Hi All,
This is only my second post, but have read through many of the posts in multiple sections, and this is an amazing community. There are a lot of experiences, and a willingness to help others through their transitions and daily life, and also a celebration of life.
As I go through my own journey, I wonder if you would be willing to share with me what you would do different? This is a broad question and I am hoping for broad answers -- everything from coming out experiences, clinical care, employment, to daily living and relationships. We have all made mistakes, and while they shape us -- sometimes for the better -- sometimes you just want to hit the rewind button if you could, and do it over.
I asked the question, so I will go first. If I could do it differently, I would have gone to gender counseling in my 20s when I knew I was different and had the means to do it, instead of wait until my 40s. I have had a good life, but now that I am getting in touch with who I am, I feel like I wasted so much time (and energy). No regrets, but it makes me not want to waste any more time.
Toni
I would have come out when I was 18 instead of 24 so I could already be transitioned and have my life going. I feel like I've wasted so much time.
I would have been a better advocate for myself around people with the pronoun switch and name change. I let it slide too much at first, and now it is difficult to enforce after acting like I didn't care for so long.
I would've been born cisgendered. Preferably cismale because I identify as male, but if I were to be brutally honest I would equally prefer to have been born a cisgendered female than a transgendered male. Life would be so much easier if I hadn't had to go through the hell of growing up the way I did. I can only imagine how much easier it would be to go through my entire life with a brain and a body that match.
Still, if I hadn't been born trans I wouldn't be me. So failing that, I would've found the courage to transition at 19 when I knew I should've, instead of subjecting myself to being treated as the 'wrong' gender for an additional 21 years.
Well this is a tough question. There is not a single day goes by, me without thinking how my life would have been if I transitioned in my late teens. How would I have looked, How would I sounded. And most of all I would have went to collage as a girl. I would have memories as a girl.
But the thing is if, everything I have today is because I was being patient. The strong woman I am today because everything I went through and I don't think I would have this much support if I didn't wait till I finish my studies and made myself stable. I had lot of friend in my pre-transition life and I didn't lost a single one after my transition. They all are being nothing but supportive. Most importantly I would not have met my fiance if I had transitioned earlier.
So I wouldn't change a single thing even if I got the chance to. Every up and down I went through, made me the caring loving woman I am today.
Nothing. I got to happiness. That's what's important and I wouldn't risk it by changing my past.
Also seeing spacerace's avatar makes me want to say, "Welcome to the transition"
If I could do one thing different it would be to not be born, I was very premature & almost didn't make it out of the incubator, I wish they hadn't made the effort to keep me alive.
I don't know you Jayne, but I bet we are not much different and I can say I am glad you were born and I wish we could meet. Please get happy. I have had those thoughts too. They suck. But to answer the question: I look back all the time, so there are a lot of things I'd change, but maybe I wouldn't. Maybe I'm right where I should be. [This was my first post.] Yay!
Though I am pre-transition, I would have started saving for my top surgery when I was in elementary school if I knew then what I've known now. I would probably be halfway done saving by now if I did that.
The only thing I would change would to be honest about this sooner; instead of trying to hide from it.
Ha! That's so true, Malachite. I totally agree. I don't even know how much all this is gonna cost. I honestly haven't thought that hard about it. If I did, I might quit. So, I don't. I mean, I know that ballpark figure and it's out of my league, but I won't start HRT til March, so there's that. I wish there were a national health service here in the U.S. then I wouldn't have waited until I'm 30 to start this as I never had insurance in my 20s. That's why I'm jealous of Europe. Even in the 70s, they were doing this. I know because I remember a MASH episode where a doctor from Denmark visits and she says something to Klinger about actually changing his sex. Please don't judge me for watching M*A*S*H lol I watched any show when I was little about changing gender and sex [and I mean both]. Quantum Leap was another fave. I used to love, love, love when Sam would change sexes. I was like 8 or something too.
@Girl You Look Fierce and Bethany Dawn: I totally agree with you two, too. I feel like i wasted all the years between 2007 and now. I knew I what I had to do then and instead I tried to destroy myself. That's over though.
