I don't think I'm trans anymore

[JMJW]

I don't see it as a trans or not trans binary. If you discontinue HRT, you can still do everything else, even if you identify as a man.

[Jayne01]

So are you continuing your therapy with these thoughts in your Dr's purvue? Does she understand that you feel this way and this is all she shares? I understand you feel your therapist is a good friend but perhaps you would be served by seeing a psychiatrist and exploring other avenues. Your experiences sound different than what most of us have known and it seems some fresh perspectives at this point may do you a world of good. Sometimes we get too close to someone and tbey can't be objective any longer. Perhaps that's why you feel you're in this limbo you're in. At any rate, I think a paradigm shift might help. Given the chaos that's your psyche right now, it certainly can't hurt. You know the old saying....keep doing what you've been doing and you'll keep getting what youve been getting.

Sorry for the late reply. I somehow missed reading your post.
My current therapist is the 4th therapist I have seen in a little over 2 years. I don't want to find a 5th person to give them my whole life story from the beginning all over again. I don't think that would serve any purpose other than to annoy me. Besides, all 4 therapists have been telling me the same thing.

The one thing therapy has taught me is that it brings up all these little insignificant issues throughout your life, and somehow turns these little things into major problems. I have always thought myself to be a relatively simple person when it comes to emotions. With therapy, I have tried to become more "connected" with my emotions. That is a term that has no meaning to me, but I tried to go along with it. I don't get it. Apparently, one has to "listen" to their emotions and their feelings to know whether or not they are trans. I don't have that ability, I only understand logic and reasoning and scientific evidence. I work with facts, not "feelings".

I will very likely be terminating all future sessions with my therapist. Although she is one of the nicest, kindest people I have ever known, I have no desire to spend the rest of my life in therapy getting nowhere. I'm better off on my own.

I have also stopped taking my HRT. It wasn't doing anything anyway. I felt no different before, during or after taking the medication.

[Jayne01]

I don't see it as a trans or not trans binary. If you discontinue HRT, you can still do everything else, even if you identify as a man.

What do you mean by "do everything else"?

[KathyLauren]

I have been catching up on this thread.  I can't say I've ready every word, but I have followed the gist of all the posts.

Jayne, the impression I get from reading your posts is that you see yourself as an innocent bystander.  You say that your brain wants one thing while it simultaneously wants the opposite.  That is a description of a bus with no one in the driver's seat.  At some point, you have to grab the wheel and, calling on everything you know, steer the bus in a direction whatever the consequences. 

You don't know the road ahead.  None of us do.  But you still have to drive the bus.  And if you end up in the wrong place, you just take another drive to get to the right place.  It's hard to navigate life without a road map.  You just take your best guess and go with it.

[Jayne01]

I have been catching up on this thread.  I can't say I've ready every word, but I have followed the gist of all the posts.

Jayne, the impression I get from reading your posts is that you see yourself as an innocent bystander.  You say that your brain wants one thing while it simultaneously wants the opposite.  That is a description of a bus with no one in the driver's seat.  At some point, you have to grab the wheel and, calling on everything you know, steer the bus in a direction whatever the consequences. 

You don't know the road ahead.  None of us do.  But you still have to drive the bus.  And if you end up in the wrong place, you just take another drive to get to the right place.  It's hard to navigate life without a road map.  You just take your best guess and go with it.

That is basically what I am trying to do here. I am taking the bus down the "I am not trans" road. I don't want to be trans, so why should I be trans. There are no tests that anybody can do to tell me if I'm trans or not, I've tried to find them but there are no such tests. They don't exist. What I am told is that I have to know what I feel. Well despite me repeatedly saying that I do not know what I feel, that is a concept I cannot understand, people keep telling me that is the only way to know if you are trans or not. So my conclusion is that since I cannot feel one way or the other, I am obviously not trans. I have also tried HRT, which many people on this forum have told me is as good a test as any to determine if you are trans or not. The HRT had zero effect on me, so that is another reason I am not trans.

