Well, I will start by saying that I am new here and that my name is Gene. I'm fairly new to the topic and I'm sorry if I offend anyone with word misuse. I'm 25, I am in the military, and I have recently come out as being transgendered. My story is probably a little longer and more complex than you would care to read about here, so to keep things short and to the point: I have recently been forced to confront transgender feelings that I have had since about preschool. I had always felt deeply ashamed of them and because of this I said to myself "Leave it be, someday it will fix itself." I would focus on non sexual (and to some extent social) areas of my life to find satisfaction. I've lived for my job and education since adolescence . The issue never fixed itself and the feelings of being very uncomfortable as a male and only got worse if I tried to suck it up and conform to traditional gender roles. Recently my job has hit a rough spot and I decided to try to conform once more by seeking a relationship - with my feelings becoming more intense than ever. I told myself all of my anger, sadness, confusion and so forth about my body, assigned gender, and my role in sex were not going to resolve themselves so I decided to see some people for help and support. This seems like a great resource for transgendered people so I signed up and that's where I am right now.
There is always hope is a life lesson that I am very fond of. Hope helps keep people going and is the promise of what's to come. Something that I like about the world is that good people can leave the world better off than when they found it.
Once again, I'm Gene and it's nice to meet everybody!