I would have transitioned much earlier :) Sure, maybe I would have had a rough time transitioning during the 70's and 80's but I doubt it would have been any worse than the hell I've had to endure over all these years, more likely I might of had a better life and wouldn't be contemplating suicide on a daily basis
Quote from: Joanna Dark on February 21, 2013, 12:13:41 AM
Please don't judge me for watching M*A*S*H lol I watched any show when I was little about changing gender and sex [and I mean both]. Quantum Leap was another fave. I used to love, love, love when Sam would change sexes. I was like 8 or something too.
@Girl You Look Fierce and Bethany Dawn: I totally agree with you two, too. I feel like i wasted all the years between 2007 and now. I knew I what I had to do then and instead I tried to destroy myself. That's over though.
So true, and I won't judge you for MASH. Guilty here, too :)
I wonder if a lot of why we wasted the time was driven by fear? At least a part of it is in my case. At some point it started to shift from fear of the world's reaction to me transitioning to a recognition of fear that I may be in this body for the rest of my life. I still have both fears, and that is why my therapist makes big dollars :D
The only thing that really upsets me about transition is:
I was ready to transition. Then my partner died, and I got really sick and drank too much. This meant about 2-3 years before I could begin HRT and surgery. I've beaten myself up over those lost years ever since. I don't regret when I came out and started transitioning. I just regret my (probably grief induced)illness and being unable to start hormones and such when I was ready.
Unlike most, I am actually grateful I didn't transition in my youth. Let's see: all the spontaneous, no strings, no 'talking', no explanations sex I could ever want or early transition? Tough choice there. :laugh:
I wouldn't have gotten married, I still carry some guilt over knowing that I wasted a lot of years of someone else's life. I can't say that I would have transitioned earlier though, because back then, it was very difficult. I tried to find resources, but they just didn't exist where I lived and I didn't have the money to go seek them elsewhere.
In hindsight, I can only think of one single thing that I would have done differently if I knew then what I know now: I would have become a deliberate joy seeker at a much younger age. At the age of 37 I began focusing my energy in a big way on experiencing more joy at any cost. So for the last 11 years, my life has been this incredible upward spiral of improving health and well being as deliberate joy has become the very meaning of life for me. If I could do one thing differently, I would have become a deliberate joy seeker as a teenager, or even a child. I can't even begin to fathom how much different my early adulthood might have been.
Thank you for asking.
Hugs,
Miharu
@Toni J: The world's reaction to my transition scares me more then not transitioning at all since I refuse to believe anymore that it has to stay this way. I know for a fact I can make/save $15,000 in less than a year (not right now so much, but in the past I have so I know I can again) and I'm thinking this is going to take three to five to complete. I say $15K since at the least I would have to go to Thailand and that will cost around $10K for the op and about $2K for the trip and expenses. Then I have another $3K left over for hormones and tests and therapy. I'm in a bad place though or WAS in that is. I won't and can't go back there and the only way forward is to deal with this. Now.
Also, IME, people are a lot more forgiving and accepting then anyone gives anyone credit for. Hell, I've had experiences where the person I thought might have a forgiving attitude about something flipped out and the person I thought would flip out ended up defending the person. I thought my mom was going to disown me for something I did two years ago, but if anything, she tried to do more. I did something bad. Like I said, I can't go back to that type of life. It will kill me. Coming here makes me feel good though. Good company.
If I could do anything differently, I wouldn't have let my sexual assault scare me back into the closet for over ten years. I would have talked to someone instead of shutting myself down. Things would be so much better if I could have done this at 19 as I had started to instead of cutting every possible shred of vulnerability and ensuring that no one could hurt me again. It's only recently that I was able to come to grips with how much of my life I was missing by letting this now-ancient event have so much sway over my day to day.
Preferably, I would have assaulted the other gamete and made it go pick up a Y chromosome instead of the double X nightmare I have going on. No offense, ladies, but my brain is a boy and I like it that way. I really can't imagine life as a cisgendered girl because everything about it is so foreign.
