Hello again Everyone
I had copied my comment 51 to the "Attracted to or Want to Be" thread as I thought my comment may be helpful to the OP, Madison and Madison thanked me.
Madison received many responses on that thread and one was from Jeal which referred to my comment copied from here and therefore I am copying Jeal's response to this thread as it adds a further dimension to this debate.
Copy of Jeal's comment on Limerent Obsession with reference to my comment 51:
"In particular, I was struck my Pamela's response, and have first hand experience with limerent obsession for women. My confusion over being both physically attracted to women while feeling envious of them was a huge conflict for me. In fact, what finally broke though my resistance of accepting I am transgender was falling in love with one of those teen kids in a mini skirt. After six months of a torturous, surreal poetic obsession (and guilt, I am married and in my forties) I finally realized the truth for me. She was almost exactly like me at her age, the age where I put up a brutal wall of denial. Even her face structure, nose, eye color, hair, and build were similar(eerily like my Mom as well, but that is another whole set of issues). I literally, HAD fallen in love with the me that should have been. What is really bizarre, is the moment I saw that clearly and accepted it, my interest in her disappeared completely. Like magic. I still see her all the time. I like her. She is a funky artistic kid. That painful, obsessive love feeling is just a weird memory. Now I have a new name for that crawling, obsessive feeling: Gender dysphoria. Not having an object to pin it on as a something to have, makes me finally embrace being. No choice really

. It feels very much like that teen girl inside has a gun pointed to my back saying "MARCH or I shoot".
So onward I go, trying to enjoy this very unexpected journey. Everyone's experience is different, and in my case feelings of longing to be a girl go back to when I was 6 or 7 (as does my first limerent obsession)."
Thank you Jeal for a such an interesting post and this is from a firsttime poster! Well done!
Hugs to all
Pamela