Don't wait...

[lilacwoman]

Not to mention the youthful effect HRT often has. look at Virgina! 

I've just seen a quote from a book that says that a MtF taking estrogen gets up to 15 years taken off their looks which might explain why a lot of 40ish transitioners look like 30ish.

Another thing about older MtFs passing on the street is choice of clothing and accessories.
I dress my age and look like a middle aged woman and this in effect makes me invisible to boys and young men so I am spared anxious moments when passing groups of them.  I've watched groups from a distance and keep watching from my eye corner as I pass them and somehow they see me and dismiss me without directly looking at me...unless they can judge me as old woman in a split second.
I'm also fairly invisible to most girls and young women who only look at other girls their own age to check out fashions.
Walking from one end of town to the other the only people who really do look at me are men and women about my own age.

[MillieB]

I really don't think that there is a stock answer for this. While it is true that HRT works better when you are younger, and that GID isn't going anywhere if you have it. I feel that I probably would have been too imature to transition young, I also had the run away to London and be a prostitute idea (great minds think alike ) I was also completely incapable of living a life as a man, and the result was addiction, depression and heartache, so I don't know, looking back now I realise that my family probably would have supported me and it would have been better to have faced myself head on a long time ago. No point in looking back though and I have seen plenty of people in their thirties who do get good results from hormones (even though I have to accept that I'll never have hips! Grrrr!!! )

[alexia elliot]

Both arguments, early intervention and maturity are significant. However one seams to address more on physical aspect other mental stability. I do understand that one must be sure in regards to their direction to venture into transition. I was always sure about being different from all the boys around me but wasn't sure of who exactly I was. Till this day after very late start to achieve passability I still am not sure of who I am. I don't know of how many of us know exactly of who they are? I now seem to link the experience of transition to the journey it is, rather than the outcome it will provide. To me the original post is of great significance because fact remains that HRT works its wonders the sooner the better. Also if I have started earlier who is to say of what my life would have been like, it really is a mystery and I think same goes for everyone else. Facts are indisputable and physiognomy can be successfully altered in varying degree only in early teens to early twenties. I am sure technology will catch up and provide quick and easy solution to transgender, but I fear it will be too late for me. I seem to lie in-between the solution, too early for technology and too late for hormones. "Get to the pinata quick if you want the chocolate, for if you wait to think about it, it will be all gone!

[Just Kate]

It is never too late to start transitioning. You will be fine. Don't throw away that HRT.

Oh, were we talking about transition?  I thought she was talking about not waiting to address one's GID with a therapist.

The number one complaint I see from people who regret transition is that they felt rushed into it, that it was the only way, and that it was transition or die.  While I believe the OP is quite well intentioned, her advice is not universal and in fact can have its own brand of disastrous consequences if put in the minds of the unprepared.

Post Merge: June 07, 2010, 09:16:46 PM

Waiting can be prudent. I could have transitioned at 18 and royally messed up my life. Instead I did it at 28 and my life is awesome.
If you transition before you are ready, then it could spell disaster.

Amen.

[wooohooo500]

As someone who has had questions his whole life, I feel I am just now in a position to really do something about it, and I don't feel bad about this.  I am who I am because of where I have been and it will all work out in the end.