Susan's Place Transgender Resources

"I don't quite understand it or what makes some of us so different that this becomes a matter of life and death as children and adolescents and isn't something that can be ignored or repressed regardless of how much parents or society try. I know for sure without the support of my folks and being allowed to do the things I did, I can say with certainty that I would have killed myself because all of this was so absolutely fundamental to my very existence, I would have rather died than to have ever grown up to be a man." ~LisaK

For me this is a great question.  I have wondered about this ever since I first began interacting with people identifying as transgendered. I see the differences,  and l accept them. I just cannot explain or understand them. Maybe I shouldn't worry about the why and just celebrate our differences.

When it comes down to it we all have very different brains and life experiences, so it makes sense to me how those of us who identify as trans had such different experiences. Science really hasn't come far enough yet in even understanding what is the underlying reason for people being trans in the first place, so understanding how it affects us in such different ways doesn't seem likely to be fully understood anytime soon.

For whatever reason I had no gender dysphoria as a child, just a vague interest in the idea of being a girl. Over time it grew from interest to mild obsession, and now years later I am realizing that it is something necessary for me to be truly happy with myself. I don't know why it took me longer to realize this, why it develop over years instead of hitting like a truck at a young age, but I just attribute it to me being a unique individual. It would be interesting to know for certain how this develops and where it comes from someday.

Since I am the one that posited that original thought, I've subsequently not had any major revelations pointing me toward an answer, after all, it was just yesterday, but there is something, even if it is indefinable.

Now under the guise of being one big happy family, holding hands and singing Kumbaya under the happy unicorn transgender umbrella, this venue doesn't really allow us to discuss what might be differences between us so I'll do my best to not go there. While not making any value judgments or insinuating any sort of hierarchy or superiority, there is that nebulous something about those of that did struggle with this as kids and managed to transition as teenagers but I do not know what it is.

The three of us here that have shared that experience and perspective, Julia1996, Auroasky and myself seem to have a certain understanding of each other that transcends our generational differences. Whether it was our innate, undisguisable and irrepressible personality and femininity and the social ramifications of being different or our interactions with parents and family or just the things we went through in general, there is a way we just get each other even if it is unspoken. Perhaps it's just recognizing a kindred spirit? I'm reluctant to speak for anyone else or use the collective "we", but we do feel different from most folks here which may only be because of our shared pasts but I suspect there's more to it than that?

Is this all just a matter of intensity and timing? I understand that those in their 30's, 40's, 50's and even 60's can be just as driven and desperate to transition but I have a hard time understanding if a person feels so strongly about this, enough to throw away wives, family, careers and security, what mental machinations were involved that allowed them to live with it for so long? How can some people repress and ignore something that to me was as fundamental and important as breathing? For someone like me, no amount of parental or societal pressure, bullying, beating or ostracization could make me be anything other than myself. I did not know how to be anything else and why should I even have had to? Maybe I was just really stubborn or not too smart? Maybe I was just too weak to resist or simply selfish?

Had my parents not been understanding and supportive, I would have run away or taken my own life. Nothing or anything mattered except the pain of not being a girl in every way that invaded and influenced my every waking moment and interaction. What force drives and overpowers a little kid to feel this way so strongly and fundamentally that it became a matter of survival and a life and death struggle as I got into my teenage years? I sure as heck don't know and if anybody has any ideas, I'd like to hear them because I'm clueless and have no answers. The disgust of being male bodied and growing up to be a man horrified me more than anything and even at 15, I knew that was never going to happen come hell or high water, even if I didn't know all the hows.

It's not that I have really ever questioned or wondered about these things. For me this is something that has always been and just was and I really don't care what the reasons were. All of this was just my normal although outside influences did everything they could to let me know how normal it wasn't which did nothing but strengthen my resolve and convictions. My feelings about who and what I was and am have never wavered, been questioned or faltered.

The question has been asked why. I have absolutely no idea.

I don't understand the difference myself but I guess it has to do with who we are as a person and seeing as people are so different we each act different in a certain situation. We take different actions on different situations. Social conditioning can also play a large role in this. It is also to do with how people perceive rejection and the fear they have of it. Because if you transition you are bound to get rejected by aspects of live and some people in your life. The loss that people fear of losing loved ones and their position in life and giving it up for an unknown life.

The problem is once you started building a life around you the fear of losing all these things can be immense.

This may lead to people like me only transitioning in my late 20's because of the action I took when I could not transition as a teen. I decided the best thing for me at that stage was just to keep my dad happy and not have him bash my head in. I was also in a very intolerant school. It was a farmer school where anything out of the norm was not allowed. Schools in South Africa is sort of like the military. That pattern lasted for 12 years of pleasing others.

By this we find coping mechanisms that allow us to tolerate in a way the gender we are in that we don't want to be. For me I was miserable but I tried to make the best of it.

If you haven't read it, the essay posted at the link below by Dr. Anne Vitale explains her take on the differences.  http://www.avitale.com/developmentalreview.htm

Quote from: Lisa_K on November 02, 2017, 01:56:57 AMI understand that those in their 30's, 40's, 50's and even 60's can be just as driven and desperate to transition but I have a hard time understanding if a person feels so strongly about this, enough to throw away wives, family, careers and security, what mental machinations were involved that allowed them to live with it for so long? How can some people repress and ignore something that to me was as fundamental and important as breathing?

I have to assume that we each feel the pressure to transition differently.  I envy kids who feel it so strongly at age five that they are able to begin their transition before puberty hits.  I guess I didn't feel it that strongly, back then.  Instead, I put up defenses of denial and compliance.

But, as we all know, dysphoria increases with time.  Eventually it rises to the level where it can't be ignored or denied any longer.  Also, as we mature through our adult lives, we become more competent and gain self-confidence.  When, in my early 60s, my self-confidence had increased to the point where I no longer needed to deny who I was, I was able to tackle the increasing dysphoria.

Different people's confidence varies at different rates.  And different people's dysphoria rises at different rates.  So it should be no surprise that there is a whole spectrum of ages at which people come out and transition (or don't).

I would have to say in my case it simply wasn't safe. My family was the sort of bigots that were unashamed of racism, anti semitism, or homophobia (and in their social context the homophobia was everywhere). Of course they were also and remain incredibly sexist.

And of course there was no language for trans, if you weren't adequately masculine then you were assumed to be at best inferior, at worst queer. These prejudices we're pretty much echoed everywhere so the notion of any escape was certainly unlikely to occur to me. I did absolutely want to escape, however by the time I'd gotten to an age where that was feasible, I'd also begun learning to pass better as male.

Understand that for someone who's been subjected to abuse, the coping mechanism isn't what it is for someone with supportive parents. Really the main thing I learned as a kid was how to hide. In my case the physical abuse was relegated to animals, pets however seeing that leaves a lasting impression. Rather my parent and family were quite clear that caring and approval was reserved for those who earned it. Entirely conditional, I grew up with few if any examples of unconditional love. People who are fundamentally unloved by their care givers are in a prison that I think those who come from functional, happy families can't easily understand.

I was the kid who came to tears often in school and you can bet that my peers made that every day for a long time.

Reciprocally to this day as much work as I've put into understanding and repairing the holes left by this experience, I cannot really fathom what it could be like to be in a family that actually cares for one another. I hear people speak of it, sometimes see it in action and marvel at the possibility. Healthy and caring families might as well be Martians for what little I can understand them.

Add to all that, I'm pretty far out on the autism spectrum. I had trouble interpreting emotions and connecting with my own.

So that kid was truly trapped. Yes there were ways out, however because it wasn't safe to know I was female, I just knew early on that I was different. After many years it was divorce which was initially a crisis for me that threw me into deep depression but also forced me to understand that I didn't just have a feminine side as a male, rather I was transexual, at first I figured myself for nonbinary but in a deeper place I knew that I'm fundamentally female. While I appreciate the lessons learned the hard way as a natal male and am pretty good at reinterpretation of my history as first male and then non transitioning transexual, all of the above is why I take to being finally female like a duck to water.

Lisa, I hadn't intended such a long response to your post, I'm not sure I could say it in fewer words.

Some weeks ago my dad said to me "I wish you did this whole thing after finishing university". I got a little annoyed because I'm almost done with my transition so it's not a new thing, how can he still not understand that wasn't working? He told me about someone who planned to transition FTM after having a kid(meaning to say some people can postpone it a while). I could just say people are different.

I don't want anyone to feel less valid if they didn't start earlier though. Because I doubted myself at first, my mother and a psychiatrist too, because I didn't show any signs before puberty. Now that makes sense, because I didn't have that many feminine interests (which is perfectly fine because this is not about that), and there were no secondary sex characteristics yet. After puberty I just couldn't imagine being a man. Some people try to play that role for decades. Our individual experiences and environments play a part, but I think this is partly due to our character types. I have always been a stubborn person if I think I am doing the right thing. Some don't want to upset people around them. And if they get married and have kids etc it becomes harder. Until they can't do it anymore.

Quote from: SadieBlake on November 02, 2017, 06:47:16 AMit wasn't safe to know I was female

What a brilliant way of expressing this state!  Exactly this!

For me personally it was utter denial and compartmentalisation. Sure I'd been cross-dressing since the around the age of 8,  and had wished daily to be a woman, but I wasn't a cross-dresser,  and certainly wasn't trans* haha.
The other thing about fear of discovery is very true for me,  I was totally paranoid about being outed.
Only once I had faced what was in the box in my head and let it out,  I discovered it wouldn't fit back in.
If I'd kept dressing in secret from my wife and family,  I might have lived the rest of my life as a fairly miserable fat balding guy eating myself into an early grave.
I survived all those years by simply denying what I really wanted and distracting myself with work,  hobbies and interests.


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I would be surprised if any transsexual people had NOT contemplated suicide during their childhood, especially if they had no support from their loved ones and their was no reasonable hope of SRS or transitioning.  Here am I, 61 years old and still alive, though. 

One factor in common with almost all who transition by their teens is the support of at least one parent.  Some teenage transsexuals, without that support, have taken their own lives.  I think, though, that many who managed to transition in their teens, and think that they would have have killed themselves if they had not been able to, would still be alive. 

It is an old saw but there really is at least a glimmer of hope while their is life.  I contemplated suicide when I was twelve when I started growing pubic hair, as I didn't know that girls also have it.  There were still things to live for, though: the family pets, living in a place rich in wildlife, having the only friend I ever had who knew that I wanted to be a girl (as did she, or "he" as I would have said then).  I also read about April Ashley, so changing sex was not a totally impossible dream.  Remember also that cis women do not spend their whole lives just thinking about being women.  There are other things to occupy their minds: work, study, family etc..

When I read or hear about people transitioning in childhood, I often admire their courage and determination but I don't think that they are necessarily more transgender or feminine than I am, just luckier.

This question is something I have really wondered about. Maybe it has to do with different levels of dysphoria.  Or maybe some people are stronger than others when it comes to dealing with dysphoria. Or maybe whatever biological force in the womb that makes someone trans had a stronger effect on some of us. But no one really knows and for now it's going to stay a mystery. Until I joined this site I just thought all transpeople were like me and had known they were trans very early and tried to do what they could to transition. That some transwomen  can have a successful and even kind of happy life as a man was a totally alien concept to me. Actually it still kind of is. Please don't think I am trying to bash late transitioners, I'm totally not. By alien I mean something that's so far beyond my abilities that I have trouble trying to imagine it. Those of you who lived successfully in a male role are far stronger than me.

I didn't know I was trans when I was very young of course because I didn't know what trans was. But I knew there had been some awful mistake and that I had been born wrong and I started trying to fix it. My dad told me I was normally a very sweet child when I was very young but if anyone would try to "correct" my female behavior I became unbelievably mean and spiteful. My dad did try to encourage me to act like a boy when I was little but he said he just gave up finally because I got so mean when he did and that I would do whatever he had commented on even more out of spite. My uncle was always always telling me not to do this or that because boys don't do that and I was a boy. I totally despised him. Even though my dad yelled at me for saying it, I would tell him to his face that I hated him. And at Christmas and birthdays he always gave me totally male stuff. A football, cars, etc. I would just put his gifts into the trash without opening them. My dad would get really mad at me for doing it but I still did. And once when I was 7 I got in a lot of trouble because this girl I was playing with told me that I was a boy so I couldn't play with any of her toys and I hauled off and smacked her in the face.

Some of the stuff my dad has told me I did when I was little sounds a little psychotic now actually.  If I could have played the boy role things would have been so much easier for me. But I couldn't.  If I had been continually punished for female behavior and forced into male behavior it would have very damaging to me psychologically. I would be dead by now. I have no doubt I would have committed suicide. I think my dad realized that and it's why he has always been so accepting. I'm extremely lucky in that regard. My dad was in his 20s when I was little. Guys that age aren't very accepting of feminine little boys much less their own son.

Julia, in the same vein,  I'll admit I struggle to relate to those like yourself who know so early. I always felt different to others,  but as a young child I can't ever say I felt 'female', those feelings only really solidified in my mid/late teens,  and by then I felt trapped by social convention to change things.

