PennyArcade :
Thank you ever so much for sharing your experiences, and I really feel for you for your loss and all the heartache you went through. A close friend of mine lost two still born daughters, so I can, yes just can, understand the trauma. But to lose the ability to have further children, that is so awful and something I really can understand.
I wanted to give birth to my children but had to find a woman to do it for me. That was at 16, after knowing something was very wrong at 3, and developing as the boy at 5 in your school, playing with girls, my closest dearest friend then being Glenna, and we played with her dolls endlessly. I chose my female names then, and wanted female clothes and hair, and lived as a female in secret; in my mind.
Your experiencerience involving gender identity proves that there is more than one way GD can develop, then disappear as in your case. That is why I have stated in another thread about the extreme caution that must be exercised by the specialists within the gender field when giving assessments and recommendations. Thank God nothing final happened with you to stop you having eventually a good female life, even with all the terrible loss. Puberty blockers would have been brilliant and right for me, but obviously for you, not!
But cases such as mine do not have the ending of yours, but go on to be a severe nightmare of an existence, with everything in your mind and actions being female, when your body says different. I just knew I was a girl, and acted like one in private., when my parents were not looking as I felt unclean. Mum's clothes and make up came into their own at 11 years of age.
Yes, on this thread the "feeling like a female" has come up. What does that really mean? To you a 'standard', biological woman it is as it is; you feel as you are. I on the other hand never could identify with what the males around me did. I could not join in anything with them. From 5 years of age, when I first went to school, I found them far too loud, rough and they 'smelt'!! I could not play with them and joined the girls instead. That is until the girls went off to another wing of the school, devoid of the boys, when I became very upset I couldn't join them. So it went on, and on, throughout my years, with my parents really asking horrible questions about me and stopping me from telling them how I felt. Then unisex came in and away I went with very long hair, unisex clothes, and my girl friend, my only friend who I loved shopping with and all the 'female' things I couldn't do by myself until then, putting make up on me. How does being female feel you ask Penny? It felt then as it does now; right for me, with me not expected to fulfil a male role (dad wanted me to join the Royal Navy to toughen me up - no way!!) and do male things, and have to be in male company to 'conform'. I was different.
As for the toilet thing; well as I have previously said having to use male toilets from an early age made me physically ill. All I wanted was to use the female toilets as they felt right for me, but of course I was not allowed to.
I will not repeat everything I have stated over many threads now, but unlike you I did not find my true self until I transitioned. You had the loss of a baby; I "lost" 9 family members, including our 3 children, overnight who disowned me. My parents, who died over the last three years, both aged 88, never spoke to me again.
But, yes Penny, to answer your question "Does it mean years of therapy, hormone blockers, surgery just to be "You"? " it does. There were no short cuts in my day, and there is not now. Full assessments have to take place before that long road can commence. It is very painful, distressing, sometimes very humiliating, and tests all your resolve, but inspite of all 'the costs', finance is only a part of it; it is worth every single difficulty and challenge. To wake up every morning as 'myself' now is so wonderful, even with the challenges I still face as on this site!
I am so glad you found yourself Penny.