First of all, let’s get one thing straight. I am a woman. I was born with a penis, my body followed the typical development for male bodies, and more than likely, I have XY chromosomes (I’ve never been tested). But I am a woman, and I always have been. You see, all those things which I listed are markers for being male, which I freely admit – I was born with a male body. But inside of me, inside my brain, inside my heart, I am and always have been a woman.
When I was in elementary school and the teachers had us line up in lines for boys and girls, I knew I belonged with the girls. But I knew if I joined that line, the teacher would make me go to the boys line, and I would have an entire class laughing at me for my “mistake”.
When I went to church, I saw the girls in their pretty dresses and I was jealous — so jealous — that they got to wear such pretty things, and I was stuck wearing boring and constricting boy clothes.
I was picked on almost incessantly in elementary school for being different. I had rationalized that it had to do with my academic achievement, but now I’m not so sure. Now, I wonder if those kids picked up on something I was unable to verbalize (or even consciously admit to myself). And when I search for the happy times in those primary years, the ones which stand out are the ones when I was with other girls – only girls – and my being perceived as a boy wasn’t important to any of us. I spent time in the school library as part of a “bookworms” club (we were advanced readers, and instead of making us sit in the regular classroom for reading lessons, they allowed us to work and read independently – probably one of the best things the teachers could have done for us!). And it was me and four other girls, united in our love of reading. I was happy!
I was a girl in a boy’s body. A confused girl. A misunderstood girl. An invisible girl.
I was a girl who didn’t even know she was a girl. But I was still a girl.
Puberty didn’t help matters much. Puberty is hard for everyone, but imagine a puberty where to your neverending horror, your body is turning into something monstrous, something alien, something distorted and unrecognizable. Imagine a puberty where your body feels increasingly wrong, increasingly further from where you instinctively know it is supposed to be going. My response was to lose myself more. I read more books – fantasy, sci-fi, horror – all of them felt more familiar and real to me than my own body. When I couldn’t read, I tuned out – creating fantasy worlds in my head where I could be the girl I felt myself to be, even if I couldn’t bring myself to admit that I was a girl inside. And I punished my body – eating everything I could whether I was hungry, and sometimes even when I didn’t particularly care for the food I was eating. I could put away a whole pizza by myself and still have room for 5 scoops of ice cream. My metabolism (with the body of a teenage boy) was able to keep up with my eating, so I didn’t get obese. I wrestle with food to this day, especially now that my metabolism has slowed and I can easily be 80 pounds over my ideal weight.
In short, to an extent, I separated from my body. I dissociated. Not enough to become a psychological disorder, but I was definitely not very well connected to my body.
And I still couldn’t consciously process that I was a girl, now a woman, inside.
I am information-driven. I am evidence-based. And I had no evidence that I was a woman. My body was obviously male. Every person I’d ever known had reinforced the idea that I was a boy/man, whether they intended to. The only examples I could find of people who might be having similar experiences were on shows like Jerry Springer, where they were shouted at, sneered at, had things thrown at them, were told they were mentally ill, and treated like the worst scum on the planet; I couldn’t be like that!
I scoured the library for information on what I was feeling, and all I found were psychological texts and medical journals, all of which pathologized the transsexual experience. I found texts which called it a fetish, a perversion, a mental illness. I was scared to death! I couldn’t be like that!
Then the beginnings of the Internet emerged, and I again scoured it for anything I could find. Now I found stories and articles about people who had feelings like mine, but they were sexualized, made to be titillating and exotic. These people were treated like objects, devoid of humanity. And worse, there was an emerging hypothesis about “men who were sexually aroused by the thought of themselves as woman”, which made it clear that these were faulty and spurious thoughts and feelings – the products of perverted and unhealthy minds. I couldn’t be like that!
But I was like that. Not an object, not mentally ill, not a pervert, but I was experiencing many of the same things that the people in those texts, journals, TV shows, and Internet stories were. I was experiencing the fundamental misalignment between the gender I had been told I was and taught to portray, and the gender I actually was inside. I was experiencing Gender Incongruity. I was experiencing Gender Dysphoria. And I had learned from all of my experiences that to be that way was shameful and wrong, that I must not allow myself to be like that!
