For all my life I knew I was different. I was never completely miserable born AMAB, but had secretly wished I were female. I remember feeling this way since preschool. Seldom did I think about gender growing up, but the thoughts were there. When I "discovered my body" I always fantasized that I was female. This continued well into my adult years. Later on, long after I had grown up and moved out of Mom & Dad's and on my own, I began crossdressing occasionally. Sometimes the desires to dress were frequent and sometimes not. Several times I purged my clothing, vowing to be a man and never dress again. This sometimes worked for short periods of time and sometimes long enough for me to believe that the feelings were gone for good. Of course, no matter how long the feelings were gone, they always came back eventually. Sometimes I would look at women out of sexual desire and sometimes I would admire them in jealousy for the bodies they had but I didn't. Still, I didn't consider myself transgender. As far as I knew, I was a heterosexual cisgender male. Despite my feminine feelings, I usually felt like a man unless my female feelings were upon me.
However, in the last few months my feminine feelings exploded. Now I dress fulltime at home (I still live alone, so dressing at home is easy). I still present as male outside the house, but at home I'm Danielle all the way. And even when I am presenting as male, I deep down want to be my true self, though I also work to maintain my manliness in male mode.
It was this sudden explosion of femininity that made me realize that I was more than just a crossdresser.
So my question is why do these feelings get stronger with age? I know they do, since so many transgender people stated that their gender issues were not severe until they were well up there in age. What are your thoughts?
Danielle