Ramblings gender crisis and identity
Okay, I never expected the reaction I got to my post yesterday and I think everyone’s honesty is amazing. Anyway, from that a couple of people were interesting in this. It’s simply a write up of my own battles with my gender identity from when I was a child until now. It’s not saying anything profound at all, it’s just me getting some stuff down. I'm also doing this without getting acadmic about the differences between gender and sex.
As anyone that reads my journal knows I have no problems being honest on here, but having read this one back it seems to me to be particularly honest, raw and potentially uncomfortable to read. It’s not meant to be, I’m not trying to upset anyone and I’m not saying anything I don’t mind people knowing, or I wouldn’t post it. But just so you know. And it has a happy ending.
As a kid I’d always been very tomboyish, wore skirts only if I was forced into them; lived in jeans and t-shirts. This continued into high school and teenage years. My first biiiig tween crush was a guy called Brandon Call in the original series of Baywatch. I did all the usual tween crush stuff, had his posters on my wall, kissed his posters, am fairly sure I planned our wedding too. The other thing I did was try to look like him.
I saved pocket money and bought jeans like the pair he wore in my favourite poster. Then did the same to get the t-shirt he wore in the poster. And I took a photo of him to the hair dresser and had my hair cut like him. My parents thought it was harmless idol worship, and although I didn’t really understand what it meant at the time, I knew it was different. I didn’t just want to look like him because I liked him, I wanted to be like him. He wasn’t the only male star I tried to dress like at that time or in the future.
Then at 13 my periods started. This is when I really noticed that I was different to my friends. My friends were all very happy about this wondrous thing; it made them feel grown up and womanly. I was devastated. Absolutely devastated. My diaries from this time make for very painful reading. To me, as to my friends, it signalled that I was becoming a woman, but I so desperately didn’t want that. I remember a lot of crying. Being young you can convince yourself you’re anything, you can pass as either sex. I could pretend that I wasn’t a girl.
But periods, well, they kinda clinch it really. No getting away from it at that point. And each month my body would betray me by giving me another reminder. And I’ll be brutally honest. That feeling remained until I was well into my 20s.
But, I could at least still look any way I wanted. I continued to dress like a boy whenever I could and really got off on it when people would mistake me for one. My weird gender confusion melded wonderfully with my sexuality at this point, because even from that age I wanted both girls and boys to find me attractive for looking like a boy.
I was the one that always played the boys’ parts in school plays or any kind of drama production. And I was allowed to keep doing it because I was the one that knew how to walk, talk and sit like a boy; I could change my physicality to fit with the part in a way that other girls weren’t willing to do.
So, after the initial shock, it was bearable for another couple of years. Then breasts happened. Thank god I was a reasonably late developer, god knows what would have happened to my confused brain if it had all happened too close together. I possibly would have imploded or something.
Anyhoo, breasts were a bit of a pain in the arse. It was just something else that was taking me inextricably towards womanhood. And they were getting very fucking obvious. There was no hope of me passing as a boy anymore.
I can tell you exactly when my breakthrough came. I was watching an episode of the hospital drama Casualty. A teenage couple were brought in and it transpired that the boy was in fact a girl pretending to be a boy. That 60 minutes of TV transformed my life. It was the first time I had seen anyone cross dress for anything other than comedic effect. The character admitted that she wanted the other girl to find her attractive as a boy, not a girl. It was the first validation I’d had for the feelings I’d been living with for years. And if it was in a TV programme then other people must feel it too right? This was a huge thing for me.
But bigger still was discovering THE SECRET. The girl got away with being a boy by binding. This was an entirely new concept; I’d never heard of it before, but it solved everything. The next weekend a lot of crepe bandages were bought.
Binding was not a terribly workable solution for me for long though. At that age when everything is growing and tender it bloody well hurt and it also became quickly apparent that my body was clearly defying my mind and went on to produce quite healthily sized breasts that no amount of crepe was going to cover (I had no clue how to get hold of anything better - damn pre-easily-accessed-home-internet days). So that’s when the huge baggy man shirt phase hit with gusto.
Then, at 17 it suddenly changed. A big end of year ball at my school meant I had to dress up and wear a posh frock. I did and I suddenly got a lot of attention from boys having never had anyone come near me before. It turned out that this evil, curvy, traitorous body of mine was actually attractive to other people. Who knew? And it transpired that my breasts were in fact, apparently, really quite something.
And rightly, wrongly, sadly, happily, whatever, that’s when things started to turn around for me. If other people could like my body, then maybe, just maybe, I could learn to like it too. It was like being liberated and it only got better.
I finally made it to uni where I could be open about my sexuality. Not only that, but rather than just hiding behind the baggy stuff, I could be open about however I wanted to look. Sometimes it was short skirts and low cut tops, other times I was wearing a suit and tie and that was equally fine.
And that’s pretty much how it’s stayed. I tend not to full-on cross dress as much as I did. I don’t go super girly often either but can do when it’s needed. I tend for the last few years to go for more of a mix and match thing. I love waistcoats and ties; stick a skirt on with that and I have the best of both worlds; I can be both sides of who I am in one go. I love the androgyny of mixing the feminine with the masculine. Taking waistcoats as an example again; it is an intrinsically masculine item of clothing, and with a full suit it works simply as such. However, wear something low cut under it, cinch at the waist - thereby highlighting idealistically feminine attributes - and you have something that suits both worlds. I admit though that I am still careful about when and where I do this. Certain groups of people and certain places are more accepting of it than others.
