How long can I safely undo changes?  I've read 6-8 months, but if I develop breasts might they not totally disappear?  What was your personal experience with shapeshifting?  What type of changes did you notice and when?

I was young, 22, so I changed very quickly. I had significant breast development in three months, according to my records. Some folks take years. It is very unpredictable, and very individual. Generally, six months is reversible, though if a lot of development occurs, it may take a year, or rarely two, to fully erase the effects. After about eight months, there will be structures that will never go away, like some milk glands and ducts, for instance. The real point of hormones is to see how you feel inside yourself. Hormones affect mood and mentation. It is not just to grow breasts for a while...it is to see if your brain is happier modified by estrogen instead of testosterone. The two hormones change the way you feel, think, and are, inside. Experimenting with hormones serves to teach one about what one really wants and needs.
 

As I'm in transition sometimes it's hard to keep things in perspective.
The thing that bothers me is that suicide is in the back of my mind as
a final solution if this doesn't work out.

Some days it's hard just to put one foot in front of the other
and keep going.

Yes, I know that feeling. During my transition, there were days I would go hungry, rather than face the clerks in my local supermarket. Of course, I was dealing with a LOT of personal shame, which may not be your issue, but I DO know what it is like to drag my feet along.

On thing to keep in mind...it is very, very rare for the hormones to fail to work, and for everything to turn out alright, as long as a transie just hangs in there. The ones that fail, fail not because things did not work out, by and large, but because the person themselves just gave up too soon.

The older you are the longer the process takes, but it does 'take'. Just have patience, endurance, and faith in the inexorable power of biochemistry. It takes time to unlearn and to let go, to feel comfortable, and to regain one's real self too.

There were many times that things seemed so dark for me that I could have given up. But I did not...and now I live a much better, rather successful life. I am not alone in this. You can get there too....but perseverance is mandatory.

To reach your goal, you must NEVER give up. never. Even when if it should ever become unbearable! In the end, it is possible to win.
 

I took the (COGIATI) test thinking that taking the test would give me insight to my own sexual preference.  if there is such a test, please forward it.

Sexual preference and gender identity are separate things. Preference is individual, and a separate issue.

A test for sexual preference? The very idea is a bit absurd. Either you know who you are attracted to, which sex (or both) interests you, or you must be seriously out of touch with yourself! The latter situation requires counseling, not a test.

It really pretty simple...just ask yourself, "who do I like?", "What do I like?", that's all it is. Do you like strawberry ice cream or chocolate ice cream? Or both flavors? If you can answer a question like that, it is no stretch to answer whether or not you like men or women...or both men and women equally. Or one for sex, the other for relationships... it is just a matter of doing what you feel.

Follow what you are drawn to, what makes you happy. That's all that matters. If you do not have enough experience to know for sure, I have two answers: get more experience by dating, and who says you have to know for 'sure' anyway? Maybe someone will come along you love and what matter their physical sex? Love is what matters, not plumbing, really.
 

I am trying, at this point, to determine the best way that can talk to my
mother about my transsexualism. Of all the things I have faced in life,
this scares me the most. I guess I am trying to learn from others who have
faced this and have overcome their fears. How can I face my mother and
explain to her that her son only ever wanted to be her daughter? No amountof science in the world could soften the shock of this to her. I don't want to hurt her, but I fear that, as each day passes, I will only hurt myself
even more. Is there no way to make this easier for her?

I know you do not want to hurt your mother, that is reasonable, most children cannot help but care for, and love, their mothers. The problem here is that there really is no simple, safe way to tell someone about transsexuality. You can try to control things a bit, try to catch her in a good mood, in an appropriate situation, maybe bring flowers....but ultimately, the words to be said, whether or not they provide the excusing grace of scientific explanation or not, amount to the same thing. Change will occur.

Transsexuality is a serious thing. It is life and death for some, and it is real and it is harsh and it hurts. Suffering silently to avoid hurting someone's feelings, or fearing rejection, is not a noble act. It ultimately helps no person.

This is a complex issue, I will try to address it. But understand, my concern is not with your mother's feelings, for little can be done about that. You can be gentle as possible, but her feelings are ultimately her responsibility. Let me explain.

I will ask you whether there is any way to make this easier on YOU. The bottom line here is very simple: either your mother loves, and likes, you for yourself, or else she has no clue who you are, and only loves an invented falsehood, a created image, of who she wants you to be.

