SilentRain,
No need to feel so raveled! This is heavy stuff to think about, but important. There are many people who can't confront this aspect of themselves. It's wonderful that you have the courage to do so. Now, on to business:
Firstly, Dorian411 is a drag queen. A very sassy and smart person for sure-but Dorian is not transsexual. They are not a leading authority on gender, and as someone who is probably a bit more educated on the subject than Dorian, I can tell you that there are no requirements for being transgender other than feeling transgender. You don't need to have acted a certain way in your childhood or "cross-dressed" (I despise that term because it only reinforces traditional gender norms), you don't need to have known from the day you were born, and you don't need to fit into somebody else's idea of what gender really is. Wanting to be more feminine is not a reason to transition. But wanting to be female is. And looking at this-dude, you're probably a girl.
Ok, so here's a bit of my own experience as it relates to yours; I hope it can help: I was very very effeminate as a child; between three and six, I played dress-up every day. I would imagine myself as female all of the time. I never consciously realized that what I was doing wasn't "normal", but I think I internalized that on some level. I shut myself off from the world around that time without knowing why. Then, when I was fourteen, I remember looking in the mirror and thinking: "I might look good as a girl". I didn't know why I asked that question then, but it was my mind's way of bringing up the topic in a "safer" way. Things went from there, and when I was sixteen I decided to transition. I waited for two years to do it, and I haven't looked back since. Now back to that inciting moment: When you suppress something major, be it abuse, dysphoria, sexuality, or anything else, it tends to emerge when provoked. And for you, I think someone commenting on your feminine mannerisms was that for you: it wasn't what caused your gender issues, but it allowed your suppressed feelings of dysphoria to surface, albeit only a little. So, #1: It takes time for a stream to become a waterfall, but there is always the same lake behind it.
#2: eighteen is not late at all to discover your identity-there are many people on this site who didn't discover who they were until far later. Eighteen is a perfectly normal age to discover you are transgender. Try not to panic! You're not discovering this late at all. Our world is not kind to transgender people, and it takes a lot of time to come to terms with who and what we are because of that.
#3: Nope. Trans 101: gender and sexuality are completely different things. Some of us are attracted to men. Some of us like girls. I happen to like both. Who you like is totally a different issue!
#4: Also completely untrue. Actually, I ran into something like that, except it wasn't an article-it was the transgender themed episode of south park. That set me back about a year-but I've since realized just how moronic and poorly informed that episode really was. Your identity is an ever-evolving thing, it is that way for all of us. But this isn't something that just goes away. Knowing yourself to be female when you were assigned male at birth isn't something that everyone goes through-you need to start surrounding yourself with some more progressive ideas about what it means to be transgender! I highly recommend Kate Bornstein's "My Gender Workbook". It's thought-provoking, funny, and a really useful tool. Actually, everything she's written could probably help you discover more about yourself. It certainly helped me.
Keep calm and stay strong. You aren't confused, you are transgender. You aren't too old, your childhood wasn't too male, you aren't creating this entire crisis because of some comment you heard in 7th grade. Keep your head high-and feel free to shoot me a message or an email. I didn't know anyone when I was just starting out, and I really wish I had. You have a hard road ahead of you, but the journey will be more rewarding than anything you can imagine.
Best,
Sasha
