The challenges of gender identities/transgender

[Milcor888]

Good Morning All,

I am currently studying a Graphic Design degree and as part of this I am tasked with exploring the topic of gender identities. Having come across your page I was intrigued by your community and wondered if anybody would be willing to answer some questions which may help me to expand my research further by having questions answered directly by somebody/people within this community.

I would like to ask 5 questions and would appreciate responses from a personal perspective. I have also included a design which I completed recently which I would appreciate some feedback on. This would be very useful in helping me to understand more about your community and also share the feedback I get with other students and my tutor.

The questions are as follows;

1. What gender do you identify?

2. When did you first know that you wanted to identify as a gender which you were not born with?

3. What were some of the challenges with growing up transgender?

4. Are you happier since you revealed your true identity?

5. What would your advice be for anybody who is hesitant in revealing their true identity?

I have also attached a visual representational map of some of the challenges with gender identities which I made as one of the activities. Would it be possible to have some feedback on this? What is wrong? What could I add to this? Etc.



Thank you in advance for your feedback on the above questions. I look forward to any responses

Kind regards

Corey Miller

[Steffi]

Hi, I'm Steffi, Moderator

Firstly......I see no image attached to your post - I don't know if you forgot or if it was rejected by the forum software either because it exceeded the acceptable file size or because you are a new member and as such not allowed to post pictures yet.
If you email the picture to me via the email address in my Signature, I will post it for you.

1) I identify as female. ( I am now just in my sixties and was born male. I transitioned at 52 and am post-op.)

2) I felt when I was four or five that I wished I was a girl. I used to try and sit with the girls, would rather have done so and played with them but they rejected me, told me I should be with the boys. It is difficult to read my childhood and ascribe causes though because there were other factors - my father earned exceptionally good wages when I was a small child, so e.g. we had the only car in the immediate area/street. I was an EXCEPTIONALLY intelligent child and that isolated me somewhat from my peers, a thing made even worse when my father sent me to a private school. There I did not really fit in, I was "the Council-House kid" and around my home I was "the kid who went to the snobby school" ........ so my childhood alienation due to gender issues is difficult to isolate from other more general factors.
I do remember though the first birthday party I ever attended at age 5 or at most 6. The girls were all in pretty dresses and had had their hair done, curled or in ribbons....... and I felt like crying....... I wanted to be with them, wanted to BE them....

3) I can only speak of my personal experience but parts of it will probably strike a chord with everyone else.
I was in denial. I KNEW from an early age that I wanted to be the opposite sex but I just accepted that it was not possible. At night, the sun went down, it got dark and playtime was over. I didn't like it but had to accept that was the way it was. In the same way, I accepted that I was a boy and that could not be changed.
But the pain of that knowledge and that inner yearning was poisonous and it devalued everything.
All people are seeking happiness, contentment, inner fulfillment, success and the feeling that they are making progress towards those goals.
My inner sadness made it impossible for me to decide and to choose a path in life. None of the options that were available to me - and there were many because as I said above, I was en extremely intelligent child - none of the options appealed and seemed likely to bring contentment.
So I finished up not planning a future in any way, simply living in the moment of Now ....... doing whatever was absorbing and distracting enough to keep me occupied and drown out my inner demons.
In summary, I entered Grammar School with very high scores as one of the most intelligent pupils they'd ever had and left with zero qualifications and the lowest record of achievement they'd ever had.

