There Is No Right Way To Be Trans /

 

 I love the weird conversations I always get into talking with family members/close friends, neighbors when they start asking me why a man or a woman would want to change my gender and live as a woman when I wasn't born as such...

My initial response to the question asked of me: For me I learned over the years that “There is no right way to be trans.” "I always believed since the age of 9 I never felt quite comfortable in regards to my gender being male and it has effected my life in many ways. Like from the age of 9 to my late teens I was satisfied with just crossdressing, wearing my sister's clothes, my aunt's, mother's and on occasion wearing panties that I stole from girlfriends I dated... About the age of 23 I married my first spouse. Within the first year of our marriage, I started to wear some of my wife's undergarments, pantyhose, a few of her dresses and dabbled with applying and wearing facial makeup. This period of time I found myself purchasing and began using cheap motel rooms to dress up in... It was during this time I discovered this a small gay nightclub that featured a female impersonator show on Friday nights... I became a regular patron of that establishment eventually meeting and becoming friends with several of the performers... This was my first time seeing several men who hormones that had developing breast's... I told one of the girls I made friends with, that I had this really strong desire that I felt more feminine than masculine and would she help and teach me skills, such as makeup application, style my hairpiece and how to size myself properly... She didn't hesitate with her response with telling that she could help me... We both started meeting one another at a near by motel on Friday nights... Within 2 months I was applying my own makeup, styling my hair piece and my suggested I should go with her to club... Convincing me that I had the ability to project and present myself as a woman... My first public outing and "YES" I was terrified...When the completion of the evening, my friend told me that I handled myself rather well, being this was my first outing dressed fully as a woman... For the next 10 months my friend and I met, started going to few other gay/lesbian nightclubs, then would return back to the motel to where she and I would overtime become intimate with one another... She asked me if I had a desire to develop breast's like she had done and felt that I may have such a desire... During this period my spouse finally caught me dressed fully as a woman to where I was carrying a lot of emotional guilt about my dressing, having an affair with someone of the same sex, plus I denying I was not gay, denying I had these feelings of feeling more and more feminine and losing control over these feelings to where I was spending more and more of my time dressing fully and remaining dressed for upwards of 2 or more days... 

I was now thinking more about taking hormones and my friend introduced me to them by helping obtain them for me...

I fought the urge of using HRT and went no further for about l5 years, I didn't need to transition fully, and for the most part just needed to find acceptance within and that’s it. All perfectly acceptable. 

But for quite awhile I believed there was only one trans narrative or story, which of course had some slight variations from one person to another, that could lead to one being trans. I believed that while there were many correct ways to act trans, there was only one narrative that lead to someone being trans. I got this impression because when I first joined several transgender support groups this was my first real meetings with trans individuals in various stages of thier transition... Simply put that path as is described by so many people is that one realizes when they are very younger, around the age of 5, that they are in fact trapped in the wrong body (or atleast something was very off-putting) and throughout their childhood there are those very obvious signs, atleast to the child (somehow many other people never seem to notice), that the child is transgender, and that they generally only like the activities of the gender they feel they are and never those which are that of the gender they were born.

It has always worried me (as anyone who has read my blog could probably tell) that I never had that childhood (that at least I can remember), yet I still believe I am trans. I mean, yeah looking back I do remember some things in my teenage years where I am like that was kind of odd for me to do, say, or think but I cannot say looking back that I ever had like that “doh” moment where I just knew I was trans. I certainly don’t really remember anything trans related before the age of like 23... It took me till my early 40’s to realize, or at least accept, I am trans. This has bothered me since I accepted myself. Why am I just putting the pieces of that puzzle together now? Why did so many people realize this about themselves at such a younger age than I. Is what I am feeling in any way less valid then that of those who knew from a young age (in my head I would generally say yes! I must just be crazy). I mean sure I could have probably put those pieces of the puzzle together quicker if I hadn’t had some preconceived notions and was pretty much denying many things for awhile, but I certainly didn’t put the pieces together at the age of like 5,7,8 and 9.

But anyway, back on point, while searching for answers for why I am accepting all this at such a comparatively old age (the ripe old age of 51 lol) I have run across quite a few chat rooms, forums, and blogs with a wide range of trans topics. Over time I have seen that typical trans narrative slowly be picked apart at by various trans individuals representing a wide spectrum of the community ranging from those who simply crossdress, to genderqueer individuals, to those who have gone completely through SRS and transitioning. It has helped me realize that really there are many different paths that leads one to the realization that they are trans.

Transgender individuals in general, at least from what I notice, don’t like to discuss that which separates their story from another. Obviously that could be because in fact they did have that typical trans story, but sometimes that is not the case. I have talked with many transgender individuals, many of whom were transsexuals who had, currently are, or plan on transitioning, and eventually I started to learn about their past, and the results were quite surprising.

For example, I have spoken with quite a few transgender individuals who privately tell me or a small group of people that they have never dressed nor ever presented as the gender they wish. And these are not just young teenagers who cannot get out of their parents site, I have heard people of all different ages say that. I have heard a few people who have transitioned, one of which in specific has gone so far as to have SRS, inform me that they never dressed or presented as the other gender until really after they already started hormones, and they started somewhere in their late 20’s or 30’s... I started in my early 60's. Yeah I guess they probably ment there might have been a little crossdressing before that, but they did seem to imply they had never truly dressed before starting hormones. Like I said, for many trans individuals the story is that since a young age they had dressed as the other gender, at least privately. I heard it so many times that I thought it had to be that way, when in reality a lot of people have taken many different paths to the realization of being trans.

Another trans related topic is the idea of taking part in activities which are considered more in the nature which their born sex takes part in.

Trisha