Coming out to myself

[Vidadepecado]

Hello. My name is Chris and I've been rejecting myself for a good 8 years or so. Coming out to myself I live in CA in a pretty liberal area, which is good. Berkeley is close and SF as well, both hubs of individualism and equality. I do not go there and those areas have had no influence on me. I am, however, accepting of all different types of people out there, except for myself as it turns out.

I'm just going to say it. I think I'm trans. I wish I had a nice pair of boobs and wear gorgeous clothing. I wish I could wear skin tight pants. However, I only realized this in middle school, when everybody calls people "gay" if they don't like them. So I was always afraid and mentally I told myself I was "normal". I am straight, however. I am attracted to girls, so if I did eventually get a sex change I would be a lesbian.

I was depressed pretty much throughout middle school (here it's grades 6 through 8), and I finally started playing football my freshman year of high school to help fit in/ feel better about myself. So the oppression I was feeling was not of society, but it was inside of me eating away at who I really am.

In the past I just thought I liked cross-dressing; I didn't even know there was such a thing as transgender/transexual (sorry if I get termonology wrong, I'm new to this stuff) but in high school I started looking at transgender videos on youtube and then I would go through a freak out thing wherGenerally in e I would stop looking at trans stuff because of the whole "what would other people think" thing. This part of my life when I started doing drugs. Weirdly enough, my grades improved and I started getting more friends. My confidence increased because of football (I don't know why, I never really cared for the sport and I never wanted to play in games).

My drug... "problem" is what got me "caught". Every night I would crossdress and when I was done I would hide the clothes out of sight so nobody would find out. Some asshole (pardon my language) who I bought weed from got caught and told his parents that I sold to him, that I was a dealer. His parents called my parents and my parents searched my room when I was watching the varsity football game. Guess what they find. It wasn't anything drug related that's for sure.

After I got caught with my crossdressing clothes I stopped and dressed like a guy for the remainder of high school. Now I also felt guilt associated with it as well. My parents are "accepting" but I don't feel comfortable telling them anything, and we all know it's hard. Now I'm in college and I completely forgot about that part of my life, until on youtube I stumbled across a gorgeous trans girl. I wished it could be me, but I did the whole freak out thing where I close the trans videos and say to myself that I'm a guy and that I'm 100% fine the way I am. Next day, I find the videos again and watch other people's success, wishing it was me. This was probably a few days ago.

I just did the COGIATI survey on transsexual.org. (literally while I was writing this, I went and did it) It says that it "has classified your internal gender identity to be essentially androgynous, both male and female at the same time, or possibly neither"

I know this survey is in no way conclusive and that I would need a therapist or something to tell me correctly, but it does tell me what I previously thought. I know/ strongly believe I have an internal gender issue. It's not 100%, as I feel perfectly comfortable as a man yet I also have the desire to be a woman (but not look like one of those half man half woman creatures). I was born a man. If I was born a woman, I would be just as comfortable. It's taken me 19 years of my life to figure this out.

Sorry for the long story, as this coming out story was an internal battle with myself that has taken place for over half of my life.

[BlueDuck]

Congrats! That can be a really hard thing to do.

[Hidinginalabama]

Good for you and accepting ourself is one of the hardest things to do in life.

[peanutbutter]

Cool beans. I'm in the process sometimes I look in the mirror and smile. I loveif other times ihate it. I believe everything is a process big and small

[ESevee]

Congrats...Similar situation for me