the title pretty much sum's the whole topic up.
What would you change when you came out, should you have done it sooner or changed the way that you came out?
By the way, I also did use the Search butten, but nothing came up.
Everyone "already knew" with me more or less.
Apparently it's not that well hidden.
If I'd told at certain times especially the pre-puberty thing, the situation could have been alot different for me.
I plan on starting hrt this summer, and coming out maybe in the fall.My wasn't so much coming out sooner as knowing sooner.Until last fall I had only heard of ->-bleeped-<-s and ->-bleeped-<-s on Jerry Springer and Maury,then I saw a trans woman on Oprah, and my whole perspective of trans people changed, I actually started understanding that it wasn't just about sexual perversion.After that I went through months of denial and prayer and finally came to the conclusion that I couldn't change how I felt.I then started to do some research on everything that had to do with trans-people.I always wish that I had accepted myself sooner and even more so, I wish I had found out that I was trans sooner.Of course that probably wouldn't have mattered because Ive only been a legal adult for a year and my family being the good Christians that they are would never allow me to do anything about it.
Everyone in my life has been pretty accepting, so I wouldn't change how I came out. I probably could have been more tactful about coming out, I'm quite lucky that family and friends have so easily accepted me. I wish I came out sooner, but I think everyone does. I'll never get back those wasted years (queue Iron Maiden song :icon_rockon: ;)), also like everyone knows HRT works better the younger one is. I feel kinda stupid after how accepting my family has been, I should have told them sooner :-\.
I can't say for certain what would have happened if I did this or I did that though, maybe things would've been better or maybe I would have got hit by a bus! :laugh: Just never know :P.
i kind of stumbled into comming out so it didnt really matter one can only hide things for so long before all the little cracks connect and the flood gate opens
jessica
Nother one like Pebbles here. Everyone knew since the year dot, and given that it was the 1960's I was lucky to be allowed to grow up with non conforming (female) gender expression.
I first came out aged 5 - of all in all places in a Clarkes shoe shop in Kensington High Street! I think on mature refelection I might spare my mother the embarrassment of the location :laugh:
The one thing I would change is the therapist I saw aged 17. Instead of helping me he put me through an early form of reparative therapy, which did no good and led directly to my involving other people in my pain by my choices during that period of enforced cross living as a man.
I came out to my parents when I was about 13 (a number of decades ago :laugh:) Well it was sort of coming out I just told them I was a girl. It didn't go down well. When I came to Australia I came out to my girl friend before we married. Now a days, as I posted some where before, I have a tendency to come out to every Tom, Dick and Harry, and many Sheilas. Yes I should have transitioned eons ago but there is no going back only forward.
Cindy
Quote from: rejennyrated on May 18, 2010, 03:21:06 AM
Nother one like Pebbles here. Everyone knew since the year dot, and given that it was the 1960's I was lucky to be allowed to grow up with non conforming (female) gender expression.
Well my case was alittle different from yours jenny in so much that I didn't know that they knew but everybody knew before I told them I was kept out of the loop that everyone knew my deep secret. And my "big reveal" was an undramatic anti-climax of "Yeah we all know."
I waited 8 years before telling my family. It still isn't going down well with them and I doubt it ever will. I definitely regret not saying that at least I was feeling weird about my body when I was ten.
Kinda of depends on the coming out thing but for the most part that was when I was 45. As with all decisions, there ore some things I regret about it and other things I am happy I waited. It isn't worth dwelling on, you can't change it, you can only keep living and learning.
I figured out what was wrong with me at age 9.
I waited 32 years before I came out.
Considering the amount of suport and love I have recieved from my family and friends I wish I would have came out when I was 11 and moved out of my religious nutter grandmothers home. But by then I was so thouroughly indoctrinated into the church's beliefs that coming out would have been near impossible.
Yes I regret it everyday, I walk by my mirror and see the longterm damage that T has done to me that will never reverse.
My coming-out was so successful that I don't know that I would change anything. I wasn't ready before and did it when I was ready.
My parents died almost 20 years ago and I'm really very sorry my mother didn't get a chance to see her "lost child" become the happy woman I now am - she would have loved how I blossomed at long last.
