I came to Susan's Place by accident while trying to find how to figure out how to size myself for a bra. That would seem to indicate I have something in common with the community here as it isn't for the thrill but sort of necessity due to having gynecomastia since childhood.  Yes, I have had the desire to dress in women's clothing, the feels of soft nylon sliding across the skin, the strange wonderful feeling wearing a girdle or body shaper and the wonderful feeling of slipping into the right size of panties.  My life hasn't afforded me too many opportunities to do so with having two children and a spouse.

I've researched the process of M to F reassignment and thought of possibly being able to do so sometimes  actually  has been strong.  My main problem is I never had the money and my life would drift into following my male hormones pursing a family as a means of finding someone to love me.  At times I felt guilty having these feelings thinking I was possibly a pervert, yet I never really had any desire to have sex with a male.

What else brings me here?  The desire to know if I have a genetic code which makes me a third gender.  As I have stated I have had breasts since early childhood - I also have a retracted penis which now gives my genitalia the look of having a vaginal with testicles.  My penis has alway been "short" at it's best barely able to stretch out three inches when flaccid.  Yet I've managed to satisfy my wife and give her two children before diabetes, high blood pressure, hypertension, an ancient compression fracture of the fifth lumbar and recovering from prostate cancer took their toll.

Was I born with an extra chromosome which drives my desires and has caused me to have breasts and a small penis?

I've read Lynn Conway's articles on SRS and I realize I can never become a transgendered woman - I'm too old and I don't have the resources financially and physically to do so.  I plan on living with the cards I have been dealt.

What I hope to learn is how to find out if I have a third chromosome and if that is responsible for a life of up and down sexual confusion.

28Brook

Hi Brook,

Welcome to our little family. Over 3900 strong. That would be one heck of a family reunion.

Feel free to post your successes/failures, Hopes/dreams.  Ask questions and seek answers. Give and receive advice.

But remember we are family here, your family now. And it is always nice to have another sister.

And be sure to check out these links ( MUST READS )

• Site Terms of Service and rules to live by
  
• Standard Terms and Definitions
  
• Post Ranks ( including when you can upload an avatar)
  
• Reputation Rules
  

As I said in another thread, who said you are too old?  Simple by saying you are transgendered make you so.  It is a self-diagnosis. 

The only way to find out about chromosomes is to be tested and that is not cheap. 

I hope you can be happy living "with the cards I have been dealt."  Personally I would transition.  And yes it can be expensive, but many of us are doing it on unemployment and without jobs.

Hugs and Love,
Janet

Welcome to the forum Brook

Welcome to Susan's, Brook.

   What you will find here is plenty of support and lots of nice people. There is hardly a situation that hasn't been addressed before. I look forward to hearing more of your posts.

  Erocse

Thank you for the welcome and support.

Actually I was born in 1949 and spent a lifetime of being told I had to marry and have a son to carry on the family name as I was the last family male on my father's side.

My mother was mostly sick most of my childhood. Three babies and all C sections she had a history of female problems and allergies.  She knows she was given the estrogen drug DES during the pregnancies with my sisters, however, we are not sure if she used it during the time she was carrying me.  One of the times she was in the hospital my father developed the mumps and I went off to spend time at my Uncle's house with his three girls. They teased me unmercifully about needing a bra.

I was mostly introverted and shy much of my childhood.  I spent a lot of time playing alone using my imagination as I was  younger than the older kids in the neighborhood and then tater older than the younger kids.  Television was in its infancy and our RCA was constantly in need of repairs.   My mother finally took us to the library in the city near our town and I began to read fiction books playing the words in my mind like a movie.

I learned to wash clothes in the old style wringer washer.  Once I locked myself in an old fashion refrigerator (in the days before magnetic sealed doors) so my mother could rescue me.  I learned how to bake cookies, brownies, and doughnuts keeping my father's lunchbox full of goodies.

I passed onto the next grade every year in elementary school and high school but during third grade much of my recess time was spent indoors because I could not memorize the multiplication tables. I spent a week in a hospital after surgery on my feet for cramping toes the summer after third grade.  By junior high school they began to get worse again so they "built up" my shoes by placing leather bars on the bottom across where the joints of the toes were.  I later quit the state clinics where I was being treated.

Tenth grade I took up wrestling and was taking the Commercial Business classes with three other guys and about eighteen girls, ranging from the majorettes  and cheerleaders to some fairly nice looking girls.  I was soaking in estrogen and pheromones and sporting a bulge in my pants for almost a hour of class time.

After high school I went to work carrying wet ware in a china factory - I worked mostly for guys but I also worked with women. After a year and a half I was drafted for two years but instead volunteered for three years, spending time in Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina and Hawaii.

I went to college on the GI Bill but most of the women on campus and in my classes ignored me as I was older - I think some thought of us Vets as baby killers. Eventually I was given an academic suspension and went to work for a deep metal stamping company making parts for air conditioners, train and truck braking systems and a lot more. I got married to a former classmate from high school who had been an academic student we were both virgins at the time.

Till then I had been a disaster in dating.  I managed getting a date for both of my proms but after a couple of dates those relationships ended.  The second one I took swimming and when my trunks showed what little crotch mass I had I was embarrassed.

To be continued.

I'm tired and drugged [sugar IS a heavy effect drug!] so I didn't read everything, but I understand you're questioning about yourself, and you're at the right place ! Welcome !

Hi 28Brook.  no you never can become a transgendered woman - you either are one or not.
Have you had any professional input from a shrink with experience of gender problems?
Lack of finance may stop any real transitioning but its cheap enough to try living as female just to see if it nicer.

humans normally have 46 chromosomes not 3

If you think you have the intersex disorder klienfelters syndrome XXY have you considered bringing this up with your GP? and also having kleinfelters syndrome dosen't cause gender identity disorder usually.

