Not Alone

I so want these short stories to often have some happiness – but the turmoil most of us feel does keep creeping in and spoiling things.

Oh, it’s so wonderful to realize that I am not alone. I’m not alone anymore.

I’ve been growing my hair for ages now. It feels so nice fluffing the back of my neck and curling at my ears. I’ve been looking on the net – hair grows surprisingly slowly: a half millimeter per day, a half inch per month and 6 inches per year. That means it will take forever to reach my shoulders so that I can get some proper girl-style into it.

So, you’re wondering why?

Because my mum insists on me getting a haircut once a quarter. January 1st, April 1st, July 1st and October 1st are her target dates. She likes being organised – personally I think she is almost obsessive in the detail she demands – but how much can YOU argue with your parental units. Ha.

But how can you argue with the person or people who pay for everything for you, who give you the majority of the money you spend ‘for yourself’, who make most of the decisions for you and who provide transport. It’s sort of the opposite of ‘grounding’ but it has the same effect – you do what you are told.

And my hair, one of the few aspects of myself that I control, my hair is for the chop. And that means boy-style or no style.

I’m not going down the self-damage route either by cutting, bulimia or anorexia – I do have some idea how stupid that would be. But, on the other hand, how much damage am I causing to the girl-inside. Is it in some ugly way, just another sort of self-harm. Does buying some panties, wearing them secretly and throwing them away equate to a sort of panty-bulimia?

But who can I talk to. My inner turmoil means that I find it very difficult to share anything deep with any of my male friends, well acquaintances really, and I have no female friends, nor any adults I feel that I can open up to. And my siblings or parents – no no no. My brother is so much older then me and out in the world – currently in the Far East on a long-term project – and with a girlfriend there too. My sister is nearer to my age – and there’s some of her clothes left in her room. It’s a bit icky somehow – but I have tried on a few of her things even though they don’t really fit. But I’ve never felt I could talk to her about these things. And actually there's not really been any opportunity in the last year or so since I began to get to grips with what I want.

I know they MIGHT surprise me – but would the surprise be kind of nice or violently nasty? What happens when ordinary levels of nurture and love collide with basic attitudes of intolerance and hatred of ‘them who are different’?

Why can’t I be upfront and open? I practise saying different things. “Mum, I would prefer to wear panties rather than pants.” “Mum, that skirt looks so pretty, can I try it on?” Mum, I want to keep my hair long so that I can get it properly styled.” “Dad, I feel so uncomfortable, so not-fitting-in with all the boys I know, I’d like to try being a girl.” “Dad, I know I was diagnosed and labelled as a boy, but I’m really not.”

Oh yeah – can’t see a successful outcome for any of those. No way, never, no how, not this decade.

Nevertheless, just to give me some ideas for the future – I jot these ideas down on my computer. For several I guess what the reaction might be, could be, should be both at the uttermost worst and the utterly best. Using the logic drummed into me over the years about project evaluation from Dad, I also know that the most likely outcome is somewhere in the middle.

What’s the range of responses ‘Get out and never darken the door again’; ‘We always knew this was going to happen’; ‘We actually thought you were gay’; ‘It’s just a phase you’re going through’; ‘As soon as you start puberty all these issues will go away’; ‘You need to talk to a shrink, your mother will arrange it’; ‘Well- you’re just an ordinary boy – forget about this silliness’; ‘You’ve got a screw loose, we’ll take you to the doctor’; ‘Just toughen up and ignore what stupid people say’; “Why can’t you be like your big brother,” “It’s just wrong.” “What are you? Some sort of pervert?” “Don’t be silly, you’re a perfectly normal boy – and boys don’t talk like that.”

…. And do you notice that some of these comments can be taken with more than one meaning. What if I decide that the ‘stupid people’ are them? What if it’s the oncoming threat of puberty that’s actually got me ‘so worried’ - growing hair in all the wrong places, getting one big, er, secondary sexual characteristic instead of the two I want. Yuk.

That’s the problem – until I wrote down all these options – I didn’t know what I wanted. But now I have some idea.

So – let’s use all that I’ve learnt from Dad – what’s the maximum best outcome and what can I do to bend the situation so that it comes to happen. Critical Path Analysis; Option points; Decision Matrix; I’ve heard all the jargon. Win-Win; Game Theory; Make a Plan because PPPPPP. [Perfect Planning prevents Piss-poor Performance].

