okay. so. quick background. most people dont know im trans. its a relatively recently accepted notion for me. ( as in it finally hit me as true within the past couple months) i have a lot of questions and few answers. mostly about vaginoplasty but thats for another post.

right now im wondering how others cope with the pre op recomendations (requirements?) known as the real life test. putting aside the frustrating 'for your own good' mentality i really dont know how comfortable i would be living as a woman if i couldnt pass as one. and especially if i didnt feel like one physically. its seemingly contradictory and may seem dumb in some ways but the fact is that while i truly want to be a woman im still a man. i have the parts. unless im feeling especially girly im somewhat comfortable in guy type clothes. its as much about passing for what i am as passing for what i want to be. and im really hoping someone else gets what im saying. because it probably sounds like im unsure about the whole thing and im not.
i just dont want my first year as a woman fraught with people wondering whether to call me sir.
and aside from that fact. i identify more as a tom boy prone to fits of girlyness. i love dressing up and looking pretty. but if im not seen as fitting the textbook trans woman at all times is it going to hurt my chances at getting recommendations for surgery.

and now that ive spilled my guts about so much is there a single person that can see what i mean.

I don't know I've just started transition and be trying to live full time quite soon. For me I'm been practicing for a long time, So it might not be too bad. I think the surgery thing is more of a question of whether mentally can you handle castration . Will you regret what you have done. Once you've done it you can't go back. Are you going commit suicide because you don't fit and you've taken off you penis. I don't know ,but it seems to me what they worry about.

see and thats what im concerned about with therapy and how my attempt to transition will be viewed.

i have absolutely no doubts about this. i have been mulling it over for years and finally accepted that its what i want. but i dont just want to get the parts and be girly. i want to be free to be girly and tomboyish. i want to be identified as a woman. but ultimately as a person. ive accepted that i am now what i am. i think ultimately i could live being identified as a man. but i would never be happy or comfortable with it. im a woman mentally. i just want the body to match. and now that ive accepted that, ive developed a whole new anxiety with the fact that as a woman i wouldnt necessarily fit the societal standards set ,and even the standards set by the transgender community (whether consciously or not) of what a woman is.

eddie izzard (a great ->-bleeped-<- comedian) describes himself as a male version of a tomboy. that struck a real chord with me. because i identify as a mtf trans version of a tomboy in so many ways.

girlly when i feel like it. boyish when i dont. but it doesnt change my desire to be identified as a woman. it amplifies it and makes it that much stronger. it gives a clarity how i feel. and its not that much different than the textbook mtf. its just that the physical parts matter more to me than they seem to for most.

its not just about how others identify me. its about looking down at my body and being able to identify myself as a woman.

like i said. i could live as a man. but the more i consider that reality the more afraid i am that i may have to.

Maybe the best route is to find a really qualified gender specialist or therapist versed in transgender ways .  When you make this choice it's permanent and you have to deal with what you have done to your self.

It depends on how you look and act (and sound) - by the end of the first four months on HRT, nobody who saw me in public had the least doubt about what they *assumed* was in my pants, and that was enough. And that was roughly when I went full-time and started counting towards that mandatory one-year waiting period. It's harder, but still possible, to do the RLE pre-HRT as well, but if you don't have to you should be fine!

There are butch trans women, and tomboyish trans women, and trans women like me who want to look pretty but don't usually do much in the way of "girly" things. You absolutely ARE a woman even if you're not a classically high femme one; there's as wide a range among us as there is in cis women.

Quote from: nonameyet on December 20, 2013, 09:08:37 AM
right now im wondering how others cope with the pre op recomendations (requirements?) known as the real life test.

I personally don't have a problem with it since I plan on spending the rest of my life living full-time as a woman.

However the concept irks me. See https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,155043.0.html.

to the comment about not going back i dont want to : )

to the comment about being a woman regardless, thank you. thats actually the first time ive been told that. its comforting. : )


but your comment does make me wonder the degree to which 'whats in my pants' matters to most mtf. i get the impression that for many its not an issue. that the primary concern is passing. for me passing is huge but its small consolation if im still physically male. breasts are imprtant but i dont want them to be enormous or even immediately noticable. just medium-small  sized and perky

but on a serious note.
i dont understand how it cant be an issue i guess. not that its my business. to each her own. it just kind of baffles me. it was such a major point for me from the start for a lot of reasons.

I'm glad it helps, and I hope you see it a lot more - because there's no reason why we *can't* be as varied and interesting as other women.

As for what's in the pants... it bothered me more and more as time went on, actually. But that's an individual thing, as you've noted.

Quote from: suzifrommd on December 20, 2013, 10:33:04 AM
I personally don't have a problem with it since I plan on spending the rest of my life living full-time as a woman.

