I've been reading these forums for about a week now, and I've finally got the courage to register, so bare with me. (Amazing forums by the way! I love all of the people who are reacting, commenting and monitoring this website. You have given me so much help already, even without registering you've given me a lot off insight, and I'd like to thanks all of you!) Let me start by introducing myself on these forums: Currently seventeen years old I'm a bright college student in my first year of college. I was born male, and have grown up my entire life as a male. I have never really had the experience that many transgenders had where they knew right there what was going on at an early age. I have always been disphoriated about my physique. Until I never really knew what it was, but I have never been happy with my body. Not only does nobody percieve me as being pretty, I also can not percieve myself as such. No matter how beautiful I might be able to make myself, I will still feel shame about my male body. It might be gender roles, it might be something else, but I have always been ashamed of my body. And not just my body. My entire persona is of my distaste. When I was around ten years old up until about fourteen years old I was in a very dark place, and I was constantly feeling self pity and on many occasions I have had serious thoughts of killing myself. I have never had the dress-up-as-a-girl experience and I have always hated barbies and the like. However, in my youth (prior to any sexual interests), I have always had just as many female friends as male friends. With the male friends I would make bows and go stickfighting and videogaming, with the girls I would hop around on the trampoline and talk a lot. When I started getting sexually interested into girls and when I was bullied about my appearance and my "nerdyness" I was frightened of all female contact, and when I developed a crush on the one true female friend I was still in contact with a lot I completely shut down. I could talk about some of my own problems with one of my friends, but mostly we talked about his problem. (He is gay and Christian, and still hates himself today, aswell as many other problems) So I gave up on chasing crushes and started feeling ashamed of my own desires. Suddenly developing a true "need" for feeling beautiful and graceful. At first I only watched girly movies and shows: Twilight to Bring it on, Hellcats to Revenge, and Gossip Girl to 90210. It grew and grew, and after watching "Ice Princess" I started ice-scating for a while. The ring was 40 kilometres away, and I paid for it myself. I was terrible at it. I did it alone. I was ashamed of it. But I loved it. Feeling weak about giving in to this "phase" I stopped, but the need continued. I started working out a bit, trying to be a more masculine guy, but I noticed that I would never be satisfied with myself as such unless I was the rare exception of the men I might be able to have a crush on. (10% gay) I recently took up poledancing, and with an all-girls class I feel at home there. I even shaved my legs, and I loved it so much that I'm thinking about waxing my entire shoulders and below area this summer. I could totally see myself wearing girls clothes and make-up. Being adressed as a girl would be a compliment to me. I'm even jalous of the female genetalia, I even sit down to urinate 100% now. I can not picture what my face would look like as a female, but I figure this should sort itself out. What I am really unsure about however is this: Could I behave like a girl? I have this need for feeling beautiful, I have an appreciation of the female form so much that I'm in a state of permanent jalousy, but I don't think I could adress my habits; Biting my nails, scratching my face and hair all the time, speaking out in the most awkward moments. I just don't think I could behave girly. Changing my sex would be a tremendous relief, for I could finally appreciate my own body again. (I appreciate most non-obese females, yet only the top 5% of the male population) Finally coming to terms with my own body would mean that I'd gain the courage to start approaching other girls and trying to find a relationship. I feel like it would change my way of living from a passive "everything happens to me" to a more active "I can do this" approach. But it would bring just as many complications. Can I keep up with this more active lifestyle, could I permanently pay attention to every thing I do, could I keep up with everything I need to do for the change? How can I be sure that I'm not making a mistake? How can I know this is not just a phase? I would like to have comments on my post. Anything constructive would be nice. Ask questions, give advice, and refer me to other people. Try to make me think about what I need to think about, and try to give an outside perspective on my situation. If you could, try referring me to where to look for counselling. I don't really care, I need all the help I can get, for I myself would never be able to make such a big decision on my own, neither would I ever be able to come out before I've made the decision. Thank you for reading this long post, and the best of luck to all of you lovely people around here with your own issues.
