This is an interesting topic for me. I think for me, and perhaps others who now identify as transgender, there have been long term consequences, emotional and behavioral, to living in a state of denial or repression. In my case, I think that has expressed itself over time in a number of unfortunate ways. First off, I learned rather early to hide and frankly, to lie, as a means of protecting myself. As my phsychological testing revealed decades later, I have a propensity to lie in order to make myself look better, or more precisely to avoid or deflect criticism. Then there are the baked in flight/fight reactions. I have tended to react to stresses with anger. And I suspect some of the repression of self contributed to compulsive and addictive behaviors, particularly with alcohol and sex. All in all, its not a very flattering self appraisal, and frankly, the impacts on self esteem are probably the worst of many consequences of hiding/denial/repression.
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