This is the same dilemma that transsexuals face in coming out to spouses, if the transsexual has avoided things long enough to become married or involved. Either the other person genuinely cares about your self, or else they have only a role in their heart and mind, that you happen to currently fill.

"It's time I got me a new husband" finally declares -far too often- the divorced or widowed wife. They are filling a role in their lives, finding a new component to plug into the circuitry of their existence. In this fashion people are reduced to images, and relationships to shallow role play.

The relationship between any two people can operate in this manner, and thus so can that betwixt a mother and a child. Rather than raising a child as a human being, as a person, some mothers raise children like animals, as possessions, whose very existence, soul, self, and future are the property of the 'manufacturer': the mother that gave birth to them.

This is not how is MUST be. It is possible for a mother to actually care about, and love a child for their unique self, as a person, not as property, or as a projection, or a role.

Either your mother loves YOU, or she loves a false image of what she WANTS from having a child. If she loves YOU, then there will be a happy resolution in the end.

The cold, hard way to relate to this is that your individuality and soul infinitely outweigh her, or any persons, illusions about what they want from you. Thus my concern is how best you can cope with this, no how you can make it easier on her.

Let me elucidate: if you were mangled in an auto accident, would you not feel it amiss if your mother rejected you on the grounds that, being wheelchair bound, you were not the child she desired? You were now damaged and thus unlovable?

Transsexuality is a congenital illness. It occurs in the womb, and it causes terrible pain and suffering. Transsexuals are born with a problem that require correction, an issue with the congruence of brain and skin.

I desire that you consider the issues here clearly: would you not feel wronged if your mother rejected you because you were born without legs, or blind?

Why then should you be less slighted if she rejects you because you were not born with the right genitals? Yes, it is more complex than this, yes there are social issues...but as I have tried to show, social issues, roles in relationships, are not real. They are chosen artifacts, and have nothing to do with love.

If your mother loves YOU, then she will love you as a daughter just as she did you as a son. If your mother only loves an image of you, if she rejects you, then it is no different than rejecting you for any birth defect. Any hurt or insult she receives in the telling to her of your suffering is her manufacture.

There is only one response to a parent that rejects a child who is born crippled, or hurt, or in need: To HELL WITH THEM.

On the other hand, if your mother genuinely cares about the person she brought into the world, then she will find a way to adapt and love you no differently because of the skin between your legs. If she is hurt and insulted by the skin between your legs, if this is more important to her than you, than your very life, then her feelings are beneath your concern.

So this is what I say: tell her honestly and with genuine feeling and care. Tell her as a injured child needing repair, as a person to a person, both of whom share a common bond.

If you open your heart to your mother about the malady of your birth, of the pain and suffering you endure, of the hope you have to be cured of that pain, and she rejects you...

It will hurt. That part cannot be denied. It will hurt like a bitch. BUT....if she hurts, it really is HER choice, not yours. It all, utterly, depends on what she actually loves: you, or her illusions.

There is no shame or ignobility in genuine honesty, nor in real love for another. There is grave sorrow and shame is loving an illusion, or in demanding compliance to an artificial role.

There is no 'gentle' way to explain the hideous suffering of a congenital illness. There is only an honest way. And there is only one possible ultimate reaction: truth.

It is in kind words and happy experience that the width of love is known, but only in the bitter hell of suffering that the depth of love is known.

Less poetically: if your mother cannot love you regardless of your skin, then her feelings are no longer your concern. Your survival is your concern. This is not selfish, this is real, and this is honest.
 

I've had this conversation a million times in my mind and my dreams. The
questions about my future, my job, the hope for children. Every time I see
her she asks when I am going to settle down and give her some
grandchildren. Am I stealing from her in this? Or am I finally going to
give her the real child she should have had?

Are you stealing the potentiality for as-yet-nonexistent grandchildren from your mother? This is a most interesting thing to ask, and a bit peculiar as well.

Even to ask such a question requires that certain things be assumed to be real, things which are very much a matter of cultural construct, and which are in no way directly connected with reality.

One assumption is that your mother has the power and the right to literally own a non existent person, located in a different time period. Consider the absurdity of this. For you to steal -your own words- grandchildren from her, is to assume that she owns the result of mixing your genetic material with that of an unknown other person altogether, some unspecified time in the future. Secondly, it must be assumed that not only does she own this future potential person, but also claims ownership of your reproductive functioning as well as the reproductive functioning of some person you have yet to even meet.

