If you could have a redo, what would you do differently for your transitioning?

[ChrissyRyan]

If you have transitioned or are transitioning, and could have a redo, what would you do differently?  Maybe nothing.

I am asking because your experiences may have informed you that perhaps you should have handled a transition related situation in a way better than the way you did.  Maybe you would have started transitioning earlier. 

Perhaps you think you should have gone as stealth as possible, or moved.  Perhaps you think that you should have waited to come out or you should have came out earlier.  Or told people in a different way or you should have told someone else first.  Or did a better job at picking a gender therapist.   

Maybe you would not have changed anything of significance.

Chrissy

[Lisa89125]

Chrissy, I would come out at age 6. If not then at 14/15 and not waffle in the slightest with the goal of being taken seriously by my mom and allowed to fully transition. I would have been able to have a more feminine body and kept my high pitch voice.

Lisa

[KathyLauren]

I would have started way, way, way earlier.  And it would have been nice to have been able to introduce Kathy to my mother while she was still alive.  She might have understood.

[Lisa89125]

Kathy, I believe your mom knows. Mine has been gone for a year and I still find things around the house misplaced.

Lisa

[cargurl72]

Starting much earlier in life for sure. Probably would not have been nearly as easy though. I'm a firm believer that all things happen for a reason.

[dee82]

Starting transitioning earlier would be nice.

But overlooking that desire...

I wouldn't tell any friends in person about being transgender.

I surprised a few with my news, and it didn't go down that well. I think people need to be able to process the idea without having to worry about whether they are pulling the appropriate sympathetic face, or not.

All friends would get a traditional letter.

Note, this approach would not apply to a spouse and, if any, my children.

~Dee

[LauraE]

I would have come out when I was 12, but then it was 1963 and I don't think it would have gone well. LOL

Laura

[natalie.ashlyne]

started much sooner so I could enjoy life

[AnamethatstartswithE]

I wouldn't tell any friends in person about being transgender.

While I see where you're coming with this, if you come out to someone via email or letter, then that brief period where you wonder how they'll respond in person becomes hours if not days via email or letter. Just food for thought.

Also put me down in the "started earlier" category.

I think that maybe I would have kept my family more up to date as to how I was progressing, though there was only so much I could have dealt with at the time.

[Lacy]

I would say I would want to start earlier, however if I had done that, I would not have the 3 wonderful children that I have.

So with that said, I would have told my wife earlier than I did and do it in a better manner.

Lacy

[Dani]

Like everyone else here, I would have transitioned much earlier. I would have not needed as many surgeries and I could have lived my life with my physical self matching my inner sense of self.

[dee82]

While I see where you're coming with this, if you come out to someone via email or letter, then that brief period where you wonder how they'll respond in person becomes hours if not days via email or letter. Just food for thought.

Yes, the waiting could be agony. Doubts like "did they get the letter" would arise. But at least I wouldn't have to see the shocked faces. 

~Dee.

[Linde]

I wish I would have know way earlier what was happening to me, and understand it.  I could have worked with my wife on it, and probably could have saved my marriage.  I am very lonely now, and I wonder what would have happened if I could have stopped all this, and would still be happily married!

[Lisa_K]

Starting earlier seems to be a constant theme among the posts here but I have to comment just so you all will know... those of us who are considered by most as having had an "early start", wish we could have started earlier too.

I wish I could have transitioned at least by the time I was 10 when my parents put me in therapy for the first time. I already had longer hair than boys were allowed to have and had always been treated like a girl by my family and had girl things and understood myself as a girl but I was a total social outcast and didn't fit into the world at all outside of my bubble. Although on the girlish side of androgyny, it took another five years when I was 15 until my parents and I were on the same page about my trajectory and future to effect outward physical changes besides the long and pretty hair halfway down my back, another year for my family to use she/her pronouns and another year before I started HRT at 17. I wish I wouldn't have had to go to high school where people knew I was a boy. I wish I wouldn't have had to wait until I was 22 to have SRS.

Yes, I was never really accepted as or seen as a boy and obviously never a man and have lived life as a female from the time I was 18 but yeah, I wish things could have happened sooner for me too. So if maybe you're thinking that's what they all say, that is something we all say that seems to almost be universal but we can't change what was, only what is or will be.

