When Should You Transition?

[K8]

When should you transition?

I would have liked to have transitioned in the womb, but that didn't work out.  I certainly would have liked to transition preteen or at least after my daughter was born.  Until after high school for me, the state of the art of a "sex-change operation" was an orchiectomy and penectomy without a neo vagina.  The word "transsexual" didn't exist until I was in my 20s.  I'm not sure when hormone treatments were available.  So of course I didn't transition back then – I knew very little about it all.

I thought about transitioning in the early 80s when I was 40, but there was no internet and no support groups.  I didn't know how to find a surgeon.  I knew I would lose my job and was afraid I would end up in poverty, perhaps working as a prostitute just to survive.  I wasn't strong enough.  The physical transition would be hard enough to manage, but it was the difficulties of social transition that stopped me.  Then life got in the way and it was 25 years later before I finally did it.

While I agree that transition earlier is better than later, I think that you have to be ready for it.  It is difficult and complicated in the best of circumstances.  I don't think you should try it before you are ready or you may cause even more problems for yourself.

While I'm sorry that I couldn't have grown up a girl or gone through my young adult years as a woman, I don't regret waiting because I know that I wasn't ready earlier – the world wasn't ready and I wasn't strong enough and my circumstances were such that I didn't think that I could manage it.  But perhaps that is just me.

So, when should you transition?

- Kate

[Arch]

I had a perfect opportunity to transition back in 1997-98. Was graduated in June, was planning to start grad school fifteen months later, was told in August that my job was going away but that I would be offered a fairly generous layoff package. It took me something like six months just to go down to the Center and talk to a gender counselor ONCE. And I only did that because I was out of work, I didn't have to worry about school, and I had submitted all of my grad school applications. With none of these issues to occupy my mind, the trans stuff floated up to the surface, took over, and became unbearable.

I don't know anything about how trans folks were being handled in my region at that time, but the therapist did not seem to be at all shocked or disturbed by my revelation that I was attracted to men. Sometimes I torture myself by thinking that if I had gone back to talk to him one more time, just one more time, I would have been committed to exploring my options, and I might have transitioned in 1998.

But I wasn't ready, so I chickened out.

ETA: I had to transition when things once again became unbearable, but this time it was life or death. I don't say that this is when people should transition, but that's what it took for me.

[Colleen Ireland]

So, when should you transition?

You already said it - when you're ready.  Not before.  I'm 54, and just in the early stages.  Last year I wasn't ready.  Not sure I am, even now, but I'm more ready than I've ever been, and I'm using every available resource to gauge my readiness.  I think I will be ready sometime next year to begin.  I'm already dressing in public on a weekly basis.  Soon...

[Janet_Girl]

20 plus years ago I was just starting a transition, but was really not mentality ready then.

So When should you transition?

When your are ready.

[spacial]

Have to agree with Colleen.

But I also feel that anyone should be able to, at least, take the first steps, by dressing appropriately, as soon as they decide. This will include children.

Clearly, the situation for children is more complicated than for adults, but I really don't see why a boy should be forced to wear a dress or a girl be forced to wear shorts or trousers if they don't feel comfortable doing so.

This is somewhat idealistic. But when we consider the enormous strides society has taken in my own lifetime, I feel very hopeful for the next generations of children and adults.

[Teknoir]

People should transition when they are ready, and on nobodies timetable but their own.

If they're ready for certain steps but not others, then by all means they should take only the steps they're ready for.

People should have the freedom to express themselves, live, and explore as they see fit. Even children.

Call me an unrealistic idealist, but I can't see any logical reason why this can't happen.

[rexgsd]

wow, i feel kinda weird now. It seems like its taken you folks a while until you felt ready enough... i'm only 18 and i'm more than ready to transition and go through with everything asap. is this "something everyone goes through", like a young person thing? i really dont want to put out the impression that i think im 'better' cause im 'ready' earlier though, so dont think that please.  i guess im just taken a bit aback reading these responses is all, i didnt expect it

[Colleen Ireland]

Relax, Rex.  A lot of us grew up at a time when the world was a very different place.  I had no access to information or support when I was you age.  I had nobody to talk to, no Internet, no access to counseling, nothing.  I was (or felt) completely alone, and like I must be the only one like me in the universe.  I was dependent on my parents, who were (and are) very conservative in their views, and would have been completely unsupportive of this - I would have ended up in a mental institution.  As it was, I ended up attempting suicide at age 25, when I'd been married almost 2 years. 

