Hi all ! First and rather long post. There is a bit of rambling in there, but please give it a read !

Why do I feel like this? A question that has plagued me since my late childhood/early adolescence. To be more specific: why do I feel like I should have been born a girl? Now, I was never particularly girly nor macho. I am deeply and fundamentally an intellectual who's always been more interested in scientific and philosophical questions than material considerations. Nevertheless, through the years, I've been regularly haunted by this feeling of wrongness regarding my gender. It's been the source of much anxiety although never to the point of preventing me to enjoy some of the good things life has to offer.

Since my first encounter with trangenderism when I was a teenager, I've been yearning to transition and have spent more hours than I should reading about the topic and watching relevant documentaries. But I always ended up shoveling trans-related thoughts in the back of my mind, telling myself that it was simply unrealistic to attempt transitioning as I did not want to "rock the boat" family-wise. I've always found it natural and easy to befriend girls, but intimacy was rather awkward as I felt out of place somehow. That was until I met my amazing partner with whom I connect so deeply that all barriers melted. Still the feeling of gender-wrongness is ever present and grows stronger with time. I've confided in my love and, with her support, am now determined to get to the bottom of this.

I've chatted with therapists which helped a little bit. But I feel that I need to find others that I can relate to, members of the trans community who are not at war with their entire selves but who decided to end this gender discomfort.

Wow, I feel like I'm leaving a lot of stuff out. But the essential is in there. Hope this "ping" will find a destination !

Feel free to ramble for as long as you need to! This is hardly a long post 

Well you've clearly thought things through a lot, and haven't been able to resolve any issues in the process. There are definitely others here that have felt the same way you do (and surely they will reply to your post). I personally don't feel like I'm "qualified" to say much here since I've only started questioning a bit over a month ago, but I've always wondered why I felt so out of place around people of my sex and only recently have I been able to make the connection with gender, I used to spend a good deal of time looking up various personality disorders and trying to figure out which one of them I had that would explain why I was so weird. For me, the thing that makes me think of transitioning the most is a strong desire to feel like I fit in somewhere.

Don't know if I'm helping at all, but you've definitely made a good step with going to therapy. Perhaps try finding a gender therapist? It's probably what everyone here would suggest you do at this point.

Hey Martine

Welcome to Susan's    Great to have you here - looking forward to seeing you around the forum.

You probably feel the way you do because you're trying to push down the person you know yourself to be. It isn't easy being trans, people who actually feel comfortable in their gender are the ones that set the rules about gender behaviour and woe to anyone who steps outside what is "permissible". Hope you find plenty of like minded folk here to talk with and and ask questions.

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Grace

Thanks for replying darkblade and Grace. Happy to see the seed of a conversation growing.

As for your advice darkblade, I did discuss my issues with gender specialized therapists. But they can only bring so far and are also not free! With laser treatments and wardrobe reconstruction, along with the regular expenses of a young family, one must choose where to invest money!

I know I am transgender as I have been questioning myself for way too long for this to be only a phase. I am quite sure it's never going to go away. Nevertheless, often when I read narratives, I find that I do not exactly relate with the extreme dysphoria and associated depression often described. Let me try to detail things a bit. When I was young, I had both girl and boy friends, and I enjoyed a lot of typically boy games although I still wanted to be a girl! Hence, I do not resent my youth as I've had fun with everybody while sometimes feeling slightly strange. Troubles really started at puberty where the thoughts of being in the wrong body manifested themselves much more frequently. I dreamed of changing gender, of having accidents that would precipitate the transition, etc. The strength of what I would identify as dysphoria attacks has just increased with time.

I like who I am deep down. But when I look in the mirror and I see a manly figure, when people address me as sir, when I have to yet again force myself into stereotypical men behaviours, I become anxious and wish even harder to finally be myself, a girl very close to the boy I am, but a girl nevertheless.

Hope this keeps the ball rolling!

Hi martine,

You seem to share what most of us here do, which is a deep identification with a gender that does not match the sex we were assigned at birth. And that itself is OK, because you can take steps to get your gender presentation in line with your gender identity.

Not all transgender people are stereotypically girly or boyish (FtM) when growing up, and that's OK.

If you're questioning you probably have your answer. In my case I knew what I was and what I should do.

Lots of us lead stereotypically male (or female) lives and don't show any "signs." My wife said she didn't have a clue I was trans. I thought she did. The military I'm sure has a good few transgender people. Yes, the military where rough men go to war with big guns, tanks, and bombs... Kristin Beck was a navy seal and is a trans woman. Some of us use it as an attempt to suppress our dysphoria with varying degrees of failure. I showed signs but in my adult life I was so well hidden in the closet, I look back and it was amazing how I did it.

