I realized that I hadn't posted an introduction. I rather just blasted onto the forums in some kind of raw, confused state rambling about not realizing that I might be transgendered between the ears. The thought had never occurred to me and I find that somewhat hilarious now. So here goes:
Brief blurb:
40 years old, born with the female body, childless, professional, married.
I would describe myself as living an incredibly sheltered life - and by my own doing. I just found people and relationships to be very confusing so I hid behind various walls and layers so I could observe first, then react. I plodded along...trying to figure out how to survive in this strange world of people. Various people have asked me along the way if I was really a man...even though its obvious I'm a woman. I thought maybe I was gay...then decided I wasn't interested in having sex with women, or men for that matter. I thought that maybe gay people know they are gay from early on and since I knew no such thing then I mustn't be gay. I have no desire to be a man physically. So here I am being me and accepting that Im rather bizarre.
Then I spent 10 years really digging into myself, pulling out and accepting everything that was brought to the surface. I was rather peaceful finally having slain my various dragons. I had accepted myself entirely as is. Still something made me stress out at times and I couldn't figure it out. I'd relentlessly follow the feelings and memories back to the core only to find nothing. So I had this as a background project I was working on.
Things were normal until I found out that there were people born with both genders in one physically, like one testicle and one ovary. I found that rather fascinating for a few months, researching the various forms of intersexed-ness. I've never been obsessed with something before....it seemed so interesting an idea. But, alas I've already seen my fully female equipement in various xrays so I had to let that one go. But I liked the concept of the two sexes in one so it just got buried in the background.
Then I had a thought. Maybe I could just act more male in my everyday life. Hell it was how I felt so maybe I could just take some of this male/female hybrid idea and see how it felt to live like that. I bought these ugly man shoes for women and wore men's styled undershirts for a few months. It felt pretty good. I felt calmer. Not sure why I ever did that.
I went back on the web and surfed a little more for intersex subject matter and found the word
androgenous. So I looked that up and discovered the word
androgyne which strangely enough freaked me out. Transgender meant to me being trapped in the wrong body and it never occurred to me that some people weren't trapped AND that sexual orientation was totally seperate....and that maybe I could be one of these people. I panicked a little and was stunned for a few days. The whole idea that I might be not so bizarre after all, that maybe I'm not on the outside looking in for once. Maybe I was one of these androgyne people.
Hence my blast onto the forums.
Hope I didn't offend. I literally had just found this out, discovered the link to Susans, joined and posted. I never do that. I'm a lurker. I don't know what I would have done had this website not been here.
So now there is more peace for me internally and yet now I'm rather embarassed by my outward male behaviour over the past 25 years. I notice at work all the verbal slips and body postures that caused people to question my being a woman. After years of laughing when someone questioned me about my maleness now I wonder what I'll say if someone asks again. Still I've never felt more quiet inside then I do now. The background project of bizarre stress reactions is gone now. For the first time I am interested in my physical appearance, my outward style. I'm much less hyper, less dominant. But its like all of a sudden I'm in the closet after having been out unknowingly for years - LOL. I actually don't want to tell people because I'm afraid they'll laugh and say "no kidding". So I guess I'm a little confused and raw.
Thanks for the site and all your stories. It has helped and continues to help. You're all heroes to me. Sorry for the length.
Chunk
