[JustMeTheAnimator]

Ok so I recently came out to myself as MTF Transgender, a fact I've known for years but only recently found out was actually a thing. That being said I've found so many beautiful women dmab who dedicate their lives to transition such that, it would seem as if that is what being trans requires. I am Trans, I want to transition but it isn't the center of my life. For me getting the job I want in animation is a much higher priority but at the same time I don't know are there others that this is applicable to or am I just messed up?

[Ihani]

There are a lot of transgender people who don't choose to transition at all. Whatever makes you feel is best for you and makes you comfortable is perfectly acceptable. You don't have to change a thing about yourself if you don't like.

[TheSeamster]

You don't need to have transitioning be the center of your life.
You do what makes you happy. If you choose to transition later, or not at all that's totally fine!

There's nothing wrong with prioritizing your animation career above possible transition. As long as you're living a way that makes you happy!

[joandemi]

I have pretty well known i was different for most of my life and until recently,say the last ten years or so at least in the UK convincing someone of who or what i am was almost impossible. The options were there to have steroids and ops but attempting to convince someone i was trans but did not want to follow the mtf convincing change to female appearance route always left people saying to me then you cannot be really trans.
Now i am 60 and am confident that i am happy as i am ie male appearance,female mind, and am happy to appear in female or male clothes,in fact due to the crossover between the two.I hate wigs or false boobs or even dressing to appear something other than what i am .A MTF person not a female impersonator because i am not female,does this make sense to anyone.

[slax]

Although I am 30 years post-op now, to me it's all largely been about not becoming other peoples cartoons. Because I suppressed my feelings from a young age- 6 or 8 and growing from there, I in fact feel I learned how to be female in mind and spirit, without really being one physically or to anyone else. As a tide of freedoms for women was ushered in in my youth, I sorta rode it mentally- I felt in a way I was even really "cutting edge" and that was one way to deal with the differences I knew separated me from my friends and the larger world.
And so it's never been that much about the hair or makeup or any typical models of what a woman should be. To my own hurt, and since I started late at 30, I always had the view that people like us should be allowed to be who and where we ARE: Transgendered! And that NOT EVERYONE can in one sudden leap pass from being one sex into a convincing member of the other gender. To my own hurt- I just didn't care that much by the time I HAD to come out and change otherwise.
There was some sexual component in my younger days and mostly before surgery, that gradually went away as I grew into middle age and older.. I was a little weary of the drag bars, straight bars and the one night stands with others I never saw again, when Jerry springer came along and shamed them all away- I was in my forties then anyway.
So anyway- DON'T OVER THINK any of it. You are just taking the first step towards finding yourself and there will be many more- and probably in directions you can't see yet- until your journey is more complete. It may never really end.