Hello,

Over the last few years, I've had a growing dislike of my body, which is now bordering hatred. For as long as I remember, I felt different to other people, especially boys (less so with girls). I came to the conclusion a couple of years ago that my body getting more masculine was a problem to me, but its only been the last couple of years that I've began to properly come to terms with myself as non-binary. These last few months though, I've begun too feel more like i want to be female.

I plucked up the guts to tell my doctor, and they they have two ideas: for the last few years I've had a lot of problems in my life. Abusive relationships, a sexual assault accusation, I've lost many friends, I'm a recovered alcoholic and I've been diagnosed as severely depressed and with a lot of anxiety, most of which around my relationships with other people. I've been quite reclusive and I've never once had a satisfying, fulfilling sexual encounter ever.

My doctors can't decide if my gender issues are the cause of my strife in relating to other people, or something caused by my depression (they believe it might be an escapist behaviour) but I'm pretty certain that I want to be more female than male. I need some help from you all to tell me how this sounds. I have Cognitive behavioural therapy for my depression and anxiety, but they also want to tackle the gender stuff. I have some points to raise with them and I want some other opinions on how I feel.

- I look in the mirror and feel I'm not looking at myself. My body looks and feels wrong to me, reinforced by the fact my eyes are identical to my mum. It's like I'm looking at a girl stuck in a man-suit.

- As my shoulders broadened and my beard and body hair grew, I felt more and more repulsed by my shape

- I sometimes wish I'd wake up as a woman, or that my genitals would be destroyed somehow so I feel I could have a legitamate reason to transition in the eyes of those around me without backlash.

- I used to try to 'correct my lack of masculinity.' lifting weights, growing beards and cutting my hair shorter: It made me feel awful.

- I look at girls and I feel partly attracted, partly envious of their appearance. Im jealous of hourglass figures, soft skin etc

- men's fashion never appealed to me. Girls on the other hand does

-I grow my hair in ways that hide my strong brow and make my face seem rounder: Im almost always clean-shave, I even use hair removal products on my arms and legs. I also have had laser hair removal on my back and shoulders, but I want it on other places too.

- The only good thing I can find about my body is at least it's strong, that's the only good thing I can find about it.

- I have researched transitioning, but I don't think I can bring myself to do it out of fear I'll be ridiculed/won't pass as a woman/will lose the ability to have children.

Currently, I feel isolated and I can't talk to my family: dad's a narrow-minded hater of 'sissy boys, drag queens and 'not-real-men gays.' Mum wants a 'simple, normal family' and my brother keeps trying to turn me into a beefcake. He's a competitive weight lifter and believes I will be happier if go around casually sleeping with girls, get ripped and throw my weight around. What I want is a quiet life where I can be myself, find a nice girl who doesn't mind me being trans (if I transition or not) and have a few kids I can support with my career path as an animator and aspiring writer.

I'm leaning towards feeling I am trans-sex nowadays I feel, and it's quite scary to me I don't know what to do and find this is causing me to feel very lost.

A big warm welcome to the family Jay! That was quite a post and I know how hard it was to write. You have cleared the first hurdle by realizing these feelings wont go away and by addressing them. Please get a Therapist with Gender experience as soon as possible. Mine helped me tremendously and helps a lot. If you end up wanting to transition yet have kids sperm banking is an option many use just for this situation. Feel free to rant, vent, share good news (we like that a LOT), learn or just have some fun and meet the rest of the family. Here is a BIG HUG  to welcome you and make you feel at home.

Nearly everything you listed is the same for me except I have my facial hair and hate even messing with it so shaving sucks to me and I just let it sit there. I hated my body too and just let it get fat and start to die after I realized my weight and power lifting meant little to me except I liked my pecs (but destroyed them too when I got morbidly obese.) My dad is an ass about it, sounds like your dad is the same, so I am trying a new sarcastic approach, but already just a couple days in I am rethinking it as it is just another form of appeasing him the ->-bleeped-<-. Mom for me is just trying, one day ok, the other day not, but currently ok so I am taking the love and support I can get from her. I have lucked out with my brother, children and four other close friends, so in reality I have it easy.

No one can say you are or are not female, as I can believe even minor nuances is symptoms can lead to major differences in path. However, I would say you show a preponderance of evidence that I think a trained gender therapist would feel you have a real situation that needs to be addressed so that you do not continue to wrestle with your own brain everyday. Some folks realize they are women and transition all the way, part of the way, and not at all finding that just understanding themselves is helpful enough to may life make sense.

However, the more I read and study, the more I see that most Cognitive and Behavioral therapists do not always do so well with gender issues. It's kind of like bringing your Mazda to a Ford dealership for work under the hood. Sure, they know it is a car, and heck a car is a car. However, there are specs and special tools needed that they may or may not have. The good thing, is like the Ford mech working on the Mazada, even if he lacks the tool once he finds out about it he can then order it and learn how to fix it. Unfortunately, does the customer have that kind of time to wait to get their car back in order? In some cases yes, in others no.

What I am getting at in my typically round about long ass story way is, that I think you list enough here to suggest to your therapist that they refer you too a gender therapist unless you are absolutely sure they have the right tools, or unless know you can wait as they gain them and be productive and reasonable happy in your life as they do.

P.S. Jessica posted as I was writing this, and I totally support all her opinions especially what she just wrote to you here!

Hi there JayButterfly! 

Welcome to Susan's. I totally agree with Jessica and I give you a Big  to welcome you to our family!

