I am feeling down lately. My thoughts and feelings make me feel like a horrible person. Though the cause may not be what you think. You see I have successfully transitioned. I have been living full-time as a woman for over 6 months. I have never been "clocked" or at least have it brought to my attention publicly. I actually did what I set out to do, transition and live my life as a woman. I don't feel like I am done. Until I get my surgeries I won't feel fully complete. However, I do not regret transitioning at all, it has been the most liberating experience of my life.
So why the regret? My angst comes from something inside me that is not pretty to look at, envy and jealousy. I am a late transitioner. I waited until I was 38 to start truly pursuing my dream of being female. Started hormones at 39, and started living full-time at 40, and now having just turned 41 and I have been successfully doing it for 6 months. The feeling of liberation I feel has been incredible and to have successfully achieved this I count myself blessed, or at least I should. However, now that I look at how much better I feel about myself and my life post-transition, I look back at my earlier life and wonder what the hell I was doing? Why didn't I do this when I was younger? I could have if I was brave enough, if I had had the courage to stand up and claim what I wanted. I didn't though, no I lived my life on autopilot for 25 years. Knowing what needed to be done but living in denial. Constantly jumping to please everyone around me but myself. Now I see younger and younger trans women coming out and proclaiming what they want and taking it and I am filled with happiness that they can but at the same time I am filled with very ugly envy. It's horrible and it makes me feel like an awful person but I can't help it.
I really did not enjoy my youth at all. I was so busy playing the part that others wanted that I denied ever feeling my true feelings. I denied them so much I wouldn't even allow myself a release to cross-dress or do anything feminine. My only escape was playing female characters in role-playing and video games. I missed out on living a young woman's life completely. It's hard because most people my age have very fond memories of their youth, especially ages 18 to 35, but I have none of that, my life prior to transition feels almost devoid of happiness and pleasure. I get angry when young people are worried about what others will think of them and don't transition because one day they will realize it doesn't matter what others think it only matters that you made the most of your short life. I made that mistake and don't want others to make it and yet at the same time when they do start to transition early I get so jealous it hurts. Transition for me has been so good that I can't help but wonder how much better it would have been at 20 years old or younger. I feel cheated by the loss of time and the feeling that I have only half a life to be female and not the best half. However there are bright spots in my life like my children. They mean the world to me, they reduce the feelings that I wasted my life up to this point. I would never have my children if I had transitioned early, but even that doesn't truly stop these feelings and that makes my shame even worse. I fully realize these are not healthy feelings.
I am not sure why I decided to bare my inner feelings here today. Maybe I just needed a cathartic release. I must sound horrible to most of you, because I feel like a horrible person when I think this way. I have been feeling this for a while now and it's not something I see addressed very often by older transitioners. I wonder if I am the only one who feels this? Or perhaps it's too painful for some to admit?
I hope I haven't made anyone feel bad, that wasn't my intention. If your angry at me though I understand.
Good post. Thanks for sharing. I have very similar feelings on my life pre-transition. I'm 28 and often ask myself: Why didn't I do this sooner? In my reflection of this question, for a long time I had no idea transgender people existed. I heard about homosexuals (both gays & lesbians) but never met one in person until my teenage years. I grew up in a very rural environment (way, way out in the country)... we didn't have cable TV until I was 16 or so, my graduating class in high school had only like 60 kids in it total... so there were many things in life I was simply not exposed to, some good, some bad, some not at all. I also didn't have the benefit of the internet growing up, which also seems to make things so much easier relating to transition today. So my most obvious reason for not doing it sooner was ignorance, and of course along with fear. Fear of what my friends, family, et al would think and say. The upside is, although I didn't have many friends and missed out on many experiences growing up, I did do great in school, great in college & well in grad school too. Today I have a decent life and have a good paying job that has allowed me to be me and afford things like HRT/SRS/therapy/etc. So... would I go back and come out to everyone sooner? Maybe. I now love my life much more now, but that's the thing with life... it's constantly filled full regrets. Best not to focus on the past that you can't change and focus on the future, which you can.