[SadieBlake]

That is basically what I am trying to do here. I am taking the bus down the "I am not trans" road. I don't want to be trans, so why should I be trans. There are no tests that anybody can do to tell me if I'm trans or not, I've tried to find them but there are no such tests. They don't exist. What I am told is that I have to know what I feel. Well despite me repeatedly saying that I do not know what I feel, that is a concept I cannot understand, people keep telling me that is the only way to know if you are trans or not. So my conclusion is that since I cannot feel one way or the other, I am obviously not trans. I have also tried HRT, which many people on this forum have told me is as good a test as any to determine if you are trans or not. The HRT had zero effect on me, so that is another reason I am not trans.

Jayne you're far from the first to come here, claim to feel trans but not believe in feelings (and if you're such a student of science I fail to see how you can miss that fairly simple logical contradiction but I'm happy to leave that as an exercise for the reader).

If you think there are no tests then you haven't looked very hard. What has been concluded in research going back to the 80s is that male and female brains differ and that trans people's brains work similarly as their gender identity. In that earlier work the testing was done observing the effects of brain differences m vs f, principally in how left-right hemisphere operate differently.

The current direction in research is by fmri and it verifies what had been determined in earlier behavioral work that ftm and mtf brains are in fact congruent with gender identity rather than birth-assigned.

Those aren't diagnostic tests and won't be anytime soon, they're limited to research. What they do show is that people who identify as transgender are observably different. And since yes, we identify as trans through our feelings that does establish that those feelings are a valid diagnosis and yes most of us need help from therapists in working these things through.

However since you don't believe in any of that, I'm not sure why you're here. What I'm seeing is strawman arguments, I've seen them before and I'm sure I will again.

[jentay1367]

As Sadie points out, you do seem to be a Contrarian, and sorry to note, a bit self loathing. How any of this is productive to you is beyond me.  These arguments you present seem to be a bit oxymoronic and your circular logic simply will not help you or anyone reading this thread. I wish you well but wonder to what end this thread is bringing you?

P.S......And as Ashley points out in the next post, I too, wish you much love and peace. My post is meant to be an impetus for thought so you might better ponder your plight.

[SailorMars1994]

As Sadie and Jentay have pointed out this does seem like circuar logic and consession built. I do not judge as I was there too about 6 months ago. I realize and understand your pain in that regard. Still, i think you need to tell your gender therapist all of this. The exact same words you use here, tell her about them. I havent seem a gender therapist in over a year since I moved from large progressive city to a small town somewhat isolated from any actual big centers. I had to work these things out on my own and with very open minded counsellors who have some degree of understanding, but are not offical gender therpaists like they have at Kilinic in Winnipeg or Sherboune in Toronto. You have all that you need, you just seem so scared to make one decision either way and are stuck in the worst parts of the middle.

I wish you much love and peace-Ashley

[Jayne01]

These arguments you present seem to be a bit oxymoronic....

Are you calling me a moron? Surely this can't be true and I am misunderstanding the language you are using.

[Deborah]

# oxymoron


## Noun

1. conjoining contradictory terms (as in `deafening silence')
   - Less specific
      - trope
      - figure of speech
      - figure
      - image



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Jayne01]

If you think there are no tests then you haven't looked very hard. What has been concluded in research going back to the 80s is that male and female brains differ and that trans people's brains work similarly as their gender identity. In that earlier work the testing was done observing the effects of brain differences m vs f, principally in how left-right hemisphere operate differently.

I have asked to be tested to determine whether I am trans or not countless times, both in this forum and to each of my 4 therapists. Every time the answer was that there is no test. Maybe they can dissect a brain in a lab and determine that a trans brain is different from a cis brain but that does not help a person who is still alive. When I said that there were no tests, I was referring to some kind of diagnostic test to determine if I am trans or not. That type of test, I believe, does not yet exist. Please correct me if I am wrong and tell me where and how I have one of these tests done.

