I guess, iv'e been thinking about it myself so i want to know when others new
Unless someone takes this down i'm leaving my posts up for the people if ever needed.
For me, over 40 years. When I made the decision to start medically transitioning the first time, I found I was actually not ready...not for any fear, but seeing that it had to be a lower priority than it warranted I chose to stop. A few years ago I reached a point where not addressing me was no longer an option and so it was then...2014.
Pretty much as soon as I realised how much better I felt when presenting as male.
I bought a cheap binder, a Mr Limpy and some boxers online and tried out binding and packing for about a week as a test for myself if I was trans or not. It felt so good I just went from there. Haircut, some replacement wardrobe (I was already wearing my boyfriends shirts, had been for years) and got an Underworks binder.
And when my friends and parents commented that they'd never seen me so happy, and confident - wearing t-shirts even! - that cemented my certainty that transition was for me.
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For me, it was when I realized that I could no longer lie to myself about who I was. Although I still didn't have the confidence to move forward, I knew there was no going back. I was on a one-way street.
The confidence to move forward came a bit later, when I thought about how I would feel 20 years from now if I didn't transition. I was able to get a clear enough picture of that future to know that the regret would have been worse than anything else I could ever imagine. I knew I just had to do it.
As soon as I heard it was actually possible for everyday people to do I suppose
When I realized I had nothing to lose and things would only get better if I made a drastic change.
Agree with FTMax. I think all trans people hit the wall where they feel like they can't continue as they are. You'll never be 100% confident bcos transitioning is a an unknown situation. You're going to think wth am I doing; you're going to want to give up. But there comes a point when I thought to myself I'm utterly miserable and can't and don't want to be this miserable so what do I have to lose. Being homeless or risking being turned away from HRT was a better choice than how I was; which was simply existing.
Actually, I must differ from the other posters. I never hit rock bottom. What happened is that I had deferred transitioning indefinitely for practical reasons and I got really depressed/anxious and started taking anti-depressants. Once I was on anti-depressants I realized I would never overcome my depression if I didn't start treating me better. I was afraid to transition because I was afraid of how other people in my life would react. The anti-depressants helped me get over the hurdle to take care of myself first and heal myself instead of putting everybody else first and getting more and more hurt inside.
It was self-preservation for me. I had to forge ahead because my GD was getting worse and my previously employed coping strategies were failing me.
I'll let you know when I do. [emoji26] currently, I'm rowing the too poor/busy boat. Lol
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When the treatment of my wife even became unbearable to me. My wife Jo has been with me for 34 years. We have a son and a daughter. Both well defined human beings and all around nice guys. I have often said I was not in love with Jo because I longed for my first wife. Then I found out why my first wife divorced me through therapy and why I refuse to acknowledge the obvious love my wife has for me. After having a meltdown in front of my sister I promised to get to the bottom of it. I was confused most my life. I was never an aggressive dude. I liked to wear my sisters clothes. When I left home I still liked to play dress-up but I didn't tell Wen whom I married. I have since learned the reason for our split and I also realized I was doing it again this time to Jo. Difference is Jo is 60 years old not 21. I have since learned that I could find a way to ease my mind and make me more human. Enter the hormones and HRt. It was suggested by my therapist as she could see the pain I was in. I was tired of being a jerk and finally revealed what I had covered up since I was 5 years old. I'm not worried about passing as I will never pass. But I can tell my story so those who live in ignorance understand this life in most instances is not by choice. It is basically a realization the odds are stacked against you and you might as well go with the flow. I have become a kinder, gentler husband, a more thoughtful husband, and I have come to the realization my wife have more in common than not. As a bonus my spiro induced "man boobs" have been enhanced to "Lady boobs" , my face is beginning to get softer, my butt rounder. But it is the peace of mind knowing I have done what I have to do to save my family even at the risk of losing it. I've done my best.
The line between "Confident to" and "Wise to" is pretty wide in my case. There is a vast No Man's Land between the two.
Knowing that I can make it at some level living and presenting as a female was easy, after living and presenting as a female, part-time, without any difficulty. Even before that I cannot say I "Confident", but the joy of being out in the real world superseded and surpassed most of my fears and trepidation's.
"Wise to", given all the other factors and aspects of my life that are important.... Well, you can lump that into confidence, or perhaps fool-hardiness. Half-Empty or Half-Full?
I'd say confidence is still a high bar for me. I've been on hrt nearly 9 months now and I talk to my preferred surgeon on a couple of weeks.
That I won't easily pass (and so for now will continue to choose not to) certainly costs me confidence and that's making it hard to say I'm definitely going to proceed with GCS.
I have a gf who likes to have sex with me and I hope that continues, however I've always been ambivalent at best about having a penis.
And so I'm proceeding. If I passed easily, could think of myself as pretty... that would make me confident in the decision.