This is nothing less than slavery. If someone, anyone -even your own mother, tribe, clan or group- owns your reproductive capacity, and owns the persons created by that capacity, then you are enslaved, and so are your offspring, and any mate you have them with.

You are not property, neither is your reproductive functioning, and future unknown people you might co-create are not property either. The very idea is evil.

You may think I am exaggerating your wording here, seizing on a single chosen phrase, but I am not. Behind that phrase you used, the meaning is clear howsoever you may say it: the feeling that your mother owns part of your possible futures, and has claim, and deserves consideration for, any choice that infringes on her ownership of your future, and the future of strangers yet unborn.

You cannot owe her, nor feel worry or guilt, unless this basic assumption is made. If the assumption is not made, you owe her nothing, and would never have asked any variation of the question.

She may have given birth to you, but you are an individual. Your body is yours alone, your gonads are yours alone, your future reproductive capacity is yours alone, and you own no person these things save yourself.

It is not her, or anyone's right, to claim ownership of your life, your future or your potential children's future. To "...give her some grandchildren..", you have to assume that she owns things that she has no right to own. Please stop this assumption immediately! It can only cause misery to you, disappointment to her, and suffering to children as yet unborn. If your life is dictated by a duty to fulfill some reproductive directive from outside yourself, then resentment, unhappiness and grief for all concerned will be the only outcome.

No, you do NOT owe your mother, or ANYONE, your capacity to generate children. You are not property. You are a person, and your life is your own. Living your life enslaved will benefit no person long, and reap misery in the end for all involved.
 

I found your site through a link from Becky Allison's site.  Your site
has been the only sight to help me more than hers.  I feel that you have
addressed the greatest number of my difficult questions in a most concise way.

The only questions I still have are about options between no change and
complete change.  You mentioned them but spent little or no time discussing
any.

The potential 'between' options are diverse, and often individual. In a nutshell, the path between the sexes can be put on indefinite hold at whatever stage feels comfortable. The important point to any of this is to find a way to be both comfortable with one's own life, and to be able to survive in society.

Since all of these issues are very individual, so are the answers to them. I have a friend who has gone mostly through transition, but still possesses male genitals. She works in a machine shop and identifies as a lesbian, despite having a penis. I have a friend that is a female-to-male that will never have surgery, but simply lives in the male role. I have met a person who has never had surgery, never taken hormones, yet can pass perfectly. They live a double life, half the year male, half the year female.
I have corresponded with a man so androgynous that his co-workers just assumed him female, and he went with the gag. Now he lives as a woman, but identifies as a man. I know a transsexual, full surgery and hormones, that never managed to become effectively passable. She works still in the guise of a man, but lives the rest of her life outside work as a woman. The only reason she does this is because her job is too good to give up.

Perhaps you can see why I only briefly address this truly transgendered domain of being. It is highly individual to each person's needs and situation. Between the poles of being male and female lies the realm of finding a unique self expression. It is easy to describe the circumstances of a defined polarity, but infinite possibilities can only be generalized.

 
I am totally a woman and totally trapped in a male body.......I have
suffered and suffered.and suffered........death is the only way
out........

Wrong. Listen to me carefully. Death is the goofy way out. There is a better path.

I want you to understand one thing: you actually have the right to be yourself.

If there is one true right in all of nature, if there is only one capital 'T' Truth, it is that every life form has the basic 'right' to fight for it's own survival. This is the rule of Nature, the rule of life.

Fixing a congenital dysfunction is something we humans can do that rats and dogs and apes cannot. Gender Dysphoria can kill, or rather, narrow bigoted society can bring the gender dysphoric to kill themselves, but this is NOT what must occur. If you die, you let them win, you deny the rest of us brilliant folks your contributions and presence, and you lose giving yourself the most precious wonderment: your own happiness.

I do not care how old you are. I do not care what your life has been, or how many times you married, your physical status or what you had to do to survive up till now. DAMNIT, you can DO something for yourself NOW!

The technology is there, the support information is there, the hope is there. I know folks transitioning while paralyzed in wheelchairs, I know folks achieving happiness with their gender issues with ANY manner of disability or situation.

You have the right to be happy. You have the right to survive. You have the right to correct Nature's incredibly stupid mistakes. Nature is a brutal, unfeeling Bitch. But we can make up for her failings, by caring to take action to improve ourselves.