Not all of us want to kill ourselves every minute of every day. Some of us do and it is important to support us that do. But dysphoria manifests itself in different ways. For many of us though, it's a slow death.

Transition is your choice and should be motivated by your goals. Nobody else but you should guide your transition. Your therapist is there to help you, not be a gatekeeper. At least that's how it should be. You and only you need to decide whether transition is right for you.

Binary gender transition is just one way. There is also non binary and bigender. Gender is a spectrum. No one is 100% male or 100% female. You may find you would be happy in a binary gender role or you may find you would want to be somewhere in the middle.

Best of luck on your journey.

Hey Martine ^^.

What you are saying sounds really familiar. I also had those feelings from a younger age the same way you describe them but it felt more like a preference. Not real urge/desperate need. It actually sounds so familiar with the feelings and everything, that I will just explain what I did. Maybe it works for you too?

The preference of having a female body never really been there. I just had the same awkwardness you describe. Whether I was intimidate with someone or in my case the many times you hear how a guy doesn't act like that, and should act like that. Now you gotten to the point where you think it could be transsexuality.

Also familiar to push such feelings away. It isn't important enough, can't change it anyway (or so I thought in the past) but if you gotten to this point first be able to give it a place, to be at ease with it, before you even think of pushing it away again. You probably noticed it will keep coming back and with age it only gets worse.

Don't feel forced to having to make a decision for yourself, to have to give an answer. How about you just let your hair grow, change your clothes to more unisex like over time and explore your identity? You will see yourself change and in time will realize if this is for you or not at all.

Err.. I am bad at describing stuff x_X. If you got questions feel free to ask or PM if you want to. I like the way you stand in it because it seems so familiar . Basically I just always felt uncomfortable and stressy inside, but I couldn't place it. Exploring made that get less why I assume I am transgender. Can't be sure I think before I start HRT but I am 90% sure after exploring for about two years.

Thanks for participating in this ill-titled topic. I could certainly have devised a better name for it. I fully agree with what you wrote ImagineKate: gender is certainly not binary. I've always been a fervent advocate of shades of grey in almost all matters, and it's no different for gender. I personally feel somewhere like 2/3 to 3/4 along a line going from the stereotype male to that of female, thus more feminine. I have the strong impression that I'd be happier presenting as female than as male. In fact, as I grow my hair, zap my facial hair, and slowly change my wardrobe to better reflect my true identity (with you on this Kirey!), I feel better when I see my reflection in the mirror. I want to keep going, even start HRT, but I'm so scared!

Scared, the word is out, finally (droplets forming at the corner of my eyes). Scared of what? Making a mistake, hurting my family, losing my job (although scientists appear liberal regarding these matters ...) I think hurting my family is the biggest one though. How can I face that fear and not let it guide my decisions? A question worth some meditation for sure.

Fortunately I have an amazing partner and good friends, but I have a feeling that I can find some extra, and needed, support here amongst those who are living or have lived similar experiences.

Thank you all,

M

Hi and welcome from someone still fairly new here.
First of all, martine, stop second-guessing yourself. Oh wait, I should have been saying that to myself! But then you'll find that true here. A lot of little details will be different, but overall, as you start to read various posts, it will blow you away to see posts expressing exactly what you feel. And it seems logical that within a group of people who feel they have something major to hide from others for so, so many years, there would be self-esteem issues. The day I finally verbalized to myself that I'm a woman was also the first day of my life when I said "I love me."

Scared? That's barely the word for it! But you might as well not be afraid of making a mistake. I've made plenty in just the few short months of accepting who I am. Hurting your family? This can't help but hurt them. They may come around and they may not. I'm living in an apartment for the first time in 40 years (and I'm DAMNED happy I'm not homeless!!) because my wife can't deal with this. I don't know if my son will ever speak to me again. Lose your job? There's a high likelihood. I can't imagine I'll get to keep mine. Some of us find ways of compromising and can deal with that. The suicide rate among TG's is horrible though, showing many of us can't find ways of coping in many, many ways.

I've come to a point where I see all the work I've done trying to please my family has hurt them already in many ways. Revealing that I'm TG is huge, but at my age, I'd say it's about time I take care of myself! That isn't being selfish. But now they feel the loss of a husband and a father. We know we're still the same person inside, but this is a huge adjustment for them and there has to be a period of mourning.

I've lived my entire life (67 years as of Wednesday) working hard to please others; keep them happy...and all at the expense of me. I faced the fear by simply knowing that I just couldn't keep this hidden for the rest of my life. That doesn't mean the fear went away and yes, it still has some impact on my decisions. Don't expect that to go away, but recognize when you're making a decision for yourself and when it's a decision for others. The latter does you no good at all and in the end won't protect anyone else anyway.

