OMG….I have experienced nothing as scary as my gender crisis…nothing! At the time, I didn’t even know it was a gender crisis. I was incredibly clueless about my gender issue, even though I was a life long cross dresser. My crisis began one day while meditating, when I heard a voice, loud and clear, instructing me to embrace my inner cross dresser. It terrified me! Up to that point (age 57), I had thought about suicide twice. I had attempted and failed once in my teens. After hearing the voice, I was sure I’d be dead within a week. Fortunately, a few days later I saw a gender therapist who literally SAVED MY LIFE. She explained everything that I had experienced, and I believed her! It was a tech tonic shift in my view of myself, and eventually how I live my life. Thanks Dr Z for sharing your knowledge and insights about the transgender experience. I have learned so much more about myself from watching your videos.

I was in a crisis from around the first grade but I COULDN’T ADMIT IT TO MYSELF that something was wrong as then I wouldn’t be perfect. This continued through 47 years of a great marriage and raising our 3 wonderful children. Around age 78 I did research on LGBTQ because my church was considering splitting over the issue. When I learned about transgender women I discovered I had similar thoughts all my life. At age 79 I worked with a therapist and discovered I had OCD. When I realized I was transgender the OCD immediately went away and I have never been happier.

I just turned 35, and you just described word for word what I'm currently experiencing. It's reassuring to know this is a fairly common phenomenon.

I never heard of gender crisis, but this definitely happened to me when I was 49 years old. One evening, I really started wondering why I felt so off and what my gravitation toward wanting to be more feminine really meant. When I discovered that I may be transgender, I went through three months of introspection and emotional turmoil before I had to admit to myself that I am a trans woman. Thank you for helping me understand and clarifying what I experienced five years ago!

I'm not quite 21 yet, yet I still really resonate with the experience of the first group 30-40. I was always going through the motions of life just like a zombie. I knew what being trans was, but just assumed that could never apply to me. I was always super busy dedicating time to school, the orchestra, and programming that I never put time into thinking about it, which only got more difficult when I started college. I think I wouldn't have realized if it weren't for the covid lockdown. It was the first time that I had a moment to really consider what I wanted out of life once that life grinded to a halt. I questioned my sexuality, but the pressure of gender confusion hit much harder. I started noticing more incongruencies in my past. I didn't want to accept that I could be trans. I think I just had my gender crisis early. Thanks for all your videos, Dr. Z! They really helped me break out of my fears over the past year and now I'm super close to starting testosterone. I'm very lucky to be where I am

I experienced this kind of freak out moment recently. I thought I was just a closeted cross dresser but turned out I wanted a lot more changes. I'm probably more non-binary than trans but still very uncomfortable and unhappy living and looking male. It is scary as I didn't want to be trans but the idea of being a woman makes me happier, so I'm taking the steps. Fortunately I have a lot of support.

At 65, I am just coming to terms with being transgender in the past eight months. My gender crisis happened exactly as you described - this sudden, unexpected uncorking of repressed truth. There I was looking in the mirror, and the profound realization that I have been trans-feminine my whole life and never followed through with it was as overwhelming as it was enlightening. This sudden realization has been as much a blessing and it was a shock. A blessing because I now feel liberated and confident in who I am as I slowly glide towards a full transition, but also a shock because coming out has taken everything I held dear away from me: family, child, friends, livelihood, home-everything except the certainty that I will never again compromise who and what I am no matter the price. Yes, every day I experience depression, the confusion of gender and body dysphoria and a profound sadness for what I have lost but also a great excitement and joy for what I have found. Exploring, discovering and expressing my feminine nature every day is what gives me hope, inner strength and an inexplicable feeling of coming home to myself in spite of the challenges my awakening has brought me. Thank you Dr. Z for this clarity which helps me recognize the stepping stones of my path.

Thank you for this video. I am 40 years old. A few months ago I had an "ah-ha" moment and realized that I am trans. Since then I have socially transitioned but my mental health is worse. I am having memories from my childhood that were so repressed I completely forgot about them. I needed this video today.

Yep, that was me at 31. It dawned on me I've lived with a long sense of resignation, that I was born this way, and that there isn't really anything I can do about it. I felt this happened quite sudden, and I wasn't sure what this was about. So I went with "not 100% cis", and tried to negotiate with myself that I may be non-binary and they/them as I heard some enbys do live with their assigned sex body. (The fact that almost all of my family members are conservatives, and the fact that my parents are transphobic also affected me -- I think this is also why that superego was keeping that "lid" you described tight for this long.) Further reflection pretty much proved this is not how things work as far as gender identity is concerned. I figured something was up once I started showering with a candle on and lights off, and with my eyes off so as not to see the genitals. I started estradiol late Feb (and then anti-androgen mid-June), just to learn during the estradiol-only period that I did have signs, specifically consistently gendering my inner child feminine, always picking a female char in a game trying to live that alt reality, and the mild undercurrent of me being borderline envious-jealous of girls' freely being able to express their gender. Took a while to process all this because I wasn't introduced to the concept of gender which allowed me ot contextualize all this. It's funny I used the word "gender crisis" to describe this, and well that's what it was.

Omg this is me. Word after word. Everyone I comeout to asks me: how do you know now, at 41? I remember this sudden blast of realization, I was hating my body again and this went through my mind: hey, WHAT IF. And this was the point where everything started to make sense, everything, my whole life. Next few months was pure hell of shock and negotiating. I know you hear this all the time. But by now I'm so tired of explaining and defensing myself and it's good to remember this moment. 🖤

I realized I was trans a couple months after turning 30, and this video definitely rang true for me. I’ve often asked myself “Why did it take me so long to realize I’m trans?” “Why didn’t I know at 3 rather than 30?”. And the realization almost seemed like it happened overnight, but looking back on my life it all made sense. I figured I probably repressed my gender identity growing up in the south (in America) in the 90s. I like what you said about our priorities in different stages of our lives too. That resonated with me. I spent my twenties in different trade schools, colleges, and universities, and working jobs to provide for my basic needs. At 29/30 I started a new career that allowed me to think about more than just providing for my basic needs. Now I’m a couple months away from turning 32, and I’m 5.5 months on T! And I’m working on getting top surgery hopefully this year. Sending love to all my trans fam and to you, Dr. Z. Thanks for explaining it the way you did. :) 💜🏳️‍⚧️

I for sure identify with this 💯. I've always felt off and never happy no matter how good I could look in my body, compliments would make me just want to shrivel up for years, never confident, even tho other seen me as beautiful and that just a small part of it, so to speak. Its been along road of alot of issues. Then I start getting really out of sorts after 40, now 43 ..the lid came off 😳, childhood memories came flooding back and I was in complete shock, to the point feeling like I was spinning out of control, sick to my stomach, felt so lost..and couldn't believe what I was realizing and ALL that I was remembering 🥺..even when and why (I feel) it all had gotten suppressed. Its been getting easier now even with some rough days here and there, I've finally accepted it , embraced it and my family has as well. Its been a crazy unbelievable experience but I am so grateful and thankful to finally know and understand myself 🙏❤ also thankful for the memories that finally resurfaced.

Oh god, absolutely. I turn 30 this year, and something.. no idea what, but something just blew the lid off all my repressed feelings. Ever since my egg cracked I've had a ton of memories pop into my head "oh remember this? Or this? Or that other obvious sign? Hmmmmmm??????"

