Quote from: Deborah on November 04, 2017, 09:38:01 PM
Well, in 20 years I killed exactly zero and protected a whole bunch at some risk to myself.  It was actually the one thing I have ever done that I feel actually made some real difference.  So your snark is unappreciated.

Original comment redacted because it was unnecessary. I don't wish to be argumentative and prefer to take the higher road. Thank you for your service.

QuoteOr perhaps you're speaking from some vast repository of personal experience here?

I assume that's meant to be sarcasm? Fair enough, you're absolutely right.

Quote from: echo7 on November 04, 2017, 10:33:49 PM
I used to have a very low opinion of those who transitioned late in life. Not that I transitioned in my 20s but I also didn't wait until I was 60.

This question may sound off topic, but I'm asking because what echo said actually made me wonder how I fit into this discussion... so what is generally the cut off for early vs late transition? Because I've been feeling like I am in a limbo at 35 on this, as I think of early as pre 25 and late as post 45, and I've seen a few other people in their 30's have similar thoughts.

Quote from: lisaKyou have never walked in our shoes. Likewise, we have never walked in yours and why it is so difficult to imagine the lives you've had.

Heh, I can entirely imagine and I used to project envy on those who knew earlier, and who pass as female. I have enough innate empathy to realize no path is easy and just because one may not be suicidal etc doesn't make it a cakewalk.  Also hope my own bit a few pages back explained how yes it's possible to live with an unacknowledged cognitive dissonance for a very long time. I don't need to put this as pejorative on my parent however she was and sadly remains uniquely ill suited to any sort of empathy or ability to see past her prejudices and personal experience.

I actually have no doubt that simply having that one person able to see me rather than her own required version of a son might we'll have allowed me to follow a timeline more like yours.

However there's little gained crying over spilled milk or blood. I made the best I could of a male body, my daughters are amazing and if I'm not the best parent out there at least I manage to be emotionally supportive. My career was certainly easier as male bodied and I'm satisfied with both what I've done and where I'm going. Getting to this point feels like a miracle, especially considering the collection of sh*theels along the way who've either knowingly or ignorantly sandbagged me along the way. But go read my surgery thread in a little while, maybe 0630 Eastern time (geez, did I just gain or lose an hour?).

I sacked out last night with the light of a beautiful full moon coming in the windows. I have a big old lesbian crush on lisaK now and wish I could give you a kiss and photograph it for my Tumblr.

Quote from: Roll on November 05, 2017, 12:07:24 AM
This question may sound off topic, but I'm asking because what echo said actually made me wonder how I fit into this discussion... so what is generally the cut off for early vs late transition? Because I've been feeling like I am in a limbo at 35 on this, as I think of early as pre 25 and late as post 45, and I've seen a few other people in their 30's have similar thoughts.

I would say the ranges you have in mind are pretty accurate. In speaking of those considered to be trans youth or trans kids, the median age of transition for MTF's is 20 years old, with a range of early puberty to mid 20's.  More than 95% transition full time before the age of 25. I know of several organizations that support trans and other gender expansive youth. They have groups for teens up to 19 and groups for college kids up to 22. Not exactly sure but I've been told the NHS transfers kids from their youth programs to their adult programs at 18 which causes an interruption of services for some.

You've got to consider though when we're talking about teens, transition may not be the before and after, black & white deal like it is with those that are older and well established in their natal gender. As a young boy, I was often misgendered growing up which happened about as far back as I can remember. I began moving beyond androgyny when I was 15 and by the time I was 16, most people that didn't know me thought I already was a girl. With starting HRT before my senior year of high school, by the time I graduated "transition to full time" was practically complete and a non-event with no fanfare or a heck of a lot of difference except for getting my name changed.

It's all kind of relative to your point of view and frame of reference. I was rarely seen as and never accepted as anything close to resembling a "normal" boy especially the older I got which was pretty weird. Those that I find to be most like myself that I relate to the most have never been known as or had lives as men at all so for me, "early" is 18 or younger. Back to it being relative and a matter of perspective though, someone in their 40's or older that transitioned in their 20's is still an early transitioner. The average age for adults that transition is between 35 and 45. I once heard Marci Bowers say in an interview say the average age of her SRS patients was 45.

I wrote this without my glasses on in the middle of the night after getting up because I couldn't sleep. I hope it makes sense?

Quote from: SadieBlake on November 05, 2017, 04:58:47 AM
I have a big old lesbian crush on lisaK now and wish I could give you a kiss and photograph it for my Tumblr.

Wait, what? 

And don't get me started with you clock fiddlers because I can't stand it. I live in Arizona...we don't need no steenkin' time warpers here in the wild west! Now the whole rest of the country is out of whack until like March or something? Grrr!

