Acceptance...

Well into my honest way if life, I find happiness in such odd events. Every hurdle I conquer makes me a stronger woman. And the hurdles that beat me seem impossible at times. I find strength I never knew I had and weakness I could not have predicted. Womanhood has found me and yet I experience times when it's challenged. After all time as being myself i was asked me to hide my identity as dress as a man when I came over to family's house. It's breaks my heart that my family would wish me back to that stage that almost killed me. they can't see the happiness womanhood has brought me because they want nothing to do with me now. To them a dead man is better then a happy woman. I wish I could say at this time that it didn't hurt me. I have compared my life to that of a burn victim where loved ones turn away because of appearance, Where underneath is the same person. Is it such a stretch to see that the woman I am was always there? Others feelings have always ment a lot to me. Protecting others feelings actually kept me from comming out as my true self for years and years. And as much as I wish the peace of mind for others I cannot give them that at the expense of myself anymore. I have to live and survive and that means living with no lies. I will say goodbye to those in my life that don't love me as I am. There has been a handful of family supporters and it has ment a lot to me, but I can't help but wish there was more. Those that support me thru my transition will always have a special place in my heart. I wish love was not conditional. I wish family never turned away. I wish I didn't care...
I have found true family in blood, and I have found true family in strangers. There is love and support all around if I look in the right places and not focus on the losses I have had. Everyday that passes I find myself more content. More pleased with my evolution. Happy that I don't have to lie.
I will continue to evolve, continue to grow into the woman I am. Without the title waves of opposition I have faced I know I would be a weaker woman. I can look back and see how events mold my future and it gives me strength to face more to come. I have learned to accept myself and I am slowly learning to love who I am. Although being trans isn't my identity, I identify as 100% female. I wouldn't trade my evolution in life for anything else.

Adulthood and the woman

Where to start? I guess when I accepted I was a woman. I look back at her and remember that scared girl. In a new world not knowing how to express herself even in the smallest detail. I knew my life as “the man” was over. I was not sad about that but I was already in my 20’s I had missed how to be a woman altogether, so I was scared. It was a new step in my life I wasn’t prepared for. So in my fragile state I started trying to learn and be myself. I had to learn to be confident in myself it didn’t just happen. I had to after accepting I was a woman also accept I was not a pretty woman, or even passable as a woman. I had to accept my flaws, flaws I didn’t even know I had before. That scared girl in a big world after a bit of time, got the courage she needed. I came out to everyone close to me. Weird how this was one of the best times in my life the most liberating feelings, but also one of the hardest hurting everyone close to me. That was it, that was the hardest part right? I can now be myself now that its not a secret. I can be free from my own prison. So I started to dress more and more in public, wearing makeup, pierced my ears, shaved my body, well this list goes on and on. Every day I would learn something new about myself some good some bad. I have gotten to the point in my life that I have a confidence in myself I didn’t think would ever come. I can go in any situation and be myself now, dress appropriately to my gender. of course I get those “looks”, but its ok now I can not let that bother me, the looks seem less and less these days. Either I have learned to ignore it or the confidence I feel shows. Or perhaps its some of both. Dressing and makeup is a small part of my evolution. I also became very disgusted with my male name. being referred to with male pronouns. A long list of things I wanted to be put behind me. I wish I could say it over but its still a ongoing struggle getting others paradigms about me to change. So I take one step at a time. One day at a time.

adulthood and the "man"

ADULTHOOD AND THE “MAN”

From realizing who I was to accepting it was a long step for me, almost a 20 year trial. Everyday having the feminine feelings, a barrage on my reality. In a sick way my life was simple. Simple in the way that I knew I was female but I had convinced myself for all those years it was something I didn’t need to express. Something I could live without or maybe there was a chance it would fade in time. Life was simple because I didn’t have to live my own life, I could set every aspect of the life I forced myself to live. Like living a dream where you make your own rules. I had become determined to prove to myself it wasn’t true. I would do things in my “dream” to prove this, big and small. The biggest being joining the military, probably the manliest thing I could imagine. Saying that time was a living hell would be an understatement, I never went without a collection of female clothes for long in my life, except in the military. I don’t know how I did it to be honest. I got almost inhuman at a point, where nothing affected me. I was nothing short of dead inside. Getting out of the military was the best thing about the military. Small empty silly male things such as growing beards or goatees. All in all a simple life, where I didn’t have to live in reality, I just went to work, did what was expected of me, and day after day went by and turned into year after year. I look back on this time as feel it was wasted, like I missed the prime of my life not being the woman I should have been. This period of my life accounts for an overwhelming percentage of my life and I have almost nothing to say about it beyond I look back on it as the darkest times. I wish every day I was a stronger woman and had the courage to be who I was. I started this section of my life realizing who I was but ended this section accepting who I was, two very different things. An important phase every human goes thru, I’m sure most people start and end this phase in a matter of seconds, realizing you’re a gender and accepting it. I’m also sure most transgender men and women take years in this phase. Mine just happen to be almost 20.