I tell you this: if you are willing to put forth some sort of effort, if you are willing to accept your right to survive, to repair the error of Nature, if you are willing to let yourself be happy, YOU CAN DO IT.

I know this beyond question, for I have done what I speak of, my friends have done what I speak of, and hundreds of other transsexual and transgendered folks do so every year in the United States alone.

If you fail yourself, if you fail to take charge of your own happiness, if you wimp out on your own life, you miss the real opportunity to HAVE WHAT YOU WANT.

You also cheat the rest of us of your unique gifts and value, your creativity and experience, your power and worth. I find that unacceptable!

Don't give me crap about dying, when you currently live in a world filled with opportunities, options and freedom I cried to have during my own transition. Get off your ass and save your life, damn it! The tools are there, the support is there, the doctors are there, and there are friends and lovers you have not even met yet, waiting for you.

If you hurt that much, save your own life. Dying transsexuals are a loss to the species as a whole. There is no excuse possible for refusing to save yourself.

Go find a counselor, a doctor, a support group. Read, learn and do. Trapped by your previous life choices? BULLSHIT. Get going. make those calls, write those E-mails, and get busy. If you are ready to die, then there is NOTHING in your life that can trap you! Killing yourself is far more disruptive to everyone and everything than repairing a mistake of your birth.

Stop disappointing yourself. Start making yourself happy. Do it now, do it with determination, and do it because it is your basic right as a living organism.

I am here for you to write to, if you need me. But you can do even better just finding some other folks like yourself. The internet is filled with gender group listings, all over the earth, for you to contact. Go do it now, right now.

Your REAL life, the life you always wanted, is within your grasp, just inches away. It would be utterly silly to croak over having missed your personal Brass Ring by so little.
 

I was reading some of your articles and you discussed lumps in your breasts. This is the first time I've ever read about this. When I was fourteen I developed lumps in both my breasts. They were tender and hurt if touched. I was operated on to remove the lumps, but my left breast sometimes become swollen and tender. I have never taken hormones. Do you think this is significant? I am in therapy now. Should I share this with my doctor?

It sounds, on the surface, as if you were starting to develop breasts. This might well be the case if there were only two lumps, both dead center under the nipple, one per breast. Such lumps are 'cores' the scaffold and construction platform of normally developing breasts.

Now if you developed many seperate lumps per breast, randomly scattered, that is probably bad stuff, perhaps tumors or cysts, and it was good to have them removed.

Some physical males develop breasts. This condition is called 'Gynocomastia' and most often the treatment is breast reduction and/or removal. Why? Real men don't want breasts, so they are removed.

The common cause of this is hormones, created by the body, acting on flesh. The condition can also be caused by other factors such as use of steroids or other chemicals.

Without question you should inform your doctors about this, and it is vital that you inform them if you are considering hormones at all. Inform your doctors!
 

Hi, I'm 35 years old and have been a post op TS since I was 18. While I have had several orgasms, mostly in my sleep, I wanted to know if and how you experience orgasm (providing you're post op). Is there a way to improve things?

I am indeed post-op, by 16 years, and I am capable of orgasm. Actually it is fairly easy for me. I am not a terribly sexual person though, so perhaps it is wasted on me!

When I do have orgasms, I find them different from orgasms I had with male plumbing and hormones. The orgasm is more diffuse, spread out, and seems kind of all over, as opposed to just focused in one spot. The orgasm is a bit weaker, and kind of comes and goes, not unlike a big earthquake followed by aftershocks. It is less intense than male orgasm, but I actually like that: the focused intensity of the male orgasm kind of disturbed and even frightened me.

Another metaphor would be the difference between a warm heat lamp and a laser, with the female orgasm being the happy heat lamp.

I do occasionally have orgasms in my sleep as part of dreams, and sometimes these can be disturbing because sometimes -rather rarely, fortunately- they are 'male orgasms'. Since the capacity for orgasm is in the brain, it is not unreasonable that the functionality for both types would still be wired, and in a dream, accessed. Those dreams kind of upset me, because they remind me of the horror (for me) of what I had to deal with before, long ago.

Whatever the status of your genital surgery, and numbness level, it is possible to learn to orgasm more easily, if you want to. The key is training your brain to find erotic stimulation in less direct flesh. In the most extreme situations, quadriplegics have trained themselves, with the help of a partner, to make use of the skin at the back of the neck as an erogenous zone. They can literally have orgasms from having the nerves of this skin stimulated. Theoretically, any skin could serve this functionality.