I'm not angry.
I don't know where you are but I'd remind you that the world was different 20 years ago. Resources were hard to find. For example all I knew about people like us was from stupid, not to mention offensive, talk shows.
I would remind both you and myself, cause I could also use the reminder from time to time, that we musn't be greedy. Yeah, we were late to the party but we got there, and we get to live our lives from now forward. You've got kids you love and you're getting by with out getting clocked. Those are two huge blessings! We live in places where we could transition, not somewhere like war torn Somalia or Afghanistan. How huge is that?
Envy, yes.. Regrets.. No. So much of what you said rings true to the core. It reminds me of a comment my mom made to me, she was bummed because she never had the privalage of raising a daughter, my response was that I didn't have the privalage of being raised as one. There are many things I missed in my youth and 20's. however the way I look at it now, I can truly appreciate my transition. If I had done it when I was younger I don't know that it would be as important to me as it is now. Also, after speaking with my mom chances are I would have been locked in my room or set up in a tower like Repunzel. So maybe I'm not that sorry I missed out on that. In some weird backwards twisted way, I think knowing how my inner feelings were gave me strength to push foreword in my life and become the best adult that I could.
Sadie, envy is relative: I envy you. I have much the same history, including using role-playing and video games because I didn't have the courage to do real stuff. Now I'm 41, and dipping my toe in the pool so to speak, but I don't know if I will ever truly transition.
I think the bottom line is life moves on, whether we're ready or not. You're doing it correctly now, and that's all that really matters.
I'm still young (mid 20s) and even I regret not having done this sooner. However in all honesty there is just too many factors to take into account. Many of us did not even have understanding or words to put to our feelings or the bravery to bring them to the open. I remember a particular instance when I was in high school I was taking a psychological exam administered by a school psychologist and one of the questions was "have you ever wanted to be a girl" and I totally froze up on the question like "should I put the truth?" I sat there for like 5 minutes and the doctor walked in and I freaked out and thought he would see what question I was sitting pondering. That's how scared I was of my feelings. I wonder what would have happened had I been truthful and bubbled "yes."
The present is now and your hindsight is 20/20. I'm sure we all have our regrets, but there really isn't anything we can do about it. No sense beating yourself up over the unchangeable. We just have to make the best with what we have and the time that is given to us.
Envy yes. Regrets and anger NO. Sadness, of course.
Back 30-40 years it was a far far different world. Resources were scarce even for me living across the river from New York City. What little I had did encourage me to try. To experiment. I learned, TWICE, that fully transitioning was something I could not do at that point in my life in my early to mid 20's. I had been a target about all my life for numberous things non-trans. At 6 ft tall trying to present as a woman in an age of 5'6" women I really stood out. The last thing I wanted and needed was a lifetime of being a target in front of me.
Some 30 years later as I now once again revisit transition I can honestly say I have zero regrets over not doing it earlier. I know I would have been far unhappier if I tried to stick with transitioning. Being trans has caused pain, not just for me but to others that I loved dearly and who loved me. That part I do regret.
.
As a mid-30's transitioner, I realised that I can waste time and energy on envy and regret or I can live the hell out of the life I have now..
I chose life. And I'm having a blast.. I've found a partner that loves me, who cares not a bit about my past.. I'm studying in a course I'm enjoying. I love my life.
Sadie, I feel exactlly like you in most respects, but what I feel most is anger. I have been on this planet for over five decades and facing the tail end of my life and unlike you the time lost is greater. The anger I feel comes from, as you said, why didn't I do this sooner. For some reason I can't forgive myself for that even though I lived in rural america at a time when this wasn't even heard of. I hadn't heard of Christine Jorgenson until I was in my late teens and then I saw a small hope that I could be whole, but the question that I had to ask myself was, who could I talk to about it. Not my parents, their reaction to me was terrible,when I came out to them, and we have not spoken since. Bottom line is this; your feelings are yours and they are nothing to be ashamed of. Forgive yourself and look forward to a better life no matter how short or long it maybe. After writing this maybe I need to heed my own advice. Thanks for expressing you feelings it has helped me to see myself better.