It took me 40-something years to finally acknowledge and embrace my truth. It took me that long to reach a point where the cost and consequences of facing my truth felt smaller than the cost and consequences of not. And now I have 40-something years worth of memories and lessons to revisit and reprocess, and 40-something years of lost time and missed experiences. That’s a lot!
I have a lot of emotions wrapped up in this. I’m hurt that I didn’t get the experiences that my peers got. I’m sad for the little girl I once was – for how scared and confused she was for all those years. And I’m proud of that same little girl for surviving – how strong she had to be to make it through. I’m thankful for the experiences I do have – while I missed out on many of the things I would have liked to experienced, I have had a great life so far – I am extremely blessed! I am grateful for my family – they have loved me through these most challenging of times. I am relieved that I am finally living as the woman I have always been, even if I didn’t always know that I was.
Gender World 
We where always women , our bodies may have told us else, but we just needed time to figure things out. The internet helped me a great deal to help me figure out why i was feeling this way and to know i was not alone.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I feel stuck. It just doesn’t feel like it’s an option for me. I’ve spent my whole life making myself and the people around me think I was mentally and physically tough, to compensate for being skinny. That may seem ok to an overweight person but It was the worst thing I could be, I prayed for a change for years… Drugs led me to prison, where I would gain 83 lbs in just one year thanks to manic depression. Since a child I’ve believed that being a girl would fix everything… no one had a problem with a girl being too small or skinny. Problem was and is the persona I’ve established for myself over the years would completely shock and possibly ruin my family. My mother and father are both very closed minded about the matter and my wife and kids would probably just laugh, thinking it’s a joke. I want to tell my wife so badly how I feel inside because I know she would support me and understand but she is a gossip queen I don’t completely trust her with that information at this time. It is my biggest and only secret that no one but I know. Almost don’t believe it myself some days. Other days it’s hard for me to dress normally. I used to think it was a game, something I did in private, an extra curricular lol…Now it’s starting to feel more and more normal. I have absolutely no one to talk to about this so it’s been really weighing on me these past few years but I can see now I’m not alone. Honestly it feels good just writing it all out. I’m also a good listener if anyone who is reading this needs a friend to talk to, about anything, dont hesitate to reach out….
LikeLiked by 1 person
I am so sorry you are struggling with all of this. I wish the world was safe for us to reveal who we really are with confidence we will be met with love, kindness, and support.
I found that I had to build up a facade of mental strength and stoicism, and that helped me survive until I was ready to come out. Now, I know that I have those tools if I need them, and at the same time, I’ve been surprised that being vulnerable is also a sign of strength – perhaps more so than what I’d been doing before transition.
I relate to the thought “everything would be fixed if I were a girl” – I believe I’ve mentioned that elsewhere in my blog posts. What I’ve found is that being a woman doesn’t fix everything; it fixed my gender incongruence and has given me an inner peace for the turmoil and distress I’d been feeling for most of my life. The rest of my problems remain, and more even cropped up. The difference is that I’m better able to deal with it all than I was before – I have more mental resources because I’ve cleared out the incongruence and dysphoria, and I have a lot of newly learned tools to boot.
I also relate to the fears you expressed. I worried about my immediate family – I had no reason to believe any of them were transphobic – but rejection would have been utterly devastating.
Dressing was one of my few outlets pre-transition, and I felt guilty and ashamed afterwards. It took time and work to undo those feelings; part of it was realizing what I said in the post above – I am a woman and I always have been one. I was just trying to do the things other women do while society told me incessantly that I was wrong.
I’m glad you feel better writing it all out. I found the same thing. In my early days of transition, I wrote nearly constantly to sort through all the thoughts swirling in my brain, and it helped me immensely. Writing this blog has helped, too. I am humbled when other people find my writing useful for them.
I wish you the best as you navigate through all of this. It’s a lot to deal with and nobody can really tell you the right way to do it. You have to find what works for you. You are most definitely not alone. I hope that brings you comfort.
LikeLike
Having read this post through quite carefully several times, I have come to the considered conclusion that you rock.
LikeLiked by 2 people