Some things that don't seem normal for transsexuals?

[Guest Celi]

Hello, everyone. I've been wracking my brain for a good way to start this post, and I can't think of one. So I'm just going to sort of come out with it.

For me, the realization did not happen slowly or gradually. It's been repressed for my entire life, I think. Looking back, there were only a few instances where it came to the surface of my mind, and even on those occasions I didn't acknowledge to myself what it was. Once I told my mom that I wished I was a girl, and she said something to the effect of "Um, don't say that to anybody else." I didn't. On another occasion, I had a dream where I could just choose whether I wanted to be a boy or a girl. I chose to be a girl, and the dream made me so happy that I tried to replicate it by simply thinking about it really hard as I went to sleep. My body parts (you know, the ones "down there") always felt wrong. If I had given it any thought, I would have realized that it's kind of odd to be alienated by your own body parts, but I never did.

The trigger of my epiphany was very small. I overheard a conversation about transsexuals. None of them were apparently transsexual and the topic of their conversation didn't have all that much to do with me, but they spoke of transsexuals like people. I had never entertained such thoughts, at least on the surface of my mind, but I think that merely hearing them gave deep feelings that I never thought or talked about the validation they needed for me to let myself be curious about them. I researched the subject online, and what I found was quite different from my vague assumptions. I understood very quickly.

It hit me hard. I didn't expect it at all. It dominated my thoughts and made me way more stressed out than I needed to be. My body was physically affected as well; for two days or so, my appetite disappeared, I could hardly sleep, my body temperature rose and fell like a roller coaster, I had trouble breathing, and I was constantly tired. None of this was because I was ashamed of my discovery--I'm pretty sure I saw it as good news from the beginning. It was because of the sheer shock. I really didn't expect this.

But I have certain lingering doubts. Like I mentioned above, I've never let this slip to anybody, until now including myself. Reading about other people's experiences, it seems that there are certain signs that are exhibited throughout early life that I just didn't show. I never wanting to play with "girl toys", but then I never really played with toys much at all--looking back, I think that may have been due to the way that nearly all toys are clearly intended for boys and girls but not both. My interests were always in nerdy things that are more associated with males but I think are normal for both genders, like video games and anime. I never crossdressed; though that was one of the few things that reached my conscious mind as something I'd really want to do, I never actually tried to do it. Also, like I mentioned above, I'm attracted exclusively to girls. I know that sexual orientation is totally separate from gender identity, but it still makes me feel nervous. Are these things (or the absence of them) normal for transsexual girls?

Wow. Before I thought that these things were serious doubts, but having actually put them on the screen, they seem so superficial and insignificant. Just three concerns, and I already know that at least one of them really doesn't mean anything. I think I'm feeling more sure of myself than I thought. The first night, I wanted to say it to myself, just to see if I could. I said "I'm ug" over and over, taking a moment to try and collect myself between each try. Eventually, I said it: "I'm a girl." At first I saw my difficulty in just saying it as a sign that I may have been wrong about it. Now that I think about it I think that if I was really making myself say something that wasn't true, it would be easy to say. It would be meaningless. The fact that it was difficult is really more of an indication that it was repressed but true, I think. I did the same thing the next night but it didn't take as long, and on the night after that I got it on the first try. I still say it to myself sometimes, because it just makes me feel good.

I'll tell my therapist about all this on Thursday, and I'll ask him about any gender therapists in the area. Six days is a long time, though, and I really needed to tell someone about this. It feels so urgent; I'm 15, so I have the somewhat rare opportunity to stop puberty before it takes my body too far away from me.

I'm sorry about this post. My mind is still a crazy place to be right now. I know this post was long, rambling, only partly coherent, and most of it had nothing to do with the question I actually came here to ask. Typing this was so incredibly amazingly cathartic, though. I feel so relieved and liberated and confident now. Thanks for listening.

