Drunken Revelations.

In the wee small hours of the morning of Saturday 11th February 2017, on the messy end of a night of heavy drinking, intimate heart-to-hearts with people who didn’t deserve it, and a spiteful 3am call to my estranged Father, my beleaguered brain coerced my fingers into typing out this post on facebook:
“I have Gender Dysmorphia, and always have had!”

Naturally, I woke up several hours later to a colossal hangover (at 26 years old,
long gone are the days of waking up scot free after trying to drown myself in rum and sambuca), and to some mixed responses of support and concern from friends (more that someone had hacked my Facebook than the declaration itself). Thus, I deleted the slapdashed post, and followed it up with this more tailored qualification:

“Ok, so I got very very drunk last night, and shared something quite intimate about myself, that a more sober head would rather I hadn’t just yet. At least until my own thoughts and feelings on the matter are more formulated. Yet, it is out there now, so I suppose I had better explain a little. Dratted gobshite drunk me needs to keep his mouth shut.

Whilst it is true that I have always had mild feelings of gender dysphoria (not dysmorphia, as inebriated haste misdiagnosed this morning. Dysmorphia would suggest that my self image is different from my reality, and that I see a woman when I look in the mirror, which I do not), this has largely been a disassociation with everything that a man is supposed to be, or the archaic gender role of a Man, and I haven’t acted upon anything because of this. As the very definition of Man is something that is finally being called into question by society in modern times, that has felt like enough to satisfy my feelings thus far.

Whether or not that is correct, I have happily gotten by. I have dreamed as far back as I can remember as a female, I connect much better with woman emotionally, almost always choose to play female characters in games (FemShep or GTFO), or write female main characters in stories, and when I was very young, quite literally wished more than once that I would wake up a girl the next morning. But, as I grew older and realised that this was A) not going to happen (about the same time I realised that my Hogwarts letter wasn’t going to come…) and B) still not something that the world is entirely ready for (transgender people are still often greatly stigmatised and misunderstood, at least in my locality, as someone of their biological sex pretending to be the other biological sex, and I don’t feel I have the strength of character to deal with that ignorance and persecution on a daily basis for the rest of my life), I guess that I diminished the sensation to some degree, consciously redefined my feelings, and chose fitting in over being myself.

And yet, became a Goth for many years. Long hair and make up. Subconsciously testing the waters maybe? Took me far too long to spot that.

Recently, in the last 6 months or so, the disassociation has gotten more acute, to the point where I am thinking about it a lot of the time. I’m getting to know people in similar situations, and I was hoping that the world in general is starting to become more accepting of Trans individuals (not convinced that this is still the case or trend, given the recent political climate, not just in America but globally, but we’ll see). I don’t know exactly the outcome I want in the matter, and facebook is less the correct forum for working that out than a counsellor would be, but I now realise that I do need to address the issue in some capacity, and not just sit on it.

I also need a fry up and a cup of tea, because I am hanging like a bastard.

P.S. I know that in these matters, pronouns are important to some, and to others it can be a tricky area to navigate. Given my own confusion on the matter, whatever is fine, I have no preference.”

After an overwhelming out-pouring of love a support, and a few requests to document my journey, we find ourselves here. Page 1 of a new chapter, and I’m happy for you all to read along.

Though preferably more sober than has been evidenced so far.

All The World’s A Stage.

There is something uniquely strange about being Transgender. Well, I mean, everything about beings Trans is new and strange, subjectively speaking; understatement barely begins to cover that. But there is one phenomenon in particular which I have never heard any other subculture express in the exact way that I have heard countless Trans-persons, myself included, put into words. And it is not an easy thing to express at all; indeed, no two instances of this description have ever been identical, just similar enough for both of us to go “hey, shit, I know exactly what you mean”.

Even now, knowing exactly what I want to say, I’m finding it difficult to formulate into words, the concept of what I mean. To parse it into a form that anyone who does not, or has not, experienced it, could empathise with, or comprehend, which doesn’t likewise misconstrue, oversimplify, or overcomplicate it.

In essence, everything about me is an act. The Me that I present to the world is, in actuality, a sham, for everyone else’s benefit. This is not to say that I am a liar, or a charlatan. This has not been a conscious process, to trick or deceive, but merely the way that my personality has formed, from a very young age, in an environment which has silently demanded it be so.

I’m waffling already, so at the risk of a cliche, let’s start at the beginning. Generally considered the optimum jumping off point of any story. Unless you’re Deadpool, or Quentin Tarantino.