- Kate
I 'came out' to people relatively early. I am hoping to start HRT soon and FT after Christmas. I came out to my parents/sister last summer along with many of my close friends (that didn't already know). I came out to my boss/director last spring. I came out to the people I work closely with last Christmas, and everybody else I work with in April. Finally everyone I volunteer with last week.
The only thing I would have changed (so far) would be to come out to my family earlier. They are having the hardest time adapting, and I think they just need time. A year and a half isn't a lot of time for them to get used to it before full time. They are also the most important people in my life.
But coming out for me was really empowering. Once everyone knew that I was trans and intending to transition, my fear of transition greatly decreased. I also felt sooo much better about myself being honest to everyone around me. Lots of my friends are interested in the process and I am really happy that when I come to school with a red face from electrolysis, I can tell them the truth, and talk openly too them about the difficulties with transition.
good luck...
jenna!
20 plus years ago, I came out. My Dad simply said "Not in my house". I was transitioning for about 6 months in when life caught up with me and I had to go back into the closet. For those six months a good friend of mine and her family was my only outlet. For the next year, my friend and I stayed in touch. About a year later, this friend and I married.
For the next 20 years, I tried to be the husband she needed. But 10 years in, it came back with a vengeance. I tried to bury it, but 2 1/2 years ago I finally told my wife that I had to transition. My suicide attempt sealed our break up.
During one of our many fights, I accused her of infidelity. She shoot back at me that I have been cheating on her for years, and that I was "the other woman". :o Now we laugh about it, as we are still friends. Many knew but never told me.
i cant tell u the regret i feel for not comin out sooner..i wish i came out when i was 14 but alas i waited till it was too late..im 29 now and my dad committed suicide last year - all i wish is to go back a year or two so i could have a REAL converstaion w/ him about who i really am...to all those ponderin comin out - DO IT NOW fore its too late
Quote from: jesse on May 18, 2010, 03:17:09 AM
i kind of stumbled into comming out so it didnt really matter one can only hide things for so long before all the little cracks connect and the flood gate opens
jessica
That is how it was in my case.
i came out recently, im 29. i wish i would come out when i knew when i was 15
I regret not looking into HRT during puberty when I realized I didn't want to be a boy. I couldn't have payed for it but I was under aged so maybe someone would have helped me, I dunno. That would have been ideal, I would have developed relatively normal except for the "extra baggage" if you catch my drift ;). Instead I decided to ignore the idea and act like a guy. I wasn't really living in denial but I ignored who I really was to avoid people hating me. It was my little secret until this year when I had a revelation that I was completely unhappy with being a guy and it was really the root of all my depression. So I made a choice and came out to my sister and mum at 19. Hopefully I'll be starting HRT sometime soon and living part time! I know it will be tough but it's the best decision I've ever made.
I came out at 23 and went on hormones and fulltime just after that. My family doesnt accept this at all, and it's been 4 years. I am struggling with not coming out earlier. I never adopted a male persona and even psuedo told my mom at 11, but they still acted like they had no clue. I regret not starting in my teens. People say 23 is still pretty young, but I feel like I waited too long and will never forgive myself for it.
Laying aside that there was no practical possibility of coming out in MS in the 70's (i.e. as a teen) my window of opportunity was between the time I graduated high school in '81 and the time I got married in '89 (18-26 roughly)
I GREATLY mourn the fact that I didn't do so then.
Once that window was closed, it's irrelevant. There's hell to pay either way.
I reply even though it's MTF.
Funny, because a little bit back my mom broke down a bit and told me that I should have told her sooner. But I couldn't, because for a good while I thought that all the things I hated about my body and such were normal. I wasn't quite sure for a while before coming out. I came out at the right time, but it's a shame I didn't figure it out sooner. Maybe I could have gotten myself puberty blockers or something. I would have a lot less angst if that happened I think.
I guess it depends on what you mean by "coming out." But from the time I found out that female-bodied people can transition, I took almost twenty years to fully "come out" as transsexual to other people. Before 2008, I went through various stages of acceptance and denial:
Omigosh I'm a transsexual...no, that's too scary; I'm a cross dresser.
