I knew I was different as a small child. I was taught to repress it early on. Yay private religious schools.
I had it suppressed at age 15 through what were very likely testosterone shots, after which I couldn't really even think clearly, but was convinced by local religious leadership that I was cured. I went to college, fell in love, and was eventually married.
At age 32, the old urges had been back for a few years. I was interviewing folks for a new engineering position on our team, and one of the candidates was a transwoman with an unfortunate 5 O'clock shadow problem that showed by the end of the all-day interview marathon. While talking with her, I had a thought erupt in the back of my mind; "She's so brave. I wish I could do that." Sneaky subconscious dropped the T-bomb on me!
So, at that point I knew. With a wife and two young children, I suppressed it as best I could, burying it deep. I occasionally cross-dressed, purged, and held off for a year or two, but It always came roaring back. After 30 years, it wouldn't leave me alone any more, and the depression deepened to suicidal depths. That's when I called a hotline and got therapy, and when I cam out to my SO.
30 years of suppressing what I explicitly knew I was. 30 years of deliberate hiding behind a male persona. Folks, just because it was possible for me to do this doesn't make it a good idea. There's so much damage from this to both myself, and from blowing up decades of what others thought I was.
In retrospect I so wish I had come out earlier. I wish there had been real treatment for me in childhood, rather than nasty stuff like conversion therapy (Electroconvulsive followed by aversion therapy was offered to my parents to 'fix' me. Mom didn't want that, I think.)
But those are all wishes, and I can't change the immutable past. I have to move on from now, what I am now. What I can do is serve as a warning to others.