I realised very young that not all was as it seemed. As I’ve previously intimated, I had feelings of dysphoria long before I had even reached double digits, the big 1-0. Maybe as young as 6,or 7? Far enough back that I cannot pinpoint the first time I actually felt dysphoria. Very often, as a little boy, I would dream euphorically of waking up in the morning as a girl, like an offshoot of Pinocchio. I balked, in my waking hours, at many of the boyish things that are expected of an AMAB; sports, revelling in dirt, play fights, competitiveness, etc. My earliest friends, even in pre-school, were all girls, unless a boy was press-ganged upon me by being the son of one of my parents friends. By inclination, I would always gravitate to girls, and girly games, not to boys. (This is not to say that I resent any of the boy friends I ever made; if any of you are reading this, please do not think that, you were wonderful friends, and I value you greatly.)

However, this is the point at which my little boy psyche started to take sub-conscious note of the pressure being applied on me to act boyish. To adhere to what I didn’t know then are called Gender Norms. It was never a moment of abuse, never a “no son of mine is gonna act like a sissy! *slap*” instance. Just the more pernicious “boys don’t act like that, boys act like this” mode of pressure, which was entirely commonplace in the area that I live in the early 1990s. And still is, to be quite honest. I never heard the term Transgender until long into my teens, or it’s precursor, Transsexual, until the Hayley Cropper storyline in Coronation Street (that won’t make any sense to non-UK readers, so feel free to Google her). All I knew of what I would later learn to call Being Transgender, were pantomime “Trannies” and butch queens, the Lily Savages, Dame Ednas, and such like. Caricatures, objects of mirth and derision, acts intended to be laughed at as a man in a dress. There was no genuine representation at that point, in my experience, of Trans people living their life as they truly were, and certainly not without some Transphobic joke, raised eyebrow of disdain, being thrown into the mix to discredit the idea. The idea of a wife walking in on their husband crossdressing, was some kind of taboo subject of deepest shame and scandal, instant grounds for divorce.

And thusly, subconsciously, a decision was made in my still developing brain. Repress it. Tell no one. Forget about it. If having feelings and thoughts of being a girl was going to result in my being mocked and ostracized, avoid them at all cost, and admit it to no one. I was already attracting the attention of bullies for my flaming red hair, thick glasses, huge teeth, excessive height relative to my peers, not insignificant intellectual head start (that isn’t a boast, I’ve just always been a voracious learner, among many who could not give half a shit about book-smarts). The last thing I needed, as I have since contextualised, was yet another thing to add to that list of targets.

And so, I repressed it. Hard. I repressed the shit out of it. Fuck me, I’m British, repression comes as naturally to us as a duck to water, as a lawyer to lying, as a Floridian to doing something incredibly, news-worthily weird. I repressed so many facets of my burgeoning personality, developing as it still was, and forced myself to do the opposite of what my instinctive behaviour told me to.

In essence, I began to perform the role of a boy. Not because I wanted to, but because the alternative was at best mockery and scorn, and at worst, outright hostility and confrontation, another boyish quality I have always and continue to eschew on pain of death. Death being a reality all too common for out Trans-persons. I don’t necessarily believe I was all that convincing at it either, because many, many people have made it clear through the years that they wholly expected me to come out as gay (as in the very homosexual, gimme all the D kind of gay) at any moment, and were quite shocked when I never did. They misconstrued mildly effeminate behaviour as craving the cock, and nothing could be further from the truth. The cock, and the dickheads attached to them, have never been of the slightest of interest to me. Far from it; the less I have to do with men, the happier I am, as a rule.

So what I am at present, is an individual with a males body, who has gotten so used to (just) passing as a man, that this façade has dominated the feminine personality that I should have been allowed to develop from the outset. And now, after eventually coming to terms with what I truly am and always have been, a Trans-woman, this decoy masculine personality is an obstacle that needs to be overcome. Even now, when I no longer feel compelled to put up this defence, I still do. I find myself doing it without conscious thought (because after doing so for 2 decades, yah, no shit, of course there’s no conscious thought).

Which means, in the most confusing maelstrom of logic, to be who I truly feel that I am, I have to try and cultivate what many would consider to be a false personality, which is actually a carefully constructed replica of the feminised personality I should have always had, to overcome the fake masculised personality that I have developed, which is real to everyone but me, but is still, alas, a part of me which is very much too real to just drop and abandon without it putting up a hell of a fucking fight. Nightmare. But a nightmare I’m reliably informed I am not alone in.

