Just looking for answers

[alternativegeek]

I am pretty sure I ID as male but I wanted to know how others found out. (I also want to hear from the ladies too, though, and everyone in between or outside the gender boxes)

-I get REALLY upset every time I am called by female pronouns or "ma'am" (so you can see I get upset on a general basis, lol)

-I feel uncomfortable in social situations because

Comments

[boidragon]

I freaked out when I had that "Oh, crap, this is me!" moment. My initial reaction was to stop reading, try and convince myself I wasn't... but then the more comfortable I got with myself, I stopped pretending to be someone I wasn't, and hit the library again.

[auntysarah]

Me neither.

[auntysarah]

I guess my realisation was gradual. The inability to stop crossdressing, even when there was no sexual element, was a bit of a clue. The total lack of affinity I felt towards most men and the way I identified with my female friends was too.

The feeling that I simply could not face the prospect of becoming a middle-aged male. I saw no future.

The way I took delight every time some "mistook" me for female, and the way I felt a bit of me die every time I had to tick, "male" on a form.

And the jealousy I felt towards natal women, which grew in intensity until it almost consumed me. I eventually realised that I wanted what they took for granted.

[scialytic]

Mine was kind of gradual as well. The first time I actually thought to myself "I wish I were a girl" was in 2nd grade. I didn't start cross-dressing or experimenting with makeup until highschool. I was aware that I was different, but for some reason I didn't grasp exactly what was different about me. Last year I entered the worst depression of my life. I was drinking a lot and pretty much doing anything to avoid the issue. Finally, I pulled myself out of it and realized what had caused the depression (and many previous ones) and I began planning for transition. I'm still at a very early stage of my transition, but my confidence has sky-rocketed and things have gotten much better.

[kesnit]

I always hated doing "girly" things. When I was a kid, I used to pretend I had to shave my face (using a pen cap as a pseuco-razor) and dreamed of growing a goatee.

When I was 20, I came out as a lesbian and became very soft butch. That worked for about 9 years. Then I met a woman who was a post-op MtF. Listening to her talk about her life pre- and during transition, I kept thinking "that sounds like me." So I started experimenting. I figured out how to bind for short periods of time and started going out as male. Sometimes I'd be read, sometimes I wouldn't. When I passed, I got a thrill. When I was read, I got bummed.

That went on for about another year, which also included a major bout of depression. I finally, with the support of several MtF friends, started transition. That was a year ago, and my life is so much better than I ever dreamed it could be.

[boidragon]

I feel the same for all 3. I am upset/angry/depressed when people refer to me as she/he/ma'am, etc, and ecstatic when people see me as a man, okay a boy because I look like I'm 15. I knew something was "not normal" during high school because while everyone was talking about their futures, etc. I realized that, as a woman, I had no future at all. I couldn't see myself as a woman in any way... I spent all of high school trying to fit in, be a girl, grew my hair long, wore skirts, got a boyfriend because that's what straight girls do, but I felt like a fake. First, I accepted my attraction to woman and then lived as a dyke for about 3 years (female, likes girls = dyke). However, a few months into my dyke life, I began to realize... I felt like a boy. I read Stone Butch Blues, figured I was a stone, but was fascinated that I could change my body and live as a man, so I started to do some research. I had cross dressed in high school, purged clothes to be normal, and then went back to cross dressing, but by 2004 I was dressing as male all

[legendline]

Stone Butch Blues also had a huge impact on me. I actually only read it last year and right after a major breakup which nearly destroyed me (how silly we all are at times....). I found the relationship-sadness stuff too much, it took several months to get through most of the book and I still haven't read the last 80 or so pages because I'm terrified that our protagonist will be hurt yet again....

but... I know now that my focus, while reading the book and afterward, on the heartbreak was probably just a way to avoid thinking about the transition part of it... it was difiniatly one of the first times the idea of "it's possible to change" was presented in my life.