Hi all, a newbie here and hoping to talk out my feelings before/if I take things further and hopefully get some constructive ideas from people here. This is my first post and sorry in advance for the length of it.
So I'm 38, and appear to all to be a tall athletic and reasonably good looking man. For most of my life though I haven't felt that the way I present myself really reflects who I actually am.
Some of my earliest nonstandard gender conforming (sorry not sure how to word this) memories happened around the ages 6 to 10.
Wearing my sister's mascara and being told I was weird for it by my siblings.
Having some preference for feminine toys. I had a Butterbear teddy (bear girl) from The Wuzzles, anyone remember that show?
Not really enjoying any typically boyish activities, football, climbing trees etc instead I liked to enjoy drawing and especially using my imagination, beyond that I did play with toys that matched my given gender.
I wouldn't say I was coddled by my mother but she was very kind. I do remember her saying more than once when I was young that with my eyelashes and features I should have been a girl.
I was often teased for being a "sissy" because I would often cry when bullied. I have quite an effeminate way of running which I was bullied about too, even to today I'm quite conscious about that.
Growing up and even now I didn't/don't ever feel like I fitted in when there is a group of males at a social gathering (and I'm expected to join them). Often while I was younger I would kinda hang out with the ladies there... I'm still like that in the workplace a group of guys chatting? No thanks I'll avoid that. Mixed gender group or just women? that's fine with me.
Another thing I've noticed of myself now that I think about it is how I react to compliments. If someone tells me I'm good looking (ie as a man) I get really embarrassed and don't know how to act, wouldn't most guys gain confidence/swagger from something like that? Anyways..
As a teenager I started dressing whenever I could, keeping it hidden. I'd wear my mum's stuff, occasionally my sister's too, with teenage hormones coursing through my body I found it very exciting. I had a couple close calls people coming home early etc. One day I heard my parents come in, I was feeling and looking rather pretty and very nearly bottled up the courage to go downstairs and show them who I really was.... I didn't.
After I left school, I was steered into a "real job" by my dad and one of my brothers working on for a road engineering firm as a trainee engineer. I hated it, I was bullied for my wimpy ways. I had to "man up", at this time too opportunities to dress up were becoming very rare. I almost never had any time at home alone. It was a few years later that I discovered a dressing service about an hours drive away, despite my nerves and the expense I would visit several times a year, every time I left it was like I was floating on air, I was happy for those few hours and then bump back down to reality.
I wanted to tell my parents my secret and was slowly building the courage to do it when a conversation with my mum about my eldest brother stopped me in my tracks. He is gay and openly so but my mum and dad were very old fashioned and really struggled with this, she said that "it broke her heart that he was gay". I knew she thought I was too -nope, but I was certain that she wouldn't be able to deal with my gender issues. I loved her and so resolved to bury it... I couldn't although I tried.
That conversation if I remember rightly happened when I was 20 or 21, over the next few years I tried to be "normal". I started socializing with some male acquaintances, going to clubs and drinking quite heavily, it was an escape or a lie I guess, a lie I started to believe.
I think that it was around then I started suffering from mild/mid depression lack of opportunity to dress, occasional purging. I felt lousy... when presenting as a male I didn't really make much effort to keep well groomed (although I was clean) and pretty much lived in track suit bottoms and baggy t-shirts. This pretty unhealthy way to live went on for years.
Fortunately, after having one failed relationship with a girl from work, I met another girl who eventually became my wife. I was honest with her from the start, I told her that I was (as I perceived it at the time) a transvestite. She was tolerant rather than encouraging and so I kept my dressing to a bare minimum, a pair of knickers here or some lippy there, never the works, this went on for years barely expressing my feminity.
Then sadly my parents died within 3 years of each other. I became very depressed and really struggled to come to terms with it -it took around a year and a half to fully get over the loss. If I could do it all again I hope I'd be brave enough to tell them everything instead of hiding who I really am.
My feelings about myself as a person and my body started to come to the fore. I started to feel dysphoria toward my body although initially I didn't link it to me potentially being transgender. When I think about how I feel about myself and being outwardly male I feel indifferent rather than completely disgusted or uncomfortable with my appearance... I remember thinking around a year ago that I was unhappy with my appearance, I was around 2 stones overweight, I lost it and gained a bit of muscle but I still wasn't happy.
I also stopped drinking totally and now have a much clearer mind. Additionally an other reason I feel this is more than a sexual kink is that over the last month or two I've been experiencing a low libido, yet the desire to dress is as strong as ever.
At Christmas I got an electric shaver to save on razors (unfortunately I'm rather hairy). On a whim I told my wife I wanted to go smooth, she wasn't keen on the idea firstly because she likes my body hair and second she was worried how we would explain my sudden smoothness. With it being winter though it was very unlikely anyone would see those formerly hairy areas of me. I loved it my legs looked so long and feminine and my chest and tummy so androgynous. I agreed to grow it back for the summer, I mean how do you explain your way out of this when people around you have noted how hairy you are?
Since then I've been dressing fully as a female at least twice a week and building a little wardrobe in the process. I feel so relaxed and happy when I do.
Now the idea of further feminizing my body occupy most of my idle thinking and I hate going back to my male clothes.
I could probably keep living as a man, most people would have no idea -a female work colleague once described me as a very masculine man ( if only she knew)- but clearly I'm not cisgender otherwise I wouldn't be thinking this way. It almost feels like I'm sleepwalking through life.
Anybody have any advice/ suggestions? Can anyone relate to any of this? Thank you so much for reading this. xx