I'm 54 and I'm only now starting a process that has pretty much been inevitable since I lay in the bath 40 years ago and prayed for some accident or disease that would take away all the crap between my legs so that I could be a girl. Even now, because of personal and professional commitments - most importantly having a kid in high school - it will be two years before I can even think of going public. So I have every reason to feel bad about all the missed years. And if transition, however painful, leads to the fulfilment I'm seeking (and I'm pretty sure it will) I'm bound to regret the decades of happiness I've been denied.
BUT ... JoanneB is right. It really was a different world all those years ago. There was far less understanding of gender dysphoria - even most psychiatrists regarded it as nothing more than a form of sexual fantasy with no basis in reality - and society as a whole was even less tolerant of transsexuality than it is today. So I could never have had my career. I would have been forbidden from getting married and would never in a million years been allowed to adopt the children that, post-SRS, I could not have helped conceive. And since I love my work and my family, how can I regret the circumstances which allowed me to have them?
I was thinking earlier this morning how the fictional stories I write seem to have a life of their own. However much I may think I know how a book is going to go when I start writing, the characters and their lives very soon take over and begin shaping what I right. It's as if there's just a way a particular story has to be and there's nothing one can do - if one writes with any honesty - to make it go another way.
And our lives are like that. They have a certain shape, a certain structure, a certain narrative. And we shouldn't complain if that narrative isn't the one we'd like. Far better to accept that it is what it is and try to live it as well and as happily as one can.
Sadie, I understand completely what you are saying. I'm 35 and just currently heading towards transitioning. I also feel really envy to younger transiotioners, an envy which is actually so bad, that I really have to force myself to support group meetings. I would just rather stay at home than to meet those people, who are young and can enjoy their life to fullest.
Late transitioner? Oh, puh-LEEZ. I'll turn 57 this year, and I began at 54. Had my surgery last September. I'll be on HRT for 2 years at the end of March. Even I don't really see myself as a LATE transitioner, I know women transitioning older than me. I certainly wish I COULD have done it sooner, but it is what it is. I'm certainly much happier, but yes, there are things I grieve. So it goes.
Quote from: Colleen Ireland on February 01, 2013, 09:15:26 AM
Late transitioner? Oh, puh-LEEZ. I'll turn 57 this year, and I began at 54. Had my surgery last September. I'll be on HRT for 2 years at the end of March. Even I don't really see myself as a LATE transitioner, I know women transitioning older than me. I certainly wish I COULD have done it sooner, but it is what it is. I'm certainly much happier, but yes, there are things I grieve. So it goes.
Well said!!
Thanks! I like to hope that we're a vanishing breed, and may one day become a quaint memory, like Brylcreem, typewriters, secretaries and such (late transitioners, that is).
Quote from: Colleen Ireland on February 01, 2013, 01:29:45 PM
Thanks! I like to hope that we're a vanishing breed, and may one day become a quaint memory, like Brylcreem, typewriters, secretaries and such (late transitioners, that is).
I'm so old, when I started my career in journalism we still used manual typewriters and copy-paper!
When I started my career in computers, we still used punched cards.
When I started with computers my CPU was 16-bit, and it wasn't an x86. :)
I'm glad I didn't wait any longer to transition. Given that the future hasn't happened yet I'm not losing anything that made me, me, by projecting forward. I just don't want to be greedy with my past. I got where I was trying to go successfully. Why risk mucking that wonderful result up?
Quote from: Misato33 on February 04, 2013, 07:23:08 PM
When I started with computers my CPU was 16-bit, and it wasn't an x86. :)
When I started computers 4 bitters (4040) were used in calculators and Intel soon came up with an 8 bitter, the 8080. You even got the honor of building the system yourself, as in actually having to solder parts into PC boards. If you had 2K of RAM you were rich. Even richer, a paper tape reader. The real big bucks went for the 8" floppy single sided hard sectored floppy drive and held a whopping 360K, provided you picked the right formating scheme when you hand crafted your CPM operating system for your drives.
