Transitioning In Your Golden Years and Beyond
Gender transition, coming out, and taking steps to affirm yourself is a journey that any person can begin at any age. Although the media tends to focus on younger trans people, our community is not new. Transgender people of all ages, races, ethnicities, and faiths have flourished for millennia in cultures around the world. It is never too late to realize who you are and honor your identity. If you are transitioning in your golden years (or silver!), you are right on time.
Am I Starting Over?
Transitioning can feel like moving to a new town or starting classes at a new school. You might feel isolated at first, wondering if you will “belong.” The answer is always yes. As an adult, you have all the skills you need to navigate this wonderful and sometimes challenging period of your life. It can take time to develop new friendships, deepen existing relationships, and get to know yourself better. All transgender people need time living in their new gender role to get comfortable.
Transitioning can change long-term relationships. Fear of losing friends, a marriage, or family relationships can deter people from doing what they need to do. It creates deep unhappiness and can even lead to self-harm, unhealthy substance use, and other issues. In a transphobic culture, it can be frightening to live as your authentic self. However, people who come out later in life tend to weather all transitions better, including gender role changes.
Although you are learning and expressing new parts of yourself, you are still you. You don’t lose your experiences, ideas, or value. Gender transition isn’t a reset button. If anything, this process will enrich your understanding of yourself and others. That perspective can refresh existing relationships. The closeness between you and others may shift, but new friends, allies, and partners can step into that space. As you honor your needs, you deserve to have people who support and celebrate you for who you are.
Taking It One Day At A Time
Transition can feel overwhelming, especially at the beginning. Rather than trying to envision or plan the entire process, identifying your needs on a short term basis might be helpful. At Plume, we believe that everybody needs and deserves support at every stage of their journey. Our low-barrier healthcare services include gender-affirming hormonal therapy (GAHT) and 24/7 counseling with other trans people. If you need to talk to someone, our team is a phone call or text away. We exist to support people of all ages and needs.
In the beginning of your transition, relationships with other transgender people can help support you as you nurture yourself. You may crave community in a different way. Finding people who understand what you’re going through is very helpful, especially since you might not know any transgender people in your other communities. If you are already part of gay, lesbian, bisexual, or queer communities, you may find support within those groups. You might feel more comfortable blending it with already-marginalized groups. You may also want to get out front and center, participate in activist causes, and be as visible as possible. There’s no wrong way to “be,” so whatever feels right to you is the way to go. Your goals can shift and change during transition.
What Are My Gender Expression Options?
Age is a factor that influences how people approach transition and disclosure. For people in their late 50s or 60s, surgery is often not the ultimate goal. Simply achieving a correct gender role is often enough for older people. Some older clients, in their 70s and 80s, are satisfied with GAHT and a physical expression that is aligned with their identity. Others want to use GAHT but don’t shift gender roles socially; this is acceptable, too. People who start GAHT at a later age experience the same masculinizing or feminizing effects of hormones as younger people, often on a lower dose than their younger counterparts. An older person’s recovery time from surgery may be longer—just like any other medical procedure. However, beyond managing other age-related health issues, older people get the same benefits as younger people.
You may have grown up as part of a generation where there were few options for transgender people. Sometimes, older people feel like they have “missed the boat” on transition. They might say, “If I was thirty years younger, I would transition, but doing that now feels overwhelming.” There’s nothing wrong with feeling that way, either. You must do what feels right to you. Experimenting with hormonal therapy, crossdressing, or other low-stakes changes might help you identify what your needs are. Since transition is unique to each person, you are in the driver’s seat for this process. There is no wrong way to look or live.
Older people tend to have a more binary view of gender. Perhaps you were raised in a time when “transsexuals” were either “men who became women” or “women who became men,” with no middle ground. You might wonder if you’re a “crossdresser,” rather than transgender. Many of these ideas are generational. The goal in earlier decades was to “pass” or assimilate into heterosexual, cisgender culture and fit in. That expectation has changed, thanks to the courage and persistence of transgender activists. We understand gender as a broad spectrum, not a binary where people need to “pick a side.” Your identity may be nonbinary, genderfluid, genderqueer, or something else entirely. As you transition, you get to make the rules. You know what feels right for you. You don’t have to conform to anyone else’s standards of beauty or behavior.
As you move forward, your new gender role, physical changes, and life goals can lead you in exciting and unexpected directions. Transition is not a finite process, where you are eventually “done.” It is a lifelong exploration of your identity. It can be playful, strong, subtle, and challenging. As an older person, you are resilient and skillful. Gender expression is an adventure that you are equipped to explore. You don’t have to do it by yourself and you don’t have to go alone.
