Ask a trans person!

[DapperButch]

Originally Posted by JDeere

I went to a barber, skipped the whole salon deal. My new place for a haircut fyi. My barber happens to be a stud, which to my delight we talked about femmes the whole time. Anyways I ended up with a ruby rose type hair cut no softening of anything lol.

http://media4.popsugar-assets.com/fi...k-Season-4.jpg

A place with a stud was a good idea. Female and males skulls are shaped differently. A female who desires to look masculine is a good choice for picking out a hairstyle for you that makes you look the most male (if that is what you are going for). Back in the day trans men would get a crew cut/something along those lines, as soon as they came out. All that does is highlight the skull which points to the person being female. There is enough information out there now that you don't see that much anymore.

[Bard]

I have found a good Barber and the cut I think is much better before my daughter was fussing at me that my fade had not been done right now she and I are both happy and I do not have to worry about the the being softened thing

[JDeere]

Originally Posted by DapperButch

A place with a stud was a good idea. Female and males skulls are shaped differently. A female who desires to look masculine is a good choice for picking out a hairstyle for you that makes you look the most male (if that is what you are going for). Back in the day trans men would get a crew cut/something along those lines, as soon as they came out. All that does is highlight the skull which points to the person being female. There is enough information out there now that you don't see that much anymore.

I think it was a good choice too.

[Esme nha Maire]

Hi all!

I hope some of you gents won't mind indulging my curiosity on this, but the impression I have up to this point is that, in general (and understanding that there is nevertheless wide variation in folk going in both directions) MTFs seem to feel surer of their gender identity earlier than FTMs. So I'm wondering if that is the case - do many of you just know you were actually male from an early age, or is it more often a dawning realisation a little later in life?.

NB: I'm not on about making decisions re surgery - I well understand why one might be hesitant about signing up for FTM surgery - I'm asking only about when one becomes sure of ones gender identity. I ask not merely out of curiosity, but also because in the last couple of months I've become aware of two FTMs in my extended social circle, both of them surprisingly (to me) old. Could be coincidence, but I'm hoping they're acting on innate feelings rather than external pressures, but if innate, I'm surprised they didn't act earlier.

[DapperButch]

Originally Posted by Esme nha Maire

Hi all!

I hope some of you gents won't mind indulging my curiosity on this, but the impression I have up to this point is that, in general (and understanding that there is nevertheless wide variation in folk going in both directions) MTFs seem to feel surer of their gender identity earlier than MTFs. So I'm wondering if that is the case - do many of you just know you were actually male from an early age, or is it more often a dawning realisation a little later in life?.

NB: I'm not on about making decisions re surgery - I well understand why one might be hesitant about signing up for FTM surgery - I'm asking only about when one becomes sure of ones gender identity. I ask not merely out of curiosity, but also because in the last couple of months I've become aware of two FTMs in my extended social circle, both of them surprisingly (to me) old. Could be coincidence, but I'm hoping they're acting on innate feelings rather than external pressures, but if innate, I'm surprised they didn't act earlier.

Hey there! Great question! Did you meant to say MTF earlier than FTM or the opposite? You said MTF twice.

[Esme nha Maire]

Thanks, Dapper - I'm still a bit floaty on painkillers and didnt notice. I meant wondering if MTFs tend to be sure of their gender earlier than FTMs. I;ve now edited my post to correct this.

[DapperButch]

Originally Posted by Esme nha Maire

Thanks, Dapper - I'm still a bit floaty on painkillers and didnt notice. I meant wondering if MTFs tend to be sure of their gender earlier than FTMs. I;ve now edited my post to correct this.

That is what I thought you meant.

Interesting question!

Based on my reading of trans people, historically MTFs were aware of their gender identity earlier than FTMs.

As a gender therapist, I have seen this to be the case, as well. I believe that the reason for this is because FTMs have another identity to describe some of the conflicting feelings...tomboy. There is a word, and identity that they can "kind of" fit into. MTFs only have gay and female.

It tends to be puberty when the boys (FTMs) put it all together. The changes in their body triggers the realization that they are not female. Some even talk about thinking that puberty would "never happen to them because they were a tomboy/other word that is similar".