I wish this video had existed when I first experienced this. It is difficult to describe how suddenly and intensely it hit me. I was overwhelmed and had no idea that it wasn't just me. I was 64 and had an extremely powerful urge that I was a woman. Two weeks after I felt this, I had a makeover / photo shoot done which flooded me with gender euphoria, I just felt complete and correct. I was utterly confused and fought relentlessly to refute this idea. I had all of the usual reason why it wasn't true. It wouldn't go away and I kept trying to find the why. As I learned that this was not unique and much of what I felt for years about my self esteem, not fitting in anywhere and existing but not living was part of of many people's experience; I finally had the courage to get therapy. I finally came to acceptance that I indeed was struggling with gender dysphoria when I had to admit hating my image in the mirror or pictures as I was but loving how I looked when presenting as a female such as the makeover pictures. Acceptance was such a relief and liberation. I don't know where I will go from here but I feel so much better.

Thank you, Natalia. Gender crisis very real. Connecting the dots going to my earlier life, I was experiencing gender crisis in my late 30s /early 40s. But I did not begin to consider transition as a possibility until I started working with a therapist some seven years ago - at age 57. This world was much different, much more un-accepting, 20 / 25 years ago.

Just turned 29 a bit ago. This video hits home. It was about two months ago when I felt the lid to my repressed feelings finally explode. It was a late night browsing KZfaq where I was hearing a trans woman explain her story about how she grew up and transitioned, which sounded oddly similar to my own experience. Made me ask myself, "Am I trans? Would I be happier as a woman? Has it been a mistake not to address this sooner?" Quckly followed by "Oh, no." That was the moment when things exploded, and I knew I couldn't stuff it back in the box again. I knew I had to talk to people and open up. I have some trans friends online (and a therapist,) and they've helped me so much to get a handle on things and understand my own mind better. Without them, I'd probably be in a much worse state. I'm still working through things, though. Denial is a powerful force. I just want to make sure this really is the best step forward for me, but I have a feeling it is, and I'm in the process of accepting it. KZfaq has been showing me a lot of trans positive content and helpful resources recently, which is how I found this channel. Thank you for all the great resources.

This is definitely where I was just a year ago, and it came on seemingly out of nowhere. I spent three weeks questioning my gender identity, after never having considered it before. However, those were the longest three weeks of my life, as if all the soul searching I should have been doing over the years was crammed into that short period. I remember the fear and confusion, and the constantly asking myself, "Why did this have to happen now?" The biggest obstacle for me was the internalized transmedicalism, thinking I needed to be "diagnosed" by someone else, or that I hadn't suffered enough or endured the same hardships as real trans people. Ironically, I have struggled with severe depression my whole life, and it was coming back with a vengeance while I was questioning. I started to believe that a depressed person like myself didn't deserve to associate with the trans community, and that I was appropriating the experiences of others. I needed to hear from a nonbinary friend that it was okay for me to identify as trans if it made me happier. And you know what? It did. I would later learn this is one of the most significant signs of transness, since it would be impossible for a cis person to fake it. No cis person would want all the baggage that comes with being trans, but for me, it cleared up a lot of issues and explained a lot of things that had happened in my life. It's a lot easier for me to accept my trans identity than to carry on living within the confines of depression.

I'm so so grateful to hear/read of how common this is. My journey also started abruptly at 31. When I finally started reflecting on what I like I was deathly afraid of my feelings being fetishes. It took a lot just to accept my feelings were ok. I'm still working through things but the feelings I have been able to unearth are very precious to me.

My gender crisis was triggered in my mid-40ies, when I started therapy for my depressions and I was digging deeper and deeper to find a cause for it. Boy, did I find one....

i think i've been going through that in the past year and i'm 28. it started abruptly one day last year, and it's getting more and more intense as time goes by. i initially thought, "i'm just gonna change my hairstyle" "i'll keep some of my feminine clothes and see because i never know if i change my mind again." but it feels like it's just getting 'worse' for the past several months, and i couldn't put this under the rug anymore. i'm finally beginning to acknowledge that what i'm experiencing is gender dysphoria. i'm glad to have encountered your channel and feel like this video gave me a name for what i've been experiencing. until then i had just thought i might be the only one who all of a sudden began to have all these wild thoughts... so finding this video and seeing this comment section is so affirming for me--that this fear and discomfort aren't a made-up thing. the country i grew up in is a decade (or even more) behind when it comes to anything gender-related, and most other trans people's experiences reflect the "i knew since i was a child" narrative which does not apply to myself. i'm also either a gay or bi trans person, so that also added extra doubt and uncertainty. as you point out in other videos, i too think it's good to find room to explore and not be reckless with medical procedures, but it's very unhealthy to hold in so much doubt toward my own sense of self. so again, i'm very thankful. just out of curiousity, how does sexuality affect one's trans journey? for example, if a female assigned at birth who primarily dates men is not yet aware of his transness (or vice versa), how could his sexuality affect, or even keep him from, recognizing gender incongruencies he experiences?

Dr Z I love watching your videos. You hit so many points for us. For me I knew at age 7 something was off. Now at 53 and suppressing for so many years the pressure cooker finally unleashed with a vengeance. I could not hold back anymore and life is way to short. So I stopped sitting on the fence and decided to do someone about it. 4 months now on HRT and I’m never looking back, just forward. There will be a lot of bumps along the way but at least I’m being true to myself and not the façade I have been living. Thanks you very much and I enjoy reading all the wonderful comments. ❤️

Yes as I look back there was signs I wasn't aware of. Thank you Dr Z

i'm having such a hard time getting myself to leave a comment because i'm struggling with a lot of self-doubt but this video is so helpful and informative. i love your channel.

Thank you Dr. Z! Another great video that really resonates with me! Everything you talked about in your video was me as far back as a young child. I always knew since a young age that I was ''different'. I lived my entire life battling this unknown feeling. I started a career, married, raised a family, and at age 55 earned my Bachelor's degree. Last year, at age 64, I had a gender crisis that coincided with the loss of my beloved dog. This sent me into a deep depression. I couldn't figure it out and didn't know what to do. so I started into therapy and by luck my therapist is also a gender therapist. It took her 2 sessions to figure out what my 'problem' was. I had to admit to myself that I was indeed transgender, which once I did, all the pieces fit together and I realized this was my unknown feeling that I had experienced my whole life! I decide to take the next step and I started HRT! It was the best decision I made! Here we are 6 months later, and I have no depression, my partner likes the 'new' me with less anger and stress, and I have resolved my gender crisis by embracing that, yes, I am a woman of transgender experience. My only regret...not having done this 20 or 30 years earlier. But, there is a reason for everything, and maybe I wasn't meant to transition in my 30's or 40's, but I was meant to now!

