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I have been chatting to Patricia on here for a day or two. She kindly offered to help me with images for my stories.
She sent me a link to her story on the site, Silence is Golden. I was not surprised how much her story reflected my own to some extent.
There were a few things she asks that I asked myself or was asked by my wife.
Here are some of my thoughts. Excerts from her story are in bold.
Why do I want to wear the clothes?
I tried to explain this to my wife once, she did not understand. At lot of women can't. I get it, if you eat ice cream every day, and someone who has eaten only once tells you how wonderful it is , you would not understand either . Many men like to caress the soft silky clothes women wear, I go one step further and wear them myself.
Women's clothing can be functional , fun, sexy, beautiful, and make a statement. Men's are mainly functional. In Elizabethan times, men wore stockings, ruffs and lace. All considered female clothing now(Not ruff's)
When I was young (5 years) I saw my mum's knickers in her draw and tried them on. Women have not been told. "you can't wear that." for a 100 years. Males are told that constantly, you can't wear anything that makes you look weak. Men have to maintain a look of strength.
We see positive discrimination and programmes trying to get women into traditional male jobs. Rarely the other way around, Male nurses or primary schoo teachers.
Most people who are transgendered seem to abhor labels.
When I was younger, the idea of being “gay or BI” never entered my head. We all dressnor "present" for different reasons. There are a so many variations. I have come to realize as I have got older, BI, gay, TV, TG are all just labels to put us into boxes that others can understand.
That’s how humans deal with the world. You are BI, gay etc , so you are like this , so I will deal with you like this. I know “crossing the line” is a big thing. The first time I went with a guy, lots of thoughts went through my head. On the way home , I thought, am I gay now? BI? Trans?
Well I didn’t go out and buy a manbag and start mincing.(which is fine if you want to do that). I was just the same person as I was before, just with a little more knowledge.
When I am dressed as a guy , I act like a guy. When I dress as a woman, I feel comfortable doing more feminine things. That is just me though. We are all here for a limited amount of time, everyone is different. Now I try to accept what others want to do, if I don’t like it I don’t have to do it.
My normal may not be your, yours may not be mine.
A guy I know was complaining about gay marriage, I said that’s ok that you don’t approve, just leave them alone and don’t marry a gay guy and you should be OK.
I know the girl inside is too strong to ignore, so I have come to an agreement with her. If I came out it would ruin my family life, then 5 years down the line maybe the fantasy would not match the reality.
I learned to cry again.
That's just like me now. Now that I have accepted what I am, I cry far more easily. I hardly cried when my father died. My wife had said that I didn't cry when my father and brother died. I stuffed it down inside like most men do.
I ended up suffering with depression for two years.I even developed a stress twitch, which I still have when I'm stressed.
I put not crying partially down to my brain being in survival mode. I have been the only wage earner in my family. If I didn't work we lose everything. Without a job we would all be under a bus. I was focused on my job to keep the family going.Nothing else mattered.
Now I have no mortgage, and savings meaning I could have a year or so off if I wished. I don't have the mental panic, so I can find the real me now.
Comments
Whys and wherefors
I stopped looking at these a long time ago when I accepted what I was and stopped trying to justify it. I took steps instead to become who and what I felt I was and that was 36 years ago. I don't feel I have to justify anything nor am I interested in explaining why or what I am. I'm too busy living.
Carry on with your voyage of discovery if it helps, but for me it just wastes time and as I head towards my 3 score and ten, time is important.
Angharad
I'm 59 now. I have come to
I'm 59 now. I have come to accept what I am in the last 12 months. Still married which I know would end if I "came out".
If I did dare express it when my family were young. Being the sole provider would mean I would be letting my family down. I have done jobs I hated and swallowed so much crap as I couldn't even afford a month out of work.
For the last 5 years I have worked for a company that seem to care about their staff. Run by a woman. My old boss was "Toxic Masculinity" personified.
I really am not sure if my acceptance is what has allowed me to show emotions, or the fact that I don't have to focus solely on staying employed.
Leeanna
I don’t like the term “came out”……
As it implies too many things, so I won’t use it.