To this day I am still amazed thinking of the software wizards at MicroPro who gave us Wordstar, an amazing word processor w/spell check that ran using next to nothing in terms of RAM and disk space. I like to think some of my programming efforts were at a par with theirs.
I love where this thread has gone, and I simply must join in! Allow me to assume my Old Lady Voice:
"When I started my transition, we didn't have any of those dang old 4-bit or 8-bit thingies. We had one bit! And it was on or off! And we LIKED it! And back then I had to walk six miles to school in the snow in my Mary Janes...!"
:D
Lora
Mine's off, thank God! ;D
I regret not going through highschool as a girl. I was so repressed and loner like cause of it. Even college and it affected my grades.
Sadie your so very not alone in this by any means.
I'm glad I stumbled upon your post this morning as I was about to put up something similar although there are some differences.
I'm a few months shy of 35! and only started 1.2 years ago.
I too am really happy and smile every day, something very new to me that's for sure and I too pass well at least I think I do.
That and everyone in my life bar a few have been super nice too, so really I have had an awesome run.
I regret not starting earlier real bad too, sometimes to the point of tears and its usually brought on by seeing or hearing about the lucky few who do.
I guess we all feel that way to a certain extent though, I imagine in our little trans world its a rather common thing.
We all have our cards, some good, some bad, I guess it depends how you play them.
Life is good, and your not alone :)
I'm sure there are things other girls envy about you too.
Jay-Bird
Quote from: Rita on February 06, 2013, 02:43:46 PM
I regret not going through highschool as a girl. I was so repressed and loner like cause of it. Even college and it affected my grades.
girls are cruel and viscous. it may have not been a good idea. :(
Quote from: Tristan on February 06, 2013, 06:05:18 PM
girls are cruel and viscous. it may have not been a good idea. :(
This is true.
Quote from: Tristan on February 06, 2013, 06:05:18 PM
girls are cruel and viscous. it may have not been a good idea. :(
They can be... but they usually don't jump you in the locker room as a gang of 4 on 1, wanting to beat the hell out of you cause you're different. Highschool can be bad... either way. People are cruel, vicious, and without remorse regardless of gender. Trust me.
Quote from: JennX on February 06, 2013, 09:19:44 PM
They can be... but they usually don't jump you in the locker room as a gang of 4 on 1, wanting to beat the hell out of you cause you're different. Highschool can be bad... either way. People are cruel, vicious, and without remorse regardless of gender. Trust me.
I'd rather just forget high school...actually forget everything before I started transition because none of it really stood out as... memorable... :-\
I went to my 10 year high school reunion. I still don't know what motivated me to go. High School was not a good time for me either. Anyway, I was two fisting Coronas all night because people were all, "I'm so sorry I was mean to you! Have a beer on me!"
I like that memory. Talking with them I found my old classmates seemed to have grown up to be fine, compassionate adults.
Life happens, each of our lives follows a different path. My life started in 1946 in the Dakotas. In those days for many people in largely rural areas was pretty local. Like the circumference of my everyday world was about thirty miles in diameter while I lived in the Hills except for a few trips out of that circle. On the prairie the diameter of my world stretched out to maybe 50 miles. Many of these trips involved travelling with middle school and high school sports teams. The towns I lived in ranged from 800 people to 3000 people.
Since I had been labelled a male at birth and having the body of a male, I was basically imprisoned in my male identity because in the 1950s and 1960s I never knew anyone who had escaped the gender identity assigned to them at birth. I never knew anybody who even challenged their assigned gender identity. I was aware of that Christine Jorgensen had escaped her male gender assignment to become a woman. But she was in a different world from me and I knew nothing of her story.
