A lifetime of confusion
Apr 28, 2024 16:11:15 GMT
Post by deesometimes on Apr 28, 2024 16:11:15 GMT
I’d like to talk about my experiences of gender dysphoria and sexuality. I don’t know if I’ll reach any profound conclusions; I just want to talk.
I started wearing girls’ clothes (my Mum’s and my sisters’) when I was about 5. I soon learned to keep it secret and hidden, but I just had to do it. I seem to recall my Action Man was a transvestite as well, he borrowed my sisters’ Sindy clothes! But I knew nothing of transgender people. This was in the 1960s, I’m not sure anyone knew about trans people in the 1960s, certainly not in South Coast suburbia. I did know I had this nagging feeling I was supposed to be a girl, supposed to be at the girls’ school, should have been in the Girl Guides, not the Scouts. The kids at school said I was a girl and I suspected they weren’t entirely wrong.
When I was 17 I began to discover girls as an attraction, but it all felt somehow not quite right. I was very shy and awkward with girls, but I suppose a lot of 17-year-olds are. But something was just … wrong. I mean, I was definitely attracted to girls but… And then I discovered a newsagent with some ‘interesting’ magazines. The first one I bought was called ‘Lesbian Experiences’; it was almost all written stories, few pictures. I kind of didn’t really know why that particular title called out to me, but as I read it … it wasn’t so much a lightbulb moment as a whole fairground carousel. Only, now I felt more strongly than ever that I should have been a girl.
But I carried on trying to be straight. I even got married. In an act of supreme irony, after less than 3 years my wife left me for another woman. Oh, that stung. By then I did know something about trans people. Within another year I had a serious mental breakdown, largely from the strain of trying to live in a world in which I just did not fit. I started to transition in about 1986. I lived as a woman for 3 months, but I couldn’t cope with the rejection of my family and suffered a major relapse. It took me years to recover, in which time I modified my lifestyle to avoid much of the more toxic aspects of masculinity, and allow my femininity a lot more freedom of expression. I still tried to essentially be straight, although at some point I began to explore bisexuality. But, girls, let me tell you, on the whole men are very disappointing in bed! No, that wasn’t working, either. I craved lesbian relationships more and more. In my 40s it became increasingly difficult to, let’s say, perform the male role. And, oh, it was such a thrill to be an object of attraction as a woman, to other women. It is so exciting when a woman starts to slide her hand up under my skirt! And such a bastard let-down to have the wrong fixtures and fittings when she gets there. I found some women kind of use trans women as a sort of safe, not quite going the whole nine yards, substitute for lesbian experimentation, and that doesn’t work either. Well, it might work from their perspective, but it didn’t from mine. The nearest I ever got was in a foursome, when one woman went down on the other and it was … no, I can’t find a suitable superlative.
In the end I gave up on relationships for about 7 years. Ironically I spent time around some of the most sexually liberated people I’ve ever known. One day I met a woman I knew vaguely, and that evening told her I was trans and bisexual, but that I mostly longed for a lesbian relationship, and she didn’t bat an eyelid. We’ve been married for 13 years, I’m openly trans with her and she makes me the most gorgeous skirts and blouses and dresses, and sex rarely rears its ugly head. 10 years ago we discovered I was, and always had been, hormonally at least, closer to female than male and an awful lot of weird stuff made sense. I heard he concept of ‘translesbians’ and was told by my then psychologist that it was perfectly acceptable to be trans and a lesbian, but then it almost didn’t matter any more. Almost. But sometimes, that old yearning is still there.
Moral of the story? Just be yourself, as best you can.
I started wearing girls’ clothes (my Mum’s and my sisters’) when I was about 5. I soon learned to keep it secret and hidden, but I just had to do it. I seem to recall my Action Man was a transvestite as well, he borrowed my sisters’ Sindy clothes! But I knew nothing of transgender people. This was in the 1960s, I’m not sure anyone knew about trans people in the 1960s, certainly not in South Coast suburbia. I did know I had this nagging feeling I was supposed to be a girl, supposed to be at the girls’ school, should have been in the Girl Guides, not the Scouts. The kids at school said I was a girl and I suspected they weren’t entirely wrong.
When I was 17 I began to discover girls as an attraction, but it all felt somehow not quite right. I was very shy and awkward with girls, but I suppose a lot of 17-year-olds are. But something was just … wrong. I mean, I was definitely attracted to girls but… And then I discovered a newsagent with some ‘interesting’ magazines. The first one I bought was called ‘Lesbian Experiences’; it was almost all written stories, few pictures. I kind of didn’t really know why that particular title called out to me, but as I read it … it wasn’t so much a lightbulb moment as a whole fairground carousel. Only, now I felt more strongly than ever that I should have been a girl.
But I carried on trying to be straight. I even got married. In an act of supreme irony, after less than 3 years my wife left me for another woman. Oh, that stung. By then I did know something about trans people. Within another year I had a serious mental breakdown, largely from the strain of trying to live in a world in which I just did not fit. I started to transition in about 1986. I lived as a woman for 3 months, but I couldn’t cope with the rejection of my family and suffered a major relapse. It took me years to recover, in which time I modified my lifestyle to avoid much of the more toxic aspects of masculinity, and allow my femininity a lot more freedom of expression. I still tried to essentially be straight, although at some point I began to explore bisexuality. But, girls, let me tell you, on the whole men are very disappointing in bed! No, that wasn’t working, either. I craved lesbian relationships more and more. In my 40s it became increasingly difficult to, let’s say, perform the male role. And, oh, it was such a thrill to be an object of attraction as a woman, to other women. It is so exciting when a woman starts to slide her hand up under my skirt! And such a bastard let-down to have the wrong fixtures and fittings when she gets there. I found some women kind of use trans women as a sort of safe, not quite going the whole nine yards, substitute for lesbian experimentation, and that doesn’t work either. Well, it might work from their perspective, but it didn’t from mine. The nearest I ever got was in a foursome, when one woman went down on the other and it was … no, I can’t find a suitable superlative.
In the end I gave up on relationships for about 7 years. Ironically I spent time around some of the most sexually liberated people I’ve ever known. One day I met a woman I knew vaguely, and that evening told her I was trans and bisexual, but that I mostly longed for a lesbian relationship, and she didn’t bat an eyelid. We’ve been married for 13 years, I’m openly trans with her and she makes me the most gorgeous skirts and blouses and dresses, and sex rarely rears its ugly head. 10 years ago we discovered I was, and always had been, hormonally at least, closer to female than male and an awful lot of weird stuff made sense. I heard he concept of ‘translesbians’ and was told by my then psychologist that it was perfectly acceptable to be trans and a lesbian, but then it almost didn’t matter any more. Almost. But sometimes, that old yearning is still there.
Moral of the story? Just be yourself, as best you can.