As I look back on my life, I realize that even my earliest memories were of not understanding why I wasn’t allowed to do the things my sisters did - why I wasn’t allowed to be like the other girls. At the age of three or four, (I’m not sure exactly how old I was in my memories, but I do know that I had not yet started school - which I did when I was four) I of course was not old enough to understand why I was different. Seeing as this was the mid-sixties, and as we lived on what later became known as the Florida Space Coast, there wasn’t really any easy way to find out about why I felt the way I did. Rather, I was rapidly pushed into a somewhat old fashioned, conservative ideal of gentrified masculinity.
As much as I tried to be the “man” my old-Southern family expected, as I grew older I knew I did not fit the mold - I was not what they thought I was or expected me to be. I was in my early teens before I began to truly understand just who and what I was. But like many others, I denied it and tried to be that which was expected of me.
I went through the usual classic stages and issues that most of us do, including the anger and depression. I went through the stereotypical attempts to prove that I was more manly than others, including time in the service - which was expected of me by my family anyway. Although I did rebel in my choice of service, something which alienated a lot of my extended family. An issue which did not bother me much, lol.
I married, and had three wonderful, healthy, intelligent sons with my wife. The two of us worked our asses off to provide for our family and to raise our sons to be good men, and I am proud to say that we succeeded. But through it all, I continued to struggle. I underwent years of therapy due to what I saw and did while in the service, and my therapist finally got down to the issue of my gender - or rather, got me to face it on my own. She was very careful to not bring it up, allowing me to do so. I distinctly remember her stating that she was wondering how long it would take me to get there.
Eventually, well into my fifth decade, after a long term of contemplating, and even planning suicide, I faced the fact that I had two choices - live as myself, or put an end to the cycle of pain that had begun to crush my soul. Like you, I was certain that transitioning would cost me everything. As an engineer, I tend to look at everything from a mathematical and scientific viewpoint, and I did with transitioning as well. Statistics showed that there was a 4% chance my marriage would survive, and roughly a 40% chance my relationship with my sons would survive. Not good odds obviously.
But as the alternative was putting a bullet in my brain, my engineer’s training emphasized that 4% was better than the 0% that would result if I kept on down the same path. You see, the decision was transition and take the 4% chance of my relationship surviving, or don’t transition and continue a miserable existence that was slowly tearing my family apart for whatever short amount of time I could continue, and eventually destroying my family through my suicide. So, I played the odds.
Yes, I lost a lot of so-called friends - some of whom have actually come back over the past several years. Perhaps it simply took them time to understand or deal with the change - like it did for me to stop denying it. And through it all I have met and come to know some truly remarkable people.
Yes, it cost me a very good job. But I ended up with a company that values me for who I am, and takes very good care of me. Yes, I make less now than I did before I transitioned - but isn’t that typical for a woman, lol. As I work in a very male dominated industry, I am somewhat unique just by being a woman. And, I have been highly recruited over the past several years, but I’m not sure whether it is worth leaving a job where I am so highly valued simply to make more money. After all, I still make a very comfortable six figure salary where I am now - and at 61, I am not sure whether maxing my salary is as important as it once was.
So, my advice is to look carefully at your life. Talk to your family, especially your spouse, and determine just what is most important to you. You might find like me that people will surprise you, and that love may just be more than the clothing you wear and the gender you are.
I know that for me, it was the right decision.
D. Eden
Dum Vivimus, Vivamus
I'm happy for you. I was an
I'm happy for you. I was an engineer until I got into sales. I enjoy fixing things. I see a problem and try to find a solution. I come from a poor working class background. As my wife never worked beyond the odd part time job. I wanted to buy a house so I would have some money in retirement, and something to leave my children.
The logical engineers brain said you want this, you must do that.
My solution was work my balls off, because without money I could do nothing. I have go withut throughout my life for my wife and children. Worked weekends just to get a little extra. Missed holidays so my family could go. My job or a job was all important to me.
I have come close to telling my mother n a few occasions. I suspect my father my have crossdressed, but I'm no certain.
