Hmm, you can prolly count me in with the merely wanting to crowd as well. I was pretty down and depressed, depressed for most of my life I'd say, basically a loser with no real close ties to anyone. I got to a point where I did have some suicidal thoughts occasionally but never attempted it. Can't say that I ever felt it was transition or die, it may have been, or may have come to that, but I don't think it was.

Now, as far as I know, I too was born a guy. I really can't remember much tho at a young age. I don't remember ever thinking I was a girl, I could've, I certainly was quite strange I think, for a boy, but ya, as far as I know, I was a boy. I could've thought I was a girl, maybe my parents found out and I repressed it, idk, I'll never know, since they have both passed. Growing up I played sports, loved to play em in fact, that was my life, that and video games, pretty boyish type activities.

I do remember wishing I was like my mom though, or that I was actually her, at quite a young age. I would dress in her things whenever I could safely do so in private. Somehow, I knew it was "wrong" of me to do so, idk why or how, but I knew it, so ya, doing it w/e I could in private was the only option I had. I don't know if it was cuz they found out and yelled or had a talk with me, caught me doing it, can't say, wish I could. I think I used to go to bed wishing I was a girl, maybe even praying for it, not certain but sounds possible, tho could've been influenced by reading it from others as well.

Puberty came and I wasn't thrilled with it, to say the least. Didn't wanna be big and strong like my other friends did, didn't want facial hair, didn't want any of it. It was around this time that things progressed to the next level for me. We stopped playing sports mostly, I mean once in awhile we would but my friends had other things start to occur and interfere, life, girls, work, school. I had more time alone now since wasn't playing sports, and since I was older now, had more freedom from parents. As a result, started dressing and acquiring more things.

Thats the moral of my story anyway, things kept progressing for me, kept going forward, and now here I am. I never stopped doing it, never purged, only got rid of stuff to make room for more stuff. I never asked myself why I was doing this, these things, it was just in me to do em so I did. It got to the point where I did wanna go out dressed as a girl, went so far as to take a vacation far away with that as my sole purpose. When I got there, realized I was fake, looked like a dude in dress, I'd never be seen as a girl, just a weirdo, and I realized that wouldn't work for me at all. When I got back, looked for ways to change that, found out about herbals, started doing them. Shortly after that, found this place, started reading up all the posts that I could, was shocked when I realized it was actually a possibility for me.

I didn't really fit the standard trans narrative tho, and it caused issues for me. Made me wonder if it was fetish or real, if I was just imagining this or hoping it was real, if it is the reason or part of the reason that I have been basically pretty miserable my whole life.

Reading posts from people like Suzi definitely helped me out a ton! It definitely helped me realize that just because I didn't know I was a girl in a guys body doesn't mean I am not trans. There is no such thing as "trans enough". Everyone is different; everyone's story is different. I realized that I do not have to prove to anyone that I am trans or not, that this is the right thing for me; as long as I think it is right for me, as long as it makes me happy, then that's all the matters!

Now, this is just my opinion, but, just as there is a transgender spectrum, I think there is one here as well, between having to transition and wanting to transition. One end of the spectrum, being assigned male or female when you yourself believe yourself to be the opposite, don't normally appear to be able to get why someone would choose to transition, when it may not be do or die type thing, why anyone would want it, I, considering myself at the middle or possibly other end of the spectrum, can't possibly imagine thinking that I was female at a young age, with a male body. I just can't comprehend that at all; doesn't compute for me. It's just something that I never really felt, experienced, therefore, cannot really ever understand it completely.

In the end, does it really matter where you lie on any spectrum? Does it matter if you agree, disagree w/ me or anyone else's choices? Really, all the matters is your own personal happiness. That is the goal, the point of all this, that everyone wants to be happy, and that we are all doing this to accomplish that goal. If transitioning makes you happy, or makes you think that you will be happier from doing it, then I can't help but think that it is the right choice for you.