Childhood

                                                              CHILDHOOOD

My childhood was a confusing time, at age seven I remember having clear thoughts that “I was not a normal boy” “that I didn’t like the things other boys like” “I enjoyed doing the girl games at school”. These specific thoughts are clear to me now, I am a transsexual woman. But at that age it was confusion. I don’t think it’s possible for a seven your old to challenge reality in that way, at least it didn’t seem possible to me. I use the age seven because it’s a clear landmark in my life. I remember being baptized in the church when I turned eight and thinking as I went under the water “when I come up I will be a normal boy”. It’s hard for me to place exactly what age I started not feeling like a boy. I think it was a slow process of learning about the world and not fitting a mold. I would guess I started having these thoughts that I wasn’t normal as early as age five. I can’t see waking up one morning and suddenly feeling it, it had to have progressed from a very early age.

I never heard the word transgender until my teens. The possibility of others like me was never a consideration. Saying there was a certain relief realizing I actually was a woman trapped in a man’s body would be an understatement. I feel like I wasn’t part of this world in a way till my teens. For years I knew something was wrong but could never have put it all together. So all I have for those ages is memories of confusion. During this time I remember talking to my parents and expressing that I didn’t feel normal, that I didn’t feel like the other boys. I wish my parents would have been more educated and realized there was an issue there and got me counseling where I could have been diagnosed and started my life. I can’t help but feeling that I lost many years of life due to my issues being brushed to the side. I really needed that time to be a girl in order to grow into a better woman. It’s a hard thing coming out as a woman when you didn’t develop as a girl. I don’t blame my parents for not knowing or putting it together. I just have wished they did. In my teens I remember telling at least my mom specifically that “I felt like a girl”. Even now years and years later it’s hard for me to accept that my parents didn’t do anything about it. Perhaps it’s easy to brush off your child saying they didn’t feel normal, but I feel it’s more when I said I felt like a girl.

 In my teens I begged my parents to put me ballet lessons, after what seemed to me endless begging. They agreed. For the first time in my life I felt free to express a part of my feminine side. The time I was in the classes I honestly feel it was the clearest and happiest part of my childhood. I loved going on my toes, even when the teacher said I didn’t have to because I was a boy. I remember always doing the girl steps and loving it. I did some performances each one being the only boy in a million girls. I remember the disappointment being put in a male role in the plays. After a few plays of being asked to play this role I lost interest in ballet, and quit. But it remains still one of my happiest childhood memory.

Feeling feminine was always with me, even when I felt guilt or ashamed of it. It never left me. I went thru phases denying myself the truth. Trying to be normal. Trying to fit in. In secret I started cross dressing, it seemed a natural thing to me. I would feel at peace, it would make me feel normal. I remember my parents finding my clothes stash under my bed, and being confronted. I was so scared. It was basically “are you masturbating?” weird I think that parents would be more concerned with masturbating then their son wearing girls clothes. It was never a sexual thing to me. When I couldn’t cross dress I found a new outlet, I stole one of my sisters Barbies and would make clothes for it. I remember spending hours designing and making clothes. I remember being in school and walking home thinking and sketching what I wanted to make that day. A perfect hobby for a girl. It makes me sad thinking back how it was a part of me but I had guilt, mostly from the church teachings. My parents have been very active Mormons. And going to church every week was like a lesson of everything that was wrong with me. It was a hard balance to process as a child. It was my life, cycles of finding feminine outlets. Cycles of denying to myself it was true. At times I considered suicide, I never attempted it. But there was times I thought about the ways to do it. It’s embarrassing to admit that weakness. If I had to relive my childhood the same way I don’t think I could go thru it again. If I went back with just a little of the knowledge I have now things would have been so different. I would have talked to my parents more about it. They are good people, I have to believe they would have helped me be the girl I needed to be.

Prolouge

After thirty three years alive I don’t know where to start. I don’t know how to express the thoughts, confusions and feelings I have been dealing with all this time. I find it better to simplify it, not think about anything and just be the woman I am. Of course this does not always work, I can’t hide from the fact I don’t look feminine that the world sees me as male, but it does not matter. I am a woman regardless. I am not delusional I can see what I was born with, but I am also not naïve I can listen to my heart and know I am female. I’m sure others who have not experienced these basic gender identity issues may never understand or be able to comprehend how genuine it is. I’m sure it is considered a choice by most, or the effect of some childhood trauma. To me it’s my life and my reality. I hope by putting my life into words that others will understand who I am. And in return develop more into the woman I am, the woman I have denied existence to the majority of my life. I have wished in the past that I was normal, that I didn’t have these feelings. At that time I thought my feelings betrayed genetics. Later when I accepted the female inside me, I wished I was born a genetic female. Now that I have accepted the woman I am with my flaws, I wish now only that I could have become the woman I am sooner.