However the concept irks me. See https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,155043.0.html[/ :Purl].

i like how you put it in the other thread. that the experience is invalidated.
it really feels to me like a way for someone else to have control over a major choice. and its not just a safety thing. that would at least be understandable. it really seems to me to be as much of a study of statistical 'fakes'. and a way for someone else (in the case of doctors who require it in circumstances where its not a legal issue) to absolve themselves of moral and personal responsibility as though they were making the choice.

im irritable now but im frustrated that as an adult i have to be given permission. i could get a tattoo on my face of something horrendous and offensive and make it badly done and id have less loopholes to jump through.  not that id want to. face tattoos are a no go for my face. ew.

@ jenna
i like the way you phrased that. i might wind up quoting that if necessary if you dont mind.

Feel free, and I'm flattered. (And yes, it IS insulting that we're held to different standards - including having to be extra feminine - to get permission to be ourselves.)

The real life test is not intended to be a point of worry and nervousness but a moment of euphoria. For me the day I walked out of court wth my name change in hand my first thought wasn't omigod what do I do now? It was more like phew, now I am 100% legal.

One thing you really need to realize is that you can have 1,000 operations and it will never change the fact that you are a transwoman. If you are not willing to accept that fact, then no surgery will ever fix what ails you. If you back off and do nothing, it will never alter the core of your being either. So there you have it. if something bothers you and you don't feel like you could live full time without it, then change it simple as that. In my case the 2 things that really bugged me were my nose and adams apple. I wouldn't be happy full time unless they were fixed for good. The rest of it, my forehead work was the result of having talked to the surgeons in person and getting recommendations, that's all. There was no magic involved just what I wanted to do, getting some good feedback from doctors and then doing it.

Another thing for me was voice. I invested $25 in one of those personal tape recorders and practiced for months and months and then one day I had my eureka moment. I found my voice and I wowed myself. Then I had to just figure out how to get myself into the right spot on command. That took a while but was made much easier by my real life test, because it was the feminine voice I wanted to use every day.

The last thing for me was having to shave. If I had to shave just to be out for the day that wouldn't have worked for me. I would have called my entire transition a failure. So I boned up on the electro, with blend electro to play it safe based on recommendations I received from successful and some very stealthy women. That was my plan to get to a real life test in a nutshell.

The rest of it, carrying myself as a woman in the world and navigating the social world, well that's what the real life test taught me and to this day still teaches me. I still learn new things about me all the time.

But that's me and what would make me happy and what would qualify as a successful transition. This process isn't about pills or surgeries or anything else, it's about happiness. If you know in your heart of hearts that you want to live the rest of your life in a new gender, then do it. This year will make 13 years full time and 11 years post-op. I'm still here, alive and kicking and still just as happy as the day I started off on this journey. I know when I started off I always thinking 'oh if only I could be a REAL girl, it would be awesome'. Want to know what I think now? I wouldn't trade being me for all the tea in China, and probably a few luxury mega-yachts thrown in as well.

When I went full time I had only been on hormones for a few months, was fresh out of having facial surgery, but a boat load of electrolysis and had grown my hair out long enough for a feminine hair style. When I first went full time I went super girly, not because I HAD to but because I WANTED to. I was wearing frilly things all the time, long gel nails, crazy earrings, super girly hair styles, you name it. It was the result of years of repressed femininty that came gushing out in one big bang.

I never wanted or tried to impress shrinks, doctors or anyone. All I wanted was to be myself and live my life in peace and quiet. If looking back it was preceived as me "pretending" that i was acting a certain way for surgery letters, I can assure in my case that wasn't true at all. Being a female is definitely me and the real life test proved it to me. The bottom surgery was the icing on the cake and I celebrated it with no fanfare, no weenie roast, nothing. It was my private moment to celebrate me and to experience the euphoria one more time, but for myself.

Quote from: Zumbagirl on December 20, 2013, 12:27:17 PM
The real life test is not intended to be a point of worry and nervousness but a moment of euphoria. For me the day I walked out of court wth my name change in hand my first thought wasn't omigod what do I do now? It was more like phew, now I am 100% legal.

One thing you really need to realize is that you can have 1,000 operations and it will never change the fact that you are a transwoman. If you are not willing to accept that fact, then no surgery will ever fix what ails you. If you back off and do nothing, it will never alter the core of your being either. So there you have it. if something bothers you and you don't feel like you could live full time without it, then change it simple as that. In my case the 2 things that really bugged me were my nose and adams apple. I wouldn't be happy full time unless they were fixed for good. The rest of it, my forehead work was the result of having talked to the surgeons in person and getting recommendations, that's all. There was no magic involved just what I wanted to do, getting some good feedback from doctors and then doing it.

Another thing for me was voice. I invested $25 in one of those personal tape recorders and practiced for months and months and then one day I had my eureka moment. I found my voice and I wowed myself. Then I had to just figure out how to get myself into the right spot on command. That took a while but was made much easier by my real life test, because it was the feminine voice I wanted to use every day.