I really appreciate your channel Dr Z. You have helped me, over the past year, understand so much about myself and gender incongruence. So supportive of you setting up this channel. This ‘gender crisis’ happened to me a year and half ago at 57. Like a freight train coming to hit me... I needed to deal with it or die... Once I opened the door. The door on my shame of being ‘defective, not normal’. All parts of me saw the light, the new pressure and uneasiness of standing at this precipice started to subside, when I allowed myself to fall into, the fear, the fear of the unknown, the fear of being ridiculed, not loved for being my true self. Now I’m so much more at peace and you’ve helped me, along with my therapist, to honestly live, land in my body and be more calmingly settled. Suppression since 5 years old, in order to navigate the world, has finally ceased. 👍🙏🙂🌻

Hi Dr Z, thank you for making this video, for me it came at the perfect time. I definitely experienced this. About 8 months ago I went into full-on crisis mode. I spent several weeks obsessing over it, losing sleep and barely eating, until finally accepting that doing something about it other than researching & ruminating is what I needed to do. I never had a lot of dysphoria, but I experienced a lot of gender euphoria as I explored - and eventually I started transitioning, taking a new name and pronouns at the start of the new year, and starting hormones by late January. I have experienced some doubts along the way, and in fact I started having a LOT more dysphoria, but on the whole I feel a lot better, and in a lot of ways I finally feel like I own my own body. I just this morning discovered that Transgender OCD is a thing, and I was worried that that is what I experienced - the doubts I've had along the way made me concerned. But as I look more into it, and remember the things I've learned about myself, the more I'm thinking that what I've experienced is genuine - and this video described me to a T, as I'm 31 and grew up in a very repressive environment, and I've always felt that something was wrong with myself, especially since puberty. So that you, for this one and all of the videos you make. 😊

I’m 29 and yeah the rug has been pulled out from under me. Luckily I see my therapist on Friday. You described what I’m experiencing almost exactly. There’s so many emotions I’m experiencing right now…But I know that it’s valid and I’m working with myself to understand what’s next.

I was fourty nine. Sixteen momths ago, I found myself in tears, and on the phone with a mental health crisis line. Now, tomorrow is my 51st birthday, and one week of feminizing hormone therapy!

For me it gender crises have been happening to me multiple times over and over throughout my life. Periods of acceptance, then denial, then acceptance but each time i went through a bout of denial my depression become so much worse each time. Until i started really paying attention to these cycles (via journal keeping, feedback from friends and therapists) i found that im much happier, healthier, friendlier and more positive when i accepted my gender dysphoria. There's really no running from it.

Thank you Dr Z. Your advice (and online test) helped me realise at the age of 59 that I truly am transgender and needed to do something about it. Now, a year later I am on HRT, physical things are happening and I feel happy and content. I have just realised that I spent most of my life in a state of depression and that has now completely lifted. I am on the brink of presenting female full-time and feel very confident that it’ll all work out fine. Please accept my heartfelt thanks for your weekly videos, they have helped me immensely. You are a very wise and insightful guide and your professionalism is very much appreciated. Lots of love, Claire

This is just what happened to me. It happened so fast, but after a few days of the freak out as you call it I embraced it and it is a beautiful process.

I knew something was off, but didn't know what to call it or have that lightbulb moment until my early 20's. Due to follow on circumstances (depression with a serious side of sleep disorder) I've not been well off enough to survive alone let alone meet the requirements back when I found out what they were. Recently (mid 40's) I hit a breaking point, was ready to let go of that last shred of hope, and was shocked to find HRT didn't necessarily come with onerous costly therapy sessions as a requirement anymore. Taking some steps now to see if I can finally make some headway towards being productive and growing instead of stagnating and just fighting to get out of bed or even survive. Thanks for these talks Dr Z, though I doubt you'd be shocked, you inspired practically an essay I to pared down to post.

I have been dealing with what you are talking about. It's a shame I have had to keep these feelings suppressed because of jobs, church, family and the community I live in. I am blessed to have a daughter and wife who understand me and love me no matter what I decide. I have opened up to them leaving no stone unturned so I know that I have their support. My mom and I briefly talked about my gender dysphoria before she passed away just a few months ago. I apologized to mom that I had never opened up to her about me feeling like a girl, and her reply was, it's never too late, we can talk about it now. Mom always knew about me and through my youth years she gave me an unspoken supported by buying me female clothing and leaving it in my room. Unfortunately my dad being a preacher and being strict he did not support me, so I kept my feelings suppressed and I even fought against my female feelings. Now at age 50 I am well known in our small community and well established for over 10 years in my job, I am still struggling with feeling female and living as male. I don't want to start over in life after putting in so many years to get to where I am now. The biggest problem is that there isn't a place that I can't go where I am not recognized because I am so well known in our city. I have felt stuck my whole life and never have had the balls to change or talk about it until just a few years ago. I now look back on life and think, I should have, and why didn't I ? DR. Z, thank you for everything you do.

my god you hit it right on the head Dr. Z

I fall in the #1 category and your description is spot on. I came out to myself at 35 during the COVID lockdown, didn't have a job and had a lot of time to introspect. I decided to review my values, life goals, career, etc. I eventually questioned whether I'd like to change sex and as soon as I questioned it it clicked. I started the transitioning process the same day. I don't means social transition but I started researching everything and found Dr.Z among other useful resources. 2 weeks later I started making phone calls to find a therapist for a letter of recommendation. I have lived a robot life. People would call me a "no life" and I can tell you that they were right. I didn't live my life. I've always felt that something was off with me from a gender perspective and in general but couldn't pinpoint what it was. I could identify the symptoms but didn't connect the dots. I had an alternate explanation for each of those. I thought I was a statistical anomaly before this video. I've read many coming out stories onlines but rarely do people mention a quick coming out. People always talk like they have these long questioning periods while mine was almost instantaneous. I feel a little bit less alone now I guess.

I experienced this last fall at age 29 when I was starting fall semester, my third semester after returning to university after a hiatus. The pandemic ruined my career potential and I was in a tight spot financially. I had been repressing my gender identity for nearly a decade at that point. I just started panicking and I dropped out of all classes but one. I had to go into the school's therapy services and they put me in a transgender therapy group.

Fascinating to hear that there are even annecdotal trends to the ages at which disphoria will reach a tipping point. I'm slap bang in the middle of group 1 in your example. I was pretty sure I was Trans as a teenager but wasnt in an enviroment where I felt I could express it, other than in secret. That led me to self harm and eventually I put it in a box and just decided not to deal with it. I discovered photography, went off to university and made a career in manufacturing. The introspection hit in my 30's a desire to work it out. I'm steadily in the process of coming out to more and more of the people I know and I've booked to see a psychiatrist ( a diagnosis of gender disphoria is needed to start hrt in the uk) Thank You for your videos, Its amazing to have content as good as yours being put out for us to share.

OMG - I just heard the story of my life - I am in the second group and even at the time of the first group I managed to repress it through that period in my life but two years ago I had to work on my gender needs. Gender crisis is exactly what I had. I couldn't go on hiding from myself and told my wife I had to try HRT and find a gender therapist, I did and I'm happier because of it.

I think this also explains why so many people realized their transness during the pandemic, as life was forced to slow down for so many. I had two gender crises in my life, one at 21 and one at 26. The first time it happened, it was a very confusing time but it was such a strong shift, a strong sudden feeling about myself. I ended up going back in the closet about a year after that, and kind of floated through life for a few more years, going through the motions of what I was "supposed" to do, not truly living my best life, and then the pandemic hit and I had my second gender crisis a few months into it. I'm not almost a year and a half on hormones and my life has radically changed. It was so difficult and so terrifying, but I have never lived a more authentic life. It was all worth it.

