Ummm, ok. When I first discovered online chat rooms (IRC and suchlike) - it was about 15 years ago or smth, I had a habit from time to time to chat under female nicknames. I just found that to be funny and looking back now, I cannot imagine how I was never found out. Those guys must have been blind. Anyway, I did not really identify as a woman back then (I suspected that I was most probably transsexual but had very little understanding of nature of that phenomenon, apart of knowledge that transsexuals wished to be born into the opposite gender (just like I did), and undergo several surgeries (something which I never considered possible in my case). So, that was rather a kink... or maybe a way to find some sort of relief. Funny, but those memories about IRC chatting were somehow suppressed and I only recalled them when started to think about my experience in online communities.
Now, the online gaming. I used to be an active gamer but I did not play online games. Yet, when I started and chose the MMORPG, my first alt was female... Just because I thought it would be fun and because everybody knows that all those female alts are run by guys behind keyboards. But I have to say, I did enjoy that experience, although many other guys were running female alts and we used Team Speak and it was fairly obvious who was who.
And then, I read about Second Life and something very very strange clicked in my head. I dont really remember if that was one of triggers or it just coincided with some other events going on, but it was a matter of few days when I had nicely looking female alt, had made several male and female acquaintances and nobody ever had a clue. I kept socialising and learning about world of Second Life and did many things of which I am ashamed now, but still nobody ever got clue... I was making female girlfriends who kept telling me things which usually are not being told to guys and it really felt being accepted there. Except, it created such a huge gap between online life and reality that all this deeply repressed dysphoria just broke out of its iron cage and I was standing there with no coping mechanisms left, wide-eyed with terror because I could not understand what was happening. It was a matter of days as I started online research and kept reading about GD, transsexualism and realised that everything is just beginning.
So, in a sense, when I used online escape mechanisms, I did not really identify as a woman, but they helped me to overcome some inner barriers and realise who I really was.
And then, I was using Second Life as some sort of training grounds to figure out how to deal with guys in a safe environment. And I was never clocked
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