So I totally missed this part last night when I created my account. I just sort of jumped right in lol
So I guess I'll reintroduce myself.
Hello, I am currently going by the name Jerred, and feel free to call me Jerred. I am a recently coming out transgendered person (FTM).
I began by doing a lot of googling, reading of articles, a journal, watching transition videos on youtube, and just a lot of.. looking things up.
I guess a bit of a background is in order eh?
Well when I was very little I always wanted to be a boy. I didn't think anything of it as a kid, because I knew nothing of this sort of thing. So most of my childhood was spent playing with boy toys (after fussing with my mom that I wanted that cool Ninja Turtle toy or that cool bow and arrow toy that had the plungers for arrows), and if I played house with other little girls I wanted to be the husband, or the little boy kid or some kind of male role. I did a lot of tree climbing, rolling around on the ground, getting into wrestle matches with the other boys, and wanting to boy things in general.
I hated it when my mom stuffed me in dresses as a kid. They didn't feel comfortable to me and I didn't know how to... Well act in them. I was still flailing my arms and legs around, getting into play roughing housing with little boys and not caring that whatever adult was standing around telling me I shouldn't be doing those things. I had long hair, and i hated it. I never wanted to take care of it, and it was a struggle for my mom to get me to sit still so she could brush it out. Eventually she got frustrated and it was cut short and I felt happier.
By the time I reached high school my mom started allowing me to pick out my own clothes for school. I would always pick the boy clothes and my mom always found it odd. I felt more comfortable in them though. I also got to wear boy shoes which made me even happier. But as puberty usually does, it began to hit me like a tone of bricks. I was developing in ways I didn't like, and I felt awkward when my chest was getting bigger instead of staying flat. I took it as this was what was suppose to happen though and kept going on with my life.
When I was about 16 or 17 it dawned on me that I liked other girls in a romantic sense. I found them cute, and as I look further back, I was always wanting to hold a girl's hand and found myself starring at girls in my class. I thought well maybe I'm just a very butch lesbian. I started coming out to my high school friends, and my mom that I was gay. My friends were like ok whatever, my mom had a fit. It was a rough deal with me and her for a bit but she just came to.. accept it by avoiding the topic as much as she was allowed to.
So I spent the rest of my teens, my earlier adult years and up to recently thinking I'm a lesbian. I've had a few girlfriends now and I've cherished my time with them, and everything was great.... Until things turned intimate in a sexual way. It wasn't like I didn't want to do things with them in that sense... God knows I wanted to. But I suddenly became uncomfortable when the occasion occurred. I never understood it, and it confused me greatly, and it put me in a depressed state for a few days. I didn't know what was wrong with me when it came to sexual situations. I just felt awkward, uncomfortable, embarrassed.
First I chocked it up to being simple and common insecurities. Maybe I wasn't appealing enough for it, maybe it wasn't the right person, or the right time. Maybe I have a low sex drive. I've come up with so many reasons for it and it all came down to maybe it's personal space issues. But now I'm thinking twice on that.
In the end, with all my rambling (I tend to do that, sorry), after doing a lot of googling, video watching, research, and additional reading and hearing cases similar to my own... I'm starting to realize the reason I've felt this way my whole life is because I feel I am in the wrong body. I do not have the.. "plumbing" that I feel should be there. I've never identified with myself as being much of a girl. I've always known I have the mannerisms of a man. I've day dreamed of being a guy, had sleeping dreams of it, have fantasized what my life could have been like if I were born male... It's taken me a long time to realize that is what I am suppose to be. I am a man, literally, trapped in a woman's body. As a lame joke you'd think this would be any man's fantasy come true, but it's really not.
So I'm starting by taking small steps. I've gotten my hair chopped shorter than it usually is. It was already fairly short, but now it's really short. I've bought boxer shorts, something I've always wanted to try wearing but felt embarrassed thinking the cashier is gonna give me a weird look when I go to pay for these... I've been slowly coming out to my closer friends, which has been an amazing experience thus far. Everyone has been very accepting of it, and very supportive of me. Saying things like no matter what I do in life, including a transition somewhere down the road, they will always love me for me, and not my appearance. I've also come out, twice, to you good people. My friends have also agreed to start calling me by my chosen male name (Which is Jerred lol), and using male pronouns.
It has been a lot of processing for me in the past month... And there is a lot more yet to come down the road. But no matter the hardships, the weird looks, and the transition I want to make, I know I have my friends, and I know I can find people that have been in my shoes for support.
So that's pretty much the story of my life lol... Well at least half of it. I've already made a number of posts, just trying to get myself situated with everything, and I'm glad to have found this site.
See you all around
Jerred
