Susan's Place Transgender Resources

Most of the stories that I read about trans people has them saying that they felt like the opposite sex trapped in their body.I never felt that way,and when I read that so many did it really made me question whether I was trans.I know now that I am but when I was first discovering myself I  this confused me.I never really felt attached to my body.I didn't exercise or eat healthy or worry how I looked.I wore the same clothes within a week to school.I didn't study because I didn't care what I got in school,I cut myself, I just really didn't care about my life.I felt a real detachment from my body.Am I the only one who felt this way?

tori

I knew something was wrong when I was about 4. But I don't recall thinking I was in the wrong body as such. What I do recall was realising that the reason I couldn't play with my friends and had to play rough games with the boys was because of my body. Especially my ugly bit. In fact, I blamed the ugly bit since that was the only difference I could understand.

Now I could sit here and psychoalnalyse everything, every thought, every wish, from that point, even referring to my ugly bit as such. Then conclude that, if I had been allowed to play with the girls I might have turned out to be a real jack the lad, a bigger hit with the ladies than the Charlie Sheen character on TV.

But to what purpose? And can anyone say, for certain that that would be accurate. I might have become exactly what I am in any case.

I am who I am. I am the sum total of my past and my makeup. Just as you are.

I honestly don't believe there is any harm in reflecting on your life. But the only reality that matters is what you will do from now on.

You seek a feminine future. A life living as female. Not because you believe it will solve all your problems. But because you know that you can relate to the world more comfortably as a female.

I doubt it would have made any difference spacial, I was always allowed to play with girls and many of my best friends were girls growing up.  I never played the "rough" games with the boys, well did try little-league baseball once, that was a disaster.

I don't believe our upbringing really makes much difference in how we turn out because ultimately we have female brains.

For Tori I can't say, I know I have felt wrong though not until my early teens really because I was quite a naive child and was always allowed to play with whoever I wanted.

Hi tori,

I felt the same when I was exactly your age, I didn't care about a thing and lived basically like an animal. I wasn't living just sustaining life, and it really wasn't going anywhere.  A friend of mine describes it as feeling "numb" as the rest of the world goes by and people grow up to be who they are and you're just stuck in one place. What was really the point then of loving myself and taking care of it, I had no reason to.

I didn't really feel that 'in the wrong body' bit but something was surely wrong all along, and all that conditioning to live the life of a male failed miserably and not because I wanted it to, it just did. Looking back now I realized that many of the feelings and dysphoria I experienced is like a deja-vu, old as the ages, but I had no idea what they are then and what to do with them.

However you came to realizing your trans condition doesn't matter, I think the 'test' is when you look inside your mind and /know/ which gender you are.

Thank you Sadie. I honestly don't think it would have either.

I know the realisation came upon me quite spontainously. I didn't know why girls were different from boys, I didn't really know exactly what the differences were. But I wanted to look like my friends and not like the boys.

But I knew I preferred the company of girls. I didn't build forts, I build a house. As I matured, my thoughts were for boys and my admiration was for the really pretty girls.

There were just too many examples like this for them to have been caused by some incident or other.

Tori. Each of us is different. There is no explaination that can deal with all of these differences. There is no explaination necessary.

We are free adults. We have and we claim the fundimental right to live as we choose, within the confines of common decency and consideration.

That, really, is all the justification we need.

Tori, I appreciate posts like yours. Like you I did not identify as being "in the wrong body" until recently and for me late in life (at 59). I felt like I did not fit society, but I had lots of other reasons that were more "in my face" to blame - like being poor and moving a lot. I did not have a statistically "normal" boyhood. I did a mix of boy and woman things because as the oldest of ten I helped care for my six sisters. So every time I read someone say "I KNEW at age 'x', I have doubts. I am good at being what others expect.

I am just learning to trust that what Spacial said is so very true, "Each of us is different. There is no explanation that can deal with all of these differences. There is no explanation necessary." or possible. I know I am not what my body indicates, or what others see and define me to be. I have to look inside, not outside, to discover the truth of who and what I am. And that has taken time for me to do.

Like you at least somewhat, for most of my life I have felt disconnected from my body. It was not me, just a sometimes troublesome servant. I did not take very good care, and did not care much about how I looked - except to fit in with my environment. I was also mildly to moderately depressed much of the time.

I was sad to read you dealt with your pain by cutting, and I hope for you that you are finding comfort and healing.

Kendall

Did you have a time machine so you could go back and secretly watch me? 

I never really felt dysphoric as a teenager, I just didn't feel "right", and  went straight through to depression, and the sensation you describe.

I have since found out it is Depersonalisation, and is a defence mechanism that the mind uses to shield itself from the world when there is too much to cope with. (Not Dissociation,  that is a  much more serious disorder.)

Since I have, 40 or so years later, worked out what the problem was, I no longer feel like there is a wall of ice around me, and have been able to be 100% human instead of only 50% or so.

You don't say whether you suffered from Depression, but I wouldn't be surprised if it went with the feelings you describe.

You're not the only one. It's actually a little bit complicated. I didn't really understand what gender was until I was 10 or 11. The only key difference I knew of was voice, hair, and clothes. I expressed a desire to dress like a girl, that was wrong, I didn't understand why. I never really felt "trapped" until about 10 years later. And I still do from time to time, but less frequently as time goes on.

My christian life style kept me occupied through my teenage life. So even though I had desires, I had a way to cast them aside, and blame them on "the devil". After I came away from that, and my mind grew a little bit more, I started to understand myself.

I always resisted the idea of "a woman in a man's body."  It just seemed ridiculous to me.  I thought I was odd.  I never felt right.  I knew I wasn't a man but couldn't figure out what I was.  When I finally started coming out to others I began coming out to myself.  And as I started transition I realized slowly that I am a woman and in a sense have always been one.

I think that for me it was a coping mechanism.  I thought I would never be able to live as a woman - I wouldn't have the opportunity, I would never pass, and I would never be accepted.  I accepted my body because I thought I had no choice.

I changed through transition.  As I found that I could I let myself believe.  Now I am a happy [trans]woman.  It's a long journey and we don't all take the same path.

- Kate