displaced body + morals of gender choice

I am always shifting into different places around my body depending on mood. Been in overconfident male state, which i prefer; super cocky and a bit of a prick but the ego is fun and i feel more like myself. In this state i am at the front of the body, pulling it along, i am physically very light and almost feel as if i'm leant forward. Woke up as tense androgen with waves of anxiety...this one feels like i am sat way back behind and i am being dragged along, i feel like I'm leaning backwards and physically heavy. It's incredibly tiresome. Where are you in the body at different times?

Thursday i have an appointment with the gender clinic. As I've mentioned in previous posts i am not aware of full dissociation but have a lot of evidence to support the possibility and i don't believe I am the original. Therefore there is the chance that she is deeply buried and doesn't know about and potentially wouldn't support my choice to go forward with gender reassignment. Is it then inappropriate for me to do so? I am quite determined to go forward and i believe that if i am an alter then i was created at some point to live in this body in the place of someone who couldn't cope. In order to properly live my life i need to make these changes, or stagnate in perpetual limbo, which i am not prepared to do.

From everything I've read, the majority of people with DID suffered sexual abuse as part of a pattern abuse. Sexual abuse of children often warps and damages the natural expression of the body's sexuality, whatever it would have been in the absence of the abuse.

If as you suspect you are an alter -- and every part of a dissociative identity system is an alter -- there are one or more other parts of you who may have very different ideas about what is appropriate for your body, I believe it is deeply inappropriate to take this type of action without involving all of yourself in the decision. This is not another person you're talking about, it's you, a dissociated part who doesn't feel like you. Being interested in gender identity myself, I've read too many horror stories of people who have undergone gender reassignment surgery only to decide later that they didn't have all the facts at their disposal and in retrospect regretted the surgery, even tried to reverse it.

You needn't stagnate in perpetual limbo, though, see a therapist and do work to determine whether there are parts of you. A part deeply buried at one point will probably wake up at some later time. In any case, all parts of you should have a right to participate in major life decisions, certainly in all decisions that affect them.

I've also read on this board stories of alters as part of a DID system making plans for gender reassignment that were completely unwanted by other parts. I can see your dilemma. Are you able to sense what the dilemma may be for other parts of you who may be sleeping?

I appreciate the dilemma for potential distress in the event other parts emerge at some point in the future. I imagine that your feeling is shared by most other systems, though i would like to hear the thoughts of others and perhaps from some alters who are not cisgendered, or anyone who has been this close to transitioning.

My problem with waiting to see if dormant parts wake up is that i have no way of gauging the time spectrum and at 28 years old and about to start some proper education i can't realistically withhold my development and i cannot enter into a social or professional environment in between genders. I already experience a great deal of discomfort due to being constantly misgendered. I have been fronting / living as a male fully for over a year with ongoing feelings of being male over five years.

There has been repeated sexual and emotional abuse, yes, as a teen. Childhood neglect in conflicting and controlling behaviour from a psychotic Christian mother, but no memories of sexual abuse as a younger child. I have had varying degrees of gender dysphoria since the age of 12, which is when i first remember presenting as male. This first presentation lasted a few weeks during which i am aware of being someone other than the original but i feel that was my first real presence. My memories are very fragmented and nonlinear and i am missing months and years of my life. I felt completely out of control and it seems to me that i was observing the original from a limited position. After a severe trauma at 19 involving a series of rapes and consequential ostracism from my social group - being accused of lying and violently attacked - i steadily became more prominent and have been in charge, for the most part, for a number of years.

I am tired of living in a broken, dysfunctional manner. It has taken me this long to arrive at a point where i feel capable of properly living. I am aware that it is potentially a fragmented existence but having been incapacitated by mental problems for two decades and presented with a choice that will allow me to live in some way as a normal member of society, i don't see a feasible alternative. The mental health care system here is appalling. I am not altogether well every day, as per my issues of contention, aforementioned in previous thread, but i am moving towards a place of solidity in some shape and form. I have watched her fall from therapist to therapist none of which have either gave a real $#%^ or been competent or even helpful. Now out of their care, it would take at least six months for an initial assessment, which would go on for another few months, only to be passed off with antipsychotic medication. I know this because it has been the case, on repeat, ad infinitum.

If the original emerges as an alter there may be issues but i am inclined to say i will deal with that as and when it occurs.

skin wrote:I am tired of living in a broken, dysfunctional manner.

Given your situation, gender reassignment surgery and drugs will not fix that. What will fix that is psychotherapy. The cure is integration. Note the word integration not fusion. Integration for you may or may not include fusion.

My male alter wants to say something here. YOU ARE A ######6 IDIOT. YOU ARE #######4 YOURSELF.

Ahem. Alter 2 longs to be able to live as a man and have a real penis. Only, we all can see how difficult it can be to be a gay man and it has been my experience that we all, including Alter 2, sexually prefer men who prefer women.

Some nice sentiments from the male...

I agree that ideally, psychotherapy may lead to a functional outcome, but how long might it be before that happens? I am bound by the limitations of an indifferent healthcare system who are only interested in handing out drugs and have never been of any real help, with a minimum waiting list of half a year. Meanwhile i piss around useless, wasting more time.

Una+ wrote:

skin wrote: Given your situation, gender reassignment surgery and drugs will not fix that. What will fix that is psychotherapy. The cure is integration. Note the word integration not fusion. Integration for you may or may not include fusion.

This has been my experience. I knew from the first time my therapist suggested transition it would only have shifted the gender dysphoria to me instead of my female alter. I needed to treat the underlying cause, my MPD/DID.

Having had an inner homeostasis that enabled me to live a normal life for 40+ years, a female alter who fronts nearly as well as I do for extended periods of time, integration not fusion has been the focus of my therapy. I cannot be the person I am as a solitary Self.

Re: "how long?"
It took a year and a half of cognitive therapy for me and my female alter to find our peace. HRT was required to control the gender dysphoria but my body is fairly androgynous. My female alter never had any difficulty being accepted as a woman, and HRT has not affected my ability to be accepted as a man. At 52 the loss of sex drive has not been a problem to my marriage. Once the battle for control between us subsided, the struggle with my childhood trauma began…

You can read more details in my post in the “Dealing with an opposite gender alter” thread at
dissociative-identity/topic120282.html

dissociated1 wrote:

Una+ wrote:Given your situation, gender reassignment surgery and drugs will not fix that. What will fix that is psychotherapy. The cure is integration. Note the word integration not fusion. Integration for you may or may not include fusion.

This has been my experience. I knew from the first time my therapist suggested transition it would only have shifted the gender dysphoria to me instead of my female alter. I needed to treat the underlying cause, my MPD/DID.

Exactly. That would be playing "hot potato" aka "live grenade", tossing the problem from one alter to another, hoping that when it explodes you aren't the one holding it. With only one body, however, playing this game is a really stupid choice because it guarantees that you lose.

For me, one of the most bizarre features of DID is how common it is for at least some alters to have a delusion of separate bodies. They imagine they can kill the body without harm to themselves. Um, no.

I'm 29 and have felt male on and off since I was about 6. I learned about sex reassignment when I was 13 and thought that was the right move for myself.

I've only talked about my gender issues in passing to my therapist, over the past two years. I've only talked to him about DID for the past two months.

What I concluded is that I would in fact be happier in a male body. However, current methods of ftm transitioning resembles self-mutilation more than a sex change. I don't want to wonder if someone does a double-take because I'm not passable. I don't want surgery with possible scarification and loss of sensation. My body is a small part of the puzzle. I need to be satisfied with who I am before I worry about how I present myself.