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Hello everyone, I’m Ashley and I have no idea what I’m doing. I’m in therapy, but I’ve really been wanting to talk to trans people about all this. I keep waffling between supreme excitement and confidence that transition IS for me, and a key part of fixing the underlying malaise and dysfunction that has plagued me all of my life, and then thinking that I’m just having some sort of quarter life crisis or engineering some sort of disaster for myself. Sorry if this incoherent, not elaborate enough, or anything else, it was difficult enough just making an account. I don’t do a whole lot of interacting with people online or off.
Hello Ashley You have made a very good Start with Understanding your True Self…. By joining TGH..
This is a Safe Place to Be Your True Self… To ASK Questions… and make Wonderful Friends who Understand and are willing to Help… You are HERE WITH US… You are not ALONE…
You have the Women .. Who are Members of TGH… for Support..
On Your Wonderful Journey to find your True Self…
Hope to Talk to You soon…
Love Jessica 💕Hello Ashley You are not alone in your feelings and confusion. Just about every one of us has had the same problems. We have seen Psych’s MD s PHD s trying to understand and get a grip on what is going on. I made my decision to transition based on how I felt proceeding as a male as opposed to how I felt as a female. I felt happier as a female, felt more confident as a female. Felt more alive as a female. I made the decision to transition based on those things that made me the happiest.
Unfortunately after starting the transition process I went of the HRT and had a very bad reaction to the hormones that we have to take to proceed forward in the process. You must face that fact that to transition is a long term life changing experience. I tried and was not able to do it so I went back to having to live in the male role . It was devastating to me and has taken years to adjust to.
You may not have that problem but you must prepare yourself for the possibility of being successful and accepting the long term changes and life changing events ( Like Breast Augmentation and Electrolysis ) to create the new you. Unfortunately I had to stop early in the process and have accepted. But on the same note you must be prepared to accept the things you need to do to be successful. not just NOW but as you get older. !! over 50 or 60. But there is only one person who can make the decision YOU and Only YOU. We can advise we can reassure we can give you a shoulder to cry on and a sounding board for your questions. But it will come down to the basic question .. WHAT WILL MAKE YOU THE HAPPIEST ?? And no one can help you with that. !!
good luck Reach out to me if you want to talk more
Elayne ( Ted ) Edwards
Hello Ashley,
Welcome to our TransgGender Heaven (TGH) site: A Wonderful, Accepting, Loving, Helpful Community where you can be safe and be yourself.
The Warmth, Compaasion and Hospitality of our community members can be found throughout the site.
You can read about the knowledge and experiances of others on a similar path by reading articles and in the forums and chatting in chat rooms.
My hope is that you will become comfortable here and make many new friends.Glad you are here,
Terri Anne, Ambassador======= Here is a link to the MtoF Chat room: ========
https://transgenderheaven.com/chat/mtf-transgender-chat/=========== TGH How-to Navigation ============================
https://transgenderheaven.com/forums/topic/member-howto-for-navigating-the-tgh-website/[postquote quote=129186]
A few Questions;1) What is the youngest age you started having feelings?
2) Has anyone Suggested you are possibly trans or did you come to it yourself?
3) What do you want that can and can’t be facilitated by transitioning?
4) How do you see yourself in ten years.
5) What will you potentially loss by transitioning and would it be worth it?After answering those Questions
6) What do you feel and desire?
1. Hard to say. I remember really wanting to wear a dress when I was 5, and being confused and disappointed when I wasn’t allowed to. I’ve certainly thought at various points in my life “I’d be better off as a woman”.
2. I came to this conclusion myself, unless you are counting online resources as suggestions.
3. Again hard to say. One of the things that got me considering this was seeing people’s pre and post transition photos. On the left there’s always this dead eyed, scraggly looking dude, and on the right someone happy and beautiful and confident. I want my own after photo, I want to be beautiful, I want to be a real person and not the hollow human shaped thing that I feel like.
4. Sorry, but I really have no idea. As it stands, if I’m lucky, I will be in the same prison I’ve built for myself, just 10 years older and dealing with whatever cataclysms come up. I don’t like to think about being any unlucky outcomes.
5. It hurts to take inventory of the people around me and understand that if I ever pulled the trigger on this, or if they even knew I thought about it that, some of them would no longer respect me, if not outright hate me. Then again, those people are at best bores with small minds, imaginations, and hearts or just plain fascists and in either case I should not need or even want their approval.
I’m afraid I could lose my job. I have no specific reason to believe I would, but it happens. I’m afraid of discrimination and bigotry in general.
HRT sounds very appealing, but I understand that it isn’t risk free and that I might not like everything it does. While I certainly do want a softer, more feminine physique, I am concerned about losing muscle. I’m probably freaking myself out over nothing there though. I’m concerned about the potential loss of sexual function, but I’m also 28 and have never been so much as kissed, so I guess there isn’t anything to worry about there either.
6. I spend a lot of time just sort relitigating all of this with myself, and the answer always comes out to “Yes, I do want this”. If nothing else I need to try and experiment, because the genie isn’t going back into the bottle. I tried that already.
From what I can tell these feelings are just part of the experience. Sometimes I feel like maybe my desire to be a woman can’t be authentic because I should have figured this out earlier, but then I remember just how much I’ve been repressing myself, how unwilling I was to even consider transition as a possibility.
My parents probably could have just saved a whole lot of time and heartbreak if they just let me wear that dress. I certainly can’t help but wonder what my life would look like if growing up I had been taught that being trans IS an option, and that doing so is normal, that you can be just as happy, healthy, beautiful, and worthy of love as cis people. That trans people have existed as long as modern humans have throughout every corner of the world, in every culture (admittedly at varying levels of equality/tolerance/etc.). What I got instead was nothing at best, or hate at worst, and this wasn’t even close to the most bigoted points in history!