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Quote from: Complete on November 01, 2017, 09:15:21 PM
"I don't quite understand it or what makes some of us so different that this becomes a matter of life and death as children and adolescents and isn't something that can be ignored or repressed regardless of how much parents or society try. I know for sure without the support of my folks and being allowed to do the things I did, I can say with certainty that I would have killed myself because all of this was so absolutely fundamental to my very existence, I would have rather died than to have ever grown up to be a man." ~LisaK

The "great question" answers itself - the support of one's folks.  Although almost all transsexual people contemplate suicide, the only people who can say for certain that they would have killed themselves if they hadn't been able to transition in childhood are dead.

May I also suggest that transgender forums are dangerous places to implicitly ask people why they have not killed themselves.

From young I was also very feminine. My father used to fight with my mother to just put a dress on me to intimidate her when she said leave me alone. My father constantly emotionally abused me correcting my feminine behavior. It caused so much trauma in my life that I struggled at school and felt I want to run away. It became better once my mom and my dad got divorced and I was staying with my mom. But by that time as a 11 year old I was already struggling badly with depression because of all the trauma and abuse.

My mother then got together with this crazy drug addict boyfriend that abused me also because I was so feminine. I was scared of telling my mother I want to be a girl because of what this drug addict would do to me if he found out. I fell deeper into depression where I didn't want to go to school because of how the children treated me for being feminine. So life at school and home was hell. At the age of 15 I tried to commit suicide. I then went to a psychologist that didn't believe in transitioning and advised that I go and stay with my abusive father because that would make me a man. Well after coming out to my step mother and my dad that didn't allow me to transition things turned to hell. I tried to castrate myself to get rid of the male bits by tying shoe laces around them. I injected myself with battery acid in it. I tried to cut it off and passed out in a puddle of blood. My dad just pushed on that he won't allow me to transition no matter what I do. I ended up in hospital a couple of times by mutilating myself. I almost lost the male bits and even not that or ending up in hospital for a suicide attempt changed his mind. All I got was a worse life.

My dad put a pistol in my hand and told me to shoot myself if I want to die and I must just make sure I do a good job. I decided then I must hold off out of fear of him. I didn't transition because I was scared of hurting his feeling I was scared that he would hurt me. I felt like I wanted to die at times rather than grow up being a man but I also knew if I held out long enough I could finally transition and be the woman I felt I am. I thought if I die I will never know what it is to be me.

This fear was en grained in my head and that is why I ended up trying life out as a guy. Because of the trauma that my dad caused in my life.I thought all people would act like he did and do the things he did to me. When I finally got out from under my fathers wings quite the job where we both worked and moved out of the house in the same street as he stays to another state. I had freedom and I grasped at it with everything I had.

I don't think this is complicated at all.   There is a big difference between being accepted and supported by parents and family on this issue and being afraid of being beaten after being told you are a freak and insane.  Some kill themselves.  Others figure out how to get by and continue living. 

Whether or not one accepts they are trans at that age is secondary.   You can know and accept what you are and adopt any alternate persona to survive if you  see no way out of the situation.  This was probably even more the case in the pre-information age.   


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following the topic to be about our differences in how fast or dire the need to change is .. well, we are different - everyone is.

I changed slow, fear or what doesn't matter now. I just know over the years, as I look back, I was never really happy & mildly depressed. People around me knew, my wife knew, family knew. Each in their own way would ask how I feel, am I ok, I should smile more, etc etc. They didn't know why, I couldn't say why, not even to myself.

I've had a good past life, marriage, children, grand-children. I wouldn't change that now if I could. I do wish I had come to terms with myself sooner.

Now that I'm actively seeking answers and, more importantly discussing it openly with wife, I can honestly say that I feel more relaxed and comfortable than previous years. My concern now is not with the change but with how the change affects those around me. One day at a time, it's all I can do.

suicide? I hate the whole topic. Death is an escape not an answer, please seek answers not escape. There's so much to live for!!

I can't tell, did I ramble a bit? Oh well, things get in my head and they just come out sometimes.

Megan, thanks for posting my thoughts/story for me above  ;D

I have never contemplated killing myself over this particular problem. I also never lived a "normal life" because of it.

When I ask why it is I did not compensate, or have kids, or get married, etc., it seems the answer is that it just isn't "in me" to do those things. Rather than being compelled to do those things I was compelled somehow not to do them, maybe there is something lacking in my instincts or in my brain to do them. But there is also something deeper, that I have no real explanation for, that stands in my way and prevents me from being like the rest of the people around me. I can only characterize it as a sort of mental wall between me and those things, and I didn't put it there myself, it was there from day one apparently. There are only some things my body and brain is permitted to partake in in this life, and the idea of suicide isn't one of them.

But - having been through what I have - I am absolutely sure I would have killed myself if that wall wasn't there. Because I definitely wanted to cease to exist all throughout my childhood and a little beyond. I still have a tenuous relationship with "life" and there are many moments when I do not enjoy being conscious and alive (especially so these days now that I realize I can't do so many things others can do). Yet somehow I am still not "allowed" by my brain to do away with myself, nor have I ever allowed myself to over-indulge in escape avenues like drugs and alcohol which is often the thing people turn to instead of death when under high stress. I couldn't tell you why it is I can't do these things. I just can't.

But I would be all kinds of messed up if that mental wall wasn't there. I could easily see myself as a hopeless junkie, for one thing. I could easily be dead. I could easily hurt everyone around me and be impossible to live with, and in and out of psychiatric care. Yet, I keep it all together fairly well. Maybe because of these mental no-go zones I have.

But I'm not in control of them; I didn't get to pick which things they were. 

Quote from: Amoré on November 02, 2017, 09:09:53 AM
From young I was also very feminine. My father used to fight with my mother to just put a dress on me to intimidate her when she said leave me alone. My father constantly emotionally abused me correcting my feminine behavior. It caused so much trauma in my life that I struggled at school and felt I want to run away. It became better once my mom and my dad got divorced and I was staying with my mom. But by that time as a 11 year old I was already struggling badly with depression because of all the trauma and abuse.

My mother then got together with this crazy drug addict boyfriend that abused me also because I was so feminine. I was scared of telling my mother I want to be a girl because of what this drug addict would do to me if he found out. I fell deeper into depression where I didn't want to go to school because of how the children treated me for being feminine. So life at school and home was hell. At the age of 15 I tried to commit suicide. I then went to a psychologist that didn't believe in transitioning and advised that I go and stay with my abusive father because that would make me a man. Well after coming out to my step mother and my dad that didn't allow me to transition things turned to hell. I tried to castrate myself to get rid of the male bits by tying shoe laces around them. I injected myself with battery acid in it. I tried to cut it off and passed out in a puddle of blood. My dad just pushed on that he won't allow me to transition no matter what I do. I ended up in hospital a couple of times by mutilating myself. I almost lost the male bits and even not that or ending up in hospital for a suicide attempt changed his mind. All I got was a worse life.

My dad put a pistol in my hand and told me to shoot myself if I want to die and I must just make sure I do a good job. I decided then I must hold off out of fear of him. I didn't transition because I was scared of hurting his feeling I was scared that he would hurt me. I felt like I wanted to die at times rather than grow up being a man but I also knew if I held out long enough I could finally transition and be the woman I felt I am. I thought if I die I will never know what it is to be me.

This fear was en grained in my head and that is why I ended up trying life out as a guy. Because of the trauma that my dad caused in my life.I thought all people would act like he did and do the things he did to me. When I finally got out from under my fathers wings quite the job where we both worked and moved out of the house in the same street as he stays to another state. I had freedom and I grasped at it with everything I had.

Amoré, your father makes my father look like a saint, which he wasn't.  I'm so sorry you had to go through that as a child.  My father constantly screamed at me and beat me if I showed my femininity, or did anything else he didn't approve of, but he never handed me a gun. 

I tried the  shoelaces but preferred rubber bands.  Never had the guts to do it for more than a couple of days.  God did it hurt when I cut the rubber band off.  Never cut myself though I contemplated it often.  I also contemplated suicide.  Instead I was depressed a lot, drank a lot of alcohol and smoked a lot of pot.  I was trying to forget that the most important thing in my life was to be a woman.  I also became bulimic for most of high school and university.  I didn't want to gain anymore weight and look more masculine.

I thought society would never accept me as a woman.  I saw how gay people were treated through the AIDS crisis. I saw how family, friends and society mocked us.  I gave up and got married, hoping this would be the distraction that would solve the issue.  As we all know this never happens. 

Even now, with some sort of societal acceptance,  I feel like I will be causing my family all sorts of problems if I decide to transition.

Lisa_K I think you were extremely lucky to have the parents and support you had.

Take care all,
Paige :)

This is something I wonder myself, especially since I hear so many cases of trans women who get married as men and bear children... Never in a million years would I ever be okay fathering a child. To me that is the single most male act on the planet... not to mention what I would have to do just to get someone pregnant is something I could never imagine myself doing. There are trans women who go years having sex with women as men and come out years later, but I never saw myself getting even that far. Prior to transition the thought was I would probably get to thirty and kill myself... there was no man there. There was nothing.

I think that Bailey and Blanchard's taxonomy model was on the right track, but ended up becoming way too rigid and generalized and has gone way off track ever since. There is most likely a plethora of causes for transsexualism/transgender identities (some cases probably more biologically based, and others psychologically based), but what is needed is an open-minded trans community to allow scientists to properly study us without us biting back because some don't fit the traditional narrative.

Quote from: MaryT on November 02, 2017, 07:57:23 AM

One factor in common with almost all who transition by their teens is the support of at least one parent.  Some teenage transsexuals, without that support, have taken their own lives.  I think, though, that many who managed to transition in their teens, and think that they would have have killed themselves if they had not been able to, would still be alive. 

When I read or hear about people transitioning in childhood, I often admire their courage and determination but I don't think that they are necessarily more transgender or feminine than I am, just luckier.

I don't understand how you can minimize it that way. Gender dysphoria is a real struggle in our world and statistics speak for themselves. No! Not all who transition in their teens have parental support. I didn't so I had to go work but I managed to socially transition at 18 with nobody's help. Why do you think there is so many trans girls who sell their bodies? It is not because they had an accepting family that is for sure and neither are they perverted. I think calling a group of teenagers who were marginalized as children and often have no other viable choices is quite ironic.

I was a pretty boyish little girl back in the day, but that's not the same thing as being a girlish little boy.  In some ways, my assigned gender allowed me to have my cake and eat it too.  Some people had a problem with the way I dressed and acted, but most people just assumed I was a tomboy and that I'd "grow out of it."  So I wasn't presented with as stark a choice as most MTF folks are.  I'm not sure what I would have done if my parents had said, "Stop being masculine or we'll beat you."  I probably would have done what a lot of the women here have done, and hid my "wrong sex" interests to avoid being threatened. 

As for why I didn't transition earlier as an adult, I think there are several reasons . . . I'm sexually and romantically attracted to guys, and I thought that men would like me better as a woman.  (Wrong.)  Living as a masculine woman is a sort of semi-tolerated, twilight existence where nobody beats you up, but people don't approve of you, either.  It's tolerable, barely, if you're too afraid of taking "the plunge."  I think the first FTM person I ever heard of was Brandon Teena, who ended up raped and murdered.  If that's your archetype of the FTM experience, you don't want to go there.   Probably some other reasons, too.

The time of transition may also depend on one's psychology and relationships. I would have transitioned in my teens, but my relationship with my parents was one that left me feeling that, if I did come out to them, they would have me put through conversion therapy, as a result. They denied that I was bisexual when I came out to them in sophomore year of high school and condemned my open use of makeup, so I highly doubted that they would be so welcoming to the idea of having a transsexual child. Best case scenario, for me, was to do it after I turned 18, but even then, I was still living at home and afraid that, despite my adult status, they would resort to the same tactics to control me. It wasn't until I met my current partner that any of this was made possible, having someone on the outside helped my strengthen my resolve and gave me the courage to pursue this process.

I have been known for being too nice to people. So even though my parents (my mother, especially), were wrong in their treatment of my early gender-nonconformity and sexual experimentation, I could not bring myself to admit it, because their opinions dominated my own, even within my own head, because going against their expectations, to me, also meant hurting them, which I did not want to do.

Also, I thought at the time that I had "missed the boat" because I didn't tell my parents I wanted to be a girl when I was five, which at the time I thought was the criteria necessary in order for one to be able to transition. And my mom told me that trans people were born with both sex organs and that they transitioned because the doctors made a mistake when assigning them a sex... since I was not born that way I also thought that prevented me from being a part of that process...

Quote from: Aurorasky on November 02, 2017, 11:04:30 AM
I don't understand how you can minimize it that way. Gender dysphoria is a real struggle in our world and statistics speak for themselves. No! Not all who transition in their teens have parental support. I didn't so I had to go work but I managed to socially transition at 18 with nobody's help. Why do you think there is so many trans girls who sell their bodies? It is not because they had an accepting family that is for sure and neither are they perverted. I think calling a group of teenagers who were marginalized as children and often have no other viable choices is quite ironic.