I'm 38, AMAB and just started feminizing HRT. You described exactly my experience! I was raised Mormon in rural Utah, homophobic mother, the works. A couple of years ago I changed my fashion and came out as non-binary. Now at 38, dysphoria has come at me like a beast! Thanks Dr Z! Your videos are why i decided to start HRT in the first place. ❤

OMG Dr Z that totally discribed my experiance. Last year at age 63 it was like the lid blew off and I was so terrified, thankfully I found a gender thrapist that helped me navigate this and now I am transitioning.

Dr Z, I feel so called out with this, I am 20 and 2 months ago I had the start of a massive gender crisis. I still remember it was February 19th, 11 days after my birthday. The only thing I can say is it is truly shocking just how thoroughly I repressed something so obvious. I have thousands of memories of wanting to be a girl. Thank you for reading Dr Z, your videos are helping me so so much through this time.

I had a bunch of mini crisises through 20 to 23 (when I started transitioning fr) but I always stopped myself from thinking about it. I would leave forums/any website that had a lot of trans people because they were too relatable and I really didn’t want to be trans. I would have to force it back down. And like you said, suddenly one day I decided to just try it, and I just broke down crying, it was so overwhelming. I knew then that I couldn’t repress it anymore. I’m really glad I did it though, I started HRT today and I’m so excited :)

I recognize that I need to deal with myself daily or my gender dysphoria gets me irritated for not giving myself me time.For years I tried to ignore it and fill it with sports cars,hot chicks,perfect physically,financially,spiritually only to lose it all for I was not satisfied and those things are empty fulfillment.Until I was truthful with myself was when my life began.All that traditional American life is a lie,just look at what's happening in today's society. There is something to say about being truthful with myself that when I accept my gender issues things just seem to go my way.Their is no turning back for me.Once again thank you for your channel and content.Your hard work is much appreciated and you are doing the work most don't dare.You are making a positive impact in my life.

Yes, it happened to me, exactly like you said. Self isolation for 5 years bc of traumatic divorce made me face the issue I have been running away from for 40 years. I still am learning to come to terms with it, but it doesn't terrify me anymore, like it did year ago. So small steps. :)

This video has been the most affirming thing to hear for my experience and really makes sense of where I am in this moment 😭 thank you for this ❤️ Dec. 20, 2022 I came out to my partner as transfeminine. I'm figuring a lot out but I'm in the safest and most loving place I can be to finally be me look out 2023 🎆 working towards accepting the piece of me I never could ❤️

It happened to me at 19 (for reference im 21 now). I didn’t know what transitioning really was until then. I’d heard of it and known trans people, but for some reason it just never clicked with me that people actually transition or can take hormones until I saw a video of an ftm guy online talking about his experiences. He talked about taking testosterone and my brain was like “oh, you can do that? I wanna do that!” Then I panicked for about 8 months before coming out. But I was also in a mental stage where I was doing a lot of introspection and trying to figure out what type of person I want to be and what my purpose is. I also left the religion I was raised in around this time, moved out of my parents house, and was in a long-term relationship (we’re still together now over three years later).

For me. Gender crisis arrived when my lid came off last year and I chose to leave it off. I had never tried that but it was the right move for me to make

My full blown gender crisis happened in my late 40s but near enough maps on to the 30-40 group. Up until then, I did "keep myself busy" and it was not till my late 40's that I had sufficient time for the introspection and self-analysis you associate with the 30-40 group. I ended up seeking professional counseling online from an LGBT+ specialist organisation primarily for stress as I was going through alot at the time. That service did not give me a gender dysphoria diagnosis but it did help me work through my gender identity discovery and early coming out. I would not say I felt terrified as such but I did start to question my own judgement.

You hit the nail on head, it me like 5 or 6 months before my 30th birthday a couple years ago. Now I’m 31 and now I’m overwhelmed (I also have Asperger’s) with all the things I need to do. I can’t even find a Therapist with my insurance that is in my area. I wish I knew someone that can help me so I don’t get overwhelmed. 😮‍💨

Dr. Z I just rewatched this video, it popped up again on my account and after listening to your description of “gender crisis” again I do realize that I did have gender crisis. When I was a very small child back in the 1950s I distinctly remember having some in-congruency with my assigned gender, because my body didn’t feel right and the things I was told I should want to do didn’t match either. But I didn’t dare express any of these feelings and concerns to my parents or anyone, because mine was a very religious conservative family and I already thought I was going to hell for just being who I was, that’s what I learned in the church I had to attend. In my late teens I tried to experiment with my gender, but the mentality of the people in my small town was just as narrow as my parents, so I shoved all those feelings down even further and I realized that the only way I was going to survive was to try and be what everyone around me had been telling me to be all my life. My coping mechanism was getting married and raising a family and to a fair degree that worked for about thirty years, but then my wife died suddenly and with the kids all grown and on their own I was left with myself and all those old feelings and concerns gradually came back. It’s interesting that you said the second group usually has this crisis around age 55, well I was 55 when my life took that crazy turn. After several years of grieving I realized what I had to do and that was to spend the rest of my life being true to myself and to attempt to make up for lost time. I have to say that with a lot of help from friends and therapists I’ve done pretty well. Now and after a decade of hard work I’m the complete woman that I was always meant to be. Thank you for being the therapist I no longer have.

Dr. Z hits it again. The lid went off for me about a year ago. I was 67 years old. For me it was not such a big surprise because more than 20 years earlier I came to know I have a female identity and have a desire to be a woman. I crossed dressed then and soon came to understand it was not just about clothes At that time, transitioning seemed so unthinkable in a world in which there was very little acceptance of transgenderism. I had a good career and when I was about fifty I got married. At the time I said I did not want to have to focus on my gender identity for the rest of my life. Wow was I wrong. I do think my reasons for not transitioning were reasonable and I am glad I led a good life. However, not accepting my authentic self was making me crave a true sense of myself and missing satisfying aspects of life. Now, I have a better sense of myself and after starting HRT I am delighted with the changes I see. I have concerns of being disappointed with how far I can get in my transition, but I think it is the right choice for me to live a full and happy life.

Yes this happened to me at 31 while I was in a very difficult survival training for work. I remember being sleep deprived and completely exhausted…and at my lowest point my lid came off of my dysphoria and it all hit me at once.

As I mentioned in other comments, I am 68 and going through the crisis, thinking seriously about transition. My crisis began when my wife passed away and the grief began to shred my ability to control it. I had been keeping it submerged for decades but I knew. Her passing stripped me of the ability to manage it.

I am now 37 years old & I experienced this in the past year. After a few months of denial I realized this was real and I had to come out and start my transition. You're channel has been a godsend and helped me work through this so far. From the bottom of my heart, thank you so much.

I always felt off since i was young. had this "want to go home" feeling even when i was at home. but i have also always been a introspective person as well so i never really had a crisis about gender... although it did lead to quite a few exhistenal crises before I accepted it.