[pamelatransuk]

Hello again Chrissy and Others

Please add me to the list for whom it is customary and almost universal to desire to take all transition action earlier. I told my grandmother I wished to be girl aged 4 in 1959. I crossdressed and bodyshaved all my adult life but took no positive action till aged 62 in 2017. I am definitely publicly transitioning in 2019 when I shall be 64. It is a long time to wait. However it is only fairly recent (say since 2005) that the transgender subject has been in the public domain here in the UK and there still is somewhat of a social taboo around the matter.

So in simple terms my four wishes for a redo would be:

1. Retrospectively change the ignorance and culture which was so much against the transgender issue to the point of it not even being considered/discussed. Impossible of course.

2. Transition decades earlier. Impossible as when I was a young boy and then a youth, my parents who would have had to support me and take forward my being transgender, did not approve and thought it was something I would grow out of. I loved my parents both now deceased but they could not change their thinking and their anti-reaction.

3. I was too concerned about what others may think about me being trans. It is necessary to remove the embarrassment. This I have achieved since 2017.

4. I was not aware that it may have been better in terms of potential results to have started Body Hair Removal by Laser and Electrolysis before starting Hormone Replacement Therapy. Mistakenly I deferred BHR till 4 months after starting HRT.

Obviously we cannot change the past but I shall ensure that I attain happiness at last by transitioning in 2019!

Hugs to all

Pamela

[DawnOday]

I would have told my first wife 45 years ago and saved the agony of both of us not knowing what was going on. But I could not say I was gay because I never was. Transgender was not a word so fear took over. Not honoring my wedding vows is the worst thing I ever did. "Ooh la la"

[Margarine]

I would have never done testosterone at age 20. At that time 35 years ago, the doctor was Well... You have very low Testosterone and High Estrogen, we are going to start you on IM testosterone and you will feel much better.... I would have told him no thanks! Well that was 1983 and today is today and Mr. Wells is no longer lending out his time machine. 

[Danielle M]

I would have started when I was 12 or 13.  I would have gotten much better results.  Wouldn't need hair removal or FFS. I wouldn't have this male body this I am stuck with (tall,wide shoulders,etc.)

[Pisces228]

I would have started when I was 12 and puberty was starting and I knew it was wrong thought I was turning into a man physically, it would have saved me a lot of time and heartache and money

[Kendra]

Some aspects of my life would have been far better if I had transitioned back when Nixon was the US President.  But... I have also considered the fact that, although many countries (including the US) gradually passed laws during my lifetime to help establish more equality, and much of the world is starting to understand we are all just people, I enjoyed male privilege for a half century.  I didn't understand it at the time or appreciate it, but things I was sort of aware of are now much less abstract now that I'm experiencing it.

Would my career as a woman have been the same?  Should be, but the statistics say otherwise.  I've spent many years working for the same company with excellent diversity and equality policies, but as part of my job I often interacted with other companies in locations around the world with different rules, and doubt I would have enjoyed the same level of access.  Business can be competitive and I'll never know at what point I would have received or missed opportunities if my path had been different.  And so many things I never previously thought about... exploring neighborhoods good and bad at all hours while traveling.  Getting quite drunk after work in cities and places I didn't know (I stopped drinking in 2003), and not regretting anything at the time except the bad hangover.  Renting a car in a country where women were not allowed to drive.  Landing business deals where a guy is assertive but a woman doing the same thing may be described as too pushy or worse. 

I find it interesting how guys are so polite now and strangers start casual conversations, but when I actually have something to say people talk over the top of me.  This started when the misgendering stopped and it's not a coincidence.  There's a social dynamic I've heard women mention and I used to think yeah whatever (as I probably talked over the top of them) but I now see the differences are very real.  I'm not saying those are reasons to delay transition once someone knows it's the best answer, but I can't deny the fact I enjoyed some benefits I would not have had if I'd transitioned at an early age.

An easier life for me would have been one or the other.  Transitioning very early, or a body with matching brain-gender all along.  But it would have been a lot less interesting.  I'm okay with the way it worked out.