Hello.
It's probably past time to post this as I've lurked for quite a bit but never posted anything till recently. Being able to read about other peoples' experiences and seeing the diversity of their stories was important. I've still got miles to go to get where I want to be, but I don't think I would've even been able to start the journey without the courage and example of those who came before me.
Apologies in advance for the long read.
I'm Breanna, or if you wouldn't mind, just Bree please. But I wasn't always Bree. I was, in fact, born Brian.
Most people would've seen me as just a normal boy I think. I loved sports and was good at them. I was fiercely competitive. I liked Math and Science. I played D&D and Magic: The Gathering. Now none of those things are exclusive to male children of course, but that set of interests meant that I certainly seemed to blend in with them well enough. I was also very sensitive and caring and I was a bit of an emotional weather-vane. Well up until that became a liability (at the start of 6th grade) and I got made fun of for it anyway. From then on, it was still there, I just squashed that part of me and kept it hidden.
I have a non-traditional plot twist of sorts though and that is that my biological father is MtF (going to call her Cynthia for the sake of this).
Cynthia came out when I was either late 7th grade or early 8th grade. The concept of transgender people hadn't even hit my radar till then (this is the early 90's). Talk about having your mind blown. Especially because I had feelings of my own that I was having trouble understanding. But Cynthia's story is very traditional. She knew from her earliest childhood memory that she was a girl, very binary and unequivocally. She'd given "normal" life a try and couldn't do it any more. It was transition or suicide. I'm very happy to tell you all that she chose to transition. However, what had been a pretty standard middle class existence, pretty much fell apart. I don't blame Cynthia for this, it just simply is what it is.
It didn't fall apart instantly, but my parents did separate almost immediately. For me, I was playing club soccer at the time and Cynthia had always been my biggest fan. I couldn't tell her that she couldn't come to my games anymore as that would've broken both our hearts I think. The rest of the parents on the team didn't want her to stand with them though, and the boys I played with were awful about things too. At one point, one of the other boys had scratched out "Brian G. is a girl" with his heel in the gravel of the track by our practice field. I knocked him down and was about to climb on top when the coaches came back and broke things up. But that incident got in my head and badly at that. I started to wonder did I run like a girl? Did I move like one? Talk like one? Especially because there was definitely something there. *squash and hide*
Eventually my Mom asked my younger sibling and I if we wanted to move back to a city we'd lived in before where we still had friends. The stresses of the circumstances around Cynthia's transition made the answer an easy yes. It remains one of my greatest regrets in life. I wish I had been braver because we shattered Cynthia when we left. She's never been the same.
I wasn't the same either. I was always a lazy student but I got worse. I almost didn't graduate High School. I did get myself over the hump though and ended up joining the Navy to get money for school.
I was in my schools for almost two years before making it to my first boat, a ballistic missile sub. I'll save everyone some time and just say that my experience was not a good one and I was actually discharged under Don't Ask Don't Tell. If they only knew.....
Being underwater with 150ish other dudes for weeks at a time taught me to not admit to weakness. Some people have nothing better to do then try to mess with you and you don't want to give any of those types a foothold into your psyche. So, yup, *squash and hide*
I fumbled my way through nearly 12 years after that. I worked dead end jobs and attempted to go to college. I would almost always have a great semester and then fall apart the next. I eventually stumbled into a career and ironically enough I work for a large company that services the military, ex-military, and dependents.
Throughout all of this, there were some persistent and consistent thoughts.
1) From the moment I had learned that one could transition, I wanted to be a girl. Having seen what transitioning had cost Cynthia though, the thought of transitioning terrified me. As so many do, I found comfort in fantasy and cross dressing. I was very much one who felt euphoria through expression rather than a dysphoria at all times though the dysphoria slowly grew.
2) Am I "trans enough"? For a long time I had only Cynthia's example to go off of and that's what I thought you had to be to be "trans". The idea of the spectrum wasn't something I was aware of till much later on. My eyes were fully open to the challenges transition brings for I had seen them first hand. I had to be sure that this was right.
3) "They" are never going to believe you. Eventually, I concluded it didn't matter what "they" thought, only what I knew to be true. But being so effective at hiding has meant a lot of people have struggled with reconciling Bree with Brian. It gets a little old sometimes.
April 2016 is probably when I first started lurking here though it would be many months later before I would create a profile. I identified two easily explained and reversible things I could start with. I started losing weight and I stopped cutting my hair. Around this time last year things were getting to the point of explosion and I resolved to actually go to a local support group and I resolved to find a therapist. The first therapist I saw wasn't a specialist and it became very obvious a couple sessions in that she wasn't going to be able to help. The support group was a little surreal. I used to describe myself as "pre-questioning" as I couldn't even get myself to verbalize it among a group most likely to understand and least likely to judge. A few weeks later I found a terrific gender therapist and with his help I was finally able to be honest and get to work processing. Several sessions later it was such a relief when I finally accepted myself and my path. I was still scared to death, but strangely determined too.
I started HRT January 30th, 2017, though I kept it on the down low from all but my sister and her partner. I have tears in my eyes when I think of that time because, within days I was feeling so much better about, well, everything. People all around me were remarking on a change (mentally, not physically) that they could see but couldn't explain. It made me realize just how miserable I had been and how it had colored EVERY aspect of my life. I was being coached by my boss one day a couple months in and (I kid you not) she says to me, "I don't know who this new Brian is, but I like him better!" I about choked. On the inside, Bree just smiled serenely because she knew her time was coming.
I had planned on waiting until a solid male fail was achieved to go full time, but, as any general will tell you, a plan rarely survives contact with the enemy. So by the tail end of April I was out at work and on Facebook. Being the first to transition at a conservative employer while living in a conservative town has certainly been challenging, but there's nowhere to go but forward. I was able to update my gender marker and my name in August and that pretty much takes us to today.
If you made it through all that, thank you for taking the time.
Warmest regards,
Bree
