Hi everyone, I'm writing this in a very special period to me. The Internet allowed me to give a name to my "issue" and to understand I wasn't alone, and this happened at a relatively young age, so I want to share my experience back. Here it goes.
I've always been an introvert person, I remember that I've tended to stay on my own since primary school (this was favored by the uncohesiveness of the classes). The first memory I have about this goes back to this time period: my mom told me that if I had been born female, she would have called me Giada (Jade in English). I remember very well that that afternoon I mulled over it a lot, trying to convince myself that being born male had been better (the first time, of a long series…)
I can't remember anything else until middle school, I was starting to grow then, and I started feeling a sense of extraneousness, both physical (each physical change almost traumatized me) and behavioural (I couldn't reflect myself in my male mates' behaviors). Since then, my introversion has grown over time, until today (I've almost no friends, and I'm almost isolated from the rest of the world).
While I was in middle school I didn't know the reason for this. But I remember having a strong fear of becoming adult. As time passed by, I noticed that my attraction to girls was a bit weird, I was attracted to them and I envied them at the same time (and when it happened to think about what "being a girl" could have been like, I always looked for every possible reason to discredit this possibility - women are disadvanteged in society, etc. - and to convince myself that I had been lucky to be born male and not female. But, looking backwards, I see all the lies I made to myself, and that I would have paid whatever price to be a girl. Not because of the stereotypes about male or female behaviors, but for the fact in itself.
Some years ago I read about the "gender identity disorder" and it was like a lightning: finally all the pieces of the puzzle were coming together.
But, since I were an idiot, I still tried to deny everything to myself, thinking it was a momentary phase, or something like that.
I don't think anyone can imagine how much it hurts to go around and seeing a certain kind of girl (reserved, modest, etc.) I can identify with. It's an incredible pain to notice others expecting you to be a boy like the others when you don't feel as one, and to see your body betraying you and keeping to go on its own way.
A year ago or so, there has been a very difficult period at school, a bad atmosphere with some professors and, since I felt bad on my own already, I couldn't stand it and I lost that year. At first, I only blamed the school, my parents obviously considered it an extreme reaction, so I started seeing a psychologist. I wanted to hide everything from him as well, but I was close to "exploding". The final straw was penguinprotecter's thread, here on GBATemp. She could be so open about it, why couldn't I?
I mustered up the courage, and I told everything to the psychologist (he's almost a friend today) and to my mom (who, at first, believed it was a joke, but right now understands and supports me). Some months later, the psychologist allowed me to start my journey, going to an endocrinology department in a town very far away from here (I thank my parents for this).
I went there on July 14 and they told me that they needed a psychiatric examination that confirmed my "gender identity disorder", as well as a gene map confirming my sex chromosomes as male (XY), to start Hormone Replacement Therapy. I recently got that examination (finally) and gene map, and I'm going to go back to that department on October 27, day in which I will start my HRT.
The few friends I have and my family took this really well (except for my cousin).
I want to remark that I can't care less about the gender stereotypes. I'll always be myself, beyond my gender.
I consider my "issue" to be biological, and there seems to be some studies which confirm that.
Just some final words, about Italian laws. We're very outdated about this: the Italian standards of care (ONIG) say that you have to undergo 2 years, if not more, of psychotherapy before starting HRT. This is destructive, and I can totally see why people decide to start on their own (even if it's extremely dangerous). Luckily the place I went to follows the international standards (wpath). On top on that, here you're considered legally male until you under go Sex Reassignment Surgery (so they force you to do it), unlike the US, the UK, Spain etc. where hormone therapy is enough.
I've always been an introvert person, I remember that I've tended to stay on my own since primary school (this was favored by the uncohesiveness of the classes). The first memory I have about this goes back to this time period: my mom told me that if I had been born female, she would have called me Giada (Jade in English). I remember very well that that afternoon I mulled over it a lot, trying to convince myself that being born male had been better (the first time, of a long series…)
I can't remember anything else until middle school, I was starting to grow then, and I started feeling a sense of extraneousness, both physical (each physical change almost traumatized me) and behavioural (I couldn't reflect myself in my male mates' behaviors). Since then, my introversion has grown over time, until today (I've almost no friends, and I'm almost isolated from the rest of the world).
While I was in middle school I didn't know the reason for this. But I remember having a strong fear of becoming adult. As time passed by, I noticed that my attraction to girls was a bit weird, I was attracted to them and I envied them at the same time (and when it happened to think about what "being a girl" could have been like, I always looked for every possible reason to discredit this possibility - women are disadvanteged in society, etc. - and to convince myself that I had been lucky to be born male and not female. But, looking backwards, I see all the lies I made to myself, and that I would have paid whatever price to be a girl. Not because of the stereotypes about male or female behaviors, but for the fact in itself.
Some years ago I read about the "gender identity disorder" and it was like a lightning: finally all the pieces of the puzzle were coming together.
But, since I were an idiot, I still tried to deny everything to myself, thinking it was a momentary phase, or something like that.
I don't think anyone can imagine how much it hurts to go around and seeing a certain kind of girl (reserved, modest, etc.) I can identify with. It's an incredible pain to notice others expecting you to be a boy like the others when you don't feel as one, and to see your body betraying you and keeping to go on its own way.
A year ago or so, there has been a very difficult period at school, a bad atmosphere with some professors and, since I felt bad on my own already, I couldn't stand it and I lost that year. At first, I only blamed the school, my parents obviously considered it an extreme reaction, so I started seeing a psychologist. I wanted to hide everything from him as well, but I was close to "exploding". The final straw was penguinprotecter's thread, here on GBATemp. She could be so open about it, why couldn't I?
I mustered up the courage, and I told everything to the psychologist (he's almost a friend today) and to my mom (who, at first, believed it was a joke, but right now understands and supports me). Some months later, the psychologist allowed me to start my journey, going to an endocrinology department in a town very far away from here (I thank my parents for this).
I went there on July 14 and they told me that they needed a psychiatric examination that confirmed my "gender identity disorder", as well as a gene map confirming my sex chromosomes as male (XY), to start Hormone Replacement Therapy. I recently got that examination (finally) and gene map, and I'm going to go back to that department on October 27, day in which I will start my HRT.
The few friends I have and my family took this really well (except for my cousin).
I want to remark that I can't care less about the gender stereotypes. I'll always be myself, beyond my gender.
I consider my "issue" to be biological, and there seems to be some studies which confirm that.
Just some final words, about Italian laws. We're very outdated about this: the Italian standards of care (ONIG) say that you have to undergo 2 years, if not more, of psychotherapy before starting HRT. This is destructive, and I can totally see why people decide to start on their own (even if it's extremely dangerous). Luckily the place I went to follows the international standards (wpath). On top on that, here you're considered legally male until you under go Sex Reassignment Surgery (so they force you to do it), unlike the US, the UK, Spain etc. where hormone therapy is enough.
