Why do some transgender people identify so late?

http://transcendmovement.com/why-do-some-transgender-people-identify-late-onset/

Transcend Movement/by Electra L on September 8, 2015

(caution : A couple of foul words used) Interest philosopy

"In the second episode of our new podcast series, Felix takes you to a bar. I'm not joking... as someone who has spent many hours/weeks/years with Felix in our local beach bar.. this podcast is the perfect rendition of one of his monologues. He starts on a seemingly unrelated topic – his relationship with his father – and somehow ends up in the eye of the transgender storm, dealing with a topic that is extremely difficult to understand: late onset transsexualism."

Interesting idea. I think in my case there was more to it than that. I think in the early part of my life, sexuality and relationships had a higher priority than exploring my need to be female. It was only when those needs had been satisfied that I began figuring out what was going on with my gender.

I am trying to figure out late transitioners as I was an early one but it seems like there are two types. One type suppresses their feeling until the blow up much like in the recording and the other knows about it all along but lives with it. My roommate was a member of the second class as she cross dressed as a teen but was the class bully, married three times and was just one of the (male) guy. It was only around age 50 that she decided to transition. As an early transition I am stunned but what must have been almost super human control to keep something like that contained so long. I was only able to live with it for 10 years and it almost destroyed me.

Quote from: Dena on September 11, 2015, 04:56:46 PM
I am trying to figure out late transitioners as I was an early one but it seems like there are two types. One type suppresses their feeling until the blow up much like in the recording and the other knows about it all along but lives with it.

Well, I don't fit either type. I honestly didn't know that my feelings meant I was trans or that I had the option to transition. I accepted myself completely, trans feelings and all, which might have been a reason why I could live with it.

This theory doesn't allow for people like me. I've known I was trans since I was 12, it just wasn't until I was 35 that I realised that there was a workable solution to my issue - once I did, I started my transition and didn't look back.

I was a late transitioner - my transition started when I was in my mid-40s.

Before that I always knew that I was different and that I did not fit in well with the guys, but I didn't play with dolls or dress up or anything. I just drank myself silly until I stated to unravel my ball of yarn in my mid-40s.

My thought then was something like "Ohhhhhhh..... THATs what it is - i'm a girl!" 

I don't know if it counts as late but I've known since I was 11. I'm 27 and I've only just recently built up the resolve to do anything about it.

It may be because society seems to have become more comfortable around the LGBT community recently - though considerably less the T of that LGBT. Back when I was in school politicians were still pretty vocal about how marriage should just be between a man and a woman, gays couldn't openly serve in the military, and "->-bleeped-<-got" was a pretty darn popular swear word, along with "gay" - which was used for just about everything. "That's gay" practically equated to anything that was dumb. Society is a lot more politically correct now, and a lot more accepting. It's definitely not there yet for the trans community to where it is for the gay community, but it's a lot better than it was 10 years ago... that's for sure.

I knew when I was 4 , but I was just so afraid to acknowledge it to anyone . I needed help, but I was too embarrassed to say I was trans. If the path was shown to me when I first encounter psychiatry at 20 years old I would of jumped at it. I denied it to the world  all my life and I suffered for it. I don't know what the answer is. I was just too afraid to admit it.

   FEAR!!!  I knew early on I was different . Then as I grew older and had a better grasp on things, I basically thought I was a pervert with really weird thoughts.Then came hiding everything for fear of being outed and losing everything I had worked for. I made it to 63 before the catastrophic melt down and finding that I was not alone in my feelings. I am a woman and have always been one there is no doubt about it. In about 75 days I will have GCS which is just two weeks before my two year hrt mark. Will GCS make me a woman  ? no it will not, because I have always been one in my heart,soul and mind. It will just make me complete and everything will match as it should, the fear is gone replaced by true bliss,inner peace and happiness. Life is beautiful.   Patty

Suppression and denial. Fear of looking too closely at oneself because of what you might find, especially in less progressive locales.

For me I had so much other stuff going on during my childhood and puberty that I never put 2 and 2 together. It just got buried under so much other stuff. Before that I didn't have any frame of reference. I had the physical evidence and everybody told me I was a boy, so I rolled with it.

Getting ma'am'd at gas stations as a kid? That's weird! Oh well.
Being told I run like a girl in third grade? That's weird too, and at this point it's causing problems. I better try and act more male-like.
And from that point on that became my defense mechanism. The more I got picked on, the worse things that happened to me the more I tried to man up.

