I never really considered being born in the wrong body when I was young. The idea was not heard of. I knew I was weird. I liked to do things that girls did, but was never allowed. I was beaten and called a sissy boy. Seems I spent most of my youth crying about one thing or other. I used to walk around with limp wrists, it was my natural way of walking, but my parents would have none of that. I would get my hands slapped. I would be hit. They even threatened to cut them off if I didn't stop. I wasn't into, nor very good at sports. Yet another thing to get me mocked for. I learned to walk, talk, and act as people expected. I always avoided gym in high school. I didn't like to be in the community showers with all the other boys. Two reasons, I didn't want them looking at me, and I found that I wanted to check them out, but that could get you killed. I buried all of that and tried to conform. I even joined the Air Force and pretended to be tough, but when alone, I was listening to Barry Manilow and the Carpenters. I loved Karen. My first wife noticed something about me. She sent me on a hiking trip along the Long Trail in Vermont with one of her Bi friends. She thought I might be Bi or Gay. Well, it was so awful, there was nothing going to go on. The heat was horrible, all the streams had dried up. We had little water, and after the second day, I had to hike out while fighting heat stroke. My second marriage was miserable. I married "the Sarge" as my neighbor called her. A very bossy controlling person. I guess I needed that. I was in my 40's. Eventually I was online doing some research and came across this test called the COAGITI, I think it was. It said I was strongly transexual. So I started to investigate transexuals and found myself in so many of the stories. I came out to a friend (female) at work and she got me hooked up with her psych. I was soon diagnosed with severe GD. Of course, coming out to my wife was a disaster. I ended up divorced, almost lost access to my kids, lost my home, my friends except that one coworker deserted me, and my family turned away from me. I stayed strong through that and started HRT. Then the nail in the coffin came. I came out to work. They said they would support me but in the end, they let me go. My ex was one who refused to work, so I was the sole support to my kids. I held out for as long as I could, but realized that trying to get a job in that market was hard enough without doing it while transitioning. I had to stop my transition and go back to being Ed. I buried Emma.
Eventually, I would remarry and life would be good, but you can't keep yourself buried forever. I am 56 now. I will start counseling again tomorrow. My current wife has a copy of all the journals I kept for my psych. She read the first one and commented how intense it was and has not picked them up again. So I don't know where I stand with her but she keeps telling me how much she loves and adores me. Unfortunately, she also keeps reminding me that I am her big strong husband.
My Story is fairly typical of most here but for me it was when I was 5 or 6 I didn't know what the deal was except I wanted to do what the girls were doing and not the boys. Over the following years I became certain there had been a horrible mistake until I was about 19 and I made my first and only attempt to come out of the closet and transition. However life has a way of putting the breaks on your own plans. Subsequently at some point I deciced I could live with being a cross dresser but I was still deeply unhappy. After getting sick in 2000 I made another bid only this time it was my partner who put the brakes on and rather than deal with it then I withdrew. One month ago I decided I that enough was enough and I made a conscious decision to trannsition and not in the way you are neccesarily thinking...For a start I am transitioning away from where I am to a new and better outlook. I start my first part of therapy next month and I will take one day at a time...where this ends...I don't know...I am more than open to transition MTF but at 51 there are always considerations like my partner of 30 years.
I knew when I was 4 or 5. I was about 42 when I got round to doing something about it.
When people say, "Don't rush into this, plan carefully, maybe wait a few years..."
It's probably well-meant advice, but don't leave it too long. Plan whatever you need to, but the sooner you start the better.
You only get one life, don't live half of it in misery and frustration.
xx
All of you, however hard the road you have travelled, be proud of yourselves!
Hey Devi. What a great question.
I have never really felt like one of the guys although I have never really questioned my gender until the age of about 28/29. Now I've just turned really I'm questioing things a lot more (I'm really confused TBH) but like you I wish I had these issues when I was 18, also like you I have to be a guy 9-5 but all other times i'm en-femme thanks to the support of my wonderful fiance. It is interesting when you look back things become more clearer and I am slowly becoming happier and more accepting of my self. I've read that when you get hormones it can take 6 years to go through the "female puberty" and the changes to take effect this makes me want to make my mind up sooner rather than later. Who wants to be all hormonal at 36? lol
i was 8 when i knew i was differant from the other kids
didnt like sports ,but like to color and decorate.
