Hi there
I already posted a few times on a few topics, but will just do a 'hello' in here too. I don't necessarily want to explain my whole life history, but I'm a trans woman in my 40s who wants to finally get on with transitioning, after spending my life on and off experimenting with different ways of dealing with the fact that I'm assigned male but identify much more with women, don't like being treated as a man in any of the areas of my life, generally have always tended to like traditionally feminine aspects of gender expression/presentation and hobbies and would also rather have a female body (and so have always felt a bit confused and repressed and blocked in my self-expression, relationships etc due to this).
I have had phases of trying to see if just occasionally cross-dressing was the solution for me, or trying to present myself in subtly more androgynous ways, and I also veered around in how I identified, from thinking I might just be a cross-dresser, to identifying as non-binary/androgyne or genderfluid etc. At various points I felt scared about the implications of difficulties that would be involved if I admitted I might be 'transsexual'.
Part of the problem about taking this decision to move on with a MTF transition has been a life that's been rather up and down and in some ways lacking a lot of security and stability, another part is practical things like having had a lot of body hair or losing it on my head... (I've partially solved the body hair issue now, and am looking into options for the head hair) but I think also part of the problem has been an unrealistic idea of what it takes to be a trans woman, that you have to have terrible dysphoria and be completely suicidal about it, or you have to be sure you'll pass perfectly at all times and not only that but look young and beautiful, or that your voice has to be really feminine, or that you have to feel 100% girly and feminine all the time (early on in my life I even thought that the fact I had attractions to women meant I wasn't one... doh.. and in fact it turned out I'm bi anyway in my orientation, thought I don't like being treated like either a gay or straight man) ...
In reality I think actually I'm quite feminine enough to hope to fit in as a normal enough woman, whatever 'normal' is, and my gender identity is definitely woman 'enough' for it to make sense for me to commit to it and not to stay in a gender role that doesn't suit me.
I think some of the issues are also just part of the unreasonably expectations society places on any women, for that matter, and not all cis woman look like Barbies or necessarily act and feel super feminine all the time.
Also, most of my life I feel like I've been slightly a spectator in my life and have spent a lot of time in my own thoughts, and much of my time if not seriously depressed (which has happened sometimes, generally due to specific life events) then in a kind of mild ongoing depression/anxiety, with a tendency to worry about things and over-analyse.
I feel/hope that transitioning might bring out a bit more happy and spontaneous person who might be there... Anyway, I'm curious to find out what it brings in all kinds of ways, if, as I intend now, I do start on hormones and look to transition socially over the next year. It won't be boring anyway I guess
Anyway, thanks for the kind and helpful comments I already had on other threads.
Liv :-)