[Jayne01]

Thanks for the definition Deborah.

[Jayne01]

Now I need to clear something up before this thread gets totally derailed.

It seems that I am being attacked for not being transgender. The first thing anyone says here to someone new who comes along questioning their gender is that "only you can know if you are trans or not". So why is it now that I am telling you that I don't believe I am trans I am being told that I am trans and don't want to believe it. Am I not welcome here if I come to the conclusion that I am not trans? What do you know about me that I am not aware of? Please enlighten me.

Also, I should highlight that I have changed my username. Many people have asked me why I chose the username "jayne01" if I don't think I am trans. I did try to explain how that name came about, but to avoid any further confusion, I had the username changed to "NoName01".

[amandam]

I think they're just worried that you are suppressing this and that can be unhealthy. No one here wants you to be trans. It either is or isn't.

[Devlyn]

Yeah, you're throwing mixed signals is what's going on. Most cisgender people don't feel obligated to come here to Susan's and tell us that they're not transgender.

The self diagnosis part is true. There are no official tests you can take. But you can try this: Since you're not transgender, just walk away from the thoughts and don't look back. If you can do that, you're cisgender.

Hugs, Devlyn

[JoanneB]

I have asked to be tested to determine whether I am trans or not countless times, both in this forum and to each of my 4 therapists. Every time the answer was that there is no test. Maybe they can dissect a brain in a lab and determine that a trans brain is different from a cis brain but that does not help a person who is still alive. When I said that there were no tests, I was referring to some kind of diagnostic test to determine if I am trans or not. That type of test, I believe, does not yet exist. Please correct me if I am wrong and tell me where and how I have one of these tests done.

THE Official test
Q - Do you think you are trans? Y/N
if(Ans=='Y'){
  "Yes you are";
}
else{
   "No you're not";
}

[amandam]

Let me add something:

THE Official test
Q - Do you think you are trans? Y/N
do
if(Ans=='Y'){
  "Yes you are";
}
elseif{
   "No you're not";
}
else{
   enter_therapy(not_decided);
}
while not_decided;

[Dena]

It seems that I am being attacked for not being transgender. The first thing anyone says here to someone new who comes along questioning their gender is that "only you can know if you are trans or not". So why is it now that I am telling you that I don't believe I am trans I am being told that I am trans and don't want to believe it. Am I not welcome here if I come to the conclusion that I am not trans? What do you know about me that I am not aware of? Please enlighten me.

What I know about you is nobody who is CIS has the type of turmoil over their identity that you have. Therefore, I believe that you are transgender and have it pretty intensely. What is unclear to me is if you are bigender/gender fluid or if you are just resisting a transition because of how you perceive it will destroy your life. I know your job will tolerate a transition and your wife is helping however she can but for some unknown reason, you are still fighting it.

I also know it's not going away by it's self and your only hope for some kind of future will be to remain in therapy until you get this resolved one way or another.

Last I know that I am stubborn and as long as you remain on the forum I will do whatever I can to help you.

[Jayne01]

It's not that I felt an obligation to come here on the forum to announce I am not trans. I was already on the forum. I had questions, I thought I was trans but I have come to the conclusion I am not. I'm sorry I'm giving mixed signals. I am not a very good communicator, both in writing and even worse in person. It's a skill I never learnt very well.

As far as walking away from the thoughts, that is exactly what I believe is happening. Why the thoughts ever happened in the first place, I have no idea. Major midlife crisis maybe?

Joanne, according to your "official test" I am not trans.

Amandam, I am in therapy, so I have been down that "else" statement in your test. I think therapy has prolonged my state of confusion and made me think that I might be something I'm not.

[amandam]

its possible u have some gender issues n have magnified them with ur emotional turmoil. maybe if u start accepting u will find u r not a candidate for transistion.