It depends on how you define your needs and expectations for yourself.
I didn't need to transition to live.
  I needed to transition to stop being suicidal.
I chose to get help, and to tell the people I needed in my life about it. The longer I spent in my male form the more uncomfortable I got.  It got so bad I thought of my body as a husk I wanted to discard.  But to transition, I had to accept my flawed body in order to modify it to my needs.  I know where going back takes me.  It's a dark and terrible place and it frightens me.

Everyone is different, but I also hate the phrase, "girl trapped in a boy's body."  I'm not going to set aside all of the masculine traits I have, not that there are all that many.  I just want to let myself truly come to the surface, and interact with the world without a façades.  If there were an intermediate between femme and butch, I'd probably be most comfortable as that.  I'm not spending all this money and time and aggravation to let other people define mean again.

     Hugs,
- Katie
Sent from Katie's iPad using Tapatalk

I'm one of the ones who knew at a very early age, but I don't fit the typical narrative in any other way.  I was never suicidal, I grew up in a stable home, and was never beaten up for being ultra feminine as a kid.  The "transition or death" narrative actually had me convinced for a lot of years that I wasn't really trans.  I'm just not that dramatic about anything in life.

The other part of the narrative that I really resent is the idea that everyone you've ever known or loved will reject you, and transitioning is an almost certain death for all marriages.  Well, I know now that it just isn't true.  There is a risk of rejection, but preparing trans-questioning people to face 100% rejection is a bit heavy-handed if you ask me.

So because I thought I wasn't really trans, I settled into the guy role and just lived with a deep disappointment at not having been born a girl.  But even after I knew that transition was even a thing, I always had good reasons not to pursue it.  And my natural optimism and pragmatism kept the dysphoria pushed down. 

But at one point in my mid-30's I realized two things that changed everything for me.  First, I realized that the vast majority of people don't wish they were the other gender.  In fact, most are glad they're not.  So that means I actually am transgender.  The second realization is that a lot of marriages do survive transition, and my wife actually might get on board with this.

At that point my excuses disappeared, and I knew that I was the only one standing in my way.  That's when the dysphoria hit hard, and it didn't get better until I started low dose HRT about a year later. 

So I'm certainly in the wanting this category.  With the low dose of estrogen, I could probably live like this for a long time if the consequences of transitioning were higher.  But they're not.  And so this process is really about having something I've always wanted, and something that would make me finally happy and hopeful for the future.

Quote from: katiej on February 11, 2015, 09:15:32 PM
I'm one of the ones who knew at a very early age, but I don't fit the typical narrative in any other way.  I was never suicidal, I grew up in a stable home, and was never beaten up for being ultra feminine as a kid.  The "transition or death" narrative actually had me convinced for a lot of years that I wasn't really trans.  I'm just not that dramatic about anything in life.

The transition or death narrative did not fit me either.  But it probably does now.  I have thought about going back because of how high the consequences have been for me.  I don't try to go back because I fully expect I'd be dead in a year or two. 

Quote from: Brenda E on February 10, 2015, 07:45:40 PM
(Edited to add a TRIGGER WARNING that this topic does stray into talk of self harm.)

I shouldn't still be struggling with this issue after so long, but it's started to bother me once again.  As someone who was a late arrival to the transgender party (although I knew something was amiss from an earlyish age), I'm not entirely convinced that I have to be a girl, and perhaps I merely want to be a girl.  Were it something I have to be – something so fundamental to my very existence – surely this path would have been stumbled upon far earlier in life?  But instead, I find myself looking back and seeing someone who so badly wanted to be a girl, but who knew deep down that he was a boy.  In other words, I don't see myself as a "girl trapped in a boy's body", but perhaps more of a "boy who would much rather be a girl."

Do I have to?
Do I need to?
Do I just Want to?
Would I just like to?

Questions I wrestle with most days. I've been on this path of Healing, Self-Discovery, or "Taking on the Trans-Beast" for nearly 6 years now. I've known/felt since the age of 5 or so I wish I was born a girl. Tried twice in my 20's to do so. Opting both times to "Settle" on being a normal-ish male.

