Framework

Many older transgender people tended to create very elaborate framing to be able to live in society since, in most cases, we had little choice. We may have known since very young, as I did, that we were somehow different but needed formulas to succeed in suppressing instinct as method of survival. Now that I live openly socially as myself, I realize to what extent that elaborate framework takes time to dismantle since it is far more intricate than one first imagines it to be. It took many years to construct so why expect anything different. 

When I was obliged to live part time you don't see the full picture because other facets of your life keep you preoccupied and distracted. You don't attempt to dismantle anything fully you still need not realizing the effort truly required to cleanse the palette well into your fifties which was when this final phase began in earnest.

The physical aspects have nothing to do with it since I had that part down to an art form a long while back. It was instead the remaining bits of psychology which needed tending to when all the distractions fall away. The full extent finally sinks in that this had been far more involved than simply dressing up in childhood.