Ahhh Scarlet, once again I have to accuse someone of stealing pages from my diary! Even thought you ended your post saying you weren't sure, what you've written makes me think that you are pretty sure you know what you want. A couple of things to consider. The gender transition is about becoming who you are inside, not adopting a role. If you transitioned, you would be the person you could have been if you had been born that way. All those same habbits would probably still exist. Behaving girly, isn't something all girls do any more than all guys act hyper-manly! As for your face. You can't picture it. Well, unless you plan on having loads of reconstructive surgery, it looks exactly like you. Perhaps you have makeup. perhaps you shape your eyebrows. You probably have longer hair. But other than that, the face you have now is the face you will have then. However, I will share one thing with you I've noticed. When I first started transitioning I avoided mirrors like the plague and wore a wig that covered a lot of my face because I didn't see a girl. I saw me. It took some time, but I realised that I hadn't just seen a girl I liked and decided to be HER, I was trying to be ME. After I realised that, I began to see the girl in my face. My eyes seem brighter, and nicer even without make-up. I look happier and cuter, even without the wig. Maybe it will be the same for you? Could it be a phase? Yes, it could and that's why you don;t take this decision lightly. That is why you explore this side of you instead of going out tomorrow and telling the world you're a woman now.
You have no idea how good this feels like! Thank you so much.(*hug*) What would you recommend doing? I myself was thinking about staying around here for a couple of weeks, and seeing if it'll stick. If it stick that'd be great and I'll look for a counsellor and post some more in this section, if it doesn't stick I'll be staying on an other section and I'll be looking for more people who can associate themselves with this "need for elegance". Thank you for replying, and congratulations on making it through till the end
Hey there Scarlet, I can sympathize with a lot of what you said. There are a few common misconceptions I think you have however about transition however (some of which have been covered by Ellia). You said that you are unsure if you could behave like a girl. I have some good news; you can! All that is required is that you be yourself. A cisgender girl can do anything she wants and her gender will never come into question for it. How she behaves is perfectly normal for a woman, because she herself, is a woman. Why should this same concept not apply to trans people. I will say though that of course there are a few things that are different with mannerism type stuff, but you learn those kinds of things through transition. Being a woman isn't so much about how you behave, but rather how you feel. It seems to me that you know what you want and how you feel, but think you didn't behave like a trans person would have in child hood, or can't behave like a girl would after transition. If you feel like you are a woman or that you want to be a woman or should have been born as a woman, or w/e (as trans people are all different and have largely varying experiences); then it doesn't matter what you do, because you are a woman doing it. "Finally coming to terms with my own body would mean that I'd gain the courage to start approaching other girls and trying to find a relationship. I feel like it would change my way of living from a passive 'everything happens to me' to a more active 'I can do this' approach." To some extent I think it can, though I do not think transition will provide the complete personality change you are looking for. Largely, you will be just the same. You will like the same things, have all the same problems as you do now, but you will be a girl doing/having them. If you find that thought comforting, it seems like you might want to seriously consider transition. "How can I be sure that I'm not making a mistake?" Hehe, the thing is, you don't have to have no doubts to transition. In fact, I'd venture that MOST trans people have doubts before transition. Hell, a lot of people have doubt even well into their transition. I myself still have my doubts from time to time, but I just know that I am so much happier with my body than I was before, and that's what matters. Also, people saying "she" and "her" kicks ass too =p. I am not sure what you mean by "need for elegance" but I know that while I was very masculine in my behavior before I transitioned (played baseball, wrestled, football for little bit, basketball for a little bit), I always had a desire to do feminine or girly things. I would always tell my female cousins on AIM (if you even know what that is, AOL instant messenger) when I was a kid and tell them to make my profile on my account for me, "but don't make it girly!". And of course they would make it girly then lol. I also VERY badly wanted to do gymnastics when I was a kid, but I didn't want people to know that I wanted to be a girl (as I understood it at the time) and thought that if I did gymnastics that is what people would think (again, little kid lol). "I'm even jealous of the female genitalia". This right here; Cisgender guys don't get jealous of women in that way, not in a serious capacity at least. They are happy being men. Something to keep in mind though, is that gender is a spectrum, not a binary. There are gender queer people, gender fluid people, bi-gender people, etc, etc. The only person who has any say at all over your gender though, is you, because only you can truly know how you feel, and any therapist that tells you otherwise is utter (not sure of the swearing policy here so will self censor) ****. We can say some things to better inform you, or offer our own advice from personal experience, but the only one who will know if transition is right for you, is you. Phew, wrote a bit, but I hope some of it helps a little =).
