Hello all.
I want to keep this as on-point as possible as the topic of my transition and therefore my life can easily turn into a ramble. Growing up as male I identified with my birth name but only in third person; hearing my name I always saw this other person who only I truly knew and had to play middle-man to. I aways felt this was strange and wondered who
I really was..
During grade school I was kind and quiet but cared little for making friends although I naturally had a few who were companions that I could simply joke with during school but not much outside during the homelife. This is when I started to really feel disconnected from my gender as I had no desire to be manly and often crude as many of my schoolmate boys were. I had a stronger connection to the girl crowds but also thought they were cute so felt nervous and made very few friends in that gender as well.
By the time I hit high school I was basically a loner though I had no bullies or strong opposition. I felt very much alone and confused about who I was and what my future held though I thought maybe I just resided within that normal outcast roll but felt odd that it seemed self created. This was the point I felt so far from my identity that I started looking online for answers..
There was a movie on TV I read the description of earlier that was about a transgender woman and the soldier who fell in love with her and was subsequentualy murdered for it.. so, hearing the word off-handedly online, naturally I watched it and loved the story and cried thoroughly. I identified with her so much and so easily saw myself in her position I had to continue reading online. Through my youth I felt a strong connection to feminine behavior and often admired them more than I desired them.
Family problems with my parents occurred and I surpressed my identity issues for a few years as I moved around, the stress too high to even think about myself deeply. At this point I was working and feeling wholly unfulfilled and empty. Near suicide I left home, blindly hitting a point on the united states atlas and taking a Greyhound there the following week. Here I pretended to be someone new but this of course could not work in the long run without legal name change so here I was in my birth name again feeling more empty than ever..
Anyway, long story but I suppressed the reoccurring gender identity issue until last year, some 7 years after I ran away, thinking about it constantly but telling myself it was an impossible dream. Now in my late 20s I have a strong surge of dysphoria and feel so lost and stagnant in my life that I feel now is the time to change; I finally want to allow myself the chance to find happiness.
I decided to be pro-active and take advantage of ObamaCare and sign up for health insurance. I found a family practitioner who regularly deals with transgender individuals and works with trans support program within same facility. I have read and researched options on this for years prior so I feel fairly confident in my early transition..
Thankfully I live directly next to a somewhat small yet very progressive, liberal and LGBT friendly college city, so I feel I can integrate somewhat smoothly. I am not on HRT yet but will be seeing my primary practitioner soon and hope to start within the year so I wanted to join the online community partly to look for community but also as a support system to back my transition.
Of course I cannot relay all aspects of my life and gender discovery but this seems sufficient enough, if not too much, for an intro.
My name is Heather and I am a proud trans woman! Happy to be here.
