To start off, this is my first post on these forums. Anyway, a little background, as I grew up I wasn't necessarily attracted to girls or guys. I am currently 19 years old. Note: This is kind of a long spiel about the experiences leading up to who I am now, and why I am so confused about my gender identity. In seventh grade my mother decided that it would be a good idea to homeschool me. The main problem was she worked most of the week and left it up to me to do the work and learn all of the material. The assigned work took about as long as most homework takes. Anyway, I had about oh let's say five to six hours a day where I was alone and could do whatever I wanted. I ended up doing chores, playing video games, etc... Fast forward one year, around the age of thirteen I started hitting puberty. I would go online and look at pictures of women (fully clothed). I felt like I was more jealous of females than anything. After a while I ended up trying on some girl clothes, yes I am ashamed to say I wore my mother's clothing. About six months after this I stumbled upon porn, yay for degrading life-changing choices! Anyway, the only porn I was able to watch for about 2 years was she male porn. As to not offend anyone, I would just like to mention I do know the difference between a transvestite woman and a she male. Still did not know what masturbation was... somehow this seems more screwed up than I remember. Once ninth grade hit I was back into the public school system, thank goodness. Saw girls that I thought looked nice and I would enjoy hanging out with, not necessarily sexually attracted to any of them. Around the age of 15 I started watching straight porn, the first time I came was while wearing women's clothing and pretending to be with a man. It took another year before I was able to masturbate in boy's clothing. This went on for a while... and around the age of 18 (about six months ago) I started reading transgender fan fiction. This was easily the most arousing of all the different things I have experienced. Obviously the most arousing parts were when the character (mainly read about males) had their first experience with another person before their transition was complete. After this I started really getting attracted to men and some of their features. Almost to the point where I have considered coming out as bisexual. I'm not sure if I am going through a phase, like some people actually do, or am actually bisexual. I'd love to be able to tell myself that I'm bisexual but I just can't. I don't really get a boner from looking at guys. The same applies to girls with the exception if they are partially clothed and not directly real, yes... the internet models of girls in underwear is more likely to give me an erection than going to a public swimming pool. Recently, I have become almost addicted with the idea of being gay. I feel like I could totally spend my life with a caring guy and be completely content on life. I'm just not sure I am sexually attracted, or possibly scared of being sexually attracted to a guy. This "addiction," if you will, has become so bad that while shopping at a local store I went over to a mannequin to look at a sweater and as I reached out to touch the sweater shivers went down my entire body. So the most emotion that I have ever really felt for anything... and it's a mannequin... joy... I've been wanting to maybe meet some similarly aged gay men and women to hear about their stories and maybe talk about myself with some of them, but my school and work schedule literally isn't giving me any free time until about 8:00 PM at night... which is definitely not the right time to meet people in a local support group. At the same time, I feel like girls are gorgeous and I would love to become close friends with girls, I just don't think I would necessarily want to be romantically involved, even though I may be sexually attracted to them. So... that is the most confusing thing I've ever admitted to myself. I guess I'm just wondering if anyone has had any experience like this and how they were able to find their true self. The biggest problem I'm facing right now really comes down to what if I'm wrong? What if my mind is just so screwed up and I never figure myself out? What if this really is just a phase and I end up getting shut out of my family on a whim, didn't mention it, but my family is highly religious and my dad is quite homophobic. I feel like I really need to come out to someone, but I don't really have any friends or family that I could comfortably come out to and know that they would be "comfortable" with talking about it and maybe helping me find my identity. I understand my writing is more like a giant rant and tainted with completely unnecessary details, but I just wanted to get all of it out if that makes sense. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Dear foxfish, I am also quite confused.. Sometimes I love my boobs to attract males and females and at other times i hate them and want to be a strong masculine man without boobs... The struggle we share is attraction to ppl... What really helped me is to go to a GOOD friend and talk to them about it (someone you really trust)... Venting usually helps and if you ever want to vent my Wall is always free (on EC).... Maybe consider seeing a therapist (no I'm not saying you need it or something - it's something that's helped me and maybe you too)...
" As to not offend anyone, I would just like to mention I do know the difference between a transvestite woman and a she male. " Then it may be helpful to know that transvestite and she-male are both bad words. Cross-dresser and trans woman (or just y'know, girl) if you don't mind As for the difference, really depends on the person but as a rule of thumb: Cross-dresser - male who likes wearing womens clothing Trans woman - female who was born male "the internet models of girls in underwear is more likely to give me an erection than going to a public swimming pool." - That's probably a good thing...nobody wants to pop a bone in public! "I understand my writing is more like a giant rant and tainted with completely unnecessary details, but I just wanted to get all of it out if that makes sense. " Ranting = good. Details = good! Don't hold back, ever! Well maybe sometimes, but not on here, the more you can get out here the better. Anyway on to the meat of your problems. So you started of questioning your gender, and the things you said made a lot of sense. I guess the first thing I want to is that, apart from the cross-dressing, what has caused you to question your GENDER as opposed to just your sexuality?
From your post, it sounds as if you're homoromantic/heterosexual; orientation is flexible and fluid though, so it could change one day. As for gender, what do you think about others calling you "she" and "her?" Can you imagin yourself being a woman, and being happy? These are the most important part of being transgendered: identifying as the other/another gender. As Holly (ellie) said, transvestite and shemale are more derogatory, instead the terms "crossdresser" and "MtF" are more appropriate. It's important to know that crossdressers and transgendered people can be complete opposites, as not every transgendered person wears/likes to wear the clothing of their identified gender/sex (likewise, crossdressers are usually comfortable being their birth sex/gender) I would recommend seeking a therapist and such, hopefully you'll be able to figure this out as time goes on.
