This is such an interesting topic!

My biggest doubts include...

- I think haven't had any feelings about gender identity, especially when a child. But in gender tests I always fall in the middle / slightly in the male part of the spectrum.
- So many of my interests are forgotten before a month has changed - I wonder if this is just a quick glance to "this side", or is this something that'll be a part of me from now on?
- I've never felt the big gender dysphoria so many describe. I have anxieties in that area, but mostly I've just been indifferent towards how I look. This changed during last year, though, and I have grown a preference of how and what (non)gender I want to look like. I've understood my disregard of my own body only now, when I've experienced how it feels to be really excited about how I look when binding and acting more androgyne

Just a curiosity, but if I will really transition, it's totally possible that I'd enjoy cross-dressing as a female from time to time. Most days, I've felt like in drag when wearing women's clothes, anyway, maybe I could learn to enjoy it after a while

Quote from: Kadri on July 04, 2012, 08:27:12 AM
My experience was that for about six months I worried that I hadn't had the conscious thought "I am a girl" when younger and worried about why it was that i didn't think about it before my mid-thirties. It used to make me think that I might just be into wearing women's clothes, and that I wouldn't transition. Feelings became more intense after i started going out regularly as a woman.

This is something I really related with. I still wonder about this (I'm 23). I would love to look more androgyne, but is this feeling real and do I know what I want? Of course, no-one else can't give me the answers. I can only say that I get such a strong, warm and fuzzy feeling about being thought of as androgyne that it has to be right. I've never felt that way about being a woman/girl. Mostly I've just always been confused about being one.

I was similar to the original poster; I didn't realize I wanted to be a boy until I was ten, there were some feminine things I liked (still do like, really), I could go on, but these things and others made me question myself and my feelings. I still do question myself occasionally, but I know now that gender is not binary; a guy can like girl's stuff, and a girl can like boy's stuff, and it doesn't make them any less male or female.

This is a great thread, and it's a good topic for where I'm at now, which is just beginning the process. I have a lot of the same fears as others in this thread, but I have a few things in life that are helping me overcome those fears.

I'm most concerned that I feel different than many of the other transgendered folks on this board because I have very little interest in living as a woman until I am substantially on the road to transition. Rather, I would like to grow my hair, process a bunch of other issues through therapy, lose some weight, and do hair removal. After those, I'd like to begin HRT, and as HRT progresses, I'd like to beginning living real life as a woman. I'm not sure how unusual that thought process is, if at all, and I'd sure like some feedback on it.

I'm also concerned that the mountain of debt that I'm in, coupled with my departure from my profession and the resulting decrease in income, will make it financially impracticable to "see the process to the end." (I'm was an attorney by trade, and though I still have my license, I do not intend to return to the practice of law.)

I'm also concerned about experience of beginning to live life as a woman and the resistance / difficulties that I will face in the real world.

What I have going for me is 1) what seems like a good therapist with a good deal of experience, 2) the love and support of a few very important people in my life, 3) a sense of peace that I'm finally moving in the right direction -- a sense of peace I've never felt before.

Again, what a great topic. It's been great to read the replies in this thread.

Delia,
There's nothing wrong with transitioning that way- That's how I'm planning to do it that way too.. Slow and steady wins the race!

OK, this required some thought....cogs turn............slowly

1.) Risk of losing financial security

2.)In my 20's I enjoyed being a guy (for a while)

3.)I am so much more confident when a guy

4.)Fear of health implications of transitioning

However each argument can be countered

1.) Money is money, there is only one of me and one life to lead

2.)All my life I have looked in the mirror and seen the girl looking back at me.  Even as a stubbled faced guy it was always in my eyes.

3.) I was a guy for many many years.  I am only just beginning to be me.  Confidence will come with time

4.) mental health implications from not transitioning would be dire.

xxx

Funny I should find this thread upon my return to Susan's.  I posted many years ago under this name--prolifically for awhile.  I transitioned in 2005 with SRS and FFS 2006.  I'm small, I pass seamlessly.  I kept my spouse, my kids, my profession, my friends.  I'm as successful a post-op as you can imagine.  Transition relieved the awful and unrelenting dysphoria I felt.  The anxiety and depression I felt for so many years went away.