Quote from: Lisa_K on November 05, 2017, 05:21:12 AM
Wait, what? 

And don't get me started with you clock fiddlers because I can't stand it. I live in Arizona...we don't need no steenkin' time warpers here in the wild west! Now the whole rest of the country is out of whack until like March or something? Grrr!

What? Oh, 'clock' fiddlers.' Excuse my dirty mind.

I transitioned at 58-59. I have my personality and that causes me to do things a certain way. Whatever caused me to be trans and drove me until I transitioned was the cards I was dealt, so to speak. The fact that I grew up  with a Catholic mother, with a father I feared at times, and had two older brothers and two older sisters who I looked up to were  all part of my equation too. I own my path, don't apologize for it. I don't allow myself to lament what could have been. I certainly could, but it would take away from the joy I feel now. There are positives and negatives to the timing of transitioning. I know it had to be ridiculously hard for early transitioners  and I don't discount that. With my path, I had decades of not having an answer, not being a complete person. Decades of running from myself, so much anger and emotional withdrawal. None of this is easy for any of us. My personality is not one that goes toward suicide thankfully. I am a non believer and believe there is no 'after.' Besides, I figured it could always get better. It is silly to think of suicide as any sort of test of trans severity. Silly to judge each other for how to cope with our own set of circumstances.
I only hope this post doesn't reignite Echo's low opinion of late transitioners. lol   I especially liked the last paragraph.
                                                                                                                                                                   

Quote from: echo7 on November 04, 2017, 10:33:49 PM
I used to have a very low opinion of those who transitioned late in life. Not that I transitioned in my 20s but I also didn't wait until I was 60.

But in the years since I began my transition, I have personally met and befriended some amazing late transitioners who I am happy to consider my good friends.  It is easy to focus on our differences, some of which I can't comprehend, but our shared experiences, thoughtful discussions, and countless hours of face-to-face time spent together has enriched my life greatly.

When you do life together, in person, with others who are different from you, you learn to celebrate your differences instead of coldly analyzing them as you would on an anonymous Internet forum.  Understanding is not necessarily a prerequisite to love and friendship.

I, too, take a dim view of late transitioners. The medical community really needs to put limits on what age you can undertake transition. I say if you're over 120, stay in your rocking chair. 

Hugs, Devlyn

Devlyn, I took you for a clock fiddler, not an 'age discriminater.'
Moni

Clock fiddler is offensive. I prefer the politically correct (and more awesome) term "time traveler".

Quote from: Roll on November 05, 2017, 02:11:40 PM
Clock fiddler is offensive. I prefer the politically correct (and more awesome) term "time traveler".

Tempus Fudgeit.

btw, love the new avatar!

Quote from: MaryT on November 04, 2017, 09:54:22 AM
Like I said, I admire your courage and determination.  However, can't you see the contradiction in trans people displaying such courage and yet saying that they would definitely have killed themselves if they couldn't have transitioned in childhood.

And, although no offence may have been intended, the "great question" can be rephrased as
"Why haven't you people killed yourselves?  I would rather be dead than like you."

Surely you realise how insensitive that seems. 

You.know. Maybe it is just me but it seems to me that it is your that are intentionally missed construing a simple question. The "question", as has been clearly understood and examined, is how people who obstensibly knew they were "trans" or something other than their sex assigned at birth, did nothing to rectify that prior to fathering children while others did everything possible to change what had to be changed.
The answer might just be a matter of dumb luck or maybe a matter of will or desire.
Derailing the question or essentially maligning it be completely changing it by rewarding it as you have seems both devisive and somewhat morbid.

Quote from: Complete on November 09, 2017, 04:17:07 PM
You.know. Maybe it is just me but it seems to me that it is your that are intentionally missed construing a simple question. The "question", as has been clearly understood and examined, is how people who obstensibly knew they were "trans" or something other than their sex assigned at birth, did nothing to rectify that prior to fathering children while others did everything possible to change what had to be changed.
The answer might just be a matter of dumb luck or maybe a matter of will or desire.
Derailing the question or essentially maligning it be completely changing it by rewarding it as you have seems both devisive and somewhat morbid.

Whatever Lisa's intention, "matter of life and death", "I would have killed myself" and "I would have rather died" is an awful lot of death for a question that is NOT asking why people who did not transition in childhood chose not to die:

Quote from: Complete on November 01, 2017, 09:15:21 PM
"I don't quite understand it or what makes some of us so different that this becomes a matter of life and death as children and adolescents and isn't something that can be ignored or repressed regardless of how much parents or society try. I know for sure without the support of my folks and being allowed to do the things I did, I can say with certainty that I would have killed myself because all of this was so absolutely fundamental to my very existence, I would have rather died than to have ever grown up to be a man." ~LisaK

Well...maybe for LisaK it was "a matter of life or death". I know it was for me. Nevertheless,  that need not be what  It is for YOU, or for others.
It just is what it is. Maybe that is what makes us different. Maybe that is why there are so few of those like LisaK and myself around.

