I would like to know anyone here (which should be more than a few of you  ) who had to repress their gender expression / desires / identity throughout their life, how did you do so, if it led to real confusion about yourself and how (and how severe it may have been), and if already transitioning or transitioned, the effort you had to do to reverse / unwind the effects of long term repression.  Thanks.

Think there will be quite a number of us.

I'll try a start.

I just bit my lip, decided that life is crap, put up with being the but of everyone's humour and frustration so I could earn a living and kept myself to myself as much as I can.

I can't say I've been confused about myself. I know who I am. I just needed to pretend to be someone else.

I am not an expert in psychology, but I don't think there is any unwinding or reversal.  We are what we are. We are a product of all our life experiences.  For some of us that meant growing up thinking we were never good enough to be our mother's daughter. That feeling can carry over into other aspects of your lfe. I chose bad relationships, bad employment situations and eschewing social contact because I believed I wasn't a daughter my mother could love or be proud of. I cannot undue those years. I can make decisions going fotward. But I cannot snap my fingers and undo what has been done.

I have habits that were reinforced as feminine that I have to unlearn. I am sure there are others.

I've always had to, I still have to. It sucks, and it's hard, so hard. But hopefully... once I can move out I can become more me, though it's hard too. Having to unlearn behaviours, learning to be me. But I think most of all I need to learn that it's OKAY to be me. That it doesn't matter what other people think even though I've spent 25 years making everyone else but myself happy.

I was just writing about this in an email to my life coach (I am SO lucky to have her...).  I'm 54, which means I grew up as a kid in the 60's, and we were a Midwestern American family, by God, and there wan't no room for no funny bizniz.  Dad was a very matter-of-fact Company Man, and was mostly absent.  Mom was mostly afraid of him, and very concerned about appearances.  So... when I became aware of myself, I knew right away this was NOT OK.  As I progressed into my teen years, I was seriously questioning, trying to figure it out, but I could not let myself see what was there in front of me.  And I could not get any help, if I had asked my parents to hook me up with a therapist, I'd have had to explain why, and that would NOT have gone over.  As it was, I did poorly in school, despite being very intelligent, and my parents were very disappointed I was not "living up to my potential".  Fell in love (with a woman) at 20, got married at 23, didn't have myself figured out at all.  Attempted suicide at 25.  Told the wife about the dysphoria, but minimized it and moved on.  We had 3 kids, and we've been married 31 years now.  And I have been in DEEP denial for most of those 31 years (after the suicide attempt).

I know I've been in denial, because I recently went through a period of soul-searching and self-discovery to try to uncover why my marriage wasn't working, and "surprise"... discovered that the dysphoria had NOT been dealt with as I thought it had.  And now, I find I am re-experiencing it in full.  And it sucks.  It is painful.  Just a constant psychic pain, and major uncomfortableness with myself. 

I came out to the wife last week, and she is (so far) very supportive.  I will be seeing my doctor this week and asking for a referral to a gender identity clinic nearby for formal assessment.  My wife knows this, and understands my plan.  She has said that "no matter what", she wants us to stay together.  I have reassured her I have no plans for leaving.  Anyway, the two of us have some very serious discussions we need to have soon, and I hope she can continue to be supportive as she has been.

But the repression hangover... yeah... that's a b!tch...

I repressed myself through most of my childhood. I was raised in a heavily republican and Christian family. They never informed me of anything in the world, just that Democrats were "disgusting baby-killers" and that I would grow up to be a fine republican. I never knew that people could be gay, bisexual, or transgendered. All I knew was what I was exposed to. When I grew up feeling like a boy but being a girl, I thought I was a complete freak. I knew the differences between boys and girls, and though I felt that I was a boy, I took up acting. I learned what little girls liked and how they behaved, so I started pretending to be just like a little girl because I was scared of being different.
When I started going through puberty, the differences between boys and girls got to be too different for me to even want to pretend to be a girl anymore. I gave up on it.
A long while after coming out as trans, I started dating a guy who claimed to be bisexual, and therefore perfectly okay with my being a female-bodied-man. Except he would also tell me that if I had been born a man, he would never have fallen in love with me and he couldn't love me if I transitioned. He was also extremely terrified about his parents finding out about my sexuality and gender identity, so I was forbidden to talk about women and was not allowed to present as a man. And when we talked to his friends, both RL and online, I was not allowed to correct them when they referred to me as a woman. His repression ended up being one of the reasons I dumped him.

i do , till this very moment , and i think it had a major effect in forming my personality , and yes i've been confused for a while , and no i don't know how to undo the permanent effects , but if it doesn't bother me why would i , and if it does , i guess i'll just ..um...stop it?