I have recently come to terms with the idea that I am not a woman in a mans body, but simply a very confused guy. I think the chances that I had a birth defect or something that caused me to have a female mind in a male body... those are really low. More likely, than not, I think I am both jealous of woman and the things they can do and say, and I feel guilty for being a man, seeing as how woman have been oppressed by men since the beginning of civilization.

Even so, I cannot shake these thoughts. I cannot shake the desire to be female. Is it possible for me to? I'm going to end up ruining my life and being cast away from my family and friends if I can't.. There has to be some way. 

Not as far as I know.

But what you're saying seems reasonable to me. Not how everyone choose to deal with it, but if it suits you then fine.

How do you intend to express yourself?

Quote from: spacial on February 08, 2012, 02:09:13 PM
Not as far as I know.

But what you're saying seems reasonable to me. Not how everyone choose to deal with it, but if it suits you then fine.

How do you intend to express yourself?

Express myself? I don't know what you mean.

When you find the answer to this, please let me be one of the first people to know. I would like to be in the front line please

It's perfectly okay to question yourself and your thoughts and to try and consider what the future may hold one way or another.

To answer the question on your subject line "how can I stop being transgender?" ..... honestly, you can't! If you are transgender, then you can somewhat suppress the thoughts and desires to be the opposite gender you were born for awhile (you say you can't shake the thoughts or desire to be female), but the feelings and thoughts will never completely go away and tend to only get stronger and more prevalent as you grow older. If you are simply confused, then the chances are the feelings and thoughts will go away over time. The only way to get a definitive answer and to truely know is to find a certified "gender" psychologist or therapist and go through a few therapy sessions (notice I didn't say just one). You'll need to completely open yourself up and be honest in order to get the right diagonsis.

Being transgender is very difficult and will mostly be one of the hardest things you'll ever have to deal with in your life. Be certain about who you are and what gender you are. If, after proper therapy, you are diagonsed as being transgender, then the eventual coming out is something you'll need to consider and the possible loss of family, friends, and more is a realistic possiblity. However, with proper therapy sessions, a lot of individual research, some well pointed questions and listening to advice given on Susans by many of the valued members, transition is something you can get through and still maintain some assemblance of your family, friends & everything else important to you. It takes a lot of work, planning & preparing, and being very confident in yourself.

the implications of this question bother me.  i understand the desire to 'normalise', but being transgender isn't a choice.  neither is it a birth defect.  it sounds like you're feeling conflicted about making some major life decisions.  being stuck between dealing with these kinds of feelings or taking a life-changing step is a difficult place to be.  for a long time i didn't think i was going to transition.  it took me years to get to the point i realised i had to go forward with it.  that choice was based on what i needed to do for me, not how my family would react.  it is confusing, but as jennifer said, a therapist can help you decide what is best for you.  remember that talking to a gender therapist in no way means you have to commit to a transition; some people do change their mind about taking that path after talking about it or even after a period of RLE. 

I really understand your point schism and it was my first reaction. But as JenniferR and Beverly point out, you can't stop being what you are.

I suggested that Trixie finds ways to express who she feels she is.

It's a point that is either obvious or isn't.

How do you express feelings to others, without words?

Do you express yourself to please others or to say to others, this is who I am?

If you feel emotional, do you suppress it to be tough or express it?

For me, personally, being transgender has never been about clothing as such. It's about who and what I am. It's about what makes me unique as all others are. I would dearly have loved to rid myself of the ugly bit, but accept that isn't going to happen so I attempt to live with what I have.

Does that make it any clearer?

A belief is only a thought you keep thinking.  For many years you have spent a large part of every day thinking about being a transsexual/transgender person.   This has created a huge amount of psychological energy which served further to strengthen and embolden the belief that you were a woman.   If you want to stop being a ts/tg then you will have to dis-empower all those thoughts about being female that are currently circling in your subconscious.   Every thought you have ever thought still exist in your subconscious mind and every time you think about certain things you strengthen the connection with that thought and others of a similar nature.  This makes it easier and easier to recall these thoughts and attract thoughts of a similar nature thus strengthening a belief over time. 

