Thank you all for your interest, and I hope my story helps someone. During my life to date I had searched for any information about my challenges, but in the '60's and '70's there was very little. It was before personal computers and the internet, so books were the only source, and of course rare mentions of transsexuals, usually in trashy newspapers. About the only books I could find were written by sexologists, and their conclusions about mental illness just didn't seem true. In later years these texts were disqualified and shown to be merely opinions with no real research behind them.
Being a single parent while working full time and keeping a house nice for my children was challenging, but I was determined. By the time my children were in secondary school, my financial pressures had eased, and under doctors orders, I cut back my work load. I was a passionate scuba diver, so every weekend when my ex had our children, I would go diving with my club. A woman almost 10 years my junior shared my passion for marine critters and photography, and we became regular buddies. Our interest in each other was purely about our hobby, as she didn't like children, and just never saw me as boyfriend material. We went away on trips together and shared accommodation, but not beds, and she admitted she viewed me as sexless.
I was the shoulder she cried on through 3 breakups with her boyfriends, and she began dropping in to see me whenever she needed company (or free meals). She told me she had settled for me and wasn't looking for a man anymore, then I found her in my bed. She couldn't believe how little I knew about sex, and was amazed I had 2 children, and set about teaching me how to please her. While she made it more fun than I had ever imagined, I was hit with a deep guilt after each time, and I struggled to meet her expectations.
We had a 386 computer, and dial up internet, and when my kids were asleep, I spent hours searching for answers about my gender incongruence. Of course, in the '80's there was a lot of misinformation online, and I found little to help me. There was some useful information later from A Vitale and, of course I found and completed a test to see if I was trans with predictable results! I was still very firmly in the closet, and by the '90's I had found a trans fiction site. So many of the stories there had elements of my own life, and for the first time I started to think I might not be so unique. I found that by writing fiction stories about myself, I felt some relief from what I now understood was dysphoria.
As the new century approached, I was now in my mid 40's, my children were teens and totally involved with friends, my life seemed to be driving them to sporting events or stage events. My lady friend was spending 3 nights a week at my place, and we were diving whenever I had free time. We were camping at a remote location, and diving was not happening as the wind howled, and after 3 days in our tent, she told me she wanted to spend the rest of her life with me. I agreed that I was happy with our relationship, but reminded her that I had responsibilities to my children who were still at school, and she didn't want to take on any of that.
A couple of weeks later, she agreed that I should continue raising my children alone, but she wanted a commitment from me for our future. I really thought that by now, she would have guessed I might be trans, so I came out to her. She was silent, just went home and I didn't hear from her for 2 weeks. She rang me and told me she had cried so much, but had realised she loved me for my feminine side as well as my male side, and asked if we could stay together. Again, I agreed that we could be together, but my kids were my priority for the next years.
I had acquired a couple of items of female clothing over the years, and on those rare moments when I had time to myself, I would indulge and it reduced my dysphoria. I noticed a pattern where I could spend a night in my nightie and part of a day in a dress, and my dysphoria would be greatly reduced, only to slowly build over the next couple of weeks. So, by finding time to dress, and writing stories, I was able to manage my dysphoria, and maintain a mostly normal life. I explained this to my friend and soul mate, and she agreed that I should have time to be myself in our relationship, but she never wanted to see it. By mid December of '99, it seemed I was engaged again.
That Christmas was a disaster. On Christmas Eve, I took my children to a carols event at a children's hospital, and when we got home late we found that our dogs had been terrorised by neighbours fireworks, and broke through our fence. We found one dead on a local road, obviously struck by a car. My daughter was devastated, and our Christmas ruined. My mother was in a hospital some 2000 kilometres away with serious emphysema, and when I rang her on Christmas Day she was struggling to talk. The next day she passed. I was close to my mother, as she was the only person who knew my secret while I was growing up, though we had never spoken about it since I was 7. A couple of days later, while I was making arrangements at the funeral home, I got a call from the driver who had struck my dog, demanding thousands for repairs.
I was numb through New Years, and when I started to get myself together my fiancé gave me a pearl necklace to cheer me up. Even though I never had the opportunity to wear it out anywhere, it meant so much to me to have this, not the least that someone had accepted me for who I was! A couple of months later, she announced that she had booked the registry office for us to get married. I was disappointed as, even though I wouldn't have gotten to wear a wedding dress, I had sort of planned a real wedding in my head. So we married in jeans and Hawaiian shirts with her best friend and my children in attendance, then went back to our lives of her staying over 3 nights a week. I learned later the rush to get married was about her mother unhappy she was living in sin. My new wife gave me a beautiful satin nightie as a wedding present, and even better, allowed me to wear it while she was with me! It was a bit crazy, newly married and living apart, but I had pretty much given up any idea of 'normal' in my life!
