Just curious what the moment was in each of your lives when you realized for the first time that transitioning was the right move to make.

I know from the stories I have read that many of you realized from a young age that you were different, but that's not what I'm talking about. I'm more interested in that moment in your life when that light went off and you realized that transitioning was the answer to a problem you had been searching for a solution to all of your life.

For me it's been an accumulation of experiences over 34 years that has led to this point. It was exactly 1 month ago that I recognized for the first time that my problems have been related to one thing, I'm transgender. It's hard to describe how I came to that conclusion, I just know that I became alert & a light bulb went off for the first time.

Buddhist talk about enlightenment as being that moment in your life when you reach full consciousness. I guess that's how I would describe this experience for me. I became conscious of who I am and all that it entails.

How about for the rest of you?

Hi Adchop,
It begin with me a year ago when a friend begin transition to be transwomam, and while I was talking with her things begin to click. I begin to involve with drag queen community, and slowly I get myself where I am now.

Luanne

Late 20's/early 30's for me...but when I think back I should've known sooner. I was just terribly ignorant regarding being transgender, as many seem to be. One day I started googling how to become a woman, and spent a lot of time researching and just connecting the dots.

For me it was back in the in 70's cross dressing with my sisters and mothers clothes, growing up I knew I was different, I was being bullied, seems like my peers saw through me..  Back then gay and transgender were taboo.  I thought with time my transgender feelings would pass, I spent twenty years in the military and had a good career, now I'm retired and I find there's many of veterans that have or waiting to transition through the VA.  It's been long road for many of us,


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

The realization came to me slowly over the course of five years in my early 40s. My dysphoria was increasing and I began reading books about transgender people. I started to think maybe, just maybe I might be trans, but denied it with all the force I could muster. I passed out at work one day and was taken to the hospital in an ambulance. When my now ex-wife arrived, she looked at me, oxygen tubes up my nose, IV in my arms, EKG leads all over my body and said "See, this is why I don't want you to transition". I honestly hadn't considered it at all by that point, but somehow she knew before I did.

Im with you... it was very recent that it hit me that everything was related to this... I never really knew the whys throughout the years or could made any sense of it... now its like a lightbulb for me as well... it all fits and makes so much sense to me... its also making me care less about what the world thinks.... Im not 100 percent in that yet, but getting closer to the big "too bad this is me" phase... (***sigh*** that was hard to write without using my usual expressive nature )

At the age of 19, I gave into my desire to wear full outfits of womens clothes and I started to feel very comfortable being dressed as a woman, I hated presented as a guy. Also i made a close female friend(who knew my secret) and she treated me like one of the girls.. I liked that and it felt like it was me.

Threapy followed and then HRT..

I was about 8 when I asked my mom if I was supposed to be a girl.  Didn't do anything, But dream, for 45 years.  Now to get going....  I've decided that pretending to be a guy for 45 years has been very tiring. 

Sent from my XT1097 using Tapatalk

being honest for me pretending to be a guy sucked.

It was a slow realization for me. I felt like a girl in my teens and most of my daydreaming put me in the feminine position. What little reading i did on the subject eventually led me to believe i was somewhere on the spectrum. Only in the last 4-5 years did i fully identify as a transgender woman and began the process of adjusting my life and body to match my authentic self.

I certainly rode the fence as presenting as feminine male for many many years. The cost was high but i gained a marriage, family, children etc that i may not have had otherwise.

I will keep this short. In my childhood, I did a lot of feminine hobbies and interests; Sailor Moon, Barbie, girl shows, and secretly my favorite colours probably are pink and yellow (salmon being a love child). While I hide it a lot, it was evident in my very being. I remember wearing wigs and dresses in secret too. I read Cosmopolitan, girlish magazines, listen to Shania Twain-Jewel-Britney-Madonna-Hilary Duff-Ayumi Hamasaki-Sweetbox prior to age 14. Even character in a video game was a girl too.

I don't know what being a man is like exactly.

------

Now to the point when it hit me............

It was a combination of Second Life... Maybe. When I read Memoir of a Geisha (2 years prior to SL), it was the root. I wanted to be a geisha, that was when I was 13-14. Being a fragile beautiful artist was like everything, and then being able to seduce... I became a geisha in SL, and realize you get paid a hell lot more as a virtual dancer, the rest is history. But geisha is still something I feel connected too, and its not slutty but artistic and very feminine. Femininty is like a geisha.

It was also this music video...Dont say Goodbye by Paulina Rubio... at that time I seriously thought I could look as pretty as she did in that video. I wanted to be her.

Hard to say, but there was one moment in life (not online) its a very silly enlightening moment but it was when I was feeling good with how I was dressed and I said to myself "clothes really do make the man" I stopped for a moment thinking I should be changing that one word, but then it clicked and I thought no...I didnt have to, this felt right, I can refer to myself as a man.

My official transition was when I changed my online persona, only my online imaginary character persona, but my friends started rolling with it as if it was me, and so did I. And since then I've been making those changes offline and pursuing those ideas officially

I was a teenager the first time I really thought about my gender.  I started telling people that I didn't feel male. They would always tell me that I was a guy, and depending on the person, they would either chastise me for acting like a girl, or tell me it's ok for a guy to act kind of girly. So I accepted that for a while. Recently, I heard 2 really uninformed men talking about transgender people. They described it like "You just wake up and feel like a girl today" I was furious. That's not what being trans is like at all, that's more like me. Then it clicked. I realized that I really should be honest about being non-binary/->-bleeped-<-/genderqueer/genderfluid/something and people being more informed about all genders and trans* people is helpful.  That's when I came to this site.

I knew I was "different" as young 5 years old. Because I didn't truly understand what was going on with me, I just tried to live as a gay man for most of my life. Most every relationship I was in was unsuccessful because I wasn't living authentically. My gender dysphoria has made it very difficult for me to be sexually comfortable ... a gay man wants to be with a man... I've never been comfortable having a penis and I definitely don't like it being touched by others. Probably TMI. Oh well... I'm on HRT now so hopefully over time things will improve in ALL areas of my life.