Are we the "same person" after transition?

[Tessa James]

Transition can be a dramatic change and we all do our best to explain it to ourselves and others.  Your explanation of your life should be respected by all here.  That qualifier said, I find it interesting that some of us will clearly say "I am the same person as before" and other's clearly "bury" that old person and give them the rest in peace treatment.  There is no wrong answer but, how do you view yourself?  Someone new or someone who is the same? 

I feel i am not the same person and the depth of my change is profound enough that I hardly recognize the old me.  New name, body, perspectives, appearance and, you know the list can go on.  Still I exist because "he" carried me so long and that is a real and, for me, an undeniable part of my past and singular life.  Is this just the limits of semantics or something only transgender people experience so deeply?  Certainly we recognize major transitions and changes do occur in any persons lifetime and sometimes we also hear them declare I am a new person.

How about you?  A new person or the same person with an asterisk maybe?

[MtFGenderQueer]

That's actually a very good topic of discussion ! I just started my transition . I have a M2F identity but since going from Male 2 Female in one direction is too intensive for me at this moment I'm transitioning from Male 2 Genderqueer and most likely from Genderqueer to Female after that .
I am actually quite happy with my identity and with who I am inside . It's just the outside that I don't feel that matches me . It's something I think a lot about . I started hormones today and I couldn't be any happier with my doctor and me's decision but I must say that the biggest fear I have is that my personality will change and that my name will change . The inofficial name change has of course already been done . All my friends know my new name but for one or another reason I find the legal name change very hard . I want her to be an adjusted version of him and I want them to be the past of one complete person instead of 2 people on their own .
I'm quite happy with my life , I don't really want another life . I want my life I was used to but in the opposite gender .

The most difficult thing is that if I'm going to look like a woman in a matter of months / years that I will be worried if people will love me for my body or for my personality . I want to be loved for my personality . I just took the decision to modify my body to what I would love for myself and to have a happy soul in a healthy body . I didn't take the decision to transition for anybody else . I still want them to love me for my personality . The one I've always had . The same woman as I used to be pre coming out . If I would be a centre of attention for having a beautiful body later on , I wouldn't want the attention . I would rather want people's attention for my warmth , my vivid and vibrant character / soul .

I am scared estrogen will change my identity a lot . That's not what I would need . I look forward to the way of thinking and new insights estrogen will give me but it shouldn't change who I am inside .


I'm just going to continue my life in the opposite gender and I'm not starting a new life . I did this for me and not for a fancy lifestyle ,...

To compare :

Just like a woman with breast cancer would , after the surgery , continue her same life she had , I am solving this birth defect and continue where I left ...

[Collette]

I was just talking about this with my therapist today. I am 100% a different person. I can't even fake being the way I was before. "He" is definitely dead. I don't think he was ever real, just a defense mechanism to deal with the world until I could mentally handle it all.

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[Dee Marshall]

I both am and am not the same person. I've sloughed off some stereotypical male behaviors and attitudes and replaced them with more appropriate ones I really feel rather than the old ones used as a mask. Some people see me as different others as if I never changed. Inside, I feel the same, but more honest and less like a caricature.

[Emileeeee]

I feel like I'm basically the same. It's just some of the things I did to cover up what I liked/disliked aren't happening anymore.

I think the best part is that I don't have to act like I enjoy sports anymore. It may seem like a little thing, like obviously not all guys like sports, but try applying that in the real world. Every single conversation with my guy friends and coworkers always, without fail, ended on talking about some random player in sports and I'd be staring off into space wondering when it would end. None of my friends played sports growing up, but they all seem love nothing else than to debate them now.

[Deborah]

I quit pretending about sports and other stereotypical things a long time ago.  Whenever I was asked I just said I hate watching sports.  I'm not transitioned publicly but HRT has changed some things by eliminating things I now recognize as depression.  The ones that may be personality related include pessimism, cynicism, and irritability.  I also quit getting drunk nearly every night and lost some OCD centered on some coping strategies.

So, looking at that list I guess I have changed and I'm still pretty early in the process.



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[Tessa James]

Thoughtful responses, thank you.  Yes it is a not uncommon fear that transition will change me too much or ironically not enough!

Oh sports!  I hated them too and partly because I was a sissy girl and no good at it and would duck if a misshapen ball was thrown my way.  Oh i sure made them laugh tho   It is a bonding method for lots of people and I learned to say dumb things like "how about those Vikings then" to ease my otherness.  I hear from football widow friends lately and still wonder at the spectacle of large men purposely bumping into one another.  Traumatic brain injury wannabes?

[Kellam]

I am me unrestrained. There wasn't much to me before and I find myself slowly opening up. Saying what I want and making critical decisions. I don't just accept what is because I feel I don't deserve any better. I am more aware of myself and my needs. People can see me now. My deep sense of obligation to others is dissolving too. There is so much possibility opening up to me now. I don't follow rules at all. I was a carefully controlled tool of other people before. Now I am willful and self determined.

[JoanneB]

"Are we the same person after Transition?"

I pray every day that I will never ever be "That" person. Over several decades I slowly, inexorably morphed into a 'Thing' I could never want to be as a direct result of my beating myself, my true self, into submission of some 'ideal' I was told I needed to be thanks to accident of birth. Once I started 'Transitioning', once I started to let go of that and figure out who and what I am, I live in dread of 'reverting'

In a much broader philosophical sense, If you are truly alive, you are growing. Transitioning is like a growth spurt. Even if it is just coming out to yourself and wanting to fix how you view yourself in this crazy, and angry world of ours. My core values are still the same as that "Same Person" I was before. A few belief systems, much needed then to survive, have been tossed aside since I began 'Transitioning'. Since I began growing again.

