Hello everyone, my name is Katelyn (a name that I settled after being undecisive for years), I'm a 25 year old transgendered person. Sometimes I wish my issue was simpler than many of you. I'll start out with a lengthy history of myself if that's okay with all of you.
When I was very young, my mom caught me wearing jewelry and high heels. Many kids do that though, so she had no cause for concern.. When I was about age 4 to 5 years old, I would imagine myself as an android girl in the show "Small Wonders", imagining myself both with her mechanical interior as well as looking like her and imagining myself with her dress. Also around that same time, I went with my parents and an aunt and uncle of mine. My aunt tied her sweater around her hips, somewhat resembling a skirt. She tied my sweater around my hips, and I felt this overwhelmingly surreal, almost like a high, feeling that I looked like a girl. Other than that though, much of my childhood was watching Transformers, playing with legos and other boyish stuff. Though when I was 7 years old, I punched a boy in the face during the fight and when he fell, I instinctively reacted exactly like a girl would: I suddenly attended to him and asked something like: "I'm sorry, are you ok?" and the boy took the opportunity to punch me in the face, and kids around me laughed, and I was incredibly embarrassed. I was embarrassed at myself, and from then on, I suppressed any girlish feelings of mine, and actually tried to toughen myself up. No matter what though, I was bullied anyway. I looked down a "sissy boy" in my class when I was in 4th grade in much the same way that a homophobe would. I always avoided going into the womens clothing with my mom when she went to clothing stores. I felt like there was an invisible barrier with me and womens things, till September of 1994, when I dared myself to break that barrier and wear my mom's bra when she was away. Oh my god, the exhilarating feeling that I had of being girlish was like an incredible rush, it was an incredible feeling. I had to have more, I couldn't stop having the bra on, I even would hide it underneath my shirt. From there, I progressed to wearing my mom's clothes that she put in the hamper, since she would put the hamper in the bathroom and I could just lock myself in the bathroom and wear them. For several years, I would take any opportunity to wear my mom's blouses, skirts, bras, and then dresses.
In 1997, after watching a modern version of Romeo and Juliet (that featured Leonardo Dicaprio) so I could understand the story better for a class of mine, I felt attracted to his looks and that started a three year battle with homosexual feelings. I still liked girls and have liked them since I was 11, though not sexually, only romantically. I struggled very hard trying to reprogram my mind for three years till I was successful in late 1999, but (had to have) became a homophobe. Now however, I allow attraction to men in my girl mode.
I put myself a moratorium from crossdressing in 1998 thinking that the crossdressing could be linked to the homosexual feelings, but later broke the moratorium by taking some old shorts of mine and cutting them up to resemble a skirt, and hiding it underneath some drawers under my bed when I wasn't using it. I proceeded to then steal old clothes of my moms that she didn't use anymore and hide them in the same place.
Eventually, in 1999, I started sneaking out of the house in the middle of the night, dressed up as a girl and wearing a shawl or hairband to make my head look girlish, and I would walk around the area and even in strip malls and as far as a half a mile. I did this several times, either at 1 am or up to 3 am or even in the very early morning. I did this until my mom caught me late at night when visiting my room, and looked outside around for me. I actually saw her as she was looking, and she looked at me but didn't recognize me. Luckily, I was testing bringing my male clothes to change, so I changed into that but my mom got real pissed when I came back, and presumed that I sleepwalked out of the apartment. I didn't start sneaking out again (or rather, when my mom was away) till 2001. In December of 2000, due to me being tired of wearing my mom's clothes, I started buying my own clothes, starting with two dresses at $20 each from a store for crossdressers. In 2001, I sneaked out of the house and even walked two miles or took the bus just to shop for clothes in places like Ross, a discount clothing store chain. I bought a lot of clothing and was able to keep myself from being afraid of people while shopping. I would shop for more than 1 hour, finding just one or a few dresses to buy. In the middle of 2001, I finally bought a wig, and I for a time couldn't stop being excited for finally looking like a girl.
I did a few more attempts at going out dressed, but still felt incredibly shy to do anything and I wish I could have gotten support back then, but couldn't have got into contact with other transgendered people because I didn't have a car.
My last "brave" attempt at going out was in the Halloween Carnaval of West Hollywood in Los Angeles last year. I was dressed up in a silver w/ purple flowers chinese dress, black tights, and high heels, and it was just great that I felt like a girl and even two guys whistled at me and others admired me and I felt soo flattered. I didn't have a car though and it was late at night and I had to leave because my mom would get soo pissed that I would go to "something for satan" as Halloween is seen as evil by Jehovah's Witnesses, and I called a friend of mine to pick me up but hid the clothes so he never knew.