Right, I’m a child (careful choice of non-gendered label) with a quantity of uncertainties. I’m short of self-esteem (but I’m not alone in that); I’m short and skinny (not alone in that); I’ve not got many friends and certainly none I could confide in (probably not alone in that! ). To summarise – even though I’m quite certain (meaning not much) that I’m not unique – I feel so very lone. And I’m twelve, nearly thirteen, puberty seems to be coming late (fortunately) – compared with my classmates in the changing rooms. By golly, they’re so …… yukky. Their talk about pubes, stiffies, and all the other stuff. Yuk. Yuk. Yuk.

And I don’t like it.

Focus – child – focus. What do I want? What procedures can I find to make my want happen? What skills do I have which can contribute? What are the realistic options?

I’ve done the research – by golly have I spent my time on the web. With some effort, I’ve kept away from the porn sites – type in cross-dress and you’ll get 5, 6, 7 million pages and some of them will be not what you want to see. And some will be fantastically helpful. And best of all, some will make you realize – YOU ARE NOT ALONE.

And that message is – wonderful. You may be unusual. You may be seen as weird. You may be ‘going against society’s expectations’, you may even be ‘breaking taboos’ – but you are not alone.

The web will tell you about weird and actually strangely remarkable items such as vagina-pants, femmi-pants, giant boobs and all sorts of exotic and not very erotic things. But I have to make choices. I want to be an ordinary sort of girl. And some of the stuff is very adult and really ugly and a different sort of Yuk.

I’ve looked – and I’ve gone away and found sites which seem more useful. More helpful. Actually aimed at kids who are wondering. And at kids who are uncertain about their sexuality or gender or both. There seems to be so much more willingness to look at variety. I read that the only non-macho options were Gay or Bisexual (with the Lesbians as the equivalent for women). Now there’s T and I and Q and other letters which don’t always mean the same things.

So – to simplify – I’m not alone and I’m not alone in wanting to find out, at least, about being a girl. At least, I think that’s what I want. I really need to talk to someone or several someones.

The truth for me – and it can only be my truth – at least until some other person with much the same story takes my path to ‘not being alone’ – my truth is that I’m a person with some characteristics that are seen as masculine and rather more that are seen as feminine. Inconveniently, the demand of ‘them’ is that things are neat and tidy, black and white, not subject to complicated variations which might affect their willingness to be intolerant. And I don't fit - but I'm not ashamed that I'm different. It's more that I do understand that being too different can bring a lot of pain and hurt and injustice.

So – given the choice – I want to live a life wearing dresses, colours, pretty materials. Even if I have to endure the restrictions of bras, makeup. Even if I have to move to the poorly paid, less free, patriarchically bullied side of the tracks – that’s the choice I want to make. But I need to get some practice in – see if the reality matches my interest. Thinking in my head versus dressing up indoors on my own in the ragbag of clothes I’ve collected versus looking and feeling like a girl out in the real world versus the not-ready-for-it idea of chopping off my very unimportant dangler.

I do not have the pride that the average boy has in what hangs at his groin – I really don’t care about it. Actually I don’t care for it at all – At times, I would be happy without it. . As for breasts, they’ll make it easier for me to feel feminine, act feminine and be seen as feminine – so for those reasons – I’d like my dangler removed and my chest re-shaped. Is that blunt enough? How much truth am I telling to myself. Like I say – I’ve got to find someone to talk to.

I’ve read about the tiny percentage of T people who have some variation from the standard XY or XX configuration. I’ve read about the tiny percentage who are ‘intersexed’ or who are ‘androgen insensitive’ or who have some other physicalness to add to or emphasise their internal feelings for girlhood or manhood opposite to their birth-allocated gender. But I think I’m actually pretty ordinary. I’m not big for my age – but I’m not a really skinny girly type body – but who is at twelve? I really don’t know. Strangely you can’t type in ‘what does a twelve year old girl look like’ without getting massively overloaded with ‘you do not have access to this page’ messages and also some Yuk.

But those percentages of L and G and B and especially T and even more so I and the others are quite tiny – even while research continues and data accumulates.

I have read the medical reports, the academic summaries and too much. I have read the completely fictional stories. I have read the semi-fictional and the pseudo-science as well. There is so much and some of it is written so well and so believably that it is hard to filter the muck from the cream or, doing the pun thing again, the Yuk from the Dream.