Thank you so much for your reply Tayb, it really helped me. :icon_wink It did raise a few other questions though: How long have you known before you started to transition? At what moment did you start seeing a therapist? How could I talk about this to a therapist? (Talking to strangers has always been easy to me, but I can't imagine sharing this with a therapist while sitting right across the table.)
I gave it about 6 months from going from the 'could this really be true' stage to starting a full transition because once I accepted it, I realised that I could wait for ever and never know if it was the right idea unless I did it. I mean I cross dressed in my room before then occasionally and switched to girls underwear earlier. I think I told the first person IRL about 3 months before I revealed it to the world. As for sharing it with a therapist, I don't know how comfortable you would be doing it but just say something like "I'm questioning my gender" and see where it goes. They can't say anything bad about it...
Over the past six years or so, I've only had a like two dreams that I could remember that I dreamt; I don't even know what I dreamt, but I know that I only remembered that I dreamt like two times. Last night I had three dreams that I know of: I can not remember much about them, but I was a girl in all three of them, and they all felt good. I think my subconscious is trying to tell me something here and I'm getting more and more certain that I want to go see a therapist. Should I just google one or something? Is there something I need to look for? How does this work?
Therapists are a mixed bag. If you are in the Netherlands, they might be not as up to date about trans issues (though I really do not know much about Netherlands). I myself had more of a gatekeeper kind of therapist the first one I went to. She wanted me to travel very far to go to support groups, and was talking about real life experience (presenting yourself in public as target gender) for a while before I even started hormones. She also wanted me to come out to people I was not ready to come out to yet. It became clear that I would not get hormones for a long while from her, so I decided to drop her. I think she really just wanted to string me out on a bunch of sessions to make money off of me. I know of other people who have therapists who outright tell them they are not trans (and these are cisgender therapists! Who CAN NOT understand what being trans is like) and this is very damaging to them. That is why I decided to forgo a therapist and I did a very low dose of self medication until I was able to get under a doctors care under an informed consent model a few months later. I do not know what the medical/psychological systems are like for trans people where you live though. If I had been able to go through the system properly without having to jump through hoops, I would have. The real changes only started happening when I was under a doctors care anyway as then I could get on a proper dose. Google is probably a good place to start looking for someone. If you find someone that you think would be a good therapist, just make sure to see if they have any experience with trans patients. As far as actually sharing this with a therapist, it is HARD...at first. It get's easier. My first therapy appointment I was SO nervous, that I walked by the place 7 times (not kidding) before actually going in lol. I was shaking really bad too. Going to your first therapy appointment is one of a few BIG steps in transition though (although this is more about the lead up to deciding to transition or not) Now to answer one of your other questions about how long did I know (I was trans) before I started to transition, and I guess the answer to that is that I more came to realize it gradually. I knew that I "wanted" (as I understood it at the time) to be a girl from a young age, I think I was like 6 years old when I would pray to god to make me wake up a girl. I want to stress that not every trans person is like this though, this is just how it was for me.
Hi Scarlett, I was able to find a gender clinic operating out of Amsterdam, Transvisie Zorg It looks like, when you're ready, they'd be able to help with therapists and doctors. Check out the "contact" link. Another place (I think?) also calling itself Trans Vision and also out of Amsterdam, that's more group oriented, can be found here, Transvisie Trans meet-up groups are a mixed bag. The ones I went to were really great, but I've also had friends that have had some bad experiences. Just going to call a spade a spade, but the most common complaint is that sometimes people that aren't really trans unfortunately work their way into some groups with the intention of hooking up. Again, this never happened to me. It can be really great being in a group large enough where you feel safe being yourself in public. We went to a restaurant downtown and played "cards against humanity" at one of the meetings I went to. Just exercise a little caution. E. And obviously don't ever feel any pressure to do anything until you're ready, and never do anything you're not 100% comfortable with. Just wanted to give you a couple resources. And hey while I'm at it welcome to EC
Thank you all so much for the help; I'm going to send out an email this weekend to that place in Amsterdam. Also, Cassie, thank you so much for your warm welcome and research ^^ As far as my life for the past few days. I've let my mother in, she knows now that I'm struggling with something personal. I've assured her she has nothing to worry about and I managed to stop her spree of questions that followed. On a sidenote; I had to cross my gender at the hospital today because I was getting my blood tested for some virusses. (Non-gender specific!) Am I overreacting and should this be normal? Or Is it normal to feel angered and frustrated? Why should I need to provide that information for a gender-neutral test? Let alone a test that I'm already afraid of. (We all hate needles right?) I'll be coming back there this afternoon becouse I ran out of time becouse of their ridiculous administrative policy. Looking forward to that needle now. Not. Anyway, anybody else upset about having to declare your gender for these kinds of issues?
