The Transgender Community Forum (TG Hub)

This is one fundamental question and often a cause of much misery for people who have 'that feeling' something is not right with their gender identity.

Thinking back to before my transition began, for me, it was during the cross-dresser period of my life when, around after a year, after presenting a large amount of time as female it became obvious to me that my feelings of femininity and the hideous knowledge of having to transform back into male mode made me realize that something was most definitely wrong.

I am not sure how many transgender men or women actual progress from crossdressing to undergoing transgender transition. However, for me when the thoughts of having to life my life as a man where just completely intolerable then I knew that it was the right time for me to go and see a gender psychologist, my referral was from Adenbrookes hospital in Cambridge, then onto the GIC (Gender Identity Clinic) in Charing Cross (London).

The 'Transgender Hub' website video article, titled 'What is Transgender?', offers some useful advice in relation to transgender identity and explains the meaning of the word transgender, so you may find that article useful.

I think that each one of us should have this question honestly answered to itself. By "honestly" I mean that sometimes, for many reasons, we have a tendency to adopt a more socially correct answer than the true one. For example, one has fetishism but the fetish term sounds socially deviant. The transgender umbrella is very wide. It usually (mistakenly) covers gender and sexuality aspects. I think that you addressed what matters in finding the honest answer: is how it impacts our lives. And the decisions that we will make in life, and in our quest for happiness, will depend on the answer. If disphoria becomes unbearable, than something needs to change. Finding the correct answer to the question will drive the best life balance.

I have just been to the GP, with feelings of depression anxiety and gender dysphoria.

From my early teens I liked to dress up. Initially as I found it arousing. I also did not have the same interests as my male friends, talking about sport and sex was not interesting. When I was alone at home, I would try on my mother's clothes or sometimes wearing them underneath my normal clothes.

Once I moved out and lived on my own, I would buy clothes from mail order stores, and dress up in secret. 

At university I tried to give up the habit... I tried to be more masculine, but I simply did not know how to be masculine, and I returned to dressing in secret at night or when flatmates where out. For many years I would say I was a closet cross dresser. I did not know of such a thing as transgender. I believed you were either a man or a women. I was attracted to women, therefore I was a man. This went on for many years. My cross dressing expanded to trips outside after dark, makeup, wigs. I hated that I liked dressing up, and that it was a secret that stopped me living my life.

I finally decided to grow my hair. The longer it got, the more feminine I felt, the more confident I felt as a women. My trips away got longer, time spent in women's clothing got longer, and my gender dysphoria got stronger. 

Public exposure of other transgender people made me question my own gender. Reading accounts of transgender women and joining online groups made me realize that I felt the same way as them. I finally decided to go to a GP. Where they are going to refer me to a Gender Identity Clinic. 

Am I transgender? Yes I believe I am

It's great to see that people are expressing some views on this topic, it is a rather all encompassing question but one which is often linked with early signs of gender dysphoria.

We have recently written a great article titled '10 Tips to Feel Like a Girl Prior and During Transgender Transition' - this is a great read as it offers tips and advice for Tgirls through the transition process.

While I often find it easy to dismiss my own experience, it may be of some use to others that I relate my thoughts on this question.

Am I Transgender?

As a child and in my teen years my sister would occasionally give me an item of clothing that she didn't want any more. These pieces of clothing became my favourite, and I would wear them in preference to other garments, as often as possible until they fell to bits. While I was unaware of it at the time, my behaviour spoke volumes about how I felt about myself and who I wanted to be like.

As an adult social expectations got the better of me and I conformed to the constructs imposed upon me by my strict religious upbringing. I was allowed to be me, but only if 'being me' meant meeting the expectations of my family. As a result, and despite many attempts to create an acceptable persona, I was never completely comfortable - I felt that I was never really able to be me. 

As a middle-aged individual now, and as an academic in the social sciences, my approach to life questions has developed beyond the ability of anyone in my family to understand what I'm talking about, (most of the time,) and I have gained a degree of freedom in this regard. However, while I have disciplined myself to critically reflect on my situation, my present circumstances throw up a series of questions about identity that I am finding increasingly difficult to ignore.

The phrase 'I am...', often used in the identification of 'self' with some socially constructed role, appears to function in an obvious and effortless manner until it is combined with some conception of an innate or inescapable 'truth'. This is most obviously demonstrated in the context of some religious ideologies, where the claim "I am transgender" may be interpreted, on the basis of a perceived system of absolute values, as "I am an unrepentant sinner." However, less obvious to many, but still as blatantly confronting is the claim to dominance of a subjectively felt truth over an empirically described social characteristic. That is, the claim that 'one believes that their true gender identity differs from that assigned on the basis of intersubjectively observable characteristics' requires some explanation as to how such a truth is arrived at, and whether it may be socially valid. 

Now, please don't crucify me yet. Indeed, I have enough self loathing to deal with, for at this point in my reasoning I have to take it slow and be careful to mind my emotional state, as I often find myself entertaining suicidal ideas due to the intuitive implausibility raised by the possibility that what I feel myself to be isn't a viable construction within my familial culture. Fortunately, (or possibly unfortunately,) the rationale I hold about suicide is that it doesn't help the situation, and, indeed, often causes more problems. (Complete historical self annihilation, on the other hand, though impossible, is attractive.)  - And for anyone concerned, yes, I'm on a waiting list to see a therapist. 

'Dys-phoria', I recognise, is not the root issue, but only a symptom of an underlying condition. Really, it's just a fashionable way of saying one is experiencing ongoing unhappiness or dissatisfaction.

So, in order to find happiness, (or eu-phoria,) where there exists a continuity/cohesion between what I feel and my social situation, I need to address the root cause. 

Am I transgender? I really don't know at this point, but it will depend more on what is socially viable than a subjective intuition about what may or may not be true.

I welcome criticisms or comments about my reasoning. Indeed, I may have the whole thing topsy-turvy. 

Hello: my femme name is Shay Linn and I have longed and identified as a girl since the age of four. I hated everything masculine despite my father's desire to make me in his image

When I was a little boy-girl my younger brother would call me a sissy and I would beat him up out of shame!

My father accepted my cross dressing and never made a fuss about it even though I was his little man.

Later on in puberty at the age of eleven I tried on my sister's girdle and stockings and had my first erection followed by an orgasm which felt oh so good followed by years of fetishisic tranvestism. 

All my life I have envied pretty girls and wanted to be them. I am 58 years old now and so sick and tired of being in the closet about my sexuality!! I wish I had the money to fully transition in to the women I should have always been.