Leeanna
i hate labels
You are right that we do go through life pigeonholing our existence whether its supporting this team over that, race, colour, a career type or sexual orientation. You, me, well everyone, will be members of various sets that we may identify with and thats the thing, we all have aspirations to belong to some subset of humanity whether we realise it or not. For some that might be easy to achieve, for others it will be more complicated and things like assumed duty may colour our choices, you have to be quite selfish and singleminded to pursue some of group memberships.
A sportsman for example might devote a disproportionate amount of time training etc in pursuit of a sporting goal/accolade, pushing everything else into satelite roles in their life. The same may happen in the workplace, anything that may affect progress will be hidden and/or suppressed. It's not unusual then for anyone pursuing their own 'memerships' to get obsessed with trivial aspects and to deride anyone with less singlemindedness.
Its no surprise really that after investing a huge amount of time in pursuit of one thing we are loath to give that security up in favour of something we've been hiding. Family and the relationships that go with it is the biggest of these for most people, to give that all up in pursuit of a 'selfish' need to follow what is in your head is very difficult, i for one have gone through life using family as an excuse for not pursuing the real me, it seems each time a 'barrier' is breached i find another to put things off. Hindsight is a great thing, but we can't live on what if's, we make our decisions and have to live by them.
Its no surprise that the 'trans' population is quite polarized and those that transition either do so before they have the baggage of family or do so once they've 'done their duty' to parents, children, work. As Ang says, we only have one crack at this life, we should make the most of what the cards give us, for some of us that will be to enthusiastically pursue a dream, for others it'll to just get on with living from day to day. For me, well surgery etc has become less of a thing to be pursued, i'm content to be able to be me most of the time - its time management, i'd rather spend my time pursuing other goals in life, i don't need more to be content, i still have my family and friends and thats important to me - i see others who have lost that and the misery that brings, i'm a bit fragile at the best of times, that would completely break me.
Madeline Anafrid
Madeline Anafrid Bell
Hi Maddy 'done their duty' to
Hi Maddy 'done their duty' to parents, children, work. .I think that shows we know we stand to lose them. Family comes first before our (selfish?) needs. You are lucky to keep them. From the stories I have heard from some of the ladies on here. I'm glad I haven't come clean.
Perhaps the world isn't ready for many of us just yet.
Leeanna
A brief conversation with a woman who gets it
One of my sisters used to be amazingly beautiful. She had perfect proportions, a lovely face, and soft blonde hair.
And she hated it.
It wasn't that she minded being beautiful, it was all the baggage that came with it: the unwanted attention, the strange attitudes of people. In talking with her, I understood that when you're remarkably good-looking, people assume that somehow they own a piece of your life.
When she got into her late twenties, she began to dress in shapeless, colorless clothes. She quit wearing makeup. Eventually she achieved a kind of social invisibility that she was comfortable with.
One day the two of us were sitting in a mall at a cafe. Our tables happened to be outside a women's clothes store that was run by a local designer. The clothes were so cool and interesting -- exactly the sort of thing I'd love to wear.
She looked at them and sighed and told me, "I wish that I'd been born a boy."
I was fairly startled, but then she went on to explain that her objection to having been born female was all about clothes and makeup. It was all the bother that a woman had to go through: depillation, eyebrows, hair cuts and hair care, uncomfortable shoes... So she quit doing all that, for the most part. I mean, she still wears a dress when she has to, and does her best to look good within the limits of what she's comfortable doing.
So for the first time I felt able to confess to someone in my family that I wish I'd been born a girl for the same reason or the opposite reason (however you want to see it). I would LOVE to wear those clothes, to do the makeup, to groan at the end of the day as I pull off my heels...
And she got it.
Of course, I left out the part of wanting to have all the physiology that goes with it.
If only we'd been able to switch places, huh?
At this point, though, she and I have come to terms with our feelings. Neither of us worry about our preferences or wonder why it so.
I'm glad to have left behind the agony of wondering why, and the self-torture of thinking something's wrong with me.
- io
You know that's one of the
You know that's one of the "be careful what you wish for" things that keeps me away from announcing it to the world. If I did, and found after a while I just couldn't function, I would have burned my bridges.
I know most that want to transistion really need to. However there have been some highly publicised "regret" stories.