Quote from: Complete on November 09, 2017, 04:43:41 PM
Well...maybe for LisaK it was "a matter of life or death". I know it was for me. Nevertheless,  that need not be what  It is for YOU, or for others.
It just is what it is. Maybe that is what makes us different. Maybe that is why there are so few of those like LisaK and myself around.

That's fine.  I've said what I think.  Unless someone asks me a specific question, as your previous post did, I will not post anything else on this topic, because as I mentioned earlier, I find it "too stimulating".

THIS POST CONTAINS REFERENCES (THOUGH VAGUEISH) TO HARDSHIP I SUFFERED - IT COULD TRIGGER YOU

I dont blame you or anyone else and no one can define me or validate me but me. I could take OP as hurtful or read things between the lines, but I dont and it wouldnt matter anyway.

Truth is. I was always meek and quiet and small back then. Heh, I used to be such a sweet, sweet thing... It's just who i was born as. I wasnt as strong. Thats ok...

But... so you understand...

This is hard, ok?

I'm that cartoon of the gray man walking to work day in and out... a zombie. i love my wife, i love my daughter.... but everything it took to get here, every other piece of this life has been utter hell.

Why then didnt I do anything at a younger age?

By 2nd grade I literally hated myself. It took two school psychologists 3 years to convince me I shouldnt just die. Everyone hated me except my mother, even my father, though not because of my femininity.. or.. I dont think. He doesnt talk to me.

By 5th grade i had unconsciously decided to kill everything about me that didnt fit, so i could just "make it" through school. So thats what i did. I fabricated an entire life and persona, and I lived it to survive. I didnt realize that doing so would do damage. Take away things I really needed, until 20 some years later i finally woke up when it was perceivably "safe" and here I am.

I didnt fabricate that persona over night, and it wasnt always effective. I siffered until early high school when I was at least allowed to mostly fall into obscurity thanks to the "camoflauge" and a school district change


As life went on it just got worse. There wasnt even internet and frankly it never really stopped.

Where I live is maybe arguably one of the most dangerous places in this country anyway to be anything but normal. From the very get go i was spit on, kicked, beaten, pushed down, punched and generally abused for how feminine I was. I was called every terrible slur and name you can think of. They said things to me you cant even fathom in ways that made me feel like they might attack me, sometimes even sexually, even as they derided me with utter contempt.

I avoided them all as best I could, but... it was everyday. I was regularly beat up.

i was just a child. I didnt understand. There was no internet. No one like me. I didnt even know where to look, and if you looked, you could get caught. There was no time to explore it really. I couldnt conciously spend time on it and bloom, that would have been suicide.

So i lied. I lied to myself and to everyone and I pretended to be a man and I shoved myself way, way, way down in a black pit because I wasnt sure I was gonna live through it. I would give anything now, to go back. ANYTHING. I would run away on the trains that run through here and live on the streets in california if thats what it would take, but I cant... theres no going back...

I did the best I could. If you think i dont have horrible anger and pain and contempt for what i allowed to happen to myself, for my own blood on my hands, as I ripped parts of myself off and smothered them with the acceptable lies that would get me by in one piece... you are wrong. One of my biggest struggles is even trusting myself.

I'm sorry if this offends anyone, but its what happened. I can only speak for me, and anyone who met a similar destiny.

Theres light now, I can see light at the end of the tunnel. All of that was long ago, i just satayed in the costume for too long out of fear. It's my own fault, but I'm free now. Now, i can use what time I have left and maybe I can bloom... 

  Be careful with your posting. This conversation is boarding on a violation of TOS 10 and the thread may still be cleaned up. ->-bleeped-<- isn't expressed in the same way or even with the same timing in everybody. It's possible to know at 3 years of age or not know until you 60s. Learn from other people experiences and realize how diverse we are.

10. Bashing or flaming of an individual or group is not acceptable behavior on this website and will not be tolerated in the slightest for any reason.  This includes but is not limited to:

• Advocating the separation or exclusion of one or more group from under the Transgender umbrella term. The same restriction applies to advocating the removal of the T from GLBT.
• Suggesting or claiming that one segment or sub-segment of our community is more or less legitimate, deserving, or real than any others.
• Suggesting that Trans people are not really men (FTM) or women (MTF).
  
• Posting any messages that engages in personal attacks and/or is actively or passively aggressive no matter the provocation.

     This is being locked For clean up as it has descended into repugnant insults to people who were not fortunate enough to transition when they were young.