Omigosh I'm transgender...wait, no, that's too close to transsexual.
Now that I'm on depression meds, I can accept that I'm transgender and maybe transsexual.
Something has to give. I'm not trans I'm not trans I'm not trans.
I AM A GAY MAN, DAMMIT!!!!
I went through what I had to go through. That is all.
Quote from: cerealnmuffin on May 20, 2010, 11:14:36 PM
I came out at 23 and went on hormones and fulltime just after that. My family doesnt accept this at all, and it's been 4 years. I am struggling with not coming out earlier. I never adopted a male persona and even psuedo told my mom at 11, but they still acted like they had no clue. I regret not starting in my teens. People say 23 is still pretty young, but I feel like I waited too long and will never forgive myself for it.
Oh sweety dont feel that way. 23 is a good age. Yes you have let T do it dirty work, however it gets worse as the years go by. I am 42 and only 6 months into transition. Yes I am a little biter that I waited so long but we are here and that must count for something.
Quote from: Laura Hope on May 20, 2010, 11:58:02 PM
Laying aside that there was no practical possibility of coming out in MS in the 70's (i.e. as a teen)
I was 26 when the first "sex change" operation was performed in the US. I didn't find out about it for another 15 years. I came out when I was ready. No regrets. We do the best we can and move on from there.
- Kate
If you define coming out as telling a close friend that "I was secretly a girl" then I did it aged 19 (she then mortified me by telling my housemate!). However, much like Kate I don't think i was ready...for a number of reasons. But I'm ready now and that's all that matters.
It took me over 30 years starting from first realisation something was wrong (aged around 7) But it took me roughly the same amount of years to find peace with myself as a transsexual person, and accept how it would determine the rest of my life. That started happening at the end of 2008, and one year later I outed myself for the first time.
Should I have done it sooner? don't think so, as I simply wasn't ready. Should I have accepted myself sooner? Definitely :-)
Marleen
If by 'out' you mean dressing in public, at least a little bit, then I was out in HS, at least when I wasn't in school (the priests had no sense of humor, and even less sense of style). No one cared, but they were freaks, and I guess they though I was suitable freaky enough. Though there were several girls that really liked it.
I came out when i was 52 and at times i wish i had come out earlier,but then i would not have my wife of 40 years stay with me,which anyway it went was worth the wait.We live a platonic life but still do everything together and she has been an immense help in my transition.Bio woman know all about how to be a woman and i now pass easily.
Everyone calls me smiley now so i guess that means i made the right choice and i know i did,loving life like i never thought i could!!!
When i was 7 or 8 don't remember the exact year my mother brought me to a counselor. I never told the man nothing about how i was felling for i was scared what everyone would think. Still till this day i haven't told anybody for the fear of losing friends or the rejection from family members. I know everyone says it isn't that bad but for me i'd rather jump off a bridge than let everyone down with the news i need to tell. It's like i have played the part in this male role as best i could but for how much longer i don't know?
I came out to myself for the first time when I was 15 but I clearly wasn't ready because I was talked out of it. I came out again at 17 and realized I couldn't turn back this time. I wish I came out when I was little but now was better than 15-god forbid my parents made me wait it would be slower and more painful.
I told one person when I was maybe 17, but I wasn't ready to really come out then. I'm sort of in limbo at the moment -- out to my parents but not out to my friends (of course I came out to my parents before I even met my current friends a few weeks ago so...).
29 and yes, I wish to hell I'd gotten this out of the way sooner but I'm really glad that I finally got through it!
I came out around six times beforehand and then had a handy trick were I can actually make myself forget about something. When I finally made the decision to transition (two days after admitting it to myself finally) it was to a chorus of either "Yeah, I kinda guessed that." or "Yeah, you already told me N number of years ago" (whereby N is a value greater than 4 and less than 29).
Now though, I'm really at peace because no matter when it happened, it's freaking done!
Quote from: justme19 on May 18, 2010, 02:08:12 AM
the title pretty much sum's the whole topic up.
What would you change when you came out, should you have done it sooner or changed the way that you came out?