I wish on the one hand it would be that easy, on the other hand I feel it's better that I have to do this without appearance as a foil. If I feel Calvinist when I say it, I feel it's better to accept the body I have and proceed anyway.
I never did, I simply had to begin my transition as there were no more options left. I simply had to or it was a very real reality that I wouldn't make it to my next birthday.
10 years prior to this I had considered transitioning but told myself I wasn't "passable" and wouldn't ever be, I also felt I couldn't afford it financially. The whole idea of being "passable" as some sort of milestone or roadblock is so counter productive. Honestly my only regret is listening to my own advice back then.
My confidence has grown over this last year though. It's been far from easy but even at it's worst it's far preferable to living as I was before.
I don't think it is confidence that makes you transition. I think the motivation is desperation with being in the wrong mode from birth. Confidence comes from the actual experiencing of transitioning. As you go through things that you never thought you could do, then you build confidence. How do you know if transitioning is right for you? I am a big believer in taking preliminary steps toward transitioning and seeing how it feels. If it is wrong, it will probably become apparent. If it is right, you will be surprised that many of the things you thought might be weird for your old self are actually very comfortable.
Monica
Quote from: HappyMoni on September 27, 2016, 06:30:35 PM
I don't think it is confidence that makes you transition. I think the motivation is desperation with being in the wrong mode from birth. Confidence comes from the actual experiencing of transitioning. As you go through things that you never thought you could do, then you build confidence. How do you know if transitioning is right for you? I am a big believer in taking preliminary steps toward transitioning and seeing how it feels. If it is wrong, it will probably become apparent. If it is right, you will be surprised that many of the things you thought might be weird for your old self are actually very comfortable.
Monica
Thank you. I had been following this thread, trying to figure out the right words to express how I felt, but you've captured my feelings completely. You're right that it's not about confidence. And it's not about courage either. We transition because we need to, and take it one step at a time. Not because we have unusual amounts of confidence or courage.
*
I had long been comfortable with myself throughout my childhood. It was the reality that I would be playing for keeps once I got into late teens and legal adulthood age.
From there, my time came in steps.
I continued wearing female attire in the privacy of home as a young adult starting transition, then drive in my car, then actually go somewhere and do something as simple as buy postage stamps at the machine inside the Post Office lobby, then buy gasoline at the filling station, then drive cross-country and present to strangers, etc.
One big factor was when 'male fail' hit.
My employer moved me to a different office located at an eight-story commercial complex. I continued presenting as male at work though I wore female 'uni-sex' attire; only my business office shirt was male clothing. Strangers perceived me as female and addressed me as 'Miss' no matter how hard I tried continuing the facade as male.
I waited for the school year to end (I was working part-time as a teacher - also still presenting there as male). I quit work (I had been fighting termination on charges of being F-M trans) and moved to another state to start my new life female full-time forever.
What seemed to be Mount Everest in May 1985 was suddenly no more than that proverbial ant hill in June 1985. I looked back that month and wondered why I was so afraid of the obvious.
*
I have never really been confident about transition. I keep going forward only because there is no other place left to go. Somehow I find the courage to do the things I need to do, and I have done things I never imagined I could do. I decided to transition over two and-a-half years ago, and I am still waiting for that point where "things get easier".
~Terri
Edit: Moni already pretty much made my point, only she said it better.
I don't know that I thought in terms of confidence.
Around 2 years ago, after I'd been dealing for a year with the idea that maybe I really was trans, the little voice I call my "inner oracle" told me, "you're going to transition. Just thought you'd like to know." I've learned over my life that that voice, and in general the part of "me" that isn't my conscious self, is a lot wiser and smarter than I (conscious self) am, so I might as well go along with what it tells me.
I've been doing it step by step, first getting to know other trans people, then just thinking about myself differently and talking to a few people I trust, and then finally started coming out to whole communities in March 2016.
It helped that I'd been doing gender-nonconformity for maybe 10 years before I even started thinking I might really be trans.
Oh, and HappyMoni is spot-on.
I agree with Moni et al that if confidence is taken as any kind of synonym of braggadocio or hubris then that's not that's not what it takes to get me to transition.
Indeed, absolutely exhausting other options is what brought me to the first big step of admitting I needed to start hrt.
However much emotion and time were involved in getting to that point, the physical stakes remained low however I think I must have realized how difficult it would be to stop once that Rubicon had been crossed. I was not at all consciously sure, however that it was going to work.
Happily it did and that was harder for a good long time as the next major step is GCS and that's not a step easily reversed. It's also one that will stress my relationship and finances.
So if rather, confidence means being ready to take that step knowing there's truly no return, then sure I'm working on that. I believe I'm going to be terrified right up to my surgery date. I'm pretty sure I'm not going to feel 100% happy until I can feel arousal and hopefully orgasm with the new hardware :-).