Thank you Dr Z. Up to the age of 5 my parents were separated because of my father's drinking. They thought I was stupid and said so. I was left with my mother's parents for about a year then with my father's parents. I blamed myself thinking, "I'm no good and that's why they're not here." I felt starved for attention and did everything I could to get the approval of adults. So when I saw 3 little girls dressed so pretty getting showered with love and attention by their mothers I thought, "Gee. I wish I had that but I'm a boy so I can't." From that point on I always wished I was one of the girls. A few months after Caitlyn Jenner came out the parents of two boys, ages 2 and 4, attended the PFLAG meeting I was hosting because they heard the 4 year old telling his little brother he was a girl. The parents wanted to know what they should do and what they should not do for their 4 year old child. We gave them the information and resources they needed and that child was allowed to start kindergarden as a girl. That child knew it was a girl. As a child I knew I was a boy but wished I was a girl to be pretty and get that love and attention. I've lived as Shirley full time just over 10 years now, the happiest days of my life, but the difference between that child and me makes me question the validity of my wish. What do you think about it Dr Z?

Dr Z you are incredible, gender crisis explains perfectly what happened to me. After totally suppressing this side for 20 years, yes I knew something wasn’t right, and getting on with life and family, it hit me at 50. On a trip to SFO I encountered several trans people and I knew this was me. I went into a massive depression overnight, knew I could not hide this part of me any longer, I didn’t want to hide this part any longer, and I needed to get help. I realised that I could be gone any day and didn’t want to not know the real me. This was just over two years ago and that is when I found your channel. Now I have the term for what happened to me “gender crisis”. Then, your channel saved my life along with the help I got locally but still you surprise me week after week with your incredible knowledge. There are no more words. Thank you. Rebecca

This is exactly what I'm experiencing at age 60 . You're correct....almost overnight realization!!!

I was 33 when it happened to me, I woke up in the middle of the night with a million thoughts running through my head and just sat there wondering what the hell to do. So after about a week of being undecided and went and saw a therapist and that lead to starting my transition journey, Now I'm on HRT have socially transitioned and the happiest I've been since I can remember.

To sum up my life (until age 45 in 2018 when my lid finally blew off) I would say, “Sleepwalking from one crisis to another, coping using all manner of unhealthy self-destructive behaviours and distractions.” Beginning the process of Transitioning has been one of the ONLY real decisions I’ve ever made in my life up until now and this journey/adventure is due in no small part to your knowledge and encouragement Natalia. Thank you so much for your continued love and support! ❤️🇨🇦

I'm 54, and last year myself and my partner lost a lot of our belongings in a fire in our apartment. Earlier this year, my partner traveled and I experienced more than a few days and nights where I was alone with my thoughts about where I was going, who I really was, my direction in life overall. And it was as you say like a lid coming off. I suddenly put a lot of pieces together and that I had real problems with my gender presentation. For me it was a powerful cocktail of freak out, euphoria, realization and fear about what might happen. Some months later and I'm only just now starting to reach out for help. Despite having lived with this repression for so long, it is hard to break the old behaviors despite the deep deep longing for something else. I had put so much down to fetish, kink, middle age crisis, "its a phase", that I feel stuck in myself but I hope that I can make some progress. I still go through phases of depression, fear and freak out. The aftershocks of the lid coming off are pretty strong for me.

I just turned 30 this year and you explained the way I’m feeling so well. I started questioning my gender at 28, and it was around the time I broke up with my ex of 10 years. When I had time to finally ask myself who am I? And not be so focused on someone else, that is when I started to have a feeling that I may be trans. At 28, I started to fall into the non binary, but now at 30, I’m pretty sure I’m trans. Your videos have helped answer a lot of the questions I ask myself and are really validating. Thank you.

The past 3 months of my life have been a waking nightmare. It is EXACTLY as you have described it, Dr. Z. I just turned 41 in may. I am having a hard time keeping it together.

I had my gender crisis at 35. I was about 3 years out of grad school and in a fulfulling job and things had slowed down enough that I realized I had depression; a lot of it due to religious trauma in my childhood. Getting that treatment for that freed me up enough that I was finally able to recognize my gender dysphoria for what it was and start working on that. I'd be working really hard toward being an ally so I'd learned a lot there which helped me put words to feelings but the real trigger was seeing another trans woman in an unrelated KZfaq video and realizing that I was intensely jealous of how she was getting to live her life. There was a week of extremely intense emotional turmoil as I figured out how to tell my wife what I was feeling and then a gradual decline over a couple of months as I sought therapy and came to terms with my identity and started transitioning. I'm a little over a year in now and while there have been some major delays on things like HRT and dealings with my fundamentalist family that are frustrating, overall my life is so much better now that I am actually being me! As a side note, I think this video will be helpful for me to share with some people in my life who can't quite get their heads around how I didn't realize this until I was 35, so thank you for that too!

Hey Dr Z! I wish I could attend your practice in person! I’m category 1 age 30+ for the crisis, but still kind of sleepwalking. Been on hrt for a bit now but freaking out cuz my work doesnt know and they will find out soon during my next medical exam

I was at the end of the 30 to 40 age group and it was exactly as you described. Terrifying.

Actually I viewed it as a midlife crisis. I was almost 40 and wasn’t living how I needed to! That was a crisis. Best 2 years of my life since transitioning 😊

I went through a gender crisis about two years ago, in my late forties. It was the most profound event of my life. I didn't know this could happen to a person and am so pleased that this experience has terms to describe it now. I knew as a teenager that my gender was mixed, but it wasn't until I watched a video about non-binary identity that it all came together (transgender identity was pretty much only understood as binary then). In the short run, I was quite worried about myself. My senses were heightened - colors were so vivid, scents were sumptuous and I began to appreciate music I never seemed to hear before. I had big waves of emotion which lead to tremendous exhaustion. I had minor hallucinations and synesthesia. I took time off of work and found a great counselor. My memories of this time are like a trip to Mars I took alone, absolutely sublime. Wisdom comes to the individual when it does, and my advice would be to be introspective and do what it takes to get to that knowledge of self, whatever it is. Live the fullness of your gender even if no one else understands. The important thing is that you yourself do.

It happened to me at age 52. I am AMAB. Literally the day after my wife and I dropped my youngest child off at college, I woke up feeling 100% female. It was so jarring! I've always known that I've had a feminine side, but I was not prepared for that. It didn't take me long to realize that I was genderfluid. Over the last few years & a lot of therapy, I'm still definitely genderfluid, but instead of swinging hard between the binaries, I now identify as non-binary genderfluid. On a scale of 0 (male) to 10 (female), I identify between 3 & 7 more than 80% of the time.

I had zero fear of changing and at 49 I learned of a gender therapist in my area. I took off like a rocket. I was born at the wrong time so I spent decades chasing symptoms and therapy for real issues but they weren’t the root of my suffering. I’m that person who would’ve benefited greatly from a very early transition from top to bottom. I am 💯 traditionally masculine. I pushed hard to become completely independent expecting family rejection - that didn’t happen. It’s too late now for bottom surgery and I don’t want massive scares from top. I live as fully as I can considering and focused on learning all of the traditional male things that before were not a consideration but always wish they were.

You almost made me cry... It resonated so deeply for me! Indeed I was a "sleepwalker" when I was in my 20s ans 30s. I can't remember clearly my life, my feelings, anything. I was pretending, but wasn't quite there. I tried my best to be whoever people wanted me to be. I was a shadow. I couldn't tell what was wrong back then, I thought it was the others, the world, anything but me. My job and my love life were a mess. I realized only recently that I was transgender, I'm 45. I'm in the middle of your 2 categories! But that can be explained: I started having a big crisis at 40, panic attacks, diseases etc. But I didn't connect the dots. I thought at first that it was a matter of sexuality (I was forced in the wrong one for me). So I changed that first. But things were still off, and it took me another couple of years to find out I was trans. And indeed, it almost fell on me like a stone! For a lot of people my age, it couldn't be found out younger because we had no model, no information. Where were the trans celebrities in the 80s and 90s?... Nowhere.

