Why do transgender feelings get stronger with age?

[krobinson103]

Thanks for sharing. 

If I can ask, what was your final straw?  Did you have family and career considerations?  And if so, how did you handle those?

Thank you.

Karen

I have family and career that have will be been hit hard by this. However, life was simply not worth living anymore and living a lie for the sake of stuff and others became unbearable.

[TonyaW]

Thanks for sharing. 

If I can ask, what was your final straw?  Did you have family and career considerations?  And if so, how did you handle those?

Thank you.

Karen

Was no final straw.  That's why I liked Gertrude's repetitive stress injury analogy. No one big thing, but the accumulation of all the things over all the years. Family concerns certainly made me think transition wasn't possible for a long time.

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[Danielle Kristina]

For me it was sudden.  Until this sudden burst of feminine feelings I considered myself a crossdresser.  I only dressed on occasions, whenever the urge hit.  However, suddenly the desire to dress hit and then never dissipated.  All of a sudden I didn't want to stop dressing and I found myself peeing sitting down with little conscious effort on my part.  That wa.s when I finally realized that I was more than just a crossdresser and began exploring my gender identity.  Today I know I'm transgender.

[KathyLauren]

Thanks for sharing. 

If I can ask, what was your final straw?  Did you have family and career considerations?  And if so, how did you handle those?

Thank you.

Karen

My "final straw" was seeing a trans woman in real life delivering a public lecture.  She wasn't "being trans".  She was just being herself and doing what she does.  And being accepted as such by a large audience.  It dealt a significant blow to the fears that had kept me in denial for decades.

[Charlie Nicki]

Thanks for sharing. 

If I can ask, what was your final straw?  Did you have family and career considerations?  And if so, how did you handle those?

Thank you.

Karen

My dysphoria increased A LOT after starting working out and getting manlier. I thought getting muscles would help me feel better as a man. And it did for a quick second and then all came crumbling down and I felt horribly about myself. And then I got serious suicidal thoughts...That was the tipping point. A week after those thoughts started I went to therapy and one year and a half later here I am living full time as a woman.

[TranSketch]

My dysphoria increased A LOT after starting working out and getting manlier. I thought getting muscles would help me feel better as a man. And it did for a quick second and then all came crumbling down and I felt horribly about myself. And then I got serious suicidal thoughts...That was the tipping point. A week after those thoughts started I went to therapy and one year and a half later here I am living full time as a woman.

More power to you for living full time, I'm still only presenting every other weekend but in day to day life and work I present male still, I can't risk it in my head as I still feel there's to many masculine traits to be passable

[DawnOday]

Karen. I decided to go forward when I could no longer stand myself. I was having a breakdown and had gotten out of control. I realised to save my marriage I might have to do something that could destroy it. My wife knew she hadn't married a woman, but thankfully she did realise she married her best friend. Still a little friction, but we tell each other we love each other, far more than we used to.

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[BunnyBee]

I think it's that the wearing-down is cumulative. It's like erosion, where dysphoria is the water running over the rocks. For many reasons, age increases the flow. Your physical form grows more untenably away from your identity, your life gets more entrenched in a role that feels wrong, more things remind you of your isolation and silent imprisonment behind the eyes of a growing construct. There is an impossible dynamic of getting weaker while the crushing forces grow stronger.

[ErinAscending]

For me it was the disconnect from life itself.  I spent years just letting life happen to me instead of experiencing and engaging with it.  After cracks appeared over the years I would seal it up with more and more of what I perceived as "Masculinity", by the time it all came down I was an ugly ugly person.  One insignificant stress too many and I found I couldn't do it anymore.  All the BS was gone and there I was.  Exposed, vulnerable, highly emotional, alone (because of the disconnection from life I had no real "Friends" to speak of), and for the first time in over 30 years I could see all of my life at once and saw a lot of holes...

I started plugging up the holes and simply couldn't deny it...  It was waaaaaay too damn obvious for me at least.  I only started to stabilize after admitting it, owning it, and being proud instead of ashamed for the first time in my life.  Then came figuring out what to do.  Still workin on that as we speak.

[Charlie Nicki]

More power to you for living full time, I'm still only presenting every other weekend but in day to day life and work I present male still, I can't risk it in my head as I still feel there's to many masculine traits to be passable

I understand how you feel. I waited for a year on HRT and some surgeries (breast augmentation and lipo) before I had the confidence to go full time. The funny thing is...I still get misgendered sometimes, so at this point passability is a goal but not an obstacle for me. There might be a point when you feel the same, if that happen then it's time to go full time!

[Gertrude]

Was no final straw.  That's why I liked Gertrude's repetitive stress injury analogy. No one big thing, but the accumulation of all the things over all the years. Family concerns certainly made me think transition wasn't possible for a long time.

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Re family, same here


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[Danielle Kristina]

I find it interesting how many viewpoints there are on why this happens to us.  For me, it took therapy to sort out my feelings and  identify what was going on.  Like so many have said already it wasn't one thing but an accumulation of things.  That's pretty much what my therapist said when she diagnosed me as being transgender.  Before I could even admit to being trans she said "the prof is in the pudding," and stated that I was more than just a cross dresser.  While I may not have dysphoria as severely as others, I'm very much transgender whether I want to be or not.  My inner girl is here to stay.