Do you ever regret not coming out sooner?

[Alainaluvsu]

I should've come out when I was loving to wear Ms. Potato head earrings when I was 3 (I have pictures, what a big girly smile..)
I should've come out when I daydreamed that my mom would buy girl toys and "force" me to play with them when I was 4, but I thought my mom would get mad.
I should've come out when I wanted to wear cute clothes that girls wear when I started going to school, but I was too afraid I would get made fun of.
I should've come out to my friends when I noticed how much more I enjoyed playing girl games when I was 8, but was too afraid to get cooties.
I should've come out when I started crossdressing in my moms clothes and wearing her makeup every day after she went to work when I was 12, but I was afraid I would get in trouble.
I should've come out when I started going to bed praying my body would reject my genitals, forcing doctors to put a vagina on me, when I was 13, but I figured my mom would put me in a mental hospital.
I should've come out when my mom caught me going to LGBT support sites when I was 15, but she told me she didn't know if she loved me anymore and all I told her was that I was gay...
I should've come out when she said she loved me, when I was 16. But I didn't want to lose her again.
I should've come out when I was unemployed at 23. But I was afraid of staying unemployed.

It took a fight with my brother to make me feel so isolated, that *IDGAF* what people think of me anymore, I'm doing this. Because my life has sucked enough with the incorrect genitals, and acceptance has been hard to come by as it is!

[rejennyrated]

Well look just to make you all feel a little better - you can do it right when you are young and still comprehensively mess up when you get older. and thereby lose all the advantage that you could have gained.

I did come out when I was 4 and i wanted a girly pair of red shoes. To my amazement my mother eventually seemed to understand.
I did ask for that gingham party frock when I was 5 and I wore it to Rosemary Butchers birthday party despite the stares and comments.
Aged 8 I did insist on wearing a kilt (tartan skirt) at school as part of my uniform (which was the closest I could get to dressing as a girl)
Aged 8 - 14 I did opt for all the girls optional subjects like ballet, domestic science and needlecraft and I played rounders and hockey with them.
Aged 14 I did come out again to my mother after reading Jan Morris Connundrum - an early book about transition and gender reassignment
Aged 17 I was sent to a specialist Dr John Randall
Aged 18 I did fall out with Randall who was trying to make me into a frilly stereotypical little miss. At the time I was adamant that I just wanted to be me but female. He wasn't prepared to treat me unless I adopted a faux ultra femme position and eventually...
Age 18 Dr Randall did write to my parents pointing out that Uk surgeons at the time would not treat anyone under 21 and recommending that during my time at university I be forced to try living as a normal male. (almost an early form of reparative therapy)
Age 19 I joined an extreme christian sect who among other things encouraged me to get married as a "step of faith" promising that if I did this then God would heal me! needless to say he didn't
Age 23 I had a near nervous breakdown nearly committed suicide, started divorce, began to experiment by self medication (not recommended - because it is pretty risky but back then we didn't realise this) started electrolysis and transitioned without much help.

As a result despite doing it all right when I was young I STILL lost the initiative in my teens and as a result I was still well past my 24th birthday before I got to see the surgeon.

So don't beat yourselves up. Even if you do it right - you can still fail to capitalise on it.

When I think that if only I had played ball with Randall and shown him what he wanted to see I could have been postop (by using a foreign surgeon) at age 18 it makes me really cross with myself.

Moral is - we all make mistakes. The important thing is to learn from them and move on with life.

[Sarah_aus]

Sorry to crash, I haven't come out, though that is set to change sooner rather than later.... But I wanted to say I haven't come out for the same reason that you and many others have said in one way or another:

It's because I was trying to be accommodating to other people.  I was afraid of breaking the comfort zone of the people around me and causing them to lash out against me.  I was SO worried about what other people would think of me and their perception of who I am as a person that I simply never thought about being who I felt I should be.   I was afraid to accept myself as a human being who needs to find something to love about herself because nobody around me would love me. 


Since I was a child there was something different about me, and, when I began to realize and question what it was, I hid those feelings away, and tried my best to act as I was expected to.

Did I have opportunities? Sure.
Did I do anything about them? No.

I'm finally realising that it's my life, that I need to live for me.

And for the first time in my life i'm not ashamed of who I am, I'm learing to accept me, and hoping that when the time is right, so will others.

Thanks

~Tali

[cynthialee]

I console myself with the certain knowledge that when I first became aware in the 70's back in my single digits (dam I'm gettin' middle age?!) about my issue I would not have been allowed access to transition related medical services.
I like girls, I am not steriotypicaly femme and I have a male streak a mile wide. (too bad that doesnt add up to no dysphoria) meh

[Magnus]

I don't regret not coming out sooner... I regret that when I actually did at 14 to my therapist (after having told my step dad at 13, just between me and him) that nothing was done about it. Or that nobody before then noticed what was going on when even I didn't understand what was going on myself (because I was too young to know or understand about gender variants, even though I KNEW I was a boy as early on as 6). All of the clues and the signs anybody needed to observe to notice it were there, plain as day... but still nobody paused to take notice, not the countless strings of therapists and psychologists I was subjected too (due to my anger and depression issues growing up because of this), not the teachers, not my grandmother, not my mom, nobody else in my family... I was just lost and nobody found me until I found myself first.

At the very least I figured it out while I was still young... I just hope I can deal with this physically (get the changes I need) to be able to move on with my life while I am still a relatively young man. I don't want to end up 30 or 40 and still being stuck at the starting gate, still without a life and unable to find work because of the animosity of employers towards us – in California of all places to boot.

I hope now that this condition is coming out in the limelight more and more that this never happens to anybody else and that our younger brothers and sisters get the help they need sooner than many of us were able too. Life is too short to be living in misery because you're forced into living the life of the gender that you aren't!

[Vanessa_yhvh]

Regret may not be exactly the right word for how I feel about the lost years.

I wish I had been kinder to Sydney and allowed her to breathe more, yes. My doc wishes they'd "caught me at eight", yes.

I put it off for so many reasons, and then could put it off no more.

But I don't know if I can say that I was ready to jump until I jumped.

But I can say with absolute certainty that I don't regret or question transition!