But some parents do worse than just not supporting their child, they make their life hell. Leelah Alcorn's suicide comes to mind. It can be a factor. but I understand your point too. There are a lot of trans people who were born in very conservative places in eastern Turkey, whose families would instantly disown them and even attempt to kill them in some cases, and despite that they give up everything, come to Istanbul without education and live in very difficult circumstances, some do sex work for a while.. There are many variables. An individual's character, their family and environment, intensity of dysphoria etc all play a role.

Quote from: Aurorasky on November 02, 2017, 11:04:30 AM
I don't understand how you can minimize it that way. Gender dysphoria is a real struggle in our world and statistics speak for themselves. No! Not all who transition in their teens have parental support. I didn't so I had to go work but I managed to socially transition at 18 with nobody's help. Why do you think there is so many trans girls who sell their bodies? It is not because they had an accepting family that is for sure and neither are they perverted. I think calling a group of teenagers who were marginalized as children and often have no other viable choices is quite ironic.

Hi Aurorasky,

You are right, not all those who transition in their teens do it with the help of family, but, it certainly makes the process  easier.    I commend you for having the courage to do it young, it's still incredibly hard to transition at any age.  Look at all the hate aimed at Jazz Jennings and she's has lots of support.  No it's not easy.

But if you have had supportive parents, I would think it's very hard to comprehend the lives of children that have been emotionally and physically abused by their parents because they are trans.  You don't always think logically after going through something like that.  You just try to survive in the hope something will get better or you don't.

As you suggested the sex trade was an option that many have taken without family support or money.  It would have been my only option because I'm considerably older than you and it was the only way to make money back then if you were trans.   I was from a rural small town so I was oblivious to this for the most part and didn't realize this was an option.  If I had, the chances are it would have ended badly for me, probably be in prison or beaten to death or died from AIDS.  Or maybe I would have gotten lucky and survived.  Who knows.  I chose my own course of self destruction at that time.

Take care,
Paige :)

Quote from: Allie24 on November 02, 2017, 10:56:00 AM
This is something I wonder myself, especially since I hear so many cases of trans women who get married as men and bear children... Never in a million years would I ever be okay fathering a child. To me that is the single most male act on the planet... not to mention what I would have to do just to get someone pregnant is something I could never imagine myself doing. There are trans women who go years having sex with women as men and come out years later, but I never saw myself getting even that far. Prior to transition the thought was I would probably get to thirty and kill myself... there was no man there. There was nothing.

Hi Allie,

Perhaps this is too much information.  There are sexual positions that are more feminine for "males" than standard sexual positions.  I won't explain here but it helps.  Also if you're attracted to women, it helps if you can keep your attention on their body.  Being on HRT and having breasts and no body hair improves things quite a bit too.

As for having a child that's just no problem at all.  Well they can be a pain at times, but I felt like the other mother a lot of time, not necessarily the father.  Having children is definitely a blessing I received in this difficult life. 

I can understand why this doesn't work for everyone though.

Take care,
Paige :)

There is no doubt that parental involvement played a role in my early transition but I left them with little choice. Expression of my female identity was impossible to hide and according to my mother, had been before I was old enough to even remember. So much conflict was caused by this, my biological parents divorced before I'd even started 1st grade which was fine by me because the memories I do have of my father are very unpleasant.

Kindergarten was my first real rude awakening that I wasn't a girl and I didn't understand. I grew up on a farm and knew how the differences in sex related to animals but didn't connect that as having anything to do with people. Why did my parts have to decide if I was a boy or a girl? Wasn't that up to me and who but me could tell me what I felt like? Right off the bat I was singled out, picked on and bullied and I didn't really understand what all the fuss was about. I'm guessing this early social pressure is what helps drive kids to conform to gender expectations but in my case, it only drove me further away and made me withdrawn, depressed and isolated. I was a very serious child.

Like I said earlier, maybe my mom and grandparents just felt sorry for me? They did what they could to make happy which included not denying or resisting my innate nature as it was pretty impossible to do so. It's not like attempts weren't made though. It was often pointed out when I wasn't acting like a boy like I could do something about it but who I was, was not ignored or stifled at the same time. I was allowed to just be me.

(https://www.susans.org/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dooberville.com%2FPhotos%2FGrlAsBy.png&hash=b2808165b7e056ec62e0b5e0678a2d6290b121b4)

By the time I was 10 years old and in the 4th grade, I had been to nine different schools and was unable to fit in and get along in any of them. This is when my folks, now mom and step-dad, first put me in therapy. This was in 1965. I don't know how during that era the focus of this wasn't to change me and make me "normal" but it wasn't. It was more to deal with the ways others were treating me with the reasons I why was being treated that way conveniently ignored even though completely obvious. I wasn't volunteering any information and I think they were afraid of putting ideas in my head by asking the right questions?

By the time I reached my teens, I was suicidal regardless of what anyone thinks. I was small, had long, pretty blonde hair well below my shoulders and was feminine, quiet, shy and sensitive and was perceived as some kind of androgynous queer gay ->-bleeped-<-got freak with a giant target on my back. I hated my life, hated the world and even though there were concerns I wasn't starting puberty, I knew what was coming and the dread of that happening was crushing. I'd been seeing therapists for years and it wasn't helping and I'd become really resentful about the whole thing because I was schlepped around between different doctors like some kind of a specimen or lab rat.

Whether it was karma or fate, an incident happened to me when I was 15 that ended up having much the same result as if I had tried to kill myself. Others tried to do it for me. This was a catalyst and turning point in my life. I knew if I had been a girl all along, none of this would have happened and it was during the month I was out of school, my parents and I got on the same page about my future. Not that any of us had the words to describe it or what to do about it because in 1970 who did but this kicked off what we now know as transition. By the time I was 16, I was routinely and consistently being gendered as a girl outside of school which made my time in school even more miserable. I had no friends, never went to a school game, dance, prom or party and was effectively grounded for life because my folks were afraid for my safety and that if there was a next time something happened, that I would be killed.

So at this point some may ask what if my parents hadn't been so accepting? Would I have been more willing to conform or be different from the way I was. My answer would be "oh, hell no!" I couldn't be. I didn't know how to be and had that been the case, I'd have ended up on the streets doing survival sex work, become a junkie or simply just ended it all. It's easy for some that don't know me to think this wouldn't have really happened but trust me, this would have been my fate without a doubt.

This was pretty clear, at least to my folks it was. Why else would they have done all the things they did to find me a doctor and get me on hormones at 17. Even in 1972 they knew this was a better option than having me dead or running away and giving ->-bleeped-<-s for food and a place to crash. They actually wanted to see me do well and make it through high school.

Yes, my parents were a big factor in my success but I would have still gone down the same path without their help except it would have been a lot uglier if I'd even made it all.

Quote from: Paige on November 02, 2017, 02:40:44 PM
Hi Allie,

Perhaps this is too much information.  There are sexual positions that are more feminine for "males" than standard sexual positions.  I won't explain here but it helps.  Also if you're attracted to women, it helps if you can keep your attention on their body.  Being on HRT and having breasts and no body hair improves things quite a bit too.

As for having a child that's just no problem at all.  Well they can be a pain at times, but I felt like the other mother a lot of time, not necessarily the father.  Having children is definitely a blessing I received in this difficult life. 

I can understand why this doesn't work for everyone though.

Take care,
Paige :)

I have attempted intercourse twice in my life and during both occasions I dissociated and have since forgotten what it felt like. Overall it is an act I have little interest in.

I am both attracted to women and men. My current partner is female.

I understand everyone is different. Some people are able to compartmentalize and categorize certain acts differently. I cannot separate my genitalia from my birth sex, nor can I separate its function from that of my birth sex. Were I to have sex with it, or impregnate someone with it, I would be destroyed. But there is really no chance of either happening so I have no worries.

Quote from: MaryT on November 02, 2017, 08:47:11 AM
The "great question" answers itself - the support of one's folks.  Although almost all transsexual people contemplate suicide, the only people who can say for certain that they would have killed themselves if they hadn't been able to transition in childhood are dead.

I cannot agree with this conclusion.  I was not able to transition in childhood,  nor am I dead. The fact is that l was well into my transition when I informed my Mother that l was going to have to undergo a surgical transition. She was understandably shocked but nevertheless assured me of her love and support. What l am saying is that l was  undergoing this procedure irrespective of anyone's support or approval.
No doubt there is an element of "luck" or good fortune. However I think it is irrational to discount the overwhelming drive to survive.

Quote from: Lisa_K on November 02, 2017, 03:19:13 PM
Yes, my parents were a big factor in my success but I would have still gone down the same path without their help except it would have been a lot uglier if I'd even made it all.

Hi Lisa,

I don't doubt for a minute what you said,  your story is remarkable but take a second and imagine every time you did something like a girl, you were mocked or yelled at or spanked or hit with a belt or some other object?  This would happen to you before you were kindergarten and all the while you were growing up.   I'm not sure how this would have changed things for you but I know it certainly affected my bravery and willingness not to conform to family and societal pressures.

Take care,
Paige :)

"There are many variables. An individual's character, their family and environment, intensity of dysphoria etc all play a role."

Thank you.  This sums it up nicely.

People here are minimizing the problems of those who transition early while validating the concerns and worries that kept those who transitioned late from transitioning earlier, stuff that is lived every day by younger transitioners. Can anybody see the contradiction?

Quote from: Paige on November 02, 2017, 04:09:13 PM
... take a second and imagine every time you did something like a girl, you were mocked or yelled at or spanked or hit with a belt or some other object?  This would happen to you before you were kindergarten and all the while you were growing up.

Not hard to imagine at all. This pretty much sums up treatment by my father before my parents were divorced. That's why they got divorced. Growing up, this describes the treatment I got from other kids in school every single day from the time I started school. Mocked, teased, bullied, hit, punched, ostracized and beat up on the regular. I was seriously assaulted twice and nearly killed the second time. Didn't make a damn bit of difference. Maybe even emboldened me or strengthened my resolve?

Quote from: Aurorasky on November 02, 2017, 04:39:51 PM
People here are minimizing the problems of those who transition early while validating the concerns and worries that kept those who transitioned late from transitioning earlier, stuff that is lived every day by younger transitioners. Can anybody see the contradiction?

I admire your courage and determination.

Quote from: Lisa_K on November 02, 2017, 04:42:10 PM
Not hard to imagine at all. This pretty much sums up treatment by my father before my parents were divorced. That's why they got divorced. Growing up, this describes the treatment I got from other kids in school every single day from the time I started school. Mocked, teased, bullied, hit, punched, ostracized and beat up on the regular. I was seriously assaulted twice and nearly killed the second time. Didn't make a damn bit of difference. Maybe even emboldened me or strengthened my resolve?

Hi Lisa,

Wow you're way stronger than me.  I caved after all the abuse.

Take care,
Paige :)

Quote from: Aurorasky on November 02, 2017, 04:39:51 PM
People here are minimizing the problems of those who transition early while validating the concerns and worries that kept those who transitioned late from transitioning earlier, stuff that is lived every day by younger transitioners. Can anybody see the contradiction?

Hi Aurorasky,

Nobody is minimizing the problems of early transitioners, it's a daunting task at any age.  Most are just trying to explain why they couldn't transition early even if they wanted to and have given their reasons.  They are also saying having any sort of parental support is vital to early transition especially if you were unlucky enough to be born 30, 40, 50+ years ago.

Take care,
Paige :)

Quote from: Paige on November 02, 2017, 04:49:12 PM
Wow you're way stronger than me.  I caved after all the abuse.

It's not that. It's just that I had nowhere to cave to.

Quote from: Lisa_K on November 02, 2017, 01:56:57 AM

Is this all just a matter of intensity and timing? I understand that those in their 30's, 40's, 50's and even 60's can be just as driven and desperate to transition but I have a hard time understanding if a person feels so strongly about this, enough to throw away wives, family, careers and security, what mental machinations were involved that allowed them to live with it for so long? How can some people repress and ignore something that to me was as fundamental and important as breathing? For someone like me, no amount of parental or societal pressure, bullying, beating or ostracization could make me be anything other than myself. I did not know how to be anything else and why should I even have had to? Maybe I was just really stubborn or not too smart? Maybe I was just too weak to resist or simply selfish?

I started transitioning last year at the age of 53.  This was not my first attempt at transitioning.  It was my fourth.  Prior to 1982, when I was 19 years old, I did not know that it was even possible to transition.  For me, growing up in the 1960's and 1970's, becoming a girl was in the realm of science fiction.  In 1982 I saw a rerun of the "60 Minutes" episode about Renee Richards.  That was when I first learned that transition was even possible.  That begat attempt #1, which consisted of going to the Behavioral Science section of my college library (Cal Poly Pomona), reading everything I could find about gender transition, and finding out that there were two, count 'em, two, places in the entire U.S. that had any kind of transition resources:  Johns Hopkins University and Stanford University.  I burned a lot of my meager funds on long distance phone calls finding out that I would have to relocate to one of those places, live on my own, and pay for my transition out of my own pocket.  No health insurance for that sort of thing back then.  End of attempt #1.