And, I mean, that’s all gender is for everyone, right? An act? As ContraPoints said in a video I watched last night (I love her by the way, she is pretty much everything that I wish to be in life, and I’m not even about to defend that.), “I wasn’t born a man, or a woman, I was born a baby”, and that is true of everyone. As a baby, in terms of gender (I won’t get bogged down at this time in the debate of being born a certain sex; it is an incredibly important discussion, that needs to be had more, but it doesn’t pertain to the point of this waffle), you are born a blank canvas, and behaviours, genders norms, etc etc, are all imprinted upon you in development, and learned. I fall heavily on the latter side of the Nature vs. Nurture debate. I don’t necessarily believe that it was in my nature to want to develop as a girl, the folksy “born in the wrong body” argument, it just suited me more in my earliest development, and environmental and social factors denied me that.

The gender-specific behaviours, thought patterns, reactions to circumstance, and all that good stuff which we are taught as we grow and experience life, are just that: taught. And sometimes, what we are taught and the things that we learn, aren’t correct, and need to be tweaked and corrected. My masculine tendencies, which have been an unfortunate and unwelcome necessity of the environment I live in, are so ingrained at this point, that rooting them out to replace them with the Me that I want to present to the world, is an almost insurmountable task. A pulling of rotten teeth, still anchored deep in the jaw, causing pain and discomfort, but with the promised of so much worse in trying to remove them.

That said, I’m not about to give up. The She inside of me might have a hard job ahead of Her, if the vestigial He inside is to be ousted and exiled, but She is so worth it. She had a glorious moment to shine the other day, and She fucking liked it. I fucking liked it. He put up an effort, but I truly believe, and desperately hope, that She is up to the task or supplanting Him. I’ve wasted 20+ years of my life being a man who I’m really not, and never wanted to be, because it is easier for people to understand and accept him. But his days are numbered. She’s coming for him.

Kitten Heels.

I’ve decided to try drag/cross-dressing.

I’ve always hated mens fashion. So regimented and restricting, unimaginative. Different coloured reskins of the exact same T Shirt, the same stiff collared Shirt, Jeans, Hoodie, Leather Jacket, the exact same Suit and Tie combo. Maybe jazz it up with Waistcoat, or a Bow Tie. Big woop.

Well ok, Bow Ties are cool. Maybe a Fez?

Regardless, drab. Uninspired. Samey and unexpressive. Pragmatic.

If mens fashion could be summed up in a single word, to me it would be Monochrome. Black and White, grossly oversimplified and one dimensional. Homogeneous, there’s a better one.

Women’s fashion, on the other hand, fills out the entire rest of the colour spectrum; the beautiful, vibrant shades in between those two stark extremes. The sultry reds, the laidback turquoise and blues, the potent violets and ochres.

Certainly, there are the classic sewing patterns and designs, but the room for expression in women’s fashion is so much broader. Dresses and Skirts of every cut imaginable, same with Tops and Jackets, Shoes of every conceivable design. There are even several different types of /heel/ on a shoe (Kitten Heels have to be the most adorable term I’ve ever heard).

The choice is so much wider. Obviously, there are cultural reasons behind this, and many of them are not exactly positive, or forward thinking. But that is a discussion for another day (I’ve had a feminist rant bubbling away like plate tectonics for months, that’s bound to jarr into an eruption very soon).

So, as part of my journey in discovering what gender really is and where I fit in, this is the natural next step. To a certain degree, it is handy that I have a slender, more feminine frame (which is not to say that non-slender people are not feminine, but I would not want to attempt this new exploration if I were built like a Hemsworth…ahh, I did a twisty, you thought I meant if I was curvy. Well shame on you…). It makes the actual shopping for clothes easier, and easier is quite necessary right now, I am feeling a bit fragile in myself, mental health-wise.

Having gazed at women’s fashion from afar for so long, I already have an idea of what to go for. My height, which is considerable, even for a Male, means that long and flowy cuts are the order of the day.

I have, so far, gone for an ankle length, grey, lacey dress, very hippy, and very accommodating to my frame. To go with this, I have opted for a wig (because there is no way I could grow my hair out convincingly right now, with this receding hairline.) Very long, plum red, with a fringe. A full fringe! Even when I had long metalhead hair, I daren’t get a fringe!

To finish the core of the outfit off, I had to get boots, clearly. And you would not believe how hard it is to get decent women’s boots in a size 10-11. I guess Amazonians really are just myth.

