A Question

[jimmydean5]

Hi guys.  I'm questioning going through with transitioning.  During this questioning process, I am reflecting upon some life experiences, and I'm wondering if others can relate.  As a kid, I felt 100% male and the fact that my body said otherwise was a source of confusion, shame, and generally being a pissed off and very macho kid.  When puberty

Comments

[eriktrips]

when I was very little I thought I was a boy. my fantasy was that there was something wrong with my eyes and when I got older and needed glasses I would be able to see what I thought everyone else already saw: my male body. by the time I reached that age, I knew this was a fantasy insofar as physical reality went.

a few things happened to me just before puberty that pretty much knocked me right out of my body entirely, so I more or less "forgot" all my body issues other than wishing I didn't really have one at all. I did go through a period of of about 15 years in young adulthood where I identified fairly solidly as a dyke--or a woman loving woman, to put it in, um, lesbian terms. (and no. I never changed the spelling to expel the "man"--perhaps for unconscious reasons!)

I think it is possible to be trans-identified and yet have to make adaptations when faced with the unavoidable reality that is our bodies before/without transitioning. some are more successful with this than others, but in my experience, there came a time when, after I had worked through some of my pre-adolescent trauma, that my own trans-identification came floating to the top, pretty much intact. even though I had identified as a dyke (almost as though it were a gender of its own) quite thoroughly, once I "remembered" this other identification, I hardly looked back.

so that's my experience. I think that talking this out with someone who works with transfolk might be a very good idea, if you are unsure just what your "real" identity is. your description of learning to be a girl sounds very familiar to me. I remember sitting in church, looking at the other girls around age 13, 14, and imitating the way they sat, the way they paid attention (or not!), the way they generally behaved. interestingly, I only did this on sundays, really; the rest of the week I was the biggest tomboy ever.

but yes, I can say that I had an at least marginally "female" identity pretty well put together for several years, but there were cracks even in that. I didn't recognize them then; I do now. life is an interesting series of transformations for anyone. some of us have bigger transformations to make. it certainly is possible to trade one identity wholesale for another, if your core being compels you to do so. sometimes it takes a little work to be able to glimpse that core being, however.