transgender.

[RobynD]

I usually use "person" in referring to myself in the past.

[Janes Groove]

Sometimes I start the narrative with, "Back when I was trying to be a fake man . . ."

[2.B.Dana]

I like to say "in a former life...blah blah blah..." seems to work

[Kylo]

I refer to myself without the gender unless it's somehow relevant to. Everything I did was still me. I didn't compensate or try to be someone other than who I've always been, so I have no real need to separate myself from the past. I mean I don't need to use the old name or talk about what others saw in me when I'm describing my own POV.

As long as I can do that I feel fine with it. Of course there are certain... things.. in the past that I tend to avoid as subjects because they really would confuse people now to hear me speak of it.

[VeronicaLynn]

I tend to just say when I was a kid/teenager/college student/younger/etc...

How often does gender come up when talking about your past?

I can't think of many occasions that I really did anything gender specific, or would refer to myself in the third person. The only times I would care to tell now are the handful of times I was correctly gendered by my friends, despite presenting as a somewhat feminine guy most of my life until recently.

The way I see it, I was always transgender, and most people saw it, even if they incorrectly interpreted it as gay or bisexual male. Perhaps you were better at hiding it, and got into situations I did not, and have interesting stories you like to tell. I have interesting stories from my past I like to tell too, I don't want to pretend my past didn't happen, I was always me, I just presented slightly more masculine than now.

[CarlyMcx]

It depends on the context.  I think of my male self as a persona, a character I created, a suit of armor that I wore.  So Its usually "I" or "me."  But there are some people I interacted with in a business context in my former life that I do not want to have a relationship with in my current life.  I usually tell them that "he" retired.

[JenniferLopezgomez]

Most people in real life cannot tell that I am trans at this point unless I tell them as I have model-quality feminine beauty, and I have in fact modeled in mass media. I usually don't even mention I'm trans unless absolutely necessary -- don't need to push it on anyone. Therefore, currently to refer to my pre-transition past -- which I regard as mostly an unfortunate aberration -- I refer to myself with female pronouns and other female identifiers since I regard myself as having been female then, too. Jennifer xx

[JoanneB]

Professionally speaking, for ages when referring to previous experiences or situations "In a past life......" is often used. But like KathyLauren said, I cannot imagine a situation where I wouldn't use "I", unless I really wanted to go out of my way to make a distinction between the person who I used to be and today's new and improved me.

[KarynMcD]

How often does gender come up when talking about your past?

Enough that I'm here asking others about it.
It seems that it occurs much more often in my life than to others.

[DawnOday]

As an older transitioner I am happy to talk about my past life. Being forced to comply to sexual norms. Lack of knowledge caused that. I have had two wives, I have two children, I am proud of them all. I can no more neglect my past than I can ignore the future. I used to pray to be a woman. Literally I would cry because I had this small penis and I didn't know how that would attract any girls. When I did meet them I was ashamed. I was 22 when I had my first sex. I really was not that in to it. In God's infinite wisdom took 60 years since I first knew. I was a she, I can't ignore it. If I were 20 I would totally immerse myself in my femininity and want to be called a woman. But at my age I just want to be called.

[TransAm]

I think I just barely qualify as 'older' at 29, but I usually just use non-specific words like 'kid':
"Back when I was a kid, I used to..."

Most of the things I did back in the day were reckless and boyish anyway, so no one really bats an eye. Shockingly, my mom and final living grandparents all use appropriately gendered language when referring to me in the past tense:
"When you were a little boy, I couldn't..." etc. It's great and I'm never worried about people not 'in the know' being around and getting confused.

[Brooke]

I refer to my past self as Brooke. Even though we think of memories like a film reel, where the memory is set, and never changes this is not the case.

Every time we access a memory we are also editing the memory, adding in, or removing details.

I use this to my advantage every time I think back, tell a story etc. I basically try to imagine my female equivalent for whatever memory and time period.

I've noticed that my family and friends first got hung up in getting my name and pronouns correct, and then it was like a sudden track switch. Those same people starting revering to me as Brooke with female pronouns etc when talking about the past, even back to my childhood. Became mostly the opposite where they would catch themselves using female gendering for me in pre transition memories and then quickly try and change that back to male. Tons of mental effort.

I explained to them the editing aspect of memory and told them that instead of trying to correct the female gendering back to male for nemesis pre transition to just let the memory edits do there thing naturally.

There are of course a few areas where I and my family and friends think of the male version, specifically with computer issues. (I'm an IT engineer by trade). I imagine even those memories will get edited to female in time.

As I do pass, and I am starting to develop new relationships with people who have only known me as Brooke I find it advantageous to have a gender congruent personal narrative that I don't have to think about.


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[RavenMoon]

I'm 59. I'm still living as my former self.  I call myself to myself by my female name "Penelope," but I'm just me. I actually feel weird when a trans friend addresses me as "girl" lol. I'm not there yet.

But I'll always be me, regardless of what name I use. I've been aware of being trans since I was about 4 years old. So it's all I've ever known.


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[Sophia Sage]

I refer to my past self as Brooke. Even though we think of memories like a film reel, where the memory is set, and never changes this is not the case.

Every time we access a memory we are also editing the memory, adding in, or removing details.

I use this to my advantage every time I think back, tell a story etc. I basically try to imagine my female equivalent for whatever memory and time period...

As I do pass, and I am starting to develop new relationships with people who have only known me as Brooke I find it advantageous to have a gender congruent personal narrative that I don't have to think about.

This is what it's like for me, too.