My Introduction
Hi Everyone, I´m Danielle and this is my story so far!
Born in 1975 my earliest memory about relating somehow to the other gender was around age 4.
My mother had an aunt which we were visiting and she was very progressive for her time in Catholic Southern Germany end of the Seventies. When we entered her house a boy in girl mode was leaving my mother´s aunt place and I was asking my mother what this boy was doing. She answered he wants to become a girl. It seems that my mother´s aunt was counselling her on a private voluntary basis. Later that day or a couple of days later, I mentioned to my mom that I would like to do the same as this boy that I felt more like a girl.
At the same time in Kindergarten I felt very awkward connecting with other children my age and at one point was taken out of Kindergarten for the last year before school. My parent took me out because I was mocked by the other boys and my parents felt that the supervisors couldn´t care less.
In my early school years between 1982 and 1985 my social interactions improved and I was feeling confident enough as a boy. Then starting high school I felt becoming an outsider again, far far away form the "hip circle" of the class. Then one evening in 1986 I watched with my parents the movie "Second Serve" the story of Renee Richards and become excited about the possibility of changing gender from boy to girl again. Alone in my bed at night I started fantasizing how it would be to be away from class for half a year and come back as a girl and start from new and get the boys somehow "attracted" to me. During that time I also had the most intense period of actual cross-dressing in my life, when I started putting on the underwear of my mom and using her make-up when they were out in the evening. I´m quite sure that they noticed, but nobody said anything about it.
At the beginning of puberty it became also clear that I could not hit it with the girls and I became rather depressed by that. And then with all this development of female sexual characteristics happening around me I dreamt of having such a body myself. This was combined with thinking about how it would be to be in love with one of my best friends. Later in puberty I then realized that there were girls who fell in love with me and I with them and so I became very eager to comply with the perceived role of my assigned gender. During this period of age from 16 to 22 I was becoming really happy with myself as a boy and all other feelings about switching gender or not fitting in subsided. Then in 1998 I had a real crush on one special girl for me and got rejected. This made me question a lot in my life again. Coincidently in that year Dana International won the Europeans Song Contest and was everywhere in the news for some weeks and so the topic of transsexualism came back to me after many years. Starting to surf the internet at the same time this really opened the floodgates for me. I searched all the information available at that time for how to transition, the possibility of taking hormones and so on. I really got fixed on the topic. From that period of time 20 years ago, I´ve been thinking about myself as becoming female nearly every day. Interestingly as soon as this period started I was not able to have a real relationship with a girl for nearly 7 years. However I was seeking a relationship to a woman, because in this kind of bipolar thinking I was experiencing I also saw this as an exit to my gender dysphoria. If I would be only able to find the right woman; I would be able to live as a real man. Then I thought I found this woman, but it was very one-sided and she couldn´t feel the same for me. This was in 2004 and that´s when for the very first time I wanted to start transition right away. Thinking about a plan very quickly all the reasons why it would not work kicked in. Not enough money, how would my career develop, what would my parents think and so on. However from this point in time I always held this option as a real alternative in the back of my mind.
One year later I entered a relation ship with a girl that lasted nearly two years and when things started going into the wrong direction I thought about transitioning again and started experimenting with birth control pills for the first time in 2007. But it took me only 2-3 days to stop that again and feel regrets along the lines of instead thinking about becoming female I just should be and behave like a real male. Shortly afterwards I met my future wife and we entered into an earnest relationship within just a few months. This I really perceived as the exit door to my gender dysphoria. Now I´ve found the right woman, If I just would do everything fast everything would become good and I would find my peace. Half a year later I proposed marriage, we married in 2009 and 2010 our son was born. 2012 our first daughter and 2015 our third child. Now during all those years whenever life at work or in family became stressful I thought about transitioning as the way out. And as you know the urge to transition became more and more intense over the years.
By now 20 years after these feelings really kicked in and have stayed with me since then I want to do it for good, I want to become the woman I always wanted to be. So this will be the start of my new journey and I know that these ressources and this group of people who are on the same trip and have even successfully "completed" it, will help me achieving this dream!
Thank you!