That said, I eventually found 2 pairs, that I absolutely could not decide between; a pair of thigh length white leather heeled ones that are gorgeous, and a pair of much less ostentatious, but so much more cute brown leather ones, with the aforementioned kitten heel.

Naturally, as they were both combined, cheaper than another pair I had an eye on, I got both pairs, and hate myself already. One fewer Dominos until payday.

They are all in the process of being shipped rn, from different places and to differing schedules. Some will be here much earlier than others, and I will undoubtedly showcase each as they arrive.

Now, I just need to get around to shaving, learning how to do make up, picking up some accessories to go with the dress (bangles, necklace, etc.), and learn to walk in heels.

Why did I leave all this so damn long?? 27 is no age to be learning to walk.

Positive Vibes.

Hi all. It’s been a long while.

I’m not going to come back with anything hard hitting and heavy, just a nice positive message of my current happiness and contentedness. Probably not the most impactful post to deliver after such a large gap, but honesty is the best policy, and right now, I am feeling great. So, perfect time to share that.

I may have had a few drinks tonight/this morning, turning 27 on Monday and everything, but I have gotten home in such a fantastic mood.

This is a rarity, as my current depression symptoms normally suppress these positive feelings, which have historically been so intrinsically a part of me. I have always enjoyed being the one that everyone can turn to, whatever they are dissatisfied and struggling with, for support, assistance, understanding and love, platonic or otherwise.

Recently, that has evaporated, replaced with an unrelenting lethargy, and lack of energy to care about anyone but myself. I have hated this, and tried to override it were possible, but it is so incredibly difficult when the only thing you can fathom doing is staying in bed and feeling rotten.

Which has gotten in the way of writing about my new studies in gender.  Or even studying in the first place.

After getting new medication for the depression, as of today, I have felt a monument shift away from this frame of thinking. I have spent a wonderful evening with brilliant and interesting people, discussing and debating all manner of topics, and I feel so much more energised. This is how modern existence should be; sharing ideals constantly, whether we agree or accept them or not, finding why people feel the way that they do, and providing new information where they, or we, have an absence.

In terms of my eponymous Gender Identity, I have, actually, been looking at making the matter more than theory. I have been looking at feminine outfits that may suit my body type (difficult, being this tall, with shoulders this broad and a face this angular, but whatever), as well as a wig to replace my impossible to grow out hair. I have been looking into make up, to reshape my uncomfortably male face into something high cheek boned and more feminine.

The FaceApp app has been a godsend/if also a curse, providing an amazing example of what my face might resemble, with assistance, as a female. Of course, this has also been upsetting that I didn’t have the fortune of being born with that face, and have had to make do with the male face that I have.

Still not convince that transitioning will be the way forward for me personally, but it is wise to consider all roads.

Going to cut it there for now, hope you are all having a fantastic day. And just remember to be the best you that you can be. Whether that you is taking the kids to the park, putting in extra hours at work, or just in bed binging Netflix.

Motherly Instincts.

(Update: I was pretty drunk writing this one. Take it with a grain of salt, and apologies in advance for wallowing in self pity.)

It strikes me as a bit problematic that, though my instinctive proclivity is to look after people, rarely is that ever the case in return.
My natural response to anyone else having anything that causes them difficulty, is to look after them, heart, soul, and everything else. Now whether my ostensible maleness causes them to doubt that this is my true intent, based on the duplicitous actions of my unwanted penis-bearing brethren, or that as individuals, they just don’t give a fuck, I /alway/ seem to be left disregarded and unappreciated for the effort that I put in for others.

I don’t know why this is, and if it were an occasional occurrence, I wouldn’t be that phased, but this has been the end result of every action I have taken in the last God knows how long. I have put in untold effort to make sure that other people are ok, happy, content, or improved in the emotional wellbeing, and I have still ended up alone, uncared about, miserable, and utterly dejected. I have given the most important, formative years of my life, to others, and have nothing to show for it, other than loneliness, depression, and abject disappointment.

I’m not about to act rashly about anything, don’t get me wrong. But just once in my life, I would like my efforts to help and care for people to be recognised, and not just thrown to the wayside like a spent condom or an empty baggy. I can’t continue like this, it hurts too much, to always be the one left alone.

Exploration of Definition.

Hasn’t been a great deal of progress in recent days, been bearing my brunt of the office cold, and laughing at the thought of whether I can still be guilty of Man Flu anymore.