but i did closet dress when i was in my teen and young adult till i en listed in the army (to man up
well that didnt help much
didnt start doing any thing about it serious ly till i hit my 40s ,started seeing an therapist about it
she saisd she though ti was def a girl in side my deep soul ,but not in my head
I found my femme at 33, but I first started thinking about wanting to be a girl at about 15 when my boyfriend told me he wished I was a girl. The reason he said that was that if I was a girl, we could have an open relationship, but back then it definetely wasn't considered a good thing to be gay or bi. I wanted the same thing to be honest, but the thought of becoming a girl wasn't something he or I seriously considered. In fact, becoming a girl would have been more upsetting to family and friends, so it was just a thought that we toyed with in fantasy.
When we parted ways on different career paths in different locations, I carried on as a heterosexual male, married, had kids and went on in life like everyone else. I was strongly attracted to him all the while and it took a long time for me to tell anyone that I was bisexual, and that didn't turn out very good for me. I told my fiancee before I asked her to marry me, she seemed okay with it and was even quite curious. However, she had an affair and left me and defended herself by telling our friends and family that I was gay. Nobody bought the excuse, but it was devastating to me. So much so that I became severely depressed and without a doubt had what we now know as PTSD; still do have effects and issues that I deal with, but I am in a much better place to put it mildly.
Rebounding from that marraige was a rough road for me, but I eventually met a woman who I felt I could trust and told her all about everything that happened, how I felt and that had recently thought a lot about corssdressing. She encouraged me to be myself and let go, and I did so privately with only her. I was the schmuck that left her, but to her credit she never tried to do what my ex-wife did and I quietely moved on with my life.
I fell in love, re-married and again told my fiancee all about me so that if she said yes, it would be knowing about my sexual perferences and past, as well as the fact that I enjoyed crossdressing because I made me feel very sexy and erotic. It isn't a tale without some serious bumps in the road but... we're still married and she allows me to be me! It isn't always easy, but we love each other and are in it for the long haul.
Anyhow, it was an interesting question that, as you just read, isn't necessarily one that evokes a simple or short answer.
I guess my story starts out about the same. I figured I was different at the age of about five or six, so after a few months of internal struggle and conflicting thoughts, I told my mom. Though we in that small had no clue as to what *transgender was or meant, I told her I felt like a girl, or so to speak. She and my whole family were staunch LDS so they started the whole, " you were born a boy, act like it" and such. So for years, I was put into that role. I hated it. A couple years later I diagnosed as an aspie, because of some behavioral issue due to this. So I started to hide it a lot, but my mom always knew that I would try on her clothing items, she wouldn't say anything. ( later in life we discussed this). Now I am twenty-five years old, and have been on HRT Since January of 2015. And I am so happy that something finally worked out.
My mom thought it was a joke--still does. I guess it's because I kind of presented it as a joke. I was a nervous wreck and we were in the car, and I just remember thinking that my entire body was shaking. I said something like 'okay, okay, i'm just going to go out and say it' and laughing, because my mom was laughing. And I remember thinking how hypocritical I was being because I was sitting the way she taught me, my legs crossed, body leading off ot the side, chin on hand. The posture every woman naturally adopts because it's damn comfortable. And I just blurted it out 'i think i might be a man!' two minutes laughter, we were laughing it off as a joke and I couldn't look at her--two months later I was back in my apartment, she calls, asks if I was being serious or not, and I tell her no. Because I can't tell her yes.
When I told my dad, it was Christmas and I went back home for the holidays. I ended up seeing my best friend again, the girl I'd been in love with for years, and she was living happily in an apartment with her boyfriend, a guy I despized the first time I set ******* eyes on him. It wasn't until I was back home that I realized he was a lot like me. Me with a dick. We had the same humor, said a lot of the same stuff, talked to B-- in the same way. I bet we even loved her the same way. I was a wreck when I saw her with him, so I ran home. I spent the rest of the night--and the rest of the hollidays, to be honest--crying over her. As I was talking to dad, answering his questions, it was becoming more and more clear to me that I was upset about more than just B--. It was more than just not having a dick, I felt indadequate. Broken. In my head, all the things I thought were wrong with me were bubbling up, stemming forth from this sick, horrible, awful feeling like I wasn't ever going to be good enough. That a vital part of me was just absent, and I'd grown up wrong because too many things made me feel uncomfortable and unsteady. I was so messed up I screamed all my frustrations at my dad, breaking things as I went. Finally I just screamed out at him, 'I hate my boobs!' and stormed upstairs.
