Hi everyone,

i'm a young muscular 23 year old man and i've been struggling since my coming out a few weeks ago to my girlfriend, she's totaly understanding of the situation and will help me go through anything, however i'm still wondering if i'm ready to say goodbye to my man's side.

i've had dysphoria since my youngest age (like 4 years old), but i grew in a conservative environment and had kept it for myself since then.

i've grown as a man i'm proud of, got good muscles, beard, planned my entire future of me being a man. Though i'd have kids with my girlfriend of 4 years now as a father, but the dysphoria kicked in not so long ago and now makes me wonder which direction i should go.

i don't want to give up on that life, and i want to make the life's decision as soon as possible (due to the changes of young age HRT)

still i'm not afraid of my measurments : 36-35-37 (alot of upper body muscles but no fat on legs, so my ribs may shrink a little and my waist aswell, my hips could only grow bigger.) I also have good genetics in my family.

the fact is that i can easily see myself as a woman in the next 10/15 year, but not further. I can only imagine myself as an old happy man.


I'd like the point of view of some MTF that gave up their manliness to live their feminity (that were actually happy as a man)

Thank you.

I never liked my 'man' he was a facade so as soon as I started HRT I was happy to leave him behind. I miss the strength that came with it, but that's all.

If you'd asked me ten years ago, I'd have said I was happy as a man.  I'd have been lying. 

I thought I was okay with who I was because it was all I knew.  I wouldn't have told you about the cross-dressing, or how many purge cycles I had been through.  I wouldn't have told you about wishing I was a woman, wishing I was a girl from as young as 7 years old.  I wouldn't have told you about never fitting in, or about always wondering about the book of "guy rules" that everyone but me seemed to know about.

When I set all that stuff aside, and ignored it, as I did most of the time, I thought I was happy as a man.

Once my denial finally broke and I realized that I had gender dysphoria and that I had to do something about it, moving forward became easy.  I thought about how my life would be, knowing what I knew, going forward into old age as a man.   The horror of that vision, thinking about what that gray future would be like, always wishing I could be myself but never able to achieve it, made it easy to say goodbye to my male side.

Full time for a year and I'm just now accepting that I finally transitioned.  At 55 it's surreal that my physical male self is disappearing (maybe past tense).  The male in me is fading and the female in me is blossoming.  It took and is taking a long time for the old me to feel comfortable releasing totally and allowing me to be female. 

I'm kinda okay with that as my old self has seen me through a lot.

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I was a sad excuse of a boy so I never really had a boy side to say goodbye to.

When I first started to transition, I kind of assumed I would take hormones and still mostly dress in men's clothing and be mostly the same person. As the transition marched on, I would notice little things i was doing, things I had always done that I didn't like very much. Once I recognized it, I would let the behavior go, for I no longer needed the behavior to mask my true self. I said goodbye in degrees. As thing progressed, as was happy to let the different pieces go.

Are you seeing a gender therapist?

I started transitioning at 53.  I lived ~30 years as an adult man before that—and an entire childhood as an unintentionally androgynous kid who got picked on a lot.

From an intellectual standpoint, I liked being a guy.  I liked the trappings of manhood, suits, ties, big watches.  I rode racing bicycles and drove exotic cars on the race track.  I made a lot of money, had two beautiful wives (still married to the second one).

I dealt with the dysphoria by procrastinating, promising the girl inside, "someday."

Someday ran out when my best friend died suddenly from a heart attack when I was 42.  Still I was in denial about my "feminine side" being anything more than a fetish.

I fought myself for 10 years, suffered chest pains, irregular heartbeats, high blood pressure, panic attacks.  The girl inside knew the clock was running out, and she was furious.  The one adversary I could not defeat was me.  I had to stop fighting her and learn to love her—me, and not see her as the cause of bullying, pain and embarrassment.

And when I first saw her—me! In the mirror, I fell in love—and for the first time in my life I felt self love.

It's bittersweet seeing the last of "him."  Like the last day of playing a movie character you've spent your life playing.  But at the end of the day, being him was a job.  Sometimes it was fun and sometimes I liked it, such as being a dad, but in later years the job of being him nearly killed me.

Still and all, the only way to be healthy was to realize I was never him.  He was a character I created and played that came with a lot of perks.

I've experienced nothing but happiness since stepping out from behind the mask.  For me, coming out was a lot of high fives and congratulations.  In terms of "him" I had a great run, but it's time to retire his jersey and hang it from the rafters and let him enjoy retirement—living in my memory, driving a Camaro with the T roofs off down along a sunny beach somewhere and looking at the pretty girls.

I'm beginning my medical transition three months ago, and I never been happier than right now. If I don't do this I probably will live miserable like last 57 years.

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Quote from: Initama on March 08, 2018, 09:38:18 AM
i've had dysphoria since my youngest age (like 4 years old), but i grew in a conservative environment and had kept it for myself since then.

i've grown as a man i'm proud of, got good muscles, beard, planned my entire future of me being a man. Though i'd have kids with my girlfriend of 4 years now as a father, but the dysphoria kicked in not so long ago and now makes me wonder which direction i should go.

i don't want to give up on that life, and i want to make the life's decision as soon as possible (due to the changes of young age HRT)

I'd like the point of view of some MTF that gave up their manliness to live their feminity (that were actually happy as a man)

In the interest of full disclosure, I had no clue I was trans until I was 59.

I hear there are various degrees of gender fluidity; perhaps that applies to you. On the other hand, it seems to me that, if we start with the premise that living as who we are is impossible -- as you may have, in a conservative environment -- then, if we're able, or if fortune favors us, we make do. We accept that the status quo, gender-wise, is the best we can hope for, and we adjust our expectations accordingly. If we are positive people, we can learn to take pride in our achievements -- even if those achievements are male, and we're really female.

If I had never known who I was -- and that could easily have happened, in my case -- I could have finished out my time on this rock living half a life and never dreaming anything more was possible for me. I wasn't suicidal; heck, I didn't even know gender was an issue for me. But I wasn't happy. I got by. Sure, I took pride in this or that accomplishment -- one of which was learning how to get by as a stereotypical male in certain situations ("faking it"), though it was never my natural bent. But it's not the same thing. It's what basically positive people do in bad situations: make the best of them.

If you're trans, the fullest, deepest, most wonderful expression of who you are lies elsewhere. The male milestones you have achieved are not without value; but it's the achievement that has the value, not the things themselves.

When we have spent ourselves pursuing things that we once thought meaningful, then discover something else has more value on a whole different level, there is no shame in abandoning the former for the latter. After all, it's the discipline and achievement that are meaningful, not the trophy.

I'm not a Christian; but there are a couple of examples from Christian tradition that are on point.

One is the parable of the "pearl of great price," in Matthew 13:45-46.

The other is a story about St. Thomas Aquinas. Aquinas was a Catholic phenomenon, one of the greatest thinkers in the history of Catholicism. He lived about eight centuries ago, and I believe his "Summa Theologica" is highly respected to this day. If there were a list of the most insightful, most intelligent theologians in the history of Christianity, he would be on it.

After Aquinas had written all that he had written, all his great thoughts and insights, things other people would have given their eye-teeth to see, he had what is popularly called a "mystical experience," after which, he commented, "All I have written is straw." He never wrote again.

Once we see the truth, about ourselves, or anything else, nothing else will satisfy. My advice? If you're trans -- and only you can say -- cast aside those things you once thought valuable, and embrace the woman you are. You'll be happier, and your life will have meaning. Those other things are ... straw.