Request for help understanding myself please

[thecalmconfused]

Hi Everyone,

First post, hope it's in the correct section, so please be gentle, and I apologise for the length of the post in advance.  Little hard to know where to start, but after having spent a fair bit of time "lurking" and searching in forums and google in general, attempting to piece together a comparable set of circumstances, mindsets etc. from other posts, to try and figure out what's going on in my head, I thought I'd try and put together a summary which hopefully people might be able to help me interpret or give insight to that I might be overlooking.

So to cut a long story short, I'm pretty sure I'm trans to some degree and in some variation, but beyond that, I struggle to define it any further.

I'm in my 30's, with a loving family, a large group of varied and awesome male and female friends, a loving wife of 3 years (we've been together for 8 years), a job I'm happy enough with, and (not in my own words) I'm a pretty happy, friendly, caring person to be around.  I would say I don't really have too much complain about.

I've always been a somewhat less blokey bloke than a number of people I know...I'm quite empathic and a good listener, not particularly confrontational, have never been interested in things like football (playing or watching), but I do still tick a lot of boxes.  I'm a petrolhead, I enjoy computer games etc., I guess I'm competitive when I'm in the right mood, and no one would ever call me "camp" in terms of mannerisms, voice etc..  Externally I'm just a guy.  I'm 100% hetero, I've only ever had girlfriends (and my wife now), and have never been interested in men "that way", be they straight or otherwise.

So now I've got the bit I understand out the way, here's the rest....

I've dabbled with cross-dressing for years on and off.  It's always been a private thing, which I think started around the age of 10 or 11.  The earlier instances involved things like my Mum's bras and a couple of dresses/skirts.  In my teens, I bought a few items of my own, mostly underwear based, if for no other reason, it kept the size of the private stash down, and made it possible to occasionally wear out of the house with minimal risk of discovery.

I moved into my own place in my early 20's, and the stash remained....Small, but ever present.  I'd sometimes go a few months without feeling the need, then other times, it would be 3 times in a week.  Some of the time, it was maybe what you'd call a fetish thing, so say stockings/suspenders and some *ahem* pleasuring, so for probably the last 10 or even 15 years, I've just chalked it up to that, and not thought much more of it.  But on reflection, there's been quite a few other times when, for example, I wore a nightie when sleeping that night or even just pottering about at home, or a pair of tights under my jeans when going out for the day.  At times like this, there was very little sexual reasoning behind it, it just made me feel all warm and relaxed inside.  I don't think I thought into it too much because of the way it made me feel.

That's been the status quo for a long while.

Recently, I found out someone I know (not that well) is MTF.  I found her attractive before knowing this (I'm only a "window-shopper", and very faithful to my wife), and when I found out, if anything, I'm now finding her more attractive in my mind.  This sparked off many hours of reading things on the Internet.  This isn't the first time this has happened in my life.  15 years ago, someone I knew as Male initially started going through a MTF transition, and while there was no attraction there before or after, again at the time, I spent quite some time reading up on the internet.  I do this a lot with many things as I just like to understand stuff, but I've noted that the time I spent/spend on this subject is a bit more than average.  I've always found myself extremely accepting of the concept of transgender/transsexual from even a young age, and have been surprised over the years about the relative lack of understanding and acceptance from even close friends that are very open-minded on many other subjects.

What my recent run of research has turned up that has caught me completely offguard, is that I've read a question asked in a number of different ways, but to paraphrase..."If you could press a button, and choose to be the opposite physical sex, but with your life and friends developed pretty much the same way, and with complete acceptance, would you?".  The first time I read it, it took me maybe 3 seconds to answer "yes" in my head.  Having re-hashed that question in my head several times since, the answer is the same.  Even as I'm typing it now, I'm getting a sort of mild nervousness washing over me while thinking about it, but the answer is the same.