I've found it's a lot easy for friends to accept me than it is for my family. Male or female, I can still be a good friend in the same ways I've always been. If my wife or family see me as female, they wonder how I can be a husband or a father.

OK, now I'm rambling. Realize though that there is a lot of people here who need support themselves and so are very, very willing to support others. We can be much stronger when we rely on each other - and so try to wade through the excess verbiage (as in this post...) to find a nugget of information or wisdom from people that will help guide you.

Paula

Quote from: martine on November 24, 2014, 06:42:54 PM
Scared, the word is out, finally (droplets forming at the corner of my eyes). Scared of what? Making a mistake, hurting my family, losing my job (although scientists appear liberal regarding these matters ...) I think hurting my family is the biggest one though. How can I face that fear and not let it guide my decisions? A question worth some meditation for sure.

Fortunately I have an amazing partner and good friends, but I have a feeling that I can find some extra, and needed, support here amongst those who are living or have lived similar experiences.

It is important to be able to talk about it ^^ and I hope it feels as a relieve to do that here. But it is even more important to find someone around you in real time who will support you. This person does not have to understand it or be able to talk with you about it, but someone who takes you for who you are and respects this. Do you think you got someone like that with/near you?

It is also normal to be afraid. If you were not and it would do absolutely nothing to you, then big chance you don't really need it either. What we really want often scares us to get it because you have to go trough the typical society barriers. But instead of just feeling fear, do you feel excitement as well? It should feel exciting even if just a little.

What OlderTG stated is all true, you can lose a lot. You can gain a lot, or both. It might go really easy for you or maybe it will become a really difficult time. I think what many do forget is that it isn't just a big change for you but for everyone you know. If you have a wife, or kids, parents, anyone. They know you for quite a while and you fulfill a role in their life in a certain way. This affects them (at first) as much as it affects you.

You do not come across as someone even considering suicide because you can't bare it anymore. Which I like a lot just to read . Of course you have to do what feels right for you but if you would want to know my advice I would say to continue exploring (people you know will, if anything, think you are gay. I literally got ma'am-ed on the streets while everyone I knew still saw me as a guy) and if possible find someone, anyone, to tell and support you in real life. It just feels really good to have a place where you don't have to worry anymore. Even if you cannot talk about it. Also, if one person knows it you will find it a lot easier to tell one person after another till eventually more people know.

Good luck ^^.

a lot of us have felt what your going through, at some point of our lives and the degree of how strong it was varies, in my case I tried to ignore n denie the way I felt, from a very young age, I bottled every emotion, because I knew nothing about anything to do with a sex change, but shortly after I learnt about it, I hit rock bottom n had a full on mental breakdown, tho I recovered really well, it was only because I  had access to treatment that focused on my issues, so the fact you are speaking with a therapist is great news n will help a lot.

Also I wouldn't worry to much about those typical boy things you enjoy doing, lots of girls n transgirls enjoy things like that, even I consider myself to be a bit of a Tomboy because I enjoy practicing Taekwondo and play video games.

Your good words are appreciated! Kirey you're absolutely right that talking with persons in real time is important. That's why I have opened up to my girlfriend and some of my best friends months ago. I can talk freely with them all and know they support me. But I'm happy to finally have joined this community where I can chat with and get support from people living similar experiences.

Thanks to all,

M

Martine, hurting your family can and does happen. I am not out to mom and dad or my siblings yet but will be soon. That said I am prepared for everything from full acceptance to being a complete outcast. Why I am waiting is because my mom has a tendency to gossip and I don't want to be fully out until I get some of my transition ducks in a row. I did come out to my wife but she isn't happy at all. She's to the point of talking about divorce which actually I wouldn't mind. It took a lot of thinking to get to this point and I feel it may be the best option.

That said what helps me is that most of my life I've been independent. Since an early age I was home alone a lot, and I also clawed my way into a lot of places in my adult life all on my own. I've also been accustomed to being estranged from my parents and siblings so if they cast me out I won't be too hurt. However it would be nice if mom and dad accept me as their daughter (the one that dad would write about in his writing classes in university) and my brothers would be happy to get a sister. Even if it takes time.

My job is fully accommodating and HR is very strong on anti discrimination. Plus I get my work done, which is good. Times have changed, this isn't the 60s where Lynn Conway was fired from IBM for being transgender. I feel like public figures such as Janet mock and Laverne cox (my two heroes as trans people of color) are helping to a great degree. I would ask your HR department first what their policy is. Talk it over with your therapist first though.