Largely, I’ve been exploring gender identities, in an effort to determine if any of the pre-described states of the gender spectrum fit with exactly how I am feeling. At a later date, I’ll write an entry about some of the more interesting identities I’ve discovered which don’t fully apply to me.

For now, however, I’ve determined that I am somewhere between Gender Fluid, exhibiting elements of different genders to suit a given situation (I do still exhibit masculine traits, though they usually only present themselves at the times I am least happy or calm, able to exert the least control over myself. When my Id is in full swing, and my Ego and Superego are flailing about like Eels in dry mud. Such as when I am angry, or trying to worm my way out of trouble or blame. Anyone who knows my Dad knows where I get these traits from, and why I would sooner they never presented themselves), and Demi-Girl/Boy, not feeling enough of either gender to fully commit to it, is my understanding. (No, that sounds dismissive, and not how I meant it. Not so much commit, but slot neatly into either definition. That’s better).

I would say that at this time, personality-wise, I have a 80-20 split of more typically female personality traits, and this is what is causing the dysphoria. I’m aware that a trait in and of itself has no gender, but I am referring to the gender imposed on it by society, which, fabricated or not, plays a big role in peoples understanding of the world, and must by taken into account, to live a harmonious.

It isn’t yet as physical as it was when I was younger, since my psyche stepped in and overrode the longing to change and be who I felt I was, but that too is starting to resurface. We will see how that develops as we move forward. I worry that making the full change now, at 26 or older rather than pre-puberty,  and still having shoulders this broad, so defined a jawline, and being 6 foot 2, as a transfemale, would in the long run cause my mental health more harm than it would good, in my current state. Which in no way takes away from those who have made the change: you are beautiful and powerful, and I am envious of your magnificent courage to be who you are in the face of a fearful, unsympathetic world.

Also, as a matter of clarification, many people have thought, all throughout my development as a human, that I would grow up to be gay. This has lead to some stark confusion when I grew up and was not, remotely, gay; largely  this is because they were reading an effeminate nature and assuming that this meant, gay. Not for one moment in a negative sense, or dreading the prospect, but simply misunderstanding what they were seeing.

This much has not changed. I may play around occasionally as though I am, because I’m a natural flirt and attention is nice, but I am not at all interested in Men sexually. Simply having a feminine personality, does not instantly mean, “suddenly likes the cock”. I am wholly attracted to women, femininity, the female form, body and mind.

If we’re getting technical, that largely, emotionally, makes me a Lesbian, which would, naturally, mean that I am gay from a certain point of view *cough*said Obi-Wan*cough*, but I digress into labels confusion and Star Wars reference territory and must stop there for another discussion.

So maybe I lied, that is quite a lot of progress. For two weeks.

Psychosomatic Masculinity.

​There has been a shift. Something very important has changed. And I think it is for the better.
Ever since I came out at the weekend (it feels so very alien to think of it that way, but I suppose there is no other way to put it), I’ve found myself acting and reacting subtly differently on a subconscious level. I don’t mean that I’ve starting mincing around like a walking cliché, but inescapably, a certain pretense of masculity that I hadn’t even realised I was affecting, that was entirely a part of my personality at this point, seems to have evaporated. It isn’t my go to response anymore.

I don’t really like the idea that I have been acting falsely for years, but realistically, I must have been. Psychosomatically, anyway. It’s difficult to know how to describe it, but ever since admitting aloud, so to speak, that my feminine side far out-balances my masculine, and the internal pressure to redress the balance has alleviated, I find that I am talking differently, gesticulating and even walking differently. And again, I don’t mean I’ve started talking like a “valley girl”, or popping and snapping my hips; there’s just a small but noticeable lilt, or softening of tone.

Moreover, I can’t wait for the weather to warm up so I can get rid of this beard.

The first couple of days back at work have been encouraging. Everyone has been incredibly supportive (the beautiful lesbian couple sitting either side of me in particular), even the guys, whom I’ll admit I was more worried about them feeling awkward about the idea than I should have been. I don’t kid myself that this will hold true everywhere, but I’m not exactly about to start going in to work in a dress. I haven’t got the tits for it, for one thing, or the waist for another. And these boxy shoulders? Nope. Though I have found a reasonably androgynous white hoodie that I might get. If I’m feeling brave. Need to learn to Noel Fielding before I can Kaitlyn Jenner.

Still feels so bizarre to even be indulging this line of thought, having suppressed it for a quarter of a century. But it feels good bizarre. Happily confused, rather than frustratedly flummoxed. Paradigm shifts can sometimes be entirely for the best.