Hi, I'm 26, and I've been in the closet for way too long, but as I am starting to accept myself, everything is just becoming more and more confusing. Let me start off with a 'brief' history: My wife of 5 years essentially left me in July after coming out to her in May. She had given me a year to figure things out, which quickly turned into by the holidays, which then turned into me being alone. I get it though, no woman wants to be with a potentially gay guy. Unfortunately, I still love her with all my heart and she is carrying through with potentially filing for the divorce in the coming weeks. As for the gender identity, I can remember thinking to myself on multiple occasions around the age of 5 how I would tell my grandfather (He watched over me a lot as my mother was really young) that I was still me once I magically became a girl. When I would play house with my friends (other boys in the neighborhood), I was always the mommy with a baby girl doll when they were both daddies with their baby boy dolls. My best friend until the age eleven (when her mom essentially didn't like her hanging out with a boy so frequently) was a tomboy in which I always followed her lead. But even with the desire to be a girl, I always knew that I was a boy and that wasn't going to change. Around this same time, I moved into a neighborhood in which the other boys were just straight assholes. From the age 11-14, I was bullied by both my friends at home who wouldn't hang out with me at school, as well as two boys at school who would find anything mean to do to me from making fun of every shirt I would wear to spitting in my hair when I was waiting to be picked up. My friends at home new I had a short temper, so they'd do anything to just see if they could make me explode. The best advice I ever got was along the lines of 'just do you best to fit in' or 'well did you hit him back?'. There was also many occasions in these years High school got a lot better after moving from that school and donning a good mask to fit in. Freshman year, I also found tg stories/porn and have frequented ever since (not too many stories anymore as they often eat up a lot of late night time in which I could be sleeping). I started binge drinking and smoking weed at the age of 14, however, neither were frequent until after my grandfather passed away in my senior year. Thankfully, as I have a decent amount of intellect and great reasoning skills, I was able to get through high school with little to no effort (AP chem, AP physics, Calc 2...). This all changed when I got to college because I had no clue what studying was, and I truly believed it was one giant party. I actually first dated my wife for a few months in high school, before ditching her so I could go party in college (still feel horrible, was just copying what my friends were doing ). At this point I moved to WA state to live with my father who was in the Navy. Since he aloud me to drink in the house, the binging got worse as he threw drunken sailor parties monthly. I was also blacking out A LOT at this point in my life. Threw my drink in my dads face in front of his friends as he was trying to cut me off, getting knocked out by one of them after asking to be hit in the face, and I even got kicked off a cruise ship in Canada. All while I don't remember anything. Around this same time, my wife contacted me again and we dated long distance, albeit with frequent and extended visits. I told her of my cross dressing and she even let me wear lingerie with her. As I had no true aim in the college courses I was taking, I enlisted in the Navy myself. The masculine mask that I had been wearing fit perfectly into sailor culture. I also turned 21 and got married to my wife in the same year. I suppressed all of the crossdressing and alternative pornography for like the first year in attempt to be more masculine for the military. Over our 5 years of marriage, I brought it up about 6-8 times where my wife would be cool with it for a couple days (even taking me shopping for panties and short shorts) and then we would get into a huge argument about how she didn't want to be married to a woman so I would suppress the convo for the time being and keep it to myself. I also have only drink beer since I was 23 to control the binging and for the most part, I am doing really well with it. At the start of this year, I got out of the Navy and started back to a university full time to hopefully go to medical school. As I started smoking weed again in March, I became relaxed enough to allow myself to look at men sexually for the first time and it also opened up the opportunity for a lot of self reflection. As I come from an extremely conservative suburb, the only goal in life was to not be gay when you grow up. So that goal found its place right into the mask I had built for myself. But as I looked more and more, it became easier and more exciting. I even feel myself lightening up as I accept myself, a cute guy at school will catch my eye at school, and I honestly feel like I am looking mostly at girls styles rather than lusting over them these days. I have come out to about a dozen people as queer, but only four including my wife and my therapist know about my gender dysphoria. So here I am, super depressed and feeling alone. I'm falling behind in the 17 units I am taking at school. Had to recently stop smoking weed in hopes to regain some focus and finish the semester strong. I am a huge creature of habit and resist change, so absolutely none of this has been easy. I guess my main question is, how do I know if my gender dysphoria stems from not allowing myself to accept that I am gay? Or if being androphilic is just another extension of my gender dysphoria? HRT sounds absolutely amazing, but social transition gives me massive amount of social anxiety as I am 6'2", size 12 shoes, and not exactly a feminine face. Also, I don't want to make the wrong decision, ie start taking HRT, and end up with breasts and impotence when But the the reverse also applies, I am now officially in my late tweenties and if I wait for HRT too much longer I am afraid that the testosterone will reap havoc. Do I really just needed to accept myself as an effeminate gay man since I never even allowed that option to exist until recently? Or am I in fact transgender? I know only I can answer these questions, but any feedback would be awesome. Sorry for the long posting, but I just wanted to lay it out as clearly as possible. Thank you for reading and hopefully replying
Your situation sounds very similar to mine. A question I ask is that this masculine "mask" does it feel like a fake? Or does it feel like another side of you? Gender is no longer a black and white phenomenon. You can be male, you can be female, or you could be somewhere in between and be perfectly content. Sure, hormone therapy could be awesome and you could live a very fulfilling life, but it isn't something you should jump to right away. That would be like graduating from 8th grade and immediately thinking you can take on medical school. If anything, talk to yourself about how you feel when people address you as a man and when people address you as a woman. If you feel that both sort of "apply" then you might be genderqueer or some other non-binary gender. If you are in fact homosexual, definitely explore that more also. In a committed relationship with a man, you can be a lot more open and expressive since usually speaking, the gay community is a lot more understanding about gender issues. You might realize that maybe just being with him and the freedom to move between genders is all you really need. If not though, then life is all a journey. If you end up a woman, you would have gotten to that point through discovery first, and it would have been the ultimate right choice. So explore, my friend! Putting labels on yourself is too stressful. Focus on being a human that likes men and just go from there!