Pebbles

Thank you for your info on kleinfelters syndrome.  I am trying hard to sort all this out.  Just about the time I think I am understanding an article which seems to deal with my condition the writer goes off on a different angle and I become confused.  Then I have never been a person to concentrate on one thing for an extended period of time.

No, I haven't discussed it with my GP.  I'm not sure how he would react.

I don't know if there is a genetic counselor in this area.  We have a small city in a rural area of the state I live in whose mental health clinics deal mostly in alcohol and drug abuse.

I've been married for 35 years to the same woman. During the first five years we wore out a mattress.  Then we had two children.  During about 30 years I have been a househusband, running children to doctor appointment, nursery school, washing their clothes, shopping for clothes for them and my wife (yes I've bought sanitary napkins).  I have managed the bills shopped for groceries, cooked some, baked a lot, repaired cars they have damaged, did plumbing and carpentry repairs and some painting, maintained the yards and keep the water system running in our rural home.  You might say I have been a woman - I've been called a "kept man" to my face.

Our first pregnancy ended in a miscarriage - after putting my wife to bed I sat and cried till I could cry no more.   A few years later I begged her to shoot me while trying to deal with what was described as an ancient compression fracture of the fifth lumbar.  I have nerve damage in my right leg and foot. Thinking I was losing my vision one day I learned I had diabetes. I was gaining a lot of weight when I finally convinced my doctor I had sleep apnea - I sleep connected to a CPAP unit ( air pump).  I had surgery for a kidney stone three months after it first developed. I now drip when I urinate because my left side doesn't put up enough pressure to move urine completely through the bladder.  I had a vasectomy so my wife could get off of birth control pills and save having her tubes tied. During the procedure the surgeon announced my vasa deferentia were underdeveloped and had he known before the surgery he wouldn't have agreed to  it.  B.C. I tore the meniscus in my right leg which developed arthritis. Over ten years ago I was told I had aggressive prostate cancer. During the treatment interview the urologist stated if I wanted a radical surgery (total removal) he would do it although he wouldn't recommend it given my health and size.  I have since wondered if he didn't mean both my weight and penis length. I underwent seeding with Iodine 125 pellets, leaving me with swollen testicles and scrotum which was black and blue.  I wore women's bikini panties till the swelling receded as they were more comfortable than men's briefs. I even put them on in the men's locker room when I went back to daily swimming.  I lost feeling in my glans from wearing external catheters after the procedure to control incontinence.  You haven't lived until you empty your bladder in the middle of Wal Mart without anyone seeing it.  I strained the cartilage on my sternum one evening from sneezing, then had to deal with a screwed up EKG which lead to an induced stress test which was screwed up. I tore the meniscus in my left knee requiring surgery. Last spring I was found to have a cancerous spot on the right side of my nose.

I've lost the dignity of having the only sexual release I have ever known evidently due to various medications and medical conditions.  If I were to transition to a SRS woman I would likely be non orgasmic.  The question would be could I withstand the procedure and pain.

There is my partner to consider.  I found her father in a pasture field one morning - his clothing had gotten caught in a power take off shaft and ripped his coveralls from his body crushing his chest. We lost her mother two years ago due to complete kidney shutdown.  I lost my father last year to Alzeheimer's diseases and heart failure.

The later years of my elementary education I was taller and bigger than the the male classmates. A couple of them took it upon themselves to entertain the rest of the class by poking, prodding me and kicking me when my back was turned to them till I cried.  I know they got their kicks out of making me cry.  I don't know if I was just insensitive, immature or effeminate then.

My thanks to Susan for allowing me to explore myself here and share my life -

I have read your whole page and can conclude, you have been through hell. I see that you have a lovley family, you give them the most you can. Where i come from they would call you a hero. While there are so many praises i would like to give you i will let you see them yourself. What i will say however is that you just keep on going and get past these obstacals, and god tell me im right that at the end you will find what you really want for youself.Welcome to susans.....

WoW....what a story.....  I don't know what to say right now, except, you're safe here.  Welcome.

~Valerie

You have had to endure pain to get here, but you made it.  You are in a safe place here where there is love and support.

What do you want to do?  What will make you happy?

We are here ready to help.

xoxo

Jamie

Hello Brook,
I was 59 when I started HRT. And there are other girls here who started later in life.
By the way I have 3 children and 4 Grandchildren.
I have lived with my wife for over 39 years.
But to not transition at least part way would mean death for me.
I need to do this.
Welcome to Susan's Brook,
Jillieann

Yes that is quite a story. Life can be very difficult sometimes but like others said this is a nice place to be. There are allot of informed and caring people here. I may not always be informed but I care. 

Thank you Brook. It was a pleasure to read your story.

Thanks for the posts and support.

Right now I am cursing the fact I was born a male.  I developed Epididymitis a few days ago and it is taking longer than I thought to clear up plus the pain has moved into the upper abdomen.

The lighter side of this issue is that my GP wasn't in when I called for an "emergency" appointment. Instead I had my tender scrotum checked by his female PA.  Yes she is a GG.  I must say she was very gentle and nice about it all.

Brook

Oh my!       Nothing like having your "parts" messed with by someone who hasn't got the "parts" themselves.  That happened when my gyno was out once, and I felt so bad for the guy who hadda' deal with me-- he tried to be careful, but he hurt me & I cussed out loud.....shoulda' seen his expression, he looked so uncomfortable...  poor fella' probably was ready to go into car sales or something after that....   Anyway...  get better....  --Valerie