Bit of a ramble

(This will probably get lengthy, feel free to skip/skim the grey) Last night i read this piece written by the guy that wrote "the FTM's Complete Illustrated Guide for Looking Like a Hot Dude". It's probably the first thing I've read that really hit close to home for me. Sure, I've read several other things that have held some ring of truth, but certain elements of this reflected exceptionally close to my own experience.

"In his defense, for anyone who's not a transsexual the idea can be rather baffling. It baffled me for a long time too, especially in my case, since I'd be transitioning from a mostly-straight female into a mostly-gay male. Who would do such a thing? Essentially I was cutting myself off from the 97% of the male population that is heterosexual, and even within that remaining 3-4% the subculture is phallocentric enough to ensure that a lot of guys won't be able to accept a boyfriend without a cock. So why the hell would I do that to myself? What's wrong with staying a hot chick and keeping my options open?

"The answer is, it's not about them, it's about me. By this point I've settled into an uneasy truce with my transsexual tendencies, putting progress on the back burner until after I get back from Japan and dressing/acting however I feel like on any given day, but for well over a year I was driving myself to insomnia angsting over it. Lots of soul-searching, lots of vascillating back and forth--between "omg I give up I'm never going to be a boy" and "omg I want to go out and get testosterone TOMORROW"--and lots of vodka. And one thing that kept coming to me over and over again was the realization that even if transitioning meant never getting that One True Love that western thought holds so much stock with, that was a sacrifice I was willing to make."

"Ever since I was in high school, before I left for TAMS even, I had a question I would put to all my boyfriends: "Would you still love me if I were a guy?" That question was really important to me, because if they couldn't say yes, then it meant that whatever they were calling 'love' was much, much too dependent on my physical appearance. In retrospect I realize it's not a fair question to ask of adolescent boys who are still figuring out their own sexuality, but I was always bitterly disappointed with the answer. (Although it was usually a prevaricated "But you wouldn't be YOU if you were a guy!") Only one guy was ever able to give it some thought and then decide yes--we dated for two years and he remains the most important romantic relationship I've ever had. Looking back, it's kind of easy to see why that question meant so much to me, eh?"

"I was experienced; he was not. Prompted along by me, things moved really fast and burned themselves up within months, as I grew increasingly frustrated with his persistant fantasy of what I was not, and he grew sad when I did things to break that perfect image. I've always been difficult to please in bed, and sex quickly became mechanical and goal-oriented instead of romantic or even much fun. And that baffled me! Because Drew, thin and pretty, is my sexual ideal! I couldn't get him in bed fast enough, but once we were there it was nothing but tedium. What was wrong with this picture?

"Bluntly put, I don't like being reminded of my girly-bits in bed. Having my breasts groped makes me roll my eyes because they're about as sexy as excess flab on my chest. I would pass someone attractive on the street and go "HOT DAMN, I WANT! I want to pull you into a dark corner and... and..." And there the fantasy ran out of steam, because nothing I could conceive of doing with these hot passerby appealed to me at all."

There was also this piece that again, hit closer to home on several points than anything else I'd read so far in the time I've been actively questioning my gender identity.

"Through it all, I was searching for common elements with my own experience, trying to compare my feelings with what other people had experienced. Am I right about this? Is transsexuality what I've got on my hands here?

"And what I kept seeing again and again was that I am not a textbook transsexual. It has nothing to do with the not being a butch lesbian thing -- I just don't fit the mold. Nearly everyone I'd read talked about how they'd "always felt out of place in their body" or "ever since I could remember, I felt like I wasn't a girl." Little girls who insisted to their parents that they too would grow a penis someday. Little boys who tried to cut theirs off because they felt it didn't belong to them. Both sides, chafing at having to wear the clothes appropriate for their birth gender... meanwhile, the touchstone image that I have of my childhood is long blond hair and frilly pink dresses. "Well," I mused to myself. "If I'd been born a boy, I probably would have been a total nancy growing up. Not so different."

"Nevertheless, it was a very striking aberration from the experience of most other transsexuals and it continued to undermine my certainty."

"Working in elementary school has stirred memories from my own childhood, and certain things are coming back to me that conflict with the mental image I had of my child self, the image of a pretty girl happy to be wearing a lacy pink dress."

"My best friend in elementary school was a boy named Ben, though it might have been because I thought he was cute. Before Ben I was interested in being friends with a cute boy named Nathan, but I remember deciding that he was a sissy after some incident where he was crying. (And I'm in an excellent position to throw stones, I know.) Ben and I played with Legos and threw rocks and ran amok."

"I did baseball and ballet, found both of them excruciatingly boring, but loved football. I remember day-to-day watching the boys playing football at recess and wishing I could join them -- but I didn't have the guts to. I was decent, good enough that if I were a boy it would have been no issue, but as a girl I would have been in the spotlight and would have had to be even better to compensate."

