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I don't think I'm trans anymore

Started by Jayne01, July 30, 2017, 04:53:00 AM

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Jayne01

It has taken me a very long time to accept myself as trans. It nearly cost me my life. I eventually just accepted it and decided to start HRT to ease the dysphoria. I am almost 2 months into the HRT and I am not feeling a damn thing. Nothing at all!!!

I had a read through some other people's posts in the HRT section of the forum trying to find someone else with similar experiences. I found nothing. Every post I read, people comment on how wonderful the hormones make them feel and how quickly the mental effects happen. This has led me to the belief that I may not be trans after all. Surely if I was actually trans, then the hormones would have had some kind of positive effect. It has taken so much effort and pain and heartache to get to where I am now and it feels like it has all been for nothing. Even my endocrinologist was surprised when I told him that I wasn't feeling any effects whatsoever from the hormones. I don't know where to go from here. I feel very lost. 2 years of therapy, electrolysis thousands and thousands of dollars all wasted. I have accomplished nothing!

I don't know what I am. I don't know where I belong. I am very very lost.
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Rachel_Christina

It's funny I am a year on hormones, and I never felt any different.
All I felt was an instant calm when I start simply because I knew I would be no more going down the path of becoming a man.
But as for effects mentally that HRT brought me? Absolutely 0, and that is totally fine.
I was a very happy person before and I am still a very happy person, just alot more real.
You don't have to be thinking your not trans because you have had no mental changes.
How do you feel about being a woman?


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Jayne01

I haven't had that calm feeling either. When I say no effect I mean absolutely nothing at all. Zip! Nada! Nothing!!!

I don't want to be a woman, I just want to be a normal guy.
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Rachel_Christina

You don't want to be a woman? But do you feel like a woman? Or like feminine?
Ther is nothing wrong with being a feminine guy either. Alot of people think that because you are feminine you are a female


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Dan

The effects of HRT do vary a lot from person to person. In some instances it can take a long time for noticeable effects to emerge.

The question is, what were your expectations from HRT? If it is just a mental peace, then maybe HRT won't give it to you instantly. Maybe to gain mental peace you need to see your body changing gradually from male to female physique, which can take longer for some people than others.

Maybe the dosage you are on is too low.

Are you in counselling with an experienced gender therapist who understands the medical side of transition as well as the mental side? I think this is important to have this type of expertise on your side. How about the endocrinologist? For him to just be surprised is not exactly a response I would expect from an endo who has experience with the process of transition.

I wouldn't give up just yet. You need better medical and psychological support and advice, and I can't see this happening based on your explanations so far.
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Devlyn

I introduced myself to estrogen very slowly and there was no obvious change mentally. I quit taking it one summer, that brought about rapid mental changes. It might be doing more than you think.

Hugs, Devlyn
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Jayne01

Quote from: Rachel_Christina on July 30, 2017, 05:40:55 AM
You don't want to be a woman? But do you feel like a woman? Or like feminine?
Ther is nothing wrong with being a feminine guy either. Alot of people think that because you are feminine you are a female
I don't know what I feel anymore. I am so damn confused. I don't look feminine by any stretch of the imagination. I don't act feminine. There is just something deep inside my brain that tells me I should be female. I can't understand any of it.


Quote from: Dan on July 30, 2017, 06:19:48 AM
The question is, what were your expectations from HRT?
I was hoping the HRT would get rid of the dysphoria and stop me from thinking I should be a girl. Then I could just get on with being a normal guy.

Quote
Maybe the dosage you are on is too low.

Are you in counselling with an experienced gender therapist who understands the medical side of transition as well as the mental side? I think this is important to have this type of expertise on your side. How about the endocrinologist? For him to just be surprised is not exactly a response I would expect from an endo who has experience with the process of transition.

My dosage from what I understand is now above the normal transition dose. I was only on a low dose for the first week.

I have been in therapy for over 2 years with 4 different therapists. 3 of them have lots of trans experience. My endocrinologist is Dr Jon Hayes. He has over 20 years experience treating trans patients and I have only heard good things about him. He is the only endo I have heard of in Sydney that treats trans patients.


Quote from: Devlyn Marie on July 30, 2017, 06:30:48 AM
I introduced myself to estrogen very slowly and there was no obvious change mentally. I quit taking it one summer, that brought about rapid mental changes. It might be doing more than you think.

Hugs, Devlyn
As I mentioned previously, I was on a low dose of estrogen for only a week. My dosage is quite high now. I am taking the maximum oral dose plus applying a gel twice a day into my skin. I don't feel any different. I still feel very unsettled and distressed. Where is the calmness I keep hearing everyone talking about?
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SailorMars1994

My friend Rachel may have a point. YMMV

With that, do you find when you are in the dumps that you tend to doubt yourself. I know for me, being an odd-ball whenever i feel male or see something i percieve male about myself and i get strong dysphoira doubts oddly enough may come in. Not because being a female feels wrong (it never has felt wrong), but because the ''male'' stuff is so overwhelming it is all i can feel and pay attention to, nullifiying my good feelings about who i really am. Maybe you should think outside your person box and do something that brings you to a more feminine state of being :) !!?

