First off, I want to thank anyone who takes the time to read this. I know I am new to your community and I am just barging in here asking for input without having participated yet. I am having a hard time processing my personal feelings and I am not ready to go to people I know in real life about them. I hope some of you will take the time to give me some feedback, but if you aren't able to I understand.
Second, before I start I want to commend all of you trans folks on this board for your bravery in having the courage to be yourself. I have never met a trans person in real life (that I know of) and I have always wanted to tell them that. Those who have had the courage to be who they are.....that takes more guts than most things on this Earth. It is absolutely amazing. Just the act of being true to yourself in this setting shows amazing strength. When you feel discouraged, remember that you are amazingly strong.
Now for why I am posting this message. Here goes. I don't really know where to start but I will try and keep it as brief as possible. We'll see how that goes.
My name is Joe and I am, outwardly, a pretty standard 30 year old heterosexual male. I work in a male-dominated industry (sports), I have a girlfriend, I love watching and playing sports, beer, concerts, etc. My deep dark secret, as you may have guessed, is that I have.....lets say a pretty strong feminine side. I'd almost describe her as an alter ego, and I call her Jessica.
I can remember sneaking into my sister's room and cross dressing from a very early age. I would wear bathing suits, skirts, dresses, hose, etc. Sometimes when I was feeling really brave I would let Jessica out for an entire night and wear hose and panties underneath my sweats when I went to sleep. I was always enthralled by girls, the way they talk, the way they see the world, the way they dress....everything about being a girl. Sometimes as a kid I used to fantasize as I went to sleep that I would wake up as a girl. But that wasn't a constant. Jessica wasn't a constant. I grew up to be a relatively normal boy....playing sports....dating girls....etc. And I didn't constantly feel a nagging or anything. I was pretty comfortable in my own skin.
As I got older the feelings didn't go away, but they subsided a bit. I discovered the internet and my porn would be sites like fictionmania. I would still cross dress or fantasize a lot, but I always pretty easily fell back into my "normal" male self. Jessica was a part of me, but not to the point that I was getting depressed. In fact I was quite happy as a boy. I read about transgender folks online and I read that people who were transgendered felt a constant nagging.....a constant depression....they never felt comfortable in their own skin. I decided that I wasn't transgender because, even though I fantasized about being a girl.....I was still happy and able to function as a boy. It wasn't an all-encompassing feeling. I decided that it was just a kink of mine, and I was not a "woman trapped in a man's body" as it is so often described.
Without going into too much detail, because this is super long already, my life mostly progressed like that. I graduated college, and I got a job. I would continue to fantasize and let Jessica out (although now that I wasn't at home with access to women's clothes I cooled it on the cross dressing), but otherwise led a standard male life. I had a close female friend who was a very accepting individual that I would fantasize about telling my secret to and she would help me dress and do makeup and we would hang out as girls from time to time in my fantasy. I very easily could have done that and that is probably exactly how it would have turned out. But I never had the courage.
Anyway, that has pretty much continued until recently (the last 6-9 months). The part of me that is Jessica has been on my mind more and more often. She is starting to assert herself more and more, and is becoming more of a constant presence. It is getting to the point where I am more and more constantly aware of this part of me, and constantly thinking about it. At work I think about how the job would be if I were a woman. When I am out I see the women at the bars and think about what it would be like to be them. I fall asleep thinking about that fantasy I used to have of coming out to my close female friend (who is now married and living in a different state). Where in the past I could put that part of me on the backburner in the back of my mind for long periods of time, now I can't do that. It is something I am constantly aware of. This has just started the last six to nine months.
As part of that, it has (very slowly) gotten me to start questioning my lifelong assumption that this is just a kink. I have started to seek out articles and message board posts that contain the stories of actual people who have gone through transition.....and I am learning that some folks stories are more like mine. They maybe were very comfortable in their own skin, even happy, but they just didn't feel fully content. I am seeing there is more grey area sometimes than I thought. People don't necessarily feel an overwhelming yearning constantly all the time. One day, in the last couple weeks, I was reading one of these stories (I think it was about Vivienne Ming) and I just had a thought pop into my head "Wait, am I trans?" Up until this time, I had never really had that thought seriously before....since I was a kid I had always just thought of it as a kink. But as these thoughts continue to get stronger and stronger in me, and I become more and more constantly aware of my thoughts and feelings, I have started to wonder if maybe it isn't just a sexual kink. Maybe I am trans and have just used this to deny it to myself. That said, I am still comfortable as a man. I have led a pretty successful life thus far....and I am able to function quite well. So I don't know.
Honestly, no matter what my final conclusion is, I doubt I have the balls (or lack thereof haha) to actually do anything about it. But regardless, before I can even start to entertain those thoughts....I have to figure myself out.
So I guess my question for this board is....what was your experience? How did fully discover/admit to yourself you are trans? Was it a constant feeling since birth? Do people commonly compartmentalize it like I have described and not come to terms with it until later in life? Or is the fact that I have been able to push it into the back of my brian kind of make it sound like my original thoughts.....just a kink. Has anyone else had a similar experience?
Thank you again for taking time to read my novel
Just writing it out and putting it out there in public, even with the anonymity, has been very therapeutic. To anyone who has gotten this far thank you!
Much love,
Joe/Jessica
