Gender Dysphoria, Cuervo, and ATS

Hey there, everybody. ATS has been an invaluable source of, well, a lot of things. The family here is incredibly varied and comes from all over the world and from all walks of life and therefore we get to have a member to represent just about everything. I considered making a new account (tried a while back but felt dishonest when pretending to be my own roommate so I stopped... I know, super lame of me). I don't think I really need to make this thread at all but I think it's a good step for me and it's a way to honor the ATS folks since I've only shared this with my wife, best friend, and medical professionals. It's a way to help some of you better understand a very misunderstood condition that has only been muddied by media and fiction. Stereotypes of people like me are rampant and 99% untrue.

I have always suffered from gender dysphoria. It's not a new thing for me but something that I, like countless others, suppressed throughout life and constantly battled it by doing increasingly "manly" and dangerous things. Many in my position join the military to affirm their masculinity and I would have done the same if not for my moral scruples I have with the idea. Nearly half of us commit suicide (it could be much higher because many were never "out" when they did it) and many of those who don't kill themselves live their lives in abject horror of their own genitalia and expected roles.

I fell into both those categories. I got very good at suppressing it. I married young and had a kid. I drank with the guys and played with knives. I played the bloodiest video games and got into real fights whenever I could. It was so impeccable that when I finally told my wife, she seriously wasn't expecting it (after 15 years!).

The time to confront it once and for all came about a month ago. Whenever it would present itself before, I would either do something male-affirming (usually stupid and dangerous) or just get black-out drunk to "reset" my switch. Well, I quit drinking and now have responsibilities. This means my two normal ways of suppressing it were no longer available to me. I confronted it, panicked, and spiraled. When I gathered myself together the next day, I decided to "fix" it.

It turns out there are only two solutions:
- Suicide
- Transition to your brain's gender

There are no magic drugs you can get prescribed that will make your body fit your brain. If there were, I'd take it. Instead of suicide, I am choosing to transition. It's a very long road but I have my wife as my hero who is looking forward to her new wife.

There are many myths about gender dysphoria and part of why I'm posting this thread is to dispel what I can by answering any questions you may have. The most common ones are associated with sexuality which it has nothing to do with. Sexuality and gender are mutually exclusive. I am still into chicks. Having a vagina won't change that.

So... there you have it. Cuervo is a transwoman. To any mods, I wouldn't mind if this could be used as a good excuse to change my ATS name to my new one (hint hint). To all the members, I pre-excuse any ignorance you may have about what I'm going through but I will not excuse you for hate or willful stupidity. Please play nice; this was hard enough to post (seriously... really difficult) without any judgement from others to go along with it.

Love you guys!

a reply to: Cuervo

Good for you girl
So happy your wife is standing by you, you have a good one there.
Be who you want to be dudette.
Good luck for the future .

Welcome with love and good for you.

originally posted by: boymonkey74
a reply to: Cuervo

Good for you girl

So happy your wife is standing by you, you have a good one there.
Be who you want to be dudette.
Good luck for the future

.

Thank you. And you're right; my wife is an amazing woman. I'm just glad I married a woman who was secretly into women. It was just about the best thing I could have heard from her after telling her.

So she looks at it like "So I guess I married a woman and I'm a lesbian. Yay!"

Couldn't have gone better on that front.

Good luck to you. Hope that it turns out well for you. Be who you are!!!

As long as you are happy and not hurting anyone , one thing i would like to ask you is what reaction did you receve from friends and other family

a reply to: Cuervo

Up until this thread, I always thought you were a bloke. I swear, bloody assumptions will be the death of me.

Fantastic insight into your private life, which I feel honoured to now be aware of.

Love is a many splendid thing.

Good stuff for you and the missus

Well I hope it fixes things for you, but I do have one question. It is a serious one and one my husband and I have been asking ourselves.

What does it feel like to be a woman/man?

Honestly, I'm a woman biologically, and I don't know that I can say that I know what it feels like to be a woman. And I ask because I know that it seems a common theme that transgenders say they know that they are a women in a man's body or a man in a woman's body. So we have been asking ourselves what that feels like to be one's gender because I can't put my finger on how that feels and neither can he.

And I am not saying that you don't know, just that it's something we can't figure out for ourselves in terms of how we should feel or should we feel? Or is it only something we would feel if we were in the wrong place so to speak?

originally posted by: douglas5

As long as you are happy and not hurting anyone , one thing i would like to ask you is what reaction did you receve from friends and other family

Aside from ATS and professionals, the only people I've told are my wife and best friend (he's a dude). My wife's response you already know and my best friend's was also about as great as it could have been.

He was just quiet for a moment and said "well alright". Nothing's changed at all between us. He did request that he gets one free pass at touching my breasts once they're filled out. I figured it was a small price to pay for a lifetime of friendship.

originally posted by: ketsuko
Well I hope it fixes things for you, but I do have one question. It is a serious one and one my husband and I have been asking ourselves.

What does it feel like to be a woman/man?

Honestly, I'm a woman biologically, and I don't know that I can say that I know what it feels like to be a woman. And I ask because I know that it seems a common theme that transgenders say they know that they are a women in a man's body or a man in a woman's body. So we have been asking ourselves what that feels like to be one's gender because I can't put my finger on how that feels and neither can he.

And I am not saying that you don't know, just that it's something we can't figure out for ourselves in terms of how we should feel or should we feel? Or is it only something we would feel if we were in the wrong place so to speak?

I can't tell you how a cis-gendered person feels because I've never had the privileged of feeling it. How it feels to have dysphoria is nightmarish, though.

