Alright warning a long post. I think I kind of have my emotions figured out so hopefully I can write this out right finally.

I put a lot already into my introduction post some I won't repeat a lot. Other then I've always been a lot more comfortable around around females even when I was very young. And was not like normal boys I hated hated get scraps or getting dirty at all. I was always kind of drawn towards to cute things and got weird looks because when I was ten I still had stuffed animals. Once I hit puberty my hormones really shot through the roof. I grew really quickly. But for some reason a fifteen year old boy liked watching The Today Show, Cooking shows, A Wedding story and a Wedding Story! For a few months I lived happily as male. But still kind of kept my female interests mostly just watching TV when I was alone. I did try women's clothes and stuff a couple of times. I hate to say this my father was racist and really anti LGBT. So even if I wanted to I'd never be able to come out. I mean he verbally and mentally abused me when I got an F on a math test. And this went from any school work that I did not do good on.  To the point where now I have an eight inch scar on my left wrist from trying to kill myself. I even think back to that time and remember how I thought it might have been better if I was female.

It was around this time that I started hating getting my picture taken. Every picture I have from twelve onto now I don't look right. No matter how much I tried I couldn't look happy and I noticed male clothes just didn't sit right on me. I though well whatever and ordered big and tall. Well that was a mistake since it made me look worse. And has led me to have major body modesty issues. So for about ten years I'm pretty sure there's less then twenty pictures taken of me. 

Once I got out of high school my first job was at a JCPenney call center. Now there was not a ton of guys working there. But the ones that where there I never really talked to. And I ended up being friends with about five other gals and another guy who was gay. When I took orders I always had an easier time with female customers then male. Which should've been the other way around. My mom actually worked there also and I got told a lot that I shouldn't be hanging out with older women all the time. I never really gave it any thought I was just comfortable around them.

During that time I was seriously considering joining the Army or Navy. Which in retrospect I was most likely trying reinforce me being male. I started working out all the time and was getting set to join. But then my father came down with cancer a couple months before I planned to join. And really between work and care I was drained for an entire year. But around that time I noticed that stories did a lot more for me then porn. But really did not give it much thought. Fast forward four months and my father was doing great. I though well I'm a couple years older but I'll give the military another shot. But my father got horribly ill and within a week from being up walking he was lying in our house dying. I still living with my parents at the time really to care for my dad. And once he died I still stayed with my mom since it would be impossible for her to take care of and pay for the house.

But now it was around this time about three years ago now I started having mood swings. I started switching interests in things almost on a monthly basis. And last year finally thought I was happy with my life. And went eight months content with who I was. But then something in me kind of said let me out. I very slowly started doing a few feminine things but not a lot. But then this year things became awfully tough for me. I was mad at everyone almost all the time and had no problem yelling at people. But inside I was getting really sad and feeling isolated. I tried getting into more male things. Watching fights on TV, watching horror movies and listening to a lot of metal. Also trying to reinforce myself and buying a lot of action figures from my childhood. Also I  started having males come over to my house. This kind of worked for a few months. But I started to realize I wasn't interested in hanging out with my male friends and doing stuff they were interested in. And it was a relief when they left.

Well things started changing. I know it sounds crazy but those silly tests online like is your brain more male or female started making me think something. Since I would get 80% female or more without fail. And I started looking on Buzzfeed and became interested in the female aimed posts. Also I started playing one video game and pretty much molded my character was me down to the hair color/style and her name. And it was weird but I was kind of living through her in the game.

And that voice inside my head that I haven't heard in awhile started talking again. Saying just let it come out. And well Raven was the result. 

I always knew I was a girl. There was no doubt in my mind. This is who I am.

As far back as i can remember I felt like I was in the wrong body.  I was about 6 years old I wore my first girl clothes.  The feeling has came and went.  I thought I was just a cross dresser until I was around 13 and was able to use the Internet for research purposes. I went to stores and bought my own things which I kept in private until my mom found them. She didn't exactly understand and probably made things worse.  In college I dressed more until I purged around 21 years old. I met my wife the next year and started dressing again.   After all its hard to be surrounded by reminders every day.   I kept my desires at bay with dressing on and off for the next few years.  About 5 years ago I told my wife about me which nearly ended my marriage.    after she had time to process everything she was way more supportive.  In the Last year my urges have gotten stronger and just a few days ago I told my wife I think I need to see a therapist.  That's where I am.  Sorry it was so long I just felt like pouring my heart out after reading everyone's stories!

