Are you L,G,B,T or other?

hare05

Freiheit wrote: »

Thanks , life is short, too short for too much procrastination....I'll take my chances and stand by them...I have to decide where to live anyway...have to retrain for a second career and thirdly pursue gender reassignment because I simply cannot possibly be happy living as a man....I'll do my best and be true to myself....

Yeah, that's kind of where my problems lie... Although without a doubt I know I'm not a 'man' in anything more than this shell, my life is otherwise good, and I'm not sure if hormones / surgery / possible family problems are worth becoming a pseudo female who may never be taken seriously...

I envy you in some weird way I guess for being able to make the decision

Freiheit

I didn't make that decision quickly...has taken me a lot longer than many...My role models are those who have gone before me, I'm awash with admiration for their courage....Of course you can be taken seriously....believe in yourself and others will too....be true to yourself, follow your heart...in relation to what you want from life, not just in terms of gender reassignment and a lot is possible...if you believe...

hare05

I guess I wasn't clear with 'seriously'. I don't want to be the 'proud tranny' that people either begrudgingly accept or treat as some randomly inspirational figure. I would just prefer to be one of the girls. But I really don't see any way that could happen if I was 'out', and I don't think I could pass with my bone structure.

I know looks aren't everything, but it feels like I'm this celestial joke. A man among men with everything to live for... with a girl inside trying to claw her way out.

It doesn't help that I'm both a realist by nature, a scientist by interest, and will be a programmer by profession. My entire educational background is geared towards knowing the limits...

Freiheit

You can still look good.....and be one of the girls, yeah your bone structure will be large but you can still look good.....you can still be tall and pretty....facial feminisation can do a lot and the face is what people see first anyway...a lot is to do with mannerisms....and you will develop new, better friends as you become true to yourself.

Links234

hare05 wrote: »

I guess I wasn't clear with 'seriously'. I don't want to be the 'proud tranny' that people either begrudgingly accept or treat as some randomly inspirational figure. I would just prefer to be one of the girls. But I really don't see any way that could happen if I was 'out', and I don't think I could pass with my bone structure.

I know looks aren't everything, but it feels like I'm this celestial joke. A man among men with everything to live for... with a girl inside trying to claw her way out.

It doesn't help that I'm both a realist by nature, a scientist by interest, and will be a programmer by profession. My entire educational background is geared towards knowing the limits...

What will you do instead? Because this is not going to get any easier with time. That girl inside is gonna claw harder and harder.

Believe me, I shared your fears. There's not a day goes by that I don't wish to be just a regular, biological girl. I used to dread to think that I wouldn't pass either, not even with surgery, and while that still worries me it's not going to stop me any more. I was constantly dreaming of another life, but I've come to realize that I only got one, and I need to make what I can of that. Me trying to live as a male had me crippled with depression, anxiety and suicidal thoughts. I was someone who found no joy in life any more, doing things compulsively or out of routine, and everything was starting to crumble away. I see no future for myself as male.

So right now the only fear I have is seeing a doctor and not being prescribed hormones. That's it. I don't care about passing, I don't care if people are going to take me seriously or not, I just want to be comfortable in my own body, and I am only afraid of something stopping me from doing that. You might think "Hey, she's got her **** in order" and I don't know if I do or not, but I can say that since I admitted to myself that this is what I want, every day is looking brighter.

As for the whole passing thing.
I've seen so many trans girls online who think that they will never ever pass and when they post pictures of themselves, they look incredibly good most of the time, but they just seem to focus on their most masculine features, no matter how insignificant, and make huge deals out of them. I know it's a self-esteem thing, and if you're uncomfortable with your body then it's extremely hard to see yourself in a positive light, but some of these girls take it to ridiculous levels. So I started taking note of these masculine features and I was constantly seeing them in regular girls, like chins that a trans girl would be freaking out about. When I was in a pub one day, I got a little bored, and started finding flaws with each and every girl in the place. This one had manly shoulders, that one had big feet, the other one had a manly brow... And not one girl in there didn't have some feature that a trans girl would probably freak about. So most of the time I don't really believe someone when they say they're ugly and they'll never pass.

Maybe you're being overly critical of yourself? You certainly wouldn't be the first.