Attempt #2 took place in 1989, after I finished law school, took and passed the bar exam, and got a job as a lawyer.  This time I had access to the University Research Library at UCLA, and much better resources that were more local.  I found the DSM III, self diagnosed with what was then referred to as Gender Identity Disorder, and started working the local phone directories in order to find a therapist.  I was about to call one, and decided to go back over my research just so that I could be sure of myself going in.  In the fine print in the DSM III (remember this was 1989), it said that Gender Identity Disorder was a mental illness.  So I called the state bar to find out what would happen to my law license if I got diagnosed with a mental illness.  The girl on the other end of the confidential hotline asked which mental illness, so I told her, and she said that probably would make a difference.  End of attempt #2.

Attempt #3 came after my first marriage ended in 1998.  I was living alone.  I set up an online female persona, started putting together a small stash of clothing, started dressing at home, and started working the internet for resources.  I found a therapist and got ready to go.  Then fate intervened.  I was in court, and I saw a young transgender girl, dressed and presenting female, who had picked up a suspended driver's license violation under her dead name.  The judge was nasty and abusive toward her, kept calling her "sir" in a nasty tone of voice.

I was going through a divorce and a custody fight over my son, and I realized that transition at that point would mean the loss of my son and my law practice as well if that was how judges were going to treat me.  End of Attempt #3.

In 2005, I started having chest pains, irregular heartbeats, high blood pressure, neck pains, jaw pains, tingly feelings in my limbs, and shortness of breath.  My doctor sent me to a cardiologist, and I passed all the tests.  My doctor told me it was panic attacks and they were probably work related.  She put me on antidepressants, which did not work, and beta blockers, which were partially effective, and tranquilizers, which did not work ( and I hated them).  I white knuckled it through the attacks for a lot of years, until they got so bad I almost ended up house bound.  She tried anti anxiety drugs, and those did not work.  It was then that I had the conversation with my wife, and entered therapy.

Hormone therapy resolved the panic attacks and just about every other medical problem I have ever had.  I wish with all my heart that I could have transitioned at a young age, but it just was not possible, and I hope from my experience you see why.  Sadly, supportive parents and transitioning young are still unattainable luxuries for the majority of the transgender community.

It took until very recently to understand why my father was constantly grilling me about dating girls when I was 14, why he stopped me from getting a teaching credential when I finished college and forced me to go to law school, why he relentlessly pressured me to date women all during college and law school, and why he pressured me to get married and have children after I finished law school.  It all went back to the time when I was seven years old and I told my parents I wanted to be a girl.  My father had a stroke in 2009 and can no longer speak, but the expression on his face when he recently saw my hairless face, long hair and pierced ears was all that I really needed to see.

Your parents made all the difference in the world.

Peace and hugs, Carly

Quote from: Lisa_K on November 02, 2017, 01:56:57 AM
Is this all just a matter of intensity and timing? I understand that those in their 30's, 40's, 50's and even 60's can be just as driven and desperate to transition but I have a hard time understanding if a person feels so strongly about this, enough to throw away wives, family, careers and security, what mental machinations were involved that allowed them to live with it for so long? How can some people repress and ignore something that to me was as fundamental and important as breathing? For someone like me, no amount of parental or societal pressure, bullying, beating or ostracization could make me be anything other than myself. I did not know how to be anything else and why should I even have had to? Maybe I was just really stubborn or not too smart? Maybe I was just too weak to resist or simply selfish?

IGNORE IT?  When I was about 20 I was sent to a psychiatrist.  It wasn't to find out whether I could have a sex change, but to decide whether cross-dressing, etc., was enough to have me "put away".  The psychiatrist decided that I was a homosexual but that wasn't enough to put me in a mental hospital.  (I have never had sex witha man, by the way, but it is true that I would have liked to, in a passive way.)  I was living in South Africa at the time and there were still laws targeting homosexuals.  I remember reading about a police raid, on a cross-dressing beauty competition, on private property.  That was considered a gathering of more than two homosexuals and therefore a crime.  When I cross-dressed publicly and people she knew recognised me, my mother said that she despised me.  I loved my parents and cared for them in old age.  The only trans person I even read about who lived full time as a woman in South Africa, was working in sheltered employment for the mentally deficient.  She was lucky.  She was chosen for an experimental technique in sex change surgery, hence the magazine article.

Yes, I did resist the desire to kill myself, AND NOW I HAVE TO JUSTIFY IT?

CarlyMcx, sounds like you finally found yourself and making headway; too bad it took you so long to get to transition.  Are you still planning on getting an orch soon?

Whatever happened to the "gender spectrum"? Doesn't the very existence of this model imply that dysphoria affects different people at different levels of intensity?

Quote from: Allie24 on November 02, 2017, 07:29:09 PM
Whatever happened to the "gender spectrum"? Doesn't the very existence of this model imply that dysphoria affects different people at different levels of intensity?

I have a come back for this but know better than to post it. As you mentioned in your other thread... "treacherous waters". ::)

Early transitioners long ago are a miracle of circumstances. A parent here, a near death there or a magazine article or TV show for another. A tip, or many, in the right direction and that was enough. Some times it's not. Some times it's in the wrong direction, or worse it's slammed home. For those of you that are too young to remember a time with out the internet information was scattered if it existed at all. Let's face it, not that much is known even now as to why we are as we are. 40, 50, 60yrs. ago, almost nothing. In 1965 me and my sister heard a woman on a Soap say she was 'pregnant'. We asked our mom what 'pregnant' meant. She about had a brain hemorrhage, but to her credit she told us. The simple act of having a baby was that taboo! In the south where I was if you were sexually different in any way, you were better off dead. This was laid on us from an early age in very subtle ways because you didn't openly speak about such things. This was the world I was born into. When I was about 5 was about when it was becoming apparent that boys and girls weren't the same, and I'm not talking about between the legs. I've been a girl since before I knew what one was. I liked playing with my sister and didn't realize until recently how much we played like two little girls instead of bro. and sis. When I was 6 I got my first wake up call when one of the boys I was running around with started calling another boy a 'sissy boy'. For three days they ragged on him mercilessly, in my head I thought 'if they only knew me, I would Never get any peace'. That was the day I learned to hide. That has been my cage until this year. My parents blew up along the way but stayed married until I was 20, I'll never know why!?! I didn't trust them, school became a horror[same old story], puberty. Good ole puberty. When I found out what it was going to do to me, I did what a lot [most?] of us do, I prayed to Please God let me wake up with the right parts down there. Obviously that didn't happen.{WARNING: Moderators May Not Like This Part.} I knew enough to know He was perfectly capable of doing it but did not. {I'm putting this here because this really happened to me. Believe what you will, this is my actual experience} For 2 weeks I thought about ways around my 'problem', there were none that I knew of. I decided to blow the back of my head off with my dad's pistol and go have a little talk with God and ask Him why??? The night before my last morning here I slept very well, until I woke up from a dead sleep and was shown the next 18yrs of my life in my head like a movie. And He said 'I'll be with you'. He's had to do it a couple of more times to keep me here. There was only one time when transition was possible. In 1978 my best friend and I were inseparable and I realized one night just how much I loved him and wanted to be his wife and not just a friend. My mother also knew something was going on, she thought I was Gay. Now, I wish I had told them about me, but I was so afraid of rejection that I didn't. Stupid me!!! I've now lived in a male exile for 39yrs. until this past July when I did my nails for the first time! Some of you wonder how we can live as men, especially for long. Like anything else, one day at a time. It took me  15yrs to learn to act like a man well enough to fit in and it sucked even then. I didn't realize until I was doing it but I learned to act like a lady from my mom when I was a teen. I was her shadow then and it's made transition much easier than it is for someone that discovers their TG later in life. It's truly a whole new world today, information everywhere. If I had a time machine I would go back and rescue myself but we only get one life and if we it we screw it up...

Quote from: Dani2118 on November 02, 2017, 11:40:55 PM
Early transitioners long ago are a miracle of circumstances. A parent here, a near death there or a magazine article or TV show for another. A tip, or many, in the right direction and that was enough. Some times it's not. Some times it's in the wrong direction, or worse it's slammed home. For those of you that are too young to remember a time with out the internet information was scattered if it existed at all. Let's face it, not that much is known even now as to why we are as we are. 40, 50, 60yrs. ago, almost nothing. In 1965 me and my sister heard a woman on a Soap say she was 'pregnant'. We asked our mom what 'pregnant' meant. She about had a brain hemorrhage, but to her credit she told us. The simple act of having a baby was that taboo! In the south where I was if you were sexually different in any way, you were better off dead. This was laid on us from an early age in very subtle ways because you didn't openly speak about such things. This was the world I was born into. When I was about 5 was about when it was becoming apparent that boys and girls weren't the same, and I'm not talking about between the legs. I've been a girl since before I knew what one was. I liked playing with my sister and didn't realize until recently how much we played like two little girls instead of bro. and sis. When I was 6 I got my first wake up call when one of the boys I was running around with started calling another boy a 'sissy boy'. For three days they ragged on him mercilessly, in my head I thought 'if they only knew me, I would Never get any peace'. That was the day I learned to hide. That has been my cage until this year. My parents blew up along the way but stayed married until I was 20, I'll never know why!?! I didn't trust them, school became a horror[same old story], puberty. Good ole puberty. When I found out what it was going to do to me, I did what a lot [most?] of us do, I prayed to Please God let me wake up with the right parts down there. Obviously that didn't happen.{WARNING: Moderators May Not Like This Part.} I knew enough to know He was perfectly capable of doing it but did not. {I'm putting this here because this really happened to me. Believe what you will, this is my actual experience} For 2 weeks I thought about ways around my 'problem', there were none that I knew of. I decided to blow the back of my head off with my dad's pistol and go have a little talk with God and ask Him why??? The night before my last morning here I slept very well, until I woke up from a dead sleep and was shown the next 18yrs of my life in my head like a movie. And He said 'I'll be with you'. He's had to do it a couple of more times to keep me here. There was only one time when transition was possible. In 1978 my best friend and I were inseparable and I realized one night just how much I loved him and wanted to be his wife and not just a friend. My mother also knew something was going on, she thought I was Gay. Now, I wish I had told them about me, but I was so afraid of rejection that I didn't. Stupid me!!! I've now lived in a male exile for 39yrs. until this past July when I did my nails for the first time! Some of you wonder how we can live as men, especially for long. Like anything else, one day at a time. It took me  15yrs to learn to act like a man well enough to fit in and it sucked even then. I didn't realize until I was doing it but I learned to act like a lady from my mom when I was a teen. I was her shadow then and it's made transition much easier than it is for someone that discovers their TG later in life. It's truly a whole new world today, information everywhere. If I had a time machine I would go back and rescue myself but we only get one life and if we it we screw it up...

Wow!  "...a miracle of circumstance."

I will second that!

Quote from: Lisa_K on November 02, 2017, 03:19:13 PM
By the time I reached my teens, I was suicidal regardless of what anyone thinks. I was small, had long, pretty blonde hair well below my shoulders and was feminine

At least in your country you are allowed to have long hair in school as boys in South Africa you have to cut your hair short and wear a school uniform.Boys wear pants girls wear dresses. There is no way of expressing yourself in our schools. I always had long hair because it felt right until I went to school then I had to cut it off. It was one of the worst days for me cutting my hair off to be able to be accepted into school. We where not allowed to wear hair gel even because that is rebellious. Schools in South Africa is very strict on gender norms.

I was never allowed to have long hair.  My haircut was dictated to me by my parents with no choice of mine involved.  Then when I was 13 and my parents found me out they sent me 2000 miles away to an all male military school in the Deep South.  No choice of haircut was allowed there either.

Beyond the haircut I had two choices at that point.  Adapt and make the best of my situation or not adapt and . . . I don't know where that would have led.

So I adapted, refused to be bullied from the first day, and excelled in everything I did there by being hard headed and refusing to accept second place.

As for available information, there were no computers, no internet, little contact with the outside world, and for me no TV for the majority of the year from 1973 until 1983.  The only way I discovered the word trans and found I wasn't the only one was from Hustler magazine in 1975.

People on both sides of this should be slow to judge the other side.  None of us have walked in the other's shoes.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Quote from: Amoré on November 03, 2017, 02:56:39 AM
At least in your country you are allowed to have long hair in school as boys in South Africa you have to cut your hair short and wear a school uniform....

That's awful. I've told my "hair" story before but it was always a problem. In the 7th grade (1967), school wasn't even going to let me in because it was too long until my folks showed up at the school board with their lawyer and threatened to sue. My folks met with the high school before I started and told them not to even bother. By the time I graduated, my hair was almost to my waist. I would not have done well with uniforms. At. All.

THIS IS NOT ME! But it's remarkably dang close to what I looked in about the 8th/9th grade, to give you an idea.