This is very close to my experience. I'd repressed it so fully that for nearly 50 years I had no inkling I was trans, or any tendencies toward stereotypical feminine behaviors (e.g. no cross dressing or even any desire to do so). I just felt alien and fundamentally broken in some undefinable way my entire life. I was absolutely convinced I could never let anyone figure out who I really was, because "it would be bad". I had no idea why, or what it was I was afraid of people seeing, I only knew that deep down I was unacceptable in some inexcusable way. I'd ultimately accepted that was "just how I was wired", and I told myself that not everyone in the world gets to be happy, so why should I have expected to be one of the lucky ones? And for at least the last decade I'd become tired and had largely given up, and was just going through the motions in life, marking time until the end. Once it came to my attention that I might be trans, I spent a solid week looking for anything I could to shoot the idea down - but everything I found (including any peer reviewed papers/research I could find) just pointed toward what I already knew from that initial moment. Even in the middle of it all I realized I was working my way through the five stages of grief and was deep in the denial (I can't be trans at this age, I never had any signs growing up) and bargaining (OK, even if I maybe am a little bit trans, I'm not trans enough for it to count) phases - but that didn't stop me. After about 10 days it hit the point where my attempts to deny the mountain of evidence were outright comical, and I burst out laughing at the absurdity of it all and accepted that I was trans, and always had been. About two weeks in I was certain that medical (starting with HRT) and (eventually) social transition were the way forward for me, and I started down that path. Within a couple of months memories from as young as age 5 started resurfacing, though even before that, looking back at various aspects of my life and experiences growing up it was obvious I was trans - I just wasn't consciously aware of it. But it really did explain *everything*. That first week was absolutely terrifying though. I slept maybe a total of 7 hours, and never for more than about 15-20 minutes at a time. I was a complete zombie as I continued to go to work and do my job and keep up with all of the regular responsibilities of my life. And during that time there was definitely a kind of duality in my mind. There was who I'd thought was me my entire life (male identity) and the actual me (female identity) that had been essentially locked away in a room with a tiny window all of my life. But the truly terrifying bit at the time was the feeling that I no longer knew who I was, and that 'going through with it' and accepting I was trans would be like pushing the button that would launch all the nukes. I was going to lose everything. Family, friends, job, home - I was certain there'd be nothing left. Yet despite all of that, "she" was inside my mind, finally freed from her prison and bouncing around like a hyperactive kid excitedly saying, "Push the button! Lemme push it! I wanna push the button!" And I realized, the me I thought I was *didn't want to stop her*, despite the consequences. It took a few more days, but I ultimately realized that I was still me, and always had been. I hadn't really changed. The me I'd thought I was (male) was just a 'social filter' over the actual me (her) to try and appear as society expected - and I no longer required the filter. Really, it was just a matter of re-centering my sense of self from the filter to the actual me. The duality, such as it was, was resolved at that point and everything was fine. I still don't understand how I managed to remain clueless for as long as I did, or how I managed to avoid developing any serious, long term psychological issues as a result of being dysphoric for so long. I feel extremely lucky in that regard.

you scare me - as if your reading my mind - count me as another clueless older person when it hit me like a brick in a tornado. pretty much every thing is spot on. I'm still coming to terms and trying to figure out where to go from here and how to get there.

I was 23 the first time it happened to me. Then it happened again when I turned 51, I had a near death experience and realized I have I have never been true to myself. I spent my whole life living for everyone but myself. Thing are still the same for me but I am fully aware of who I am and who I need to be but I am so afraid of losing what I have spent my life building. So I look forward to the end, it will happen naturally but I look forward to it.

Yep mine blew on may 31st. Will be turning 40 in July. I think I would have to move to really do any thing about it, not any resources here. I am trying to stay mentally aware, not sure how well that will work.

Hi Dr. Z, I know this comment is not really relevant to the subject of this video, but I just need to say it somewhere and this is the safest place I feel I can do it. Someone was talking about how in Italy people tend to show others respect in public by not saying or doing something intrusive, aggressive and possibly mean and nasty towards another person. My point is in the US I very often got strangers going out of their way to look at my crotch when I wore shorts or pants, I haven’t had full bottom surgery, and they didn’t try to hide their gaze either. Sometimes they would smile or sneer or look disgusted if they thought they saw signs of a bulge down there. And also I’d had some people make what could be considered a public announcement when I walked by as if to alert everyone in the vicinity that I was a fraud and not a real woman. These incidences were always harmful and some times humiliating. Since I left the hateful fear mongering US I haven’t had one such incident with one exception and that was a man who I’m pretty sure was an American, did the glance downward and then made a face of disgust while looking away. I think that happened shortly before I left Mexico, but I’m not sure. Why should it be anyones concern what’s in a stranger’s pants, a passerby? And if you do look and see something you don’t like, why go out of your way to try and make this complete stranger’s day miserable? I think many people in the US are very uncivilized and don’t know how to be human. Having material and monetary wealth does not in my mind make a person or country developed. It’s how well you treat others in general that determines that. Thanks for making the space where transgender women can safely bring up topics that most have no interest or desire to hear.

I guess im lucky, the lid popped off at 25 during a period of time where I free to do introspection and ask myself who I am and all that.

This is how I'm feeling this feeling seem like it came out of nowhere and I have been able to say what it is

Happened to me at 35. Was born a mormon AMAB so that's why my psyche probably protected me until I was fully independent religiously, financially and emotionally. Now I identify as non-binary and I'm pretty happy with that. I get to express different sides of me that were repressed for so long but I don't have to give up certain sides of me that still feel authentic. But I'm flexible to see where this crisis takes me. It's been shocking but a good process, too.

I am 40 at least on as my ID is telling me. Lately I am questioning my gender identity but was worried cause I was thinking I am to old to have a gender crisis. Wow you give me some hope that my feelings might be normal and not just some shit made up in my mind .

