I posted this on yahoo answers but i found this forum, and i think it would be answered a lot better.. please excuse the noobish ignorance if this isnt the place to post this, but here goes:

I am a male, 21. I love my wife and son (got married in 2010, he's 1). But I have a big problem. I think i am a lesbian girl in guys clothing. Ive been reading up on transgendered individuals and how they eventually found themselves through socializing with others and growing up in general. I was pretty sheltered as i grew up. It was my own doing, but i was, nonetheless.

I have always had serious issues having relationships with other guys (as friends).. I much prefer to have a conversation and shoot the breeze with girls; i find them much easier to talk and relate to.. I dont do any normal guy stuff, like watch/play sports, drink beer or anything.. I am into fashion and makeup but i never really perused anything with it. I always have fantasies of living as a girl and still being with my wife.. i love her.. but i dont think i could ever become transgender.. she would not love me anymore.. Also, i really dislike gays, and think that gay marriage is wrong..

I'm technically straight because im a guy, but im not.. really, cause i feel like im a girl... I dont know. I dont want to give up my wife and son who i love, but i want to be who i really am.. not to mention my family would like, disown me..

Even if i did after all that, decide i wanted to transition, and give up everything else in my life.. i would lose the only job i have ever had as well, which is being in the military, because as we all know, they dont allow transgenders (which i wholly support). anyway, please help

The standard advice to someone like yourself is to spend some time with a gender therapist and find out what your core problem is. This is what you really need to do. It would help if you could indicate where in the world you are as the systems work differently in the USA or UK or Australia or Canada, etc etc.

Having said that, answer these questions (I am NOT a therapist):

- Have you ever felt that you should have been a girl or you would prefer to be one?

- What is your earliest memory of wanting to be female?

- Have you ever worn womens' clothes? Did it give you a sexual thrill?

And I would add.  What will make you happier.  To live as a woman and possibly lose everything.  Or to live as a man and possibly be miserable.

USA..

Im always feeling like i would prefer to be a girl, i just think theyre beautiful things, and men are repulsive, and i just look in the mirror wishing i didnt look so gruff. I put a lot of effort into my looks, my wife already says i am very metro..

and I am very .. conservative, i guess, its how i was raised. I always wanted to deny being how I really feel, but i remember one time when we were young, like 9-10, my sister and I played dress up and I wore her clothes, and i enjoyed role-playing a girl, i wouldnt say sexual, because i was too young for that.

I already have everything i wanted.. EXCEPT that i want to live as a female really badly; I grew up never experiencing life or being myself.. i feel like i built everything i have on a lie.. I dont know, its a really tough decision.. i have been miserable as long as i can remember and i dont get satisfaction out of anything -- maybe because i am just not happy with myself.

Maybe you need to figure out a timeline for possible action. For part of my life I intended to put off transition until my kid was grown, because I was afraid of the effect it would have on her. Then we moved to the west coast where public judgement wasn't so much a problem, so I had less to lose. I still lost a lot of friends and family. You probably will have to figure out how best to be happy, and how important these feelings are to you.

One of my problems and part of why I delayed admitting how I felt was that I like boys. As a straight girl that's no problem. As a guy with a girl's features it's a huge problem. Transition is so much time and work. You have to decide what you want and how far you want to go to get it.

I grew up in a military family and I can relate to the mixed feelings you seem to have, but you might want to be careful in discussing your disapproval of gay marriage and your support of military cisgender exclusivity. It might bring up some hurt or anger.

Welcome to Susan's.

I considered waiting until my son is grown up too. The problem is, I want to look as feminine as possible -- i read about it and they say the older you get, the harder it is to get a really feminine appearance.. I know im kinda stirring the hornets nest by stating opinions like that here, sorry. And thanks for the welcome.