By the way, I also did use the Search butten, but nothing came up.
I came out to my doctor and my wife 2yrs ago I am 60 yet to get hormones thanks to my doctor but it will happen
All my friends know. My Christian growing-out-of-being-extremist brother knows..
But my parents.. Well; they probably know, but I haven't outright told them. A few months back, at a family dinner, my mother popped the question: Do you wish you were a woman? So I replied: Yes, actually. She just nodded, went: 'okay,' and continued eating.
My father really doesn't seem to care either way, but then again; he never understood what all the gender/sexuality fuss was all about.
I should have been honest and open to my parents when I was five, and asking questions about anything related to reproduction. (Though I did ask, a once, why I wasn't born a girl, and my mother couldn't answer me. My father.. Was way too busy working, so I didn't bother him much.)
During my late teens, I didn't tell because I was too afraid of my father losing his job. He's a reverend for a church, and while that church is quite open to homosexuals, they believe, on the whole, that everything God creates is perfect. If you want to be something else than you're created as, well; you're in for questioning. Not that I really cared; I didn't go to church that often, and had been openly atheist for years, but that was all right. Anyway; I was too afraid that Higher Management might take offence at a reverend's son being his daughter. And I don't know if you know many priests, vicars, reverends or other spiritual leaders, but trust me when I say: Their work is usually their life.
So here I am, hanging from the 'not quite free, but dangling out of the window.' And yes; I've waited far too long. For my liking, anyway. On the other hand: If I had come out when I was five, I don't know what my life would have been like. I might not even have met my partner at all. There's a bright side to nearly everything, if only you look for them.
I have come to the conclusion that I did the right thing by not comeing out at 9 but I have no excuses for not being real after 20. When I finaly understood and had a word for this little issue I was living with a super religious and violent grandmother. I am pretty sure she probably would have beaten me severly. She was uber anti gay and I was of the opinion I was probably gay and being this way was a result of being gay. (kinda gets complicated by my being sexualy orientated to females primarily ) I know better now. Anyways I didn't get away from her influence until I was about 12 and by then society had me well programed, including a false faith and religious prejudice's. I got over that around 20 but it took me 2 years to go see a psych and I got bad information. ..'your a transvetite, it is a sickness, you need to stop this fetish imediatly or you will always have problems with relationships...etc etc. I am sure you all know that song and dance.
I bought that crap and took it to heart and tryed to bury any trace of Cynthia. 20 years later here we are. Yay!
(stupid pshrink and his prejudices)
Quote from: Dryad on May 28, 2010, 09:08:56 AM
they believe, on the whole, that everything God creates is perfect. If you want to be something else than you're created as, well; you're in for questioning.
[hijack]
But why am I not perfect as a transsexual? I am as God created me and am just part of the diversity of life. Just because some human thinks I'm not perfect doesn't mean that God doesn't. I didn't
want to be a woman born anatomically male - I just am.
[/hijack]
- Kate
I came out at seventeen, although I'd mentioned it as far back as ten or so. I wasn't a highly communicative child, so that's probably why, at five or six when I remember thinking about it and even telling my younger brother about it, I didn't communicate anything to my parents. Now, a year after "coming out", although for me it was so anti-climactic that I told my father while laughing as if it were only an afterthought, I'm finally truly on my way. I think we all want to do it sooner. I wish I would have done it before puberty, even though I'm still fairly young.
Quote from: K8 on May 28, 2010, 10:52:37 AM
[hijack]
But why am I not perfect as a transsexual? I am as God created me and am just part of the diversity of life. Just because some human thinks I'm not perfect doesn't mean that God doesn't. I didn't want to be a woman born anatomically male - I just am.
[/hijack]
- Kate
Well.. I dunno why. I never believed in a deity, really, and always took it for a symbol of the experience of love in general, rather than a creator, force, or personification of anything.
I don't know why they even believe in something as silly and boring as perfection, in the first place... I don't think anyone is perfect, and I believe perfection itself is the grandest flaw you can get, as it would homogenize everything. But yeah.. Basically, those people believe that you are created as you are because Gods wants you to be, and that you're not allowed to change anything about yourself. Being a transexual is okay, as long as you remain your birth-sex, and don't 'cross-dress.' :S
Yeah.. I don't understand it, either.
