Susan's Place Transgender Resources

Hope this is the right place to post this. I have heard that many transwomen report having a for lack of a better work, a "moment of clearity" when their path became clear. I would be interested in knowing if anyone has had that experience.

yes. i've been thinking about transitioning since about the age of 15. then about 8 months ago a light bulb went off and i knew i was in it to win it so to speak. now here i am with my hair 6 inches longer, attending a local support group, and starting my first laser treatment a week from today. mostly everyone i know "knows" without me telling them. i see no real reason to freak them out and once i have a few more things in order (hormones) i'll be officially coming out and planning on going FT in november : )

Yes, it is the moment that you accept who and what you are, and at that moment you know what your path must be.

I started feeling weird when I was about 10. I later became obsessed with the idea of wearing female clothing and was caught by my parents several times. Each time it meant a new therapist and me trying to "quit the habit". This went on for about 8 years when I was researching why this "habit" of mine persisted.

Well, I could never really get it out of my mind when I came across the topic of Transgenders (This happened about 1-2 months back). I could not believe myself when I read how they defined a transgender and I was a little shocked at how many of those things applied to me. I didn't understand what I was feeling at first but after I had a couple of weeks to think about it I knew what I wanted.

Mine came when I stopped trying to figure out why and gave up fighting it.

But I don't recommend waiting six decades like I did!

After literally decades of denial and insisting I was a crossdresser, seven words changed my life forever.  I asked myself:

"But what if you ARE a transsexual?"

And as they in eastern philosophies; "... and then the student was enlightened."

-Sandy

Mine came after a transsexual group therapy session.

I sorta, kinda knew I was transsexual at the time (thus me being there). But I had a hard time even contemplating how transition would ever be possible. There were others there who could never transition due to their life circumstance. For all I knew, I was like that too. I certainly had no active plans to transition.

Then at the end of one of the meetings, I wanted to talk to someone from the group about something she said that really struck me. I don't even remember exactly what she said to prompt me. But when I spoke to her afterward I related my own thoughts from several years earlier about why I needed to stay male. It was because, I had told myself, I was born male and I had to "play the hand of cards I'd been dealt" the best I could. She smiled and told me I had been wrong about that hand of cards, because I wasn't actually born male. I was born transsexual.

If there is a single "road to Damascus" moment in my transition, it was that one.

Lets see... a friends 7th birthday party, I was the only "boy" there and fit in perfectly so there's that...  never really had a singular moment where I knew I had to transition, just something my life has been leading up to I guess.

My moment was more like about a couple weeks.

I had always known what I wanted to be, and I semi-told my friend when I was 5-7, I completely told my mum when I was 7-10, I told other people when I was 13, but when I was that young I didn't know anything about transition or anything. When I became a teenager at some point I learnt about the whole transgender thing, but by that time I had so internalized my feelings as part of a wide range of attempts to fit in, the idea of me doing something so unusual seemed out of the question, additionally I didn't really know anything about hormones or the concept that someone could actually fit in and be perceived as female if they weren't born that way. I had this mindset of 'well, ok, in my mind I'm female, but I'm trapped in this male experience and there's nothing I can do so I'll just go with it. So I ignored the problem entirely.

Then when I was 19 I found out through randomly stumbling on a news article that it really was possible, what happened between that and realizing that I actually WAS one of these transgender people and that I COULD have done something about it YEARS ago, and that I was SO CLOSE in the past, I don't exactly remember. It took a few weeks, maybe a month, to truly come to realize it.


So yeah, no lightbulb moment, just stumbling across what I knew but didn't accept (i was transgender), and that it was actually possible to do something to correct the situation.

I think it may be when you realise there is no option. OK it's still a struggle but the struggle is less. I've just spent the afternoon, shopping :embarrassed: again. Only bought a few things but no one was rude, in fact I was served by females and they were just wonderful. I ended up buying some jewelery and we had a great chat, trying stuff on, finding matching ear rings, etc etc, It was a small one person shop, and there were really only women coming in to browse, a few guys with their partners also. No one as much blinked a eye, except the credit card which fell into its usual screaming hissy fit :laugh:

Life is feeling good. And it should do. We have no reason to feel bad about ourselves.