I can't explain why.  I'm happy as a man, at least by every measure I apply to myself in everyday life.  I'm a bit overweight, but I'm content with that.  I've never even come close to disliking my man parts, but in the back of my mind, I know I'd prefer to be a woman.  The closest thing to depression I've ever suffered was a couple of months following the loss of my Dad to cancer, where I became very down, insomnia bouts etc..  But that was only 10 years ago, long after what I describe above started, and after a couple of months it subsided, and I went back to being myself.

I've always been thought of as a cornerstone of logic, support and reasoning by my friends with quotes like "the most stable one of the lot of us", and being quite self-analytical, I'd be inclined to agree.  If I am in fact suffering from any sort of dysphoria, it's not something I've picked up on to any degree in my life.  And yet I can't shake this thought in the back of my head.  And now that I think of it, I've had flashes of the same feeling for years.  Very fleeting, no particular emotional after-effect other than perhaps a very minor feeling of sadness or disappointment.  But it's there.

Another thing my resarch led me to, was some before/after MTF picture threads.  I found myself getting unexpectedly emotional over a few of these.  Hard to describe, but the best attempt at putting it into words is that I found myself feeling very happy for the people in the pictures, but also somewhat in awe of what they'd achieved, with maybe just a tiny hint of envy.

That's about all I can think of at the moment.  I apologise if I've made any unwanted generalisations/stereotyping etc., and/or presented info that seems completely out of place. 

This is just me brain-dumping a collection of things that I feel might be relevant/helpful to any onlooker wanting to have a stab at re-shuffling this information into something more meaningful.

Thanks in advance for any comments...I of course welcome questions etc.

[Ms Grace]

Hi!

Welcome to Susan's    Great to have you here - looking forward to seeing you around the forum.

It is fairly common for many trans people that the transition of someone else can spark a number of connections about themselves that they previously hadn't understood. If you want to explore your gender identity further perhaps finding a therapist who can guide you in that process would be helpful.

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Cheers

Grace

[Dena]

Welcome to Susan's Place. The transgender flag has many things under it including crossdresser, gender fluid gender queer and transsexual. I am the last one and had my surgery 33 years ago. The way this works is only you can tell us what you are but we will help you find the information to determine it. Therapy is needed but you can start with youtube and  look at "the transition channel" and that will give you the basics language to examine yourself and to talk with us. View the videos and then post any questions you might have on this thread. If can we will answer your questions for you.

[thecalmconfused]

Hi Both,

Thanks very much for the replies and welcomes.

Grace, thanks, gender therapy is on the to-do list and is something I've started looking into, because I do think it'll help me better understand myself, though I guess at this stage, as mentioned in my post, while things might change, I'm essentially happy now, at least when I compare myself to some of the daily conflicts people are posting about both on this site and others, so I'm not feeling a huge urgency at the moment.

Dena, I found the transition channel a week or so ago, but have re-watched a lot of the videos based on your suggestion, so thanks.

I guess at this stage, the main things that doesn't make sense to me is that a lot of the behaviour and feelings I'm calling into question would, based on majority definition, place me squarely in the ->-bleeped-<-/cross-dresser category, but for the fact that I can sit here right now, and quite rationally think that if I could wake up tomorrow as a woman, that I would because I'd prefer that.  Again based on majority definition, that would tend to suggest I'm transgender to a reasonable degree in order to be reasonably certain of that mindset....Yet aside from the very minor negative emotional effect I've mentioned before, I'm struggling to pin any aspect of my personality against the very common dysphoria that regularly and often severely comes up in other peoples journeys through ->-bleeped-<- of one form or another.  That's of course not to say I would willingly invite the kind of feelings many others clearly experience, but I am finding myself wondering why I don't feel that way when so many others do, which is causing me to question the transgender status...And so on...

The main reason for my post was an attempt to find out if my scenario is common or not based on the wealth of experience in this community, and any other insight people are willing to offer up to me.  This part of my brain is not one I've typically spent much time analysing before, so I'm learning a lot as I've been trawling the internet.

