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I hope by posting this I can help someone sort out their feelings. I asked myself many many questions before I transitioned but these are the 3 biggest and most important I think. At least they were for me. They might not be for someone else but who knows.
Question 1: If I don’t transition can I go the rest of my life wondering “what if I transitioned” or saying “I wish I transitioned”?
My Answer: No. I believe to live with no regrets in life because we only get one.
Question 2: Do I get aroused when wearing women’s clothing or is this a sexual thing?
My Answer: No. I never once got aroused when wearing women’s clothes. Instead sometimes when I would wear women’s clothes (even sometimes still) I would cry because I wanted this so much. This being to be female. And I also cried because I was afraid that I might never be able to transition for many reasons.
Question 3: Can I keep letting my daughter randomly see me cry and constantly be sad?
My Answer: No. She deserves a parent who is happy because then she’ll be happy. I was also worried about her being ridiculed but after I came out her mother and I talked and she told me that if she is ridiculed it isn’t my fault. I tend to blame things on myself that aren’t even close to being my fault or that I have no control over.
I hope someone finds this post helpful.
-Faith
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Super great subject. I feel somewhat the same way as you. Except instead of being “Blue” while dressed, I had a warm relief sweep over me. I was comfortable and felt natural. I only got moody when I couldn’t Fem up do to being too busy, or family obligations.
But as long as I can dress most of the time as I feel….. I’m good to go.
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Thank you Faith! Yes I asked myself some very similar things.
Main thing for me was making a long list of ways I hoped my life would be better and what I wanted to achieve by transitioning. I was amazed at how long the list grew. And for about three quarters of them, there was just no alternative.
Then I had to make a list of all the bad things that might happen, such as losing family and friends (very worst fear is my kids), or my ex and her family going into revenge mode and re-opening some of the divorce battles again. That scared me so much, I’ve still not worked out a way to come out yet.
But oddly enough, the thought that I might change my mind and regret transitioning didn’t appear on the list.
So I still knew what I had to do. It’s always been a problem of how and when for me…
- Since my daughter is very astute and has been asking probing questions lately, I might even need to come out this week. I’ll let you know how that goes.
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I am currently questioning my identity and I find my answers to these questions differ slightly from most. Maybe I’m not trans or at least not trans enough.
Q1 I worry about a lot. But I also worry about losing my family. I have learned the unhealthy art of swallowing my emotions so I will probably die young but I think if I had to decide between family and my gender I would chose the former. However I am worried how I will pull it off without slipping and getting caught. I guess that would be my liberation but at a steep cost.
As per q2, I don’t necessarily get off on dressing up, I typically like to dress cute and not so much sexy (partly because I would look like Spongebob square dress). However I don’t think it is uncommon for women to be aroused by feeling sexy. I may be wrong as I only know one woman that would agree with me. I guess if you only ever dress up to get off maybe this would be something to consider. But hey, if I knew what I was talking about I probably wouldn’t have spent 25 years of my life without figuring out who I am.
For Q3, see Q1.
Does this mean I couldn’t be trans??? I don’t know that I would make my decision based upon this.
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Well for me it got to the point of either transition or kill myself. I know that sounds awful but it is the truth. I tried before. I hated myself my entire life until I started transitioning and now I like myself for the first time. I know it’s different with everyone but that’s just me.
I can understand where you are coming from about family. All of my family is dead now except my mom and daughter and I’m not sure if I would have transitioned had some of my family still be alive. Although for me it’s not necessarily a fear of losing them but a fear of rejection and ridicule. I don’t really care what others think of me but I don’t want to be ridiculed by my loved ones.
I guess I should have been more clear about feeling sexy vs arousal. When I do my makeup and wear a pretty dress and stuff I feel sexy sure. I guess I meant like you said “getting off”. It wasn’t that at all for me.
Talking to a therapist/counselor might help too. I’m 30 and never breathed a word of my feminine feelings to anyone until several months ago. I said to my therapist “I think I’m the wrong gender” and then suddenly it all became real.
Hope I could help even a little. Take care.
Faith
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I don’t mean to challenge you here. I just find myself looking for questions to ask myself to determine where I stand on my identity. I guess it should be obvious that questions one person has to answer to find themselves probably aren’t the same for someone else. Like you said, it’s different for everyone.
I’m sorry if I came off as an a hole.
Q1 and Q2 were on my list.
Q3 for me was more like “How can I help my family be happy when I’m not happy?” The truth was I really wasn’t helping them and I was blind to it until things boiled over from stress. Stoicism really is detrimental to healthy relationships IMO.
Q1, I had already been attempting just that for 20+ years since first realization.
Q2, this was difficult to separate in my mind just as it is for cis gender people. It almost took on a “chicken or egg first?” dimension as I struggled with it. The most difficult part is that one can’t turn off sexuality any more than they can gender identity. One thing I knew at the outset was that being aroused never triggered a desire to dress. Another thing I knew was that I had started dressing by age 9 even earlier had some indicators, both quite a bit before sexuality or even “liking girls” was a factor. I knew that any preconceived self test would be no more valid than COGIATI. So I just had to start dressing and getting out and figuring out if I liked the person I was. It didn’t take long to see that I was a much better person and much more interested in being with other people. The most telling moment to me was when a co-worker said “I like you much better now, you used to be such an a-hole”. My real fantasy was the world I had constructed in my mind that made me think I was some super-dude who in fact was just marking time as the closet master.4 users thanked author for this post.
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