I found this wonderful place while doing research online about transgender/transsexual stuff and it looks like a wonderful place. Anyways, here's my story.
I'm 26 years old and I have always felt that I was a girl on some level. I can remember being as young as 5 and dressing up in my older's sisters clothes. I've always enjoyed making myself pretty and have always envied girls as they were allowed and encouraged to do this. I also get jealous because people will go out of their way to be nice to girls just for them being girls. Growing up I would dress up quite a bit when I was alone which was quite a lot since I was a rather latchy key kid. I can remember shaving my legs for the first time when I was in 6th grade. During high school I would dress in private which was made easy by the fact that my parents were at work/out of town a lot and my sister was in college.
When I got to college I was able to dress up a little bit more because I was not living at home. It is during this time I got my first wig, bought my own clothes, and started to discover through the internet that there were others like me. It felt nice to know that I wasn't alone. I even went out dressed a few Halloweens and I loved it! It felt so nice to be out there as a girl. What made it even better was that people actually thought I was a girl.
Despite my girl side growing I was still closeted. I've never been much of a manly man. I'm not effeminate in any way, but I have never been into things such as being loud, boastful, and aggressive. In fact these things disgust me. I really hate it how guys talk so poorly about girls, referring to them as just b*tches they want to bang and objectifying them in such as nasty way. It really makes me uncomfortable because I don't feel this way and because of my lack of experience. I have always been fascinated with girls and feminity. I have no problems befriending girls. For some reason I don't come off as a threatening male to them and they're very open in front of me, often saying things and doing things that most girls wouldn't do in front of boys. Countless times I wish I could just be one of them instead of kind of an awkward outsider.
I've never been successful with dating and sex. I'm not attracted to guys (kind of like that thing of not wanting to become your worst enemy), but do love all girls. Unfortunately, no girl has yet to like me in an intimate and sexual way though I do have plenty of close friendships with girls. I find it odd that they always say they want to have a guy who's nice and treats them well, but then they go end up hooking up with some selfish a-hole type. Of course boys who want to be girls aren't generally known for being attractive to the ladies, even if they do treat them well and listen and care for them. I hope I don't come off as sounding bitter because I'm really not.
During the past couple of years I have begun to realize that my need to be a girl have become stronger. For most of my life I have thought that these feelings would go away if I just got focused on something else such as moving to another state, starting a new job, or returning back to school. I've always thought that i would some how meet and start dating a girl who would make me forget about my trans feelings though from my previous paragraph that never happened (I have made some great female friendships of course). From what I've been reading it's a good thing I didn't join the army and get married with kids!
I am starting to realize that these feelings will never go away as they are a part of me and that I need to deal with them. I've also noticed that in the past year or so that parts of my girl side have been showing in my boy life. My clothing has become not as loose and more colorful and I will wear some girl things such as cute and colorful socks and sneakers. I've also started plucking my eyebrows, making more feminine gestures such as crossing my legs, and shaving my legs during the colder months. My apartment also looks like it would belong to a teenage girl (I've been told by my guy friends that it looks rather "flamboyant").
I realize that what once I thought was just a desire to crossdress and perhaps a transvestic fetish goes much deeper. I now think about things such as actually becoming a woman and what I can do to make it happen. I'm currently about to make my first electrolysis appointment and I want to start seeing a gender therapist as soon as I have the means so I can take the legit route to HRT and also just to have someone to talk to. I've been eating healthy and dieting and have lost 10 lbs during the past 2 weeks (I'm down to 149!), I've stopped drinking and partying, and I no longer smoke the cigarettes (I would smoke socially every now and then and I know smoking + HRT don't mix). While I didn't desire to actually become a woman through SRS before I now believe that it might be right for me given time. I'm more concern with becoming the girl I want to be on the inside rather than having it determined by my genetalia.
I'm getting sick of keeping my true self hidden, mostly from myself. I am glad I have found this place as it has so much information and I have so many questions. I do feel kind of odd about my age since it seems most people who are transitioning are either very young (teenagers to 21) or middle aged (35-55+). I don't want to wait until it's too late and have my masculine traits permanently burned into me as it sounds like from reading that these feelings don't go away ever. I think I should be able to transition and be pretty well passable since I'm not very masculine looking. People always think I'm still a teenager because I look so young and don't have much facial hair at all (being Asian helps too).
Well that's about it and thank you for listening.
-Jessica
