[Missed Miss]

Here you are, a woman in a man's body and you are now, FINALLY, after DECADES of struggle and inner turmoil with who you REALLY are and who you were forced to appear to be all your life, feeling nearly a COMPLETE woman at last!!!! You've found out which people are on your side and which ones aren't.
Looking back on all the things about the REAL you that you've been forced to hide from everyone, seeing how everything eventually played out to allow you to be who you now are, if you were given the chance to relive your life knowing what you now know about the way people around you would react to you as the woman you've always wanted to bed, would you do anything different?
Let's just say that you had the bulk of your family pegged as people who would burn you at the stake if they knew you were not what they thought you were. You've already seen how everything panned out. Let's say you've discovered that a number of those people weren't anywhere near as bad as you thought they were. You figured uncle Fred would sooner stab you in the head with a butcher knife than to see you as a girl, but, now, decades later, you've discovered that he would've actually been on your side all along!!
I don't know how each of your family members' lives have gone and how they have and do now treat you, now that you are nearly a woman, but, knowing what you now know about the way they treat you as you are the way you now are, if you could go back and relive your life, would you now be more prone to come out a LOT sooner to the people you weren't sure about the first time through your life?
Basically, a LOT of us are scared shitless that the people in our lives would kill us if they knew the true us or saw us as we'd REALLY like to present!! But, here we are, decades later and we've actually found out that a lot of the people we were scared of back then would've actually been VERY helpful towards us! So, If you knew that back then, would you have wasted all these years hiding it or would you have just come out and gotten the help they now are more than willing to give you, thereby actually FULLY ENJOYING your life instead stressfully hiding it!!??
I see how there are SO VERY many boys that dress up as girls in their parents homes and their families seem to be perfectly okay with it! Had you known your family was okay with it, as they may be now, would you have had a MUCH better time with your life and dressed up a LOT more often?

[GoneGirl]

No, I wouldn't have, and I'll explain why. I really didn't understand what gender dysphoria was until very recently. I was a classic Group 3 cloistered gender dysphoric young man as described by Dr. Anne Vitale:

"Group Three (G3) is composed of natal males who identify as female but who act and appear normally male. We can hypothesize that prenatal androgenization was sufficient to allow these individuals to appear and act normally as males but insufficient to establish a firm male gender identity. For these female-identified males, the result is a more complicated and insidious sex/gender discontinuity. Typically, from earliest childhood these individuals suffer increasingly painful and chronic gender dysphoria. They tend to live secretive lives, often making increasingly stronger attempts to convince themselves and others that they are male."

I was in denial of my female gender identity all my life, suffering the consequences until last year when I took steps to treat it using herbal HRT. I came out to my wife soon after and am in the process of coming out to my family at large now.

So it wasn't primarily the fear of my loved one's reactions that inhibited me, but rather the general lack of understanding about transgenderism throughout society and also in the psychiatric profession.

Clara

[Lenneth]

Not sure I can answer this in it's entirety, most of what missed miss described still applies to me.

but what I would change if I could would be eliminating the problems my relatives have with such things, and at least starting NBE when I was much younger.

[AnnieBL]

I think that Clara's reply says it all, as far as I am concerned, except that she has gone further and faster!

[Missed Miss]

I'm still like Lenneth. Outside of my fans, most of whom are VERY supportive, in fact, DEMANDING that I wear the skirt, nobody else in my life knows about it. Mom knows I wear skirts and pantyhose on stage, but does NOT approve and does not know that I prefer to be a girl. As far as I know, dad never knew about the skirts. etc.. Except for mom & my brother (who's dead, now), I don't think ANYONE in my family knows about the skirts, OR the girl stuff!! So, I really can't answer TOO much, other than, I HAVE gone out in public wearing my huge tits under a tight sweater and NOBODY said or did anything rude about it, so, knowing that, I probably WOULD'VE taken a lot more chances earlier on outside of the house. Other than my uncle Wally's branch of the family, I don't think anyone would've been accepting of the skirts, so, I STILL wouldn't have been able to change my behaviour amongst most of my family if I could go back and relive my life with my present knowledge.

[GoneGirl]

I'm prepared psychologically to build a new life around my transition if that is what's required. I hope I'm accepted as Clara, though, so that my family remains an important part of my life, but if I'm rejected, so be it. The only person who really matters to me is my wife, and she is with me all the way.

My guess is that I'll be tolerated by my family in the short term, and gradually be embraced for who I have always been.

Clara

[AnnieBL]

I'm prepared psychologically to build a new life around my transition if that is what's required. I hope I'm accepted as Clara, though, so that my family remains an important part of my life, but if I'm rejected, so be it. The only person who really matters to me is my wife, and she is with me all the way.

My guess is that I'll be tolerated by my family in the short term, and gradually be embraced for who I have always been.

Clara

I don't think I am (yet?) prepared to build an entirely new life. Beyond my overriding love of my wife, who presently remains on an ambivalent seesaw in respect of my GI, I owe a great responsibility to the 'ready made family' that I took on when I invited her to join me in Canada nearly 35 years ago. I also can't see the medical profession as being keen to take on the responsibility of facilitating transition of someone of my age with my medical history.

[bobie]

I came out to my parents and brother two weeks after starting nbe, my dad and brother dont like it though and it worries them what sort of life i will have during and after transition, im sure the same concerns are there for mum but i can talk about it all with here which i cant with my dad or brother, i honestly dont care what anyone else in the family thinks, my immediate family are the ones most important to me the rest either accept it or dont, some i have no plans to tell since i havent seen my dads side of the family in a long time

[GoneGirl]

I'm prepared psychologically to build a new life around my transition if that is what's required. I hope I'm accepted as Clara, though, so that my family remains an important part of my life, but if I'm rejected, so be it. The only person who really matters to me is my wife, and she is with me all the way.

My guess is that I'll be tolerated by my family in the short term, and gradually be embraced for who I have always been.

Clara

I don't think I am (yet?) prepared to build an entirely new life. Beyond my overriding love of my wife, who presently remains on an ambivalent seesaw in respect of my GI, I owe a great responsibility to the 'ready made family' that I took on when I invited her to join me in Canada nearly 35 years ago. I also can't see the medical profession as being keen to take on the responsibility of facilitating transition of someone of my age with my medical history.

I understand your reasoning, Annie. At what point does it stop making sense to transition based on one's age? I'm not far behind you in age and I have asked myself that question may times. My head says one thing --forget it, dude-- while my heart says another --go for it, princess...lol. I, fortunately, am in good health and have a family history of long life, so even my rationale mind admits that living another 20 years with GD is not the answer.

The U.S. medical system, for all its faults, is a blessing for me, as well. We have far few hurdles to jump to begin treatment by HRT than you folks in Canada. As long as you can pay for it, of course.

Clara