But, for me, the stories where it turns out kind of nice are my favourites. I like the stories where the heroine becomes better than almost all the real-girls, more famous, more stylish, at the top of the heap, but that’s not close to real. Real is being ordinary, being in the middle with some below and some above in whatever direction you’re looking.

I’m a bit less keen on the stories where the new girl becomes the best girl, the dream, the top of the tree, …….. that’s going beyond the real. Let’s just aim for nice.

Being real is probably … well some of you will know what I mean.

And that’s my target. I think I’m a girl, therefore I think I’m going to grow up to be a woman. If I do it well, I might even be called a lady because I’m aiming for kindness, grace and good repute. As regards the sex part of my life – that I don’t know about. It’s one of the things I need to talk about. I think a lot of this began when the differences between girls and boys started. Okay, there's the obvious physical differences - there's changes in behaviour, attitude and everything. I mean, I've read that there's almost no difference between girls and boys until they are ten or twelve - then changes come very fast; even if early for some and later for others.

I've just seem how not-boy I am in a lot of the things I do and am interested in. I'm not sure how 'girl' I am - but not-boy is getting to be a label I can attach to inside-me.

I’m pretty sure that I don’t want the ugliness and distortion that I think will come with testosterone – but what about children. I’ve not met anyone who I’ve ever wanted to have sex with. My groin doesn’t get either the morning wood, the nocturnal emissions, the excited stiffy or the alleged whole-groin womanly excitement. Perhaps I’m this new word – asexual? I really don’t know. I’ve had a few attempts at masturbation – and they seemed to be successful – but I didn’t get the intense excitement that boys seem to get – or say they get.

I do know that I’m not average, not the acceptable standard, different from the norm (I recall John Wyndham’s The Chrysalids) But then I remember other quotes and they remind me that different is NOT-WRONG – it’s just different. But the reaction of people is to behave as if it’s wrong. So much!

So – it’s time to be up front – and say what my plans are to my mum.

What are the options – love, less love, love turned to hate, love turned to vile, vicious nastiness, love for what I used to be, love for what I am, love for what I want to be, love for me as me ……. I don’t know. I just don’t know.

--------------------------

It took a few more days before I was determined enough. I suppose that says something about my desire to be a girl instead of a boy. Yeah, yeah, another topic to talk about. There’s not much point in lying to myself or others from whom I might get help.

On the Saturday, I went to the shops and bought a few things at the supermarket – fortunately they were having a sale and I could get a few things ultra cheap. It was harder finding a way to try them on without attracting attention. But I had found in the past that putting a big bold hairclip in my hair and brushing it differently seemed to get several assistants saying ‘yes, miss’ which I took as a good sign.

So, on with the hairclip and into the shops. I bought a skirt, two blouses, some bangles and two scarves. Then I was lucky enough to get some pretty pink and white ballet flats which fitted well and went with the clothes I had bought. I went back and changed the cream blouse as it didn’t look right and was lucky enough to find a dress in grey and pink – with the pink matching the shoes.

Then I bought my first bra and some panties too. That was it – no more money – and the bag was full enough that it might be hard to smuggle into the house and into my room. Danger.

But I succeeded and tucked the loot behind the loose panel in my bedroom.

Next morning, it was Monday and a Spring Bank Holiday too with the week off from school. So – I did it.

I went downstairs in my dress, with clean training bra and panties, tights and a cardigan, flat shoes with a silver buckle – and opened the door.

“Hello, Mum.”

“My, don’t you look pretty, darling..” And she smiled. She smiled a lot. She smiled so much more than I expected.

“Um.”

“Do you like that dress, darling. It fits you very well – but I’m not sure that patterns like that really suit you. Would you like to come with me and get something new, for yourself?”

Surreal. Super-real NOT. This was not happening.

“You look a little startled, dear.”

“Er.”

“We’re not stupid you know. The average parent doesn’t go through life not wondering what their children are doing. What they’re interested in. Of course, we’re interested. We want to help, to guide, to support you in your choices. On occasions, we’ll make suggestions or even say, yes, no, go, good and other mildly helpful words and phrases. We may make mistakes. We may make guesses based on flimsy evidence – but rather often we get it right. And mums especially. It’s called ‘having eyes in the back of our head’.

