There has been a lot in the news items lately it seems about the use of hormone-blockers in preteens teens in order to delay the onset of puberty until they become legal adults. When I first watched the clips about the petite girls who looked indistinguishable from cis-girls, having been spared the effects of T, I was seriously pissed. I was so pissed that I never had the opportunity to have been as lucky. It was one of those knee-jerk reactions I get when I see trans girls and women who are so pretty and many of them haven't even gone on any hormones or had any facial work done. They already just look so nice and I am particularily thinking of Asians when I say this.

But then when I thought about it more I realised that as adults we are the products of our experiences. I do believe that I will be a better woman because I will have already been a man and had to fight to be recognised for who I truly am. It is in the struggles that we undergo true learning. That's not to say that those girls that transition super-early do not have to also fight for who they are. It's just that they must have an extraordinarily supportive familial structure in place to facilitate their early transitions.

Not only do I gain this experience which makes me stronger, I also get a chance at having kids of my own. I get that chance to have a family of my own, something that is not on the table for those girls. What life lessons and what opportunities are those girls losing by transitioning so young? For me I badly want to be seen as female in the world and live my everyday life as a woman, but at the same time I also want to see those cute kids learning to walk and talk and know that they are the continuation of my genetic code, that they are half-me and I will live on through them and their own children.

So, what are your own thoughts on this? If you had the chance would you opt to have transitioned as a (pre)teen?

I personally wouldn't. When I was at that age I was in no way mature enough to make that kind of life decision. If I could go back and be born a girl I would. But for transitioning I needed to truly make sure, heck I am still unsure how far I will go and I am a married father. Lol.

If it were just me and me alone, just would have loved to.  But then my four children would not be born, nor my 11 grandchildren.  Anyone of them may develop a new method for my brothers bottom surgery that is better than what they have now.

Or they could come up with the cure for cancer.  That I could not deprive the world of.

Yes.

Especially given how close it was for me.

I told my mother when I was like 9 years old that I wanted to be a girl, I told her and I insisted on it for probably a few days to a week or so. I told a few of the girls I went to school with (who were surprisingly understanding for school children), I told myself 'i AM a girl' every morning for a while. (bit hard to tell time cause your perspective of time changes when you get older).

Then for some reason I stopped, don't remember why. But if I had known at the time that I could actually continue with it.. maybe things would have been different? who knows.

But we are the products of our experiences, and as a product I am seriously screwed up in the head for my experiences. So yeah, I'd be happy to take that option. Ideally I would have preferred to have just been born a girl.

Quote from: Ashley4214 on September 30, 2010, 06:16:14 PM
Ideally I would have preferred to have just been born a girl.

Quote from: JessicaG on September 30, 2010, 06:10:36 PM
If I could go back and be born a girl I would.

I hear ye. When I go asleep tonight and maybe if I wish real hard.... 

If I would have found the courage to tell my lesbian mother back when I was 12 life would have definatly been diferant for me.

Yes I wish that more than anything but it can't be helped although true I wouldn't be the same person I am today I think I would have been abit better.

I look back at that shy scared kid and myself now and I see that although I certainly have warm feelings inside me, most of my heart is hardened jaded and scarred up from the pain I went through I can't afford to be shy and I've beaten that waryness out of myself to survive.

If this stupid war between me and my body could have been averted
The fact that I have to fight so hard to be the person I am is just sad... I would be much more at ease with myself and much more capable of love today if I didn't have to feel the full force of GID's sting.

Quote from: niamh on September 30, 2010, 06:03:53 PM
There has been a lot in the news items lately it seems about the use of hormone-blockers in preteens teens in order to delay the onset of puberty until they become legal adults. When I first watched the clips about the petite girls who looked indistinguishable from cis-girls, having been spared the effects of T, I was seriously pissed. I was so pissed that I never had the opportunity to have been as lucky. It was one of those knee-jerk reactions I get when I see trans girls and women who are so pretty and many of them haven't even gone on any hormones or had any facial work done. They already just look so nice and I am particularily thinking of Asians when I say this.

But then when I thought about it more I realised that as adults we are the products of our experiences. I do believe that I will be a better woman because I will have already been a man and had to fight to be recognised for who I truly am. It is in the struggles that we undergo true learning. That's not to say that those girls that transition super-early do not have to also fight for who they are. It's just that they must have an extraordinarily supportive familial structure in place to facilitate their early transitions.

Not only do I gain this experience which makes me stronger, I also get a chance at having kids of my own. I get that chance to have a family of my own, something that is not on the table for those girls. What life lessons and what opportunities are those girls losing by transitioning so young? For me I badly want to be seen as female in the world and live my everyday life as a woman, but at the same time I also want to see those cute kids learning to walk and talk and know that they are the continuation of my genetic code, that they are half-me and I will live on through them and their own children.

So, what are your own thoughts on this? If you had the chance would you opt to have transitioned as a (pre)teen?

heh, if i had the choice i would have transitioned in the womb.  I feel i lost a good chunk of my life transitioning at 32.  With the results i got so far, i am really pissed i didnt do it sooner but then again, i didnt even know it was possible growing up / was afraid and assumed TS mean being a cross dresser or something and I never wanted to be seen as a man in a dress.  Seriously though, if i was given the chance, even though i am financially sound now, i wasnt until i transitioned... a lot of the loser status in my life was because I was TS, when that went away my life did a total 180 from loser to winner, i wouldn't mind doing that when i was 13 rather then 32.

