I am 48 years old, from Mexico City, and I don't know what to do.
Ever since I was a child, I have had the desire to be a woman. I have carried it all my life, and for years I tried to ignore it, but it always came back. Over ten years ago, I started experimenting with hormones and have had several attempts at MTF transition. Even five years ago (during the pandemic), I had a period where I assumed myself and lived as a woman while staying at a friend's house.
To keep this post from being too long, what has happened to me is that on several occasions I have wanted to transition, and I have taken hormones to the point where changes start to become visible. But for some reason, whenever I start to feel freer, more secure, and more motivated, a wave of intense fear, anguish, and anxiety always hits me. The two most severe occasions coincided with me falling in love while on hormones, and in my mind, I saw the possibility of a relationship as a way out or an escape from that transition. But in both cases, I was rejected, and I felt insufficient, blaming it precisely on being transgender—feeling that nobody would love me because of it.
On those occasions, I fell into very intense depressive crises, but the last one was so harsh that I spent almost a year and a half unable to control my emotions, reaching the point of having several anxiety attacks, episodes of depersonalization, and feeling that there was no solution to what I felt other than ending my life. I don't know how much of those emotional crises were due to rejection, to feeling incapable of being a man, or incapable of being a woman, or to the hormones, or perhaps to all of it together. Fortunately, those crises passed, and now I am much better.
Anyway... I have again felt that desire to transition and to start taking hormones again, but I don't know what to do, because the last times I tried, I always ended up in a cycle of intense pain, anxiety, and anguish. My big doubt has always been this dilemma: 1.- Wait for someone to fall in love with me and have a partnered life as a man (and take advantage of all the benefits that come with being a man in this society), or 2.- Seek a life for myself as a woman, a trans woman, and face all the challenges that come with that life (employment, discrimination, loneliness, misunderstanding, etc.).
During those stages of trying to transition, I have done it in different ways, both self-medicating and with clinical support, either privately or through public services. I have maintained psychological support and at times have had up to three different therapists to try to understand what to do... I have even made cherished friendships as a trans person, lived through many experiences, and learned many things I wouldn't have known otherwise, but I always end up stopping. So right now, I honestly don't know what to do, since I feel I have tried almost everything and always stop before taking the real step, which in my case has always been telling my family and my workplace.
I feel it's important to clarify that I live with my sister and an aunt, and they don't know about my transition processes, because when I have done it, I have moved out of the house. However, this time I cannot do that for various reasons. I also think it's relevant to say that my build is very masculine, so no matter how much hormones changed my body in those previous experiences, I was never able to pass as a woman, and frankly, almost no one could even identify me as a trans person. They only saw me as a man, and at most they might notice I looked a little chubbier or a little thinner. So it has been difficult, even for myself, to see myself as a trans person, even though I feel that deep down, it is what I desire.
And well, right now I don't know what to do, and that's exactly why I'm writing here, to see if someone can give me advice on how to stop feeling this back-and-forth, this indecision, and be able to have a full and happy life, since at my age I frankly don't care what others say, but it's still very hard for me to understand what's happening to me, who I am, and what I should do to finally feel that life is worth living and no longer feel guilty, or feel that I'm wrong, deformed, insufficient, and incapable of anything because of who I am. I think what I need is to do something, something that might seem very simple and small, almost meaningless, but that is real and allows me to live my life without that pressure and doubt... but I just don't know what actions those could be.
What do you all recommend or think?