Quote from: Nevara on November 18, 2014, 10:35:13 PM
I've come to realize transitioning would lose me my friends and family, and likely derail my career as well. I probably already lost the friends I've told... if not made my relationship extremely strained. Ultimately I'm just replacing the negative feelings I feel from dysphoria with negativity from losing my relationships, support network, being alone and leaving myself in an uncertain financial situation.
What it also comes down to is that I don't think transitioning will fix my dysphoria, at least not fully.
The only thing HRT has dealt with so far was my hormonal dysphoria which has been a blessing but I'll take the short time I was on hormones as a chance to experience true calmness in my life and move on.
My body dysphoria is only going to get worse if I transition as I realize how much I don't look like a woman --- body-wise or face-wise or voice-wise. Sure hormones will help fat redistribution but it can do nothing about my male skeleton. It can do nothing about my male facial structure. It won't ever give me back a high pitched voice. I can try my voice but that feels so forced and fake. Ultimately everything I do towards "passing" just reminds me how I am a fake woman. To be accepted as a real woman by society I'd have to subject myself to surgeries to fix my face, my voice and my body.
And ultimately, my social dysphoria is never going to go away until I do reach that point of "passing" and I can be accepted as a woman. I know some of you have this "who gives a <not allowed>" attitude, but when my family tells me they see non-passing trans woman as freaks and they and my friends are embarrassed to be with me in public if I present as a woman I don't see the point in transitioning. What am I gaining by destroying all my relationships and becoming a social pariah? It's certainly not my mental health.
Wow, just when I think I have it bad, I read something like this and it makes me realize just how lucky I am to have always had such a neutral face and voice that some people saw (or even heard) a woman in me pre-transition. Then again, my hair is falling out and even with my T and DHT suppressed, I know I will never have beautiful hair. Life is not perfect this way, but it is the best I can do.
I am definitely risking a lot by transitioning. I could lose my money, my home, even my life, all at the hands of my frightfully intolerant father. As a result, I am still in the closet at home, and dying a little more inside every day I have to put on that act (46 more days... can I do it?
). In the end, however, it is my life, and if I were to pretend to be a man for financial or safety reasons, I would never truly live. Nor would I ever get a job or make any friends, since I am unwilling to put myself out there in the wrong gender. From my perspective, I was always a "fake" man, pretending to identify with a gender that is antithetical to everything I stand for. The real 'me' is a woman, and being transgendered does not make her any less real in my eyes. I understand that some people will not accept me, but if that is how they feel, then they have no place in my life, either personally or professionally. Now, when a normally peaceful person like me can make such a strong statement, I know I have found my calling. I have been to the edge of a cliff before (a 200-foot high one, no less) and the chance to finally let the real 'me' shine through is the only thing preventing me from falling over the edge.
Back when I tried to present myself in the wrong gender, I had crippling mental illnesses - social anxiety, avoidance, depression, suicidal ideation, and OCD to make me worry non-stop about the other ones. For me personally, HRT is a miracle cure for those mental health issues that did not respond to conventional medications. Even my heartbeat and digestive issues responded positively to HRT. After 23 years in silent suffering, I finally found a way out. If someone could invent a pill that would make me happy as an ugly bald guy, I would not take it. Maybe in a year or two, I will be as beautiful on the outside as the person I see inside of me. If not, well at least I can say I tried.
You did get me thinking, though: If I had no hope of ever passing, would I still go through the process? After much thought, the answer is yes. The list of physical and psychological benefits is overwhelmingly long, even if I will still feel inferior to cis females in some ways.
