Do you have to hate your assigned birth sex to be transgender?

[Guest]

Hi All,

So a month or two when I discovered that I was transgender, I hopped on the research train and read all about what being transgenered was all about. I've read many instances where transgendered persons stated that they never felt comfortable and hated being in the body they were born with.

To some extent I can relate not feeling comfortable with my body, but hating the sex I was assigned with at birth, not really... I sometimes question of I am truely transgenered because I do not hate my 'male' body.... The only time I go through dysphoria is when I am dressed as a female. Thats when anything masculine bothers me.

All in all, I want to transition because being female makes me happier, and has been the missing puzzle piece in life (meaning.... I never really understood myself til now...).

So, with all that said.... Are there others in our community that can relate? Or am I confused?

Thanks,

Milani

[Guest Kaylee]

Hi Milani,

No... I don't think you are confused, nor do I think most trans-folks will.

For me... I new I was basically trans for 20 years before I decided to do anything about it. There was always a disconnect in a way, and it was certainly was a progression over the years. You know... "this will do for now" kind of feeling.

While I missed some aspects of womanhood (I always missed having breasts... like a missing apendage)... I never "hated" parts of my body that many other trans women have.

Everyone is different, transition to a different level, and for different reasons.

But then... I am confused anyway. I walked into the bathroom... then forgot why ha ha.

Hugs,

Kay

[Guest]

Hi Milani,

I can certainly relate to what you are saying. I don't hate my male body, but I also find at times I would feel much happier as a female. I find it very confusing. I question whether I am transgender or not. I still don't really know, but if I was to rewind the clock and have a choice of whether to be born a boy or a girl, I'm pretty certain I would pick girl. I have just started seeing a therapist which I am hoping will help find some answers.

I also think that part of the reason why I feel so confused is a built in fear of what society would think of me. I'm afraid of being labeled some kind of "freak".

Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that you are not alone in the way you feel.

Jayne

[Charlize]

Do you have to hate your assigned birth sex to be transgender?

No!

I certainly prefer things as they are but i lived as a male for 63 years and used this old body in many ways that were fun as well as productive for my family and self. I can't regret being born in the wrong body. Just had to do the best with it that i could.

Hugs,

Charlize

[Guest]

Ditto to what Charlize said. I didn't so much hate myself or many things about my male roles.

I knew I was also female all my life and hated that I had to hide it so. Read: way overcompensating male, a wild dude.

Let's just say simplisticly I wore out the male in me, i just couldn't hide myself from me anymore. The surprising thing after HRT, was how deeply rooted my depression was in male, or acting male. Hug. JodyAnn

[JJ]

For me I don't hate females at all. Admire them -even envy some things about them maybe if I was truthful-but it just isn't me and never was.

I would have said I didn't hate my body because of gender and was not body dysphoric until I transitioned. I did hate my body-really hate it-but thought it was because my body has never been up to all demand of it. And I have some health issues I am forced to deal with that I resent. I hate limitations -just my nature.

But when I transitioned I discovered that though I dislike those health issues I've had all my life the hate was actually displaced gender dysphoria. I never knew I had a choice so I thought I had to live with it as it was and I suppose could not afford to really see the gender dysphoria I denied and misunderstood. Looking back I knew it on some level and consciously pushed it back sometimes as something I couldn't afford to feel.

We are each highly individual and what is true for me may be totally different -will be different to some degree-for anyone else.

I actually wish I were a woman in a way. Would make my life so much easier if I matched and as an artist it can be fun I know from playing the role, but at the bottom it just isn't me and I can't be a woman. It doesn't fit and somehow I had to always work very hard to function as a woman. Now life is much simpler in spite of the fundamental complications of living transgender. And I feel like me. I know and understand me now.

It isn't about liking or not much less hating. It's just about who I AM.

Johnny

[Guest Astrosmurf]

like Jayne said, the fear was a big part of confusion for me; also the fact that there were zero role models I could really relate to. Deep down I always knew I was feminine, and trying to be a typical male was hard and exhausting . . . Still I didn't consciously "hate" my body. I still don't hate it, would just feel better if it were more feminine.

Exactly as you say, Milani, I feel my dysphoria most strongly when I cross-dress, then it seems all my obvious maleness stands out a mile and that can make me feel pretty blue sometimes. Those moments are when I'm really facing what the problem is, not the person in the mirror but that feeling which comes from being so misaligned gender-wise. That is what dysphoria is, I think.

Also just as you say, that metaphor of the missing jigsaw piece is perfect, I've been using it too and that's exactly what it's like for me -- I couldn't fully understand what the problem was and it manifested in different ways in my life which I wasn't able to tie together until I finally got that missing piece that allowed me to understand the picture as a whole. Id heard of people having sex changes but I didn't hear the term 'transgender' and really start investigating what it meant until 2007 when I got home access to the Internet. From then on I was able to start putting the pieces together more consciously, because I knew what the overall pattern was, even if all the pieces still weren't in place yet. I'm happy you feel like you've found that missing piece for yourself, it's a great feeling even if a lot of time and opportunity's gone and there's still a way to go. Better late than later, in my case. You still appear quite young so that's awesome.

I've wondered if that word 'hate' in terms of body dysphoria became entrenched in transgender descriptions after those days when people had to go see a therapist or doctor or whatever and 'convince' those professionals that what they were expressing really was gender dysphoria, before they could even get help, if they were lucky. I think I remember reading something about that DSMV manual for psychiatrists, is it? Or whatever it's called. like they had to tick a number of boxes, and one of the boxes was 'hating' your own body? Not sure about that, someone on here will know. Anyway, it seems some transgender people do feel strong hate for their bodies, but I don't think we all do, by any means, and we certainly don't have to in order for transgender to apply to us an an identity.

Maybe the nearest thing I feel to hate for my body is a kind of resentment. Impatience too for sure sometimes, and frustration, but not hatred. I did self-harm a lot way back in the past, but thankfully I never had the urge to mutilate my genitals or anything; I'm pretty sure that self-harming was related to my dysphoria and confusion in life, but not like an 'attack' on my body because I hated the fact of its maleness.

[Guest]

thank you all so much for responding back. You've all made me feel so much better about all what I was feeling. I usually go through a downer/questionable state of mind after two days of not being able to dress up as a female. I think since I have not transitioned fulltime, I get comfy in being in male mode because I am too tired from work to get all dressed up afterwards... or have errands to run/do after work that I dont have the time to dress up...

I'm pretty excited tomorrow though... I'm getting off of work early to get dressed in female mode to see my therapist! She met me in female mode my last visit and mentioned how she didn't even recognize me at first and that everything from my posture to my mannerisms were 'naturally' female.

Thank you all again for your responses. I love that I can come to a place where everyone is understanding and supportive.

~Milani

[Guest Raya]

I wouldn't describe what I felt as hating my male body- I just felt wrong, cheated. And that made me angry at God for not making me a girl, at the doctors who didn't fix me, and strongly at myself for not being able to "be a boy" very well. Or maybe just not fit into a dysfunctional picture of what a boy should be- I really did not like that image.

Now, at 52, I am confused. I can't help it, there are so many changes occurring and coming up. I am also confident that transitioning is right for me, because as fraught as that path is with uncertainty, it sure looks better than fighting myself for the rest of my life. I was losing that fight.

And, the joy I've been having since I decided to be me is undeniable.

So, in re: your original post, I can relate. I don't know if you are confused, but I sure am sometimes- it's great to have some friends here to talk through it. Embrace the Chaos!

[Guest]

I wouldn't describe what I felt as hating my male body- I just felt wrong, cheated. And that made me angry at God for not making me a girl, at the doctors who didn't fix me, and strongly at myself for not being able to "be a boy" very well. Or maybe just not fit into a dysfunctional picture of what a boy should be- I really did not like that image.

Now, at 52, I am confused. I can't help it, there are so many changes occurring and coming up. I am also confident that transitioning is right for me, because as fraught as that path is with uncertainty, it sure looks better than fighting myself for the rest of my life. I was losing that fight.

And, the joy I've been having since I decided to be me is undeniable.

So, in re: your original post, I can relate. I don't know if you are confused, but I sure am sometimes- it's great to have some friends here to talk through it. Embrace the Chaos!

Hi Tracy, yes is surely is chaos to embrace! Lots of changes happening fast! - thought at the same time I feel like I have been patient and taking my time.

[CiCi_73]

Hi Milani,

Like many of those who posted above, I don't feel any hate for my male body (except the scads of body hair, but there are ways to deal with that!). I find often, however, how natural it feels when I'm wearing my breast forms and I yearn sometimes for girl shaped hips. So while I don't hate my male body I don't have any real positive feelings toward it like I do my (not necessarily real) female body.

