Hi everyone!
I'm Laura. This is my first time stepping into any transgender community, although I have watched from a distance for some time. After reading through so many of the different posts on here, about the separate struggles and joys we each are having, it has really moved me to open up and share my particular situation. I would love to hear your feedback and advice... and I apologize for the length of the post!
You see, I am a state college student planning to major in engineering upon admission to a University, hopefully next spring. To paint the entire picture, I have a 3.8 GPA, currently with a 4.0 in my STEM courses, and have actually already been accepted to FIT with a merit scholarship. I have an incredible wife and two children: a handsome and very intelligent boy preschooler, and an adorable girl toddler. My return to college at the age of 25 was preempted by five years of marriage. After struggling financially for five years, getting laid off three separate times over the course of the recession, my wife and I decided one of us should go to college. Since my wife was finding work easier than I was, I was the choice, and now I'm almost two years in on a 4 year degree.
Of course my main issue, what makes this so complicated and which is what brought me to this site, is that I am transgendered. This is an issue I have recently come to terms with, although it is something I've always known. I have been dressing secretly since I can recall, and, in my teen years, between thoughts of suicide, because I knew my family wouldn't accept this, I was seriously considering running away from home and trying to transition on my own.The problem is that I come from a very fundamentalist background, Jehovah's Witnesses. If I had not grown up in this religion, I probably would have transitioned a long time ago
. I've always known I was a woman inside, and as a teenager, I was always thinking and searching about how I might make it a reality. Yet, being raised as a fundamentalist Christian, I knew I would loose every person I cared about if I tried, and so another part of me would tell me to just try and let it go, that it was all in my head, and that God could help me remove these desires if I truly relied on him.
Well, long story short, in the name of this goal, I got baptized, started doing more in the religion, became a minister, made lots of "friends" within the fold, and eventually got married and had kids. And of course, during this time, God did not change me one iota, I still felt and did the same things, struggled with deep depression and thoughts of suicide, but I hid them very well.
However, I also knew I would not be able to hide these things from my wife, so I made sure I spoke to her about my identity issues while we were dating. But the icing on the cake was when I assured her that, as an active minister in the congregation, I had brought these feelings under control and was no longer really interested in anything but life as a man. This was true to an extant then, but I know now I was fooling myself, and by extension, her. We had originally planed to become missionaries in South America after getting married. Yet things changed drastically over the next five years. While we were still just engaged, I was severely reprimanded, stripped of my title and all privileges and very nearly expelled from the congregation, due to getting drunk one night with an old friend (just drunk, no sex or anything else involved
). The disciplinary action destroyed my credibility within the church and, in turn, destroyed our plans of doing missionary work. This was a major blow to my self-confidence and the mask I had been trying to wear over the course of my young-adulthood. Major depression crashed through me.
Distraught and confused, I still didn't really recognize that it was time for me to do some soul-searching. I was too concerned with picking up the pieces of my mistaken identity. When I was "reproved" publicly in the congregation, it very slowly became clear that my "friends" were no longer interested in being around me. However, my fiance stuck with me through these rough times, and she became my one most loyal and real friend, and so we got married. The first four years of our marriage was us buying a house, having kids, losing the house (due to the economy and job loss), and other marriage issues (including my wife not always understanding the occasional cross-dressing thing and her husband's feminine side, crossing her fingers, and hoping it gets better). All the while, we were also coming to terms with being social outcasts in the religion in which we both grew up. I often think it was also because people got the sense that, I just was not the same person I had presented to them throughout my late-teen years.
It took four years of soul-searching, finally severing all ties (friends, family, and otherwise) with that painful religion, and returning to college before I finally could say that I truly and unabashedly understood who I was, for really the first time in my life, at age 25. The full realization of the path I had been on the past ten years of my life and the course I was on previously in my teens, hit me earlier this year: I am a woman. I always have been inside. I was on a road to change before I became seriously involved with that religion. Now that I've left it, I know I am still that same frightened little girl I was at fifteen. The only difference is that I am no longer confused about it. Also, I have a wife and kids. Ok. Seriously BIG difference
.
As I said, my wife has known since the beginning about my feminine side. However, she has never been particularly supportive of it. She has been supportive of the fact that I deal with these feelings, but has consistently tried to discourage them. Which, of course, I understand. She's always liked me because I'm sensitive. She often compares me to JD on that TV show Scrubs. But she has, typically and understandably, not wanted to see me dress or even talk further with me on these issues.
Yet, I knew when I came to my recent realization, I would have to talk with her about it, and eventually I let her know. She cried, and she tried to talk me out of it. She called me selfish, and we both ended up sobbing together a few times because of it. The first few nights, after putting the kids to bed, we would try to talk, but she would begin to cry, and then I would, and all we could really do was cry. She didn't want to hear any more at all. When we did begin to talk a few nights later, she became angry and began viciously insulting me
.
The process has hurt, but as I said, she is my best friend, and now we have come to a point where we have really been able to start talking about the future and I have finally been able to open up and really show her what has been hidden under my rough exterior. Right now we are still working on where the relationship is going. I'd like to continue to see things through. I am not attracted to men, I am in love with her. Yet she is unsure of whether she would be able to watch me go through the transition. And we are concerned about the children and how it will affect their lives. We are also both concerned about my schooling and career. We both have wondered things like, "What type of environment is the engineering field for a transwoman? What difficulties can I expect from the colleges I go to and the employers I will work for? Will I even be taken seriously during my transition?"
Either way, I intend to move forward with my transition. I know now that it is something I will do at some point in my life because it is something I will never just "get over." And why wait any longer, living life in either complete numbness or the depression I feel now, until it is impossible for me to pass, when I can finally move forward now?
I feel enormous guilt over putting my wife and children through this. I believe i should feel guilty. But I really cannot not do this. I can't continue any longer as a man.
I am also just unsure where to go from here. I know I should probably get counseling (even though I really feel I don't need it), but I have no insurance and I have no idea who to go to or where to look. As far as coming out, I have only spoken with one other person aside from my wife, but I really don't have many others to come out to. Out of my family, I am only still in contact with my little brother and and my father, who are actually both gay. I spoke to my brother and he was very understanding, but for some reason, I think it will be much harder for me to come out to my dad. Kinda strange right? Other than that, there is my wife's family. They will be very difficult to come out to. And I'm not sure if we should say anything to our preschool age son yet, or how we should handle that.
I am looking for advice, support, and some friends to share this journey with. I am so excited to be introducing myself to all of you and I look forward to getting to know you all.