"Middle school -- sexual awakening. This is where it gets muddy because I wore make-up and push-up bras and knee-high boots and short skirts, and it's impossible to tell how much of that was desire to be female or simply the desire to be attractive to the opposite sex. But I never learned how to apply make-up well, or how to make my hair do what I wanted it to. (Hell, I still can't even put lipstick on if it's dark enough to need a distinct line.) As my neighborhood friend, a year younger than me, effortlessly mastered the feminine arts of hair and make-up, I remember watching the popular girls monopolizing the mirrors as they primped after basketball practice each day, wondering why I couldn't figure out how to do what they were doing. It was a steady, low-key frustration, that I sucked at being female. What made me feel it particularly keenly was that absolutely none of the boys I liked were ever interested in me -- though when I got to high school and suddenly found that no longer a problem, I ceased worrying about it."

"Different place, different time: I was at home when one of the weekly periodicals on the coffee table caught my eye, Time or Newsweek or somesuch with a cover story about the intersex phenomenon, and I sat down to read it. I had not, at this point, been conscious of any sense of gender incongruity nor was I afterward (this wasn't my moment for a big revelation) but I remember absolutely devouring the article and feeling a powerful affinity with the people it talked about. A lot of intersexed people get surgically assigned female genitals at birth, sometimes with parental knowledge but also sometimes without. The idea that this was what had happened to me lit in my brain. Yes! I thought, eyes riveted to the page. Maybe that's what I am. That lasted until I remembered that I had periods, which meant I had functioning ovaries and thus there was nothing intersexual about me, but it came as a disappointment. (And funny story, I forgot again and a couple years later I posited the theory to Shelley that I might be intersexed, and she had to remind me that I have periods.)"


Anyway...to get on with it already...

Reading all this, something this close to home - with all the little experiences so closely mirroring my own - has left me feeling both reaffirmed, and somehow more frightened than before. Yes, I'm not alone! I'm not the only trans guy going through this experience. But at the same time...this is me. This is really me. This is really what I'm going through, and it's only going to get more complicated from here. Because I can't do it, I honestly can't. Try as I might, I can't get comfortable with the idea of being female. It doesn't matter if I have dozens of exciting clothing choices, or my pick of the boys, or anything like that. I suck at being female. There was always this level that would be reached where I just couldn't connect with other girls anymore, some point where they continued to understand and to bond and I just didn't get it, like I was left out of the loop. I've tried for so long now, and I just can't do it anymore.

And it scares me so. Fucking. Much. That I'm this way. That I can't be a normal girl, probably can't be a normal guy either, because to be fair, there has always been a point with guys, much like with girls, where I simply failed to connect, to understand. Just teetering on the edge between one side and another. That I'll likely go through with surgeries and hormones, and how badly - how fucking badly - I want to - that scares me. Because I want to change, to metamorphose, to shed this skin. I want to see someone looking back at me in the mirror that I expect to see, however girly he might be (because frankly with a face like mine I don't expect much), so long as he doesn't have these curves, these tits. I want to have sex I can actually enjoy to the fullest - a chest I don't mind guys touching, one that I don't worry about flapping around all pathetic like during the rough sessions I like best. I want guys to be able to touch it without me crying (and yes, I have cried, and I'll admit it). I want thighs that don't make me queasy. More than that, I want a voice that puts a stop to old men calling me sweetie, a figure that people won't honk at as they drive by.

And it scares me. Because I want all this and to be accepted too. And some days it just seems like too much to ask for. And because it's finally hit me, really hit me, that I'm not what everyone thinks I am. And because I just want to feel, for the first time, like I'm ok. And some days, that too seems like too much to ask for.

And what if I'm not ok? What if I'm chasing the white rabbit, hoping for more than I could possibly get? What if I always want to be somewhere I'm not?

 

Disgusting? Maybe. But I like it nonetheless.

A cookie for you.

I'm almost never mistaken for male. I'm small, 5'3", with small features. I wear guys clothes pretty much all the time, and bind, but even if I have a few strangers guessing, the second I open my mouth it kills it (though to be fair it's sort of amusing to watch them get startled when they're trying to place me as male or female). On my best days I look a bit like a young Paul McCartney. We're similarly baby faced.

I'm honestly thankful that most people I've told so far have been accepting, even if they don't really understand it.

Been there, been there!! Except for the chest bit - I'm pretty small chested, a B. But curves, I have curves. An hourglass, to be specific, which would be FABULOUS if I was a woman. :rolle:

Also, in a strange twist, women intimidate me more than men do in most circumstances. Though I won't lie and say that men don't intimidate me.

Accepting yourself as trans is hard. Every time I think I'm close, I end up struggling again.

Feel free to message me if you need to as well man. I check EC pretty frequently.

I like you already.

I really do need to keep that in mind. Too often do I loudly declare "that's it, I am done with guys forever". This coming from a guy that isn't even physically male with a string of gay exes...

 

Ah, yeah, my face doesn't do me any favors. :dry: Angular faces just aren't in my family's genetic code though, and there are rounder faced guys out there. I just need to find ways to work with that I suppose.

I wish it was easier to take things one step at a time, but I just want to pass already! It's stressful for sure.