I applaud you for being ready at your age.  I wish with all my heart I'd had the resources you have.  You need to know just how lucky you are to be living now.  I wish you all the best, and I hope I see you around here often.

[Arch]

I can pretty much echo Colleen's post, minus a few specific personal details.

I didn't know that there was such a thing as an FTM until I was 26 (22 years ago) and read the only existing clinical book on FTMs. It said that people like me were mentally ill. I already feared that diagnosis, but it was a jolt to see it set down in a book by a so-called expert. The so-called expert.

Things are a little different for young people now, and I am glad.

[Cindy]

To add to all and for Rex as well,
I told my parents when I was 13 that I was a girl and that  there was a mistake in my body and how can they help and I'm female etc. That was 44 years ago. No one in my family admitted to knowing what a ->-bleeped-<- was, never mind a transgendered person. They took me to the local doctor, therapy was to wear my sisters clothes, the ones I had been 'discovered in' and ridiculed until such a point of saying "I'm a boy and I don't want to wear 'girls' clothes anymore." I think everyone concerned felt it was evil.  I loved my M&D and they loved me, They thought they were doing the right thing.
I can no longer be hurt by snide comment, and pronouns don't worry me.

Didn't change a toad's ass about how I felt. How could it.

I left the UK to come to Australia at 23 to have SRS, stuff got in the way. I'm now living PT but in the near future have to make some fairly major decisions. Not the time or place for them here.

When should you transition? When you know and when you are ready; BUT being ready means having a means of support, a job. There are a lot of TG girls working as prostitutes in Australia, I don't think they have chosen it as the career of choice.  TG people are very special, not because I am one, but for the complex problems we present.


Cindy

[spacial]

wow, i feel kinda weird now. It seems like its taken you folks a while until you felt ready enough... i'm only 18 and i'm more than ready to transition and go through with everything asap. is this "something everyone goes through", like a young person thing? i really dont want to put out the impression that i think im 'better' cause im 'ready' earlier though, so dont think that please.  i guess im just taken a bit aback reading these responses is all, i didnt expect it

At the risk of repeating what others have said.

I spent most of my childhood wanting to change. I frequently prayed that I would wake and my ugly bits would be gone.

I did breifly change in my late teens, but it didn't work out. I ended up going right down and got scared.

But life was very different then. (I'm 55). Homosexuality was illegal. There was practically no support.

But you do what and when, you are comfortable with.

[sneakersjay]

I would have loved to have transitioned after HS if only I'd known transition were possible.  The only trans folk I heard about were caricatures and ridiculed by the media, and I was NOT that. Never heard of female-to-male transsexuals until a few years ago, and I transitioned as fast as I could.  Thing is, it wouldn't have been financially possible for me to have transitioned earlier, nor would have transition during my marriage have been remotely possible.  And if I transitioned earlier I wouldn't have two cool kids.

So...

I guess it all works out when the time is right.

Jay

[Nygeel]

You should transition when you are ready to. If I knew I was trans when I was 16, would I have transitioned then? Probably socially, but not physically or legally. Would it be necessarily better if I did start transitioning earlier? Most likely not. I didn't have the support I have now. I didn't have the clear mindset as I do now. I'm enjoying taking things slow and well...enjoying the ride instead of focusing on the destination.

I will also say that I have known a lot of teens that had periods of gender questioning in their lives. Many of them took it slow and figured out what was right for them...most of which ended up being cisgender in the end.

[rexgsd]

okay i think i can understand now. i think im at the point that i am ready, and im slowly going through the process. itll probably be whenever i finally get to the option of surgery that ill have to stop and figure it out, financially, socially, etc like you were saying nygeel. but i figured it had a lot to do with the time and age too, im lucky to have been born when i was, and i only wish others like me could have such 'understanding' at their time growing up =(

[Arch]

im lucky to have been born when i was, and i only wish others like me could have such 'understanding' at their time growing up =(

On the other hand, a lot of us have, ahem, age, life experience, and maybe a little more wisdom on our side. I guess it's a trade-off.

I really don't think I was ready to go into therapy back in the late nineties, and I doubt that I would have done informed consent even if it had been available (I'm pretty sure it wasn't). But, dammit, the therapy would have been free or practically free, and I had fifteen months off school, nine months off work, unemployment insurance for six of those months, and a great layoff check that would have covered two top surgeries, according to the pricing I had heard about back in those days.

I also had a partner who, even when our relationship was at its strongest, might not have stayed with me. I suspect that our relationship would have died an early death, despite what he says now. But I wouldn't have been so psychologically pretzelized if I had started ten years earlier. It could have worked.