But there was always this huge part of me that I just didn't understand and was deathly afraid to look at very closely. Then when my life had been sufficiently calm for long enough I started pulling at threads until the whole thing unraveled. That process took about a year of self-exploration that was a really scary thing to do. It feels like I could've gone my entire life and never figured it out completely. And if it wasn't for the internet I'm still not sure I would've put the last few pieces of the puzzle together. I was practically being beaten over the head with the fact I'm trans and just still wasn't getting it.

Being completely jealous of a girl who transitioned young and gets to spend her life as a girl now? Not trans. Admitting to my gf I'd really like to be a chick? Still not trans. Then I saw a video of a girl that transitioned at 30 and somehow more things clicked and I was like "Wait, you can do that?!". Then I came here and read story after story of people feeling things and experiencing things that seemed straight out of my own life, and finally asked myself if I'm trans. A very ah-ha! moment.

So basically the internet made me trans. Thanks internet!

Seems like a pretty good explanation but missing something. Maybe it's just from the subjective perspective of my life.

I am not as burly as Barry the Builder, nor as powerful and potentially type A as Julia Ceasar. However, I did not even allow myself to think of myself as a cross dresser or  transsexual. I am 50, with three kids and married for 25 years. I only either put it together in the past 6-7 months or denied it strongly enough that I don't feel I realized the possibility till now.

Yes, I too was experimenting and confused pretty early on(secretly borrowing my Mom and sister's garments as well as many other fairly typical behavior found among young transsexuals).  However, as Felix mentions, society and family did have a hand in telling me I was male and here is how to act. Just follow those orders and it will all work out.

I do think it is a matter of shame and two other things. Both may be sub categories, not sure. Guilt and fear are the other two things that kept this all locked away for me. Yes, I knew I was different. Yes, I did dress in female clothing for myself(not always fully and only in private). I did have many clothing purges. However, I would not have concluded I was transsexual. I always assumed I was just a pervert.

I did not have a loss of shame. I just finally got into depression, anxiety and self loathing enough that I finally decided I needed help from a therapist. Before going, I was trying to figure what was triggering all of this. I was horrified as I started to believe I was a cross dresser(no offense intended to anyone). I hoped to go and get this "demon exorcised". However, I kept delving and researching both within and on the internet. I found two things that seemed true.

1-It never goes away. Cross dressers are never able to get rid of the feeling, just find ways to cope.
2-I did not fit the profile of a cross dresser. I do not want to go back to male clothing and persona(and I still have not publicly dressed or presented); dressing can be exciting and as a kid may have been some motivation but there was also a rightness to it; don't like the male qualities of myself physically or mentally...guess I could keep going but suffice it to say this seemed true.

So, between searching outside and inside myself as well as working with a therapist, this is where I ended up after 50 years.

Joanna

In my case, I didn't have resources and society and culture locks you in the closet. It could have even got you beaten and killed. There was only one out trans woman in my country in the late 90s, and even today she is attacked heavily both verbally and even physically. But she had parental support and her family is well off (monetarily). I also wanted to fulfill life expectations and have a family. If I was born today and grew up in the US, I most certainly would have transitioned as a kid.

What does identify mean?  Is it a self knowledge or is it proactive action?

In my case I knew exactly what I was since I was 11.  Before that I felt different than everyone else and thought I looked different than other boys but didn't have an explanation.

But even though I knew at 11 years old, in 1973, there was nothing I could do about it especially because I  was so caught up in trying to earn my parents' approval.  Added to that was that for all I knew I was the only one in the world.

So it took a long time, 40 years, before life circumstances, knowledge, and ever deepening despair all coincided so that I could move ahead.

To anyone outside my head it might appear as identifying late, but that isn't the case at all.

I expect there are lots of others just like me.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

In my case, I identified late because #1, lack of information and exposure of transgender; #2, I mistook gender identity for sexual orientation, #3, my gender identity is only slightly greater on the male side, and I did not understand gender identity or knew of a gender continuum/spectrum nor did I know the difference between identity versus how we express and interpret our gender;  #4, slow maturity and #5, it has always been difficult for me to recognize things about myself versus other people.  I'm 46 and it took me about 2 months of therapy before realizing that I am transgender and need to transition which I started to do last year in October.  I've lived more than 20 years of my life as this highly feminine female and had gotten lost in the image.  I escaped a lot of the time too through hard work or forms of addiction, mainly through food and weight obsessions.  The transition process has been very stressful for me, but at least knowing the real me brings some happiness.  I have bigger worries at the moment and that is I may never be able to transition fully to my satisfaction due to health and financial setbacks. 

I have to admit that I found the question, "why do transgender people identify so late" to be rather insulting.  How can anyone possibly understand a quality about themselves that has had so little exposure and information that is based on facts rather than myths and stereotypes. 