To weaken a belief with a view to eventually getting rid of it completely you must become vigilant, committed and disciplined.  Every time you become aware that you are thinking thoughts related to gender, gender dysphoria, womens' clothes, having breasts etc you must gently drop those thoughts and move to other thoughts.   The word here is 'gently' , you have taken years and years to get to the stage you now are at.   So it will take a number of years to disempower ts/tg thoughts.

we're saying the same thing, spacial.

You don't need therapy - don't give your power away to someone whose chief concern is with keeping you paying them money.    Taking hormones is adding fuel to the ts/tg fire.  I have decided that I get more satisfaction being ts/tg and I wouldn't know who I was if it was all taken away from me.   What I was outlining above was a possible course of action for someone who had decided that being ts/tg caused them far more pain than pleasure.

Quote from: Happy Girl! link=topic=115300.msg883594#msg883594What I was outlining above was a possible course of action for someone who had decided that being ts/tg caused them far more pain than pleasure.

Stupid question, but... does said course of action actually work?

Suppressing TG/TS thoughts is what I'd been doing all my life before starting to transition, and it just made them worse. IMHO there's no way to force oneself to stop being trans, just like there's no way to force oneself to be trans if one is cis. Gender identity is what it is, like it or not.

Don't suppress any thoughts, just gently move away from them whenever you notice them arising in your mind.  The mind can only think one thing at a time, so move away to pleasurable thoughts.    Don't become angry with these ts/tg thoughts or seek to push them away too vigorously as your attention to them will only empower them and keep them around.   Just gently notice 'oh I am thinking ts/tg thoughts again' and let them drift naturally from your mind.   This watching and gentle labelling of thoughts will slowly but surely take all the energy from them and they will in time cease to arise in the mind.

However, as most of us having been giving these thoughts extremely close attention daily for many years they are at present very powerful and will probably take a long time to weaken even slightly, but it can be done.   The only question you have to ask yourself is ' do I really want to cure myself of being ts/tg?'   In my case the answer is no, you may think the same or differently.  The choice to follow this course of action is entirely up to you.

Oh, the battle of semantics and need to define onesself rises again You are exploring and looking around you... trying to decide which box you live in... so you can follow that boxes list of how you 'should be'.

Personally, I actually consider myself male as well (even though I have been on hrt for over 10 months now).

But, even though that is the "box" i put myself in... I don't think I need to follow a checklist of what guys "should want" or "should be".

Like you, I am also attracted to feminine aesthetics. I have been my entire life (long before I even considered it a masculine vs feminine issue). I wanted to be smaller, softer, without body hair, and even was sexually "female".

I don't know why I want these things for myself (is it because I'm jealous of women? Is it because I was raised a certain way? Is it a result of being exposed to a certain hormone at a certain point in my development?). Really, no one knows the exact reason why we are this way (though, there are tons of guesses... from the devil has taken control of our minds... to the entire hormone in development example).

But, in the end, I think the simplest answer is just that there are a variety of different types of people... and we just happen to be one. Does our wanting or moving ourselves towards these ideals hurt anyone? Nope. No more than "a man" who naturally feels like he wants to work out and become bigger and stronger.

As you get more used to the idea and accept yourself for what you are... you can move onto simply enjoying it. You will gain confidence and be "ok' with being this way. There is nothing "wrong" with it... we are actually pretty great people to be around (and our unique points of view resulting from these feelings and struggles give us some insights that a lot of others don't have).

So, stop trying to figure out a way to fight what you feel ... and just figure out a way to embrace it A way to express it...a way to own it and let it make you happier Spending the rest of your life trying to irrationally rid yourself of natural feelings because others tell you it isn't right will just make you unhappy :/ As long as you aren't hurting anyone, no one should have the right to tell you there is something wrong with you (that is just their ignorance and closed mindedness).