Note: I apologize to anyone I may have offended before. Thanks for the insight. I am a product of my experiences and thus have a slanted view on the world, because of this if I offend you in anyway, please let me know. Now as a response to what some of you have said, let me start out by saying I'm a pretty scrawny person. As I grew older people who guessed my age simply based on appearance were almost always about 2-3 years off. Because of this I feel that whenever I view myself I am just a kid, even though I live alone. Someone I recently met asked if I was a senior in high school, so I'm getting closer to looking the correct age. Anyway, because of this whenever I got to know someone instead of a relationship that you might see two friends having, it was more like the relationship that younger and older siblings share, obviously a bit less personal though. This applied to pretty much all but the very few friends that I would consider myself close to. Now to get to the point, because of this I grew up being called things you might call a little kid. (cute, adorable, etc...) This happened with pretty much anyone a year younger than me and up. I never really minded any of it until high school. Trying to establish a decent friendship with people that view you as a quirky little kid can be... extremely difficult at best. Which has left me with a few acquaintances and about one friend who might as well be my brother. As far as being transgender goes, I really don't know. I feel like I would've been completely happy with being born as either male or female. My mannerisms match those of a slightly feminine boy or a slightly boyish girl... Which makes understanding oneself so much easier! /sarcasm. Imagine a giant puzzle with tons of completely different images on it. When I wake up each morning it is like pieces of that puzzle decided to fall into place a certain way and for about half of the day I act a certain way. The other half I'm generally depressed, but I've gotten used to an almost unchanging variable in my life, it's kind of nice. Because of this, sometimes I wake up in the morning take a shower spend tons of time on my hair, which is really saying something considering how much I have, and put on some really "nice" clothes. Other days I wake up comb out some "bed head" and then throw on whatever I can find that is clean. I guess it's not really important to know, but after a while it gets depressing realizing how much better you looked one day than a day before. On those days I generally can't even bring myself to think about doing things that I generally enjoy a great deal. The biggest problem is when it comes to sexuality. If I look at a guy and imagine what it would be like to be with him I'm always just a bit more feminine than I actually am, sometimes I even fantasize that I'd be his girlfriend... When it comes to being his friend though I'd prefer to appear slightly masculine with a tint of geek. If that makes sense... It completely changes when it comes to girls... If I think about being in a relationship I imagine myself a bit more masculine then I currently am. However, if I want to become friends with her... I'll ask her what she thinks of guys passing by, I seriously don't know how no one has asked if I'm gay, or I'll talk about where she got her clothes etc... Side note: In none of these situations do I imagine what it would be like to "go at it" with someone. It's normally just kind of what it would be like to be with "my version" of them. Obviously if I actually plan to get to know the person I try not to judge, and often still get surprised by how diverse and interesting people are. Because of this trying to make friends or getting into a relationship with someone is probably my biggest day-to-day challenge. Imagine if you had to act a specific way around specific people. Now throw all of those people together in a group and try to converse... what ends up happening is I sit and listen and then later someone will ask if I'm feeling ok because I've been acting "strange." I just feel like I'm missing some part of myself that should be there to complete me. At this point in time even thinking about getting into a relationship is depressing because I can't match what I feel I should be like in a relationship. If that makes any sense. I'm sure someone can relate, I've just been feeling so hollow lately I had to get this out.
"I feel like I would've been completely happy with being born as either male or female. My mannerisms match those of a slightly feminine boy or a slightly boyish girl" So would I be right in saying that as far as you are concerned you are quite content being a guy, and don't feel like that is 'wrong', but if you'd been born a girl (with the same brain and thoughts and such) that would be fine too? They key element here being that from what you've said you don't feel like your gender is 'wrong'. Is that about right? As far as how you view relationships with men and women, don't be too suprised by what you are thinking. Essentially, you want different things and see yourself in a different role. So when you see a guy, you want to be more masculine if you want to be friends, you want to be on even terms, but when you think about being WITH him you opt for a more submissive thought, or what you've described as 'feminine'. Perhaps that has something to do with the tradition ideals of relationships that we've been fed since birth, perhaps it's something else, but as far as I can tell it's fairly normal. This is backed up by what you said about girls. If you think about relationships with girls you want to me more masculine, to adopt the dominant role, where as if you want to be friends, again you opt for a position they can relate to and appear more feminine. Can you describe for me how you feel on one of your 'off' days? I know you said it's depressing, but do you ever find any specific thoughts coming up regularly? Any feelings you can link to a specific cause?
To answer your first question, yes that sounds about right. Which is why I didn't really think I was trans*, I just wanted to be sure. As far as how I feel on my 'off' days it is generally pretty empty. On my best days I'm generally still a social outcast, but on my worst it's like I unintentionally seek out locations that are desolate of humanity. If I do end up talking to someone I have almost no control of emotions, I'm generally rude, a bit too serious, easily "set off," and all around a real drag to be around. Which, unfortunately, makes me more depressed. I guess I could relate it to how my younger sister can get about the "little things" when she is on her period. Although, I feel depressed because at least she can apologize and give a decent reason as to why she reacted the way she did. I do try to apologize but as far as reasoning goes, I generally just leave it at sorry, I overreacted. Which answers your last question... the only thing I can really think of is just being depressed recently due to not being able to talk to anyone about my recent feelings. The only person I could really talk to, that would be 100% fine with anything, would be my older sister and I honestly don't trust her, since she has a tendency to use information to control people. So... I can't really talk to her. I'm not sure I really conveyed what I was trying to say, but I think you may understand. Today I've been on a fun little roller coaster and about the time my last class ended I went over the hill I had been happily climbing up all day. Feeling a bit better after talking about it though, so if anything thanks for giving me the opportunity to "vent."