Love ya-Ashley
AMAB Born: March 1994
Gender became on radar: 2007
Admitted to self : 2010
Came out: May 12 2014
Estrogen: October 16 2015
<3
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Jayne01

Quote from: SailorMars1994 on July 30, 2017, 07:18:05 AM
..... Maybe you should think outside your person box and do something that brings you to a more feminine state of being :) !!?
I don't know what that means. I don't know what it feels to be female or male. I just feel the way I feel. I can't tell you whether it is a male feeling or female feeling. I have nothing to compare it to. There is just this damn voice inside my head that tells me I should have been born a girl. None of it makes any sense to me.
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Deborah

Quote from: Jayne01 on July 30, 2017, 07:37:01 AM
I don't know what that means. I don't know what it feels to be female or male. I just feel the way I feel. I can't tell you whether it is a male feeling or female feeling. I have nothing to compare it to. There is just this damn voice inside my head that tells me I should have been born a girl. None of it makes any sense to me.
I can relate to that.  Now, I just feel like me and I feel right.  Before, I felt like not me and I felt wrong.  But I have no idea what people are talking about when they say they feel female or feel male. 


Conform and be dull. —James Frank Dobie, The Voice of the Coyote
Love is not obedience, conformity, or submission. It is a counterfeit love that is contingent upon authority, punishment, or reward. True love is respect and admiration, compassion and kindness, freely given by a healthy, unafraid human being....  - Dan Barker

U.S. Army Retired
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Dani

Jayne,

This is a very personal decision. No one else can make it for you.

The decision to transition for me was based on trying to fight my dysphoria for over 50 years. Now that I am post-op, my dysphoria is gone, but everything else remains the same. Do not expect dramatic changes with only a few months of HRT. We feel better about ourselves because we are just much more comfortable in our post-op gender. There was no euphoric sense of pleasure. It was just the absence of discomfort.

One question you need to ask yourself, "Are you still obsessing about living your life as the opposite gender?" For me this feeling was there until I woke up after surgery. The dysphoria was suddenly gone. I feel good and I am happy with my decision.

Complete transition is not for everyone.  Some of us describe ourselves as gender fluid. This is a different situation. Other people know they are trans, but do not like the social stigma of being post-op and still others are in denial, due to social constraints and conditioning.

We can tell you our experiences, but most of us have never met you and do not really know you. This is where therapists come into our lives. They have the education to help you find yourself, but the decision to transition is ultimately your own.
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Jayne01

I never wanted to transition. I only ever wanted to be a normal guy. I cannot imagine living as a woman. I know nothing about being a woman. All I want is to turn that damn noise off in my head. The voice that is constantly telling me that I should be female. I don't want to throw away my entire life due to some stupid voice inside my head.
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Another Nikki

I'm not on HRT, but I feel the same way.  The constant nagging that tells me I should be female, which i really wish would go away, so I can focus and be present in living life as a male without this distraction.  It's miserable.  Unfortunately I don't think there is a solution.  Maybe transition, but I'm not convinced the nagging about gender would go away.

If you figure it out, please send me a pm with the cure :)

"What you know, you can't explain, but you feel it. You've felt it your entire life—that there is something wrong. You don't know what it is, but it's there like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad. It is this feeling that has brought you to me."
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grrl1nside

Everyone is a little different when it comes to hrt and where we need to go, so your experience will too. I am slowly coming to grips with what that means.

In terms of hrt and 'feeling female' at an emotional level, I have less of the more extreme thoughts. The degree to which I had an extra edge or level when irritated or angry has reduced. It feels more wavelike with more time to get angry and easier rolloff. And I love that. I feel more me as amorphous as that sounds because that feels more right to me than having that extra edge. I can't say I fully understand it either, but it is how I feel.

I should been born female. I think of it like completing a connect the dot picture and it just looks and feels very wrong. For me, this is the body dimension. The mental map of the body. This is a mismatch for me and why I will likely have surgery so the map aligns. It sounds like you have a very clear view on this because the statements you use are very strong.

There is the social dimension and this is where it is tricky for me. I am lucky in that my partner a cis female is a self-described tomboy. Jeans, t-shirt, no make-up, competitive, red head, who can do a very good impression of gollum and most Harry Potter characters. She never will attend protests because she just is too darn competitive. Peaceful she is not, although she is highly sensitive as well. I am lucky because she reminds me to check my assumptions about what feeling and being female is and to really look around at all the women to value their differences.

