Hi! On the internet, I'm Sarah. I'm almost 40 and live in Australia, and haven't come out to anyone but doctors and therapists.
Forgive the big wall of text, but I thought I'd introduce my situation:
I knew since about the age of 7 that I wasn't a boy the way the other boys were, and they could tell. By the age of 10 I had told kids that I wasn't really a boy, but it confused them, and it confused me, because around this region, words like Transgender didn't exist back then. Not at school, not at church, not at home, etc. So I believed that there was something wrong with me, that I was the only person in the world who looked like a boy but didn't think they were really a boy.
Because of violence and so forth, I eventually stopped telling people I wasn't a boy, and so from 11 onward, I did everything I could to be a 'real' boy, and even then, others still thought I must be gay or something because I just didn't do things the way someone was 'supposed' to, so violence and bullying continued.
I guess suicidalness, depression, anxiety attacks, paranoid fear of people seeing the real me, and so on, plagued me until I was 23, when I basically became a recluse. I had tried shaving my head, growing beards, I would ask girls out (ones who I knew would say no, so I wouldn't have to go through with it), and so on, but I just couldn't be like the other men.
It wasn't until about 24 that I first heard of transgender people, and since then I've spent a lot of time reading, researching, listening, and so on.
I think I would call myself a celibate asexual - I'm just not interested in sexuality, which confuses people who think someone has to be straight or gay - and I don't feel a need to transition, so I guess I think of myself as intergendered, or androgyne, or something like that. All I know is, I don't see myself as male, and looking in the mirror is like seeing a mask that someone has superglued over the top of whoever I really am.
I was going to come out to everyone at home and church years ago, and if they couldn't deal with it, go off and start a life of my own. Everyone in my life is HIGHLY religious with all manner of views about the LGBTIQ community. I'm a Christian myself, but for some reason I see a lot of verses differently to the other Christians I know.
But then I got really sick and unwell and almost died. I am now unemployed living on a disability pension from a range of illnesses, and I am looked after by my family. Which means coming out is more complicated - I rely on them to get me to hospital appointments, buy food for me to eat, provide shelter, and so on, and so on... and I have a pretty good friendship relationship with my family, the last thing I want to do is risk breaking that up with things they don't understand.
However, years with a LGBTIQ friendly therapist have now brought me to see that I have rights, and self expression is one of those rights, so I am letting my hair grow, wearing knitwear, wearing jewellery, and so on, gradually expressing myself a little bit at a time.
Transgender issues are a big thing in Australia at the moment, because the Government has introduced anti-bullying and LGBTIQ educational things into the school system, which opened a big can of controversy when Christian lobby groups found out about it. Some people support it, some are against it, and some don't even seem to know what transgender people are if they actually believe the comments and accusations they are making in the media over here.
So I'm hoping that maybe it will be easier to come out once people around my area are openly discussing the issues involved. Anyway, I love this site, and am enjoying reading what everyone has to say and listening to people's discussions. It's nice to feel like I'm not the only person in the world with gender issues.