What this means to post-op transsexuals is very positive if orgasms are desired. Even with severe numbness, it is possible to learn to adapt to the situation. For example, about 30% of my genitals are without the sensation of touch, but capable of felling some pressure. I have slowly trained my brain, by both simple play and acceptance, to make use of what sensation I do have to achieve orgasm. Over the years it has become easier, and natural to me. Now orgasm is no problem.

One of my personal difficulties was in simply accepting my state, and emotionally embracing my compromised sensitivity. Once I got past the 'fresh from the dentist, filled with novacain' feeling of being unsettled and bothered by numbness, I could concentrate on the remaining 70% that could feel, and what sensations the numb 30% could still produce. This helped a great deal.
 
 
Where did you find the data to support transexuality being decided
in utero? What's up with all the fuss about this?

There are lots of sources; it's a hot, and somewhat controversial topic right now. Aside from the many journal articles (which you can find some of by using my links area...try out the pages of some of the doctors listed, they have some of the articles online -also, if you are near a large university, like Stanford, visit their library.) the easiest and simplest place to get an overview of -more or less- current research is in Anne Moir and David Jessel's "Brain Sex". Both in book (published by Delta) and in PBS miniseries TV format, the work provides a basic grounding in the concepts.

What is the controversy? Well, Christian Fundamentalists are divided: either they see it as a plot to destroy 'Christian Values' through scientific research, or they see the research as a way to screen for and eliminate both transsexuality and homosexuality before birth: no more queer babies. Oddly, some actually seem to approve  of abortion in this one, lone area...despite opposing it for even the most serious of physical deformities. I suppose hatred is the one excuse for abortion to a Christian.

Lesbian Seperatists see the research as a supreme demonstration of the view that MTF transsexuals exist as a deliberate attempt by the patriarchy to destroy and infiltrate the lesbian political underground, and that the research is innately flawed because is the work of the patriarchy itself. The fact that most of the actual research is being done by women is especially interesting.

Bigots in general want to deny the validity of the research because they think it legitimizes faggots and freaks. Some of these bigots are themselves within the scientific community. Intellect does not equal wisdom.

Some feminists, as well as some less 'separate' political lesbians deny the information because it clearly suggests that gender is real and not entirely a social construct. This concept directly exists in opposition to cherished and politically correct viewpoints which would have gender purely and totally an illusion.

Basically, the concept that man is an animal, affected by the same biological functions as any other animal, with gender being just one more aspect of our animal nature, is uncomfortable to those who forever wish to place mankind above and beyond being an animal. Whether it is for politics, religion, or pride in the species, evidence that we are still just animals after all really bothers some folks.

That is why the research is controversial.
 

I just finished taking the COGIATI test you have on your page.  I realize
it is not conclusive.  I tried to be as honest as I possibly could.  Most
likely I errored on the conservative side when in doubt. (gave the answer I
thought more likely to show male)

When the score showed up, 235 Catagory 4, I sat at my monitor and tears
filled my eyes.  If I was not at work I would not have held them back.  My
emotions are so up in the air.  I want so badly to be "normal". I guess I
was hoping it would show me to be a crossdresser.

The whole idea of being transexual scares me so badly!  Admittedly, I have thought I am TS for some time and so does my wife. My fear is that my need to move ahead will escalate.  My wife can not live in a relationship like that.  I do not want to lose her.  I am so scared.

I do not know what to do.  I do not know if I can keep it together like this forever.
 

A score of 234 is about middle in the Class 4 designation. This COGIATI score would place you at about the average score for the average, late-onset transsexual.

The current study of my COGIATI test currently places it's overall accuracy at slightly over 90%. I have no reason to particularly doubt the test, if taken honestly.

Here is the basic situation. If indeed you actually are a transsexual, then the issues you -by definition- suffer from will never go away. To understand this, please read the rest of the materials on my Transsexual.org site detailing the nature, cause, and ramifications of transsexuality. What this means is that because being transsexual is a matter of biological reality, it will not just go away.

In true transsexuals, the pain that is gender dysphoria grows in severity over time. Eventually something has to give, and that something involves life or death. Some transsexuals commit suicide if they cannot face their issues, or if they have been inculcated with sufficient self hatred for their defect of birth. Successful transsexuals face the issue with courage, or desperation if they have waited too long, and survive to live the life they were born to live.