“What do I base my guessing on …. Let’s see, my magazines are often moved around and even left open at unusual pages when I come in quickly. Sometimes I can tell that my panties and even bras have been re-arranged. Recently, I’ve noticed that my closet has been moved, that dresses and blouse aren’t as tidy on their hangers as they should be. And if it isn’t me moving them around, and it won’t be your dad and your sister wouldn’t be seen dead in anything I’ve got – there’s not a lot of choice. Darling child, you’ve been trying on my clothes. Often. Really quite often. After school, in the evenings and at weekends as soon as the house is empty. I’m surprised. Puzzled, concerned and – in a way – rather excited too.”

My mouth and brain continued to display their incompetence. “Uh.”

“But the time has come. We need, you need, we all need to know what’s going on. And you need help. We need to help you. If you want to wear dresses now and again – then that’s just fine. If you want to actually be a girl rather than a boy - that’s going to need more effort. If you just want to play at being a girl at home – that’s fine. Going out to town, that’s another piece bigger. We just don’t know what you want. Perhaps you don’t either. Eh. Sit down and talk to me. Pretend I’m just a good listener who might have some useful ideas – I’ll pretend not to be your usual mum for a while.”

“Uh.”

“Less grunting, dear. It’s not a good habit for a girl.

“Yer, um, right.”

“Let’s keep accelerating – real words. Take a deep breath and get yourself calm and under control. What is your favourite thing in all my clothes? What do you most enjoy wearing?”

“There’s something really nice about putting on those satin panties – the ones with the pink ribbons.”

“Um, nice choice. And another?”

“I’ve only tried it once, but the fantastic feeling as that red dress slithers down against my skin, all slithery and sleek and swooshy. Wow, it felt wonderful.”

“Two. And a third?”

“The time I tried on one of Sis’s bras. I couldn’t try yours, they’re just not the right size – but sis’s old one – that felt really strange – but exciting too. The way it pulled at me and stretched across my back and chest. Weird, but again, exciting.”

“Did you get a stiffy.”

“Yuk, mum, you can’t ask that.”

“But I do actually. Are you doing this for some sort of sexual thrill – so you can get a hot, sweaty thrill or is it the clothes?”

“I can’t say that I’ve never had a bit of a thrill – or that I’ve never, er, ejaculated – but that’s really not what it’s about. I just love the feel of the clothes. I love the softness, the smell of the perfume you’ve worn, the whole opportunity to feel gentle, pretty and even what I think is girly.”

“Oh darling. That was brave of you to be so honest. We’ll have to talk some more so that I know what we have to go shopping for. If you want, we can plan to go out this evening.”

“I wasn’t ..”

“You weren’t expecting to go out in a pretty dress? Or you weren’t wanting to go out in a pretty dress? Or you don’t want to wear a pretty dress? Darling. If you think I will be willing to let you dress up in secret – then that’s not going to happen. I want you to be comfortable and to feel ordinary and relaxed whatever you wear and wherever you wear it. If, later, you decide that dressing up in private is all you need – then that’s going to be fine. But you and I need to know what it is that you really want. And skulking around in corners, wearing a terrible mish-mash of unsuitable clothes that you have accumulated is not the way forward. You want to wear girl’s clothes - therefore we need to buy you some that are suitable. Y’hear me.”

This was the no-choice voice that mum reserved for special occasions.

“Yes, alright. I’ll come along.”

“Would you feel more as if you were being my daughter for the day if you said, “Thanks, mummy, I’ll be a good girl while we choose some pretty things for me to wear.”

“Er, I think that might be going a bit far.” Then I stretched out and took her hand, “Mummy.”

“Oh, well played, dear. Neat.” She smiled and the tension that had been gathering for a while reduced.

We got in the car to go to the shops.

Mummy (see I can write it even) discussed what we might buy on that first trip. “I need to see what sorts of clothes you are keen on. We’re not going to buy a lot straight away. But if one or two items scream ‘Buy Me’ then we’ll see how they fit with whatever style you’re aiming at. I mean – are you a tomboy, a Frilly, a Monochrome, a Pinky? Are you a girl for comfort or display? What sort of things are you looking for, hmmm.”

“I’ve never been relaxed enough or felt calm enough other than to go ‘it’s there, it’s feminine – I’ll try it’. The idea of actually looking, touching, feeling, investigating and testing or even trying on is so far beyond what I’ve ever dreamed of that I’m a bit, er, out of my depth and floundering.”

“It’s actually going to be quite exciting seeing what sort of a girl is wrapped up inside you. We have wondered a few times. The vibe we’ve had from you has never been gay ….. but there’s been enough occasions where you’ve just come across as ‘different’ and we have never found a good or sufficient adjective to attach to it, you, the difference.”