(https://www.susans.org/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dooberville.com%2FPhotos%2Fpgylptn.jpg&hash=d88291ed909623e0172623cede16d74eacd6de45)

It's the actress Peggy Lipton as a teenager who grew up to play Julie Barnes on The Mod Squad. (below) She was my idol and who I wanted to grow up to be. I came pretty darned close! Not quite as pretty but I looked a LOT like her in my early 20's.

(https://www.susans.org/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dooberville.com%2FPhotos%2FPegL2.jpg&hash=aa95d4fdf93146b46feb45a723a50fcc216cf455)

For being an old lady, (almost 63) I still have fairly longish blonde hair. It's always been important to me.

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I had wanted my hair long in high school. My parents only let me grow it to about this length (seen below).

When I asked them if I could experiment with makeup, they said no. However, they bought me girl's jeans to wear to school when I asked...

https://i.imgur.com/jA0ckH7.jpg
(Me Age 14)

My entire high school career I attempted to find ways to sneak all my "gender-bending" behind their backs. However I couldn't apply eyeliner properly and whenever I did it at school I would wash it off because I was afraid I get made fun of for how bad it was. I also stole my mom's clip-in blond extensions, cut them, and clipped them into my own hair to look like I had bleached streaks in it; I pierced my own ear for a day; I used a pink highlighter to color pinks streaks in my hair; I wore my sister's t-shirts to school because they were form-fitting and I like them; I shaved my legs. Living in a Blue State really made a difference. I was never bullied severely for any of this behavior. My only worry was my parents, and after a particularly bad incident at school, they forced me to convert to Christianity and threw out all of my stuff that had a "demonic" influence on me, however, even then allowed me to dress as flamboyantly as I did in the past (I had these atrocious green pants that I adored). It wasn't until age 18 when my manner of dressing conflicted with my sexuality (which was bisexual-wanting-to-be-straight-because-my-parents-said-so)... people got the "wrong idea" from it. That was the only time I stopped, and it lasted two years until I met my current partner.

I've always wondered if I could have lasted longer than those two years... probably not :/

Quote from: Allie24 on November 03, 2017, 09:32:40 AM
I had wanted my hair long in high school. My parents only let me grow it to about this length (seen below).

When I asked them if I could experiment with makeup, they said no. However, they bought me girl's jeans to wear to school when I asked...

https://i.imgur.com/jA0ckH7.jpg
(Me Age 14)

My entire high school career I attempted to find ways to sneak all my "gender-bending" behind their backs. However I couldn't apply eyeliner properly and whenever I did it at school I would wash it off because I was afraid I get made fun of for how bad it was. I also stole my mom's clip-in blond extensions, cut them, and clipped them into my own hair to look like I had bleached streaks in it; I pierced my own ear for a day; I used a pink highlighter to color pinks streaks in my hair; I wore my sister's t-shirts to school because they were form-fitting and I like them; I shaved my legs. Living in a Blue State really made a difference. I was never bullied severely for any of this behavior. My only worry was my parents, and after a particularly bad incident at school, they forced me to convert to Christianity and threw out all of my stuff that had a "demonic" influence on me, however, even then allowed me to dress as flamboyantly as I did in the past (I had these atrocious green pants that I adored). It wasn't until age 18 when my manner of dressing conflicted with my sexuality (which was bisexual-wanting-to-be-straight-because-my-parents-said-so)... people got the "wrong idea" from it. That was the only time I stopped, and it lasted two years until I met my current partner.

I've always wondered if I could have lasted longer than those two years... probably not :/

I have to say you were very feminine looking at 14. But then I saw your grown up before and after pictures and you looked female even in your before pictures.

I used to wear gender neutral stuff but I always had girl colors. Pink, purple, etc. I had talked my dad into letting me wear eyebrow pencil and mascara by telling him it made me look more normal. Not really a lie though. With good makeup I can almost pass for a non albino person who's just really pale. I also wore black, blue and green nail polish. The funny thing was that as tolerant as my dad was with the makeup and nail polish he totally wouldn't let me wear actual female clothes. It was his last hold out I guess. He was insistent about it so I never pushed him with the clothes issue. I had long hair since my dad gave up trying to take me for haircuts when I was about 8. I wanted really long hair but I was only allowed to have it shoulder length. Since I refused to go to a barber shop or salon he would chase me down and cut an inch or so off of it himself when it started to get past my shoulders .My mom on the other hand complained about my hair constantly.  She was always threatening to cut it herself. Finally my dad told her to get over it and that if she cut my hair he would cut hers. My dad doesn't make false threats so she dropped it.

It's interesting but also sad to read everyone's experiences with trying to express their true gender before transition.

One of the things I liked about Susan's is that it seemed to be free of the conflict of
->-bleeped-<-r than thou, young vs old transitioners or my misery is greater than your misery.  I hope it's not devolving.  For most everyone spending time in this forum, there's some level of angst in their lives, and certainly some suffer much more than others.  I've been very fortunate, and I'm grateful for that.

I'm mid 40's.  I asked my therapist, who has been in practice for many years, why now?  Why was I able to compartmentalize and function pretty well for so long.  Her take was like a steam or pressure cooker, the hiding, denial and anxiety continue to build over the years until one has to deal with it.  She said 40 is a pretty common age to start dealing with it.

Peace.

Quote from: Another Nikki on November 03, 2017, 10:33:43 AM
One of the things I liked about Susan's is that it seemed to be free of the conflict of
->-bleeped-<-r than thou, young vs old transitioners or my misery is greater than your misery.  I hope it's not devolving.  For most everyone spending time in this forum, there's some level of angst in their lives, and certainly some suffer much more than others.  I've been very fortunate, and I'm grateful for that.

I'm mid 40's.  I asked my therapist, who has been in practice for many years, why now?  Why was I able to compartmentalize and function pretty well for so long.  Her take was like a steam or pressure cooker, the hiding, denial and anxiety continue to build over the years until one has to deal with it.  She said 40 is a pretty common age to start dealing with it.

Peace.

I would never minimize anyone's struggles. We are all trans and we all suffer for it. No one is more trans than anyone else. We just all suffer different levels of dysphoria. Without a doubt there are people here who have suffered far more than I have. I've been extremely lucky and I know that. I just share my experiences with everyone, both good and bad. I never mean to imply I'm more trans or better than anyone else. If anyone has taken anything I've written that way I totally never meant it that way. I'm sorry if I offended anyone with anything I have written.

I've thought about this for a while, but haven't reached an answer.

The only tentative thing I can think of is that I trusted my parents to be right to such an extent that anything they said must be the truth. Since they told me I was a boy I must be. Even so, as I mentioned elsewhere, I didn't like it and becoming a man horrified me. The only thing I thought might save me was magic—which I didn't seriously believe was an option, but wistfully hoped I would encounter. The only other option I saw was to remain a child. That made me a bit obsessed about Peter Pan. But of course that also entailed magic.

When my body began to react to testosterone I tried with all my might to shut the effects out. Male sexual urges disgusted me. I was horrified enough that I thought about killing myself to prevent succumbing to them.

One memory that in a strange way illustrates my trust in my parents omniscience and benevolence is an incident that occurred when a TV crew was filming at our house. My father came to me in front of them and furiously berated me about smoking in my room. I knew I hadn't, so I immediately assumed that he didn't want to directly confront the strangers who were using it as a dressing room, but to obliquely tell them they shouldn't smoke in our home. I only later realized he did in fact think that I had done so.

Had I not trusted my parents to the extent I did things might have been different. What strikes me now is that I did smoke after the incident, although not at home. Had I seen them as fallible earlier I might have fought and rebelled regarding other things as well.

Quote from: Julia1996 on November 03, 2017, 10:16:36 AM
I have to say you were very feminine looking at 14. But then I saw your grown up before and after pictures and you looked female even in your before pictures.

I used to wear gender neutral stuff but I always had girl colors. Pink, purple, etc. I had talked my dad into letting me wear eyebrow pencil and mascara by telling him it made me look more normal. Not really a lie though. With good makeup I can almost pass for a non albino person who's just really pale. I also wore black, blue and green nail polish. The funny thing was that as tolerant as my dad was with the makeup and nail polish he totally wouldn't let me wear actual female clothes. It was his last hold out I guess. He was insistent about it so I never pushed him with the clothes issue. I had long hair since my dad gave up trying to take me for haircuts when I was about 8. I wanted really long hair but I was only allowed to have it shoulder length. Since I refused to go to a barber shop or salon he would chase me down and cut an inch or so off of it himself when it started to get past my shoulders .My mom on the other hand complained about my hair constantly.  She was always threatening to cut it herself. Finally my dad told her to get over it and that if she cut my hair he would cut hers. My dad doesn't make false threats so she dropped it.

It's interesting but also sad to read everyone's experiences with trying to express their true gender before transition.

Lol I had bad acne senior year of high school and my mom let me wear foundation to cover it up (*gasp* even when we went to church.

The whole claiming to do it to look normal thing reminded me of that! XD

Like the girls' jeans, it was the only other instance where, for some reason, it was ok...

When I was 10 or 11, my mother, a woman that I trusted & loved, who had never done anything but spoil me rotten (she worked at a toy store!), tried to murder me & my sister. She was supposedly going to take her own life afterwards, but (thankfully!!) she didn't give us a big enough dose of whatever it was, and drove us (unconscious) back home, where the police arrested her & we were rushed to the hospital.
I somehow convinced myself for the next 25 or so years that she was just trying to kidnap us and take us away somewhere, but I knew the truth in the back of my mind (a year or so ago I fully realized the truth, which led me to where I am now, after a stop at my lowest low I've ever been). I didn't realize it until recently just how much this has affected my life (my father tried to take us to a psychiatrist years later, but I refused to talk to him at all).
This led me to have a distrust & even dislike for women, and yet I started cross-dressing in private at the age of 15. I utterly hated myself for it. I had no real interest in dating women, and society told me that it was wrong to date men (plus I was never comfortable with the idea of me having sex with a man AS a man). So I've lived alone in self-loathing for most of my life. Plus, there just wasn't any resources to finding out about transgender matters. The only thing I knew about it growing up was as a bad joke in sitcoms or movies.

Fear and self-loathing kept me from accepting who I am until the age of 42. I told myself I was stronger than these urgings, but didn't realize that I would truly be stronger by accepting them. I realized I was trans around 10 years ago, but just couldn't bring myself to do anything about it, at least until I tried to take my own life. I had already decided I didn't want to hit 50, but I just couldn't take the pain anymore. When I couldn't manage to do it (thankfully I have a real problem swallowing pills!), I said to myself 'hey, why not give this being a girl thing a try first?'.

So I started this year trying to kill myself, and I'm ending it the happiest I've ever been my entire life.

Quote from: Sarah_P on November 03, 2017, 12:03:32 PM
When I was 10 or 11, my mother, a woman that I trusted & loved, who had never done anything but spoil me rotten (she worked at a toy store!), tried to murder me & my sister. She was supposedly going to take her own life afterwards, but (thankfully!!) she didn't give us a big enough dose of whatever it was, and drove us (unconscious) back home, where the police arrested her & we were rushed to the hospital.
I somehow convinced myself for the next 25 or so years that she was just trying to kidnap us and take us away somewhere, but I knew the truth in the back of my mind (a year or so ago I fully realized the truth, which led me to where I am now, after a stop at my lowest low I've ever been). I didn't realize it until recently just how much this has affected my life (my father tried to take us to a psychiatrist years later, but I refused to talk to him at all).
This led me to have a distrust & even dislike for women, and yet I started cross-dressing in private at the age of 15. I utterly hated myself for it. I had no real interest in dating women, and society told me that it was wrong to date men (plus I was never comfortable with the idea of me having sex with a man AS a man). So I've lived alone in self-loathing for most of my life. Plus, there just wasn't any resources to finding out about transgender matters. The only thing I knew about it growing up was as a bad joke in sitcoms or movies.

Fear and self-loathing kept me from accepting who I am until the age of 42. I told myself I was stronger than these urgings, but didn't realize that I would truly be stronger by accepting them. I realized I was trans around 10 years ago, but just couldn't bring myself to do anything about it, at least until I tried to take my own life. I had already decided I didn't want to hit 50, but I just couldn't take the pain anymore. When I couldn't manage to do it (thankfully I have a real problem swallowing pills!), I said to myself 'hey, why not give this being a girl thing a try first?'.

So I started this year trying to kill myself, and I'm ending it the happiest I've ever been my entire life.

Congratulations on becoming yourself. Now, go live life to the fullest. The Phoenix rises.

Why don't we all look at it like this. Let's say that being trans is like having a cold...

Colds affect everyone's body differently. Some might get sniffles, others might have to be hospitalized. Sometimes the symptoms are mild and come in the form of a mild cough and sore throat and are easily ignored. Years can go by without the person ever going to the doctor to get a check up, and then one day they do and they're told they have a cold and this time it's very serious, and they're like, "But wait, I've seen people go to the hospital from the cold, why didn't that happen to me?" The doctor tells them that the bug gets some people quick and they fall down within days, and for others it's insidious and grows inside them over a long period of time.