Quote from: RavenL on June 06, 2015, 03:46:02 PM
Alright warning a long post. I think I kind of have my emotions figured out so hopefully I can write this out right finally.

I put a lot already into my introduction post some I won't repeat a lot. Other then I've always been a lot more comfortable around around females even when I was very young. And was not like normal boys I hated hated get scraps or getting dirty at all. I was always kind of drawn towards to cute things and got weird looks because when I was ten I still had stuffed animals. Once I hit puberty my hormones really shot through the roof. I grew really quickly. But for some reason a fifteen year old boy liked watching The Today Show, Cooking shows, A Wedding story and a Wedding Story! For a few months I lived happily as male. But still kind of kept my female interests mostly just watching TV when I was alone. I did try women's clothes and stuff a couple of times. I hate to say this my father was racist and really anti LGBT. So even if I wanted to I'd never be able to come out. I mean he verbally and mentally abused me when I got an F on a math test. And this went from any school work that I did not do good on.  To the point where now I have an eight inch scar on my left wrist from trying to kill myself. I even think back to that time and remember how I thought it might have been better if I was female.

It was around this time that I started hating getting my picture taken. Every picture I have from twelve onto now I don't look right. No matter how much I tried I couldn't look happy and I noticed male clothes just didn't sit right on me. I though well whatever and ordered big and tall. Well that was a mistake since it made me look worse. And has led me to have major body modesty issues. So for about ten years I'm pretty sure there's less then twenty pictures taken of me. 

Once I got out of high school my first job was at a JCPenney call center. Now there was not a ton of guys working there. But the ones that where there I never really talked to. And I ended up being friends with about five other gals and another guy who was gay. When I took orders I always had an easier time with female customers then male. Which should've been the other way around. My mom actually worked there also and I got told a lot that I shouldn't be hanging out with older women all the time. I never really gave it any thought I was just comfortable around them.

During that time I was seriously considering joining the Army or Navy. Which in retrospect I was most likely trying reinforce me being male. I started working out all the time and was getting set to join. But then my father came down with cancer a couple months before I planned to join. And really between work and care I was drained for an entire year. But around that time I noticed that stories did a lot more for me then porn. But really did not give it much thought. Fast forward four months and my father was doing great. I though well I'm a couple years older but I'll give the military another shot. But my father got horribly ill and within a week from being up walking he was lying in our house dying. I still living with my parents at the time really to care for my dad. And once he died I still stayed with my mom since it would be impossible for her to take care of and pay for the house.

But now it was around this time about three years ago now I started having mood swings. I started switching interests in things almost on a monthly basis. And last year finally thought I was happy with my life. And went eight months content with who I was. But then something in me kind of said let me out. I very slowly started doing a few feminine things but not a lot. But then this year things became awfully tough for me. I was mad at everyone almost all the time and had no problem yelling at people. But inside I was getting really sad and feeling isolated. I tried getting into more male things. Watching fights on TV, watching horror movies and listening to a lot of metal. Also trying to reinforce myself and buying a lot of action figures from my childhood. Also I  started having males come over to my house. This kind of worked for a few months. But I started to realize I wasn't interested in hanging out with my male friends and doing stuff they were interested in. And it was a relief when they left.

Well things started changing. I know it sounds crazy but those silly tests online like is your brain more male or female started making me think something. Since I would get 80% female or more without fail. And I started looking on Buzzfeed and became interested in the female aimed posts. Also I started playing one video game and pretty much molded my character was me down to the hair color/style and her name. And it was weird but I was kind of living through her in the game.

And that voice inside my head that I haven't heard in awhile started talking again. Saying just let it come out. And well Raven was the result.

I can related to this because I also had a period of time where I tried to force myself to be more girly, and it was partially other people's expectations of me.

7 years old

I have dealt with what I assume have been complications of this all my life.

However, while I thought I was a cross dresser I only concluded last Feb or March.

I am 50

Joanna

I had it buried away for a very long time. The penny didn't drop for me until I was 32.

It began in the middle of my fourth long-term relationship with a very pretty but also very dominant woman. It was my fourth time 'on the bottom' - sexually, and mentally.

One night we went out to a crossdressing theme party for a laugh. All of a sudden I felt carefree, and I wanted to do it again ...

We both began to realise that I wasn't who we thought I was. After we broke up I began crossdressing (privately) every night. I lived on IRC, pretending to be a biological girl. On the basis of my personality nobody doubted it.

