To be honest, I'm not sure what to tell you all, except that about a year ago, I had a sort of "triggering moment" which eventually led me here, to exploring questions about myself and my gender identity that I've had since I was a child, but continually ignored, repressed, and buried deep inside myself.
It took me six months just to post to a tumblr blog, to take that first step under a new name, assuming a more feminine identity, just to begin to figure out what the hell to do with myself, whether or not to ever come out, whether or not to transition, or any of that. This is all so radically new to me, and for the longest time, I always felt something like this was out of my reach. Like even if I tried to figure all of this out, all I'd ever be was a "boy in a dress". I don't expect answers to come easy, and this may all take a long time for me to suss out, but I feel like if I just keep trying to bury this, pretending like it's not there, I'm eventually going to find myself a grumpy, lonely old man regretting his entire existence. I already feel like I'm just an actor playing a role in my own life, kind of like how they cast girls to play Peter Pan in the musicals. In the show, she's a boy, playing a boy, everyone treats her like a boy, and you're supposed to think of her as a boy. But you also know that you're watching a girl pretending to be a boy in a play. That's how I feel as a man, like I'm actually a female playing the role of a man in a play where everyone expects me to be a boy, even they they clearly know I'm not.
I don't know. I think I might be confusing everyone here. Story of my life, I guess.
Ideally, I'd call myself a MTF trans lesbian, as my sexual identity was always pretty clear. From as young as I can remember, I was romantically and sexually attracted to women. It's one of those things I've always been sure of as far as... me. But I never felt comfortable around boys. Interacting with them. Sharing bathrooms and showers with them. I never felt like I belonged there. But I always felt safe and comfortable around girls. I'm my most normal when I'm hanging out with my gal pals, listening to them go on about all their whatever, and that feeling of inclusion, like in that moment, I'm one of them. But I also know it's all superficial. I can remember a heartbreaking period in about 10th grade when my small circle of gal pals kicked me out of their lunch table and their circle because they were uncomfortable with a boy being in "their space". I actually remember bring bounced from table to table for a long time in High School, because I just never fit anywhere. I was too girly to hang with the boys, the girls thought it was creepy having a boy around, I was too poor for the prep kids and too nerdy for anyone else. I fell in with a group of stoners for a while, but I grew to resent them because they basically treated me as their court jester.
Not that being an adult has been much better. I live in a very small town with some very small-minded people. My Dad's super religious. My Mom... not so much, but still fairly traditional. Woman hasn't been to a church in decades but will spout off the same simple-minded hate-speech that conservatives do under the guise of "protecting traditional values". And my friends are a crap shoot. I think most of them would be tolerate this, maybe even accept it, but they'd wonder just what kind of damage I really have. And, to be fair... I have a fair amount of damage. But none of that damage caused me to have these questions and feelings about my gender. If anything, the damage I've taken was just reinforcing the need I felt to bury these thoughts away, write them off as phases, only to realize decades later that, with one trigger, an entire Pandora's Box of repressed feelings can come up and sidetrack your entire life.
So... i guess that's a good place to start. I'm a complicated mess of a person trying to suss herself out. I Am Daria Quinn. It's a declarative statement, because maybe if I can declare it to myself, I can eventually come to grips with this and declare it to everyone else. I can come out of this closet, live my life in my own skin, and not have to keep feeling like I'm in someone else's role, filling in.
