I’m 28 years post op and have had second thoughts for years. And, it’s getting late. Anyway reading this thread has given me some things to consider that I hadn’t thought would come to the forefront of my mind.

One thing that has arisen as I sit here is my resistance to seeking out support from within the community, and that has not been helpful. I’ve carried the delusion that I could somehow morph into a gg by getting as far away from those who were in the same boat as I was. And since I was passing well enough early on, my motto became: “there’s were no safety in numbers”. But to a large the extent the “safety” I sought was my wanting to control outside opinions… I rely on them so much for my sense of well being. And this aside from whatever gender issues I have or don’t have, but everything gets baked in the cake, doesn’t it?

So, it follows that my tightly-held idea was to pass as convincingly as I could and move on as is nothing had happened. And then too, back in the day, people didn’t have the frame reference for a TS, and for me it was easier to pass than some. But even so, passing was/is not THE issue, but it is an issue, depending, upon how well we can rely on our own sense of well being rather than seeking it from outside of ourselves. And doing that has not been a strong point, and that makes it hard. Thanks for listening.

Hi. I bet I’m unwelcome here, for good reasons. I feel the need to apoligize for my obnoxious (I won’t get into reasons) comment above. I feel like a gigantic ass and I can’t explain why I was such a self-centred jerk without being a bigger idiot. Again, I’m sorry. Going to take a break from commenting. See you in like a month.

Your comment was off-topic–although the biographical posts will seem to get more tangents–but I wasn’t that bothered on a personal level. Unless you’d prefer to leave, why don’t you just check the Education thread to see if there are any resources that might help you?

The RLE aspect–the idea that there are tests to pass, results to collect–may have had negative rather than positive effects. While it may help people see and process their doubts and fallacies, it may also teach them to suppress them for fear that they will be unfairly delayed. If uncertainty means that you’re not really transsexual, well, maybe you just won’t be uncertain anymore.

I think this makes a fairly good point. We recognize the usefulness of a RLE, but what we don’t recognize is whether or not the current RLE is worth anything. The RLE shouldn’t currently be a binding authority. It should inform rather than decide.

Its important to remember that the RLE is currently only a hypothesis. As far as I know there are zero medical studies stating its effectiveness.

I personally didn’t have to go through any sort of RLE. I just had to show that I wasn’t crazy and was committed for six months.

That has its own issues because you get fakes who just want to convince you not to transition, but who wont tell you that until you have given them a bit of money.

It also creates a sort of ordeal-dynamic for the natural feelings of loss and gut-liquifying terror that accompany a change of this order. They become important, but perhaps not in the right way.

To me a future where I didn’t transition was a blank emptiness. There was no such future. So I had no reason to be afraid or to feel any loss because of it aside from normal worries like fitting in. It wasn’t really “transition or death”. Its more like “transition or something unthinkable”

Even now after transition though I still occasionally wonder if I made the right choice. When I think about it I can logically think about the health and other worries and compare. However the idea of living as a man is still something my mind can’t process on an emotional level.

So for me if I had to guess at an effective “nonbinding transgender evaluation” it would be on whether you have logical reasons for transition and emotional fears. Then you could follow up with the people who have been through it and if they are still content with their decision several years down the road you could say that it is worth something.

…you know, I don’t really remember what shaving my face, or my flat chest, felt like or looked like either. It’s vague and blurry like a half-recalled dream–I remember that it happened, but it’s just so…murky, now.

Anyway. Beautiful. Thank you.

I’ve never had trouble remembering what I look like, I don’t think, but I do have a generally possibly unusually good memory for things that happened in my own life and it came as somewhat of a shock when I realized that a few months when I was really depressed had almost completely failed to etch themselves in my memory. I had to assemble the events of one summer using logic – oh, I know this is when the seventh Harry Potter book came out so it must have also been when I did this thing, and that thing I remember was near this other thing, so… – instead of just remembering it; thinking about that summer didn’t raise up any immediate associations at all. Maybe this is normal for some people and the way their memory works but for me it was just so strange and unprecedented; it felt like that time had been stolen from me. which, I guess, it kind of was.

Anyhow, thanks for the heartfelt post.