I want those years of my life back, but I know all I can do is try to ensure that I do get to live the life I want, with the body I want. It all just seems so impossible and far away.
I hope none of these are too hard to read or anything. I can barely write as it is, and there are a lot of thoughts and feelings to try and organize.
Ashley:
I’ve heard many say that they wish they had started sooner. However, to my way of thinking, that may not have been useful. I think 2 things are important:
- Conscious Thought
- Resolve
When we are younger, often those 2 things are in short supply. The more Conscious Thought we have heightens our Resolve. We definitely don’t want to start on the path to transition only to be upset and thrown off course. That isn’t helpful at all and would likely delay the overall progress. So, a more thoughtful process a bit later in life can be helpful…
Hi Ashley,
I’m a pretty mature transgender person and after decades of uncertainty, I remain uncertain. I suppose that is because I actually feel the need and honestly, the preference to live both as a woman and as a man, depending on what the situation permits. For a long time, I thought that mixed gender identity was somehow dishonest, but it seems to be both a practical compromise, mentally comfortable and an honest self assessment. After living most of my life assuming I had to be either or, I feel free to live beyond the binary.
1) What is the youngest age you started having feelings? I think I felt different around age 3. I knew I was in some way not being male enough and needed to repress/hide this part of myself before grade school.
2) Has anyone Suggested you are possibly trans or did you come to it yourself? A friend described me as the poster child for dysphoria. I really had this suspicion about myself ever since I recognized that I felt different(before the term was used). I lived with a combination of attraction to and fear of the desire to live as a woman….as if one too many steps in that direction and it would become unstoppable.
3) What do you want that can and can’t be facilitated by transitioning? As noted above, I want to be free to express my feminine side at times and places of my choosing and the same for when I feel comfortable presenting as male.
4) How do you see yourself in ten years? Wow, I am old enough that I might not be alive in 10 years.
5) What will you potentially loss by transitioning and would it be worth it? Some family relationships might be lost or degraded. No it would not be worth it to m.After answering those Questions
6) What do you feel and desire? I feel at peace at times when I present as a woman. I really enjoy going out and socializing with others as a woman. I desire for covid to be over, so its safe again.
Hi Ashley, you have to be true to yourself, and only you know how much that can mean as it is different for everyone. I knew at the age of four that I was supposed to be a girl. And now, over half a century later I am taking the steps to truly live as the woman I always knew I was. It isn’t an easy decision to make as it has major effects on every part of your life and those people in your life. Only you can decide the direction you wish to take and it may take some time to think about which way you want to go. But the bottom line is still the over ruling fact that you must be true to yourself.
Love and best wishes,
Lauren M.
Hi Ashley, I started hormone transitioning in late November last year, and I know how you feel. I still have days when I wonder if I am doing the right thing, transitioning well past 60. I am also married for 40 years and my wife is struggling to come to terms with it all. I had been a totally secret CD all my life (off and on – I’ve purged at least 6-7 times over the years).
The thing I most struggled with was feeling like I was “broken” or “a disappointment”. I don’t want to get too off on a tangent, but when I stopped praying for deliverence and started praying to be useful with it, everything changed for me – not just emotionally. I’ve already had the chance to help others with their struggles and plan a second career being an advocate for the LGBTQ commiunity in some way.
Please feel free to PM me to chat further and know not only are you safe and loved here, but you are not doing anything wrong by exploring your gender identity.
Hugs,
Brie
It’s really been something realizing how much I was repressing myself, how internalized my transphobia is.
I thought I was going to die when I first started really considering all of this. For whatever reason, it felt like its cool for other people to be trans, but the moment I considered it for myself I violently rejected the notion for a bit. I’m feeling better about it now, but I can certainly relate to the “broken” feeling.
Wanting to transition isn’t a disease or anything like that, it’s the cure to one.
P.S. – I’m supposed to go shopping for lady stuff (in person) for the first time soon!
Hi Ashley, I appreciate your reply. I rejected even telling my wife for 40 years because I’d have to admit out loud that I wasn’t the man she thought she knew and wants as a husband. But I learned that repression usually doesn’t work over time and it just drives a wedge in the relationship anyway.
Sounds like we are both on a good track for the future. It doesn’t mean we try to hurt others, certainly. But we can only truly love others well when we also love and accept ourselves.
Hugs,
Brie
Brie nice photo 😊
Hi Ashley, Welcome to TGH. I am an Intersex Person and am on both CDH and TGH and can assure you that there are wonderful people here to help and that you are at the right place. There are some similarities that we share in our stories but you can check my profile to read it all. The first steps are the scariest and you have already done them. The main thing that I would like to share is that you will be ok if you take your time. Yes, it is uncharted territory and each of us finds their path. It’s good that you have a therapist and friends here. They will all help. You have many questions and you might benefit by attending a national convention like Keystone, Diva Las Vegas, Sparkle or one of the many others where you would be immersed with folks on a similar spectrum. Have patience and reject panic if you can. Do not be intimidated by beautiful pics or special medical procedures but just try to be happy with yourself and the rest will come in your own timeframe. And yes, it will take time and work but that is part of the journey. First love yourself, take a deep breath and then as was told to me by Jenee Davis “practice, practice, practice !”. Try to enjoy the journey, Marg
Welcome! Although it way feel that way in this crazy world o ours, you are not broken. And are beautiful the way you are. Self acceptance is a critical first step to self realization… and peace. It’s not an easy road, and so hard to constantly tell others it’s just who you are. You’ve found a welcome way station here… and I bid you a hearty ❤️ welcome.
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