I completely understand the notion of a second adolescence and effectively being a considerably younger woman than you were a man... I've been on HRT for 5 years and sometimes feel like I think like a much younger person. People that are close to me have noticed, too...
I, too, feel that T had a profoundly negative effect on my state of mind from my "first" adolescence to when I started HRT. Like Izumi mentioned, stopping T was like lifting a veil that had been over me for 37 years... I was amazed at the clarity of thought... it's hard to articulate but everything just seemed "right."
When I first realized what I was, I had never even heard the word, "transsexual." I thought there was something seriously wrong with me. I decided, back then, to be the best guy I could be. I lived my life through a mask... my male identity, and tried to be what everyone else expected me to be. Looking back, the more I tried to push "the girl" away and "man-up," the worse my ability to cope with reality became. Trying to deny my gender identity, over time, almost drove me to suicide. I think, before transition, that we're largely unaware of how much damage we do to ourselves by denying our own existence. "I should have done this YEARS ago," is a phrase I've heard lots of Transsexuals use.
Quote from: lilacwoman on August 01, 2010, 12:37:06 AM
the problem TS have is that until we get out of the closet and are a year or two down the hormones path we don't realise how much we can change.
The before and after thread shows the dramatic physical chanegs that can happen but mainly I see those happy smiling people are women not guys or gays...I doubt if guys could smile so naturally for the camera.
Thats the difference between true TS and all the other wannabes.
To find an appropriate role model you need to look for women 10-15 years younger than yourself and see how they are living and socialising as if you really are a woman trapped in a man's body the estrogen will let that woman come out but she will be a lot younger than you are.
If I could elaborate on what Lilacwoman stated,...
The bottom line is that women, when given the chance to live their lives as women, will be obviously happy with their gender role, regardless of how they look in a picture. There are some that consider themselves part of the transgendered community that still consider themselves men but like the lifestyle, the attention and /or the feeling they get while "en femme." Someone who isn't truly transsexual would not be happy to live full time, take hormones, have GRS, etc.. I think that the outsiders' culture links the T too closely to the GLB and makes some young transsexuals wonder, at first, if they're gay.... I know I did when I realized I was attracted to boys and it seriously confused me.
