Hi, my name is Dorit (pronounced like door-eat) from Israel. I am a TG woman that began transition a year ago at the age of 70. I have been active for years on another forum, plus one in Hebrew. I would occasionally visit here over the years and thought it was time to become a member. I am three weeks after FFS and two months away from GRS. I very much appreciate all the posting here, it has been a big help to me in my transition. Now I hope to be able to contribute too. I just have to figure out how to navigate this place!
It seems I should add a bit of my story.
One of my earliest childhood memories is at about 5 years old wearing my older sisters skirt and dancing in front of a mirror with delight. From then on I remember my internal battle with gender identification, wanting to dress as a girl and be one of them. I also had a lot of what are feminine personality traits, was told that "boys don't cry'" etc. and fought to repress them. The death of my mother when I was 14 did not help either, as I was very attached to her and now had no one I could relate to. I reached a critical point as a teen in college, very depressed and full of self hatred for my wanting to be a girl. I had a psychotic breakdown, accompanied by a lot of self harming, and was institutionalized for six months. When I was stable enough to have therapy, I told the psychiatrist that I wanted to be a girl, that I hated my genitals, and hated myself. This was 50 years ago, no understanding, no answers, just another line in my mental illness folder.
So I went back to school to try again, but found myself heading down again. In a desperate attempt to find myself I left the university on impulse one night and joined a hippie commune. This is 1969. There I met a woman 10 years my senior, she saved my life. Her total acceptance and love for me allowed us to live a life out of the box, but filled with a measure of happiness. We are still together today, 49 years later. From the beginning she saw my scars and let me wear her clothes and still loved me.
As we all know too well, these kind of gender issues that one is born with do not ever go away. I internalized a certain amount of self hatred and anger at myself for being like this and not being able to control it. It also results in a lot of anger. I even went through a religious period where I would ask God to forgive me for my thoughts and desires.
About 10 years ago I began to understand myself in a different way. Thanks to the internet, I could begin to see that I was born this way, had no say in it, and that now psychology was relating to people like me in a very different way than 50 years ago. I began the journey of self acceptance, again with the complete support of my SO. One year ago, with the guidance of a gender therapist, I began my journey of transition. I had to come out to children, family, friends, the entire small village where we have lived for the last 35 years. I had the courage to do a public transition because for the first time in my life I was being set free from all the shame, guilt, and self hatred. What a joy! I also new that after all these years, in the last chapter of my life, I could experience life as the woman I had always thought I was.
I have been living full time as Dorit for a year now. I am pleased that I have mostly experienced acceptance and love from those around me, but also some painful judgement and rejection. I have been on HRT for a year, had FFS one month ago, and am scheduled for GRS in the US in December.
It has been forums like this, plus modern medicine and psychology that have given me my life back at 70. I am deeply grateful that I was able to live to see this day! :) :)
Quote from: Dorit on October 20, 2018, 12:28:54 PM
Hi, my name is Dorit (pronounced like door-eat) from Israel. I am a TG woman that began transition a year ago at the age of 70. I have been active for years on another forum, plus one in Hebrew. I would occasionally visit here over the years and thought it was time to become a member. I am three weeks after FFS and two months away from GRS. I very much appreciate all the posting here, it has been a big help to me in my transition. Now I hope to be able to contribute too. I just have to figure out how to navigate this place!
@Dorit Dear Dorit:
Thank you for writing your first posting.... NOW many members here on the forums will be aware of your arrival.
Here there are many older members that have started their transitions in the age group of 60 and 70+ ... so you are not alone in that regard.... look around at the other threads and postings and you will surely find them or if you start a thread with the topic title with a brief wording mentioning something like "Transitioning at 70 years old" I am certain that they will find you.
This is the right place for you to be to find out what others have done regarding your transition journey that may have been in your circumstances and with your questions and concerns.
There are a lot of members here that will be able to identify with your situation as you continue to feel free to share it.
Please allow me to warmly WELCOME you to Susan's Place.
You will find this a safe and friendly place to share with others and to read about others similar trials, tribulations, and successes.
You can share with others and involve yourself with some give and take with other like-minded members. When frustrated or if you have successes you can share it here if you wish and receive support from others and offer support to others. ....
***It's a very good chance that you might find that you will make some new friends here.
Please come in and continue to be involved at your own pace.
I have included information about the site that will help you navigate around and best utilize the features here.
Please look closely at the LINKS in RED, answers are there to many questions that new members ask.
Again, Welcome to Susan's Place.