I was also subject to a crippling and confusing sex-drive. I desperately wanted to have sex with girls.......but at the same time, I desperately wanted to BE them. I had what were on the surface normal heterosexual drives and relationships. In actual fact, when I was having sex with a girl whilst fulfilling my part well enough what I was actually doing was imaging BEING her.
I was ashamed of my transness. It is not NORMAL to have these urges, to sometimes dress as a woman and pretend to be one and I desperately wanted to kill off that drive and just be "normal" in that way.
The guilt and shame of that completely undermined my confidence and self-worth. Whatever I achieved, I knew inside that I was a deeply flawed human being. Even close friendships were devalued. I knew that I was pretending to be someone I wasn't and the deeper the friendship the more I felt like a fraud.
I rode motor-cycles with the utmost recklessness - basically, I went everywhere at full throttle and people forecast a short life with a gory end, a prospect which did not in the least deter me or even particularly dismay me. Fortunately I did not pass my test and ever get a large and very fast motorcycle but only because I did not apply myself to the task of organising and taking my driving test. I drove down the high-street at 50 or 60mph because that was as fast as my motorcycle would go in the given distance. Had I owned a motorcycle that did 140mph, I'm sure that I would have tried to do that.
I began playing acoustic guitar at 12. At 17, I switched to electric guitar and heavy rock and started smoking dope. Being stoned made the whole thing of music so much more intense. I could just get so absorbed in it, completely lost. (.....again, I was living in the moment of Now! I wasn't giving a thought to the future, even the immediate future. At THIS moment I am HERE ......lost in the riffs I was playing)
For the next thirty-five years I was stoned 24/7 and obsessing around the clock about music and playing the guitar - I made only slow progress at improving because I spent most of my time simply enjoying what I could already do instead of an intense focus on a structured improvement. I did slowly improve, but it was a matter of stumbling across something new and incorporating it rather than setting out on a quest for new skills.
I did menial jobs, until Thatcher's mass unemployment excluded me. I ran a small recording studio for 12 years, had my own band for 13 years.
So my life was a matter of being numbed by smoking dope and distracted by being absorbed in the guitar, interspersed with outbreaks of transvestism.
Said like that it doesn't sound too good, but actually I was doing ok. There were even wage-slaves struggling along who envied me - and they were actually unaware of just how OK I was doing.
I had a car - though far from new - and a box-van too for all the band's gear. I owned a 2kW PA system - the microphones alone were worth over £1,000 which was a lot of money then.
I owned a light-show which I built (I taught myself electronics to approximately ONC level, but had no paper qualifications) and which was impressive in it's effect and about 20kW. I had zero debts and a steady reserve of about £4,000 in cash dotted around my home. I didn't spend it because I am not materialist, not "a consumer" After 1998 I had a very up to the date computer system and my wife had one of only slightly lower spec because she steadily inherited my discarded parts every time I upgraded something.
But inside, I was miserable and periodically was subject to crushing bouts of depression.
Eventually and for no practical reason I broke up the band with work still on the books.
After all these decades,I had lost interest, had in fact lost the simple will to live.

4) I was a lot happier from the moment I transitioned and began living in the female role. Again, this is complicated by the fact that I had become mentally unstable just at this time. I have been bipolar all my life, but never did anything drastic enough during the elevated mood periods to attract the attention of authority. I made the decision to transition in an upswing ( - of course.....had I been depressed I would have been sat in a corner somewhere doing little ) and with the sheer joy of the relief of transitioning the situation ran away with itself resulting in an escalating upswing that finally did cause behaviour erratic enough to attract attention.
I have been much happier since transition and on reflection should have done it decades ago. Although my situation in general life is more difficult as I am a lot poorer these days and am not a great Pass, internally I am at peace and that is far more important.
It is far better to be at peace with oneself and dealing with more difficulties in external Life than to be getting along ok in life-in-general but crippled by internal angst.
I have no regrets and there is no bribe or inducement that would persuade me to go back if it was even possible to do so. There is nothing that has more value than inner peace.