“I think I know what you’re saying. How many others have detected that I’m ‘different’?

“Not so many – we’ve always veered away from the subject when anyone has mentioned anything. We’ve said something like ‘he does his own thing and we’re fine with that’. Even if the truth is that we’ve been floundering a bit too.”

“You have?”

“Well, no parent wants or expects their kid to be anything other than pretty ordinary, middle-of-the-road, brighter than most, better at some things than other kids …………… but there’s been enough times that you’ve been, er, like I say, different. Let’s relax and spend some time seeing if getting you into some pretty undies and a nice dress will change things, mmmm.?”

I didn’t say anything – but I smiled a lot.

I won’t bore you – or for some excite you – with the story of the shops we went to, the fear and fun I had

But we came back with three bags of new clothes, chosen sometimes by mum, mummy, and sometimes by me. Mummy said that we shouldn’t buy a lot of new clothes in one go as we did really need to find what I was comfortable with – not just what was available for the first rush.

-------

After this, some events moved quite quickly.

Suddenly, I was having appointments with doctors – of several sorts. Our GP gave me a checkover, more like a quick MoT than anything else. Blood, pee, yuk, and the trousers down and cough routine. Really intrusive, but presumably necessary, questions about stiffies and so on.

Then I had to go to the hospital for x-rays and more complicated tests and even more questions.

It was exhausting – and yet it also opened up feelings at the same time as it opened up potential options and choices.

I remember one particular session.

The doctor, took a deep breath. “You need to be very certain of your decision. It’s a big one. Some decision affect your life forever. Some decisions are bigger than that and affect everyone around you as well. We doctors treat each of our patients as individuals, as we should. But we also know that if we look at a big enough group of individuals then we can make some general statements about the group which can be applied to approximately that percentage of the group. But those components are still very much individuals with their own background and future, their own needs and desires.

I can tell you that for some of the young people who want to change over to being girls – well, some of them find during the process that that change is not really what they want. I know of such boys who have gone on to be full-time men; I know others who are, so to speak, full-time men but do like wearing panties or even dresses when they wish to. The whole thing is a sliding scale, a spectrum of differences. And, as yet, I don’t know and you don’t know where you best fit.

I can promise that hormone therapy won’t make you into someone else. You will still be you – but with a different shape and sensitivity. It won’t cure shyness or a fear of heights. It won’t change your laugh or your interest in, say, cooking. The people you are with and their attitude to you and what they teach you and what you learn – those may change the way you do things. If you associate with girls who play baseball, then, likely, you’ll play baseball. If they spend hours on makeup, then you’ll do so too. Whatever things you think of as your strengths and weaknesses will still be there. But if you are expecting that all your problems will pass away, and that everything is going to be easy emotionally and socially from here on in, you're probably going to be disappointed.

And that is why we have to do a lot of talking. Is your difficulty in being a boy, real, imaginary, changeable, caused by some factor or what. What is the best possible future for the child in front of me? You may have some ideas, some suggestions, some plans. I am here to help you look at these clearly and to help you and your family and your friends accept change, if it is necessary, and give you your best choice. Is that okay?

“Yer, um, yes.”

“Is that clear?”

“Y.. yes. It sounds as if I’m going to have to do some pretty grown-up thinking even though I’m kind of young.”

“Too true, dear. That is probably a key reason for a number of t-girls to come across as older than their actual physical age. They’ve had to be thinking and doing grown-up stuff for quite a while longer than most of their friends. It’s the sort of experience that would change someone – a lot.”

But, as well as NOT being the immediate cure for whatever issues you have with being or displaying or being thought of as a boy, hormone therapy does change things. At your age and situation, the two key forms of hormone therapy are –first – to slow down the input and build-up of testosterone in your body so that puberty and the change to an adult masculine body is delayed. Secondly – and subject to yet more talking, oestrogen therapy can give you the overall effects of female puberty instead. |That is to say, better skin, an altered fat distribution to hips and so on, the development of breasts, often greater emotional capability and so on – it’s in the literature and we’ll talk about it too.

The point of hormone therapy is to feel more comfortable with your body by bringing physical characteristics closer to your internal sense of self. This relief can increase self-esteem and make you feel more confident and attractive. However, you will find that there are also attractiveness standards after hormone therapy, and you may not fit them. It can be hard to separate out gender dysphoria from body image problems."

