Long story short, I’ve known that I was trans long before I had even heard the word. There were signs as early as 4 years old and I knew by the time I was 8. I’m in my late 30’s now and I had come to a kind of peace about not transitioning. It’s something that I want but because of life, family, and a lot of fear I decided not to.
Recently a very close friend who I’ve know for decades came out to me as a trans woman.
I want to tell her about myself but I’m worried about planting seeds of doubt about her transition because I’ve known I was trans for so long and yet haven’t started transitioning myself. I’m afraid that if I try and explain why that she might internalize my reasons. If that makes sense. I’ve never told anyone my truth and I’d so love to have someone to talk to about it. Especially since my friends transition is causing me to second guess myself.
I would appreciate some thoughts on whether I should tell my friend.
You’ve been thinking it about it every day for months. You need to do it. Speaking as someone who started transistioning within a year of sobering up, you’ve been masking the pain of dysphoria with narcotics. That will kill you. And the dysphoria will get worse as you age. Do you talk to a therapist?
What’s probably crazy is thinking about it for months and years and years feels normal. I have an equation in my head, are* the benefits of transitioning equal to or greater than the cost of blowing up my life. Right now it still feels like the cost would be too high, but I don’t know anymore…
No therapist but I’m hoping to start seeing one soon. I have a lot I need to deal with besides being trans.
I don’t know your life situation. But as a trans woman from the Bible belt, who got disowned by my family, divorced, abandoned by all of my friends and financially devastated as a result of coming out and transitioning: it’s absolutely worth it.
That’s basically what I’d be looking at. You are a very strong and brave woman.
Honestly, I don’t really think I am. I’m just surviving and doing what I can to cobble together a life worth living.
Like, yeah. Transition has been really hard, but so was my pre-transiton life, just in different ways. Nowadays I feel like I have so many more tools emotionally to deal with the constant onslaught of sorrow that life has always been.
Well, to me you are incredibly brave.
Thank you for telling me your situation. I don’t know what’s going to happen with my life but hearing from you and the others means a lot, and makes me feel less alone.
There’s courage in actively choosing struggle over misery
Yeah it does get normal. I’m not going to pretend I know what it’s like for you, I was 20 when I started hormones. But I can say I waited until it was “transition or die” and I regret the time I lost. If you know where you’re headed it’s ok to skip the years of unhappiness.
Well, I scheduled an appointment with a therapist. Said I wanted to talk about gender identity issues, amongst other things. The first time I’ve ever revealed myself IRL. It felt good, and was kind of exciting too.