The last thing for me was having to shave. If I had to shave just to be out for the day that wouldn't have worked for me. I would have called my entire transition a failure. So I boned up on the electro, with blend electro to play it safe based on recommendations I received from successful and some very stealthy women. That was my plan to get to a real life test in a nutshell.

The rest of it, carrying myself as a woman in the world and navigating the social world, well that's what the real life test taught me and to this day still teaches me. I still learn new things about me all the time.

But that's me and what would make me happy and what would qualify as a successful transition. This process isn't about pills or surgeries or anything else, it's about happiness. If you know in your heart of hearts that you want to live the rest of your life in a new gender, then do it. This year will make 13 years full time and 11 years post-op. I'm still here, alive and kicking and still just as happy as the day I started off on this journey. I know when I started off I always thinking 'oh if only I could be a REAL girl, it would be awesome'. Want to know what I think now? I wouldn't trade being me for all the tea in China, and probably a few luxury mega-yachts thrown in as well.

When I went full time I had only been on hormones for a few months, was fresh out of having facial surgery, but a boat load of electrolysis and had grown my hair out long enough for a feminine hair style. When I first went full time I went super girly, not because I HAD to but because I WANTED to. I was wearing frilly things all the time, long gel nails, crazy earrings, super girly hair styles, you name it. It was the result of years of repressed femininty that came gushing out in one big bang.

I never wanted or tried to impress shrinks, doctors or anyone. All I wanted was to be myself and live my life in peace and quiet. If looking back it was preceived as me "pretending" that i was acting a certain way for surgery letters, I can assure in my case that wasn't true at all. Being a female is definitely me and the real life test proved it to me. The bottom surgery was the icing on the cake and I celebrated it with no fanfare, no weenie roast, nothing. It was my private moment to celebrate me and to experience the euphoria one more time, but for myself.

very nicely said

I think..

The issue is that you are letting your body solely define you, while you should be searching your mind for what defines you.

Hmm if I understand correctly, the "real life test" is causing you to feel anxious?
I am sure it is, it certainly did for me. Thats why I did not submit to such cruelty
If your seeing a therapist that requires you to jump through such hoops, get a new one. They aren't worth your time
If worse comes to worse, do anything (ANYTHING) in your power to get on HRT and then start presenting as you wish when you start to feel more comfortable

good luck!

yeah. its vain.but to put it into terms that fit easily to all ears. think about it like putting a ferrari engine into the body of a beatup rusty old ford escort from the junkyard.
thats how i feel about my body. not that im comparing the quality of my mind to a ferrari. hah. the way i see my bodys potential is like the engine. i can look under the hood and see all the parts and where they go and its beautifully made. but when i close the hood youd never know. you could see it go 250 mph. its still just a beatup rusty car that takes extreme levels of convincing to make people see the potential. even i forget and im driving it.

i dont really care about cars but it works well as a metaphor.


thank you for the luck missy.
and yeah you got it. im anxious about it. primarily because im afraid that if i dont conform to a girly female stereotype at all times i wont be able to get the recomendations.

and zumbagirl. i appreciate the effort put into that comment. i dont really know how to respond except point taken.

Quote from: nonameyet on December 20, 2013, 02:40:13 PM

thank you for the luck missy.
and yeah you got it. im anxious about it. primarily because im afraid that if i dont conform to a girly female stereotype at all times i wont be able to get the recomendations.

If I were you, I would start on hormones ASAP and facial hair removal. Figure it out from there   

I went full time after only a few weeks on a low dose of estrogen and two laser sessions.  I just didn't like wearing guy clothes.  Well, that and my protruding nipples were about to give me away and I ran out of sh*ts to give about what people thought.   I ended up telling my therapist a couple of months later that I had gone full time ages ago and wanted to make it permanent.   

i want to but cost, location, and therapist requirements are all rather prohibitive right now

Quote from: Jill F on December 20, 2013, 02:49:11 PM
I went full time after only a few weeks on a low dose of estrogen and two laser sessions.  I just didn't like wearing guy clothes.  Well, that and my protruding nipples were about to give me away and I ran out of sh*ts to give about what people thought.   I ended up telling my therapist a couple of months later that I had gone full time ages ago and wanted to make it permanent.

hah. thats not a bad idea

Having a vagina doesn't make you a woman - and if you think SRS is going to solve all your problems, you're in for a nasty surprise.. Being a woman comes from the inside, not the outside.

I'm a fairly butch woman, I've had no issues getting recommendations for either hormones or surgery.

I'm a happy non-op lebsian.. Hormones have given me a comfort in this body I never expected, when I first started transition, SRS was a must have for me.. Now? I can take it or leave it - sadly, for medical reasons I can't actually take it.. Actually, I just don't need it, either..