And if you don't mind me asking, why do you think you'd only become a pseudo female?

Freiheit

Think there's a problem in society in general with societies expectation of female beauty...it's a problem for 'birth-assigned' females too, critical of themselves due to unrealistic societal expectations, with digitaly altered size 0 models in magazines.....society is general has a bit to evolve in terms of acceptance of all of it's children...of all shapes and colours....

SarahBeep!

It's not how you look, it's how you see yourself

There are some EPICLY brave peple here total inspirations xxx

hare05

I agree with you on that, but unfortunately belief in myself won't stop someone from saying "Sir" instead of "Miss". I've even considered putting on a lot of weight as it would break up the masculine shape. Huge shoulders and feet don't look so huge with a large stomach, and an extra chin would hide an adam's apple.

I just hate feeling like I have to go to any extreme (not just size 0, I hate scrawny looking skeleton girls) just to make my body not look like it belongs to a rugby player.

Links234

hare05 wrote: »

I agree with you on that, but unfortunately belief in myself won't stop someone from saying "Sir" instead of "Miss". I've even considered putting on a lot of weight as it would break up the masculine shape. Huge shoulders and feet don't look so huge with a large stomach, and an extra chin would hide an adam's apple.

I just hate feeling like I have to go to any extreme (not just size 0, I hate scrawny looking skeleton girls) just to make my body not look like it belongs to a rugby player.

Oh holy hell I hope you are not still considering putting on a lot of weight because that is a bad bad bad BAD idea! It would be an absolute disaster from a health point of view and the doctors would more than likely not prescribe hormones if you are a health risk and if your diet and health is bad the hormones probably wouldn't work as well for you than if you were healthy.

Also excessive weight will absolutely NOT break up the masculine shape! If anything it will make you look even more masculine. Women put on weight more evenly and more to the hips and thighs but men will put on weight straight to the stomach. Excess weight will only make you look more obviously male. If you want to hide the adam's apple just get a nice choker, that would be a much simpler and nicer solution without putting your health at risk.

You've already got self esteem issues - and what transgender person doesn't? But adding an eating disorder on top of that is insane! Especially if you only discovered that gaining weight only made you look like more of a man after you did it. Just please don't even think of intentionally putting on weight, you would only end up hurting yourself and making life even harder.

I post on some trans websites and the amount of girls there who think they have serious issues when they really don't is really out there. One girl is nearly anorexic and she's absolutely convinced she needs plastic surgery when she absolutely does not need it. It's really very scary how bad some of them think of themselves. But there's also some incredibly inspiring girls that I've come across that give me a lot of hope. One girl I knew started off with a badly receding hairline and looked incredibly manly, the kind of person you might expect would have no hope of a successful transition, but she did! She looks really good now, someone you wouldn't even think for a second was born physically male.

So you say that belief in yourself won't stop someone saying sir instead of miss. I say wrong!

To me, the biggest difference between the girls who constantly see flaws in themselves and wallow in self pity, and the girls who start off looking like lost causes but pull it together and become incredible beauties is probably belief in themselves. I often see girls who post pictures of themselves and say they'll never pass and I say that if they just style their hair differently or pluck those eyebrows, wear something more suitable, but they don't bother to even try. A lot of it is down to how you dress, and knowing how to work with what you have.

I have broad shoulders, but I don't let it bother me because I know how to get around that. I promised myself I wasn't going to wallow in self pity and think that I won't get anywhere like some of them other girls, so a little while ago I started taking pictures of myself and really looking at myself as objectively as I could. I've found that a zip up hoodie that's a size too big for me completely hides my shoulders. Baggy or flared jeans hide how big my feet are.

These are all great things to know, and if you find out what clothes will work for you it will help you so much more than having your ideal proportions, because these are the kinds of things a lot of genetic girls will know, they'll know how to dress to accentuate certain parts of their body and to draw attention away from others. Also, being tall works in your favor if you've got broad shoulders. People don't really notice broad shoulders on a tall girl, but if she was 5'8" and had the same shoulders it would be really noticeable.