Imagine every time you looked at your body, you felt a sense of complete utter wrongness. Imagine if your genitalia (no matter how perfectly formed it is) made you want to harm yourself. Imagine waking up, expecting to be the opposite gender but never being even though you are in nearly every dream. Imagine having to pretend to be a gender you truly aren't just for the sake of society and the mere sustained act of it drives you to contemplative suicide on a yearly basis. Imagine that the only way to process that reality is to completely bury it under incredibly unhealthy activities and behavior. This is how I always felt.

For you, every time you speak, your voice matches your brain. Every time you look at your own body, it matches your brain. I've never had that. To attain emotional sanity, I must achieve that.

Good luck Cuervo.


Life throws us all sorts that appear as an obstacle (mine is voices & visions)...

Things that medication cannot deal with.


The Brain is wired however it is... A demoralising Curse & an outstanding Gift...

Focus on the latter!

a reply to: Cuervo

You do realize that your wife is going to let you do the house work for the next 10 years plus all the cooking .

Both my Mother and Sister must have suffered from body Dysphoria as they were forever taking my shirts, pants , socks ,

Cuervo,
Whoever you may be, whatever you want to be, make it so...
Kind thoughts always...

a reply to: Cuervo

Interesting and I'm glad your wife is supporting you. Hopefully everything goes smoothly and fairly quickly.

I have a question though:

Do you think that if the world were different and say you were just allowed to be what you are and act how you want if you'd still want the physical aspects of femininity.

Or do you think if we weren't raised in certain gender performances if it'd even matter at that point since male and female bodies are for the most part more similar than they are different?

Or is that one of those stupid unknown things you'd have no way to know because you were raised as a man just like I have no idea what it would be like to be raised as a man(gender performance of male, think the difference between micky and minnie mouse besides the clothes they wear) since the propaganda is entirely different for those two genders growing up.

0r do you think that it's entirely physical and is just entirely that our brains are supposed to fit a certain genitalia and has nothing to do with society and the programming we receive based on a given genitalia at birth.

Or is it a mix?

Or none of the above?



Your thoughts?

Good for you, girlie.

originally posted by: OrphanApology
a reply to: Cuervo

Interesting and I'm glad your wife is supporting you. Hopefully everything goes smoothly and fairly quickly.

I have a question though:

Do you think that if the world were different and say you were just allowed to be what you are and act how you want if you'd still want the physical aspects of femininity.

Or do you think if we weren't raised in certain gender performances if it'd even matter at that point since male and female bodies are for the most part more similar than they are different?

Or is that one of those stupid unknown things you'd have no way to know because you were raised as a man just like I have no idea what it would be like to be raised as a man(gender performance of male, think the difference between micky and minnie mouse besides the clothes they wear) since the propaganda is entirely different for those two genders growing up.

0r do you think that it's entirely physical and is just entirely that our brains are supposed to fit a certain genitalia and has nothing to do with society and the programming we receive based on a given genitalia at birth.

Or is it a mix?

Or none of the above?



Your thoughts?

For many, it's a mix. For others (like me) it affects my actual anatomy. If society allowed for a more gender fluid structure, it would have only allowed me to confront it earlier in life but I would have still had to transition physically.

There are many others, however, who would thrive comfortably in your described utopia. For many dysphoric folks, living as the gender that matches their brains is enough for them and wouldn't need to do much in that sort of society. Many cultures do that and those people have a place in society.

Great questions.


ps edit - It's also hard to tell until the person in question starts correcting their hormone levels (a common first step). Once a transgender person's brain gets more balanced with the right hormonal balance, things change. A lot. Sometimes, that's plenty and it alleviates the dysphoria sensations but sometimes it's not enough. There are many transgender people who medicate with hormones but don't feel the need to present as any particular gender just so long as their brain and hormones agree with eachother (a huge step up from where they start).

a reply to: Cuervo

So basically their brains need greater amounts of the other hormone is what you're saying?

Haven't heard about that. Very interesting.

a reply to: Cuervo

Cuervo i was lucky i got my boobs without all the hassle or fuss , i was running down the stairs years ago and realised i had reached the grand old age of man boobs .

No wonder Rocky was punching he air at the top of the steps he knew he was going to run down again

originally posted by: OrphanApology
a reply to: Cuervo

So basically their brains need greater amounts of the other hormone is what you're saying?

Haven't heard about that. Very interesting.

It certainly helps to alleviate the phenomenon. That alone is enough reason for most mental health professionals to take it seriously. It strikes out any notion of it being a "preference" or "kink". It's the closest thing to a cure (short of full transition) but it's also part of the transitioning process so, really, it sort of serves as a half-way step for many and sometimes it's all they need. This applies to both male-to-female and female-to-male folks.

It also can show people who may have problems other than gender dysphoria and were misdiagnosed. Some people don't do well on it and figure out their problems lay elsewhere.

On the other end of the spectrum, assigning hormones that correspondent to the birth sex only makes it worse. For example, if you were to give a transwoman testosterone to make her fell more like a man, it would only make the dysphoria worse and that practice has been discouraged for a few years now because it's a total failure (almost as bad as the pray the gay away crap).

originally posted by: douglas5
a reply to: Cuervo

Cuervo i was lucky i got my boobs without all the hassle or fuss , i was running down the stairs years ago and realised i had reached the grand old age of man boobs .

No wonder Rocky was punching he air at the top of the steps he knew he was going to run down again

That's funny to me because I've been getting back into shape since my diagnosis (think Rocky montage with Journey playing and all that) and along with dropping about 20 pounds already, I'm losing my man-boobs. I thought "well this is mixed progress".

I'll get them back soon enough but... what an ironic time to work off my moobs.

My ultimate goal is a Jillian Michaels body. I'm not giving up my badass status just because of this.