Can one be transgender without having any surgery?

Can I be transgender but not get surgery?

Absolutely. Gender is a spectrum is really has nothing to do with biological sex.

The problem comes in due to stereo-typical behaviors that have been assigned to each biological sex based on years of observations and interactions with the other biological sex.

We are transgender because we prominently exhibit behaviors normally associated with the other biological sex.

But just because some of us exhibit these behaviors doesn’t mean that we dislike our biological sex.

It just means we have opposite gender expressions than others who were born with the same biological sex.

Confused yet?

People only get surgery when they struggle with severe gender dysphoria. It is so crippling that it is actually considered a mental illness.

It can lead to severe depression, self-inflicted harm, and even attempts of suicide.

Which was what happened to me. I had all of the above and much more.

I was born transgender. My gender expression was predominate female. I though, acted, and related to each biological sex as the other biological sex.

Of course being born in the early 50’s most people had no clue what it meant to be transgender.

From the time I was around 3 years old I acted like a girl. So much so, I thought I was a girl until I was around 8 years old.

What really bother me during that time was how I was constantly getting punished for behavior that other people exhibited and even encouraged to do so. It was really confusing to me.

• Why can’t have a dress like my friend?
• I want a pink room mommy, why do I have to have a blue room? My friend Pam has a pink room.
• But I want a doll too, why can’t I have one, my friend does?
• But I don’t like playing with Jeff he just makes fun of me. I want to play with Pam she is my friend. We have so much fun together.

These are just a few examples of my early experiences. They are just the tip of the iceberg when it came to my gender expression.

My parents, particularly my mother, was dead set against my gender expression and I was corrected and punished multiple times for my behavior.

It got so bad that by the time I was 8 years old my mother had my dad set me down and explain why I couldn’t be a girl.

Of course it was because of that thing between my legs.

My father convinced me that I was either delusional or crazy and that I had to act like other boys if I even wanted to live a normal life and not be hurt or locked up.

So I agreed to try. After all, how hard could it be? There really wasn’t any advantage to being either a boy or a girl.

Wow, did I ever find out how wrong I was on that one. Ugh!

I hated just about everything related to boys and my heart just longed to be with other girls.

I couldn’t fit it at all. In fact when I tried to relate to the boys they just teased me and some actually hurt me, really bad.

I would often cry myself to sleep at night.

I wanted that thing on me to be gone so bad that I remember trying countless times to stuff it back up inside of me at night hoping it would stay there and not come back the next day.

By the time I was 10 I was so depressed and gender dysphoric that I went back to my father and told him I wanted to die.

He just exploded at me and told me to grow up and be a man. Like that was what I really needed to hear.

So I left feeling ashamed because I couldn’t be strong enough to be what he expected of me to be.

Of course going through biological puberty was hell on earth for me. This was the time that I really lost control.

I hated my body so much that I developed eating disorders and tried to kill myself twice while still a teenager.

Yet even with this behavior my parents didn’t cut me any slack or even try and help me with my conflict.

By the time I was 18 I felt like the only way I could ever be myself and relate to other girls and still be considered normal was to get married.

I never even dated girls all the time growing up because I was never attracted to them and they just expected me to act like a guy. Which I hated.

I believed marriage was the only way I could even have a close friend who was a girl and not a boy.

So I asked this one girl who was the only girl I knew who actually treated me like another girl.

What I didn’t understand at the time is how much people really liked that intimate stuff and that was mostly the reason they married.

That stuff just made me sick!

Anyway through years of hell on earth, three marriages trying to find myself, and several other attempts of suicide I finally discovered that wasn’t crazy and my real problem was that I was born transgender.

At that same time I discovered that the only way to be free from my gender dysphoria was to transition.

I had to do it!

I didn’t even care if I was passable. I had to be able to be myself, even for a day, or I would die.

So I transitioned.

I believe that when I started my transition I was no longer just transgender but now I was also a transsexual.

A transsexual is someone who desires to change their biological sex as well as just identify as the other biological sex.

Having my surgery was the greatest day of my life.

It was totally awesome. OMG, I have never in my life felt so complete.

All my conflict, depression, and gender dysphoria was gone!

All my life I had felt like I was had been caring around a 200 pound bag of sand on my shoulders.

Suddenly it was gone. I felt so free I thought I was going to float away.

I have never in my life been as happy as I am today. For the first time I actually like myself and am truly happy to be alive.

So in conclusion,

Transgender is a blanket term that describes someone who feels as or identifies as the opposite gender. But it doesn’t mean that they dislike their biological sex they just choose to act like people who were born the opposite sex.

But some of us really believe we are the other biological sex. I hated even to stand and pee because it felt so uncomfortable.

I hated it when people used the male pronouns he/him/his to relate to me. Even in a positive way.

All I ever wanted from the time I was three was to just be like the other girls. Well now I am. Granted I can never fully be a genetic woman. But it’s the best I can do to be myself.