Am I a transgender person?

[Steffi]

quote "What I wish to know is, if I am considered a transgender person! I just want to know where I fit in and what I am. It wasn't before later in life that I started to have issues with my gender. Do I have to be born that way to be a transgender person, or is it possible to to become a transgender person later in life because of traumatic life experiences?"

Here are two stories not directly relevant, but food for thought:-
I always thought that I was "merely" a transvestite, because although I had these feelings all my life they would fade in and out. For a while, perhaps three or four months the trans thing would fade into the background and I would be reasonably content with my male life.
But then the feelings would return with a vengeance, so strong that often I just wanted to die.
I reasoned that if I actually was a transsexual, then the feelings would surely be constant and so I persuaded myself that I was a transvestite.

- when I eventually did go to Charing Cross about 40 years later, the interviewing psych told me at the end of the first interview that he had no doubt whatsoever that I was ACUTELY gender dysphoric and put me into the program as of then.
--------------------------------------------
A couple of years ago I met a new friend. She had the urge to transition but had serious doubts about the validity of her feelings as they had only really begun to trouble her late in life, at about age 59. She does not remember ever having any such feelings at all during childhood, adolescence or early adulthood.
Personally, I was quite sure after our first meeting and chat that she was transsexual.
She eventually went to a Gender Identity Clinic a couple of years later and was officially diagnosed. She has just completed her RLE (= Real Life Experience, living in the proposed gender 24/7 for two years ) and is on the surgical list.

----------------------------

No-one can really answer for you - in effect really we all diagnose ourselves and our interviews with psychs just confirm that our feelings are real and valid and not just a delusion caused by mental health issues.
- having mental health problems does not automatically disbar a person from treatment, it is only stipulated that such issues must be under control.
Many trans-people DO have mental-health problems as well, but they may well be a result of the underlying gender problem - it's not craziness causing the gender issue, it's the gender issue sending us crazy!

I cannot diagnose you. I do however think that you quite possibly may be transsexual and that you ought to talk to a properly qualified gender psych.

The term "transgender" is a very broad umbrella and you certainly do fit somewhere under it.
I am sorry that I cannot be more definitive or more directly helpful

I do however repeat my earlier remark - you need to go and talk to a proper gender-psych

[LittleGreenAlien]

Thank you for your reply. Also my aunt have said I need to go see someone about this! Like I said, I think it probably already started at age 24. Then slowly developed into what it is now. but It's only been a couple of months ago since my gender dysphoria exploded. So I need a little time to collect my toughts, It's all so unreal to me everything that have happened.

[LittleGreenAlien]

I just remember and realized somthing that might be of importanze!

I don't remember my age, but long before I had any kind of gender dysphoria, since I was young enough to still get an allowance from my mom and dad, I repeatedly dreamt at night that I was a young man, up until now. It hit me that I have been dreaming about being a male since forever after I had a dream last night about peeing standing and having male genitalia.

And last week I told my cousin about a dream I just had, that went on for three days in a row. It was like a dream series in three episodes. In my first dream I wanted to feel like a whole person and got a sex reassignment surgery. I was still at the hospital, and when I got into my room my whole family was there. The moment I came in my male cousin says with a smile, "hey, now we're both male cousins!". In Norway we call a male cousin a "fetter", and e female cousin a "kusine". Then my aunt asked me what new name I had choosen, and I said "Sebastian". Sebastian like from the song "Sebastian", from the movie "Velvet Goldmine". Then my cousin turned on the song on YouTube, and then I woke up. The next two episodes of my dream series was just about being a male and having a male body.

The reason Ihave not told anyone in my family about my dreams is because I've had them since long before my gender dysphoria. Of course I thought it was quite odd that I repeatedly dreamt that I was a male. But I just let it be!

[Steffi]

Firstly I stress that I am not a doctor! But.....

In my view it is significant that these dreams of maleness have been often repeated.
Whilst anyone might very occasionally have a dream in which they are of the opposite sex, it is not common.

Your revelation that such dreams have been repeated often adds to my opinion that you really ought to go and talk to a specialist gender-trained counselor.

One trait of gender-dysphoria that seems consistent is that once it does surface it does not go away.
In my experience it just continues to escalate until eventually the person is forced to do something.

[LittleGreenAlien]

I'm getting there but currently I'm writing down in a letter to my doctor everything that needs to be said. I'll try to make an appointment sometime, but when I do not know. But it's hard because it's not that long since I really started having a problem with the gender dysphoria. For many years my gender dysphoria slowly developed without me noticing that much of it, or understanding that I was in the process of developing a gender dysphoria. But suddenly now it explodes! And I'm feeling pretty bad, It all feels so unreal and strange, and I do not know what to think...