When I Learned What I Am

[Susan]

Early Knowing: A Truth Without Language

I don't remember a moment when I didn't know I was a girl. My earliest clear memories are of sitting in bed at night, praying to God to make me a girl. Of watching girls play and feeling the ache of being excluded—not from their games, but from being accepted and recognized as one of them. Of understanding, without anyone saying it aloud, that this truth I carried was dangerous. I was perhaps three or four years old. I already knew what I was. I already knew to hide it.

The Moment of Recognition: Finding the Word "Transsexual"

By age five or six, I had been carrying this secret for years. Then I saw something on television—a commercial or news segment about a film called Let Me Die a Woman (1977).

It was a shockumentary, one of those exploitation documentaries that wrapped real people's lives in clinical voiceovers and graphic imagery, promising to "reveal" what was hidden. The intent was titillation and shock. But beneath the sensationalism, I heard a voice say: "I am lonely, yet I feel wonderful because I'm a woman. Last year, I was a man."

I didn't feel scandalized. I felt recognition. The word they used was transsexual. That word didn't invent me—it finally named me. And with a name came the beginning of direction. I wasn't alone or "wrong." I was something real. Other people felt exactly the same way. This was something that had a name. That moment shifted my life trajectory. From then on, the question was never whether I would become myself. It became how, when, and how much it would cost.

A Path Revealed: Christine Jorgensen and the Possibility of Becoming

Shortly after, I saw The Christine Jorgensen Story. If Let Me Die a Woman gave me the word, Christine Jorgensen gave me the roadmap. Here was living proof that the body could be changed to match the truth inside. That others had walked this path and survived—and even thrived. For a child who already knew the truth of her identity but had nowhere to place it, that realization changed everything. My path was set before I reached the age of seven.

Knowing and being able to live that knowledge are not the same thing.

I didn't fit with the boys—they sensed something was off and responded with cruelty. I didn't fit with the girls—I was too unclassifiable, too "other." So I became solitary. Woods, books, computers—things that allowed me to exist without performing a gender that was not mine. I played dress-up with my sisters and felt, briefly, like myself. I learned to raid closets and drawers quietly, and learned just as quickly that getting caught meant danger. The message was clear: you may know who you are, but you must not be seen.

Puberty and Rebellion: When the Body Becomes the Enemy

Puberty was horrifying. The body hair, the drop in my voice, the need to shave—every change was a deepening betrayal, a widening gap between who I was and what the world forced me to appear to be. I became angry. Sullen. I acted out—shoplifting, breaking into houses—not for thrill or gain, but as a wordless scream: something is wrong, and no one is listening. When my parents found me wearing a slip under my clothing and sent me to therapy, I couldn't bring myself to speak the truth. I was terrified of hurting my mother more than I already had. The therapist, I believe, suspected something deeper, but without my admission he categorized it as fetishism and moved on.

Survival Under Uniform: The Navy Years

Even when I joined the Navy, the need to be myself never stopped. I finally worked up the courage to buy women's clothing at the base commissary—risking recognition with every item I placed in my basket. I took it into the woods behind the barracks to dress, believing I would be safe there. I was fully dressed—hose, panties, bra, skirt, blouse—when the police dog tore into my ankle. When the shore patrol it belonged to arrived and I realized one of them was my own school instructor, I panicked.

The first words out of my mouth were not planned—they were desperate: "Did she send you, that bleeping bitch?" That was not profanity. It was survival. I invented a story on the spot—a girl had promised sex if I put on the outfit she'd left in a bag. I stuck to that lie through the patrol, the Navy psychiatrist, everyone who asked. It was the only thing that kept me from immediate discharge. But it got me kicked out of my school and transferred to a ship.

Acts of Resistance: Refusing to Disappear

Before I reported, they handed me my records to transport. Those records contained the truth about me—written by others. I couldn't risk them being discovered. I didn't throw them away. I went into a bathroom stall air the airport and I ate them. Every page. Because even then, even under military discipline and surveillance, the truth inside me refused to be erased—even if I had to physically consume it to keep it.

A short time later, during Operation Desert Shield, on liberty in Saudi Arabia, I bought a dress. I told others it was for a girlfriend. In reality, I wore it locked in a cargo hold on the ship and then hid it in an air vent. As far as I know, it's still there—my truth, sealed away in metal, waiting.
Eventually, after three Captain's Masts, they discharged me for pattern of misconduct. What they called misconduct was simply my refusal to disappear.