Quote from: jonassulk on September 15, 2012, 07:41:34 PM
I considered waiting until my son is grown up too. The problem is, I want to look as feminine as possible -- i read about it and they say the older you get, the harder it is to get a really feminine appearance.. I know im kinda stirring the hornets nest by stating opinions like that here, sorry. And thanks for the welcome.

The older you get the harder it is to transition, for sure. At 21 you are past puberty but still young enough to delay some of the grizzling that age creates. You should talk to people on mtf boards about hormones and such. I'm not a doctor or an expert in anything, but you might could take some steps to buy yourself time while you consider how far you want to go.

Also as far as my kid goes - she has no other family so I have more leeway than some people might. When I came out to her she was confused and upset, but then she got used to it. She was happy to have a dad but she wants me to marry a woman so she can have a mom, and I can't make that happen for her. For the most part though, my kid is more okay with my transition than anyone else is, myself included.

OK - I am not a therapist, remember that.....

The question about the wearing womens' clothes was because most trans women do not get a buzz out of wearing their clothes, but many CDs/TVs do get a buzz.

Your persistent feelings of being feminine and  your assertion that your dissatisfaction stems from being male sound like gender dysphoria. Many GD sufferers wind up in the military or police. You do not seem to be a CD. On balance I would guess it is likely you suffer from from form of gender dysphoria.

This makes it even more important that you seek professional help.

One other feature of GD is this - many of us tried to bottle it up, to 'macho' our way out of it (disliking gays is often a feature of this stage of denial). Sometimes we even succeed for a while, but the GD always comes back and it usually comes back even stronger than before and eventually it reaches the point that it simply cannot be denied any longer and at that point you lose the battle.

If you have a woman inside you then she is one vicious b**ch. She will claw her way out of you. She will win and you will lose. I won my battle with 'him' after 40 years of him bottling me up. Life is much better now even though in many ways it is unchanged. At least I am me - at last. The relief is glorious.

I cannot advise you on how to chose a gender therapist in the USA but someone on here will know (I am in the UK - different system here) but find one and spend a few sessions. Tackle this early because leaving it will not help you.

Quote from: jonassulk on September 15, 2012, 07:41:34 PMI considered waiting until my son is grown up too. The problem is, I want to look as feminine as possible -- i read about it and they say the older you get, the harder it is to get a really feminine appearance..

It is true, but not that true. I am transitioning in my late 40s. I will never be a beauty queen but I am look feminine enough. I am accepted as female in everyday life and that is all I truly want.

Judge for yourself.  My avatar is how I look every day.

Oh and I am 58, started transition at 54.

Quote from: Ms. OBrien on September 15, 2012, 08:00:39 PM
Judge for yourself.  My avatar is how I look every day.

Oh and I am 58, started transition at 54.

Yes this. I'm of course not mtf, but I started transition at 29 and it's alright. I wish I looked older but I pass all the time and that's a dream come true. A whole lot of people transition when they're older, and lots of them are doing great.

Quote from: Felix on September 15, 2012, 08:08:18 PM
I wish I looked older but I pass all the time and that's a dream come true. A whole lot of people transition when they're older, and lots of them

I hope you in no way take any offence to this due to my pretty solid attraction to women, but I happen to find your face very attractive Felix.  Honestly I don't really know what that's supposed to mean and I don't want to give you the impression that I think you less male for it.  I've actually considered the possibility of dating a transman but have an enormous paranoid fear of offending or damaging their sense of self because I might be appreciating the 'wrong' qualities in them.

BTW, there's plenty of time later in life to look old.  Treasure what you've got while you can.

Quote from: Ms. OBrien on September 15, 2012, 07:26:23 PM
And I would add.  What will make you happier.  To live as a woman and possibly lose everything.  Or to live as a man and possibly be miserable.

THE hardest question you will ever need to answer in your entire life. If you ever can 

It gets harder to answer with each passing day, month, year. It gets harder still as you experience a taste of the inner joy  of being out in the real world as a typical woman as life's Have-Tos, personal responsibilities,  and obligations continue to pile on. It gets ever so much harder with age as "possibly be miserable", in retrospect, had no "possibly" attached. Just a basically joyless existence, but one you know how to manuver within with a high comfort level. AKA "Better the devil you know than the one you don't".

