Sometime in January of this year, I have realized I am not male gendered, though physically I am. I was talking with my wife, exploring our childhood experiences when I remembered that I used to wish to become a girl. I would sit in church concentrating, trying to force my body to change. I had a recurring dream where I would be kidnapped and put through a machine that changed me into a woman. I was never bothered by it and usually found it quite exhilarating, always disappointing upon waking up. My immediate and extended family is and have been very conservative and religious. I have 3 younger brothers who are all very masculine. I felt very out of place and "wrong" that I would feel non-masculine, so I pushed it down and buried under years and years of it being "sinful". I have always liked women, found them to be visually more pleasing than men, and they have far better communication verbally and emotionally. I used this as evidence that I must just be an awkward child/teen/adult, because if I weren't male gendered I wouldn't have sexual attraction to women. I have not had many guy friends throughout my life, I always connected with girls better. I like playing games (board or video) so i would hang out with guys then, but I never got into the "guy" part outside of the contest. The lewd jokes, the general disrespect of women in remarks...women aren't sex objects, they are people. Anyway, I always identified with the comment "I'm a lesbian trapped in a man's body" even though it was used as a joke. I couldn't and still can't tell people that it's true because of fear, but I find it to be fairly accurate. I have started painting my toenails, have shaved my legs once, and am generally experimenting with a female expression of myself, but find it hard to do because I fear judgement for what I do. That and I don't want to confuse my children (one of whom is Autistic and struggles with identifying gender in general). I do not want to change my body (at least not at this point) but I do not identify as a man. I'm still trying to figure out if I am simply genderfluid/androgynous or if I am actually a woman. It's hard to pin that down after 30+ years of life, and at least 20 years of squelching any thoughts that were not prototypical. I'm only a couple months into this self exploration, but I feel like I'm not gaining any ground. Well, that's where I am. It's a little random, but I think it is mostly there.
