Am middle aged and have three boys. Known my entire life I am a transsexual, but have suppressed these feelings forever. I know that I could do something about the condition, take hormones and get surgery and so forth, but I have to think of the family. If I were to become myself, would change all of their lives, and there is the matter of my sons. So instead of being myself would like to know if there is any possible way to somehow repress the transsexual feelings if start taking steroids or something.  This may sound strange to you, but due to responsibilities to the boys it has to be done.  Would be much appreciated if you have any hints or helpful ideas in accomplishing this task.

In order to understand what I shall tell you, it is important that you clearly understand what actually causes transsexuality. You cannot deal with something you do not understand, indeed, knowledge often presents the solution directly.

The body has a sex. This sex may be male, or female, or -in the case of the intersexed- some combination of both. This is the natural way of things, and occurs to all animals, including humans animals.

What many people seem to fail to grasp is that physical sex is not just about outward bumps or recesses in the skin, but about the inside of the body as well. Males and females have different organs, and these organs are as much indications of physical sex as outside curves, indeed, more so.

One organ overlooked almost constantly is the brain. The brain has a physical sex just as real and absolute as that of the body, as sure as that of the groin or the abdomen.

Gender identity, the mental expression of the physical sex of the brain, is real. It is caused by the specific construction of the neurons in the brain, and the brains of males and females are distinctly different in function.

Your brain is the structure that contains you. Literally. Change the brain, say with a stroke or a lobotomy, and you erase part of you. Part of your self, part of your identity, dare I say it, part of your very soul. Gender identity cannot be touched by steroids or hormones or chemicals or willpower. It might be removed by surgery, but this would also remove your identity as a human being as well, leaving only a comatose lump of dying meat. There is only one way to stop being transsexual, and that is the same way to stop being at all: destroying yourself. You see, the point is that 'you' are defined by the wiring and function of your brain, and that is just as real as any other organ in your body. Hormones, steroids, or even wishing really, really hard, cannot reprogram your brain. But, even if some miracle chemical as yet unknown could rewire your brain, 'you' would be annihilated. 'You' would cease to exist, and in your body would live another, new person, another, new living program in the computer of the brain. You would be erased, as dead as if axe murdered.

The bottom line is that you cannot ever stop being transsexual because that is what you are. You were born that way, it is how things are. It happens, and it is Nature, and it is real, and it is the way it is.

You cannot run away from yourself. You are always there, and reality is always consistent. You have two choices. You can accept reality, or you can try to live in delusion. In the end, delusion will always fail you, because it is a lie. Trying to live a lie will not help anyone, and it will hurt you.

I cannot say what you are or are not: only you can determine that. But if you are transsexual, it will not ever go away, because it is you. It will only get worse, until you either correct your body, or destroy yourself.

It sounds like you are trying to protect people from what may be the reality of your circumstance. It's all well and good to pretend that the wolf is not outside the cave, but it will not make things easier on anyone when the wolf eventually runs in and starts eating people. Better to face reality square on, and use our highly evolved brains to survive. Wolves can be tamed, after all. But denying them, ignoring them, suppressing the reality of them, only gives them the upper hand, and leads to misery.

First, make certain of what you really are. Then, if you actually are a transsexual, deal with it. Running away will only hurt others...and hurt you too. That is the reality of transsexuality.
 
 

A number of other things I have been wondering about but havent been able to find any answers on the net so far. Can you answer these three questions from your experience :

(i) Hormones redistribute fat. The transexuals whose appearance I have found most pleasing are those who are slim, particularly naval upwards and arms which seems to enhance their femininity. I am actually a bit overweight at the moment around the mid rift and was looking at slimming down quite a bit but in doing so, will the amount of fat that gets redistributed to my buttock/hips once I commence hormones be reduced, ie by becoming quite slim, will I not have much fat redistributed where I want it to become feminine or is it more like true females who have a darned hard time ever slimming in that area?

Inevitably, unless you change your diet and your degree of exercise, you will only gain weight on estrogen. That is one of the genetic switches that is flipped 'On' by estrogen; the accumulation and storage of fat. It has a purpose: pre-technological women who had the most fat, had the reserves to have healthy babies. In pre-tech times, food was scarce, especially fatty food, and so evolution predisposed us all to crave it, and this is especially so for women. When estrogen is taken, the same genes that control the metabolism of nontranssexual women are activated, and so one begins not merely redistributing fat, but also storing more of it, just like any woman.

Interestingly, in my observation, when one enters a level of actual obesity, it seems that fat is stored in a mixed way, that is to say, partly male, partly female. Males store fat, especially in middle age, in the upper stomach region, making them barrel shaped, women store fat in the hips mostly, making for a pear shape. In the MTF transsexual, fat is stored somewhere between the two extremes, if one passes the point of obesity. I can only guess the reason, but it is not irrational to consider that mixed genes are being activated, both male and female. Overall, to rest fears, the appearance will still be female for the FTM transsexual, and only someone who knew what to look for (and had a reason to notice) would understand what I have just mentioned.

(ii) I have read from your site that by my age (36), effects of hormones is about 1/4 of what it would have been in the early twenties. In addition I have read one can expect one or two cup sizes smaller breasts than that of my sisters for instance. I am 36 with two sisters with good sized breasts (one had a breast reduction operation in her late teens). What is the likelihood that I will develop breasts of a pleasing size (ie implants not required) and how long would it likely take for them to develop to their maximum size?

I have precisely the same cup size as my mother, and indeed turned out to resemble her uncannily in many ways. I do not know where this business of a reduced cup size comes from, but it did not come from me.