We've all got colds. Some have worse colds than others. We can't call someone who got a cold and collapsed immediately weak. They're body was not built to withstand it. Nor can we say that someone who didn't get a checkup immediately was crazy or foolish, because the cold didn't affect them as extremely and they were able to tolerate it for longer. As the OP said, we're all different, and there is really nothing at all wrong with that. It is the way of nature.

amen, namaste, shalom, etc.  :)

When I first discovered I was different, about the only example I could relate to was Christine Jorgensen. In the 70's there was tennis player, Rene Richards and in the 80's I finally had someone I could relate to. Caroline Cossey. I now know there were many more out there but at the time transwomen were determined to be the kinky sexual pickups in back ally's. In today's environment even on this site there are thousands of peers. I finally discovered I was not alone and it was the greatest feeling ever. Since I began checking things out a little over a year ago, some of the people who influenced me with their courage like Jazz Jennings, Carmen Carrera, Laverne Cox, Candis Cayne, and my new friends at Ingersoll Gender Center. Then I went to Gender Odyssey in Seattle and witnessed 1700 other people just like me. Overall the best 4 days of my life, outside the birth of my children. Now working on my 15th month of HRT. I am a much different person than I was when I started. Stress is almost non existent. I am able to love again and no it is not about sex. I was so ashamed, I could not even treat my wife of 35 years with the love she deserved. She is even showing signs of being truly accepting. Yes she had said she understood, but really didn't. Lastly, all the wonderful people here on Susan's, with their stories of pain, suffering and overcoming all the nasty stuff having to do with knowing you are someone else. I am so glad I am going to live out the last years of my life as someone I can finally acknowledge, is closer to the real me than anything that existed before.

Quote from: Another Nikki on November 03, 2017, 10:33:43 AM
One of the things I liked about Susan's is that it seemed to be free of the conflict of
->-bleeped-<-r than thou, young vs old transitioners or my misery is greater than your misery.

Well, that took longer than I thought it would. Nobody is playing a game of one upmanship here, we're just sharing and comparing experiences but leave it up to someone to think so every damn time trans youth try to talk about their lives in mixed company.

We all hurt and we all have our own trials and tribulations. No one here is trying to minimize, invalidate or elevate what anyone else goes through or has been through. I'm certainly not and it is inconceivable to me the level of difficulty one must face to transition as an established adult or the anguish others must have felt growing up and not been able to do anything about this.

This thread in particular was about examining some of the factors in why being trans is expressed in different ways and at different stages of life for some than for others not to infer that any one path is better than the other. We all have our challenges, miseries, triumphs and successes but quite frankly, the experiences of those of us that did or had to deal with this externally and publicly as children and adolescents are not the same as those that do as adults and our voices have every right to be heard equally without someone thinking that we're thinking we're better or "more transer than thou".

My life and my stories are not much different than say Julia's, Aurora's or any other trans youth's are other than I went through all this a hella long time ago when the world was much different, things were a lot more extreme and I was pretty much one of a kind. Maybe others don't think so but I believe a little history and backstory might help people better understand where we've come from to get where we are today. Heck, some people don't believe trans youth even existed in the past or that it was possible to grow up the way I did, when I did.

I am sorry if my sharing has come across as antagonistic or boastful or as insinuating some hierarchy of transness. That has not been my intent, however, the way things are interpreted is beyond my control. I'll just shut up now so no one else gets offended. It's not that it's a no win situation because there is no winner and it's not a competition.

Best of everything to all.

Quote from: Lisa_K on November 03, 2017, 03:34:10 PMMy life and my stories are not much different than say Julia's, Aurora's or any other trans youth's are other than I went through all this a hella long time ago when the world was much different, things were a lot more extreme and I was pretty much one of a kind. Maybe others don't think so but I believe a little history and backstory might help people better understand where we've come from to get where we are today. Heck, some people don't believe trans youth even existed in the past or that it was possible to grow up the way I did, when I did.

Lisa,

I want to thank you.

I love what you say. I find your words very valuable. The story you tell is not speculation, or a search for an answer. At least to me it is history—a concrete narrative of something that happened and is complete. You saw and recognized the truth and followed it through. To me yours is a narrative of a job done right.

I love this thread, and am sad to see it seems to have upset some.

I'll try to write my own thoughts down, and just hope my words don't cause more strife.

When one is told something when young and accepts it as truth, it becomes a thing of value—a part of one's life's foundation.

A foundation affects everything built on it. The further the construction proceeds, the more difficult fundamental change becomes. It means something must be torn open and rebuilt. At some point it probably seems easier to try to live with the defects than to try to address them.

A house can be torn down completely and rebuilt. Lives can't. What's more, we can't hire others to do most of the work. Thus, even when we feel something is clearly wrong, fear of just making things even worse makes us apt to ignore them. This goes on until it no longer can—often when it becomes evident that collapse is imminent.

Much of the discussion on this forum revolves around gathering the courage to tear down and change something, and how to approach the task. Change is not easy.

Perhaps some people get irritated and upset when told of how a fix was made at an earlier stage. It is true that reform is more involved than new construction—but while e.g. early age and parental protection helps, it is not a panacea. The present state of things is the entirety of what exists at that point even to the youngest child.

All the work we do when building our rebuilding our lives we have to do ourselves. We learn as we go from elders and peers who are doing or have done something similar.

To me it gives enormous perspective to listen to skilled and successful builders, regardless of when they started. After all, they've accomplished what the reformers need to do once the demolition part of the job is finished, and gone beyond.

I myself would love to hear more.

Well, part of the primary premise is that it is something as "fundamental as breathing". Well... for me, it wasn't, and still isn't. It is important, yes. Extremely important. My inward turn, over a decade of being a shut-in after dropping out of high school because I just couldn't face the world anymore... Yeah, that doesn't happen because of denying something unless that something is on the extremely important side. But as important as breathing? Nope, not for me. (I've also never been suicidal. Not sure why, I've said that before, as by all rights I should have been.) So basically, it was never an issue of survival, of life itself. But I've come to realize that it is an issue of living life.

Think about it like this... Matters of survival, that's easy to understand. Self preservation is hardwired into us. If you needed to transition to survive, it makes perfect sense you'd be driven to transition. (Which works on both ends of the age spectrum as dysphoria grows for many leading to that survival risk.) But the idea of quality of life, even one that was as extreme as my quality of life issue? That is really, really hard for a depressed teenager to consciously comprehend. Unconsciously of course, that means putting up those blinders and going full on denial as the mind attempts to salvage what it can.

Quote from: Aurorasky on November 02, 2017, 04:39:51 PM
People here are minimizing the problems of those who transition early while validating the concerns and worries that kept those who transitioned late from transitioning earlier, stuff that is lived every day by younger transitioners. Can anybody see the contradiction?

Like I said, I admire your courage and determination.  However, can't you see the contradiction in trans people displaying such courage and yet saying that they would definitely have killed themselves if they couldn't have transitioned in childhood?:

Quote from: Complete on November 01, 2017, 09:15:21 PM
"I don't quite understand it or what makes some of us so different that this becomes a matter of life and death as children and adolescents and isn't something that can be ignored or repressed regardless of how much parents or society try. I know for sure without the support of my folks and being allowed to do the things I did, I can say with certainty that I would have killed myself because all of this was so absolutely fundamental to my very existence, I would have rather died than to have ever grown up to be a man." ~LisaK

Most transgender people have felt suicidal, but actually killing oneself is not traditionally regarded as a sign of courage.  Trans people who believe that of themselves should just be grateful that unlike many of us, they have not had to prove or disprove it.

And, although no offence may have been intended, the "great question" can be rephrased as
"Why haven't you people killed yourselves?  I would rather be dead than like you."

Surely you realise how insensitive that seems.  And, if you have been reading many of the posts on Susan's Place, you will realise that many of the people reading this topic, of all ages, are suicidal right now.  The last thing they need to read is someone saying that she would have killed herself if she couldn't have transitioned before physically becoming a man.

We're all trans people with different experiences. I hope we can all relax a little and learn from each other without being upset. Like Ringo said, "Peace and Love." (Gosh I'm old! At least I didn't say, "Like Beethoven used to say.)
Moni

Before I abandon the topic myself, as I do find it a bit too stimulating, I would like to say something on behalf of the very female trans women who have married and "fathered" children and/or are proud of their achievements in the armed forces.   Part of this topic does seem to ask how genuinely trans people can transition later in life.  I may be unqualified, as I have never married or had a partner, and I have never joined the armed forces, but here goes.

I am not saying that people who transitioned early are shallow.  I do think, though, that transitioning, and even SRS, though infinitely desirable, are the shallow part of being a woman.  I remember a documentary in which a mother confessed that she had doubts about helping her flamboyantly femininine trans daughter to transition.  She pointed out that a large part of being a real woman is being nurturing.

Women are nurturing.  They love, protect and, if possible, have, children.  Their nurturing and compassion often overflows into nurturing and protecting the children of others, and caring for the sick and elderly.  Marrying and becoming a "father" could be part of that. 

And, although having traditionally male careers such as the armed forces may be partly a struggle against their true nature, that too could be an outlet for nurturing and protective instincts: protecting innocent people in war zones; rescuing and caring for injured people; passing on one's knowledge to keep younger soldiers safe, etc..  From what I have heard, some sergeants behave like grumpy mother hens or shepherdesses.

Women can have fighting instincts too.  I never joined the armed forces but my mother joined the WAAF before the WRAF was formed.  She was proud of trying to do her bit.  She would also have been entitled, because of her civilian work in the Middle East, to full membership of the Aden Veteran's Association.  There were several explosions on the street where we lived, including at the entrance to our compound, and I remember that my mother never even flinched.  She would have certainly remained there with my father if they had not been concerned for the safety of their children, and when my father joined us, she couldn't wait to go somewhere more exciting than boring old England.  I witnessed her physical bravery too, when she was in her seventies.  Two teenagers picked on an elderly man who had accidentally bumped into one of them.  Her fury changed the attention of the teenagers while the old man walked off, perhaps feeling embarrassed.  I had to physically restrain my mother, while trying to look fearless myself.  At her funeral, the vicar called her a soldier, and it is obvious to me why.  My mother was womanly but not less brave than a MAAB soldier.  By the same token, I am sure that MAAB soldiers who later transition are not necessarily less womanly than my mother.

Quote from: marytAnd, although no offence may have been intended, the "great question" can be rephrased as
"Why haven't you people killed yourselves?  I would rather be dead than like you."

Well I have heard over the lunch table at work "I'm glad my kid isn't a ->-bleeped-<- but I'd rather he be dead than transexual". Back then it was probably a normal cis reaction. But it has nothing to do with closeted people.

However that wasn't the meaning of Lisa's question as I understood it, was inability to comprehend being trans and not doing anything about it.

Quote from: SadieBlake on November 04, 2017, 11:15:25 AM
Well I have heard over the lunch table at work "I'm glad my kid isn't a ->-bleeped-<- but I'd rather he be dead than transexual". Back then it was probably a normal cis reaction. But it has nothing to do with closeted people.

However that wasn't the meaning of Lisa's question as I understood it, was inability to comprehend being trans and not doing anything about it.

That may have been Lisa's intention, in which case "matter of life and death" and "I would have rather died"  need not have formed part of the question.

I must point out that I regret any discomfort that Lisa may have as a result of this topic.  Her original post was a casual comment on another topic, and not intended to be a topic in its own right.

One can be nurturing and prefer not to inseminate another person in order to have children. There are other methods.

For some of us it is not about being "women" as much as it is being "biologically female". I'm sorry if it comes across as offensive to some but scientifically speaking insemination of the female is a distinctly male function. So as someone who is deeply, deeply disturbed by her male functions, it would kill me to do what males of all species do. Some are not so disturbed by this. And, as said before, we're all different. Which is not a bad thing. This has nothing to do with the legitimacy of anyone's identity, just the different ways in which those identities manifest.

Becoming biologically female is at this point in time not possible.  That's the unfortunate truth.  So we make the best of our individual situations to adapt and overcome.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Quote from: Complete on November 01, 2017, 09:15:21 PM
"I don't quite understand it or what makes some of us so different that this becomes a matter of life and death as children and adolescents and isn't something that can be ignored or repressed regardless of how much parents or society try. I know for sure without the support of my folks and being allowed to do the things I did, I can say with certainty that I would have killed myself because all of this was so absolutely fundamental to my very existence, I would have rather died than to have ever grown up to be a man." ~LisaK

For me this is a great question.  I have wondered about this ever since I first began interacting with people identifying as transgendered. I see the differences,  and l accept them. I just cannot explain or understand them. Maybe I shouldn't worry about the why and just celebrate our differences.

I wanted to be a girl from a young age, but I was not suicidal over it.  I was depressed often, there were plenty of times I would go running upstairs after school, to cry into my pillow while screaming I wish I were never born.  I mostly just shut out the whole world, and lived in my head as I continue to do to this day.  I loved my parents, my brothers, I was practically invisible in school, and I have a great imagination that I can quite literally spend the greater part of my day off in lala land. 