My own fear, ignorance, and my perceptions, my very survival would be threatened if I challenged the gender boundaries even a little bit. There were a lot of fears in these days including the fear of nuclear annihilation. There were racial and ethnic boundaries and boundaries around the church you belonged to. You were defined by your families social status and how long your family lived in the community and rather your parents were divorced or not married to each other or rather you had been conceived out of wed lock. In small town schools there were sections of the school for each grade level. Did you live on the wrong side of the tracks? Your dad's job in town created social barriers. There were towns you could drive around in at night and towns you couldn't. The Rez was totally off limits. Dating someone who lived on the Rez was totally a no no.
With all of this crossing the gender boundary between male and female, especially becoming a female during these days was totally too much for me. Especially when I had no private or secret place of my own. Also alcoholism created many emotional storms in my life.
It only seems to me that it is in the last three to five years with me now living in the urban southeast next to the ocean that no one seems to care if they see a 66 year old woman with many male characteristics. I basically have no social circle except my family and while I am out and about shopping and hanging out the wash, I am basically a homebody who basically is not invading anyone else's personal space including their church or their bar or the senior citizen center. I am basically invisible and not a threat. I even take my son to his elementary school without comment or challenge.
I feel is that if all anyone ever sees is me as a female, what they see is what they get, and they see me not even trying to be male. But it took me a long time to get to this point. Do I wish that I had come out of my cocoon earlier. Yes, I wish I had. Do I wish that I would have been able to transition at puberty, yes I do. Do, I wish that I had transitioned in the 1980s before I started balding, of course. Could I have changed anything, probably not.
I am not an island, and have never been one. For a long time I was never selfish enough to really take care of my emotional needs, while the rest of my family cared only for their selfish emotional needs. I had to learn the hard way that if you don't take care of yourself that you can take care of anyone else. I also had to learn that my emotional needs were as important as everyone else's. I also had to learn that most people only care about what you are doing for them now and could careless about what you have done for them in the past. I had to learn that there are lots of people who feel that you owe them, but that they never have to owe you. I also had to learn that most of this just doesn't matter. That all you can do, is what you can do now, and sooner or latter others will be forced to do for themselves. As you get older your body sets limits, which out of habit I still cross over, and then my body says, "I ain't going to take it any more." My muscles cramp up, and I get light headed and dizzy and I come to a stop and I am forced to listen to my body.
Old age is a frame of mind, and your mind can stay young and flexible, but a body stressed out through most of your life learns to say no. My mind is forced to accept it. Unfortunately the younger people in my life still think that I should be able to push through it. But I have done that one too many times.
Besides what is the point of being resentful about the missed years. Just surviving until I got to be 66 and still having a roof over my head and food on the table and family should be enough. Many of my family members died before I was even born. My dad only lived until he was 49 and my mother barely made it to 67. Those of my family that lived longer were only in my life for a couple of years so I never knew them.
When I go on Google Earth and search out my past, I find that most of it does not exist in the present any more. Only two of my childhood homes exist, all of the people are dispersed, the schools that I went to or taught in are gone or have made drastic changes as have all of those people who knew me. Most of my past exists only in my head.
I have to live with myself now as a woman and not worry about how other's see me, for in the future my now will only become a memory. So what is the point of regret or resentment. They only destroy me and keep me from living a happy life. Yes, I still do have my resentments and regrets and it is a constant battle for me to keep them from making me unhappy. Sometimes I succeed and sometimes I fail. But after all, that is life.
First let me say that I envy the courage and will that so many of the young girls have. And I regret that I let societal fear and ignorance obstruct me. But that's all past and can't change now, so I'll just move forward.
And who knows how to use these?
(https://www.susans.org/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1353.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fq663%2Fkathybottoms%2FPICT0854_zps6d077e1e.jpg&hash=25c605ad671f6a3d0466400dbc8bc7015a29e5c4)
Used to... (sigh)
I started reading this thread, not knowing, but just seeking any bits of information i could find, and I have been overwhelmed at how the topic has developed. I have my problems as we all do. I only realized 17 months ago that I had a female side and began crossdressing. I now know why, and the self analysis of my years has clearly shown the signs that I never even suspected. So I did avoid the years of dysphoria, but that does not diminish what I have now. I am now 66 years old transexual who knows transition will never occur for me barring catastrophe in my life, which I would not want.
