Hi everyone. I'm 37, MtF, and just recently accepted myself as trans even though I've known it subconsciously for a long time. It's amazing to me how well I was able to hide from myself, even while doing things in shameful privacy for decades that should have illustrated how I felt. Denial is a powerful thing.
But accepting myself has been nothing short of liberating. For me it was definitely an epiphany: the moment that my cross-dressing advanced to where I shaved off a goatee that I'd hidden behind for 15 years, applied mascara and a blond wig. The iron mask melted and I made eye contact with the woman that had been in there all along. I was stunned at how much I looked like my mother, aunts and female cousins, and how natural it felt to make their facial expressions. I'm still stunned honestly.
I went back and looked at childhood photos, and it was SO obvious in retrospect. Once the "Jeannie" was out of the bottle, I couldn't
not see her in every mirror glance and old photo. Even in boy mode, I still see myself as her and light up with a smile that hasn't existed since the grade school kids beat it out of me for not being a "normal boy." I'm probably going to inadvertently out myself just because of how happy I've become. For the first time in my life, I can look at childhood photos and love the little person I see: A young Cassie trying her hardest to be a normal 80's boy in the 1980's Midwest.
Anybody else have a similar "epiphany" experience?