5) It is a matter of balance. A great many of us finally come out and deal with their gender issues later in life when their inner despair finally overwhelms them. Unfortunately, the consequences of so much time passing can be very significant. The older you are the less effective hormones are at causing feminisation. You have spent longer learning and practising behaviours and attitudes that make you fit into the male world and the process of masculinisation of your body has continued - e.g. you might be balding, your body hair and facial hair in particular has had longer to gain in size and strength. Obviously, the ideal time to start hormone treatment is just before the onset of puberty - the further away you get from that, the further your body has diverged from what you are wishing for and the less hormone treatments will be able to counter it.
Also you risk losing many of the things you have gained on your journey through life. You may have a wife and children who will certainly be impacted by you deciding to transition. Friends you have gathered along the way might well not accept you. You might have made progress in your career and then find it very difficult to continue or even to find employment of any kind.
That entire scenario arises because a person does try their best to just supress their feelings and inner unhappiness and just get on with making progress in the gender role derived from the sex assigned at birth. Some people apparently do seem to manage, perhaps by functioning in a dual role and just dressing as female sometimes.
I am just pointing out that on the journey though life we all acquire Baggage, some of which is treasured and some merely a burden. When we transition we either lose it or else have to find a way to continue to carry it however inconsistent or inconvenient it is with our new role. The longer we wait, the more Baggage there inevitably is to deal with.

The sad truth is that if you do have a gender issue, it is never going to just go away. Transvestites well know the cycle of trying to suppress it, buying clothes and expressing it, feeling overcome by guilt and self hatred, throwing the clothes away and suppressing the urge .......only for the whole cycle to repeat again and again.
For Transvestites to have peace they need to accept their needs and organise their life in a way which enables them to dual-role wholeheartedly. Understandably, that can be very difficult in itself and presents many practical problems of which the need for secrecy is often the worst.
They might wistfully wish that they could live full-time in the other gender role, but they manage to get by and are reasonably happy as they are as long as they accept that it is just part of what they genuinely need in life and are not crippled by internal guilt.

For the transsexuals however, the need to assume the other gender role becomes overwhelming. Eventually it becomes more important than even life itself. This was where I had got to when I transitioned - I had been extremely depressed and was in fact organising my suicide in a fairly calm and methodical manner. Along the way that got diverted into Transition at which point my despair quickly evaporated and made me realise that to live, what I needed was simply to transition - although there was inevitably little about that course that was actually "simple"!

If you do have gender issues, they will never leave you and one way or another you WILL yield to them and express the other gender to a level which allows you to continue in life.
If you are in fact transsexual, then it is almost certain that it will eventually overwhelm you and bring on Transition - regardless of the social and economic cost. This is why you periodically see a man "who has everything" apparently throw it all away, a man who has a lovely wife and children and a successful business or career suddenly changes sex late in life and is often left with very little. The price of inner peace is high and usually gets higher the longer it is delayed.

If you ARE a transsexual then the earlier in life you make the change the better it is, the less problematic it is and the more successful it is likely to be.
- But It is a very difficult call to make, and it is only you who can make it.

[Nym]

Only one reply but what a reply. Steffi you truly are an amazing woman. You capture it perfectly. To the OP, if you do check back on your post don't be discouraged at the lack of response... everything you need is in Steffi's reply. You couldn't wish for a better reply. Like Steffi, I am very intelligent, unlike Steffi, I stay clear of the drugs because I hate losing control of my mind. Which makes gender issues really really tough for me. But like Steffi, I have found it hard to choose a path. I usually succeed in what I put my mind to but I hit brick walls now and again. I used to say at high school that I wanted to learn psychology so I could cure myself... everyone thought I was joking but actually I was really serious. In the end I studied identity politics instead but was careful to avoid gender politics but instead applied the same theories in other areas of research. That way I could study about what I was feeling and keep it hidden. Basically, that means studying a lot of Foucault. Anyway I am rambling... I do that a lot. I will answer your questions so that if you do return to this thread, you've got a slightly larger sample than just one... but honestly, Steffi's reply is awesome.