The COGIATI is not proof that you are transsexual, and only you can truly determine whether you are or not. Transsexuality is the illness that the patient MUST diagnose.

But one thing is for certain: if you are suffering, doing nothing will please no one. Is it rational to imagine that a life, or a relationship, can endure increasing agony indefinitely? What good is any relationship based on the silent suffering of one of the partners?

If your mate truly loves you, and not some image or role of you, then the shape of your skin will not matter. Would she love you less in a wheelchair, in a hospital bed, as a paraplegic, or if you were struck blind or deaf? If she would leave you for such things, you have no relationship, you have only a game of role play and selfish agreements. That is not love.

Consider then how minor, by comparison, the adaptations necessitated by a change of physical sex? If you are a transsexual, your mind is already female, so your wife already loves a woman. How shallow if she cannot admit to the fact of this made flesh?

If you really are a transsexual, this is an illness begun in your mother's womb, a conflict between your brain and the surrounding skin that keeps that brain alive. Living in misery forever is not the request of any loving person.

If you really are transsexual, this is life or death, either now, or sometime in the future. Is your very existence so worthless that it to be used as a role, a lie to benefit someone else, or to satisfy your own fear of loneliness?

My advice is simple, and I repeat it again and again to people: if you truly have a problem, if you really are suffering for your true gender, if you really are a transsexual, then go deal with it. Go see a therapist if you are unsure, go see doctors if you are sure, join a gender group in any case and always learn as much as you can before you take any major actions.

Transsexuals -literally- are statistically among the brightest and most creative of any subdivision of mankind. If you really are a transsexual, get off your ass, face your fears, and save your own life. The world can ill afford to lose you to martyrdom or weakness. You deserve better. Go get it.
 

I am 12 years old, and I have something called GID, or Gender Identity Disorder.  It is not transsexuality, since I am so young.  I have been diagnosed with this by clinic doctors.

I have had this strongly since I was about 5 years old, but my
family didn't really pay attention.  Of course, they DID realize that
something was going on, but they figured it was just a stage.  I would
frequently hear them saying things like, "She looks like a boy! These
sexual identity problems can't go on!"

My parents never wanted to consult a psychiatrist or anything until
I insisted on it.  I started puberty at age 10, but I have been developing
very slowly since then; this year, I decided it was too much.  I had been
wearing ace bandages, tape, etc. on my chest to keep it down flat for long
enough!  I told my parents that I really needed professional help (as if
they didn't already know!), but my dad treated it as a big joke: He kept
saying, "Oh, you love going to doctors! Come on, I know you're enjoying
this whole experience that we're paying big bucks for. You don't need a
psychiatrist; you'll get over this.  I never liked puberty either."

Finally, I saw a child/family therapist. After a few meetings, she
suggested getting a GID evaluation at a clinic; they said I almost definitely
had it.  I was then sent to a GID expert, and I have been seeing him ever
since.

I was then sent to an endocrinologist, and he said I have barely
any free testosterone; in other words, I am abnormally feminine or
something.  I also have somewhat low estrogen.  They just took some other blood tests to see if I have partial estrogen insensitivity since I am so hairy; I haven't gotten the results back yet.

Ever since my current psychiatrist talked to my parents, they have
understood that this a very serious disturbance to me and that chances are that I will not get over it.

Kids at school make fun of me for looking, acting, etc. like a boy,
and for having a unisex nickname which is actually female but in a foreign
language, so nobody knows what it means.  I am very unpopular, but I have a few friends at school. One of them is kind of obnoxious; he kicked me between the legs when we were play-fighting and said, "Oh my gosh, what's that hard thing?! You have a penis! Hey everybody, she has a penis!"

Whenever I see my psychiatrist, I always go home feeling worse than
I did before.  He also tells me how unsatisfactory any hormone treatments, etc. I ever get will be.  When I told him I wanted to be a doctor when I grow up, he said I won't be able to unless I get my academic grades higher.  He also said that in order to get any kind of breast removal, etc., I would have to have a long history of professional help.

I know for sure that I have GID, and nothing will change that.  I
don't understand why everyone is avoiding the situation!  This is seriously impairing my social skills, and my parents won't even let me get my hair
cut in a decent way because they're afraid I'll look too boyish! I also
have some religious conflicts, as I am Jewish.  My brother, who is an adult, says: "It's fine to think this way, but it's a sin to get anything
surgical done about it!"