It took a day or so before I talked all this over with Mummy. And then I went even further – and had some of the same talk with Daddy.

Dad, Daddy, my labeling varied – was so kind. He was sometimes calling me ‘Honeypie’ or ‘Chick’ – which he said was what his mum called his sister.

“Chick, how’s it going? Are you comfortable, more comfortable, with being able to dress as a girl as often as you do?”

“Daddy, it’s not quite or only ‘dressing as a girl’ – it’s letting me be a girl. I’m trying to be a girl and find how much of me wants to tell the world that ‘I’m a girl’ even if I’ve got an extra bit of skin. But some of the time, I like being a boy. And some of the time I love being able to be a boy who wears dresses.”

I giggled, “You’ve no idea how nice it is to wear stockings or to have soft, lovely materials instead of those drab and ugly boy clothes.”

“Is it really that different?”

“Can’t say what it would feel like to you – with your rough, tough, hairy skin and stubbly face – I just know I like it. It’s that gorgeous thrill as your skin is touched by loveliness.

“Don’t complicate things – this is about you.” He turned to the doorway where Mum was standing . “And don’t you get any weird ideas either, hey?”

Mummy said nothing, but waved her hand to and fro as she went back to the kitchen.

Dad and I talked for quite a while. Not too surprisingly, we both had read The Chrysalids and remembered some of what was said there.

We were talking about what ‘some people might say’ and Daddy remembered “And the more stupid they are, the more like everyone else they think everyone ought to be. And once they get afraid they become cruel and want to hurt people who are different.”

My memory offered “There was often a great deal of grown-up fuss that seemed disproportionate to causes.”

To which Daddy smiled and said “and you’re doing quite a bit of the grown-up thinking these days, Well done.”

Later, I said, “But I’ve read it more than a few times – and something you said helped me take on board the underlying message. And I think what it is is that ‘Espousal of ANY extreme view easily leads to vile behaviour’. The killing of those who are wrongly-different in Newf and the willingness to kill the inferior (by the Zeelanders).

…………….

Time has passed.

I spent a lot of the next few years as a boy who wore dresses and skirts and undies.

It took me a long time and a lot of thought, but now when I look at myself I see a girl most of the time and I don't feel quite as disturbed by the sensation of having a body of this shape and balance. It was a little difficult in a lot of ways, but I went into it with my eyes open. There wasn't any magic involved. I'm just a normal person who looks like a girl, thinks like a girl, speaks like a girl and, in all available aspects, is a girl.

People get treatment like this every day who don't have the same kind of support that I do and you know what? They're normal people. They aren't magic. They just find out what their treatment options are, find out how to get them, and then take them. I feel much healthier about my life and my relationships. Anyone could do this. I did. Well, not everyone of course, but anyone who was in the turmoil and uncertainty that I was in as a not-quite teenager.

But I’m not a teenager any more.

I’m a grown-up – and to my surprise, I think I’m not that unusual. At least, not to the casual glance. I wear my skirts and my blouses and my dresses. I have friends, colleagues, acquaintances. I have a job as a book-keeper and I go out to clients to keep their records up to date, their payrolls, sales, debt-collection and all. I’ve been asked to come on the staff a couple of times. I’ve joined clubs and groups for professional ladies. I have a girlfriend – it turns out – and when the time is right, she loves my lips and my touch and my not-so-dangly extra bit of skin.

That’s my story so far.

And by the way, my brother, Jeff is perfectly happy that he now has a pretty younger sister – although he’s so much older and so far away.

And my sister – not so much older and not so far away – she’s not quite as comfortable with the change as she used to be Daddy’s girl – and now there’s two of us.

Daddy and Mummy re lovely. They’ve coped with all the changes. The first decision that I wanted to wear skirts and dresses – they coped with that. They coped when I went thought all the stages of ‘do I, should I, is this right’ and so on. I’m so proud of them.

And I think they’re proud of me.

And I’m not alone. I’ve joined the local T group even though I’m not one of them. But I’m not part of the LGB group who seem to have enveloped and nearly hijacked what we want.

But I’m fighting fiercely to make people realize that a choice of clothes is very different from what you want to do with your genitals. The Ls and Gs and Bs may have mental or physical pressures to make them behave the way they do – but there’s a lot of colours in a spectrum.

I am NOT ALONE – Hooray for me and them like me. I love us.