1. What gender do you identify?
I don't... or at least I try not to. It allows me to cope and to survive. In fact the reason why am I here now is because I feel like I am being forced to choose and when I am forced to choose, I want to tick the female box. So perhaps I do identify after all. Sorry my answer is vague but if you strip away physical attributes, is there really a difference between men and women that is beyond social construct? That is the question I am trying to answer and I can't at the moment. If there is no difference then why the overwhelming desire to be a woman? I am not attracted to people because of physical attributes, sure, I recognise when someone is good looking, but I am sexually attracted to how people behave rather than how they look. For me the best porn is reading erotic fiction, when I watch porn all I think of is I would like to look like that person (usually the woman). I did discuss with my wife a long time ago about the idea of just having the surgery to change my bits and continue living as male... not sure that would help me or not, but my wife dismissed the idea because she's Japanese and basically when we visit her family in Japan, we usually do communal bathing with the family. Oh... also when I dream... 90% of the time I am female in my dreams.

2. When did you first know that you wanted to identify as a gender which you were not born with?
2 years old. I remember it as clear as yesterday. It is my earliest memory and one of my clearest. In fact almost all of my clearest childhood memories are of wanting to be a girl. I was at playgroup arguing with a boy about who could play with the purple matchbox toy car, there was a toy garage and lots of other cars. He was already playing with most of them but wanted the one I had. I looked up and saw a girl wearing a beautiful dress, hair tied back in a ponytail, playing with a doll... and I wanted to be her, or be just like her. Every night from that day onwards, I went to bed wanting to wake up a girl. For me, I love night time, it is when I sleep and I have the most fantastic and vivid dreams as a woman. The biggest problem is that I've had insomnia for the last 5 years and barely get more than 4 hours sleep a night. I barely slept at all last night worrying about seeing a therapist. Eventually I fell asleep and dreamed that I was clinging onto a hillside and then someone suggested I should wear eyeliner and discuss my feelings with my GP... in the dream I agreed and let go of the hillside and fell into the ether. I was so elated with the sense of freedom that I literally woke up laughing. That was last night. Similar dreams since I as far as I can remember.

