My gender story
I was born male. That I know and it a difficult fact that I carry around with me each day. It is a painful fact that somedays is all-consuming and somedays is not really anything I think about.
As I have grown older and the world has expanded in understanding, I have continued to think about and question this each day. I know that it is not something that 99.9% of the world spends as much time dwelling upon but that is just me I guess.
But I know now that I am not alone and others have painfully similar stories. That is probably why I am drawn to reading other transgender blogs - not just to not feel alone but to also search for some answers or help in understanding myself and my path.
Also why am I writing this all out now is not something that I have a good answer for. Perhaps I am looking for some therapeutic relief, or need some voice as I feel trapped and alone or have some other mental defect. I just feel like I need to do it so I am.
My thoughts with gender started around the age of recognition of gender roles between boy and girl that were drilled into me in the traditional fashion. Boys wear boy, girls pink; boys play sports/physical games while girls have dolls and homemaker play. My late 70s/80s childhood was literally something shown as the traditional 50s home in terms of what was taught, expected and rewarded/punished if you did not follow the society rules.
I didn't like this and started wishing to be part of the other girls side while I was hammered into me the need to stay on my side with the boys around me. I remember my first vivid dreams around 10 or so when I would magically wake up as a girl instead of my current body.
As I got older, things just got worse. Puberty was so confusing and the most horrible period of my life. I felt so ugly and my awkward shyness and non-hip look did not help me from being bullied and alone often. I keep secretly feeling how much better my life would have been if I was female, and that thinking did not help me either. I would start experimenting with clothes, makeup and jewelry from my Mom or sister's closet but that came at a cost. The severely damning protestant church that ruled our household brought visions of shame and sin for thinking and acting on these thoughts. I was a freak, a sexual deviant, and an abomination in the eyes of God.
High school was the worst four years of my life and I have repressed many painful memories of it. I was mostly an outcast but I did manage a small number of friends that I could connect with that were not part of the popular crowd.
One of my few good friends was hidden/not-so-hidden gay or bisexual male that I connected with. While he was way more social than me, he did sort of adopt me and we became close friends. While I accepted him and didn't care about his sexual preferences, I could have been more empathetic and open to hearing how difficult it was for him in the ultra-conservative area we lived in. I didn't really ask but yet felt like we had an unspoken connection - I knew he wasn't completely straight but I didn't mind, and I think he always suspected that I was confused on lost in my own sexuality but he didn't mind. I was close on a couple of times about confessing my secret thoughts about my gender confusion but never had the guts to speak. I often wonder if he already sensed most of this.
Around my senior year in high school, I remember while most of the boys talked about wanting to date one of the girls that I really wanted to be one of them instead. I think one time I was experimenting with my Mom's clothes she noticed things but nothing would ever be said. My view of doing this and then being a shameful sexual pervert continued to cycle louder in me.
After graduation, I remember a time with my friend that we stole some of my parents booze and we got drunk together over at his place with his parents out of town. I think I passed out or something but remember waking up with him climbing into bed with me. He started to initiate kissing and then removing my clothes, and I pretended to sleep and not notice what was happening. Eventually he started having sex with me and I don't know why but I just froze and couldn't do anything even though my rouse of sleeping was gone. To this day I don't know if I really wanted this to happen or not and feel like there must be deep reasons inside me that I didn't stop things. The next day, I pretended that I was so drunk the night before that I remembered nothing and didn't bring up the sex or talk about it. I spent alot of time after this feeling so shameful and wrong and hating myself for cross-dressing and being gay. I equated these things together and that I needed to remove this from my life. I avoided my friend after that and soon went off to college to forget about things.
But feelings of gender don't seem to ever stop no matter how hard you try to forget them.
I have done alot of therapy and alot of thinking of how my past shaped me and this is just the start of the pattern I feel still stuck in today. I have equated my gender confusion or body dysphoria or sexuality on being wrong and shameful and something to hide from the world. I feel that even wishing to give my nails a clear coat of polish or shave my chest equates me to being some sexual deviant and something wrong in the eyes of everyone that is important in my life. I cannot seem to stop this behavior and pattern and if anything the shame has built up to a soul-crushing amount and left me hopeless.
I am going to keep trying to chronicle my story here in several parts but thought this made a good point to pause and reflect. During the next part of my life I attempted to isolate myself, conform to what I was taught to be and eventually meet my soulmate. Despite all of this, truth be told I still had times when my gender perversion or whatever I felt it was got the best of me and then was followed by periods of profound shame and guilt.
Until then...
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