Over the next couple of years, I struggled more and more with having sex, so my wife introduced alternatives, though, only at her place. My children were getting into their 20's and were totally involved in their own lives, not really wanting me around that much, so I started to stay at my wife's place more often. There was still very little information on the internet to help me, and what I found was usually based on the older opinions, so not really relevant to me anyway.
I never had much body hair, had bald patches in my facial hair, and didn't recede my head hair as much as my brothers were as we entered our 50's. I was never large in my genitals, but they seemed to be getting smaller, and I developed Phimosis, where the foreskin shrinks. My doctor diagnosed me with hypogonadism, suggested I start testosterone therapy and gave me a sample pack of Viagra (which simply didn't work for me). Of course, I could never take testosterone!
Since the Millennium I had grown out my hair, and I quit my job in the truck industry as the atmosphere became too uncomfortable for me. I decided to take a year off work and my daughter and her boyfriend bought my house from me. My son stayed on as her Tennant, but it was a rocky road. I finally lived full time with my wife, and we combined our assets to move to the beach. Life, for a time, was wonderful! We went on adventures around the country and overseas, and I began writing for magazines. I started shooting video and selling to TV and documentary makers, and I volunteered on community programs. I was asked to present some video on marine life to a school group at a local aquarium, and it went down very well, so I was invited back again. I absolutely loved doing this so I signed on as a volunteer. A couple of years later they put me on the payroll so I was working again, though this was my passion, so not really work.
My 50's were amazing, my wife finally softened to agree I could be myself all the time I was at home, provided nobody ever saw me. I did all the cooking and cleaning and she was happy with yard work. I was super careful when home, keeping blinds drawn and no sounds when I was alone, even keeping my phone on silent so if someone came to the door, then rang me, they wouldn't hear the ring inside. I did feel like a prisoner in my own home, but it was worth it!
My son moved in with his girlfriend, and then out on his own when that didn't work out, and my daughter broke up with her boyfriend and struggled to keep her house until she found another man, who she would marry and present me with grandchildren! I had babies again! Ironically, my daughter would only let me mind her newborns, as she didn't have confidence in her mother, and when she needed advice for sniffles and stains, I was her first call. She dubbed me her second Mum!
As I got into my 60's I began to find studies on brain dimorphism, one which mentioned as a sideline, that 6 of the brain dissected were from trans people, and more typically arranged as their Gender Identity. But due to needing donated brains for dissection, the data sets were too small to make solid conclusions. Oxford University also found this in their study, and the peers suggested that the dissected brains were subjected to years of hormone therapy, which could have changed the neuron arrangement. So the Oxford team accessed some brains of males who had prostate cancer and were also subjected to years of estrogen therapy, and all of those brains showed neuron arrangements consistent with their sex assigned. This piqued my interest, and when I applied these theories to my own observations over my life, it seemed to fit very well. I knew I had something inside me which I could not get rid of, no matter how hard I tried, and affirming my identity gave me short term relief. Maybe this was the basis of my lifelong incongruence? More research was warranted!
About this time, I noticed significant genital atrophy, and my phimosis was severe enough it was restricting urinary function, and my doctor wanted me to get circumcised, but I refused. I was also noticing short periods of depression creeping into my life as I struggled to contain my dysphoria. I reasoned that as my senior years had arrived, my body and mind were demanding I start properly affirming my identity. But I had deep fear that if I came out, I might lose members of my family, access to my grandchildren, my job, my standing in the community, and wind up living alone and miserable. So I pushed it all down and soldiered on!
My wife came into the bathroom as I got out of the shower and was drying my hair in a towel. She stood transfixed on my groin and burst into accusations that I had secretly started hormones and now my genitals had disappeared. Seeing my genitals was a dysphoria trigger for me, so I avoided looking down, though I knew they were shrinking, but even I was shocked as I could see nothing but wrinkly skin. It took a couple of hours to convince her that I would never start hormones without consulting her, and that the shrinkage was likely due to my hypogonadism. Her threats to leave me if anyone else found out were repeated. I have to admit, I was quietly delighted that there were no visible genitals, and I knew why I was getting messy when urinating (I had needed to sit for a few years by now).
I knew it was time to seek help from a gender specialist, but I was confident I knew what they would say, and terrified what the consequences might be. I had been living my dreams for over a decade and I didn't want that to end, but I was soon to learn that I was not able to manage my dysphoria.
Hugs,
Allie