I am the same person. I am a far more joy filled person. I am not a farther worse person as a result of my constant, all consuming, battle to keep Joanne locked away in the dungeon.

[SgtSalt]

I'm not even the same person that I was since before I started identifying as trans. I don't want to be the same person after I transition. It's a lot more than just a physical change, and I'm always looking to better myself.

[CrysC]

I had no idea how much I would change.  What is odd is how and when it happened.  It wasn't when I went on hormones but instead it was when I dropped the wall in my mind.  When I finally accepted who and what I was and let down the wall I had built, I changed.
It's not just about what I like and dislike but personality too.  My wife looked at me just yesterday after something I said and commented, "You are such a girl." 

So here's the thing, expect changes where you never expected them.  It's not just the physical but also the mental.  It's pretty awesome though to be who you really are.  Don't fear it but embrace it.

[Asche]

I had no idea how much I would change.  What is odd is how and when it happened.  It wasn't when I went on hormones but instead it was when I dropped the wall in my mind.  When I finally accepted who and what I was and let down the wall I had built, I changed.

For me, the change started when I realized that trying to be what I thought other people wanted me to be (and failing miserably, but still...) was killing me.  I separated from my wife and vowed to no longer try to be something or somebody else.  And even if it means nobody wants to have anything to do with me (or even kills me), it's better than a long "life" that consists of an endless series of lies.  I've spent the decade since then trying to find out who I am under all that crud, which is what led to me seeing myself as trans two years ago.

It's really scary.  Change makes me really anxious.  Especially recently, I keep finding things I used to be able to do which I can no longer force myself to do, things that didn't bother me that bother me now.  But each step I've taken down this road has made me happier with myself.  I don't feel brainwashed or taken over by some alien intelligence.  I feel like I've been getting out of a cage.  My suicidal ideation has faded from overwhelming episodes to merely annoying jerkbrain noise.

I want to be different.  I want to be gentler, more empathic, more patient, more vulnerable.  I want to be the girl that I envision, awkward and unglamorous, but ernest and giving.  (Which I don't feel I am right now.)  I want to be able to feel -- even if it means feeling more pain.  I want to be able to cry.  I don't know if that means being a "different person," or just the same person, changed.

[Chrissy1979]

Since recently realising and acknowledging i have gender dysphoria it has freed up something inside me. I still do lots of "blokey things" around the house but I no longer hold myself to act "blokey" in how i carry myself or interact around home or when at work. If i get called feminine or whatever it doesn't bother me anymore (not that anyone has noticed or commented so far).  I figure if and when i were to transition i would be considered a female tomboy (suits me just fine).

Freeing myself up from the burden of portraying myself in a masculine manner (looking back on it i think it wore me down because of dysphoria in my subconscious) has already made me happier perhaps more than I've ever felt. I hadn't actually realised that fact until typing  it (talking does help us doesn't it!). 

Maybe my personality has changed and maybe it hasn't, but whatever the result if I feel happier then I figure I must be on the right track

[Kellam]

Since recently realising and acknowledging i have gender dysphoria it has freed up something inside me. I still do lots of "blokey things" around the house but I no longer hold myself to act "blokey" in how i carry myself or interact around home or when at work. If i get called feminine or whatever it doesn't bother me anymore (not that anyone has noticed or commented so far).  I figure if and when i were to transition i would be considered a female tomboy (suits me just fine).

Freeing myself up from the burden of portraying myself in a masculine manner (looking back on it i think it wore me down because of dysphoria in my subconscious) has already made me happier perhaps more than I've ever felt. I hadn't actually realised that fact until typing  it (talking does help us doesn't it!). 

Maybe my personality has changed and maybe it hasn't, but whatever the result if I feel happier then I figure I must be on the right track

Woo hoo! Another tomboy! *waves hello a bit too enthusiastically*

[Chrissy1979]

Go the tomboys

[Obfuskatie]

I'm essentially the same personality stuffed in a body that fits better, not an emotional wreck like I used to be, and feel free to express my femininity without reproach. I'd say that I'm a very different person, in that my "male" ego was a facsimile I hid behind and not fully fleshed out persona. I'm the real me now, and I don't hide behind a created persona anymore. Coming out as trans, and living my life fully has let me evolve into a happy and fully realized self that I couldn't have achieved as someone stifled and closeted.
So I am and am not the same person I was before transition.

     Hugs,
- Katie
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[Valwen]

Hmm I don't think I have changed much, but I never tried very hard to hide things. I was so bad at it only a few friends where really surprised by it. There have been a few things that shocked me about myself though. First of I actually like putting together outfits and shopping at least when it's not emergancy shopping and I can't find anything that fits. I was also surprised when my sex drive woke up and I didn't hate myself for wanting to be with someone.

All in all I know some things have changed but I think more of the change is coming from slowly digging myself out of depression and self hatred than has to do with hormones or clothing, though they are linked.

One thing I plan on doing is for the one year anniversary of going full time I am going to ask friends and family, probebly on Facebook. "How much if at all do you think I have changed in the last year. Physically, mentally, emotionally, socially. And if you could explain why you feel that way that would be awesome"

I really want to know how others perceive me and my changes, I am so close to it it's impossible to really see the changes.

Serena

[Ms Grace]

I think I'm pretty much the same person, I just feel happier about myself and my life. There was nothing wrong with the person I was before transition other than I had to pretend to be someone that I wasn't. And that wasn't my fault, it was survival.

[pyhxbp]

Just being picky, but ...

.. I had to pretend to be someone that I wasn't ...

If you were pretending to be someone you weren't then you must be different now from then.

[Mariah]

I don't bury the past entirely and give the rest in peace treatment, but at the same time I'm definitely a much happier and confident person now. I like to believe that I'm still the same person though. I always knew I was a particular way and that hasn't changed. Hugs
Mariah