I am in the same situation.. I feel very attracted to girls, and at the same time I would love to have what they have and be seen as one.
I don't build any muscle because I want to keep my arms as girly as they are right now 

I can relate a LOT to what you're saying.. we could talk about it together, feel free to pm 

I've been in a very similar situation for a very long time. I've been dealing with severe anxiety and depression for probably around 10 years. Having been on countless medications, been to many, many therapists, and tried every therapy "technique" in the book (not really, but it sure feels like it), the only thing that has thus far made any dent in the depression has been me making some forward progress toward transition. So far that's only been coming out to my mom and going to a gender therapist who is helping me get things sorted to start HRT (hopefully) soon. In my own experience, my lifelong dysphoria likely lead to the development of my anxiety and depression. My thought is that your doctor has the causality backwards, depression doesn't cause gender dysphoria, gender dysphoria causes depression.

Just my $0.02

what I have noticed is that since I told my doctor, I'm actually not fighting with myself or wondering about my gender as much as I used to. I think getting it out of my system has actually been quite a relief to me to the point I've felt fine about the whole thing.

I'm holding off making any rash decisions. 11 weeks of uni left and then its my gap year before my masters, so I have a lot of time to myself before I do anything. Thank you all for your support.

jaybutterfly, a lot of what you say in the opening post sounds like gender dysphoria.  I'm not a therapist.  It would probably be helpful to really spend some time working through these things with one, because you have a lot going on.

The things you said about not liking your body shape, being repulsed by body hair, envying women, etc, all hits home with me too...  likely with many of us. 

Don't drop your focus on school though.  It is too easy to become distracted by the gender issues.

Quote from: Jamie D on March 09, 2014, 02:05:18 PM
jaybutterfly, a lot of what you say in the opening post sounds like gender dysphoria.  I'm not a therapist.  It would probably be helpful to really spend some time working through these things with one, because you have a lot going on.

The things you said about not liking your body shape, being repulsed by body hair, envying women, etc, all hits home with me too...  likely with many of us. 

Don't drop your focus on school though.  It is too easy to become distracted by the gender issues.

yeah, 11 more weeks and my animation degree is over. I have news with my doctor: they are making enquiries about transgender councilling and support for me so I can work out what I am and what I want to do about it. Thankfully I have a gap year coming between my BA and my masters degree, so I will try to sort myself out by then. I'm hopefully starting that soon

Hey, Jay! I think certain things can be triggered or influenced by experiences, particularly traumatic experiences, but I don't think it sounds like it was brought on randomly, it must have always been a part of you. So I think the reason for it isn't as important as coming to terms with it and figuring out what you want to do.

Seeing a therapist who is experienced in gender identity and whatnot is an excellent idea, it'll help you not only figure things out, but it'll be great to have someone to talk to without feeling like you'll be judged.

But I also want to say that, although it's a shame your family (or your dad, at least) wouldn't support you, it's your life. You have to do what makes you happy. I'm FTM and I probably won't pass at all, which is a shame, but identifying as, living as, a guy makes me feel more comfortable, happier with who I see when I look in the mirror. So passing isn't the be all and end all, it's about what makes you feel happiest in your own skin, in your own life.

I wish you the best, and I hope you keep us updated and feel free to vent as much as you need to

Quote from: Jason C on March 09, 2014, 06:45:24 PM
Hey, Jay! I think certain things can be triggered or influenced by experiences, particularly traumatic experiences, but I don't think it sounds like it was brought on randomly, it must have always been a part of you. So I think the reason for it isn't as important as coming to terms with it and figuring out what you want to do.

Seeing a therapist who is experienced in gender identity and whatnot is an excellent idea, it'll help you not only figure things out, but it'll be great to have someone to talk to without feeling like you'll be judged.

But I also want to say that, although it's a shame your family (or your dad, at least) wouldn't support you, it's your life. You have to do what makes you happy. I'm FTM and I probably won't pass at all, which is a shame, but identifying as, living as, a guy makes me feel more comfortable, happier with who I see when I look in the mirror. So passing isn't the be all and end all, it's about what makes you feel happiest in your own skin, in your own life.

I wish you the best, and I hope you keep us updated and feel free to vent as much as you need to

thank you.

I feel more comfortable and less like a complete freak thanks to you guys. You're all so kind and understanding, it's hard for me to find that in real life.

much love to you all

right, Im supposed to call my doctor back tomorrow, they have some news for me regarding my next cbt therapy session. That's a massive nerve-racker haha

my family don't know still yet.

Do you think it is good news?

Quote from: Æðelþryð on March 11, 2014, 08:05:06 PM
Do you think it is good news?

They've given the information I am having gender issues to my therapist for when I go to see them in a few weeks, but they have have asked them to look into transgender issues and see if I need referal to someone more specialist

some good news:

I've finally gotten some information on a local transgender support group and I've managed to come to a point where even if i go down op or no-op, I think I can adapt to it. I have come out to some more close friends and found a lot of support . The only thing I havent done now is tell my folks

Hugs and welcome to the family,

You have done a lot of identity growth in a short period of time.

When I was reading your posts, much of it sounds like me.

It sounds like you are well on your way to self acceptance and discovery. It is a wild ride!

One thing that has helped, a friend of mine I came out to is on the psychology course at my uni, and since one of her lecturers is leaving this year, she's running extra seminars on LGBT subjects and issues, and has asked that I be allowed to come along. This coming Monday is about transgender issues. She's even offered to point me in the direction of as much support as possible, since she's not convinced CBT will help much other than depression management.