[/hijack]
Let's get back on topic!
QuoteI think we all want to do it sooner. I wish I would have done it before puberty, even though I'm still fairly young.
This. So very much.
When I was really young, I didn't fully understand that I wasn't a "real boy." When I did understand, I played tomboy. But I was male in my head.
I don't consider that "coming out." More like "going in." ;D
When I was fifteen, sixteen, or seventeen, I remarked to my father that I felt like a thirteen-year-old boy. Then I added, "Or fifteen," maybe because that was my actual age or closer to my actual age? I'm not sure. My father only said, "Why not fourteen?" I had no answer, and that's as far as it went.
I don't remember how the topic came up that day. But in recent years, I have found myself wishing that my father had actually kept me talking.
It's just wishful thinking--my dream of having my father all to myself and no mother. In reality, it would have been disastrous if the fantasy scenario had played out because my mother was very much in the picture. But I still believe that my father would have accepted me. Maybe not at first, but eventually.
Well, I knew at 4 that I should be a girl, but that doesn't mean I knew enough to try to live as one. I started cross-dressing at 9, but only a few people knew about it for the next 30 or 40 years. Both my spouses knew I cross-dressed and had serious gender issues. I came out to some friends about 15 years ago. But I really came out last year when I told everybody. I didn't think of myself as "out" until it was no longer a secret.
I'd love to have transitioned at 4 when I realized I should be a girl, but that's not how it worked out. C'est la vie. I've transitioned now, and that's all that counts. I am permenantly, legally, anatomically, socially, and psychologically a woman for the rest of my life. My glass is more than half full.
- Kate
That is a wonderful way of looking at it, Kate. You are an inspiration.
Let's see, I knew for about 26 years before I told the first soul. It was another three or four before I told everybody that I felt had to know. The rest, maybe never, I dunno. I haven't had much luck with people's reactions when I've come out, so I sort of feel it's easier on everybody, myself included, to just fall out of people's consciousness unless I'm really close to them. I know this thought process is kind of juvenile, so I'm sure I'll eventually grow out of it.
Do I regret keeping it a secret? I regret every moment I hid myself inside that crusty old crust, but I'm sure I had my reasons for doing so. It seems so obviously misguided now looking back, but I just have to tell myself I would have done it earlier if I was ready. Besides, the past is the past, we don't have to relive it. The only part of life we have to worry about experiencing in the flesh is the future, and so I feel I should just worry about having things set right from here forward so I can enjoy all that's left to come.
I used to think it but then I came to realize that the odds of coming out way back going well are vanishingly small. I'd realize I'd have most likely ended-up with my parents (mostly my father) attempting to get someone to "cure" me and simply never giving up, trying ever increasingly severe ways of doing so. He truly believed (had convinced himself) that anything he saw as abnormal was a grave threat to me and must be ended at all cost. In the end, I realize it's probably best I kept it to myself.
Quote from: Agent_J on May 30, 2010, 01:09:05 AM
I used to think it but then I came to realize that the odds of coming out way back going well are vanishingly small. I'd realize I'd have most likely ended-up with my parents (mostly my father) attempting to get someone to "cure" me and simply never giving up, trying ever increasingly severe ways of doing so. He truly believed (had convinced himself) that anything he saw as abnormal was a grave threat to me and must be ended at all cost. In the end, I realize it's probably best I kept it to myself.
Sorry to hear that. There may come a time when the pressure gets so great that life has to be lived. We are here for when that happens.
Cindy
Quote from: CindyJames on June 01, 2010, 03:40:31 AM
Sorry to hear that. There may come a time when the pressure gets so great that life has to be lived. We are here for when that happens.
I reached that point about two years ago and have been dealing with it, i.e. am now on HRT about a year.
I was responding to the question about coming out sooner. I would have loved to have done so when I realized this about myself as a little kid, but I also realized then that I was in an environment where the only possible outcome was to make things worse for me, rather than support me.