3. What were some of the challenges with growing up transgender?
For me it was hiding. Keeping it secret. Not letting anyone know. Finding excuses for when people guessed. In hindsight now, I think loads of people must've guessed. I don't know if I told my parents when I was 2 but I was taught at every opportunity... this is what boys do, this is what sissies do. 'You don't want to be a sissy puffter do you?' I remember it like yesterday, getting out of the car with my Dad and the boy who lived down the street was playing dress up with the girls opposite. I would've loved to have joined in but not with my Dad saying that. Why did he say it? Did he know? I guess my mother must've had an inclining as well because I used to steal her clothes. If I took the bottom drawer out of her chest of drawers, I would find that bits of clothing had fallen underneath the drawer. So I would check and if after a month she hadn't noticed, I claimed that bit of clothing for myself. Mostly underwear. Then the next person to guess was probably a babysitter who we had. She wanted to dress me up but my sister told my parents and that was the last time we saw her. Then a teacher on an adult learning course, she tried to fix me up with a bisexual girl who was into men who dressed. I panicked and made my exit. I often think about how that would've gone had I been more brave. A member of staff commented once and I fiercely denied it. I got lots of comments in my teens when I had long hair but those were easy to dismiss as big hair metal was the in thing for my age group. I plucked enough courage to visit Transformations once... I went with the cheapest option of an office lady, which is really what I wanted any way, I wanted to be natural, not some blushing bride or french maid. But I ended up looking like a bloke in drag... too much make-up, too much padding, and the wig was all wrong. Put me off dressing in full. From then on I just dressed partially. I am actually writing this dressed partially in the hope that it might bring my emotions back into place. For me just having my own clothes is enough, I don't have a desire to wear them all the time. In the past I thought it was mostly about the clothes but now the clothes are just there to make me feel more relaxed. It is not just about the clothes anymore, it is something much deeper. The girl I dated before my wife guessed. We were on holiday in Naples and she saw someone in full dress being jeered as she walked down the street. My ex said, 'you want to be like her, don't you', I replied that I admired her bravery and left it at that... 3 days later we split. But apart from my wife, every girl I ever dated was bi-sexual and initially left me for a girl. My ex ended up with a husband later but she left me for a woman. When I started getting more serious with my now wife, I thought to tell her before we started living together. At first we were living with my parents and then student digs. She was really supportive at first. Bought me the clothes I am wearing now. Got me some hair removal cream, some basic makeup. We had a lot of fun. But I was never fully dressed with her, I was still just mixing male and female clothing. Then she became pregnant and we moved out of my parents and got our own flat (we were married about a year). To celebrate she helped me dress in full with wig, make-up, a dress... the works. Then she freaked out. Started to cry that she wasn't a lesbian and that if I wanted to do with sort of thing then I had to do it on my own or we would divorce. It was made clear that I wasn't a real man and that she wasn't a lesbian and that was the last time we had sex - or the time before I dressed in full was the last time (8-9 years ago). I wasn't going to divorce when she was pregnant with my child. But sadly she lost the baby. That might sound like a chance to get out of the marriage but she was devastated. She was borderline suicidal with it and couldn't stop crying. So I agreed to do IVF with her. She became pregnant with twins but lost one of them during the pregnancy. Then my daughter was born. She is no mistake. She's a beautiful person... so kind and always worries about other people. But she has a lot of problems of her own. She couldn't talk at all until she was 5 years old. We were getting very little help. Eventually she got an amazing teacher when she started school who really helped her and brought her on talking. But she got bullied because she was behind the other children and we ended up having to move her schools. Now she has psychological issues and is waiting to see a child therapist herself. I could never do anything to harm her. She is worth a million of me. So even if I managed to be brave enough to transition, I couldn't for her sake.
I forgot when I was 17... that's probably the most important bit for your research. So I was very close friends with a girl... she was bisexual but leaned more towards women than men, but this was the time of long hair metal and she had a couple of flings with boys with long hair who were into the glam side of metal. We were just very close friends. Then I was at her house for a Christmas party and she glammed me up, back brushed my hair, put on some make-up and we went out on the pop, me dressed as a glam rocker. We both got absolutely ratted and ended up in bed together. Nothing happened other than kissing because we were both too drunk. I couldn't get it up and she passed out on me anyway. The next morning I was woken by her auntie and told to get out before her Dad came back from work and her mother woke up. Her parents stopped me seeing her again and she didn't seem to want to face me either... I took it really hard. My first broken heart over a girl who wasn't even my girlfriend (in that sense), who was just a very good friend. But it acted as a catalyst for all my gender issues to come flooding out and I became suicidal. The thing that saved me was that I couldn't work out in my mind whether to set myself alight, hang myself, drown myself, or drive my car very fast into a concrete crash barrier. I had all but decided I was going to do one of them on the weekend... and then on the Thursday before the Saturday (I had intended to do it after work), a girl came up to me and asked if I was alright because she was very worried about me and if I would like to talk. I didn't want to talk about it to her but we did chat about other things and slowly I pulled myself back together. I came to an acceptance that I felt like I should've been born a woman. 4 years later after my Transformation's trip, I decided that I knew who I was inside but I would not transition. I thought I was more than just clothes and physical appearance.
Oh man, there is so much more to say. MMORPG... a gift from the Gods. I could be who I wanted and nobody ever guessed I was male. I was accepted as a woman and I became addicted to the gaming world. That was until Teamspeak/Ventrillo came out and everyone had to be on it in order to compete in the game. It was funny when people realised I wasn't a woman. A couple of people gave me a load of abuse but I just blocked them. Most thought it was hilarious. A couple of lads who had mega crushes on me quietly vanished from the game. But soon I became bored of the game. Where was the magic now I was just a man playing a computer game.
The biggest advantage I had was that I was born in June. Anyone got too curious about my mood swings and I could just dismiss it as being a typical Gemini.
Hardest things were growing too big for standard women's shoes. When I was a size 5, I was in heaven trying on my mother's shoes when she wasn't around. (my mother buys lots of shoes)... at size 6, I could just squeeze into them, size 7, I could manage the front part of sandals but couldn't fasten them, from 8-10 no chance. There are two things I do love in the women's wardrobe, shoes and tights. Skirts are so much more comfortable and I always wonder why any woman would choose to wear trousers over a skirt but there are times when I can see the advantage of trousers. I hate men's shoes. I usually wear them until they are dropping to bits before I go and pick a new pair because it reminds me that the world sees me as male. Another difficult thing was losing my hair. Having to have it cut short for work, and then losing most of it as I grew older. Body hair... I swear I went through a second puberty when I lost the hair on my head, it started sprouting on my back and shoulders... I don't like having body hair but now my wife insists I don't get rid of it. She also insists that I keep a beard... it is her way to try and stop me cross dressing. But as I said, cross dressing isn't really what it is about for me. Just having my own clothes is usually enough and when I do dress I mix and match male and female clothes. SO it doesn't matter if I have a beard and hair in all the wrong places... I avoid the mirror and I just choose not to wear make-up (when I dress). I was looking in the mirror this morning trying to come to terms with myself and I saw a woman looking back at me. If I focus on my eyes and ignore the rest of my face... my eyes can still pass - especially as it looks like I've got smudged mascara at the moment from the lack of sleep.

