Hello!
I was born a Male, comfortably cross-dressed up to my 20's but stopped altogether when work got more "serious". I've had the odd gay relationship here and there but mostly girl-friends when in the UK. Then moved on to South America where society just felt far more rigidly gendered than at home (you can do/be almost anything in London) and hence became automatically and "osmotically" more masculinised by the Latin culture. I have to say, it wasn't a fully unpleasant experience.
However, a number of recent personal experiences (including returning to the UK) are causing me now to revisiting my sense of masculinity, not with any huge intent for a bodily "transition" as some are, or have done, on these boards, but more simply noticing a need and desire to tone down some of the harsher qualities I have picked up over the years and to reclaim some of the softness and ambiguity from my youth that I know still form a very real part of who I am. I'm concerned also at how much advertising and the media affects me and my concept of what I "should be" as a man and I'm investigating academically the borderland between biology, psychology and society that impacts upon this sense of personal identity. If I am not being or expressing myself fully, then why not? If I am being constrained or limited, then what is doing that?
Androgyny and gender-fluidity are terms I had not come across before visiting here, but I see these as valuable concepts to explore. Having read a few thousand of the forum postings here in the last week it is clear that the community here are at once authentic and knowledgeable if not to say high-spirited at times! I send you all a blessing for your openness and hope I can exemplify these same qualities in return.
Kerala