Miles

     

Quote from: Going4Miles on September 13, 2015, 12:22:06 PM
#3, my gender identity is only slightly greater on the male side, and I did not understand gender identity or knew of a gender continuum/spectrum nor did I know the difference between identity versus how we express and interpret our gender;

I never thought of it that way before being binary but if you could be somewhat comfortable in your birth gender it could delay self discovery. In my case I was very uncomfortable in my birth gender forcing me to explore early.

This came up with my therapist a few months ago. For me, I knew that I felt like I should have been a girl around 6. My father beat me if I ever displayed any feminine characteristics where as my mother though it was cute. Then my mother remarried and we moved away from my father when I was 15 (1985). I still felt afraid to be myself even though my step-father accepted me in any way. Then in college on Gopher (pre internet google) I learned about transgender. However since I've only been attracted to women, the articles I found were for MtF individuals that were attracted to men to basically transition to be a straight woman. The concept of transitioning to become a lesbian seemed such a foreign concept. I then found my outlet in the BDSM community and coming out as kinky helped. Then seeing being gay as being more accepted in our society, the concept of transitioning to become a lesbian didn't seem at taboo anymore. I researched transitioning online again (with Google this time) and talked myself out of it when I came across a website with someone that had trans regret saying things like, you'll lose your jobs, friends, family, etc. After coming out as kinky I became very close friends that had transitioned MtF as a lesbian 2 years before we met and we had a lot in common. Our childhoods were nearly identical it was kind of scary. I realized then that it was possible to transition MtF as a lesbian and keep your job, most of your family, etc. I started to define myself as being gender fluid, then later gender queer (growing my hair long, painting toenails and even dying my hair red.) Finally I accepted that I was transgender and come out started transitioning and never looked back.

My therapist said my story was not that uncommon for MtF Lesbian women. She told be that statistically, trans women attracted to men come out earlier than trans women that are attracted to women.

Quote from: Dena on September 13, 2015, 12:39:09 PM
I never thought of it that way before being binary but if you could be somewhat comfortable in your birth gender it could delay self discovery. In my case I was very uncomfortable in my birth gender forcing me to explore early.

I'm also very uncomfortable in my birth gender and always was, which was the reason I had so much trouble around food and weight.  Still do.  I'm hoping top surgery will help with some of this, but I have wait until next year at the earliest.  I've never been comfortable in my own body, hence the need to escape from it.  I'm beefing up my workouts to help with it and it does somewhat.  However, I still have things I can do nothing about such as the fact I'm only 5'2" with very small hands and feet.   

Quote from: Sydney_NYC on September 13, 2015, 01:11:23 PM
My therapist said my story was not that uncommon for MtF Lesbian women. She told be that statistically, trans women attracted to men come out earlier than trans women that are attracted to women.

This is interesting and yes, I can understand it.  My ex-wife, is a transgender woman who transitioned when she was in her 30s.  Before coming to terms with being transgender, she tried to tough it out as a male and even fought in Vietnam.  She's only been attracted to women.  As for me, I'm a transgender male and have a strong physical attraction to women, but my most meaningful relationships have been with men. 

Can speak for myself... I knew from early age I was a girl. But the violent, horrible environment made me just hide until I didn't fear for my life anymore. Reminder: just during kindergarten my arm was broken, half one of tooth was broken away forever, and I was thrown in sea to drown. Of course I got silent since the elementary school! In the school, one boy ended up in ER for dyeing his hair. Just one of many events. Everyone different was not only bullied but sought to scar for life where I grew up.

I also had the benefit of ignorance. I didn't know what are benefits of hrt, I thought I will just live my life and get operations. Then I got some wonderful people to explain me what hrt is about, not two years ago. And recently I learned hrt is under strict control of forces out of my control.

Oh, let me add to the stats, now I am into men only.

i am very skeptical of any website that still believes that  ->-bleeped-<- is actually relevant. it is all very well to question people for wanting to late transition. but try examining those reasons and then take into account...year...in 1967 when i first worked out that i felt different...there was in the eyes of the public no such thing as Transgender...bit hard to help yourself when you dont even know a name. what about cultural differences, what about those who tried(as i did) to get help when i was 19.......there was no help no one knew what it was where i came from. so i left my Family,friends,career and my life in NZ in search of treatment.

everyone has a different journey...people make assumptions based on what? The age you were finally in a position to find some help? or that it was finally available

Being "judged" by todays extremely enlightened society,with all the services and facilities in place and to then apply them to 40 years ago is just stupid and unhelpful. Those who managed early to get help seem to be few and it is hard to know what the circumstances were in most cases but if you did find someone to help then I would imagine you were extremely fortunate....the only help I had was Booze and drugs.