4. Are you happier since you revealed your true identity?
Not really applicable. I've only revealed my identity to three people offline and all three people have turned their back on that identity. At least my wife is still with me, but a penfriend stopped writing to me, and I told an old friend on Friday gone and he basically left me standing and I've just had silence from him since. Which is why I am here looking for help. But online nobody truly knows who you are in real life. So it is kind of like a safe space. So I can't answer this question for you. I am not happy with the outcome of those three people but I have not truly revealed my true identity to the world and I am still living the hidden identity.

5 What would your advice be for anybody who is hesitant in revealing their true identity?
Don't wait. It is still hard but there is much more information out there now. If you can catch it before puberty then nobody need ever know in the future that you were not born a woman. Advances in medicine means that by the time you are in your late 20s, womb transplants will be much easier. They did the first one only this year or was it last year. So it is definitely a possibility in the next decade. If, like me, you are much older... then that is something you need to come to terms with yourself. For me I can't transition. At this very moment in time, I would do it if I didn't have other responsibilities. If I didn't have a child, I would go for it. It has took me all weekend to come to that conclusion mind. I've had a really rough couple of days. Steffi's posts have been incredible in helping me get through that. But my daughter's happiness is more precious for me than my own. Perhaps that is just a feeble excuse, but it doesn't feel like it to me. Isn't one of the most endearing traits of being an average woman is nurture and putting the needs of your child before your own. I am not 100% at the moment. I am still all emotional and I've sought help. Maybe I am fooling myself. And Steffi is correct... it is only destined to get a lot worse. Like she took up the motorcycle... I do a hobby that at times puts me in danger, I never thought about whether that has anything to do with my gender crisis... I do it because it makes me feel alive. When I cross a ridge that scares me to death because one slip and I fall over 1,000ft and I get to the top of the mountain, I feel great. It is literally the only time I feel great these days. So my advice is if you are young, don't wait go for it. There is loads of support and advice and you will pass. If you are older and have a family, then only you can decide. I tend to believe what Steffi says... I am expecting it to get worse. In the logical part of my mind, I am hoping that when it gets too much, my daughter will have left compulsory education. I am already teaching her subtly that not all people are born the same way. So if it does happen, it won't be something that she rejects. The problem now is that if I transition then it will mean divorce and most likely the last time to see my daughter. Later and my daughter can make her own mind up whether to support me or follow her mother.

[Steffi]

Thank you for the frankness and detail of your post Nym.
It is my firm belief that the best way to help people who arrive here on the forum is to reply with complete candour.
It takes time and effort to organise ones thoughts and write them down so thank you for the effort.

( .... also I have learned much about you and that will both save time and improve the quality of any Skype chat we might have )