Just came across this after being in this state of being for just a couple weeks, coincidentally. I’m 32, not actually settled in a career (I’ve been laid off like. 5 times now, and had a lot of traumatic workplace experiences), and am in kind of a crisis mode. I had inklings of my gender dysphoria in my 20s, but a series of bad interactions including a confrontation with my conservative religious parents where they confronted me about my supportive lgbt posts and if I was gay, made me decide to throw a lid on it and say I would try to address it later, once I was financially secure and independent (my parents did not eject me from their home, and we never talked about my outing, but I was always aware of how much power they had over my livelihood). Now after a bunch of failed attempts to start my career (objectively no fault of my own except picking the wrong people to work for), I’m dramatically less financially stable, and the lie I told myself, that I could hold back the dysphoria for when I was in a stable situation, has finally manifested in a sudden wave of new feelings, an unlocking of my emotional capacity and clarity, a sense of dread and anxiety lifted, but now a new level of fear and anxiety over my transition and what it may spark in my family’s dynamic (got nieces and nephew now, parents still just as conservative as ever, and i literally have no insight as to how they will react to me coming out as trans). Weirdly it is a comfort that I’m experiencing something typical of my age; I spent many years just wandering through a fog of depression and anxiety, and had extreme agoraphobia for a while (got better about it, then covid struck, so…). I’ve often viewed it as lost time as my conditions just worsened, my career flatlined, and for a long time I just existed, constantly afraid of what else was coming to ruin my life. I was convinced that all that time was lost, that yet again I was developmentally behind (felt that way since I was a child due to religious upbringing and homeschooling until I was a teen, then was put in Christian private school, didn’t get out of that system until college). It is a small comfort to know that I’m dealing with something that makes sense for someone my age and the psychology of this stage of life. I’ve felt like I woke out of a coma, which has been a distressing feeling… Like I lost/wasted so many significant years of my life to depression and anxiety, but it’s a comfort to see that I did still grow and develop as a person, even as I prolonged the suppression and repression of my truest self. I am happy that I can finally say that I am trans. That I might be a trans woman, but at least transfemme… still figuring things out. That I finally am dealing with this dysphoria head on. Literally the night before watching this the way I described this event to my roommate with this analogy, as I had never heard of gender crisis before… It was as if I years ago I had thrown a tarp over a locked and caged beast, knowing I would have to deal with her some day. I had managed to forget about the cage, until my foundations abruptly crumbled and I ended up in the basement with the cage again. I pulled off the tarp, and realized that the cage was never locked, but she stayed down there anyway, starving and enraged, sometimes rattling the cage so hard that the entire structure shook above her… these violent attempts to break free are part of what caused the foundation to collapse. And now that I finally took off the tarp that I had placed there years ago, our eyes meet, her eyes filled with pain and years of anguish, and she bursts forth and attacks me, not causing me harm but instead forcefully dragging me somewhere.

im trying not to blow things out of proportion. but yea i think thats exactly where im at now that i know so much more about it and have looked back in retrospect to my past. im almost 30

You nailed it Dr. Z. At about 50 and without knowing about a lot of this stuff I started thinking I was psychologically hermaphroditic after the goddess Hermaphrodite not the old medical description. At 55 when I started hearing about non-binary and transgender and all that business. I know it's been around for ages but somehow I managed to avoid thinking about it. All of a sudden that about 57 my mouth said that I need to buy women's panties. It wasn't something that rose to consciousness it just came out of my mouth. Probably so that my subconscious could make that statement without my consciousness squashing it. next thing I know I'm in a full-blown gender crisis of some sort and I'm STILL trying to figure out. Especially how to transition when I'm stuck in a job that I can just change. Only me making money to support family 0f 4 three of them disabled. The trap of too much money to leave. Then trying to figure out if I'm non-binary, gender-fluid because I bounce back and forth as I need to pretend to be a man when I am at work. I am out to the very few people I know outside of work. Only two or three friends because I never got along with men, I didn't like their attitudes towards women and they could tell something was different. Women perceived me as a man so I wasn't in the women group. They were talk to me and comforted vice about men but I was never allowed in the women club. I feel totally trapped because I work in the financial industry and information technology and it's a very conservative. I'm 60 now my wife and I made this work without any problems. We raised our kids to be accepting of everybody around us and we were part of a diverse group at the time. So no family problems. A massive blessing. I can't get a gender therapist because they're all too busy in my area. Moving back and forth between gender presentation and ingrained behaviors at work is really a big issue. I do get to dress as a casual fem woman whenever I am outside of work I change in the parking lot.

When I started talking to a counselor at thirty three about my growing up. Is when I had to do something to stop repressing myself. As of November of 2021 I began HRT to feminize myself to be who I'm always meant to be.

Dear Dr. Z. I am not sure about these descriptions, perhaps you are describing mild to manageable crisis? I have been in crisis and depressed for as long as I can remember; as a kid I was always sad, as a teen and early to mid 20's is when I experienced a strong crisis and tried to kill myself, but I was unsuccessful; I could say I was lucky enough to be sent to a psych center, and I have been on HRT ever since however; I am aware that I live in constant distress that has to be managed (regardless of age range), in some ways, I see it the same way alcoholics handle sobriety (a day at a time?). Distress will be there all my life, but I also believe we have to accept that this is what we are, nothing will change that, transition is limited, and regardless of a successful transition, it is also a stigma that fuels depression and triggers crisis. Best wishes

I'm 26 going on 27 this year and I think I've hit that gender crisis point.

I am 54 this year. I am Autistic, suffer from chronic panic attacks. For years I have not wanted to live. Connecting to my senses, I have found I Need softness, feminity. From this I am seeing the world through new eyes. I now want to be alive. Now I realise I am not cis gender. Coupled with that is my recent acceptance of my not being hetero sexual. It is a huge shock to me to know I am trans gender. Yes, this is definitely a crisis.

Fascinating, this is me! My first bout was around 27-30 when things started exploding. Bought my first dress (which took at least a week of concocting a fake girlfriend i was buying it for. Yeaaahh, I think my stammering excuses to the retail clerk probably drew more attention to that lie than if i had just bought it without an explanation). Tried it on and had the doorbell ring from a deadbeat neighbor who constantly asked for cigarettes and beer. Panicked and got it off and promptly threw it in the trash; figured it was fate or something. Looking back, I realize he probably saw me come home and it wasn't a divine intervention. Started to mentally break down, almost two weeks of little to no sleep, couple suicide attempts, played with sharp knives, almost peeled my face off ("what's behind the mask", don't worry, just a few small scars up near the scalp line and a small numb spot), cut myself down there. Sense of something being wrong had been building up for a while. Friends thought I was gay (recently figured out that when I get drunk, I forget to hide my feminine gestures and I apparently didn't react to women hitting on me). Sexuality is undefined, ambiguous; I've always wondered how you tell if you're gay or straight. Recent evaluations suggest to me that I may be on the Asexual spectrum. Sexually assaulted somewhere in this time period. Told a girl i was dating and that did not go well. No doctor, no police, just took two days off work to recover, but I did eventually get tested (clear; I now have a phobia of STD's, yay). Somehow i buried it, turned myself off, cut my friends off. Went homeless for about 8 months. Ended up living with my parents up until now after they helped get me off the streets. I look back and realize that in many ways I put myself in a coma and just existed. Looks like the 2nd major bout started building over the last few years; looking into drag, kept googling if men had biological clocks, started wondering if I could be intersex and have ovaries. Was looking into foreign brides; had this weird thought that I could get one, cross dress in the home and be a stay-at-home "mom" while they went out and got a job. Stumbled upon a video last year about why there were so many transgenders in Thailand and discovered gender dysphoria in a follow up video. Felt like someone showed me what to do with the bag of puzzle pieces I had been given, broke most of the chains tethering my boat and threw me in a category 5 hurricane. It's been a rough couple of months, and I've got a lot of grey hair now, heh. Father is retired military, who was going to be a priest until he got drafted for Vietnam (I'm 48 for context). Religion and structure were a big part of my childhood. Younger brother who would constantly get in trouble and blamed me and they always believed him (he's admitted it recently at a family dinner we had), I always had to take care of him, and I was expected to know better since I was the oldest. Stricter rules for me, not for him, etc. I've learned this is not uncommon; we are not close. Had a vivid imagination and escaped in books. Apparently, I got sent to a therapist when I was really young to make sure I wasn't escaping reality or something; I don't actively remember this, but when I think of this the thought comes to mind, "She taught me to hide." I don't know if it was a female or male, a school counselor, or whatever, but it's what comes to mind. Started trying to be invisible and somewhere along the line I started making a "mask" to hide behind (didn't do that good a job at being invisible). Fast forward to high school, became fascinated by psychology; teacher started to show interest in me. Not sure if I showed promise or if one of my slip-ups drew attention to me, I just can't remember. Became utterly fascinated by the criminal mind and profilers and started to feel like I could go down that rabbit hole. Also realized I would make a terrible doctor, pictured myself as a vulture over the patient, needing to be fed, ravenous. Realized I would go down that rabbit hole again and again, inflict the damage to my psyche and relive with each new piece of information. Closed psychology off to myself and it looks like I've built some walls because I've had to break down an utter terror of them locking me up in a psych ward recently. Only took a thousand or two mental conversations and about 8 months, heh. Appointment next month to help me untangle this mess I have of fear, gender, sexual assault, sexuality, depression and everything else. Told a cousin, went to a few pride events, dabbled in a little dress up, exercising, etc. For the first time in about 3-4 decades, I find I want to live, not exist.