Woulda, shoulda, coulda. I wasn't ready.

[marleen]

Definitely when you're ready. Some 20 years ago (I'm 40 now), I made a few phonecalls to a line for people in trouble, mentioning I was transsexual, but the responses never really helped me. Either they did not know how to talk to me, or would simply ask if I was going to have srs. Maybe if one of the people on the other side of the line had talked to me differently, I would have started transition 20 years ago, I'll never know...

[Northern Jane]

If I could have arranged to be born 30 years later, I would have transitioned between age 8 (when I realized what my problem was) and age 12 - any time before the start of puberty. As it was, I was born in 1949 and there was nothing I could do at age 8 (1957) but I was fighting like he[[ by 14 (1963) but I was fighting ignorance. SRS and transition didn't come until 1974. If it had been 30 years later it would have been a whole different ball game!

[pebbles]

I tried when I was 19/20 first I should have gone then I fell short partly because I was harshly judged by the first person I told (GP)
I remember it clearly I'd already started facial hair removal and I knew where a therapist was I walked upto the place anxiously then I literally chickened out at the very last second someone inside had seen me wandering around outside and asked "is somthing wrong?" remembering what happened to me at the GP I just hurried away.

It was another 2 years of hell where I just tried to forget by completely enveloping myself in work and attempts to remove my facial and body hair against the power of T. (And other desperation moves such as eating phytoestrogens ect)
I still feel regret there was no reason to surrender I could have done so much than sat there in squalor.

I was also pretty close to transitioning when I was 17 my escapades were becoming difficult to hide more pepole were becoming suspicious, I fell in love whitch put me off for 3 years with the idea that love would cure my problem. I can see how I wasn't quite ready then but I could have been if I'd had any support.

[spacial]

rexgsd

Hopefully this won't come across as too preachy, but there really is little to be gained by regretting the past, or those who have been disabeled by it.

It's in the nature of humans to improve their society for the next generation. Otherwise, we'd all still be living in trees.

Our generation has, hopefully made some improvements. There appear to be some in the area of sexuality and gender identity.

But there is still a long way to go. That is for your generation. Those that will benefit will be your children.

On of my uncles was a Dr. He'd been a naval officer in WW2. In the early 50s he decided to change his sex.

His picture was splashed all over the Sunday newspapers. The talk was that, as his mother had died a couple of years earlier, he was suffering some mental disturbance brought on by an over bearing mother and his unnatural feelings. 

This was total rubbish of course. He had two brothers, one of whom was my father. While their mother was, by all accounts a very strong woman, not to mention an old fashioned, insufferable snob, if her behaviour had caused these problems in her eldest son, there would have been some reflection in the next two. There was not.

He was temporialy struck off. He eventually moved to Italy to start again.

He was never spoken of, other than that he existed.  All that I know,  I discovered from research and talking to people.

We can only hope that such a thing would not happen in similar circumstances today.

That much, is an achievement.

[Tammy Hope]

The easy and obvious answer is the same one everyone else gave - that it is individual to when the person in question is ready, but rather than just echo that sentiment let me take a different approach.

In economics, we are taught, there's a principle in which you analyze a given action under the assumption that there are no other factors which skew the conclusion - which is refereed to as "all other things being equal"

the only way I can say anything relevant about Kate's question is to apply that principle.

AOTBE, the best time to transition falls between 18 and 25,

While one would be very blessed to transition, say, in middle school - there is a real and significant possibility that other things are at play in your gender identity questioning. I wouldn't say i'd discourage such an early transition (particularly for a child who was aware from long before puberty of their identity) - just saying that that factor makes it a less than ideal moment.

After your mid-20's, the complications of life REALLY begin to pile up - relationships, career, et al become much more of a factor.

Plus, the demographic who's (in general) the most likely to be accepting and affirming is the younger one (currently) - but admittedly in the future this factor lessens in importance as the older, less tolerant, generations fade from the scene.

But yeah, all other things are NOT equal and no one should feel like there's a "zone" they HAVE to fall into or they will be "late"

A lot of us ARE late (I'm certain, in hindsight, that if I'd transitioned in my early 20's I'd have been successful and I was "ready" - albeit I'd have had to relocate) but just as many (more?) can look back and say they were NOT. also, circumstances change both ways - i wouldn't have been as ready, or rather my life wouldn't have been ready - for me to transition 15 years ago as I was 25 years ago.

so it's a mistake for anyone who is, for instance, 23 to think "oh crap I have to hurry up before the window closes!!" - you have to be sensitive to the ramifications in your particular set of circumstances.