The double life brought my GD right to the surface. After a couple of years I realised this wasn't going away ... it was becoming stronger ... and I had to do something about it.

I came out to everyone I knew, and started making appointments ...

The rest is history :~)

Age 4 or so. I started dressing then, was caught then got scared back into the closet. I struggled with it over the years. Puberty was hell.

I've always wanted to be a man, but I never realized how far that want was until this website. When I was a kid, I was a fervent feminist, and I would be confused as to why I wanted to be a man, I assumed that it was internalized sexism at the time, I was 5.
In 6th grade I decided I was going to get surgery to remove my breasts, because whenever I thought of myself it was always with a flat chest. I decided I was going to become very rich and pay surgeons to figure out a surgery that would work for me.
In 10th grade I was severely depressed and knew that something was wrong. I was looking on gay chatrooms, youtubers that were lesbian, how to know if you were gay websites.
It was while I was looking for a chatroom that I came across this website. I looked at the title and had an epiphany. The first thought I had was:
"Holy sh** I'm trans.."

When Lana Wachovski came out and what she was saying made me think "oh. That's how I feel too." and taking estrogen confirmed it really.

At first I thought I was Agender,or that it doesn't matter..later I realized that I am transgender but that A- part was related to sexuality,probably asexual(people are shaped by words,beauty resides in soul,not being interested in sex etc)..I was introvert,most of the time I spent playing with cats(we had over 30 cats!) in backyard and reading...I had favorite book character-George(Georgina) from The famous five(by Enid Blyton).She identified as boy.Also when I was a toddler I used to ask my mother why I don't have IDENTICAL twin brother....silly question but I always imagined myself differently.As a kid I also told to my mother"mom when I reach puberty,something will go wrong"...At that time I didn't clarify what was wrong with me..

I've always dressed as a boy.Truth to be told,most of the clothes I inherited from older(by chance all boys) cousins...as a kid I didn't care what I wore.At the age of 11 I developped my own style,very masculine.I loved gothic style,but also fedora hats and bow ties,I also started binding my chest,and living real life test...due to possible CAH I have facial hair and hairy arms,legs.

The fact that I'm not interested in sex made others doubt I'm actually a boy..Although I was activist for transgender rights in my country at that time, I also felt somewhat excluded from LGBT community(due to possible asexuality)

Full transformation at six, nah didn't realize
Asked all my girlfriends in puberty if they could dress me up, nuh uh
dressed so much to keep confusing feelings at bay the past decade

early twenties now, hmmmm, maybe



If at this point I end up only being a crossdresser. I could live with that, they're only clothingpieces after all :shrugs:

Quote from: Andre87 on June 18, 2015, 07:10:10 PM
At first I thought I was Agender,or that it doesn't matter..later I realized that I am transgender but that A- part was related to sexuality,probably asexual(people are shaped by words,beauty resides in soul,not being interested in sex etc)..I was introvert,most of the time I spent playing with cats(we had over 30 cats!) in backyard and reading...I had favorite book character-George(Georgina) from The famous five(by Enid Blyton).She identified as boy.Also when I was a toddler I used to ask my mother why I don't have IDENTICAL twin brother....silly question but I always imagined myself differently.As a kid I also told to my mother"mom when I reach puberty,something will go wrong"...At that time I didn't clarify what was wrong with me..

I've always dressed as a boy.Truth to be told,most of the clothes I inherited from older(by chance all boys) cousins...as a kid I didn't care what I wore.At the age of 11 I developped my own style,very masculine.I loved gothic style,but also fedora hats and bow ties,I also started binding my chest,and living real life test...due to possible CAH I have facial hair and hairy arms,legs.

The fact that I'm not interested in sex made others doubt I'm actually a boy..Although I was activist for transgender rights in my country at that time, I also felt somewhat excluded from LGBT community(due to possible asexuality)

Andre, it's great to be a transman and asexual. I personally see no correlation to masculinity and sexual activity. It just makes you seem like you have more discipline than other men, and that's a respectable quality. I'm a homo romantic transman.

I never realized I was transgender. What I realized is that the world couldn't see me. Instead their blind eyes saw something else.

Quote from: Jake25 on June 18, 2015, 10:29:14 PM
Andre, it's great to be a transman and asexual. I personally see no correlation to masculinity and sexual activity. It just makes you seem like you have more discipline than other men, and that's a respectable quality. I'm a homo romantic transman.