Cindy

There have been several times in my life when I wondered whether my lack of success in relationships was a sign that I was not cut out for the whole "man" thing. I knew I wasn't gay, so just ended up being depressed and alone for a long time.

Once I worked out that I was actually bisexual these feelings disappeared for a few years, but came back about 6 months ago.  After trying to decide where I fitted on the spectrum of gender, and considering all the pro's and con's I tentatively concluded I was Androgyne, and decided to see where this would lead.

I started to grow my hair, and had also stopped picking my nails, an old bad habit. While I was at work a couple of months ago I was doing data entry, and with my nails clicking on the keys had one of these "light bulb " moments.  I realised that I would have this sensation for the rest of my life.
I felt a sense of clarity and knew right then that I was a woman who had been trying to pass as a man for far too many years.

Since then I am generally happier than I have been in years, and enjoy getting up in the morning.  I still suffer from depression, but it is now solely my reaction to the things going on around me, not coming from inside.
Life is short and I have spent the preceding part putting other people's needs ahead of my own, with in many cases little return.

I know where I want to be, all that remains is to work out the best way to get there.  That is something I realise I have not had in many years either.

My light bulb moment was back in march when I realised that I couldn't keep on pretending it didn't exist and that now was the time to do something about it...so I told a friend and haven't looked back since.

Mine was about a decade and a half ago when i was watching a documentary on tv. I knew that was me.

my lightbulb moment came when I realized I had run out of excuses not to transition, and I no longer had any reason not to. I had tried being a gay man, tried marriage, tried religion, tried running from the truth, and not a single one of those things gave me any relief. Once I realized that the road lay wide open ahead and there was nothing to hold me back, I knew what I had to do.

I've always known who I was, took me a while to realize that other people didn't know and couldn't see. It was only a few years ago, like.....15? that I even heard of transsexual. Only 7 years ago I knew it was possible to transition. I then chose to wait til kids were out of high school and here I am.

The moment of realization for me was a little different. It was late summer in 1957 when I was 8 years old. You see, I was a little dense - I always thought I WAS a girl (though I knew I was physically a little unusual) and I figured adults were a little slow in not figuring that out.  :)

On a hot August day a cousin and I were laying in the hay loft of the barn after doing chores, just chatting as children do, when my cousin said "You should have been a girl." very matter-of-factly. I said I was. He said "No you're not, not really." and it finally sunk in that I had a BIG problem!  :o

I struggled with the gender thing for many years after that, not knowing what I was (other than a freak). Puberty pushed me toward girl but my body betrayed me. More and more I knew what I WASN'T but I still didn't know what I WAS.

The second moment of clarity was the first time I held my newborn niece (age 23). In that single moment maternal feelings hit me like a ton of bricks and I KNEW what I was, what I HAD to be. That started a rapid downhill slide leading to deep depression and attempts at suicide before SRS finally became available the following year.

Quote from: Northern Jane on April 20, 2010, 04:27:35 AM
The moment of realization for me was a little different. It was late summer in 1957 when I was 8 years old. You see, I was a little dense - I always thought I WAS a girl (though I knew I was physically a little unusual) and I figured adults were a little slow in not figuring that out. :)

Exactly!!!!!

I kinda had a clue what a transgender was at age 16 or so and had been unusual from age 11 but I denied it. "I want to be a girl and hate begin a boy but I don't think I'm transgender, because X Y Z"

I finally accepted and admitted to myself after I very nearly castrated myself age 20, backed out at the last minute realizing I would kill myself in this attempt.

I thought about my future... As a male my life would be strewn with insanity like this and I would kill myself one way or another I couldn't see myself as a middle age man successful or not. Middle age woman however... yeah I could live with that.

It was then I just surrendered "I'm Trans... I get the message."

I haven't had a lightbulb moment yet because I move back and forth between moments of knowing where I am going in this transistion and moments where I am still trying to make deals with the dysphoria. If I could hold at one spot in this process, I would do that as I have a long marriage and two grown children to consider but my fear is that this may be a losing battle and I am just putting off the inevitable.