90% of my adolescents are FTMs. However, I don't think that this points to there being more trans boys than trans girls. I believe it is because the girls are getting therapy earlier. Since I only see kids 14 and up, and the girls are coming out earlier, I wouldn't see them. I can tell you that when I go to trans health conferences, the parent/child section has more than double the little girls (MTF) running around than the little boys (FTMs).

What I do see is that the FTM adolescents do transition earlier than the MTFs. Parents are much more nervous about their trans girls coming out. I see them wanting the girls to hold out until college. Sometimes they will put them on hormones, but they insist that they wait until college to socially transition. College is much "safer". My main goal with the parents of trans girls is to at least put them on testosterone blockers. That I can usually get parents to do because they hear me when I say that their children will have a much harder go of it the more their face masculinizes. Boys I am usually more hesitant about going on testosterone because of the voice change that can't be reversed. I would say that I am much more conservative than the typical gender therapist when it comes to boys getting on to testosterone. Nowadays the parents are ahead of me. Some come in the door almost ready for their trans boys to get on testosterone. This is all because they come in super educated. It is not like it used to be only a few years ago. I don't like Caitlyn Jenner, but she sure did help the trans community when it comes to "coming OUT".

------------------

For myself, I think that finding "butch" as gender is what held me up. I kept telling myself that I wasn't a woman (that my only gender was Butch), but that I was ok with being female (my sex). Female masculinity is somewhat accepted in our culture, so I could essentially live as a "man" (hair, clothing), so it "held me together". I didn't realize how free I would feel after I came OUT and got on testosterone. I didn't realize how much anxiety (social and general), was the reason for my irritability and angst (which unfortunately impacted others), was due to not having the "right hormone" in my body. I am so much more calm and emotionally level now. It really is freaky. I never knew if my clients emotionally leveled out due to hormones or due to anticipation of their body changing. Getting on hormones myself gave me the answer to that question (it is the hormone).

I started out with a small dose because I wanted to make sure it was the right decision. Pretty quickly a thought came to me..."I need the medication in my system...if the outcome of that is that I am masculinize to the point of looking male, then that is what the outcome is". That is how necessary this hormone is to my mental health. (Unfortunately, for the first 6 months I had to jump around to different dosages (long story), so my emotional state was not balanced at all).

Now, of course I am very happy with my changes, and very happy being male, but I think the above points to the power of hormones. And I don't know what evidence could make it more clear that this is a medical condition. Like many who are diabetic need insulin to have a balanced, healthy body and mental state, many trans people need cross sex hormones.

The end. lol

ETA: I started transitioning in my mid- 40's. Based on the several "over 40" trans men FB groups I am on, most of these men came out late in life, as well (mid 40's, early 50's). A very large percentage of them identified as butch lesbians prior to coming out as trans. I still identify with butch as part of my gender identity.

[Esme nha Maire]

Thank you, Dapper. See, what puzzles me is that whilst I know it's certainly not the case for all MTF's to know, from a very early age, as I did, that they are female (I was somewhere in the range 4 to 5 - essentially, I can't recall ever having any sense of gender identity other than female), I get the impression that it's rarer for FTM's to have such strong gender dysphoria at such an early age, and if that is indeed the case, I cannot help but wonder why.

One would imagine that if it didn't take puberty for me to realise that something was horribly wrong (and at that age, I had no concept of sexuality, let alone homosexuality) that the same would hold true for FTMs. I take your point re the tomboy identity (funnily enough, that was kind of how I thought of myself, once I knew that word!) possibly seeming a 'nearest fit' , but as my gender dysphoria was a very strongly physical thing, the social stuff was very much secondary to me, I'm surprised if it isn't so in others, I guess.

[JDeere]

Have any of yall ever heard of a transman Mark Angelo Cummings?

[Esme nha Maire]

No, but evidently you have and think they are notable. What about them, JDeere? Bear in mind that the object of this thread is for folk to ask transfolk questions about stuff regarding transfolk that they don't know or arent sure about (eg: what sort of effects does HRT therapy have on your emotions? Can anything be done to make a masculine-type voice sound more feminine or vice-versa?).