Also, suicide was not an option, as far as I believed I would be sent to hell which would be an even worst spot than the one I was in at the time (I was preached hell fire) Plus the guilt of hurting my family would have been way too severe, I've always had an incredibly guilty conscious, and a overactive sense of empathy.   Coworkers have often lectured me on being too nice to people, and how I let them walk all over me. 

As a child when I asked my mom if she thought I would have been pretty as a girl, and I saw her getting worried and depressed, it hit me pretty hard, and there were several instances like that.  They were not outright abusive, they did not mock and ridicule me, they would other TG people, along with all of the shows and movies mocking us, and the guilt I felt was tremendous.  I felt guilty about being TS, I still do to be honest, I feel like I am being a horrible burden on my loved ones.. but suicide would likewise be a horrible burden on them.

Without the overactive sense of guilt, I probably would have transitioned much earlier, at around the age of 23.  I swear, even when I walk into a store, I feel like I am imposing on everyone around me, imagine how much that screws with your head?  That sense of guilt has held me back so much in life, that it is ridiculous. 

I think a lot of people, in my place, would have killed themselves by now.  Unemployed, in their 40s, mental issues, all of that fun stuff, yet I keep on holding on to hope that things will change, combined with the guilt of how much it would hurt my loved ones keeps me going.  I've thought of it plenty of times, I have a painless method of doing it, that is not messy, but I know I won't because I don't want my last thoughts being filled with regret and worry about my loved ones.

Quote from: zamber74 on November 04, 2017, 03:18:07 PM

Without the overactive sense of guilt, I probably would have transitioned much earlier, at around the age of 23.  I swear, even when I walk into a store, I feel like I am imposing on everyone around me, imagine how much that screws with your head?  That sense of guilt has held me back so much in life, that it is ridiculous. 

I think we had a very similar reaction it sounds like, with a lot of the same reasoning. Though I didn't consider hellfire per se, I definitely felt that suicide was not a solution, just a bigger problem. I'm the same way about stores and feeling like i am imposing on everyone, too, also showing that similar mentality. I can't remember if I mentioned it on these forums or elsewhere, but if a restaurant messes up my food, I am somehow the one who apologizes to them. (Recently I was with someone who complained about food, not that the order was wrong wrong just that they didn't like it, and had it taken off their bill. I was in shock and mortified just sitting at the same table. ;D)

For Zamber and Roll: Me too.

I did come close to suicide over this once about 11 years ago.  I had it planned out and was rehearsing with my unloaded pistol.  What stopped me was secondarily fear of hell but primarily the vision of my family having to clean my spattered brains off of the wall and floor.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Quote from: Roll on November 04, 2017, 03:37:27 PM
I think we had a very similar reaction it sounds like, with a lot of the same reasoning. Though I didn't consider hellfire per se, I definitely felt that suicide was not a solution, just a bigger problem. I'm the same way about stores and feeling like i am imposing on everyone, too, also showing that similar mentality. I can't remember if I mentioned it on these forums or elsewhere, but if a restaurant messes up my food, I am somehow the one who apologizes to them. (Recently I was with someone who complained about food, not that the order was wrong wrong just that they didn't like it, and had it taken off their bill. I was in shock and mortified just sitting at the same table. ;D)

I've had the same restaurant issues on many occasions, and I also find myself apologizing for things I should not be.  I don't want to be a mean spirited person, but at the same time everyone who has always told me I'm being too nice, was right.  I just can't get past it, and it definitely has a huge impact on life. 

I'm sorry you have to deal with it too.

Not to get all crazy here, but I really do hope that sometime in my life technology gets to the point of being advanced enough that our reliance on one another (as a whole) is not necessary, and we can each live out the remainder of our days only among those we wish to be around and wish to be around us as well.. and AI becomes sophisticated enough to maintain a decent conversation :)  I've spent most of my life trying to stay away from people, so it would be an upgrade for me.  Plug me into a machine, and let me live in my own style of a Matrix and I would be happy as can be :)  No more guilt, because I would not have to worry about others so much.

Deborah, I'm glad you are still here with us.  Every time I've considered it, I think the same kind of things, it would be a really cruel thing to do to my family. 

I stumbled home from my weekly night out at the pub last night and started writing another post for this thread in a rather inebriated state at 2:00 AM. At 6:00 AM and 1,300 words later, I called it quits and went to bed with the good sense to not hit the post button first. I had been moved and inspired by zirconia's post above and encouraged by her saying she would love to hear more so in a Paul Harvey "now-for-the-rest-of-the-story" moment, I followed up with what came next for me after my most tumultuous years. I thought it might be appropriate for folks to know how things turned out  and I may actually post the novel I wrote later but the thread has moved on and I want to address those issues first.

I'll begin with where I did start out last night because my feelings haven't changed and I thought it was important to say. I wrote "zirconia, I am really touched by your lovely post, wisdom and eloquence and I truly appreciate your thoughts. Thank you for your kindness".

With that said...

Quote from: MaryT on November 04, 2017, 09:54:22 AM
And, although no offence may have been intended, the "great question" can be rephrased as
"Why haven't you people killed yourselves?  I would rather be dead than like you."

You're the only one doing any rephrasing here which is more like twisting my words to your own design and you are obviously triggered by the way you have interpreted the things I have said. There's no need to project my experience onto yours or anyone else's and it is not up to you to determine or invalidate my level of despair and desperation. Maybe it hits a little too close to home but the truth is I would have rather been dead than to be a man or go all through all this the way most people on this site do. I would have not had the strength to do that. This is my experience. I am allowed to have it so don't turn it around and put words in my mouth that this somehow equates to thinking I'm more transer or some other bullsnip like that insinuating what I said means if you didn't have to go through this as children and felt as deeply that it somehow makes you lesser.

QuoteSurely you realise how insensitive that seems.  And, if you have been reading many of the posts on Susan's Place, you will realise that many of the people reading this topic, of all ages, are suicidal right now.  The last thing they need to read is someone saying that she would have killed herself if she couldn't have transitioned before physically becoming a man.

Point taken but sugar coating things and not sharing what was my reality that I forged into my successes doesn't help anyone either.

QuotePart of this topic does seem to ask how genuinely trans people can transition later in life.

No it doesn't. I've made no aspersions of any such kind. You are the one imposing your narrative onto my experiences and that just isn't fair. This just illustrates the type of typical attitudes projected on those of us that did do this young and have never had to live as men. It doesn't make us more "genuine", more real women or more "true trans" but this is the light we are cast in even if we don't feel that way at all. We're just a small minority subset within a larger minority and many aspects of our lives do result is us feeling different but I'm sure none of us thinks that makes us better than you are or anyone else is. That's just crap but I'll cut you some slack because some of your misinterpretations may be cultural or specific to your own regional differences and you also seem to have some very stereotypically traditional views about womanhood etc. Alluding to soldiers being "nurturing" because they're protecting people indicates just how much you are willing distort the truth to fit your reality. OMG!

Quote from: SadieBlake on November 04, 2017, 11:15:25 AM
However that wasn't the meaning of Lisa's question as I understood it, was inability to comprehend being trans and not doing anything about it.

This is more or less accurate. Thank you. It is incomprehensible to me how anyone could have felt the way I did on such a deep foundational and elemental level to the point it did become life threatening and not been driven to do something about it regardless of the consequences of possibly being rejected, beaten or driven to self harm. Then to be told I really didn't mean it because I'm still here by someone that wasn't me is simply exasperating.

Quote from: MaryT on November 04, 2017, 11:37:53 AM
I must point out that I regret any discomfort that Lisa may have as a result of this topic.  Her original post was a casual comment on another topic, and not intended to be a topic in its own right.

But it was a good topic and has generated some worthy discussion. I have not felt "discomfort" from anyone's comments. I'm not a snowflake, don't need a safe space nor am I butthurt by any of this but I won't deny feeling a bit of irritation and maybe frustration at how some have tried to turn this into an us vs. them debate because the lives of us that were trans youth are just as inconceivable to you as the lives of those that have lived as men are to us.

Then to insinuate that you're not saying that early transitioners are shallow because they didn't have to face the same hardships and then proceed to do exactly that attempts to invalidate or minimize the things we did go through which I can't say I appreciate very much because you have never walked in our shoes. Likewise, we have never walked in yours and why it is so difficult to imagine the lives you've had.

Let's just leave it at that. Even though I don't understand your experience because I haven't lived it and do wonder sometimes what it is that makes us so different, I'm not putting anyone down because of it nor am I trying to say we are better than you. Thinking that is your problem, not mine.

Quote from: HappyMoni on November 04, 2017, 10:19:50 AM
We're all trans people with different experiences. I hope we can all relax a little and learn from each other without being upset.

This has been a valuable discussion even with levels of disagreement and misunderstanding and rather than this thread getting shut down because it's not nice enough to fit into the imposed happy rainbow fairyland around here, the topic is one of substance that people can learn from because in the real world, not everyone is on the same page and if people truly are interested in hearing about the diversity of the trans experience, then they should have the opportunity to do so and draw their own conclusions even if the discourse makes some uncomfortable. Maybe no one understands any of this but I know at least Julia and Aurora get where I'm coming from because we have walked the same path. I'm not here to cause trouble or start arguments but I do have a voice and experience others should have some empathy for at least at the same level we are expected to be empathetic and understanding of the majority around here that have not had lives like we have had.

Now let's all hold hands and sing Kumbaya and let what seems to be a smoldering ember of resentment and/or failure to appreciate one or another's own uniqueness and differences just be. I don't have to understand you and you don't have to understand me but we will never find some place in the middle if we don't talk and if we don't listen.

I'll spare you all things I had written last night. Even though the questions of what happened in my life after my trans years will remain unanswered for those unfamiliar with the rest of the story, it did devolve a little too much into whining about just how alienated from this community I feel. Perhaps if I get ambitious one day, that discussion might make good fodder for it's own thread but after this one, I'm sure someone would pick that one apart too?

I like different viewpoints. It's kind of a check on me getting carried away with my own point of view. My comment was from a standing of wanting the conversation to continue. If it gets too nasty it will be shut down. That's a fact Jack. I think it is important to remember that it is easy to misinterpret text, you don't have the facial expression or voice tone to help interpret the meaning. I find it useful, for me, if I think someone has a 'beef' with me, to ask questions to clarify rather than make an accusation. (Now was that a shot at anyone on this thread? No!)
Moni
Not sure a non-believer like me can do the Kumbaya song kind of thing.

Quote from: Lisa_K on November 04, 2017, 07:59:36 PM
Alluding to soldiers being "nurturing" because they're protecting people indicates just how much you are willing distort the truth to fit your reality. OMG!

Well, in 20 years I killed exactly zero and protected a whole bunch at some risk to myself.  It was actually the one thing I have ever done that I feel actually made some real difference.  So your snark is unappreciated.

Or perhaps you're speaking from some vast repository of personal experience here?



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

So the question was ask why didn't the rest of us transition at young age.  Many of us explained our childhood and the challenges we faced but these experiences seemed to be dismissed out of hand.  Some suggested it was because unlike the three here in this thread who transitioned early we didn't have support from a parent or parents.  This seems to be the logical conclusion, but we'll never know because the people who transitioned early had the support and those who didn't transition early didn't have that support.  Neither can really understand the perspective of the other on this issue because our parents reaction to the situation were totally different.

I really don't know what else can be said on this thread.  People are different and react to situations differently.  Someones life may not make sense to you, but you never walked in their shoes. 

Have a nice night,
Paige :)

I used to have a very low opinion of those who transitioned late in life. Not that I transitioned in my 20s but I also didn't wait until I was 60.

But in the years since I began my transition, I have personally met and befriended some amazing late transitioners who I am happy to consider my good friends.  It is easy to focus on our differences, some of which I can't comprehend, but our shared experiences, thoughtful discussions, and countless hours of face-to-face time spent together has enriched my life greatly.

When you do life together, in person, with others who are different from you, you learn to celebrate your differences instead of coldly analyzing them as you would on an anonymous Internet forum.  Understanding is not necessarily a prerequisite to love and friendship.

Quote from: Deborah on November 04, 2017, 09:38:01 PM
Well, in 20 years I killed exactly zero and protected a whole bunch at some risk to myself.  It was actually the one thing I have ever done that I feel actually made some real difference.  So your snark is unappreciated.

Original comment redacted because it was unnecessary. I don't wish to be argumentative and prefer to take the higher road. Thank you for your service.

QuoteOr perhaps you're speaking from some vast repository of personal experience here?

I assume that's meant to be sarcasm? Fair enough, you're absolutely right.

Quote from: echo7 on November 04, 2017, 10:33:49 PM
I used to have a very low opinion of those who transitioned late in life. Not that I transitioned in my 20s but I also didn't wait until I was 60.

This question may sound off topic, but I'm asking because what echo said actually made me wonder how I fit into this discussion... so what is generally the cut off for early vs late transition? Because I've been feeling like I am in a limbo at 35 on this, as I think of early as pre 25 and late as post 45, and I've seen a few other people in their 30's have similar thoughts.