I have told myself I was just to old to do anything about it except for HRT, which has done wonders for my internal angst. Reading the stories from the late transitioners here, i know that i can do something if i so choose, and still be happy, so thanks to you all.
Oh the memories of that first TI SR10 that did the square root. The joy of that HP35 with all it could do. I can do without the memories of the old hand crank calculators and logarithm tables we had to use to surveying calculations, but I do treasure having them.
My regrets are that in looking back at my male behavior, which left me distant from nearly everyone (no close friends ) I can see why, and regret that I did not know why until so very late.
I have taken a lot more heart after joining this forum and reading this thread. There are just so many more of us out there that I never realized. My horizons have been expanded and i feel better than I have in months.
Barbara
PS. I still have my old Post Versalog on my wall
Quote from: Barbara Ella on February 08, 2013, 10:47:06 AM
Oh the memories of that first TI SR10 that did the square root. The joy of that HP35 with all it could do. I can do without the memories of the old hand crank calculators and logarithm tables we had to use to surveying calculations, but I do treasure having them.
Hi Barbara: I'm 61 and still feel young part of the time. For years I had alot of trouble looking in the mirror, and even today there's days when the depression sets in a little. But I'd never give this up, and transition is getting so much better every time I do something new. It really is a new life.
I was a surveyor for the State Highway Department and we kept a crank calculator in the Line Wagon for when the batteries in the HP31 died. Still have the old HP35 in my drawer.
K
Hi all. After reading the responses I see that I am not alone in this feeling.
I admit I was in a very depressed state when I wrote this. The intensity of these feelings about my past wax and wane. I appreciate what many of you are saying, I know that that past is immutable, and I should just enjoy what time I have left. However knowing the correct way to feel and what I actually feel are two different things, as I'm sure most of you know.
After thinking some more on this issue last week, I realized another reason why the regret about not starting sooner is so high. Though I have transitioned and am living full time I haven't had any of my surgeries yet. So I feel I am only 50% done. I know I will not feel whole until I get my surgeries completed. However, my current financial situation is abysmal and I see absolutely no quick solution to getting my surgeries thus that is adding to my regrets, envy, and frustration as I hear the clock ticking more loudly than I would were I younger. I don't want to spend another 15 years scraping by before I get my surgery. If I had started younger I could have made a better plan and have this finished.
I will finish with a thanks to you all for your responses and to let you know I am feeling better this week. I started a new exercise routine, maybe that is helping? Who knows?
Letting my puberty almost run its full course has definitely left me with the regret of not catching on sooner, but I consider it minor.
The military was another matter. I really don't understand why I tried for so long to adhere to their rules and make my mother proud when I was fully aware that I despised her and was visibly breaking under stress, depression and dysphoria until the very end. My manner of leaving was a shameful finish to a terrible chapter of my life, and in the year since my discharge I've lacked the motivation and self-image to keep a job. My only bitter happiness is in my transition, and all other facets of my life seem to mark me as a failure.
I really feel that there really is no "right way to feel" in the truly cosmic sense. There is really no dictatorial force in the universe who judges what the "right way to feel" is.
God gave us free will to make our own moral decisions and gave us the ability to explore and learn about the universes God created. The Unknowable God sent us manifestations to clue us in on some of the possibilities and probabilities of the Knowledge of God and to set down some boundaries and guidelines for living to increase our bodies life spans and we could organize ourselves into ever increasingly sophisticated social systems and civilizations.
I am not really sure if written down in any of the Holy Books any thing that tells us how we should feel. Our feelings are really unique to ourselves. Our society has basically organized itself into two gender categories: male and female. I identify myself as a female. I was identified as a male for legal purposes at birth and this was placed upon my birth certificate and all my legal papers there after.
