So ... a couple of years ago a doctor I see, who has decades of experience with gender dysphoric patients and is also a qualified, practising psychiatrist, gave me a piece of advice. 'Why don't you spend a few days dressed as a woman, in private, just to see how you feel?' Well, I told him that was impossible. I was living with my family, with no privacy. There was no way I could do it ... Which was just another way of saying: I'm scared to confront the truth.
Time goes by ... my marriage falls apart, now I'm living alone in a flat. So I have no excuse not to dress however I choose ... which is why I'm writing this wearing a high-waisted, tailored black dress, with a flared, knee-length skirt; a little black cardigan, opaque black tights (pantyhose to American readers!) and a pair of kitten-heeled black shoes. No wig, no make-up, not even a bra (it and the breastforms got stuck in the mail and hasn't arrived yet) ... just the clothes.
And I've learned a few useful lessons ... like, for example, don't buy a cap-sleeved dress if you've got genetic male shoulders, because it just emphasizes them, which is the last thing you want to do ... and don't pretend that your great, big, masculine feet are a size smaller than they really are, because you're just going to squeeze your toes and it hurts. Which is, of course, what girls and women have been telling you for years: the shoes are sooooo pretty. But they're murder on the feet!
Something else, which is much more important: I don't get any sexual thrill from dressing like this. It's not a turn-on. In a funny sort of way it's not even very exciting. What it is, though, is right. It's comfortable (apart from those squashed toes!!), relaxing, natural and easy. I love the way the dress feels so weightless. I love the swing of the skirt against my legs ... and here's the good news for MTFs: we do have GREAT legs!! ☺ Slim ankles, too, though I say so myself!
This is not entirely a surprise. I used to dress up when I was much, much younger, but I stopped, mostly out of frustration that it was only dressing: in those days I simply couldn't face the thought of transition – I was too locked in to trying to defy the dysphoria and make it as a man. That's why this is wonderful now, but also scary. You see, I'm 99% certain that HRT would have the same effect for me, the same feeling of rightness. And as much as that's wonderful, it's frightening too ... because I'm running out of reasons not to transition ... and after all these years ... well ... I'm getting to the point of no return, like when you've been wheeled up to the top of the roller-coaster and you realize that there's only one way to get to the end of the ride ...
