Susan's Place Transgender Resources

Back early in Elementary school, (like K-3rd grade early) I had this happen to me after numerous incidents of getting caught. It was bad enough that I was held back in Kindergarten because I had ADD starting to show and was "not associating properly with my peers" which I can only surmise meant that I was playing more with girls than boys, but not all the time... one of those years (pre-k or K1.0) I was even allowed to dress up for Halloween as a Witch, robe/dress, hat and all (except the warts- I had class LOL :D) have a picture of it somewhere... even recall a few times before K when I would walk around the pool and house in my mother's shoes... but I still also played with Tonkas and GI-Joes... maybe Barbie every once in a while in secret but cant say for sure since she had the collectible kind still in the boxes... Anyways, I remember I had a stash of like 5-7 outfits I hid under my bed in the box frame. mother was a Garage seller, so we would spend Saturday mornings going around picking stuff for the flea market, and (un)luckily for me that included girls clothes in my size. Of the outfits I had taken was a two piece (leotard+leggings) Speedo aerobics outfit tie-dyed in purple hues that I feel asleep in. Well as you can imagine, that wasn't a good morning for me. That was the first time I was asked "Whats wrong with you- Do you want to be a girl?" I was too scared and embarrassed to say YES, fearing the spanking I knew I would get. I think the closest I could come to it was saying "I.. I, uh....I don't know!" :'( while I was completely covered in tears. At that time (early 90s),  the only terms I knew of were ->-bleeped-<- and transvestite- (blame HBO) something I DID NOT want be typed as. I knew that couldn't be what was wrong with me, nor could I stop or grow out of it There was another time in the summer before I started 7th grade when we moved to a house down the road in a new school district. I was caught in a black swimsuit I had come across while getting ready to go to the Beach with mom and her then boyfriend. If I remember correctly, the reaction was something along the lines of "you know what? Fine! If that's what he wants to wear let him, but stay the F... away from me I want nothing to do with it!" but I wasn't asked then.  I was asked again after another move to Missouri a couple months later under similar circumstances to the first time. That time I thought I could get over it, and for a little while I was able to act "right" by hiding it by being in the emo nu-metal industrial misfits teenage angst types at school, but it never felt right. A year later around Junior Year after some hefty soul-searching, I realized that it was always going to affect me and that I couldn't ignore it or put it off. On 07-11 I finally came out, by August 2001 I was seeing a Therapist again, and on April 5th, 2002, I had my first Letter.

I got a lot of lectures and spankings and extra rules every time I tried to say I was a boy and be myself. So I kept my mouth shut until I was a teenager and kinda wandering around on my own. Lived as male until I got pregnant and felt obligated not to abort. Then I tried to pretend I didn't care, that I was just a normal girl who happened to be rather practical and aggressive. I got not "found out" because nobody could ever prove anything, but confronted occasionally.

Lesbians especially had questions. They'd hit on me and once I convinced them I wasn't into girls they'd ask what was wrong with me and why I acted so masculine then.

I got all my therapy over the years from psychiatry residents, and they'd always try to assign the females to me, and I always said please no, which raised questions. One dead-on argued with me and said I obviously didn't feel like a girl and didn't want to live as one. I turned it back on him and said well why would anybody? He made the mistake of engaging me on that argument and I quoted Punjab (where he was from) birth stats at him and the numbers on local science funding and other income disparities by gender. Which wasn't at all the point.

I had a med school interview once that I was really worried about. I let my classmates dress me up in female business attire and makeup. They said I looked great, but I felt ashamed. At the last minute I changed into khakis and a button up shirt and doc martens. A professor called me "handsome" and spoke to me like I was male.

Feminists and counterculture types were often comfortable with me because I was so oblivious to gender norms.

So yeah, I got not discovered but called out and recognized over and over and over. I just pretended everybody was wrong.

Caught, punished, left home. Long time ago.

Now?  Happy most of the time.

Cindy