When my boyfriend went on a several week holiday to meet up with his dad, I began to break down mentally and depression got a hold of me. This wasn't the first time this happened. When there's nobody around to regularly converse with or distract my mind, my thoughts wander towards my own insecurity, my general disgust of my masculinity and fear of mirrors. This was when I decided that enough is enough, and I would at least make an honest attempt at transitioning.
I had suffered from terrible gender dysphoria for many years, wanting to die because I couldn't be a girl and even sometimes considering plans to. It was not until 22, however, that I actually felt confident that I really was trans, and not just a boy who wanted to be a girl. At that time, my failure to transition was not about a lack of confidence in who I was, but rather a lack of confidence that I could actually do it. I lacked any social and financial resources and was too socially awkward presenting as 'male' to either work or find someone to help me transition. Additionally, I assumed that any therapist would say "go home, boy," or that my parents would stop any attempted transition by making me use my $2000 life savings on food, or by giving me synthetic steroids, so that there was no way it could possibly work.
For me, too, it was desperation, not confidence, that drove me to transition. By the time I was 27, I had bad MPB and only one year left to total baldness. I knew that transitioning was the only way to save the one thing I actually liked about my body. I had also recently acquired some money, enough to transition, I thought. I overcame my fears due to desperation to save my hair.
Once I discovered the joys of estrogen, I knew there was no going back. The hormonal changes gave me the confidence to present as female openly, something that always seemed out of reach before. The wild emotions and changes to my skin and chest further reaffirmed my sense of femininity, and there was no going back. And while my hair count is lower than ever, the hair I have left is thick and shiny, quite a contrast from just over 2 years ago. If I had not suffered from hair loss, I would probably still be presenting as an unhappy male.
I wouldn't say it was confidence that made me start to transition, but more of a light bulb turning on. It was a realization that I have felt like a women since I was six. I had my first real and painful sense of dysphoria at six when I realized that I did not have a girls body. I lived as an androgynous gay man for a while, but as I have gotten older my body as moved from androgynous to more masculine. I was like, "well, I guess it's now." I started seeing a gender therapist and getting electrolysis. I have been so hesitant through the whole thing, most likely from the fact I was shamed so much as a small child for being too girly. I still feel embarassed for being girly. Despite that, I keep going back to therapy and electrolysis and keep taking hormones because they feel right even with my brain wanting to say it's wrong because of how I was treated as a child. It's so sad that what is said to a child can haunt them forever. But hey, at least I'm finally being genuine.
Quote from: Elis on September 26, 2016, 08:39:48 AM
Agree with FTMax. I think all trans people hit the wall where they feel like they can't continue as they are. You'll never be 100% confident bcos transitioning is a an unknown situation. You're going to think wth am I doing; you're going to want to give up. But there comes a point when I thought to myself I'm utterly miserable and can't and don't want to be this miserable so what do I have to lose. Being homeless or risking being turned away from HRT was a better choice than how I was; which was simply existing.
It was the same for me. I had been wearing mostly men's clothes and had cut my hair shorter several years ago but had been waiting on transitioning anymore because I'm currently stuck living with my transphobic family. However, in the last year I realized I couldn't keep living like I was, and I'd rather risk winding up homeless than continuing on the way I was, so I went ahead and started HRT. The weird thing is that even though my doctors are commenting about how my voice is deeper and some other changes, my family hasn't said anything about any of it.
To a certain extent I had been transitioning since I was in my teens and allowed to pick some of my own clothes though because I started wearing a lot of unisex shirts, jeans, and men's shoes.
After a year of cross-living and getting my letters for SRS. I booked the date and never looked back.
I have approached this "transitioning" from a bit different direction than most. I had lived my life by developing rigid, protectionist coping mechanisms. They worked and I made it into my mid 60's relatively content with a raised family and having retired from a good, satisfying career. As I said, life had been good but not WOW kind of stuff. That is when my wife and I stumbled onto gender identity concepts and I discovered what life could be. And the WOW showed up big time. It showed up strongly enough to realize that going back was not an alternative. Shortly after that Anne was born. This is probably the point that you are asking about. While as an R&D engineer I had approached almost everything, not as "why it couldn't work" but rather "how can we make it work". After discovering Anne in my life it was all about how can we make this happen. We are not full time and probably will never be, we are hoping for 60% to 80% Anne with the guy mode showing up enough to keep the home hearts balanced and happy and the legal word at bay. HRT is going well, facial and head hair are being addressed, out and about in the community is great, family and friends are learning about Anne with a higher percentage than expected success rate. No, it hasn't been free of drama and pain but the joys of Anne in both of our lives diminishes them considerably.
I like the way that Monica (HappyMoni) said it, "How do you know if transitioning is right for you? I am a big believer in taking preliminary steps toward transitioning and seeing how it feels. If it is wrong, it will probably become apparent. If it is right, you will be surprised that many of the things you thought might be weird for your old self are actually very comfortable.".
Anne