Some questions about feelings and sex prior to coming out/pre transition...

[Aussie Jay]

I was just sorta browsing the internet and reading about hormones for one reason or another and I suddenly got a feeling of "holy crap, I'm a transsexual, DUH"
Actually I just remembered why I was reading about it...I was trolling a friend of mine in to believing I was a MTF so I was educating myself in order to be a better troll...

   Dude!! The look on your face must have been priceless. I definitly feel you with the whole duh feeling!! lol And yeah it is really amazing when you realise - there are options.
Its still a feeling of a million years away for me, but at least Im exploring my options...
Jay

[Luc]

I even had a problem when getting changed for gym class - I just couldnt change in front of the other girls. For years I put that down to being a lesbian and that I didnt feel comfortable because the other girls might think i was looking at them... Now I rethink those moments and realise - I was in the wrong change room!! Thats why I was uncomfortable.

I loved gym class, if only for the locker rooms. Of course, I NEVER changed in front of the chicks in the class... I just watched them get changed, and I suppose if they or the teacher had known, I would've been excommunicated from the order of girls' gym lol. In middle school, I always changed in a bathroom stall... which was problematic the day I accidentally dropped my shirt in the toilet, and wore my gym shirt the rest of the day. In high school, I mastered the art of changing shirts without baring my torso at all. Good times.

SD

[Aussie Jay]

I always changed in a bathroom stall... which was problematic the day I accidentally dropped my shirt in the toilet, and wore my gym shirt the rest of the day.

You poor bugger!! I remember a few times where I would be changing and be like half naked and realise I had forgotten something in my bag which wasn't in the stall with me... So many times I got in trouble for being late to class - but pretty sure I never dropped anything in.
I think if that had have been me, knowing the kind of teen I was - I would have flipped out and had to have been sent home and that would have been yet another issue I would have discussed with a therapist way back when...
Come to think of it now - my parents took me to heaps of docs and shrinks when I was just pre teen and into my teens. I reckon they knew/know I'm different. Does anyone else get the same sort of feelings?? Like the people around them know something is up??
Jay

[Teknoir]

Does anyone else get the same sort of feelings?? Like the people around them know something is up??

Well, I'm out so it's "knew something was up"  .

As a teenager I got the "it's ok to be a lesbian" talk. I fit none of the criteria of "lesbian". I told 'em I wasn't a lesbian, I didn't even have enough in common with females to hang out with them, but they didn't believe me.

After the ex and I broke it off, I decided it was time to figure my issues out, stop femming it up (which I sucked at anyway), and just go back to being myself. My mom is putting me up while I study before my job starts next year, so for the first time in 8 years she's been seeing a lot of me. She bailed me up in the kitchen one day crying and shaking because she thought I was suicidal!

She said that if she were in my position (mid 20's, single, and over the ex), she'd be out looking for another partener. She was worried that I was still dressing "badly" (ie, still dressing male), not doing female grooming things, and generally had a distracted, preoccupied look (like I was contemplating something really big).

So yeah, she (and many other people around) figured something was "up". She was just way, way, off on what it was!
Of course, I came out - thinking that knowing I was happy to have finally accepted myself and going after what I want in life instead of suicidal would make her feel better. Yeah...

[Luc]

Hmm... nah. My family always seemed blissfully oblivious of anything that was going on with me. As long as I was somewhat respectful of them and pretended to be happy on the outside, they didn't say anything about it. And god, Teknoir, it's okay to be a lesbian? For me, my mother found some random journal entry I'd written when I was 19, and put me through an hour-long interrogation, followed by a lecture about how god wants us to be straight. My folks always waited until it was too late to help me, like when I endured ten years of suffering through bipolar disorder & finally had a nervous breakdown at 23... my mother told me to snap out of it. I had to scream at her repeatedly for hours that if she didn't get me some help, I was going to slit my own throat. I WISH I had people around who could just clue into how I was feeling, and actually want to help.

Oh, and I also get the "badly dressed" comments, particularly from my mother... even after a year on T, she thinks I would look really nice in a dress. Go figure.

SD

[GamerJames]

... even after a year on T, she thinks I would look really nice in a dress. Go figure.

This made me bust a gut. If you have any brothers, I wonder if your mom would say that to them... Lol 

(now I have this hilarous mental image of my brothers in dresses... Awesome.  )

[Luc]

Oh, I have 3 brothers, but only one who lives at home. He's 19, 6'5", and about 275lbs... I'd LOVE to see him in a dress!

[Teknoir]

And god, Teknoir, it's okay to be a lesbian?

Not only from my mother, but from pretty much all of my family at one stage or another! I fail at "looking normal" .

Sure, my mother was shocked at first, then ashamed, but judging by the number of penis jokes that are getting thrown my way in the last 2 weeks, she's hit acceptance.

It did take her some time to come to terms with it though. Lesbian would have been accepted straight off, but she needed some time to accept trans. What has helped her come to accept it has been her seeing me much happier and functioning.

I'm 25, so the family aren't helping me directly with my transition - but they aren't standing in my way either. They're helping me with general living until I get back on my feet (spare room to crash in, food, internet, etc) and that's really all the help I would take, even if more were offered. I consider this part of my journey into independant adulthood (take 2...  ), and I'd like to get there with pride . There's a time to swallow your pride and accept charity, and there's a time to say no and bootstrap it yourself.

No offense ment to anyone who has accepted help, of course. Everybodies situation is different.

I've done the nervous breakdown thing twice myself between 15 and 17 (about a year apart). It takes it's toll on you. But just as you would with a physical wound - you have to stop picking at the mental scabs eventually and let it heal. Speaking from almost 10 years on from the fact, I can say it does heal if you let it. It will be a distant memory eventually, and you'll be stronger for it. I was also told to snap out of it a the time. Told I was "stonger than that, so knock it off". My mother even cried on my shoulder saying "Where did I go wrong?".... it wasn't a very nice thing to hear, and it does hurt. It took me a while to forgive her.

It sucks that your family is so... errr..... (geez, how do I put this diplomatically?)... unaccepting. I'm not christian, but even I find it distastful and sad to say the least when people hide behind dogma and what is supposed to be a tolerant loving god as an excuse for their own bigotry. I really hope they come around to acceptance, but there's not much you can do except be who you are, be happy about it, and hope they see the changes in you in a more positive light.

[Aussie Jay]

I was baptised and did all the catholic-ish stuff growing up and as soon as I was no longer forced to go to church, I didn't. I don't understand how I can be taught about how God created everyone equally and "man" in his own image etc, and then the die hard Christian fanatics are so eager to pass judgement.
If they believe the teachings that God created us in his own image - am I not exactly the person, and the way I was always meant to be?? Is this not my journey??
I will never forget a chick at uni, a born again Christian coming up to me and saying that God had come to her in a dream and told her to take me to church with her... Needless to say I "politely declined". I just can't understand who they can be so predudiced and put it all down to the word of God. I've read the same books and listened to the same teachings and I would like to think I'm a pretty accepting person.
Its awesome that some of your families have come to acceptance. That is like THE biggest fear I have... My family has come to accept me being a "lesbian". I came out when I was 19 and it kind of went down like a lead balloon at the time... I too have received jokes in the past few years - which leads me to believe they have hit acceptance.
Not really sure how this will go down... But as stated previously I reckon they have always known I was different - very different. Not so sure they will/would ever figure this out but.
Jay