The Internet Emerges: Connection and the Birth of Community

By the mid-1990s, the public internet was beginning to form, and with it came the possibility of connection I had never known. A woman named Cindy Martin ran a transgender chat room that became a lifeline for people like us. When her ISP shut it down for using too much bandwidth, I offered to host the chat on my boss's server. Before the move, though, I had to choose how I would show up in that space—not as an abstraction, but as a name.

Choosing My Name, Choosing My Life

My first thought was Susan Montgomery—Susan from Montgomery County—because it rooted me in a place that felt like home. But the name that fit, that settled into me as if it had always been there, was Susan Larson. I used it in Cindy's chat, and when that space eventually became my own, the name came with me Susan's Place Transgender Resources. It stayed through my legal name change and surgery. It's the name that will be on my tombstone when the time comes—though knowing me, the body will likely be donated to science, and if not, cremated. Names are for the living to find us; mine helped me find myself.

From Private Truth to Public Commitment

That offer to host the chat exposed a contradiction I could no longer ignore: I was facilitating authenticity for others while still hiding a fundamental truth from someone who had the power to discover it by accident. I was building safe space in the shadows while my own life remained a carefully constructed fiction. The tension became unbearable—not because I feared what he would think of me, but because I refused to continue asking others to be brave in a space I myself inhabited silently.

So I wrote him a letter and left it on his keyboard. I ended it with a simple boundary: if nothing between us changed, I would see him in the morning as usual; if our friendship could not withstand this truth, then he should not come pick me up.

He arrived on time the next morning—but he hadn't read the letter. So I told him in person. I told him everything: who I was, how long I had known, and why I was hosting a trans chat in a hidden subdirectory on his machine. He listened. When I finished, he grinned and made a joke about "more room in the gene pool." That joke was not dismissal—it was acceptance delivered in the only language that preserved our established friendship dynamic. It meant: We are unchanged. You are still you. I am still me. Let's go to work.

The Founding of Susan's Place: A Home for All of Us

In that moment, the chat stopped being a hidden corner of a server. It became the beginning of Susan's Place. Not a personal refuge. A public commitment. A declaration that we exist, we matter, and we will build our own future in the open—together.

One Continuous Path: Recognition to Liberation

The arc from that childhood recognition to the founding of Susan's Place is not a collection of separate stories. It is one continuous path. From the moment I first heard a word that matched who I was, every step—every act of hiding, every act of resistance, every moment of choosing truth over comfort—was part of the same trajectory: to live, fully and openly, as the woman I had always been.

An Invitation to the Reader

If you're reading this and you've carried a truth for years in silence, I'm not asking when you "figured it out." I'm asking: when did you first hear the world echo back what you already knew? What did that moment of recognition feel like—and what would it take for recognition to become movement?
If you would like to contribute your own moment of recognition or turning point to this series, you are welcome to reply publicly. If you prefer your story to be shared anonymously, you can private message me or Northern Star Girl. Every voice added to this conversation doesn't just tell a story—it builds safety, visibility, and belonging for those who have never before seen themselves reflected in community.

About This Series: Reclaiming Our Stories, Building Our Community

This post launches an ongoing series designed to bring forward the authentic, personal histories of transgender lives—told in our own voices, on our own terms. For decades, our identities were defined by outsiders: medical gatekeepers, sensationalized media, cultural myths. Most of us didn't "discover" who we were—we recognized it within ourselves, often in silence, long before we had language, community, or safety.

This series has a dual purpose:

To Give Voice and Validation — to reflect real timelines and emotional realities; to make space for defining moments and hard-won truths; to establish a living record rooted in authenticity, not stereotypes.

To Strengthen and Grow Our Community — to spark engagement, draw in quiet readers, encourage new registrations, and build lasting involvement through the power of shared experience.
Our goal is building a vibrant, active community where people feel seen, welcomed, and heard.

Why Your Story Matters
Transgender forums like this one are lifelines. Every person who shares a piece of their story strengthens someone else who is still searching for hope. Every post in this series is a door opening—not just a reflection on the past, but an invitation into belonging in the present.

You're not just reading this series. You're invited to be part of it.

[Sephirah]

Another Navy lass. I knew I recognised something in you, Susan. Thank you for your service <3

I envy you, honestly. I didn't have the clarity you did at an early age. Up until puberty I never saw myself as anything other than... um... a thing, lol. I think even mostly afterwards just because of how I rejected the whole idea of wanting to be anything other than a sponge to soak up escapism.