Thanks again.

[Dena]

Cross dressing is common to all areas of transgender. It's what makes me think we have much in common with all the other variations no matter were we are. Transsexualism is as far away from CIS as possible because we want all of the opposite genders lifestyle. Crossdressing, fluid and queer are somewhere in between wanting most but not everything a transsexual would want. All of us feel some degree of discomfort with our body but the main difference is the other groups have found a way of coping with the feelings without having everything. There are two factors to consider, gender identity and sexual preference. Answer two questions for me.
Who do you want to go to bed as - gender identity 
Who do you want to go to bed with - sexual preference.
Now your sexual preference and outside interest have nothing to do with your gender identity. Post surgically we can be gay, straight, bi or asexual. A woman can work on a car, fly a plane, run a business and the list goes on and on. It all about how you feel your body should appear. Pretty much all of us don't feel like we are a woman trapped in a mans body but we wish our body was a woman's. Post surgically that view changes to we are comfortable in our own skin no matter what we are wearing. We don't have that wrong feeling that you currently have.

As I said before you have to decide where your are comfortable in the world. From my point of view I see nothing you said so far that would make me think you aren't transsexual. You tell the classic story that all of us tell.

[thecalmconfused]

So to answer your questions:

Bed as...Woman.  I'm happy going to bed as a man, and I may not think about it consciously from one week/month to the next, but give me a choice, and yes, woman every time.  It's just better.

Bed with.  Also woman.

I guess what I'm seeing as a difference between me and many others (and therefore what's confusing me) is that a lot people's stories talk about an explicit need to change, whereas the way my mind handles and seems to interpret this gender identity stuff is definitely something I see as a preference or an ideal, rather than something I absolutely must do.  I suppose that's just the nature of the sliding scale involved here.

When I think back, it's always been the same preference, so my mind is apparantly made up on the subject, but for whatever reason, it doesn't seem to have ever affected me in a way where the fact I'm playing out the "non ideal" physical sex is causing me anything beyond minor infrequent emotional upset, at least not up to this point in my life anyway, and there were some ups and downs in my life in my early 20's that had the potential to trigger more of a reaction.

Sorry if any of this just seems really obvious to any of you, but this is the first time I've specifically, consciously taken a step back and tried to make sense of things.

[Dena]

Many of us struggle along in our birth gender more comfortable there because of the fear of the transition. It isn't easy and for 2-3 year it will consume you. The other issue is the trans feeling varies. Sometimes it can be overpowering and other times it fades into the background. The worst times are when you have nothing to keep you busy and the best times are when you are so busy you don't have time to think. There is know doubt in my mind about you being transgender as you have found this site. The only question I have is what you need to feel comfortable in life. Options include cross dressing, gender bending, living full time without surgery or going all the way and having surgery. If you can't answer that question now, therapy will help you answer it.

There is the binary world where you are male or female and then there is the non binary world where you are a mix of both. I brought much of the male side of me into the new me but I am comfortable with a female only identity. It is possible you are comfortable in both worlds putting you in the non binary world. It might be you are more female than male which could suggest living full time or surgery and staying more female than male. On the other hand you could be more on the male side. As before you are the one to decide where you will be comfortable in life. This isn't always a yes/no answer but can often be a sliding scale.

[CarlyMcx]

In terms of determining where you fit on the gender spectrum, it has been said that crossdressers are usually happy to go back to being a guy after the end of a crossdressing session, wheras transgenders tend to vary from sad to disappointed to outright crying when they have to put the men's clothing back on.

The other big question is whether you have any body dysphoria -- in other words, are there any male parts of your body you dislike, and are there any parts you wish were more female or feminine.

To give but one example, I started shaving off my pubic hair and belly hair the minute it started growing in, and I took up bicycle racing just so I could shave my legs.  And I've wished I had boobs ever since my late teens.

Finding the answers to these questions (and being comfortable with them) should help you to understand yourself better.