[Guest kelise]

Hey hun, Welcome to Laura's! Your story does not sound unusual to me at all. In fact it sounds just like mine. My revelation hit me like a ton of bricks as well. I remember it vividly. 7th grade, science class. Some kid asked the teacher how a "sex change operation" worked, and the teacher, uncomfortably and vaguely, explained it. My immediate reaction was, "theycandowhat???" I don't think I ever paid as much attention in class. Right after class, I bolted to the library to look up the topic (The internet was still in diapers and very few had access to it) Go figure my middle school library didn't have much to say about it, but I scoured my home encyclopedias for what they could tell me (remember those?) It wasn't until high school and I had access to my town's public library that I got any real info.

My parents were also very distant about the topic. I don't remember if at an early age I ever out and out told them I wanted to be a girl, but I think it was made clear to me at some early point that I was a boy and that was that. In other words I somehow got the clear distinction that wasn't a fact to be disputed with them. My father was a big macho fireman, my mom a hairdresser, but rather tomboyish in many ways. Suffice to say, all my early toys were firetrucks or racecars, although I know I never asked for any of them. In hindsight I also now see I didn't play with them the way little boys would, instead I remember giving them personalitys. I'd talk to them, and make them talk to each other, much the way little girls play with their dolls. I remember wanting "girl toys" but knowing that asking for them would bring a world of humiliation down from my parents. Every Thanksgiving, my mom would give me the JCPenny christmas catalog to make out my christmas list. I'd keep that thing all year long, and sometimes sit there with one finger in the boy toy section, and look though the girl toy section looking at all the pictures. In my imagination I could have those toys and I played with them in my head. As I got older, I compensated by asking for gender neutral toys like video games and board games. I also got away with asking for stuffed animals. I never got into anime, but then the craze hadn't really started yet.

I started crossdressing at age 10, only because it was at that point that I gained the means to. My parents had already divorced and my mom started letting me stay home on SAturdays when she was at work. So I explored her closet. It sounds to me like you wanted to but didn't have the opprtunity or didn't want to risk getting caught. Understandable. I used to use the garage door as my early warning system that mom was home, and always had an escape route in mind. Once I built up my own collection of girls clothes, I was so afraid of getting caught I hid it all in a garbage bag, in my attic, UNDER the insulation.

I also am exclusively attracted to girls. This too confused me when I was in high school. I fell for the myth that all trans girls were into guys, but at some level it made sense to me that I could be a lesbian, so it never really swayed me from wanting to transtion.

Today I'm 5 years full-time, year-and-a-half post-op, 2 years into a lesbian relationship (with a lesbian) and happy as a clam. It happened for me, it can happen for you!

[Guest chngnwnd]

Just because certain things a typical of trans people, it does not mean we all do, or did, them. Like every other group, we have great diversity within out community. Gender identity can be a tricky thing and now is a good age to explore it. I would say that speaking with your therapist about it this week is the best thing you could do. It is an excellent first step. A good GT can help you sort out any confusion you feel.

hugs

Bobbi

[Guest Celi]

I know! I'm just really insecure about this, I think, and I'm sure you can understand that. I've calmed down a lot since I wrote this, and your responses have also helped. It still seems urgent, but I'm not panicking anymore. Thank you both.

Kelise, this will probably make me sound really spoiled, but I still can't begin to comprehend what life was like before the Internet. You had to...read books and ask questions to learn stuff? You didn't have a place to anonymously tell your deepest decret feelings to totally awesome strangers who completely understand them? Life must have been hard

[Guest kelise]

Yep pretty much. Telling your innermost secrets to a stranger usually meant you were sitting in a psychologists office or else you were the crazy person babbling away on the street corner. The internet was heralded in 6th grade for me, but pretty much all it was was a device that let one classroom talk with another across the country, assuming both of you had the patience to wait 30 minutes for each response to download. No one thought this would be something useful everyone would have in their home someday. Once I hit high school, the library had internet access, but all it really was was an ad machine that replaced the dewey decimal system. You could get an email address, but could only check it at the library unless you were rich enough to have internet at home, and even so, most email servers charged for it. So yes, I actually had to pick up a dead tree format book and read. Most of which were published in the 60's and 70's and still had us labeled as tranvestic fetishists or something of the like. They insisted all MTFs were hyper-feminine and showed pictures of transwomen dressed like Stepford Wives. This was also the mindset of my first "therapist". So all in all by the time I graduated high school, I was still sure transition was what I wanted, but never thought anyone would help me get it.