Danielle
Here are some links to the site rules and stuff that all new members should be familiar with:
Things that you should read
Site Terms of Service & Rules to Live By (https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,2.0.html) | Standard Terms & Definitions (https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,54369.0.html) | Post Ranks (including when you can upload an avatar) (https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,114.0.html.) | Cautionary Note (https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,82221.0.html) |
Reputation rules (https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,18960.0.html) | News posting & quoting guidelines (https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,174951.0.html) | Photo, avatars, & signature images policy (https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,59974.msg383866.html#msg383866) | Membership Agreement (https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,216851.0.html) |
Hey Door Eat! Is it even tasty? :D
Sorry just joking :)
Welcome here :)
It's great to meet you :) Please share your experience with us. I'm sure many people will find it inspiring!
@Dorit Oh, and another thing
Dorit, regarding navigating around the Forums, I know it can be more than a little confusing for new members so keep reading and if you desire you can follow my suggestions below....
.... to speed things up for you please go to the
following LINK below and your will discover a lot of active threads by other members that may interest you, or you can scroll down to the bottom the page once you arrive at the
Transgender Talk sub-forum and start a
"New Topic" https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/board,4.0.htmlAlso near the top of your screen just below where you see your avatar/profile picture there is a row of buttons... on the right hand side of those buttons you will see
"Recent Topics" .... click that button and your will see a current list of topics and threads that are recently active on the various sub-Forums that, if you find any that are of interest to you, you can join in on the thread and on that sub-forum.
I hope this helps, if not please let me know when you post again on your "Shalom from Israel" thread and I can offer some more suggestions.
Again,
WELCOME to Susan's Place.Best wishes to you,
Danielle
Hi Dorit :icon_wave:
Welcome to Susan's Place :) Glad to have you here, join on in the fun
Hugs
V M
welcome
Quote from: Alice V on October 20, 2018, 01:55:41 PM
Hey Door Eat! Is it even tasty? :D
Sorry just joking :)Quote
I tell people that they just have to open the DOOR to the fridge and EAT! :)
Shalom Dorit and your wife! Congratulations on your coming out, FFS, and approaching your GRS. How exciting! Hooray for your journey of self-acceptance, and your supportive and loving SO. Thanks for sharing your joy here.
Hi! I am sorry if this is the wrong place, but I just cannot succeed in uploading a photo from my PC. Maybe this is not possible? Do I have to go through a photo sharing site? If so, never having had to use one, can you recommend the most user friendly, trans friendly, sharing site? ;)
You need to use a third party photo server and then link the image. You can see the various servers people used by quoting their post and seeing what other people use. Unfortunately I need to decide on a new server as well because Phostobucket which I was using before changed their policies and now want a hefty fee for was was once free.
When I look at your links I get a request for a password so the images need to be made publicly viewable. To display the image you use something that looks like this.
[img]http://path.file.jpeg[/img]
It seems to me there was more to using Google as I worked through it with somebody else but I don't remember where the information was posted.
The other option is using Imgur (https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,239999.0.html).
(https://i.imgur.com/bdHm3n7.jpg)
Dena, you are a peach for being so patient with me! I think I am getting the idea, I am using Imgur.
This is four weeks after FFS.
(https://i.imgur.com/5HBiv1T.jpg)
Hi Dorit. The pronunciation of your name sound very German to me. I thought that Hebrew pronunciation was different, but I might be wrong. Many years ago I was in Israel trying to decide if I want to live there (my mother was Jewish), but I did not get the feeling that I ever would want to do this. Instead I moved to England and later to the US.
It is very encouraging for me that older folks can still transition well (I am a few years older than you, but I need less feminizing work).
We should start to make an old ladies club around here, it seems as if enough of us around to join the club!
Hi Dietlind!
I will let you know when I feel old enough to join the old ladies club! ;)
Dorit is the feminine for Dor, which means generation. It is a fairly common name in Israel. What years were you in Israel, I was probably here as we "made Aliyah" in 1978?
Quote from: Dorit on October 31, 2018, 12:22:36 PM
Hi Dietlind!
I will let you know when I feel old enough to join the old ladies club! ;)
Dorit is the feminine for Dor, which means generation. It is a fairly common name in Israel. What years were you in Israel, I was probably here as we "made Aliyah" in 1978?
I was there in 73, and there were constantly those suicide bombers. I was really scared to be at any crowded location in Tel Aviv.
Very lovely to meet you Dorit. Welcome to Susan's Place There a lot of us older gals here that would love to share our transition journeys.
Hugs,
Donica.
Quote from: Dorit on October 31, 2018, 02:39:33 AM
Dena, you are a peach for being so patient with me! I think I am getting the idea, I am using Imgur.
All part of the service however somebody else would have beat me to it had the hour been earlier. Your post came in when the site was in a lull.