That’s pretty much exactly what I went through at 31. It started off as a dissociative episode that somehow turned into resuming crossdressing after suppressing it for almost 20 years, within a couple weeks escalated to needing to be out in public. That turned into a cycle of noticing some physical attribute that made me uncomfortable, finding some way to “feminize” it, calm back down to baseline for a bit, repeat. Breast forms broke me mentally, more than once having to call off work because dropping the illusion was too much to handle. Now at 42, and running out of “physical coping mechanisms” for lack of any other description. There’s only so much further you can push things after reaching the point of needing laser hair removal and body shapers to feel comfortable in your own skin. I’ve been referred to a gender therapist, but have yet to work up the nerve to set an appointment. Not so much from being afraid they’d say I was crazy or something. I’m fully aware that I’m more or less a textbook case. It’s more that it suddenly moves transition from the purely theoretical to an actual possibility, and knowing that it might actually be what I want makes that absolutely terrifying.

Wow I'm 57 that's exactly what I'm going through right now. But I'm freaking out because I don't have any friends in the LGBTQ community especially trans person to talk to. I have like a million questions and I can barely breath I'm so excited, scared, and having no outlet ready to shout from the rooftops.

As I aged through my 20s and learned about the term ‘transgender’, I never really applied it to myself. On the other hand, I never forgot about my secret desire to be a woman that I had hidden away since childhood. It wasn’t until I turned 30 that I realised that I had been experiencing gender dysphoria and that I really am transgender. Later, when I turned 33, there was this sudden massive realisation and existential pressure that I told me that I must either transition immediately or be prepared to forget about it for the rest of my life. By that age, of course, I was already aware that I would never be able to forget who I wanted to be and how I wanted to live.

Twice. Both of which were a couple years younger than you listed here. At 28, I realized that I was having a crisis of identity. I explored the kink space and found that I enjoyed crossdressing as well as some other stuff. With that realization, I managed to overcome my lifelong belief that I was simply not suitable to have any intimate relationship, found an accepting wife, and settled back down to a kind of double life, At the time, I didn't have anything telling me that I could have been trans, I looked. Harry Benjamin and friends said no. Fast forward to 52. Empty nest and being cooped up inside due to the plague, I was sinking into depression. For some reason, this time when I had been looking at trans stuff (which, btw, I did pretty much constantly), I saw some things about late-onset transitioning and took a look into it. And saw a mirror. Egg cracked hard. I did think "midlife crisis", but I'm not sure that you're dismissal is quite fair. I did have a midlife crisis, a realization that I am getting older and will die and what do I do now? The general response is to go back to try to recapture your youth, like in your examples. Mine was to try to capture the life I never had, 'her' life so to speak.

It was like being hit by a freight train. For four days straight I could think about literally nothing else; I could barely eat, or sleep, or even talk. It was one of the most overwhelming, devastating, terrifying things I've ever experienced. But once my egg was cracked and I realised just how desperately I wanted to be a guy, I threw myself into it with more courage and determination than I ever knew I possessed. In the two years since, I've lived more than I ever did in those first 34.

My lid popped off within the last five or so years (I'm 30)... Don't even remember when I exactly discovered it (same with discovering my asexuality)... But I definitely put the puzzle pieces together that led up to this point that I didn't realize were relevant. And even though it's been liberating, it's also been kinda scary cuz what I discovered is niche that no one would understand 😭

It's scary you mention this because my 'egg' cracked at 20 and i forced it back down but now that im almost 30 it popped back up to a degree that couldn't be ignored, and it turned out I was still dealing with the dysphoria on top of it. lol

I am relieved its not just me. Long story, but to think its been around for 54 years and I can only piece it together backwards. After an initial shock I was happy a year ago to have discovered the missing piece of the jigsaw, but my specific problem is that I also have severe M.E., and I made myself worse by trying to live as woman, which used up too much energy and after six months I had a relapse. Being bedridden is having a dreadful toll on me because I can't act on my situation like get to a therapist, begin social transition or anything and the combination is making me suicidal. Mental Health have referred me to a charity in Colchester, but I hardly know whether I will have the strength to have online therapy, and I am scared if I do too much to alleviate the dysphoria by making up etc., I will cause a yet greater relapse. This is all causing a kind of second gender crisis far more negative and full of self-doubt than when it first broke (as per my selfie pic).

Ages 3,4,5 identified as male from the start. Ages 12-26 mostly unhappily experimented with the idea of being a woman. Was hard to make it fit in my life. I'm a Libra Ascendant (rising sign) as well as a Pluto, Ceres, North Node in Libra so some flamboyance would have been me at times in life. I think a lot of it was acting out what I wanted to change but was hard to do. I'm an ENFP (actor type) so sometimes I would treat it like I was in movies. At age 15 I went through a tough identity crisis and would only carry myself as male in looks and demeanor. I was unhappy at that time. Age 16 I started to slip back into trying to be a girl with a boyfriend but it didn't resonate. Age 18 senior prom I did wear a dress by choice because no one knew me in the town I just moved to and it was a release of tension because when I was 5 yrs old I was forced to wear a green dress for a play I had short hair and everyone laughed at me except for my buddy on stage we were both freaking out. I tried to be a femme in lesbian relationships at times but at age 27 is when it totally hit me that I was transgender on a road to FTM. I lived my ten years as full male in most ways. I was afraid of transition was afraid of non acceptance and trans angst if things didn't turn out well. At 45 I'm more fully facing my transition. Your lectures help me a lot. Thank you for sharing your wisdom and insight.

Pandemic lead me to my gender chrisis ..9 months in on hrt and soo glad it’s getting better.. everything just made sense from birth..all the in congruencies just caved on top of me… I’m finally seeing a light at the end of the tunnel…

I think this was me at 30-33? I've always felt off about myself and didn't understand why. I was just uncomfortable with me. Then bam, this happens and I freak out for a while. But I started doing research, and realized what things were. I'm not as panicked now, but it's still a weird sensation.