I feel/know I am blessed that I am NOT a member of the Transition or Die club. I cannot imagine the pain my fellow support group members must be in. During a recent meeting a member told me I was her hero, because I have been able to "Manage" my dysphoria w/o having to resort to a full transition. But there have been days....

For over 5 years now I've been healing. I am, for the first time ever, happy being in my own skin. Pretty much happy being be. A total first. I still live as a male. Most of the time now, it's OK. Never the less, I don't feel 100% genuine, perhaps 90%-95%. Not bad.

THe bad days... I have the perfect stretch of road in mind. Vaporize my car at 90MPH or more into a concrete wall. Fortunately they are very few now

Should I take the chance of exploding my life for that extra maybe 10%? Loose my wife, maybe? My totally fun career, maybe? Followed by financial ruin? All for what? Life aint that bad. I achieved my life long dream of being seen as and accepted as a woman. What's left? A chance to finally feel 100% genuine, 100% of the time. Maybe. If I loose what is near and dear to me, I also loose a good part of that 90%.

Which pain is worse?  Today it is loosing it all. Tomorrow... all that may not matter. I take each day as it comes.

for me the road came to an end , I did my best to live male and I did it a long time , but it caught up to me and grabbed me and took me down. So here I am exploring this new road and doing good.

The last time I asked myself if I needed or only wanted to transition, it resulted in my total purge of my feminine clothes.  I decided the grass wasn't greener being female, and in fact life would be down right hard.  This time, though I've changed.  I've realized it's not transition or die as in kill-my-self.  It's more like transition or living as male will kill my soul, kill my spirit, I'll be one of the walking dead.  Being male means I have to kill my female spirit, she can't breath stuffed in that closet.  There's no self harm, it's more a figurative and emotional harm.  When I started down this path again for the second time, I realized that for me to be me to my fullest, I need to transition.  I need to be who I am, and I am female: counter to what the doctor told my parents all those years ago. 

-Alana

I'm all over the place on this one. There are days where I feel it's something I absolutely HAVE to do in order to go on, but then there are days where I'm completely okay with the idea of just living as a crossdresser. And there are even other days where I wish I could sit somewhere in between male and female, maybe as a "girl with a secret", so to speak. And still other days where I wish I was just a shapeshifter, and could change based on my mood. I definitely identify as female, there's no doubt there, but I'm just not sure how to go about life just yet.

Katie : As usual, I agree with everything you said, too. Especially the bit about not everyone wants to be other gender; I assumed that too!

And I try to counter the "it's always, inevitably doom and suffering" narrative as well (like you, I am aware that it sometimes is true, but not *always*).

Quote from: Alana_Jane on February 12, 2015, 12:26:37 AM
I've realized it's not transition or die as in kill myself.  It's more like transition or living as male will kill my soul, kill my spirit, I'll be one of the walking dead.  Being male means I have to kill my female spirit, she can't breath stuffed in that closet.  There's no self harm, it's more a figurative and emotional harm.  When I started down this path again for the second time, I realized that for me to be me to my fullest, I need to transition.  I need to be who I am, and I am female: counter to what the doctor told my parents all those years ago.

Alana, this is a really great way to articulate what I'm going through right now.  Very little is gained in life from taking the easy choices.  It's certainly safer, but I do understand that I'll never really be happy with myself, as you describe, if I don't make the big leap.

Six months ago there were moments when I absolutely needed to transition, but then I started a low dose of HRT and my state of mind normalized.  The cloud lifted and now I feel like I can make a clear-headed decision.  The problem is that because I feel better now, there doesn't seem to be the same urgency.  But I understand that dysphoria doesn't get better with time.  And knowing that my current stability is estrogen-dependent reminds me that I really do need this.

So I suppose our discussion may not really be about need vs. want but about different shades of need.  Or perhaps, it's about the different levels of urgency in that need.

I knew something was different from a young age. But cultural conditioning, lack of access to information, and then time to unlearn falsehoods about gender and sexuality caused me not to even realize I was "transgender" until I was about 45 or 46. I almost self-harmed multiple times (genital mutilation). I always wanted to be female. My dysphoria nearly drove me to suicide three separate times (twice as a teenager and then finally in 2012 when I hit the end of my rope). But I never connected the dots. I didn't even realize that those who had "sex change" operations were trans. It just never assembled for me into a coherent whole until later in life.