After doing many hours of research again, I have started to doubt my theory, again. I still feel the same attraction to being a woman, but I've seen in a lot of cases that this was something people have always expressed also when they were younger. Although I've wanted to be a girl for an extensive period of time, it is a feeling that has been growing stronger since when I was somewhere between 5-10 or so. All the examples I have seen so far are from people who have dressed as girld at least a few times back when they were a small child. I've never expressed these feelings in that way before. I've always thought of it more as a fantasy back then. Should I be worried that this has grown from a fantasy in some kind of weird obsession, or could this still be a "legit" case? How do I know the diffrence? Would there be a way to "test the waters" so to speak when I'm uncomfortable going shopping at all becouse of fear of being seen as some sort of creep buying girls clothes? Do you know any transgender people who've only really discovered it in their late teens?
How does discovered it in their early twenties work for you? I'm the eldest child of two brothers. The closest thing to cross dressing I ever got as a child was one time my brother and I put a pair of our mums underwear on over our trousers because we thought it was funny when I was about 9. Believe me, I remember that moment because about 10 minutes after my brother broke my recorder over my head so I also remember the feelings associated with it. Nothing. Not a damn thing. We thought it was a funny thing to do because "LOL big pants!". No 'wow I feel feminine' no 'this is what I should be wearing'. Nothing to indicate my future. You ask about this as a fantasy? Well I've had this 'fantasy'...a wish if you like...that one day I might wake up and instead of the 6'+ blob of unnecessary hair and skin I might have a cute, petite body, the kind that can wear shorter skirts with thigh high socks. The kind that people think 'damn she's CUTE I wanna take her home (for pizza or something!)'. Is it going to happen? No, it's pure fantasy. But it has led me to where I am now. I'll never have that perfect body from the fantasy, but I'll get myself as close as I can! My point is, what is a fantasy if not something we really want? Why would you be sitting here now thinking 'oh WHY couldn't I be born a girl' if you didn't feel it inside. Ask almost any cismale and I'm guessing if any of them thought about it, they only thought for about 10 seconds before doing something manly to cover it up! As for testing the waters...can you order things online, that's one possibility. Failing that walk in full of confidence because damn it you're buying a present for your sister...or girlfriend if its underwear! Try charity shops if you have any near to you. Less crowded, less people you might no and people buy things from them for costumes which is also a good excuse if you needed one.
Thank you so much Ellia, your story definetly feels simular, and it really made some of my doubts disappear. I'll be taking the first step today and E-Mailing the support group Cassie sent me. ---------- Post added 23rd Nov 2013 at 03:06 PM ---------- I've attached the email I am thinking about sending, does it look good or am I missing any vital information? Dear Sir / Madam, Let me start off by telling you I have no idea of how counceling works, so I'll just send you a background story on my problem to go along with my request for counseling. If you're missing any information please mail me back and ask. I look forward to reading from you soon. Yours faithfully, *Name* The post I placed on Empty Closets with my background story: http://emptyclosets.com/forum/gender-identity-expression/115909-blanc-page-im-working.html
Today I'm finally waxing and getting rid of all that stupid hair. I know it's a common thing, but it feels so good. On a sidenote; I've finally told my mother, she was very supportive, and it was overall a very good conversation clearing all the worries that we had.
On waxing; I was prepared for the pain, but people never speak about the time. I've been busy for about 3 hours now, and I've only finished my front side of my upper right leg...