I haven't really done much exploring outside of that. Hormones and surgery feels like too big of a decision.
I realized that I was transgender when I was 31, which was only last year. For the longest while I was in denial about it. I thought that my feelings that I was born in the wrong body was wrong. I had considered the option that I was just imagining it all. It wasn't until I had read an article about writing why I thought I was transgender down with the intent to give that writing to those you wish to come out to. So I started writing in a journal that documented all of the reasons why I thought that I was a M2F transgender in the journal. Although the intent was to someday use it to give to my family and friends if any of them doubted that I was transgender, I wound up convincing myself. I discovered that the signs that I was really a girl were there when I was younger, but back then, I couldn't grasp the idea of what transgender even meant. Now that my eyes are fully opened, I am more at peace with being transgender...for the most part.
I am still trying to understand it all. I haven't come out to anyone yet, and so I haven't transitioned either. I have merely been dressing in feminine clothing in secret, practicing putting on make up, and...just getting in touch with Jennifer. It has been a wonderful feeling to see my true self finally come out. It's a shame that I have to do it in secret, and keep her bottled up whenever I am with my friends and family or even at work. It is killing me on the inside to keep myself a secret from them. My feelings want to just come out and tell my friends and family, especially the latter that I am transgender, but as a couple of people on this site have already told me, I need to take this nice and slow. I should just wait until the time is right to come out.
I hope to come out eventually, and when I do, I can take the next steps such as seeing a gender therapist and getting started on hormones. I'm not sure about the surgery yet. I might actually see the therapist before I come out. Maybe they'll know how to come out and when to know when the right the time is.
I don't remember the exact age, but I know I was very young.
I was always interested in adult women--even when I was like 5 or 6. I was envious of their curves and shapes. I used to stuff rags and whatnot into my pants to try and mimick having their figure. I also have a memory of being at the mall with my mom while she was shopping. I was looking at all the dresses, wishing I could get her to buy me one.
Then, one summer--again, still pretty young, single digit age for sure--I had to go to daycare while my mom was at work. The lady who ran the daycare had a chest of old clothes for playing "dress up." While the other boys were dressing up as firefighters and cops and doctors and soliders and everything else, I was always dressing up as a girl. Whatever we were playing at any given time while dressed up, I was always someone's wife, girlfriend or sister. No one ever teased me about it or anything like that. I guess we were all still young and innocent enough that no one thought of it as weird--perhaps a legacy leftover from being the first generation of kids birthed by parents who came of age during the liberal-minded 60's and 70's. I don't know. The daycare had a pool too. And while all the other kids were playing in the pool, I'd stay inside and play dress up all alone. I recal sitting down in a satin gown, admiring myself in the mirror when the lady in charge approached me and convinced me to abandon that to play in the pool. She never used the words, but, I got the impression that she was concerened about me--that something I was doing was upsetting.
Then I remember hiding under the slide with another little girl. She asked to see what I had under my shorts. She showed me hers and I showed her mine. I knew boys had a penis and girls didn't (what they did have--if anything--was a mystery to me) but that visual confirmation made me realize just how disgusted I was with my boy body and boy parts.
As I got older and realized feeling that way was "wrong" I vowed to hide it and never speak of it to anyone. Of course, this was the days before the internet and cellphones came along and shrunk our world. I thought that there was something wrong with me--though I was okay with it--and that I was the only person in the world who felt this way. So I buried it.
As I became a teenager, I buried it deeper from public view, amid a torrent of gay and misogynistic slurs from teen boys. I heard the way kids talked about "fags" and "sissys" at school, so I was terrified of letting my secret out. Still, I did things in private--like, stealing my mom's clothes and wearing them and, ocassionally, at around the age young women start to menstrate, taking some of her pads to hear between my legs.
I guess what I'm getting at, is that it was gradual...a process. I didn't wake up one day and go, I'm supposed to be a female! The signs were always there--the preoccupation with being female, having little interest in male pursuits, being much more emotional than most boys--but it took time to recognize all the sings and catlogue them.
I've been cross dressing since I was 11 years old, always imagined myself as a female. I'm gonna see a gender therapist and hopefully i can get started on HRT, I don't want to wait any longer. My only hope is that i'm a beautiful female.