Now while growing up I have been told that boys do these things and dress this way and behave like men do , and girls do other things and dress another way, and behave like women do. My feelings were also shaped by growing up in an emotional alcoholic family which really amplified and distorted feelings. Emotions and guilt were used by my mother to control other family members. So "the right way to feel" was really impossible to determine.
Society in South Dakota was organized on a male and female basis. There were men's clubs and ladies auxiliaries. In churches the men were deacons and the women were organized into their own church lady groups. In some really small towns at public meetings all of the men sat on one side of the room and the women the other. The children sort of scurried around both groups. A few women would sit next to their men. But very few men sat with the women. Women made themselves presentable when they went out in public and it was customary to wear a hat or a scarf.
So it was really something for an individual born with the body of a male to identify with being a female and then dress and behave has they did. This was unheard of except when the carnival came to town. Then there was a tent with a bearded lady which you entered if you dared.
If you were categorized as a male then you may have tried to play baseball or basketball read Comic books about World War II or Super heroes, played with army men and had an electric train and run around in the Hills. You may have had a BB gun or a 22 rifle or a steel helmet from the War and a bayonet. You played with marbles and carried a pocket knife for carving a stick.
Girls wore dresses, played hop scotch, had paper dolls, did knitting and sewing, and jumped rope.
The younger you were boys and girls played more games like tag and hide and seek and kick the can. But the old you got the more girls drifted into women's world and boys into men's.
But as far as how to feel, if we were told, I didn't get the memo. Feelings were passe on through music and movies and interpersonal contacts. Boys settled differences their way and girls settled differences theirs. Boys were socialized by being with boys and girls were socialized by being with girls.
As far as my life went, I did the boy's sport teams and boy scouts. But having neighborhoods defined by the street you lived on in some towns and in other towns you lived in town or on a farm there were few other kids living in my neighborhood. Having a paper route from fourth grade to seventh grade seven days a week with delivery after school meant that I was not hanging out with any other kids after school so I was not being emotionally socialized by either boys or other girls. And until puberty set in it really didn't matter to me. I was never any good at the boy's sports and always felt like a loner at Scouts. The Boy Scouts meant once a week at night for an hour or so and went on camping trips during the summer. The meeting had its rituals which you went through every week and it was a highly organized so you could go through the meeting and walk home alone and not feel any personal connections to anyone else at the meeting. Especially if you were emotionally worried about just surviving the ritual of the meeting and not feeling inept.
I guess most significant fact about my whole life in this world is that emotionally I identified myself as a female for no particular reason that made any sense to me, but there was no way that I could become part of the female world. I felt awkward as a male and didn't know how to fit in. I identified with the women in the movies and felt that I could never play the male part. I would rather dress up and be one of the show girls powdering my nose in the dance hall dressing rooms. But I could only do this as a fantasy and never in reality until I was in my fifties.
I guess considering the irrationality of the emotions in my childhood home, being concerned with the "right way to feel" really has no meaning for me. I guess I express my feelings in a more amplified way and have had to learn to tone them down a lot, and even a little for me is a lot for everyone around me.
Living in the shadow of my mother's depression and possible bi-polarness, makes it seem senseless for me to be depressed about my feeling about being a female. For me being female is just a fact of life and just like my life as a child, I could not control or influence the feeling others, I can't control or influence other people's feelings about my gender identity now.
Everyday I dress as a female, I carry my purse, and what people see is what they get. If they never see me any differently it doesn't matter if they call me sir or ma'am. Much of the time I get both in the same five minutes from the same person. At first glance people who do not know me, call me ma'am until I open my big mouth. My voice is not overly male, but just male enough to identify me in the male category to many but not all of those people I talk to.
I am just sharing myself and my perspective here hoping that it might mean something to some one. I feel that emotions are just so particular to each individual and people feel free to express some feelings and hide others or they feel one way and express the opposite feelings to hide what their real feelings are, its difficult to label most feelings as particularly male or female.
Now estrogen may contribute to a person emoting femininity and testosterone may contribute to an individual emoting masculinity but some individuals seem to be able have control over which rather they emote femininity or masculinity without taking these hormones so who is to say.
