I've been thinking about this since I answered last night and thought I might add something. There actually is one positive I think that comes out of being trans for me although it's kind of an indirect positive.
My parents told me in so many words that was insane when I was 13. Then very soon after they sent me away to a military school. So I basically left home when I was 13 and although they said they were doing it for the education, at least to me at the time it seemed pretty obvious why their sudden interest in military school. I remained pretty stoic through those months but honestly it hurt a lot and at the time I internalized the blame for the rejection on to myself.
Anyway, the immediate effect on me was to internalize an extreme drive to prove myself to them and probably also to myself. So, I set out at age 13 to prove that I wasn't worthless and insane.
Now, before that I was pretty average and marginally overweight. I sucked horribly at sports (an understatement) and was pretty average in school. I was bullied occasionally and terribly shy to the point of extreme anxiety around new people.
So at age 13 on arriving at a military school 2000 miles from home and being now away from home for the first time, and as it turned out permanently, I set out to reinvent and myself and prove I was worth something. It became an insatiable drive and it worked. When I graduated at age 17 I was valedictorian, class president, three varsity sports letters and MVP on the football team, president of several school organizations, and commander of the junior ROTC. I also got a 100% everything covered scholarship to a pretty exclusive federal college where I went and then later graduated from.
I'm not trying to wave my own flag here but rather to illustrate just how profound a metamorphosis occurred in me almost overnight. And thinking back on it most can be directly traced to being trans because many of those things, especially the sports, I didn't really want to do but felt a drive to do them anyway. My coach told my parents my senior year that I had no real talent but that I simply worked harder and more intently than anybody else. Even the academics were affected because I really hated studying but felt driven to study just hard enough to keep my grades at the top of the class. I even taught myself not to be shy or at least to fake it enough so other people couldn't tell. I had to prove myself in every way I could imagine.
So that's what being trans did to me and I suppose it was a good thing.
The ironic thing is that the trans was there in my mind all along and never even slightly faded although I strongly suspect that getting rid of it was one of my parents' primary motivations. I will say though that when you spend eight years immersed in environments comparible to the military academy of ancient Sparta, nearly 40% of my entire life at the time, that you learn quickly to cope and bury this very deeply so that while it never leaves the conscious mind it is allowed not the slightest expression of any kind. To allow even a hint to escape would have been disaster in that time and place and would have instantly unraveled the intricate web I was weaving. I didn't hate myself because of it nor was I really ashamed in any way. I did however greatly fear the consequences of anybody else knowing.
I'm not sure if I found myself or if I lost myself during that time. Maybe it was a little bit of both. I don't think I will ever know.