I didn't even get my first cell phone until 2 years after graduation. But hey, on the bright side, I didn't have to put up with cyber-bullying. The ********** at school had to wait for school hours to pick on me. Although I still can't fathom why kids today allow people who talk bad about them access to their facebooks. There's a delete friend option for a reason.

[JenniferB]

:Hi Zali and Welcome to Laura's Playground

Your story could have been about me, although, for me, it happened much later in life. I was looking at a thread in a sports forum that happened to be about Kim Petras (a MtF who completely transitioned in her teens). I had to learn more. Then WHAM! It struck me for the first time that I was a girl, I knew I was going to change gender from that time during all waking hours since that feeling has never left my head, Yet I lingering doubts from time to time. Many of us do. I then remind myself that if I wasn't trans, all this would pass and the thoughts in my head, about having to live as a woman, would clear.

Afterwards I thought everyone had feelings like this once in awhile. I asked my brother recently if he ever had any feelings to be a girl, and he emphatically answered NO. That actually reaffirmed that I am different

{{{Hugs}}}

Jenny

[Guest Celi]

Hi again, everybody. I know it's been a while since I posted this; I've been feeling a bit guilty for not coming back here and telling you guys what's going on. Shortly after I posted this, I told my dad, and then he told my mom, then we told my therapist. So it's out now. My dad has been very supportive and loving, though he's not entirely convinced that I'm right about it, and my mom just seems really unsure, though she hasn't drawn away or really changed the way she interacts with me at all (I suspect she's not taking it very seriously, but she might just be afraid to talk to me about it). My therapist, as I discovered when we told him, has worked with transgender patients before, but never anyone my age. So that was a lucky break for me.

The only thing that concerns me now is how slowly everything is moving. I had it in my head that everything would move really quickly after I told my parents about my feelings, but little has really changed. If I can't start female hormones for a while (my parents certainly won't be open to a step that big for a long time) I'd like to at least start with an androgen blocker to put my puberty on hold and maybe calm down some of the pesky effects of testosterone, but I doubt I could even do that for a good while. I'm trying to be patient, but I want to actually do something. I feel like my body is rebelling against me, turning me into something I'm not, and I'm (for now, anyway) powerless to stop it. I'm going to grow my hair out and work on my voice in private, at least.

Most importantly, though, I'm much more confident than I was when I was last here. Looking back at my first post, I'm amused at how insecure and panicked I was. I'm much calmer now. The more time passes, and the more I think about it, the more certain I am that I'm a girl at heart. Looking forward at transitioning, I'm rather terrified at the prospect of being openly transgender, but I'd have to be. I live in Alabama and I'm fairly certain that I've only ever met one person who was even openly gay, and being a transgender lesbian would garner more attention than I'd like, since I've always been very introverted and shy. But that's something I'm more than willing to go through; I'd rather eat broken glass for breakfast every morning than wait til I'm 18 to transition.

Thanks to all of you, especially Kelise. Without your help, I would probably still be really scared and insecure, and I might not have been able to get up the courage to tell anyone. You've all been a huge help.

[Guest kelise]

You're very welcome, Sweety! Yes, moving slowly sucks, especially at your stage in life, since your body is doing things you really don't want it doing. One thing to remember though, you're out. You've already overcome THE NUMBER ONE MOST DIFFICULT step in the process. Everything else is a breeze compared to that, except maybe coming up with the money. Only advice I can give you is do not hide how much the maleness that's appearing in your body is hurting you. That may be tricky, since you've no doubt grown accustomed to burying these feelings inside to keep people from finding out. You don't have to worry about that now. Remind your parents how much pain you're in, how much difficulty, both physically and financially you will have to endure in future to counteract things like facial hair growth, and how treating it physically now can prevent you from having to deal with it in the future. And should you "change your mind" down the line, puberty blocking treatments can be reversed.

Hang in there!