Besides what really determines what gender we do identify with especially if our sexual identity is totally opposite our lives experiences. Being a woman really has nothing to do with imagining how we imagine a woman has to think and feel. It has more to do with where we feel we fit into life. Being male or female does not make you any more special in life. Being male or female really does not solve any emotional problems. Being female just feels more natural to me for some dumb reason. I just can't visualize myself behaving like I think a male should behave.
I am not sure if any of this fits any other context outside of my emotional life. I really don't think there is any force out there enforcing the rules of how a male or a female should think or feel. I just know if I am truthful with myself and others and they ask me to identify myself as a man or a woman, I am a woman, even though legally I am still identified as a male.
The main thing is that you have transitioned now. I haven't yet but I hate every minute of being a man I really do and I still live as one. Whatever your age if you are the wrong sex you are better off the other one. I am not brave enough yet but maybe one day, but still hate walking around as a man. :-\
Quote from: kathy b on February 08, 2013, 10:02:03 AM
First let me say that I envy the courage and will that so many of the young girls have. And I regret that I let societal fear and ignorance obstruct me. But that's all past and can't change now, so I'll just move forward.
And who knows how to use these?
(https://www.susans.org/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1353.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fq663%2Fkathybottoms%2FPICT0854_zps6d077e1e.jpg&hash=25c605ad671f6a3d0466400dbc8bc7015a29e5c4)
Keuffel & Esser or Pickett?
Quote from: Colleen Ireland on February 04, 2013, 05:38:22 AM
When I started my career in computers, we still used punched cards.
Hey! I resemble that remark!
Late transitioner here as well. I started at 54, and began HRT shortly after turning 55. I know I have a long road in front of me, but I try to focus on the positives of the past and not regret what has happened (too much). If I let myself stew in what was not done, I'd feel myself sink through the floor, so I'm grabbing what's left of my life as best I can.
(https://www.susans.org/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1353.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fq663%2Fkathybottoms%2FPICT0854_zps6d077e1e.jpg&hash=25c605ad671f6a3d0466400dbc8bc7015a29e5c4)
I haven't tried to re post others quotes. But here goes. This is a slide rule. I had one in high school and used it to calculate percentages for grades when I was a teacher until they came out with hand held calculators. You can multiply and divide and do logarithms to add and subtract. It can also be used for doing more complicated operations but I stayed with multiplying and dividing. We also had a book of logarithms. I lost mine, and I miss it.
it works by sliding the the number on the movable bar over one and then moving the clear plastic until the line comes over the number on the bottom slide and the answer is on the top. 6 over the one times two on the bottom of the slide rule under the line on the clear plastic slide should equal 8 which is above that number. Or something like that. Its been over thirty years since I had one so I probably have it wrong. You might try the link below to find out for sure.
http://sliderulemuseum.com/SR_Course.htm (http://sliderulemuseum.com/SR_Course.htm)
Quote from: michelle on February 10, 2013, 09:28:51 PM
I haven't tried to re post others quotes. But here goes. This is a slide rule. I had one in high school and used it to calculate percentages for grades when I was a teacher until they came out with hand held calculators. You can multiply and divide and do logarithms to add and subtract. It can also be used for doing more complicated operations but I stayed with multiplying and dividing. We also had a book of logarithms. I lost mine, and I miss it.
Hi Michelle: In one of the high school math classes there was a giant 8 or 10 foot slide rule above the black board to teach students how to use them. But like you we were pretty much limited to multipying and dividing. Finally really learned to use the rule in college.
Quote from: Pleasingly Plump Jamie D on February 10, 2013, 03:36:35 AM
Keuffel & Esser or Pickett?
Jamie : Tried to keep a large K&E in my book bag when I started college, but before I left home in 1969 my father gave me this one from his office. It's a Sun Hemmi from Japan, made in 1957, with 12.5cm scales. I used it as a back-up in case I forgot the K&E.
Sorry girls, I'm a transsexual nerd.
Kathy