I do, of course, have the odd “I have to stop eating cake” moments, but in general I’m comfortable in my body now, in fact I often quite like it. I’m still not 100% convinced it’s the right one for me, but I wouldn’t change it. And, yes, I’ll admit it, I love my breasts. Sorry, but they’re bloody great.
As anyone that reads my journal knows I have no problems being honest on here, but having read this one back it seems to me to be particularly honest, raw and potentially uncomfortable to read. It’s not meant to be, I’m not trying to upset anyone and I’m not saying anything I don’t mind people knowing, or I wouldn’t post it. But just so you know. And it has a happy ending.
As a kid I’d always been very tomboyish, wore skirts only if I was forced into them; lived in jeans and t-shirts. This continued into high school and teenage years. My first biiiig tween crush was a guy called Brandon Call in the original series of Baywatch. I did all the usual tween crush stuff, had his posters on my wall, kissed his posters, am fairly sure I planned our wedding too. The other thing I did was try to look like him.
I saved pocket money and bought jeans like the pair he wore in my favourite poster. Then did the same to get the t-shirt he wore in the poster. And I took a photo of him to the hair dresser and had my hair cut like him. My parents thought it was harmless idol worship, and although I didn’t really understand what it meant at the time, I knew it was different. I didn’t just want to look like him because I liked him, I wanted to be like him. He wasn’t the only male star I tried to dress like at that time or in the future.
Then at 13 my periods started. This is when I really noticed that I was different to my friends. My friends were all very happy about this wondrous thing; it made them feel grown up and womanly. I was devastated. Absolutely devastated. My diaries from this time make for very painful reading. To me, as to my friends, it signalled that I was becoming a woman, but I so desperately didn’t want that. I remember a lot of crying. Being young you can convince yourself you’re anything, you can pass as either sex. I could pretend that I wasn’t a girl.
But periods, well, they kinda clinch it really. No getting away from it at that point. And each month my body would betray me by giving me another reminder. And I’ll be brutally honest. That feeling remained until I was well into my 20s.
But, I could at least still look any way I wanted. I continued to dress like a boy whenever I could and really got off on it when people would mistake me for one. My weird gender confusion melded wonderfully with my sexuality at this point, because even from that age I wanted both girls and boys to find me attractive for looking like a boy.
I was the one that always played the boys’ parts in school plays or any kind of drama production. And I was allowed to keep doing it because I was the one that knew how to walk, talk and sit like a boy; I could change my physicality to fit with the part in a way that other girls weren’t willing to do.
So, after the initial shock, it was bearable for another couple of years. Then breasts happened. Thank god I was a reasonably late developer, god knows what would have happened to my confused brain if it had all happened too close together. I possibly would have imploded or something.
Anyhoo, breasts were a bit of a pain in the arse. It was just something else that was taking me inextricably towards womanhood. And they were getting very fucking obvious. There was no hope of me passing as a boy anymore.
I can tell you exactly when my breakthrough came. I was watching an episode of the hospital drama Casualty. A teenage couple were brought in and it transpired that the boy was in fact a girl pretending to be a boy. That 60 minutes of TV transformed my life. It was the first time I had seen anyone cross dress for anything other than comedic effect. The character admitted that she wanted the other girl to find her attractive as a boy, not a girl. It was the first validation I’d had for the feelings I’d been living with for years. And if it was in a TV programme then other people must feel it too right? This was a huge thing for me.
But bigger still was discovering THE SECRET. The girl got away with being a boy by binding. This was an entirely new concept; I’d never heard of it before, but it solved everything. The next weekend a lot of crepe bandages were bought.
Binding was not a terribly workable solution for me for long though. At that age when everything is growing and tender it bloody well hurt and it also became quickly apparent that my body was clearly defying my mind and went on to produce quite healthily sized breasts that no amount of crepe was going to cover (I had no clue how to get hold of anything better - damn pre-easily-accessed-home-internet days). So that’s when the huge baggy man shirt phase hit with gusto.
Then, at 17 it suddenly changed. A big end of year ball at my school meant I had to dress up and wear a posh frock. I did and I suddenly got a lot of attention from boys having never had anyone come near me before. It turned out that this evil, curvy, traitorous body of mine was actually attractive to other people. Who knew? And it transpired that my breasts were in fact, apparently, really quite something.
And rightly, wrongly, sadly, happily, whatever, that’s when things started to turn around for me. If other people could like my body, then maybe, just maybe, I could learn to like it too. It was like being liberated and it only got better.
I finally made it to uni where I could be open about my sexuality. Not only that, but rather than just hiding behind the baggy stuff, I could be open about however I wanted to look. Sometimes it was short skirts and low cut tops, other times I was wearing a suit and tie and that was equally fine.
And that’s pretty much how it’s stayed. I tend not to full-on cross dress as much as I did. I don’t go super girly often either but can do when it’s needed. I tend for the last few years to go for more of a mix and match thing. I love waistcoats and ties; stick a skirt on with that and I have the best of both worlds; I can be both sides of who I am in one go. I love the androgyny of mixing the feminine with the masculine. Taking waistcoats as an example again; it is an intrinsically masculine item of clothing, and with a full suit it works simply as such. However, wear something low cut under it, cinch at the waist - thereby highlighting idealistically feminine attributes - and you have something that suits both worlds. I admit though that I am still careful about when and where I do this. Certain groups of people and certain places are more accepting of it than others.
I do, of course, have the odd “I have to stop eating cake” moments, but in general I’m comfortable in my body now, in fact I often quite like it. I’m still not 100% convinced it’s the right one for me, but I wouldn’t change it. And, yes, I’ll admit it, I love my breasts. Sorry, but they’re bloody great.