I actually have been reading about crossdressers since 1997, shortly after first getting home access to the internet through AOL. However, I was really captivated by the story of Melanie Anne Philips, and since then I identified more with transsexuals than with crossdressers. For a time, I was virtually addicted to learning more about transsexuals, the surgery, the pills, and seeing success stories of transsexuals like Roberta Close, Caroline Cossey, etc... Sometime like in 2002 - 2003, I actually found on the internet a brazilian transsexual girl only a few years older than me before, and started talking to her. She later told me that she knew other transsexuals who were like me, and that was the first time I actually thought I could be more than just a "super serious crossdresser".
I wish I was able to buy Melanie Anne's voice lessons tape back then (of course I couldn't have it mailed to me) because for several years since 2001 I think, I'd occassionally train my voice to sound female. I didn't have much luck till I tried to emulate preppie girls, and I started to be able to get my voice modified. Now, I can achieve a mildly passable female voice (including mannerisms), and sometimes I can achieve a voice that I only find if I'm calm and if I spend a lot of time trying to find, that IMO is totally passable as a female voice.
I had fantasies of being a girl since I was a young teenager, but now they include sexual fantasies of having a vagina and being a woman with a man and being penetrated vaginally. I never really liked having a penis and recalled one time when I was little that I told my mom that I hated my penis. Which is why I wouldn't think twice in having SRS (only though for completely losing the ability to procreate, though that's something that I otherwise don't care about.)
Even then, things are confusing for me now. As a result of my ->-bleeped-<-, I never developed muscles (and didn't do much exercise in fear of losing an hourglass shape that I had for a time) so I never put a real effort in trying to be masculine (other than how I presented myself to other males), despite my attraction for girls. I've been emotionally sensitive since I was very little, and that hampered me from dating since when I was 16 and 17 and tried to date two girls but was rejected. I poured my emotions and was emotionally scarred, and I just eventually had to bottle up and repress my feelings (which were romantic and emotional attraction as in to have a relationship, not sexual as in having sex.) In that alone, I've never been able to understand guys who like women only for sex, since I didn't really like a girl to have sex with in the first place. I could never hurt or use any girl like guys would, and would be more concerned for them than me. But being emotionally sensitive is very bad for males and thus I've had to repress it for a long time but its stressing to do so, and there are times I wish I could have people to talk to and cry like many girls / women do with their girlfriends. Not only that though, but many times I put others ahead of me, until I push myself to be aggressive like others.
At the same time as this though, I've had many episodes where I'd try to be everything male, macho, and gloat, and be a prick and bother others and side with republicans and libertarians. It doesn't last though, and I'm suspecting that its just reactive behavior and because acting male would be like elevating ones status (has to do with self esteem problems that I had since I was bullied in elementary and junior high). In 1999, I started to want to have my own company and do a lot of good things, and thought that I could do everything myself. But the dot com bust of 2000 and 9/11 discouraged me. I kept trying to revive that spirit of being an entrepreneur till now, but I never could hold it enough to be able to be truly effective. Now I'm thinking its a sort of facade that I created as a response to the perceived hardships of society. In fact, I'm thinking that much of myself that I present to others is a facade that I had to pound myself into holding up instinctively. I hate it though, and sometimes I feel like running away.
In some of these ways, I feel like my issue is more complex than many of you, because I don't know what I am. On one hand, I've been aggressive at times and have had a lot pent up anger over the years (especially from seeing social injustices), sometimes I do get in angry tirades only to vent, and then other times I bitch and whine. I was never good in sports, yet I liked playing violent video games. I played outside with boys when I was little, and played with mostly boy toys (except when my teenage cousin was playing barbies with me when I was very young.) I've never really had the mental characteristics they say that women have (like multitasking), and my ring finger is longer than my index finger (a measurement used to know how much testosterone you have.) I developed an "anti-feminine" thing when I was 7 as a response to that sissy incident of mine, and it only partially came off at age 12 when I started crossdressing, but it has gradually come off since then for other things considered very sissy (since society considers very feminine things inferior to masculine). Sometimes I feel that I've accepted myself as male, only for it crash down again later. I don't think of myself as being a "woman in a man's body", yet I'm also much more than a crossdresser, not quite bi-gendered, not quite transgenderist as well. Sometimes I think I have very bad fluctuations of testosterone, and which is why I would like to take anti-androgen pills and see what happens (but I don't want my mom to know.) Recently, I've started to suspect that I could be bipolar. I don't know and I wish I knew, and it kills me not knowing the answers!
I'm sorry, but this kind of gives an idea of the complicated issue with me. I wish to live a life that I define for myself rather than have society define for me or pressure me into following. I wish that I can try out living as a woman to see if I'm really transsexual or not (or even to gradually transition like letting my hair grow first) or even if not, at least with breaking barriers of gender as an inhibitor to self expression. Many times though I just feel alone due to the lack of close friends that I have, that I can talk with about this. I wish I can get into close contact with the transgendered community and including in person, since I live in the Los Angeles area.