I wish I could've just came out as a (pre)teen. I dropped a hint here or there ("what would my name be if I was a girl?" "would you have rather me been a girl?" "can I shave my underarms?") but I was always too scared. Had I been more open at school, I wouldn't have made the horrible choice in friends I did, thereby seeing more reason to stay in the closet.

Quote from: niamh on September 30, 2010, 06:03:53 PM
So, what are your own thoughts on this? If you had the chance would you opt to have transitioned as a (pre)teen?

In a heartbeat but I still don't know if I was fully prepared to handle it then.

Quote from: niamh on September 30, 2010, 06:03:53 PM
Not only do I gain this experience which makes me stronger, I also get a chance at having kids of my own. I get that chance to have a family of my own, something that is not on the table for those girls.

Perhaps it makes me stronger but at what cost? What if I was young enough not to get to have any kids but old enough to have been scarred also just enough to do the trick.

I would much rather have started preteen. I always feel like my entire youth has been stolen from me and I feel like I've been poisoned by my male experiences. I will always be someone who grew up doing the kinds of things that kept me ignorant of so many aspects of a female's world. And yes, I've grown and had many experiences that have made me a better person than I was as a teen, but regardless of gender I still would have grown and I still would have learned lessons. They might not have all been the same kinds of lessons I've learned living as a male, but becoming a better person is just part of growing up and I'd gladly make the trade between my current virtues and those that could have been. I'm a female and I deserve female life lessons.

Hard choice. I if I had transitioned much earlier in my life, say around 11 when I was first... outed, I suppose is the right term, then my life would have gone down a drastically different course. But, I was embarrassed and humiliated, so instead of grasping what was offered to me in those few brief minutes, I pushed away the hand that was reaching out to me. That may have been a mistake at the time, and it changed the course of my life immensely. But those years, with the good and the bad (a lot more bad than good for sure) shaped me into the woman I am today.

I did find some happiness in those years. I learned to about my passion, the piano, and picked up a few extra instruments on the side. And all of those experiences, the anger, the frustration, the disappointments; all helped me come closer to my family than I probably would have ever been in any other circumstance. My family is very dear to me, and I would not want to live in world where I am any less close to them than I am today.

No, I would not choose to transition that much earlier. Perhaps 18-19 would have been perfect, but now I am 25, so I'm not all that late. But ages 10-17'ish were VERY important years of my life.

Without any doubt-YES I would-the sooner the better! Here I am now in my 50's at times wondering why I didn't face this earlier. I could have saved myself and others a great deal of pain.

I was raised in an evangelical christian home and if I said anything about wanting to wear girls clothes I was severely chastized-ok the truth is I got the crap slapped out of me for it. So I learned to avoid the pain. Then I buried it deep because I had a high tolerance for pain and still do. After a while I just didn't care anymore. Fast forward to recent history-now I can't avoid it and don't want to! I am not afraid anymore of the unknown and am in control of my impulses. That is not to say that I don't have times when I struggle but I am content with where I am at the moment. I am not where I want to be but I am slowly getting there. I'm old my time is short and I am somewhat content. I will never be the cute girl I want to be-I don't have the money to get surgery-I will eventually loose my job if I transition (already been told as much). Oh well I can fixate on what I can't change if I want to-or not. I will work on what I can change and just make the most of it and try to be happy, pleasant, and easy to be around. We all need friends or at the very least acquaintances that tolerate our idiosyncracies (spell check?) Yes without a doubt I would.

Randi

Absolutely

No second thoughts

In less than a heartbeat.

Like Janet said

QuoteIf it were just me and me alone, just would have loved to.  But ...

I have 3 children and 4 grandchildren that I dearly love. And I wouldn't trade them for the world.
So the answer is no.
Jillieann

I would absolutely, 100% have done it.

Unlike some of you I don't feel like I lost years of my life by not transitioning. I lived those years, they were valuable and important, and I did some things (military service) I wouldn't have been able to do if I'd transitioned earlier. But if I had transitioned, I would have had a different life, and no reason to think it would have been worse - plenty of reasons to think it would have been better. I'd happily give up the experiences I had pretending to be a woman for the chance to have new experiences as a young man.

Absolutely definitely if I could have transitioned early in life I would have been one of the first in line

Unfortunately everyone was trying to "make a man" out of me 

Yes... unfortunately it would have been financially impossible at that time. So c'est la vie.

There's no benefit I can think of from living a pretend male life that I value over having been born female, or some medical intervention at an early age. Perhaps 14 would have been perfect in that case, it would have given me just enough time living "male" to be able to look back and know how wrong it was, without scarring me for life. Yes, absolutely I would have.

Yeah, if I'd realized it earlier I would have definitely gone for it. If only for the physical effects, kind of sucks being that much shorter than my father etc.

I don't value my female life at all, I didn't do much and I was really insecure. At least growing up as more or less a typical male would let me feel like I didn't really miss out on a childhood/whatever. But the way things worked out is pretty good and so I have little to complain about. Short answer, yes, but it's not a big deal or anything.