I relate to this very strongly, however:

I didn't fit with the boys—they sensed something was off and responded with cruelty. I didn't fit with the girls—I was too unclassifiable, too "other." So I became solitary. Woods, books, computers—things that allowed me to exist without performing a gender that was not mine. I played dress-up with my sisters neighbours, and felt, briefly, like myself.

I have amended it somewhat to reflect my own experience. Although for me the girls responded probably more with cruelty. They saw me as a threat. I have no idea why. I had no idea who I was, much less where I fit in. The boys mostly ignored me. The girls took a somewhat unhealthy interest in me and... made my life hell. I never fought back. I was very passive as a kid.

My time in the Navy was in a guy dominated environment, at the time. Submarines. Women weren't allowed to serve on boats back then. So that whole time, for me, was just a detached professionalism. A way to escape thinking about myself altogether.

I think getting online for the first time was kind of the catalyst in trying to understand myself. Meeting people who were okay being themselves. People who... were outside my sphere of experience. Finding out it was okay to be different.

This site was one of my earliest experiences after accepting myself, and what that means. After another forum which was based on something entirely different lol. Something I had a big interest in at the time. But I met a girl, a cis gay girl. She saw something in me that I wasn't even sure I saw in myself. She was the first person I came out to, and we started an online relationship. She was the one who convinced me to come here. This was still very early in trying to figure out what it all meant. Way back in 2008. I was still in my 20s then. The rest, as they say, is history. Where does the time go? I will be 46 in a week. Crazy.

This place has been instrumental in allowing me to explore what it means to be me, and being able to express that. And I will always be eternally grateful for that, and to you for providing it. Through being here for not far off 20 years at this point I have learned so much about myself, and hopefully have helped others on their own path. A lot has happened in that time. But I wouldn't change anything. Even though sometimes I probably would if a genie appeared from a magic lamp, lol.

[Northern Star Girl]

@Susan
Dear Susan:
Thank you for sharing your stories with details that were not apparent
to me in your previous blogs and other writings.

Your postings here on the Forum and in your other writings are certainly very helpful
to others that are in their early transition journeys.

THANK YOU for sharing and opening up yourself as you did.

HUGS, Danielle [Northern Star Girl]

[Lori Dee]

Thank you, Susan, for this thread!

From the beginning, I knew I was different, but I never understood why or in what way. I was born with a "color-blindness" when it comes to physical appearances. I now know that it is because I see people as just people; I see their spirit. To me, boys and girls were just variations of humans, no different than variations in skin, hair, or eye color.

I never prayed or wished to be a girl. I never had an opportunity or desire to wear women's clothing. Was that because I was raised as a boy with three brothers on a ranch with few neighbors in the middle of the desert? I don't know.

I noticed in grade school that the girls would sit in the shade under a tree and talk. The boys would be playing some sport, wrestling/fighting, and generally trying to prove how tough they were. That didn't interest me at all. I preferred to hang out in the shade and talk with the girls. At least they were doing something valuable. They were communicating. They seemed to have a connection with each other that the boys did not. They were supportive and kind to one another (mostly), while the boys were always in some form of competition with each other. They didn't want me hanging out with them or the girls. I was still an outcast.

I would spend my time reading books by myself. Eventually, other "outcasts" were bullied enough that they joined me. We formed our own little group of misfits. And although we had the friendship of each other, we were no match for the bullies who found us easy targets.

When puberty came knocking, I was horrified at what my body was doing. At least I was able to hide "morning wood". But one day at a public pool, as I climbed out of the water, I noticed my legs had dark hair on them. That freaked me out. I kept my legs covered and never swam in a public pool again.

While in high school, a lawn mower picked up a nail and launched it at me, deeply embedding itself in my ankle. It was completely buried, so I didn't know what had happened, but I couldn't walk on that foot. After 27 x-rays from every possible angle (no exaggeration), the surgeon told me I had a nail stuck in my Achilles' Tendon and I needed surgery. To prep for surgery, and intern had to shave my leg from the knee down. After surgery, I realized how nice that leg looked compared to the hairy one. It felt soft and smooth. So I got a razor and shaved the rest of that leg and the other. My brothers teased me, but I just explained that now they both look the same, instead of half of one leg shaved. Secretly, I enjoyed how they looked and felt.