Quote from: lisaKyou have never walked in our shoes. Likewise, we have never walked in yours and why it is so difficult to imagine the lives you've had.

Heh, I can entirely imagine and I used to project envy on those who knew earlier, and who pass as female. I have enough innate empathy to realize no path is easy and just because one may not be suicidal etc doesn't make it a cakewalk.  Also hope my own bit a few pages back explained how yes it's possible to live with an unacknowledged cognitive dissonance for a very long time. I don't need to put this as pejorative on my parent however she was and sadly remains uniquely ill suited to any sort of empathy or ability to see past her prejudices and personal experience.

I actually have no doubt that simply having that one person able to see me rather than her own required version of a son might we'll have allowed me to follow a timeline more like yours.

However there's little gained crying over spilled milk or blood. I made the best I could of a male body, my daughters are amazing and if I'm not the best parent out there at least I manage to be emotionally supportive. My career was certainly easier as male bodied and I'm satisfied with both what I've done and where I'm going. Getting to this point feels like a miracle, especially considering the collection of sh*theels along the way who've either knowingly or ignorantly sandbagged me along the way. But go read my surgery thread in a little while, maybe 0630 Eastern time (geez, did I just gain or lose an hour?).

I sacked out last night with the light of a beautiful full moon coming in the windows. I have a big old lesbian crush on lisaK now and wish I could give you a kiss and photograph it for my Tumblr.

Quote from: Roll on November 05, 2017, 12:07:24 AM
This question may sound off topic, but I'm asking because what echo said actually made me wonder how I fit into this discussion... so what is generally the cut off for early vs late transition? Because I've been feeling like I am in a limbo at 35 on this, as I think of early as pre 25 and late as post 45, and I've seen a few other people in their 30's have similar thoughts.

I would say the ranges you have in mind are pretty accurate. In speaking of those considered to be trans youth or trans kids, the median age of transition for MTF's is 20 years old, with a range of early puberty to mid 20's.  More than 95% transition full time before the age of 25. I know of several organizations that support trans and other gender expansive youth. They have groups for teens up to 19 and groups for college kids up to 22. Not exactly sure but I've been told the NHS transfers kids from their youth programs to their adult programs at 18 which causes an interruption of services for some.

You've got to consider though when we're talking about teens, transition may not be the before and after, black & white deal like it is with those that are older and well established in their natal gender. As a young boy, I was often misgendered growing up which happened about as far back as I can remember. I began moving beyond androgyny when I was 15 and by the time I was 16, most people that didn't know me thought I already was a girl. With starting HRT before my senior year of high school, by the time I graduated "transition to full time" was practically complete and a non-event with no fanfare or a heck of a lot of difference except for getting my name changed.

It's all kind of relative to your point of view and frame of reference. I was rarely seen as and never accepted as anything close to resembling a "normal" boy especially the older I got which was pretty weird. Those that I find to be most like myself that I relate to the most have never been known as or had lives as men at all so for me, "early" is 18 or younger. Back to it being relative and a matter of perspective though, someone in their 40's or older that transitioned in their 20's is still an early transitioner. The average age for adults that transition is between 35 and 45. I once heard Marci Bowers say in an interview say the average age of her SRS patients was 45.

I wrote this without my glasses on in the middle of the night after getting up because I couldn't sleep. I hope it makes sense?

Quote from: SadieBlake on November 05, 2017, 04:58:47 AM
I have a big old lesbian crush on lisaK now and wish I could give you a kiss and photograph it for my Tumblr.

Wait, what?  :icon_redface:

And don't get me started with you clock fiddlers because I can't stand it. I live in Arizona...we don't need no steenkin' time warpers here in the wild west! Now the whole rest of the country is out of whack until like March or something? Grrr!

Quote from: Lisa_K on November 05, 2017, 05:21:12 AM
Wait, what?  :icon_redface:

And don't get me started with you clock fiddlers because I can't stand it. I live in Arizona...we don't need no steenkin' time warpers here in the wild west! Now the whole rest of the country is out of whack until like March or something? Grrr!

What? Oh, 'clock' fiddlers.' Excuse my dirty mind.

I transitioned at 58-59. I have my personality and that causes me to do things a certain way. Whatever caused me to be trans and drove me until I transitioned was the cards I was dealt, so to speak. The fact that I grew up  with a Catholic mother, with a father I feared at times, and had two older brothers and two older sisters who I looked up to were  all part of my equation too. I own my path, don't apologize for it. I don't allow myself to lament what could have been. I certainly could, but it would take away from the joy I feel now. There are positives and negatives to the timing of transitioning. I know it had to be ridiculously hard for early transitioners  and I don't discount that. With my path, I had decades of not having an answer, not being a complete person. Decades of running from myself, so much anger and emotional withdrawal. None of this is easy for any of us. My personality is not one that goes toward suicide thankfully. I am a non believer and believe there is no 'after.' Besides, I figured it could always get better. It is silly to think of suicide as any sort of test of trans severity. Silly to judge each other for how to cope with our own set of circumstances.
I only hope this post doesn't reignite Echo's low opinion of late transitioners. lol   I especially liked the last paragraph.
                                                                                                                                                                   

Quote from: echo7 on November 04, 2017, 10:33:49 PM
I used to have a very low opinion of those who transitioned late in life. Not that I transitioned in my 20s but I also didn't wait until I was 60.

But in the years since I began my transition, I have personally met and befriended some amazing late transitioners who I am happy to consider my good friends.  It is easy to focus on our differences, some of which I can't comprehend, but our shared experiences, thoughtful discussions, and countless hours of face-to-face time spent together has enriched my life greatly.

When you do life together, in person, with others who are different from you, you learn to celebrate your differences instead of coldly analyzing them as you would on an anonymous Internet forum.  Understanding is not necessarily a prerequisite to love and friendship.

I, too, take a dim view of late transitioners. The medical community really needs to put limits on what age you can undertake transition. I say if you're over 120, stay in your rocking chair.  :laugh:

Hugs, Devlyn

Devlyn, I took you for a clock fiddler, not an 'age discriminater.'
Moni

Clock fiddler is offensive. I prefer the politically correct (and more awesome) term "time traveler". ;D

Quote from: Roll on November 05, 2017, 02:11:40 PM
Clock fiddler is offensive. I prefer the politically correct (and more awesome) term "time traveler". ;D

Tempus Fudgeit.

btw, love the new avatar!

Quote from: MaryT on November 04, 2017, 09:54:22 AM
Like I said, I admire your courage and determination.  However, can't you see the contradiction in trans people displaying such courage and yet saying that they would definitely have killed themselves if they couldn't have transitioned in childhood.

And, although no offence may have been intended, the "great question" can be rephrased as
"Why haven't you people killed yourselves?  I would rather be dead than like you."

Surely you realise how insensitive that seems. 

You.know. Maybe it is just me but it seems to me that it is your that are intentionally missed construing a simple question. The "question", as has been clearly understood and examined, is how people who obstensibly knew they were "trans" or something other than their sex assigned at birth, did nothing to rectify that prior to fathering children while others did everything possible to change what had to be changed.
The answer might just be a matter of dumb luck or maybe a matter of will or desire.
Derailing the question or essentially maligning it be completely changing it by rewarding it as you have seems both devisive and somewhat morbid.

Quote from: Complete on November 09, 2017, 04:17:07 PM
You.know. Maybe it is just me but it seems to me that it is your that are intentionally missed construing a simple question. The "question", as has been clearly understood and examined, is how people who obstensibly knew they were "trans" or something other than their sex assigned at birth, did nothing to rectify that prior to fathering children while others did everything possible to change what had to be changed.
The answer might just be a matter of dumb luck or maybe a matter of will or desire.
Derailing the question or essentially maligning it be completely changing it by rewarding it as you have seems both devisive and somewhat morbid.

Whatever Lisa's intention, "matter of life and death", "I would have killed myself" and "I would have rather died" is an awful lot of death for a question that is NOT asking why people who did not transition in childhood chose not to die:

Quote from: Complete on November 01, 2017, 09:15:21 PM
"I don't quite understand it or what makes some of us so different that this becomes a matter of life and death as children and adolescents and isn't something that can be ignored or repressed regardless of how much parents or society try. I know for sure without the support of my folks and being allowed to do the things I did, I can say with certainty that I would have killed myself because all of this was so absolutely fundamental to my very existence, I would have rather died than to have ever grown up to be a man." ~LisaK

Well...maybe for LisaK it was "a matter of life or death". I know it was for me. Nevertheless,  that need not be what  It is for YOU, or for others.
It just is what it is. Maybe that is what makes us different. Maybe that is why there are so few of those like LisaK and myself around.

Quote from: Complete on November 09, 2017, 04:43:41 PM
Well...maybe for LisaK it was "a matter of life or death". I know it was for me. Nevertheless,  that need not be what  It is for YOU, or for others.
It just is what it is. Maybe that is what makes us different. Maybe that is why there are so few of those like LisaK and myself around.

That's fine.  I've said what I think.  Unless someone asks me a specific question, as your previous post did, I will not post anything else on this topic, because as I mentioned earlier, I find it "too stimulating".

THIS POST CONTAINS REFERENCES (THOUGH VAGUEISH) TO HARDSHIP I SUFFERED - IT COULD TRIGGER YOU

I dont blame you or anyone else and no one can define me or validate me but me. I could take OP as hurtful or read things between the lines, but I dont and it wouldnt matter anyway.

Truth is. I was always meek and quiet and small back then. Heh, I used to be such a sweet, sweet thing... It's just who i was born as. I wasnt as strong. Thats ok...

But... so you understand...

This is hard, ok?

I'm that cartoon of the gray man walking to work day in and out... a zombie. i love my wife, i love my daughter.... but everything it took to get here, every other piece of this life has been utter hell.

Why then didnt I do anything at a younger age?

By 2nd grade I literally hated myself. It took two school psychologists 3 years to convince me I shouldnt just die. Everyone hated me except my mother, even my father, though not because of my femininity.. or.. I dont think. He doesnt talk to me.

By 5th grade i had unconsciously decided to kill everything about me that didnt fit, so i could just "make it" through school. So thats what i did. I fabricated an entire life and persona, and I lived it to survive. I didnt realize that doing so would do damage. Take away things I really needed, until 20 some years later i finally woke up when it was perceivably "safe" and here I am.

I didnt fabricate that persona over night, and it wasnt always effective. I siffered until early high school when I was at least allowed to mostly fall into obscurity thanks to the "camoflauge" and a school district change


As life went on it just got worse. There wasnt even internet and frankly it never really stopped.

Where I live is maybe arguably one of the most dangerous places in this country anyway to be anything but normal. From the very get go i was spit on, kicked, beaten, pushed down, punched and generally abused for how feminine I was. I was called every terrible slur and name you can think of. They said things to me you cant even fathom in ways that made me feel like they might attack me, sometimes even sexually, even as they derided me with utter contempt.

I avoided them all as best I could, but... it was everyday. I was regularly beat up.

i was just a child. I didnt understand. There was no internet. No one like me. I didnt even know where to look, and if you looked, you could get caught. There was no time to explore it really. I couldnt conciously spend time on it and bloom, that would have been suicide.

So i lied. I lied to myself and to everyone and I pretended to be a man and I shoved myself way, way, way down in a black pit because I wasnt sure I was gonna live through it. I would give anything now, to go back. ANYTHING. I would run away on the trains that run through here and live on the streets in california if thats what it would take, but I cant... theres no going back... :(

I did the best I could. If you think i dont have horrible anger and pain and contempt for what i allowed to happen to myself, for my own blood on my hands, as I ripped parts of myself off and smothered them with the acceptable lies that would get me by in one piece... you are wrong. One of my biggest struggles is even trusting myself.

I'm sorry if this offends anyone, but its what happened. I can only speak for me, and anyone who met a similar destiny.

Theres light now, I can see light at the end of the tunnel. All of that was long ago, i just satayed in the costume for too long out of fear. It's my own fault, but I'm free now. Now, i can use what time I have left and maybe I can bloom...  :icon_love:

 :police: Be careful with your posting. This conversation is boarding on a violation of TOS 10 and the thread may still be cleaned up. ->-bleeped-<- isn't expressed in the same way or even with the same timing in everybody. It's possible to know at 3 years of age or not know until you 60s. Learn from other people experiences and realize how diverse we are.

10. Bashing or flaming of an individual or group is not acceptable behavior on this website and will not be tolerated in the slightest for any reason.  This includes but is not limited to:

• Advocating the separation or exclusion of one or more group from under the Transgender umbrella term. The same restriction applies to advocating the removal of the T from GLBT.
• Suggesting or claiming that one segment or sub-segment of our community is more or less legitimate, deserving, or real than any others.
• Suggesting that Trans people are not really men (FTM) or women (MTF).
  
• Posting any messages that engages in personal attacks and/or is actively or passively aggressive no matter the provocation.

:police:

   :police:  This is being locked For clean up as it has descended into repugnant insults to people who were not fortunate enough to transition when they were young.  :police: