Hello, Everyone. Happy to be here

[Hcgreyson]

I suppose I first knew I was not comfortable with myself when I was 12, when boys and girls really started to become different.  I was caught crossdressing at 14 and confronted.  My father took me out to dinner, supposedly for a talk, but never broached the subject (more on that later).  I hid my thoughts through the rest of highschool and college and ended up in a long term relationship where I forced my self to largely put all those thoughts away, getting married, having three children.  Turns out my father never talked to me about my crossdressing because he was actually transgender.  Always felt that night like he'd wanted to say something.  Many years later, he died of complications from HRT, trying to push too far, too fast and getting extra doses of Estrogen from questionable sources.  It made me terrified to pursue anything myself, plus I had a family of my own and I knew my mother, because of my father, would be terrified for me if I ever allowed myself to come out.

 

Well, life hit me hard a few years ago.  My wife told me out of the blue that she wasn't in love with me anymore after more than 20 years.  I was left a middle age man with no idea what to do with the rest of my life with my closeted life long self image still dangling over my head.

 

I'm 47 now.  I feel beyond late to the game, but I'm finally at a place were I'm going to put myself before other people's comfort and try to be someone I always knew I should be.  I'm not trans, so I never knew what I was until non-binary became a thing, and I've identified as bi-gender for a while now.  For the sake of my children, and because I'm frankly okay being male SOMETIMES I intend to continue my public life as a man and my private life as whatever I feel I am at the time, as sometimes my dysphoria gets REAL bad, and other times it disappears completely.  Given the chance to do it all over, I think I would choose to be female, but this compromise feels like it will work for me.  IF it doesn't, I can adjust. 

 

I'm hopefully starting HRT in three days and will play it by ear how far I go.  In a perfect world I'd be as female as possible while still being able to present male with enough work and clothing choices, but I know the world is imperfect and I'm excited to finally do this and see what the world has in store for me.  Don't know if I'm more afraid that there will be too much change or not enough, but part of me is excited to see who I become.  Isn't that puberty in a nutshell.  Never thought i'd go through it again at 47.

 

Thanks for reading, if you still are, and best to you all.

 

Chris/Haley

[VickySGV]

Welcome to the Forums.  Your age is not even close to the upper end of our members here, so you are not too late to become the person you need to be for yourself to have a happy life.  Trans does run in families we are finding out so the deal of your family is pretty normal for the place as well.  When we are first coming to grips with our True Selves, it does seem like we are the only ones around like that, but life is better than it seems as all of us have found or are finding.

 

[Ivy]

Welcome Chris/Haley

I'm a bit older, but my gender issues also came to a head when I split with my long time wife.  I had kept them buried till then.

I'm in NC, but not real far from Spartanburg.

[Hcgreyson]

I used to live in central NC near ft Bragg. Then moved to Greenville and then Spartanburg after the separation.  I’d have probably gone further but I did t want to be more than 10 miles from my kids since we share custody 

[April Marie]

Welcome to the forums!! There are many of us who began our journey much later than you. I'm in my late 60s and am just 9 months into discovering my true self. You'll find lots of information and support here.