And I don't think you're confused at all. You said it yourself, being female makes you happier. When I am dressed and looking in the mirror and I see the real me, I am happy. I like the person looking back at me, and I can't say that to "the other guy" when I see him in the mirror.

Hugs,

Courtney

[MarcieMarie12]

I am not sure if I hate being male or use the idea of hating being male/masculinity to justify/rationalize that I would prefer being female/feminine.

[MarcieMarie12]

I'll add that for me, sometimes I have dislike of my male features wishing they would go away. Othertimes I'm okay with it or more to the case too focused on other things to worry about it. Mirrors bug me though, as when not dressed there some dissonance between what I see and what I expect.

[Guest]

I can identify with the mirror thing. That is a part of the reason I wrote the poem The Pixy That Loves Me.

It's in my personal stuff here if you care to give it a look. I had to find it, it's a blog of my original poetry.

As a side note, I read a lot of stuff I had forgotten I had written. A nice morning trip down memory lane for me. Giggle. Hug. JodyAnn

[VickySGV]

As one who is "on the other side" of HRT and GCS, I can say that it is not HATRED that drives the boat to the point of doing both. As several of you have said, it is the matter of simply being more comfortable and content with life. As a child I had other reasons to "HATE" my body which included an immune system malfunction that actually caused me to have very disfiguring eczema that was death to much of my social life. In my fantasies I did however find that my perfect body that was free from the disfigurement was a female body. When I could go off into my "special world" where I was not the object of disgust for how my hands, arms, legs and feet looked and felt, I was always feminine and happy. I was just never interested in the male exhibitions, because for me they would be futile. I did get married eventually to a woman who could see past the skin problems, and we did have 3 children, but we have been divorced 30 years for reasons other than my GD.

I am comfortable with my body at last. HRT did do something that has made the lifelong (67 years) skin and other problems much much less than they were for so many years and a cloud that had been hanging over my mental state has lifted. It was like very dark sunglasses had been glued on my face and now have come off. I can now appreciate the things my "male" presentation did over the years, and can be grateful that it kept me alive as long as it did so that I have NOW in a body that has become healthier and which better expresses my attitude and views on life as a whole.

I think it was an obligatory thing for people in the past to say the word HATE about their bodies in order to gain their needed medical care and the ability to transition and I have spoken to people who had surgery and full transition in the 80's and even before who back that up. Others from that time when it was so difficult to transition were driven by actual hatred, it was their only way to stay alive.

[Sarah Anne]

Hi All,

So a month or two when I discovered that I was transgender, I hopped on the research train and read all about what being transgenered was all about. I've read many instances where transgendered persons stated that they never felt comfortable and hated being in the body they were born with.

To some extent I can relate not feeling comfortable with my body, but hating the sex I was assigned with at birth, not really... I sometimes question of I am truely transgenered because I do not hate my 'male' body.... The only time I go through dysphoria is when I am dressed as a female. Thats when anything masculine bothers me.

All in all, I want to transition because being female makes me happier, and has been the missing puzzle piece in life (meaning.... I never really understood myself til now...).

So, with all that said.... Are there others in our community that can relate? Or am I confused?

Thanks,

Milani

Hi Miani,

I am new to this site but I can relate to your feelings. I don't hate my male side, but when I am dressed as a female I feel as though I was meant to be that way. I don't know how to define myself. I feel that I am part female and part male. I don't know if I will ever be ready to transition, but I find my self spending more and more time dressed as a woman. When I dress as a woman, I don't feel like a guy in a skirt. I am a woman in a skirt. I wish I could expand my female side more.

[Sarah Anne]

I have had to urge to dress female since I was 10. I used to wear my sister's clothes when there was no one home. It felt right. I enjoyed feeling like a girl. As time goes by I have found my female side is an important part of who I am. It isn't something that I can suppress. I don't know how far these feelings will take me, but as I get older I find myself expressing my female side more and more. I am still a little self conscious about dressing in public. I suppose my female dress is a little dated but I find piece of mind when I put on a skirt and a blouse as opposed to jeans and t shirt. Occasionally people catch me in my female clothes. This was quite scary for me at first, but I am starting to loose my aprehension about being scene. I don't want to hide my femininity any longer.

[tracy_j]

I sometimes wonder Sarah and do feel a little aprehensive but as it becomes natural to be dressed that way I become far more confident! I think it shows and that is probably why few people notice, or just accept me as female.

Tracy