Hello all! Pleased to make your aquaintences... I guess I'll just cut right to the quick and then ramble from there. I'm A 36 year old bio male from the Boston area. I guess why I have come here is because I have reached the point where having to associate my identity with anything remotely male has become utterly unbearable. As a friend on another forum recently put it, it is like I've been riding a bicycle up an enormous hill for the last 30 some odd years. I have just crested that hill and am coasting along a short plateau, picking up speed. I know I need others around me as I head for that exhilarating drop that I have waited so long for. Because if I try to go it alone I fear that I might fall and find myself walking up that old big hill again.
Ok, enough metaphor. I know the value of community, even online, because I reached this point with the help of many many others. It started almost four years ago when I admitted to being an alcoholic. My brother told me that although I am independant and prone to going solo, getting sober would require more help then he or my folks would be able to give. I learned what he meant when I found a site, a forum, that could help me. All those shared struggles eased the strain of getting sober.
A year or so later and I was enough past that first wall of denial to be able to see the next, the first reason I'd had to stay drunk. I'm asexual. That was a revelation that helped me feel so much less alone. I found the online arm of the ace visibility movement, another forum, signed on. For the first time I found out that there realy are folks like me. That was a couple years back now and my self esteem has skyrocketed!
The asexual forums are very open and understanding, they are highly conducive to self exploration. Meanwhile, I was still secretly dressing in apropriate clothing, feeling shame and hiding that shame. I explored an option I had semi considered back ar the onset of puberty. Perhaps I'm not female nor male. After much thought and more familiar patterns I knew this wasn't so.
So I waited again, continued on in my discomfort. Last November, I was house sitting for my boss and I of course began to explore my gender thoughts. I watched a documentary on trans folk and every back story revealed by the four subjects rang so true to me that by the conclusion I was having panic attacks and crying everywhere. So I did some shopping and got what I needed for winter and to take up jogging. When I placed the order And when I got the stuff, I wished they weren't men's clothes.
Fast forward to now and I'm house sitting again, two months of solitude plus tons of time off work. It was in this cocoon of solitude, as I was yet again looking at the women's section of an online retailer that I just added thing to my cart, pressed "purchase" and confirm. I was gonna do a final test. A coupke days later I had a whole pretty outfit. My first that wasn't stolen or borrowed surreptitiously. When I dressed, as always, I felt like me. And that was it, I had crested the hill. I posted in a trans thread I had been studiously avoiding and watching in the asexual forum and was met with tons of suport. During the next few days I was having a gay old time, shopping online and buying more and more. I found a real world support group that I intend to go meet. I made an appointment with a therapist, saying "gender issues" to the receptionist was the first time I'd said anything outloud to anyone. I have been semi appropriately dressed for most of a week, waiting on more packages. My old clothes feel foreign, always have, but it seems so much more visceral now. I don't know how I'm going to go back to wearing them at work. I have bought some things, pants etc. that I might be able to sift in. I have always had items like women's work pants that I bought unwittingly and only hide when people point out my "error ". So, baby steps...
So, that's it, more than enough to start with. I have always known I'm female and now I've begun the road to the procedures and opperations that can make that happen in full concert. I hope too to be a valuable contributor to these forums. I don't just want support, I would very much like to give it as well. Can't wait to meet y'all!
