Identity

[Guest ignota]

Hi everyone!

Finally out of probably the worst term of my life at university, and back from a stressful few days at my Dad's, now I can really, properly get confused about my gender issues! Oh joy...

I've been wondering about gender identity, and to be honest I'm not sure I ever really had one. I was just... weird. Never really thought about myself like that, I suppose. Too much being alone at school!

So what does it actually feel like? Is it like there's a voice in your head that screams who you are? Or like a feeling you're 'like' a certain group of people? Or is it only something you notice when someone gets it wrong?

Please bear with me, it seems like a really stupid question even to me, but the fact is I'm not exactly sure what I'm looking for. Personally, right now I'd probably say I'm more female than anything else, simply because it makes me feel better when I go with that. I repeat to myself, I am female, and correct people's pronouns in my head, and I like that, and even if I do it the opposite way round I get quite depressed, but still... is that identity? Or just something I like doing? :S

[Guest JaniceW]

Ignota,

This is a really weird place to be. We spend a lot of time thinking about who we are only to realize that the one doing the thinking is the one we are tryng to figure out. This is where a gender therapist comes in very handy. They have the training and knowledge to undestand gender identity and they have the tools to help us dig into ourselves and find out who we really are deep inside.

[Guest ignota]

Thanks Janice. Referral's hopefully in the post by now, got to love the NHS...

I'll just try not to worry about it in the meantime. More than anything else I'm trying to figure out why I feel the way I do, trying to rationalise it... I suppose the answer will either just come to me or get drawn out by therapy. Or maybe I should just trust - something inside me is telling me to get therapy and start HRT, but I'm not sure why.

For now, I'm just me. Not great, but it's better than not me.

[Guest JaniceW]

Ignota,

Think of it this way, so if you persue therapy and HRT right now what will that mean to the decisions for the rest of your life. Nothing! Therapy can be stopped any time you choose and HRT can be not started or stopped any time you want. So you are currently in a situation where persuing therapy and/or HRT has no downside for you, and the potential upside is pretty nice when you consider it. How could you decide not to follow the decisions you have made for now?

[Guest ignota]

You're right, certainly. And therapy will hopefully sort me out. It just messes with my head every time I doubt myself. A couple of months ago, every doubt caused me to slip into denial (there was nothing to counterbalance it), which brought me crashing down and played havoc with work. Now I hold the thought in my head that, despite everything, I know I want this, I need this, simply because if I don't I get enormously depressed... but it still bugs me that I can't say to myself, "because I'm ..."

The other thing, of course, is what to say when people ask me, why? I don't know why, I just sort of know. At least, I think I know.

I've never trusted my feelings this much before, in fact barely at all, and it feels dangerous to trust this one simply because I have no choice if I want to be happy. If I don't know why, I don't know whether there are alternatives (I don't want there to be, but I think I need to make sure). I'm just letting myself be shoved onwards, because it hurts to stop. Too much of a scientist, I guess

[Guest JaniceW]

... is what to say when people ask me, why?

The simplest answer the Why? is, "I was born this way."

I can certainly identify with the doubts and unsurity that you have expressed. I can't tell you that that goes away completely because it hasn't for me yet, but it has gotten less overwhelming. When I look to my sisters and brothers who are farther along than me I see that they have resolved their doubts so I can hope that mine will reslove also.

[JJ]

Those doubts and rationalizations plague us all at some point.

It's one of the reasons I am so thankful for the new scientific research. Because I KNOW this is physical. My confusion and doubts are just me trying to comes to terms with something so outside of anything I was ever taught or expected. This site has a list and summaries of many of those studies

http://aebrain.blogspot.com/p/reference-works-on-transsexual-and.html

And yet.....even though I thought of myself as a woman as far as I knew I also knew I didn't feel like one. That I had a man's mind and this huge secret that I dropped into being male in my head whenever I could. Acted out a male life I didn't have from the time I was a small child. I thought of it as playing when I was little but I knew as I grew up and needed to keep doing it that it wasn't really that anymore. So in a strange way I knew. I never let anyone know about those feelings or the secret inner life I led. I never even would let myself examine what it meant except to question if I was a masculine lesbian and I just knew without doubt that I wasn't. What a relief it was to finally lose that secret and quit the denial.

Not that I don't sometimes get worn down by all the trans issues and drama and want to climb back into denial and pull it over my head again. Knowing that this condition is real and physical really helps me with that. And somehow helps empower my decision that I not only have the need but the right to correct my body.

We are each different in how things affect us and what works for us. But that is how I felt and what helps me

Hugs

John

[Guest ignota]

The simplest answer the Why? is, "I was born this way."

I guess you're right, again Thanks for your advice, Janice. Hopefully I'll get there, and I'll try not to worry in the meantime.