Here's something rather important to understand - young transgender children whose parents simply accept them as they express themselves have been proven to be as certain of their own gender identity as cisgender children.

However, negative family conditioning and negative cultural conditioning results in adults who constantly question. What do I see there? I see questioning as an outgrowth of falsehoods, lies, and cultural demands placed upon us throughout our lives. It is vital that we shake off what our culture expects and then, having shaken it off, we can finally ask ourselves who we are, with clarity. Having done this, the answer is always clear to me - I am a woman, regardless of what equipment I was born with.

I cannot answer Brenda's original question. In fact, I doubt any of us can. Only Brenda can ultimately answer that question.

Six years ago when I decided to take on this beast for real, I realized just how much I have died inside. As the months passed it became far far worse. I had slowly devolved into a nearly total lifeless, soulless "Thing" that woke up each morning, went to work, ate dinner, repeat. Because "That is what I had to do", the expectations for me set by a lifetime of 'wanting' to be male. Each passing year needing to be even more regimented, controlling of every aspect of that persona in order to maintain it's viability.

For me, "Transition" is simply "To Change". I am changing. I have changed, greatly. I still live and mainly present as male. That may change someday. Today, I do not need to, for which I consider myself fortunate. I am even more fortunate for having changed, for the transition I have completed

I just find it amazing... how sad and absolutely devastating it can be for so many people to go through all of this... To get to this point, to invoke changes and all the feelings they have. You are all very strong people just to admit that to yourself. I have many moments of doubt, but I need to figure out what to do next. Because my feeljngs wont just go away. Ive tried burying, religion, alcohol, workaholic, just ignoring it. Its like an addiction. But its a calling inside.

I saw a nice comment the other day, forgive me ive forgotten who said it but the effect was ; all the shame and denial and fear and people being mad at one and anger and hurt and financial implications to do with being transgender were the bad part. but the being trans was no more than the truth.
i think step 1 has to be cut ALL the shame guilt and fear away. its the stuff that tears you in one direction while the need to transition pulls in the other.
it seems 100% certain the need will never go away. resisting it hurts a lot. the logic of what to do next is simple. the logistics, well thats another matter.
before i came out i felt like this process would feel like a prison. but actually now i look back at that time a the prison.  it was a good decade and half of dread and despair like a life sentence. im so glad its over. this is the long walk up and out. the way out is tough and takes a long time, but it beats being locked up. im free. im on an adventure.
im going to do it and/or die trying!!

"I headed her out to sea, knowing where I was going but not real certain how to get there. I'd be sailing through Shadow and strange waters, but it would be better than the overland route, what with my handiwork abroad in the realm.
I had set sail for a land near as sparkling as Amber itself, an almost immortal place, a place that did not really exist, not any longer. It was a place which had vanished into Chaos ages ago, but of which a Shadow must somewhere survive. All I had to do was find it, recognize it, and make it mine once again, as it had been in days long gone by. Then, with my own forces to back me up, I would do another thing Amber had never known. I didn't know how yet, but I promised myself that guns would blaze within the immortal city on the day of my return.
As I sailed into Shadow, a white bird of my desire came and sat upon my right shoulder. and I wrote a note and tied It to its leg and sent It on Its way. The note said, "I am coming," and it was signed by me.
I would never rest until I held vengeance and the throne within my hand, and good night sweet prince to anybody who stood between me and these things.
The sun hung low on my left and the winds bellied the sails and propelled me onward. I cursed once and then laughed.
I was free and I was running. but I had made it this far. I now had the chance I'd wanted all along.
A black bird of my desire came and sat on my left shoulder, and I wrote a note and tied it to its leg and sent it off into the west.
It said, "Eric-I'lI be back," and it was signed: "Corwin, Lord of Amber."
A demon wind propelled me east of the sun. "