I should be ecstatic.  I'm not.

Perhaps I've forgotten how bad it was.  I'm sure that is part of it.  Some of it is fatigue...remembering to speak in my female voice.  People tell me it's flawless.  I have to work at it every day.  The lies to explain my weird life.  My spouse is my sister, my kids are my nieces and nephews.  Missing a physical relationship with my spouse--she's not a lesbian and I don't think I am either.  That part of my brain that used to find her attractive still does. 

I can't imagine going anywhere in guymode--I wouldn't pass anyway.  But I'm not really a woman either.  I'm more comfortable in that role yes but am I a woman because of surgery or mindset?  I just don't know.  I'm intelligent, empirical, and the DSM seams to suggest I'm a guy with a mental disorder...

Those are some reasons I question transition.  I'm definitely trans...of that I have no doubt.  The transition is another matter.  Sometimes I feel I've traded one prison for another.

DawnL

I don't know if I'm experiencing "real dysphoria" or general depression.
I didn't feel trans as a kid, I was just a gender neutral being.
I came out shortly after a bad breakup.
Sometimes I don't hate my chest.

What made me doubt:
1. Frankly, I don't want SRS because I am not disgusted by my anatomy. (Of course, I got over this doubt. Just like people with one lung are still people, I can easily be a girl with a penis.)
2. I love a lot of "feminine" interests, but also male, such as comic books and video games.


Fears:
1. Not being able to pass for female and thus facing discrimination and maybe even need FFS (I really don't like having surgery of any kind).
2. If I transition, I might never be able to keep my friends and family.
3. I might not be accepted in the fire department when I want to get a job.
4. I might not be able to find an accepting boyfriend.

1. Money
2. I met a girl who really was passing, but looked like the ugliest girl who has ever set foot on this planet. And I met some who agreed. Do I want that for myself?
3. Money
4. My lousy past will not be any less lousy.
5. Money
6. Fear of feeling like an artificial girl, knowing I can never have the full experience.
7. Money
8. A certain untreatable medical issue.
9. Money
10. My relationships are low in quality and quantity. How does this compare to not having any relationships at all?
11. Money

My family has male pattern baldness.
I'm not sure how I'd feel about chest hair.
Sometimes I like how young I look.

What a fabulous topic! By the way, how do we thank someone for a post ? I can't find the right button ( the story of my life I guess).

I can relate to so much of what has been written. I never even knew I must be trans, up until quite recently I just thought I was a militant feminist (which I also still am). But now i do see that I am more.

My fears - and what is stopping me -

it would break up my family. I am a female, and straight - and although my my kids step-dad is a great, enlightened, caring man - we all have our limits. He would not be able to accept me without my breasts, having to shave my face and not my legs, etc. I am actually just starting to hint to him how I am feeling, it came up in a conservation where he said, "I so glad you are a woman", and I said , "at least that makes one of us". He won't get it, and I don't know if I have the heart the break his heart ( and my kids, although they are almost adults).

My kids might think I'm a "freak".

here is a big one - I just got over it. I'm attracted to men. Therefore I thought I must not really want to be a man. No, now I realize I will probably end up being a gay man. That took a little bit to get my head around. But I finally did. Whatever. i have also seen some posts that some gay men don't mind transguys who have not had bottom surgery. Ok. Of course, maybe enough T in me and I'll  start chasing skirts. I've come to accept that if I do decide to go ahead with a transition - my sexuality will be whatever it will be.

What would happen to my professional life, the one I've worked so hard for, the one I'm barely starting and already in so much student debt?

Yet ----
I work with the dying. That being said, it gives one a certain perceptive. I don't want to go to my grave thinking 'if only I hadn't been so scared, if only I'd had more courage i could have had the i wanted'.

That is not to say my life has been bad, no there are parts that were terrific.

I just don't fit in being a female, even a "macho" female.

Henry,
Thanks for the props! Someone else once said that we tend to transition when we can no longer handle trading unhappiness in exchange for a "normal" life. The rings true, at least to me... YMMV, of course.

I know that if I go to my grave as a man, I'll be carrying a lot of regret with me. Screw that.

Johnnie