If that didn't work, I would have realized this before it was too late to halt the speeding train called puberty, because it's a lot harder to transition once everyone knows you as a weird girl defying gender stereotypes than it is when you're very young and disappear into the crowd once the gender segregation leaks into socialization.
I wish I had told my mom earlier, in a way that made perfect sense, instead of chickening out of it for years. I knew something was up 2 or 3 ago (pay no mind to the ticker, it's there so I can pretend I remember when I came out to myself :P) and just never said a word. I wouldn't have done that if I could do it over again.
I also would have told my boyfriend so much earlier, so he wouldn't have had to deal with what he thought was this tomboyish girl essentially mind->-bleeped-<-ing him. Kind of feel bad for that.
But this is the way things turned out, and I haven't built my time machine yet. So what the hell, no regrets.
@AnarchoChloe: Don't feel bad some people never get over a horrible incident such as that and certainly don't have the courage and strength you are showing by facing down these dragons that haunt you like a ghost. And by my math you are around 30 or so. That's not old at all. I know this because I am 30! I know a couple of the other girls are also around our age so it is quite common. yeah, 19 would have been better but would have been? You will have to see a gender therapist at one point so if the issue ever raises its ugly head you can talk to her/him about it. I was nearly raped once and it's a horrible feeling of helplessness when two men hold you down and take off your pants and underwear. Thankfully it was their idea of a joke and apparently a lesson on how to act!!!! Some men can be real a-holes. Glad that soon I won't have to be included with their ranks. I don't care what anyone says that rape is always about power. I think sometimes it's about sex too and just because some guy wants to get his nut off. I hope that wasn't offensive.These experiences are like snowflakes as each one is unique but everyone leaves you feeling cold.
Solid math, Joanna, I just turned 31. I'm not sad about starting late, there are actually more benefits than I expected. For example, I can actually afford most of the costs now compared to my impoverished student days, I'm part of a large and loving community that will accept me as Chloe without a second thought, and I'm a lot more patient than I used to be. But still, if I had a chance to do everything over again, I'd have stuck with transitioning the first time.
As far as rape is concerned, I do feel like at the root of it it is about power and domination. That doesn't mean that just wanting to get off isn't part of it, but the very idea that a person can be used for sex against their will enforces a power disparity that has to be at least partially pleasing to the rapist. In my own assault, my rapist was a mentor that I had an enormous amount of respect for and he preyed on that affection to first get me into a situation I was in no way comfortable with and after the fact to insure my silence. Very much about power.
This story has a happy ending though, well not happy per se, but personally satisfying. I saw him for the first time since that night at a protest a little over a year ago. I recognized him immediately, though he didn't recognize me because I was in girl-mode and had a bandana covering most of my face. Just the sight of him triggered one of the worst panic attacks I've ever had. My roommate saw me freaking out so I had to clue him in as to why, only the 2nd person I had ever told. He wanted to attack him right then, but a protest against home foreclosures is really not the right venue. Regardless, we had a great opportunity when the riot police attacked the head of the march. We were right behind the ass and shoved him very hard into the police line. The cops promptly beat the hell out of him and arrested him for and charged him with assaulting a police officer. He ended up spending nearly a week in jail and though he was eventually found not guilty, he still had several thousand in legal fees to pay. Not as satisfying as the thought of him in prison, but it's something. And he'll never know it was me.
What I would change would be not hiding and hating myself.
I thought I would love to not have the issue at all and be binary M or F. But being Trans has some good things too, as I am learning. I am liking who I am becoming or allowing myself to become, considering where I was. I never would have known what it was like to be broken, in a panic and completly lost. From this everything I do gets me a little better. I am starting to reconnect. I am becoming a nice person and people are noticing me and gravitating toward me. I like me.