I'm a guy. Who happens to be feminine. Who runs on estrogen. No problems here

Being transgendered has definately caused me more pain than happiness but theres no way i could not transition. Im not saying transition isnt hard, its the second hardest thing ive ever done! But the hardest thing ive ever done is not transition. I know this isnt going to go away and trying to live as a male isnt going to work, its not who i am, im a woman and (im sorry to disagree with you schism) I feel I have a birth defect that means my body doesnt match that.

The one thing im glad about is that i stopped trying not to be trans, it wasnt healthy and ive seen what happens when its done for a long time, you get married, have children and realise your mistake aged 50 and try to transition with much harder circumstances.

Quote from: El on February 08, 2012, 06:00:41 PM
Being transgendered has definately caused me more pain than happiness but theres no way i could not transition. Im not saying transition isnt hard, its the second hardest thing ive ever done! But the hardest thing ive ever done is not transition. I know this isnt going to go away and trying to live as a male isnt going to work, its not who i am, im a woman and (im sorry to disagree with you schism) I feel I have a birth defect that means my body doesnt match that.

The one thing im glad about is that i stopped trying not to be trans, it wasnt healthy and ive seen what happens when its done for a long time, you get married, have children and realise your mistake aged 50 and try to transition with much harder circumstances.

This. I don't think ->-bleeped-<-/transsexualism is a phenomenon that exists solely in thought and can be "gently moved away" until it fades away entirely; I think that gender identity is something hardwired into the brain that stays with a person his/her entire life, and that ignoring it or trying to make it go away is only damaging in the long run-- more damaging than just biting the bullet and transitioning.

Quote from: Trixie on February 08, 2012, 12:27:36 PM
Even so, I cannot shake these thoughts. I cannot shake the desire to be female. Is it possible for me to? I'm going to end up ruining my life and being cast away from my family and friends if I can't.. There has to be some way. 

I'm coming into this conversation late! My own perspective on this is that Gender Identity Disorder [GID] and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder [PTSD] are two afflictions that never go away but can be managed with counseling. You need a competent counselor who is versed in GID issues. The second point here is that hormones are actually addictive for those with GID, they will cement the issue and become the point of no return. This isn't just my experience, but is common to other folks I have known for years who would agree.

Quote from: schism on February 08, 2012, 04:28:16 PM
we're saying the same thing, spacial.

I think so too.

I noticed that there are a number of perspectives emerging here and rather clumsily sought to bring them together. I rather wish I hadn't now.

The basic issue seems to be one that had affected most of us, at some time at least.

Personally, I think this is a really interesting thread. I hope my little analysis hasn't disturbed the flow.

I think science will prove in our lifetime that this isnt some choice of ours and it IS a birth defect. There is way more to being male or female than XX or XY or some other variation.  THis is an INCREDIBLE article with huge implications to understanding what we deal with.

http://www.physorg.com/news/2012-02-sex-specific-behaviors-hormone-controlled-genes-brain.html

Quote from: JessicaH on February 08, 2012, 09:19:26 PM
I think science will prove in our lifetime that this isnt some choice of ours and it IS a birth defect.

I really hope that isn't true...

First they will try to say it is a "birth defect"...and next comes trying to find "the cure"... and soon any boy with feminine aspects will be sent off to be "fixed" :| Ick...

This is a natural part of human diversity. It has been around for a VERY long time... the only thing that really needs to be fixed is societies denial or stigma towards it.

Quote from: Trixie on February 08, 2012, 12:27:36 PM
I have recently come to terms with the idea that I am not a woman in a mans body, but simply a very confused guy. I think the chances that I had a birth defect or something that caused me to have a female mind in a male body... those are really low. More likely, than not, I think I am both jealous of woman and the things they can do and say, and I feel guilty for being a man, seeing as how woman have been oppressed by men since the beginning of civilization.

Even so, I cannot shake these thoughts. I cannot shake the desire to be female. Is it possible for me to? I'm going to end up ruining my life and being cast away from my family and friends if I can't.. There has to be some way. 

Clearly a case of "Stockholm Syndrome."