Quote from: rachdal1961 on January 08, 2013, 07:13:51 PM
Jump forward 20 years. I have many years of sobriety, I have a good government job, and am completely financially stable, I have a wonderful wife, and I have been on meds that have minimized my anxiety and depression. I feel I am stronger and happier than I ever have been. Then, one day, I am reading a silly romance novel (first time ever—really!). It is narrated in the first person by the female protagonist. I start feeling very weird: I am getting knots in my stomach, my breathing is shallow, and I have pressure in my head. Why? I analyze this. I realize I am completely identifying with the female character in this romance—and then the veil lifts.
I have to wonder whether denial is really what you mean here?
It strikes me that at some level you both recognized yourself early on, but pushed the issues into a compartment, in part because you were fairly realistic (though also fearful) about the practical impacts? It's not as though our society is structured to endorse or assist transwomen (or transmen) to identify and accept themselves, and the conventional treatments and options are none of them perfect... they all come with costs and tradeoffs.
As a study of society, I'm sure that an account documenting similar stories, timelines and coping strategies would be interesting and possibly move the dialogue onward. I'm not sure how beneficial it would be for the individuals telling the accounts, except as catharsis. I've given these answers in bits and pieces in the past. Maybe later on I'll decide to organize them in the order you're asking, but to some extent, at the present moment I'm feeling like I need to take a break and get some more of the real work done... making concrete plans to transition, work out other practical problems, and so on.
I'm going to try to answer briefly anyway, though.
Quote1. When did you realize you were transgendered and is so when and why did you go into denial?
Age 3. Maybe younger. Didn't get much sign that family were going to support that, and learned not to talk about it much, but never learned not to show it. Usually it was interpreted as a sign I was gay, with predictable attempts to fix me, none of which did anything except possibly teach me to put on an act. Learned transsexuals existed around age 10 (and that it was the closest thing to a description for me, except that I felt attracted more to women than men, though I imagined that had a lot to do with the sort of abuse I received from men throughout childhood and teens.
I also rationalized that, given their emotional reactions, all other men were just hiding their envy of women, and that I was just the only honest person in the world. This made it relatively easy to reject Mormonism, especially when the sexual control stuff started to enter into the picture more and more, as most of the hooks they tried to use on me didn't ring true or lead to the anxieties they seemed designed to provoke.
Quote2. How long?
I wouldn't say I was ever in denial, but, while I detested having a male body, I felt for a long time it might be best to adapt and do what I could with it. I didn't imagine I'd ever get married, but after being in the Army for a few years, a lot of people of both sexes tended to come onto me, and for the first time in my life I met a woman assertive enough to take my virginity. I'd always wanted to be a mom at home with kids, and she was on track to become a doctor... it seemed likely that I could get my wish, so I continued in that relationship, being open (I thought) about how I felt, without putting too many labels on it. Eventually, though, I realized I had left too much ambiguity and needed to be more specific. Anxiety and fear that I would seek to transition more or less destroyed the relationship after we had two children, to whom I was primary caregiver and homemaker for their first years, to age 8 and 6.
Advice from a therapist led me to put off transition until they were older, which is where we are now. Practical issues remain a problem, because I spent much of the past 10 years in fairly deep depression, as I had no desire to divorce, and felt that many of my insights had been delusions, which made completion of the manuscripts I'd been working on before a major crisis of confidence. A fairly generous separation agreement also made it unnecessary for me to seek work in the outside world, so I spent most of this time being as close to my kids as possible, supporting them through school activities and so on, while my ex hired nannies and generated a certain amount of resentment from them, which I tried to minimize where I could, but at a cost of largely hiding much of what was going on for me. A few months ago, after coming onto me for over a year, I had a very unsatisfying encounter with someone and realized that even in hiding, I was not really safe, and that I was unlikely to ever get anything even approximating what I wanted unless I was as clear as possible about my identity, and started to move onto where I've wished I'd been since I can remember.
I really need to move forward now, but practically speaking there are big gaps in the practical plan. No health insurance, few income prospects unless someone offers an advance on one of my presently unfinished works of fiction, or some other gig comes along, dwindling savings that will (with luck) keep me afloat for maybe another 2 or 3 years, barring any major surprises.
