Hi there everyone,
It's a while since I looked for a forum just like this and finally I found it! You must know, infact, that I'm from Italy which is still very conservative on transgender issues so it's really hard to find stuff on the internet!
Anyway, I've already read several topics but as I saw that many people ask advices about their very personal stories, I would like to do so while I still keep on reading other topics.
In short I'm a 19 years old guy and since one year or more I've been thinking I may be transgender. I know this is an important issue, which is complex and so this is not the right place and it is not effective to reduce it in simple written concepts just like I'm about to do. BUT I guess this is just a first step and even the only one possible (at least at the moment). Cause in the village where I live there are no possibilities to explore the transsexual world (during the summer the only gay disco is 2 hours far from here) and there are no therapists or psychologists competent in this field, to talk to (I actually went to a psychologist two years ago but that doesn't help cause she was just interested in family issues).
Before to tell you why I feel like I could be trans, I gotta make two prefaces:
1. I'm totally attracted to men.
2. as I said, the place where I live, didn't give me the choice to explore this world completely (GBLT) [I've had just 5 relationships with men which didn't go beyond the kiss and we've never seen outside the disco ] so all my considerations , because of the lack of experience, may be irrelevant or explained by lacks. For example, my "->-bleeped-<-" may simply be:
-the desire to liberate my feminine side which has been hidden for so long (it's not that I am repressed, at all, but living in this conservative place made me protect my sexuality, so during the secondary school I began to act like a boy at the point that now none (apart from the few that know about it) would never say I'm homosexual. (while in the primary school I was really super gay )
-the common discomfort in front of other boys (maybe cause they offended me for my being gay in the primary school) which let me desire to be a woman, so that this discomfort would not exist.
-a simple equality between "I like boys, I like dancing, I'd like to dress like a girl, I like screaming etc" and "I am a woman" without considering the half ways
-etc...
In spite of this consciousness, I still feel there's something more and influenced or not, , I always think about this issue and this complicates things so I wanna see clearer, cause it's time to for me to live without any other doubts or fears... and that is why I wrote.
To make it short and to help you understand, I didn't write my whole story but I just listed some points which let me think I'm trans (or anyhoo may be a sign of cross-dressing, kinda disphoria, gender ->-bleeped-<- or whatever).
1) MENTAL PICTURE OF MY SELF AS A GIRL: since I was very young I've always imagined my self to be a girl (I can't say whether I thought I was really one, probably yes): walking down the street, playing with dolls, just doing nothing I had a picture of my self as a little girl; and when the people thought I was a girl (as I had long hair) this filled me with a great joy. This projection of my self as a girl has extended till today, but with some changes in time: when I was very young I didn't have a plain picture of this little girl, but in the grade school –I don't remember why or in which occasion- I just imagined the accurate figure of a girl (short, light blue eyes, blond but that doesn't look like me) and continually and unconsciously I imagined to be like her, when playing or dancing. As I grew up, this girl has grown up with me (even physically) and she has accompanied me till the age of 17..all this might sound weird, but as you will imagine, It was not something I always think about but at the same time, it was something always current with me.
The complete change of this girl has coincided with my discovery of transsexuality (two years ago more or less): little by little I began to wonder how I could look like as a transgender and thus, I got to a "new image", which is to say me but female (and so a transgendered me) (with my same features, colours, shapes etc) which has replaced the "old one".
When I think about it, it look a bit ridiculous to me, I mean being 19 and still "playing" to imagine yourself as a girl might sound immature: of course I don't play to be female just when I used to do when a child, but still now, I think about me/her, when I listen to music for example and begin to day-dream...
2) DISGUISE I've always had the habit (that was also and still now is a shelter) to listen to music and to screen in it the things that always were in my mind: being a woman, finding a boy to love. In the last few months, as I began to think I might be trans and I tried to be as much honest as I can with my self, I started dressing with my sister's clothes and with the music in my ears, acting as a female in front of the mirror. This makes me feel good, and sometimes I'm dying to be left alone in the house so that I can repeat this again. And what makes me glad at the most is the fact that I actually see a girl in the mirror, and I like the way I look. I honestly believe that I am passable and pretty as a girl, apart from the height
3) PASSING MYSELF OFF AS A GIRL : like on the internet or by telephone. For instance I've recently posted a video on youtube In which I dance acting feminine(I thought It might help me figuring out who I am..) (For those interested this is the link: ) At the grade school through my phone number I used to pretend I was an "easy girl", and I used to text some guys from another city who actually thought to talk to a girl in their city (so they asked me "when do we hung out?" "are you good at ->-bleeped-<-s" and stuff like that). Even this year on facebook, i've done an account with a female name and guys talk to me, thinking I am a girl and I love when they use declensions for just females (if in English you say you are nice referring to both genres in Italian you have to say "carinO" for the boys" and "carinA" for the girls.