The size of breasts that one will grow is individual, but based on genetics. One can get an idea of what one might turn out to be by considering one's relatives, but it is not an absolute indication. You may turn out to have breasts larger than your sisters. Only time, hormones, genes, and your unique biochemistry can decide this.

(iii) What would be the ideal penis size to create a good size vagina? Is the bigger the better? Does girth/circumference of the penis also matter?

The more of everything, the better. Consider it cloth, and the more of it you have, the more that can be cut and sewn to form a proper garment for your sexuality. If you are lacking in raw material, as it were, it may be necessary to acquire the requisite skin from other parts of your body; a prime location is to scavenge the buttocks. Not to fear, the skin removed eventually grows back, but for a few years, the buttocks may look red and thin.

In MTF transsexuals, the skin from the penis is used to create the vagina, while the skin of the scrotum is reconstructed to it's original function as labia (all fetuses begin as proto-female, and must mutate into maleness from that state prior to birth. The scrotum is the result of mutated labia fusing together around descended proto-ovaries). Shape and proportion of these organs is irrelevant, what matters is having enough square inches of living 'cloth' to rearrange. Sex reassignment surgery for the MTF is really mostly a matter of rearrangement of tissue to it's original state.
 

Hello my name is C_____ I'm from Miami Fl I had SRS in Aug this past year and I wish I didnt I want my body back to the way it was I have been so depressed for the past 3 months because this, I forged my letters of recommendation to get this surgery and the surgeon never even called to verify them I cant go on like this I'm only 23 yrs old and wanted to have childern one day now I cant. I want my strength, old friends, family, and job back I didnt do the 1 year RLT just started living since surgery and hate it I cant pass as a male anymore. My life is over I dont want to live this way what can i do how can I reverse the effects of the hormones I stopped taking estrogen 3 weeks ago this helped me by letting me know my body isnt going to feminize anymore I willl never take them again would rather die than take med the rest of my life. I hate dilateing and have allready lost some of my new vagina only have 3" depth Ihad almost 5 when I got back from surgery. I want to be a male again and I cant because of this stupid mistake I did. Why was I allowed to do this why didnt they check my letters. I want m body back will my breast go away I only took hormones on and off for 1 year mostly didnt take them because I wasnt sure if I wanted this but started taking them full time since july because my friend was transitoning faster thanme I wanted to get SRS bfore her. My real therapist didnt want me to get SRS at that time I just went there and ttold her what she wanted to hear just to try to get letters I got 1 letter from another psychologist but it wasnt a clear letter bu it showed me how to wright one and thats what I did I wrote both letters and sent them in and had SRS now I wish I didnt I am planning on taking the surgein to court for malpractice at the first of the year when I find a attorny who will take this case. I just want enough money from this to change me back and to pay fo the hormones for the rest of life and all my related medical care. I feel that the surgeons should take care in performng these surgeries and talk wth the person before they mutilate there body I feel like some freak now I will never be able to have sex again with a woman or have childern since this surgery I lost my family, job, and friends. I cant function as a female and now I cant live as a male either thanks to a surgeon who needs money more than helpping people and this was one of the top SRS surgeons in this country and a member of the SOC commity. So I do have a legal case but cant fid a attorny who will take it what can I do. please

Let's see.

You forged your letters of recommendation, then used them against a trusting surgeon, committing fraud. You lied. You were repeatedly warned not to transition by professionals, that SRS was a mistake for you, and yet you bullied your way to the table. You made a race of things, to try and win a victory over a friend, to attempt to have surgery before her.

Please do take this to court. With any luck, you will be put safely away inside a nice, comfy prison, where you will no longer pose a threat to others...after all, you DID commit illegal acts in order to force surgery against the wisdom of all around you. You were warned, you knew better, you were not sure, yet you did this heinous act anyway, only to use it to harm the very professionals who helped you.

You are a selfish, irresponsible little piece of excrement. Worse, you are attempting to blame everyone else except yourself, in a effort to ruin the life of one of the few surgeons willing to help transsexuals simply to line your own pockets. You utterly, completely disgust me. You are filth.

I would genuinely have pity on you, IF others actually HAD somehow forced you into this...but that is NOT how things work. I know. The reason there are safeguards, the very reason that you had to forge false papers and trick trusting people, is because there is a more than reasonable effort to prevent little jerks like yourself from harming themselves. Only YOU can take responsibility for this one. You were stupid, and you were criminal, and in blaming others for your actions, you have made a vileness of whatever remains of you.

Grow up, goddamnit. At 23, you are well past the age of majority in our society, and are expected to act like an adult. You are acting like a spoiled child, blaming others for your own mistakes, and committing wrongful acts to get your own selfish, short term desires. Now you are unhappy with your own criminal acts, and want the people you bamboozled to pay you for it.

You are like a thief who complains that the diamonds they stole are fakes, and that his victims should make up his losses.

Frankly, you little toad, you have gotten exactly and precisely what you deserve. You imitated and played upon the suffering of real transsexuals, and now you are in the same position as a Female-To-Male transsexual....a man trapped in the body of a woman. But in your case, there can be no real help. As I often remind people on my site, transition is one way only. Even with all the surgery and hormones in the world, an attempt to reverse transition will be very poor, and you will never be quite male again.

Learn from your shameful acts. Try to be a better person, and deal with what you have done to yourself with some dignity. Most of all, take responsibility for yourself. You insult our very species with such antics. Be responsible, and start acting like an adult.
You were stupid. Face that fact, and move on. Shame on you.