I never understood sex. From Middle school into my twenties, it just seemed like everyone around me was obsessed with sex. That was all they talked about, and the best jokes always seemed to be "dirty jokes".

My next-door neighbor and I became good friends, and I spent a lot of time at her house talking with her. It was just friends talking, but my parents assumed that more was going on. "Boys will be boys." My father gave me "The Talk", so I understood the mechanics of sex. I just did not understand why everyone thought it was so important. Eventually, I was banned from hanging out with her, so I would tell my parents I was going over to visit with her older brother. That was okay. Why didn't they assume I was having sex with him?

Years later, my parents had divorced, my mother remarried, and we moved out of state. One day, my mother said she was going to the store and left. My step-sister came into my room and sat on my bed, and we were talking. Mom had forgotten her purse and came back in to get it, looked down the hall, and saw us sitting on the bed. When she came back from the store, she gave me the talk, saying she never wanted to see my step-sister in my room ever again. I said we were just talking, and she said, but she was ON YOUR BED! Yeah, so what? She said What if I knocked up my step-sister? What would the neighbors think? I just looked at her blankly and asked, "From talking?" I was so confused.

After I joined the Army, my lack of interest in sex did not go unnoticed. In such a strong hetero environment, the assumption is that if you are not actively chasing women, you must be gay. It started as subtle rumors, but escalated to a physical attack that left me with a permanent back injury. It was then that I realized that I needed camouflage. I had been bullied my whole life and never understood why. Now I thought I knew. I started dating and working on becoming the ultimate alpha male. As I tell in The Story of Lori, I worked very hard at being the best at my job, and I became the tough guy. I had noticed that no one bullies you if you are the bully.

After I left the service and was working in construction installing security systems, I suffered a neck injury and had to have the vertebrae in my neck fused. That put me on permanent disability. I went searching for an alternative pain management to stop popping Vicodins. I learned about hypnotherapy, went to school, and became a Clinical Hypnotherapist, certified in the U.S. and the U.K. I specialized in pain management and had about 20 clients over three years. One of my classmates and I stayed in touch via Skype and discussed issues we were having. He suggested I see a therapist in a face-to-face meeting. That led me to another therapist, who referred me to a psychologist, and eventually I ended up seeing a psychologist at the VA.

After several detailed sessions, he said that his diagnosis was "Gender Dysphoria". I didn't know what that meant. He said that meant I was transgender. I rejected that saying, "I'm not gay!"

I spent the next two years in therapy learning what Gender Dysphoria is and what being transgender means. As I learned about these things, I could see the patterns. Things that I never told anyone suddenly made sense. I understood why I was different. I understood why I behaved differently from others.

He also told me that I was asexual. That clicked, too. That explains why the obsession with sex was always a mystery to me. It also explained the difficulties I had in my relationships with women. They were expecting me to act like the alpha male I pretended to be. But that wasn't the real me. And you can't go back and tell your spouse of seven+ years that you are not interested in having sex with her, and that you would prefer to cuddle. That does not fly.

Once I understood what was happening with me and why, I asked the psychologist if there was a test to verify his diagnosis as accurate. He said the protocol is to begin hormone therapy on a trial basis and see how I feel. If I don't feel right or suffer any indication that something is wrong, we stop immediately and look for answers in a different direction. He added that he was 95% certain that I would be described as "asexual transfeminine". Those words stuck to me like glue. The light bulb went off in my head. Of course!

On January 11, 2020, at the age of 62, I began hormone therapy, and I have never been happier. A load was lifted from my shoulders because I no longer had to pretend to be what everyone else said I was. I could finally be me.

The road has not been an easy one. I am constantly frustrated because I must rely on healthcare providers, who have no clue, to write my prescriptions. I have read the literature, I have studied the studies, and my new Primary doctor even suggested I should give a class to the VA doctors on hormone therapy for transgender people.

I agreed that I am probably the most qualified to do it, but I lack the medical credentials that society requires of me to have any credibility. I will be ignored because I am the patient and they are the doctors, so they know better. Even though I am the first transgender patient they have ever met, with almost six years of real-life experience that they will never have.

When I found Susan's Place, I was still trying to figure out what my psychologist meant by "transgender" and "gender dysphoria". He gave me the basics, but this place gave me the answers. All of the wonderful members who have travelled this path and cleared the weeds before us, helped me understand who I am. For that, I am eternally grateful. And that is why I try to be here every day to give back more than I received.

Thank you to all of our wonderful members, past and present.