4) "STRANGE RELATION" WITH MY OWN PENIS: I don't know if this could be a "sign" of transsexuality" but anyway it is weird and maybe means something. The fact is: I've never masturbated the way boys "normally do" which is to say dragging the skin down and showing the chapel (sorry for the clearness). It's like I've never felt the need to do that and even now that I'm conscious that this is the "the way it works" I'm like afraid..what was natural for me was to lie down on the bed, "rub" the penis until the ejaculation. Only in the last two years I began masturbating sitting on a chair, but don't uncover the whole chapel cuz –as I have already said- I'm afraid to feel pain. Another thing is that I feel like opening my legs when I ejaculate, as if I was penetrated.
What makes this even stranger is that I'm not a shy person or stuff like that but I consider my self open minded and ready for sex: with the stories I've had (both with girls and boys) even if I didn't go beyond the kiss, I was uninhibited and comfortable, and even with the anal sex I don't have any problems at tall. That's why I find difficult to explain this "lack"/"fear".
5) OFTEN I DON'T LIKE MY BODY: even though I recognize that I am a good looking guy, most of the time I really don't like myself and would like to change, to be someone else. And even when I "like myself" I still don't feel satisfied with the pleasure my body could give me: I mean when I go out and people tell me I dressed up well, I'm pretty and girls make compliments, that of course makes me glad but yet I can' feel "satisfaction" or complete joy. On the other hand, I'm sure I would feel this fulfilment if I could dress like a girl and so wear clothes that I really like and chose by my self (and not always the same normal t shirts), arrange my hair, make up, acting girlish, gesticulate etc..
Sometimes I feel I'm not completely fit for my body: I wouldn't say I'm not comfortable with it but that it doesn't make myself express the way I would like to.
Furthermore in the last few months, because of my omnipresente dilemma "Am I trans or not?", I often look at my body and compare it to those of both boys and girls. Watching girls I'm like " If I could have such a..." whereas with boys I'm like "lucky him he's shorter /lucky me I'm more feminine than him" or "well, if all these boys around me transitioned, I'd definitely be the most passable".
6) SISTER. My sister is 5 years younger than me and she's the same as me (apart that she's a girl and she's prettier:)). It's obvious that many many times I thought "Oh if I just could be her!" because she's not any girls but she belongs to my blood and being sister, I know I would have looked like her if I was born female. These thought makes me happy in a certain way but on the other hand gets me down: but nevertheless I don't feel a "genetic victim" or feel resentment. Not really resentment but a certain compulsiveness definitely yes: I'm like her "bodyguard", I buy clothes for her, I tell her how to dress, how to arrange hair, how to act in front of the people and always give her advices..in other words it's like I want her to do, what I would do, if I was born female. I would not talk about rivalry but of a desire to mould her the way I want to.
7) RELATIONSHIP WITH OTHER MEN: Most of the times I feel a great subjection when in front of other boys, especially if I'm attracted to them. Everytime I tend to relate in a masculine and haughty way when in the inside, I feel quite like the opposite: in particular I would use this adjectives to describe the way I perceive my self in front of other boys: innocent, beautiful, delicate, inferior (all female features in my opinion) [I feel this way even in front of gay guys]. With some guys and in certain situations I feel I "m not able" to have a normal conversation or relation with a boy cuz it's not spontaneous or genuine..like I'm not able to be a boy. That's why I happen to think that if I was a girl that wouldn't happen cause he would treat me as a girl, there would be a different relationship and we would talk and laugh about different things. Even though this aspect may let think about an internalize homosexuality instead of a possible transsexuality, the thing I like the most about being female is without any doubt the possibility to be treated as one by a guy.
WORRY ABOUT THE PHYSICAL TRANSFORMATION: I remember when I was a child and my first hair was growing on my arms, I was really worried and I wanted to wear long-sleeved even in summer. Now that I'm "adult" I don't have any particular complex so the only worry is not to "be to too masculine": I like when my legs hair gets blond in summer, I don't wanna have muscles etc. I would say the only worries now is about my adam's apple which is growing now and the hair fall. Beard is not a big deal, I don't have it much and on me it doesn't make me maler than without it. Nevertheless I think physical worries would be definitely more if I was maler and maybe uglier. At the end my body has no male features apart the height..i'm thin with no muscles, I have few hair and noone on the chest and under my armpits, the face too is that of a child as many people say and eyes and mouth are really the same as those of my sister.
9) HORMONES I've read somewhere on the internet that hormones may be a cause of transsexuality or could have a role on that. It's probably dumb but I've had a slow hormonal growth concerning the hair: just this year beard and hair under the armipits have begun to grow and my adam apple started to get out..but I guess this is very common in all people. Isn't it?
According to your personal experience, could these things mean something? What do you think I should do?
This is just a first step, I want to see a psychologist as soon as I can, but before I would like to listen to some opinions.
Sorry for the length of the email and for my English hope you got the point..thanks in advance!
Federico (alias Virginia)