Exactly Jake.Good side of being asexual is that person's decisions can't be manipulated by sexual pressures.One appears cool headed and disciplined,as you mentioned.Bad side is that we live in oversexualized world(also due to abuse of psychology),sexual jokes,flirting is present in everyday communication.It's like "courtship dance" in birds..people expect you to react in certain way.Asexual persons can have passion.I'm romantic.In my (Serbian)language "strast"(word for passion) has root "to perish"(I don't know whether I found a proper word in English) which I interpret as "breaking oneself into dust in order to construct something more beautiful,sculpture of love.."(love toward another person,science,poetry etc).

I seemed to always think that I was a girl, even before I had any idea what the differences were. My mother said I always seemed to be uncomfortable with my genitals even as a very young child. I grew up playing with other girls and avoiding the boys. Adults who didn't know the family assumed I was a girl and I would correct adults who referred to me otherwise.

When I started school, gendered washrooms and segregated activities confused the hell out of me because I wasn't allowed to go  with the girls. It wasn't until age 8 that I realized I had a problem when a cousin said "You should have been a girl". I said I was and he said "No, not really." That really shook up my world! I heard about Christine Jorgensen and tried DIY hormones about age 13. I seriously thought about amputating the offending bits of flesh.

I was 14 when I first heard the word transsexual when Dr. Benjamin's book  was about to come out and was diagnosed at age 16 by Dr. Harry himself. At 17, I was on HRT but it took until age 24 to find SRS.

When did I realize? The first time I heard the word.

Quote from: Andre87 on June 19, 2015, 10:53:05 AM
Exactly Jake.Good side of being asexual is that person's decisions can't be manipulated by sexual pressures.One appears cool headed and disciplined,as you mentioned.Bad side is that we live in oversexualized world(also due to abuse of psychology),sexual jokes,flirting is present in everyday communication.It's like "courtship dance" in birds..people expect you to react in certain way.Asexual persons can have passion.I'm romantic.In my (Serbian)language "strast"(word for passion) has root "to perish"(I don't know whether I found a proper word in English) which I interpret as "breaking oneself into dust in order to construct something more beautiful,sculpture of love.."(love toward another person,science,poetry etc).

You sound interesting. I heard Serbia doesn't have much in the way of Trans/gay rights though.

Quote from: Jake25 on June 19, 2015, 12:34:45 PM
You sound interesting. I heard Serbia doesn't have much in the way of Trans/gay rights though.

yeah it's not as it should be..I don't rely on organizations..I just try to remove other people's prejudices by acting according to my conscience and morality,by being patient,in peaceful way explaining why their arguments don't apply..but what's even more important is that they see us above our gender(for a moment) and not simplify our life,because we're all complex persons with different interests and talents..when we make soul connection then they'll better understand TG issues and accept us who we are..accepting should come through understanding..

As a young child I knew I was supposed to be male and I thought I knew what was expected of a male. My actions were a good deal different. I took care of the younger kids, hated sports, liked quiet play with girls, liked to be clean and wanted to look nice even though I was wearing male clothes. I didn't really understand what male and female was until I hit puberty. I was in a 6th grade class on a warm spring day in the 6th grade. It was mid afternoon with the sunlight streaming through the window and my eyes happened to wander over to the most stunning girl in the class. My feelings at that moment where that I wanted to be her. Needless to say, the rest of the class was spent trying to figure out what was happening to me. As luck would have it soon after that an news paper item about John Hopkins doing SRS gave me a name for my feelings and hope. I knew I couldn't talk it over with my parents so I spent till I was 23 reading anything I could get my hands on, hoping for a magic cure that would make me a girl or make it go away and cross dressing whenever possible. Age 23 everything exploded in my head so I came out of the closet and started earning the needed money I would need to make it happen.

I was... twelve or thirteen I think, but I only really came to terms with it when I was fifteen. In my childhood, I used to be quite girly, though I stopped wearing dresses and skirts after I turned eight. I had very long hair, I loved messing about with makeup and I wanted everything in my room to be pink, and purple and fluffy. This was because I didn't quite understand the whole genders thing. I also loved playing video games, and going outside and playing with other boys, trying to show off that I was as strong and daring as them. Since entering my all girls' secondary school, I realised that I wasn't a girl, I didn't belong there, but there was nothing I could do except slowly push away my feminity, and let my masculinity show.