By way of introduction, a few facts about me that are pertinent to the situation in which I find myself:
I was assigned male sex at birth.
I am somewhere in the high functioning zone of the autism landscape and in most cases "pass" for neuro-typical.
I married a lesbian ten years ago, but neither she nor I knew that at the time.
My SO has no interest in being with a person assigned a male sex at birth, regardless of any future physical changes.
My SO is dating other people.
That all being said, I am now in the most confusing place in my life I may have yet been. I have lived as a cis-male my entire life, and it is only now that I am aware of my transgender nature. I am sure there were signs as a child. I did sneak into my mothers closet when she was away and try on her clothes. I did not participate in anything physical if I could possibly avoid it, despite a family environment (fundamentalist Christians in Texas) which valued that highly. I was always intrigued by queer narratives. I have been programming video games and playing them since I was a child and always had female avatars unless I feared social consequences.
The honest truth is, I have an unusual brain. Oftentimes for me my emotions seem like they are a puzzle I am trying to understand rather than something I am feeling directly. Other people's emotions are vivid and overpowering, but my own are so distant and foreign to me. I find myself often sitting and literally asking myself in my head how I am or should be feeling in this situation, what is the appropriate display of emotion, what is the correct tone. So you can understand (or maybe you can't) it would come as a complete surprise to me when I came across some media about transgender identity over the past couple of years, and the emotional response in me was palpable and immediate. It was like there was this portal in my head where all the feelings about my assigned gender were locked methodically away throughout my life and even as I type this I am tearing up a bit.. and that isn't something I normally do, because I don't normally feel my own emotions strong enough to do that.. other people, or characters in movies yes.. but not my own feelings.
I feel like there's this person, this person who is me, who has been beaten and locked in a closet our whole life, and every time she started to reveal the slightest hint of being herself someone or something smacked her back down. It's like all this pain I didn't know I was feeling was locked up in there and I don't know how to process it. I'm reliving all of the moments in my life when I was told who I was "supposed" to be and now they all feel like needles and I'm the pin-cushion.
Up until now, I have never felt the acute identity crisis which I have read accounts from others about. I did not feel comfortable in my body, I did not feel comfortable with what role I had in relationships, or what social norms I was pushed to conform to, but I was not aware of the pain. Now I find myself thinking about it all the time.
Shortly before I joined this board, maybe three hours ago or so, I walked through the mall. My SO is living in another city than me half time, so it is the first time I even pondered shopping for clothing for myself. Until this I never cared what I wore. Now I find myself walking through a women's clothing store and feeling a mix of so many emotions. Part of me terrified, feeling like a criminal for even being there. Part of me imagining how I would want to look in those clothes, and that picture in my head making me almost want to cry. Part of me is looking at myself and feeling all that happiness just drain out of me.
I feel like I am trapped in the body of a troll, and even the idea of sex with a woman is disturbing to me right now, not because of the woman, but because I would be a man having sex with a woman. Being a woman having sex with a woman however.... quite another story.
The funny thing is, my wife told me, after she came out as a lesbian, that she thought the reason she picked me was because I looked so much like a woman.
I don't see it. The other funny thing is that when she came out I felt relieved in the same sort of vivid way. On the inside I feel like a petite woman. On the outside I am confronted with a 6'3" 170lb hairy thing.
So I find myself here, because I want to understand what is happening, and I don't feel that I know enough about the subject to process it properly.
If I could, I would upload my consciousness into an appropriate female body in a heartbeat. I feel like even with all that science can offer me now, I would never feel like me.. it is so confusing.
