Hello, you may call me Septet!
I am a 22 year-old female with a 22 year-old male's body. Not an envious position, to be sure. I'm not going to give you my entire life's story, (Unless you really want to hear it, it's kind of boring, though.) suffice it to say that I've felt this way as long as I can remember, even if I didn't understand what I was feeling.
My story truly begins 5 years ago, on my 18th birthday. This was the day that I joined the Navy, more specifically, the Submarine Service. (Feel free to make all the Seaman jokes you like, I don't mind.) Up until this point I had been having dreams of going to sleep and waking up as a woman, and also reading erotic literature that involved such an act of transformation. These dreams vanished from my mind soon after arriving at Boot Camp. I banished the memories, thinking them merely a phase of youthful confusion.
I always hated looking in the mirror. At first, I thought that it was simply because the military feels the need to make all males have the exact same hair, while females get to do what the like. (I always argued with my mother whenever haircut time rolled around, and she consistently guilted/blackmailed me into getting "a proper haircut".) As time went on, I realized that the military life probably wasn't for me. I found I was a pacifist at heart, that I didn't like guns, missiles, or anything like that. Clearly my self-loathing stemmed from seeing a uniformed sailor staring back at my hippie self. Clearly...
In the third year of my enlistment, the dreams returned. Even when I was awake, my mind wove elaborate fantasies where I stepped off the transport bus as a female, or a hitherto-unknown Fairy Godmother appeared and granted me my desires. I wondered if I should seek counseling. Then, as suddenly as they came, the beautiful daydreams vanished like so much dust in the wind. They were replaced with visions of death, of millions of screaming souls vanishing under a wave of nuclear fire. Clearly, my job was getting to me. So I did the smart thing, and sunk into a sea of depression. Wait, did I say smart? Sorry, I meant really, really stupid.
I got out of the Navy not long after that and returned to the home of my youth, the family farm. Unfortunately, the fire followed me home. I fell into a deep funk, neglecting personal hygiene and only eating when forced. My mother occasionally offered to cut my hair, saying I looked "like a shaggy dog". I ignored her. I came out of it in time, though the fire remained. I continued to grow my hair, though I was still dissatisfied with my reflection. Something was missing. My brother suggested a beard contest. I shaved the unkempt mess I had acquired during my funk, and the sport began in earnest.
As I'm sure most of you can surmise, a beard contest is not a particularly engaging event. One might compare it to watching paint dry, but that would be an insult to the swiftness of drying paint. Two months in, my brother announced his surrender. I continued, as it was easier than shaving. Four months in to the beard, I became employed at a factory. The work was boring, but it gave me plenty of time to think, an activity I rather enjoy. The money was nice, too. Five months into the beard, I began seeking out more of the erotic transformation literature. I told myself I was only into it only for the aspects of domination, and certainly not because I secretly longed to BE a woman. In fact, I said this to myself every time I opened it, and every time I closed it.
"The lady doth protest too much", you say? What lady? Look at the beard! I'm totally a dude! Totally...
Six months into the beard, I'm at work and my mind is wandering. I have another daydream about transformation. My mind stumbles across similar incidents stretching back as far as my memory goes. (My memory isn't very good at its job, so that's about second grade.) It starts to connect these dots, correlating them to other sorts of data. Soon thereafter, I realize that I'm a woman AND a moron. "Hidden right under my nose", indeed. I wonder what I should do about this. I start searching for information about women in the bodies of men, and I find I'm not alone. I wonder how to tell my parents. My father makes an offhand comment about marriage and grandchildren and I break down crying.
Last weekend, I shaved the beard. It had been so long, I had forgotten what I looked like. With my hair, now over a year's growth, hanging around my face, I looked into the mirror. I saw a girl hiding there, and for the first time in years, I smiled at the mirror. I stood outside my mother's office, running through conversations in my head. After ten minutes of pacing, gesticulating, and whispering to myself, I decided to knock on the door. "Shave and a hair cut..." No answer. I opened the door, which supplied a suitably ominous creak. She had fallen asleep at her computer.
I sat down in a chair facing her, and poked her. She awoke, and looked at me with groggy eyes. "You shaved your beard." she said. I nodded in agreement. "It's funny, you kind of look like me now." I burst into tears at this point. After ten minutes of blubbering, I finally got around to telling her that I had something important to say. I told her I was transsexual, that I wanted, nay, NEEDED, to be a woman. That in my heart and in my mind I was one already, but that Nature had played a cruel joke upon me. She hugged me and said she loved me, and that no matter what, I was her child and she only wanted me to be happy. We talked for a while. I showed her some websites with more information, and asked her not to tell my dad. I said that I wasn't quite ready to tell him yet, and she agreed to wait until I was ready.
My dad also told me that I looked like my mother that day, though I didn't start crying after that one. I just smiled. I'm planning on telling him this Saturday, so wish me luck!
Wooh, that took a bit longer than I thought it would...
Anyway, some random factoids about me!
I don't feel particularly girly. I don't know if that's common for early folks like myself, or if it's because I never had any sort of super-feminine influences in my life. My mom worked professionally, while my father ran the farm and did the day-to-day child rearing. My mom was (and still is, really) a tomboy. Short hair, pantsuit, into video games and hard sci-fi. No makeup, no jewelery. I think it might just be a personal thing. Tomboy transsexual, is that a thing?
I'm very much into the goth aesthetic, just not the culture. Simple clothes with simple colors, you know? Though lately I find my eye drawn to those Victorian-style funeral getups. Not to mention the long, flowing robes...
I've got a LOT of shoes. I'm actually surprised at how long it took me to figure this out, now that I'm looking at my shoe rack... (Stereotypes exist for a reason, ja?)
I'm currently holding out as asexual. I'm not sure what I'll be into, if anything, once my transition progresses, but I'm excited to find out!
I'm saving up to get started on hair removal. That's stuff's expensive!
I don't have a female name picked out yet. The female form of my current name is Benjamina, and that's a stupid name and I don't like it. (No offense to those of you named Benjamina.) So I'm working on something. Thinking maybe a "K" name...
That's about all I can think of at the moment, sorry about the super long post. Hope to hear from you soon!
