Hey all, been reading here from time to time along with many other forums and blogs on gender topics for a couple of years, but this will be the first time I ever participate on such a forum. This seemed a nice place to give it a go.
I'm 25 and came out as a transsexual last summer. All my life I'd been afraid of loosing my family if I did, but they've taken it pretty good. They have a lot of trouble understanding any of this, but they try to accept it and support me.
What I was even more terrified of, was loosing my boyfriend who I've been together with for about 3 years now. I feel very guilty about having to put him through all this, because we met shortly after I had been through a severe depression and was very close to coming out and seeking a therapist, but I had only dived back into the depths of the closet and tried to keep living in denial. I feel like a total jerk and that all of his pain could have been avoided if I had been honest with both myself and him from the start.
I've always known I'm really a guy, but I lived fully as a female for many years, I had actually worked very hard to "pass" as a female(since I was 15), which may seem odd since I'm born female, and it was easy for me to look attractive as such if I blocked all my feelings about it. To "make a woman" of myself was partly self-punishment and partly a way to try to supress anything about ever having felt like a guy.
I have quite severe body dysphoria, but for most of my life this still didn't make me feel "worthy" of getting help to transition, because when I was younger I thought(since I knew I'd be a gay boy) that I HAD to be happy with the body I had, and that transsexuals had to be a certain way and actually fill a certain stereotypical gender role in order to get any help. And I was terrified of what it would mean for my life if I came out as a transsexual and gay.
As I got older I realised that a lot of this was just my misconceptions, and that I didn't have to fulfill the criteria of some sort of stereotype at all, but still - shame and fear brought me down various weird and destructive paths in my life instead, and I'm still trying to recover emotionally.
I fully accepted that I'm gay 3-4 years ago, but I still couldn't accept being in need of transition. I knew I wanted it, I had dreamt of it since I was 11(when I first learned it was possible), but actually accepting that I do need it and that this feeling isn't something I can control - that took time. Last summer I broke down and got suicidal, and that's when I asked myself: "what if I DON'T seek help? what if I just push this away again and keep living a lie? what if I actually never get to live as a male?".. I had never experienced anything so frightening. I couldn't see myself living any more. I had been suicidal before, yes, but this was different, this was - I can't even imagine a future, as if there was just nothing there.
The thing that tortures me the most now is what will happen with my relationship. My boyfriend is someone I'd really want to spend the rest of my life with, we have a very good and deep relationship, but I can't see myself keep living as a female. I don't want to keep going through this neverending gender dysphoria.
He knows since summer about me being transsexual, and he does his best to support me although he doesn't like it. He says he wants to try staying as a couple even after I start HRT - but to take it a day at a time. He's very straight, and I truly cannot see how he'd be able to keep me as a boyfriend, even though he tries to tell me that it's fine if I get a male body and even lower surgery. He did ask me a couple weeks ago if I wanted to be his boyfriend, as if asking for the first time, and it made me really happy, but I still can't see it happening.
How do I handle this? I'm sure many of you have been/are in this situation. I feel like whatever I choose to do - I will loose something else that means the world to me. I should be thankful that he actually is so supportive, he could have reacted much worse, but this fact only reinforces my love for him and makes it a lot more painful.
I've been seeing a psychologist since august, and done many changes for the better in my life and I just generally feel a bit more comfortable, but some things I don't dare to talk to him about, such as how scared I really am of loosing my boyfriend due to transition.
Sorry it was so long, cheers if you made it through!