What do you suggest I do?
 

I will try to tell you the information that may just save you. Listen up, boy!

GID treatment is not what it seems. Transsexuals and the transgendered are currently demanding investigation into GID clinics and centers.

By and large, GID treatment is aimed only at gradually coercing, forcing, or otherwise eliminating transsexuality in children.

Yes, by your description, you are probably a transsexual...being transsexual has NOTHING whatsoever to do with age. Most transsexuals, especially the severe cases, like myself, know there is a problem by age five. We are born transsexual, and it is a condition created in the womb. This 'GID' label is part of an effort to see if transsexuality can be 'cured'...though they will NEVER directly admit this to you. The belief is that by pretending to be helpful, they can gradually sway the child back to a 'normal' behavior.

This is false, because it is based on a false premise.

Transsexuality is inborn, a condition that occurs in all higher mammals within the womb. It cannot be cured, and it is not a construct of society. It is not learned, and it is not something that can be made to vanish through treatment.

You are courageous to be so honest about your condition, but to the best of what I have learned, you are in danger by doing so.

What is the danger?
There are many stories of GID children who, not being able to be 'cured' or forced into denying their problems, ending up put into institutions, treated with hormones in such a way as to make eventual transition difficult or impossible, and other abuses.

What do I advise?
My advise is not easy, but it may save you. Hear me on this: later in life, you can transition just fine. You can be the physical sex that fits your gender, and you can live happily. You can be anything you want to be, any profession, any job. You can get surgery, and you do not need a long history either. I know these things personally. I transitioned at 21, and I stayed hidden until then. I have three friends at my local gender group in Seattle who are Female-To-Male transsexuals, one is 18, one is 21, and one is 36 with a daughter. All three are very nice men now, if a little rowdy at times! ^.-

What your GID therapist is telling you is carefully constructed lies. He is trying to gradually 'break' you of what he believes is a fantasy, but which serious science has shown is a real condition. This is why you are in danger: being young, you have few rights.

If I were you, if I had parents who would not face facts and help me, if my religious background damned me with hatred, and if I faced the dangers of the current GID industry:

I would shut up, wait things out as best I could, and learn everything I could about my own condition. I would wait until I was in college, or somehow on my own, apart from the pressures and the danger, and then get me to a serious doctor as soon as I could. I would contact a gender group, I would get on hormones, I would find friends that were like me for support.

At your age, you have little power, and therefore are in danger: danger of being actually harmed in the name of 'doing the right thing', or emotionally and psychologically crushed by years of constant pressure to conform. BUT, when you are older, that changes dramatically. Then you can do what you need to do.

You need to know that once you are of an age to where you are not essentially helpless, it is fairly easy to change your sex. It does not take a lot of paperwork, though it does take some money, or insurance. The visual results are better for Female-to-Males than for Male-to-Females like me, and you look forward to being yourself successfully.

Yes, you will miss out on much of your childhood, yes, this hurts like a bitch, and yes it is sad and regretful that the world is like this. It sucks that war and famine exist too in the world. You have to take care of yourself, even if it hurts. There is a good reward in the end. You can be yourself as an adult, even if your childhood is stolen from you.

Running away, an option transsexual children consider, is not a good option. I have lived on the streets, and it is REALLY bad. Use this option ONLY if your life is in immediate danger of being put in an institution, or if you are at risk of being killed for being transsexual.

Suicide is a foolish loss. If you can just be strong enough to endure till you have some control over your life, you can get what you need, you can fix your body, and feel all right. Discard suicide. You have a really good future waiting, if you just try.

What about fighting the GID folks directly, confronting them with their lies? Instant failure. That would be about the single worst thing you could do. They do not want to hear they are wrongs, and they especially do not want to hear it from a child. Think Nazi's. What's the point?

My advice is to find some way to exist that will get the heat off of you, and get the GID folks off your back. Survive, however you can, until you are old enough to save your own life. You have time. I know this advice hurts. But, if you follow it, you have the best chance of winning your own true life back.

If you think, REALLY think your parents could ever help you lovingly, accept you as a transsexual, and help you transition, then that is the answer.

But if you find around you only efforts to deny and abuse you, that make you feel bad about yourself, that make you feel like you are sick or evil or wrong, then hide and survive. In time you can own your own life.