Quote from: Liminal Stranger on February 21, 2013, 03:57:08 PM
Preferably, I would have assaulted the other gamete and made it go pick up a Y chromosome instead of the double X nightmare I have going on. No offense, ladies, but my brain is a boy and I like it that way. I really can't imagine life as a cisgendered girl because everything about it is so foreign.
I would have given anything for that additional X chromosome instead of the stupid Y I am having LoL.
Quote from: anya on February 23, 2013, 05:42:08 AM
I would have given anything for that additional X chromosome instead of the stupid Y I am having LoL.
More and more I've been wanting to trade my duplicate with someone on the girls' side of the fence for a Y. One happy FtM, one happy MtF.
Quote from: Liminal Stranger on February 23, 2013, 11:07:37 AM
More and more I've been wanting to trade my duplicate with someone on the girls' side of the fence for a Y. One happy FtM, one happy MtF.
Two bad science is not advance :'(
Quote from: Liminal Stranger on February 23, 2013, 11:07:37 AM
More and more I've been wanting to trade my duplicate with someone on the girls' side of the fence for a Y. One happy FtM, one happy MtF.
Gladly!
After the revelations over the last few days I know exactly what my answer is, I would run & mile the first time I saw my ex.
I wouldn't have wasted 8yrs of my life being her servant/slave, she's said many times over the years that she's a "vile person & she knows it" but I never saw it, now that the rose tinted glasses have been well & truly smashed I see it all too clearly.
I can't believe I felt guilty for leaving her!!
I would have stood up for myself the first time I came out when I was in high school. I shouldn't have let fear drive me back in the closet. :embarrassed: I often wonder what kind of woman I would be now had I? :eusa_think:
I think it would be either to be born cis male and mentally healthy (no bipolar/mental illness) or to get help for it all earlier on, so I could've actually coped. Because my life is kind of a trainwreck now. The aftermath of a complete lack of coping ability. I dropped out of high school and was in out of the hospital in my teen years and now I'm really paying for it. If I want to actually have a career and the kind of life I want I have to finish my high school, which I still have quite a bit left of, or get my GED, before I can even think about college or university. And on top of that I still barely keep it together, because bipolar doesn't go away it gets worse and it's a real struggle to keep myself level and out of the hospital :( not like the dysphoria helps it any ::) Transitioning, though stressful, does actually help me stay more level. I think the dysphoria is what made my bipolar so out of control.
Honestly though, I get so embarassed about my school situation. I have a gifted label, yet I'm a high school dropout :embarrassed:
Quote from: Heather on February 25, 2013, 12:22:51 AM
I would have stood up for myself the first time I came out when I was in high school. I shouldn't have let fear drive me back in the closet. :embarrassed: I often wonder what kind of woman I would be now had I? :eusa_think:
This, I can relate to
I guess what I'd have done differently is what a number of people would have done: transitioned in my teens/20s rather than 40s. Of course, I didn't take that path because I didn't have the required maturity, insight or confidence. The one development that may have changed everything for me is if someone with the necessary information and experience intervened and shared that knowledge with me. That's the thing about life, it's a deterministic one way street and none of us are time travellers. Deterministic in the sense that while we may be presented with a number of equally good choices, we're more likely to make a decision founded on prior decisions and experience.
Save more money for transition HRT/SRS/FFS/BA. This whole process is very expensive.
I knew what was wrong by the age of 8 but in 1957 nobody knew anything about transsexualism. If I could change ONE thing it would have been to be more aggressive and push a LOT harder for what I knew I needed. It wasn't until my early teens that I started becoming more desperate and more assertive, started hormones at 17 and had surgery at 24.
While some of you have resented transitioning later, I would point out as someone who transitioned in there twenties I wish I had escaped sooner too no matter when it was it always seems too late.
My new answer is I would have never started smoking.
The last time I gave up for 2 yrs it was easy but with the stress in my life right now it's really, really hard.
I have to give up ASAP as if i'm lucky i'll be starting HRT late june/ early July, I want to give my body time to flush the crap out long before then
Would have joined facebook a lot sooner. All these people are friending me and everyone has been so supportive. I'm actually quite surprised.