Your face is much more important to how people see you than your body is, and with that there's 3 things that will help. Hormones make a huge difference, makeup makes a huge difference so take a look at this video for some tips, but something that will make as big a difference as those two things put together is a very simple thing, SMILE! Facial expressions are a big thing in how you see someone and smiling makes such a difference, so go and look at yourself in the mirror and smile. In some of the pictures I've taken of myself I've payed particular attention to my facial expressions and it's amazing just how feminine I look when I smile. I sent one picture of me no makeup or anything around to some friends and they were like holy crap girl!

Remember that looks aren't everything though. You could be the most pretty, the most beautiful girl there is, but if you open your mouth and sound like a truck driver, that's it! People don't really appreciate how much sound effects how we see things, but it really does and nothing sets men and women apart more than how they sound, so if you really want to be seen as female you have to be heard as female.

There's this girl I've spoken to online and she's been living and working as female even before she started hormones! She still kinda looks like a boy and everything, but she completely passes as a girl because of her voice. I still remember the first time I heard her speak over tinychat and I was amazed, her voice was just so completely feminine that even though I knew she was transgender, and even though she didn't look very feminine, I had a hard time even thinking she wasn't genetically female. She just sounded amazing, and that really drove home the point of just how much what we hear matters. How a person looks makes very little difference at all once we hear how they sound.

It's all voice voice voice! I really urge you and anyone else who's transgender or even if you're not to watch this girl's videos! She offers a lot of great advice on practicing your voice but she's also an incredibly positive, confident and funny person that has a lot of extremely relevant advice to give not just on transition but on life and above all her videos are quite inspirational.

So here I am, writing another crazy massive post and I'm sorry if you've just broken your face against the wall of text. But really, if you are confident, you CAN do it.

If you think you can, you're right.
If you think you can't, you're right.
Remember that.

Ever excellent advice from a confident transgender woman:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBAuzrQsvdQ

Coeurdepirate

Gay male. Only out to friends, although everyone at school seems to know. :rolleyes:

DJMG92

Gay male, Out for about 5 months now to everyone

esposito

How did your family react? I'm out to friends only.

DJMG92

they were cool about it, they were a bit shocked but all is good and they love my boyfriend aswell

sugajay

Gay male, out since I was 18 (2002)

deirdre_dub

Straight transsexual woman.

Whether that means I'm attracted to men or to women is left as an exercise for the reader.

(Actually, I'm probably bisexual, though straight seems to be where it's at for me at the moment).

I didn't answer the poll itself - as is way too often in the LGBT world, the poll writer seems to not understand the implications of the letter "T".

Canard

Bi male, out since I was 14, last year.

River Song

Gay Male =] Semi-closeted, but it's not exactly hard to tell!

I Found Nemo

Bi female. Starting to wonder which side of the road I'm driving on now though if ya know what I mean.

Irishmaestro

I'm a bi male - but leaning gay, if that makes any sense. I'm out to most people, too.

I came out to my dad on 1st December '08, I've been out to my friends for about three or four years, and my brother has known for years and years (I think he was the first person I told, actually).

My extended family don't know, though. More significantly, though, my mum doesn't know - and to be honest, I can't see myself coming out to her any time soon. She's not exactly tolerant of the idea of homosexuality, it frightens her, and I'm terrified that she'd never respect me again.

But yeah, that's me.

I Found Nemo

Irishmaestro wrote: »

I'm a bi male - but leaning gay, if that makes any sense. I'm out to most people, too.

I came out to my dad on 1st December '08, I've been out to my friends for about three or four years, and my brother has known for years and years (I think he was the first person I told, actually).

My extended family don't know, though. More significantly, though, my mum doesn't know - and to be honest, I can't see myself coming out to her any time soon. She's not exactly tolerant of the idea of homosexuality, it frightens her, and I'm terrified that she'd never respect me again.

But yeah, that's me.

I know exactly what ya mean. A few people know I'm bi, but now I'm starting to wonder if I'm attracted to men at all. Haha, my mother always called bi people "greedy bastards", but it wasn't because she's homophobic, it's just the sense of humor that she has. When she found out my orientation she was so accepting it was as if I never told her which is lovely. Now I don't know what I am. I just know that I really like women. It frightens the crap outta me to not know myself in this way. I feel so lost at th moment. I was so sure of myself...