She reminds me to examine more basic things. What do I like as activities, what are my/our values, what clothes do I like versus what I think I should like.

I like hiking and am an old school geek (Stranger Things, rpg geek) that sees all the pretty girls in dresses and wishes that I was like them too. In reality, I am not. I will likely always have exactly one dress that will sit in my closet.  I love jeans and haven't decided if I prefer v-necks or what other top type yet kind of girl. Must say I love old salt and pepper wooly sweaters.... don't ask me why. I guess I just do, but they just look and feel so warm and cuddly.  So I can't see myself as a high heels and cocktail dress wearer. It just isn't me. Then again my mom was always track bottoms and hoody type so it might just be that I am fashion challenged as a genetic predisposition. Can you picture what kind of person I am on the female spectrum? You probably have an easier time doing that then I do and that is ok.

It all started with that very clear knowledge that I should not have been born male from a bodily perspective. I am still figuring out the rest, but I know that one starting point is definitive for me so I am quite happy to rely on that. :) I appreciate that others will choose otherwise and that is cool too. We have to do what is right for ourselves.
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Janes Groove

It sounds like you are fighting against your female nature so hard that it's more of a mental issue rather than a physical one.  The mind is much more powerful than the body and as long as you struggle so hard against being a woman then the hormones have no effect.

It's kind of like a dance.  The estrogen is there. Ready to be your dance partner but your mind is holding onto the idea that you are just a normal guy with a white knuckle death grip so hard that you can't join in the dance.  It definitely sounds like something to address in therapy.

Estradiol is not a magic bullet.  It's only a helper.

Also, I have heard anecdotal evidence that Estradiol dosages treatment is sometimes used as a diagnostic treatment to determine if a person is transgender.  The theory goes that after a certain period of taking estradiol that real cis males will react badly to it but transgender women will love it and it will confirm the diagnosis of GID.

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Devlyn

I'm not doubting your doctor, but this is the first I've heard of someone wanting to be a regular guy being put on estrogen. I'm not sure how that works. Best wishes finding your peace.

Hugs, Devlyn
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Jayne01

Quote from: Janes Groove on July 30, 2017, 11:29:04 AM
Also, I have heard anecdotal evidence that Estradiol dosages treatment is sometimes used as a diagnostic treatment to determine if a person is transgender.  The theory goes that after a certain period of taking estradiol that real cis males will react badly to it but transgender women will love it and it will confirm the diagnosis of GID.
I'm clearly reacting badly, so I must be a cis male, right?
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JoanneB

Quote from: Jayne01 on July 30, 2017, 07:03:33 AM
I was hoping the HRT would get rid of the dysphoria and stop me from thinking I should be a girl. Then I could just get on with being a normal guy.

....Where is the calmness I keep hearing everyone talking about?
After having been on/off low dose HRT several times over decades of my life, for me there was never any "Stop me from thinking I should be a girl". The stopping of HRT always came when the secondary affects came into conflict with "The Prime Directive"... being a "Normal"(ish) guy.

Sort of along the line of what Devlyn said, in my case stopping the anti-androgen after about 4 years of full dose E. After about 6 months I was slowly slipping back into the almost always depressed and, if you believe my wife, angry person. Afew months back I had a bit of a meltdown, stopped both... what a mistake  :o

The "Calmness", or quieting the noise, is often a good indication that the person needed more E in their diet. But NOT a diagnostic test where one can state No Calm == No Trans. As with all things hormones YMMV

BTW - What about an AA? What is any, and just what are your T & blood workups saying?

Anecdotal observations from my TG Support group members, as well as my personal experience, has seen that different types of E and different delivery systems affect you in different ways. Pills, patches, needle pricks, mare piss, lab grown, bio-identical, and even the variations I saw between manufacturers, all affected me differently to nothing at all for me
.          (Pile Driver)  
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(ROCK) ---> ME <--- (HARD PLACE)
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CarlyMcx

Hi Jayne.  Oral, patches and gel don't always work.  What matters is your blood estrogen level, and it took switching from patches to injections to get my e level high enough to stop me from having anxiety and panic attacks.  I got some relief from the patches, but nowhere near enough.

I have also found that I need to have long hair, pierced ears, dress female, and interact as a female for complete relief from the anxiety.  I am in male clothes to do some really dirty yard work right now (cleaning weeds from under the bonsai benches). And he only reason I am okay with it is because I had an amazing mall day with my wife yesterday, including a mini makeover at MAC.

But I am very curious about your blood work.  Your e levels need to be between 100 and 200 according to WPATH.
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Jayne01

At my last blood test before increasing my dosage, my E was at 378pmol/l and my T was 20 nmol/l.
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