As others have said, it is extremely common for MtF with gender dysmorphia to take on very male role models and careers. The urge and drive to be 'normal' is incredible. I also now that many MtF marry and have children. 'If I'm a Dad I must be a real man' Again from comments I have seen on this site, that this approach doesn't work.

'I have to stay as me or I will lose everything' is also very common. It is a false thought. You have already lost everything. You have lost you. Sadly you may also lose the love and respect of the people you have related to in order to be the façade of you. Terrible though that will be.

Unfortunately there is a deep flaw in the human psyche. Humans are pretty terrible at pretending to be what they are not. Eventually what we are creeps through and becomes dominant. At your age it may be (if you are suffering from GID) that your high testosterone levels are masking many of your feelings. But they will not go away. They will build.

I have been TG for as long as I can remember. For many reason I kept putting of going through my sex change. Many of the reasons are on this forum, I have quite an extensive posting record .

I'm now living full time as me. I'm the woman in my avatar as Janet is in hers. My hair style is different to that in my avatar, 'cos I just had it restyled, I've gone for a more ringlet style. Sorry rambling.

But I was adamant that I could NEVER go FT. I'm a leading person in my profession. I'm well known publicly. Newspapers of the lowest denominator like to print stories about people like me. The stories are crude and sensational and rubbish. I didn't think I could live with that type of outing.

I have gone FT. I'm 60. There is no way I couldn't be me.

BTW I'm not Gay, I like men and have no sexual interest in woman. Not that makes any difference to anything.

In your case i think you need to make some hard decisions. The first is to seek professional gender counselling. You owe it to the three most important people in your life. your child, your wife and yourself.

When you need help we are here for you.

Hugs

Cindy

To address the original poster's question from a slightly different persepctive, read this topic:

What did you do as a denial to try to convince yourself you were not trans?

https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,126751.0.html

Note the number of failed ways people tried to deal with this

Well, of course, you have to see therapist, but considering the amount of transgender lesbians out there, you are pretty sure to be one... Your post seemed like exactly what they used to say before transition.

My opinion is that if your wife really loves you, she will accept you, and still love you, I heard about cases where a wife stayed with her partner, but it's hard simply.

I keep my fingers crossed.

I am 59 next month and everyone in my Gender Studies tutorial group at  Uni last week estimated my age as anywhere between 35 and 48. Apart from being an exercise in perceptions of aging, which was what we were looking at, it reinforced the fact that people see me as attractive, as well as a woman.

I was a member of a State Police Force, and now realise it gave me a structure that protected me by deflecting attention to the uniform.  It also was a case of being a copper= masculine man. Also if I am honest, the idea of being KIA would have meant the pain was over, and people would have remembered me as a hero.

I found it useful when I first started to talk to family members and close friends, to put my situation as one of questioning my general identity, following the collapse of my marriage.  That tended to soften up the target for the eventual disclosure that I was TS, and would be living as Karen for the rest of my life. 

Given that you love your wife and child, perhaps you could look at your relationship as being a Queer one rather than a Lesbian one per se.  I have a dear friend here who is FTM, but has not made any physical changes, as she wants to change society instead.  She has had a number of successful relationships of varying lengths  with women who did not see themselves as neccessarily Lesbian, just Sharonians. 
Seeing you are putting yourself in harms way for the collective safety of your brothers and sisters here, has your wife said how she would react to you suffering major injuries in action? What would she do if you lost your genitals to a bullet? Tough questions that service wives have to consider eventually.

If you have survived recruit training, then you have the mental toughness needed to get through transition.

Cheers, Karen.

Hey Karen, excuse my ignorance (and google didn't help) but what's a Sharonian?

Woman in love with my friend Sharon. Simple really.