Above all, know these things: You deserve to live your life. You deserve to be the sex you were meant to be. You deserve happiness. Being transsexual is just a biological accident like any birth defect, and that is ALL that it is.

Survive, learn, hide your identity if necessary, and know that in the end you can be yourself.
 

By no means do I subscribe to any form of dogma. I do, however, feel a sense of spirituality within myself that is related more to the universe, than to a particular ism. Do you have any spiritual beliefs and if so, do you believe that the experience of being a TS somehow fits in to this?

Well, as regards your question about spirituality and being TS, for me I am a divided house. If you read my personal transition story, including the hyperlinks, you can understand why.

I certainly have had enough powerful mystical and religious experiences in my life to make almost anyone into a cult leader or a new age mystic, but I am also grounded in science, and possess an indomitable lack of faith.

My answer to this is to be exceedingly pragmatic: if it works, I use it. I do not need to believe anything, have faith in anything, or worship anything: if something is 'real' it will work, and I can make use of it.

During my transition I 'made use of' the apparent direct intervention of a powerful feminine, goddess-like force. At the time it seemed quite real, it kept me going, it found me things I needed in inexplicable ways, and caused inexplicable coincidence to occur all to my benefit, saving me again and again. I am grateful to whatever She was or is.

But because this was useful to me does not mean that I have become a circle dancing full-time Wiccan, or that I utterly deny this experience as only a psychological aberration caused by stress. To me I can see both sides at the same time, and even hold both equally true at the same time. Goddess or hallucination? To me it is like asking of light, 'Wave, or Particle?'

Such religious or mystical phenomena affect many transsexuals, and doubtless always have, or transsexuals would not have been the traditional shamans, mystics and healers of ancient peoples.

Sometimes I pray to the moon, and thank my benefactor, I still rely on inexplicable coincidence and force of will, I even cast minor spells. Sometimes I reflect on my momentary lifelong hallucinations of real and powerful spiritual phenomena in a mechanical world devoid of soul. I imagine it must be fun and psychologically beneficial in some way for the human mind to animate a spiritless cosmos of meaningless matter.

I would not call myself an agnostic, for I actively participate in both cosmological viewpoints. I am not passive, waiting to find out. If it works, I use it, for as long as is practical, then I drop it for something else.

To me, ideas, viewpoints, 'realities' or cosmologies, are tools. I use a hammer for a nail, a paintbrush with paint. I see grave danger in using only one tool for all jobs. This is what most religions do; the most fanatic use a claw hammer for absolutely everything.

From my spiritual side, I answer your question by saying that being TS probably causes a person to be closer to the mystic, and to be truly 'touched by the gods', and that being born TS is a fairy gift, both painful and wonderful, which unleashes untold wonders.

My skeptical mind would answer you that being TS is just a congenital defect caused by the action of hormones on fetal brain tissue, and that any 'spiritual' aspects are probably the result of psychological stress over being TS in an unfriendly society, or biochemical anomalies caused by the condition itself.

Both, of course, are equally true, at the same time, to me.

The next time Magick knocks, I will answer happily, until then, it's doin' time on the planet of soulless slime.

But I do know one thing: in any event, being TS is a pretty special thing to be.
 

My sister is fairly certain that my mother had taken DES (diethylstilboestrol) while she had been carrying us. Neither of us are aware that we have suffered any physical damage, but could DES be a
cause of GD in a young boy?

DES is a synthetic hormone. If you have read my article on the cause of transsexuality, then the answer to this should be fairly obvious: transsexuality is a congenital defect caused by the actions of hormones in the womb upon the fetal brain. It is, in effect, and 'invisible' or at least hidden (by skull and membrane) birth defect. DES is well documented for all manner of birth defects, I would have to say that this is a definite possibility. Not all biological 'deviations' are visible, and everyone has some minor defect: there are no perfect babies. My mother had three kidneys, for example, my high school lover had a complete extra set of teeth in her skull, making for 3 instead of two...doubtless they will come in her old age. These mutations would never have been known had it not been for an appendectomy and a car crash requiring a CAT scan, respectively.

DES is far more powerful than the usual environmental shocks that affect developing fetuses and cause their mutation, you could have other hidden mutations and never know about them unless they became a problem or were accidentally discovered. There is no 'true' state of being human, just a biological average. It would not require DES to create gender issues in your brain, but it could certainly add to them or be the cause just as easily as any other biochemical disruption.