This individual Charles/Samantha Kane can't seem to make her mid up she was used as a poster boy/girl for a few regret sites.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-6067657/Transgend...
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-6067657/Transgender-lawyer-undergoes-gender-assignment-surgery-time.html
Leeanna
Sister
I get your sister.
With some minor facial changes I could've been pretty darn pretty in my twenties through my thirties. And yes I started out wanting to wear all of the pretty things and stuff.
But I ultimately went her path and did not do the girly girly thingy. I rarely wear makeup, no dresses, no heels etc.
Shoot, one time a woman from a modelling agency outside a store stopped me (holding a stack of business cards) asking whether I wanted to come and try out. The stack of cards made me keep my ego in check as not being 'the' one she was looking for though. But yes I was merely dressed in my normal diet of jeans, sneakers and a top, no makeup etc.
It was too early in my transition as I had yet to get the needed breast implants (yes I was only at best a AA cup) and it was before I got GRS as I was still working on both the money and mind space aspect of it.
The unwanted attention from men and the fact my flat feet hated heels in the space of wearing them for half an hour sealed the deal as to whether I want to put in the effort. And may I mention I used to ruin a pair of hose nearly every day while working in the early 1990s at like 4 dollars a pop?
I am pushing 60, still kinda pretty as I look young for my age but I am fine without the attention.
I too wished I was born a boy then I would not have had to struggle so hard to get to the same place I am now.
But I am what I am like Leanne has said.
Silence is Golden
"Silence is Golden" is an autobiographical piece I wrote in 2009. It was a time when I was coming to grips, for about the fifth time with who I was and what I was going to do about it. It was shortly after that that I decide that, to quote Popeye, "I am what I am and that's all that I am," and to embrace it; to let the chips fall where they may. In pursuit of that goal I started to allow the neighbors to see the real me. Since we were involved socially with any of them, it didn't matter. I'd been out to my wife for nearly 40 years. I also decided that when I went clothes shopping that I wouldn't buy if I couldn't try on first; even if I was in drab at the time. If people had a problem with who I was it was their problem. If anyone objected to me being where I was, doing what I was doing, I'd just avoid them and the place and get on with my life.
Anyway, if any one wants to read it, here's the link to "Silence is Golden"
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
We all have our own
We all have our own "journeys". Our own set of circumstances. All this alters what we can and can't do. This is definitely not a one size fits all. I admire anyone who has had the courage to say "look, this is the real me"
Leeanna
I transitioned when it hit the
point I was ready to kill myself. At that point transitioning was the lesser of two evils. My brother committed suicide, I raised his kids afterwards. I knew then how much pain suicide can cause. So that was no longer an option.
That's sad Wendy. Must have
That's sad Wendy. Must have been a difficult time.
Leeanna
I can stand to see myself now.
Because they make me feel better. Because when I wear them, I can stand to look at myself, that is, to look at myself without dissociating what I see from my self. (For most of my life, when I had to see myself in the mirror, I pretended I was seeing someone else. Even so, it would elicit a "yuck" reaction.)
I got into wearing them slowly, because I was afraid of what people would do to me if they saw me "wearing women's clothes." I started when I saw men at Contra dances wearing twirly skirts and being accepted. (Starter drug!) I went on to make my own, and discovered I suddenly kind of like looking at myself -- from the waist down. As I got the courage to dress more and more in "women's clothes" (actually, they're my clothes!), I felt better and better. The world seemed brighter. Once I started considering that I might be trans, and finally transitioned, it was like the black-and-white film noir of my life was suddenly in color. I would walk out the door and find myself saying, "I'm so glad I'm me!" (I've settled down a bit since then....)
I didn't have any trouble with a wife because I was long since divorced by that point, and besides, neither she nor the kids seemed to care, since they're fairly self-absorbed and it didn't impact their lives. (We're all kind of oblivious to social pressure anyway.) Nobody in my village or in my various social circles seems to care, and as for elsewhere -- well, I live near NYC, where "man dressed as a woman" doesn't even make the weird-o-meter twitch, and I think I present femme enough that people mostly just see me as a woman (old and ugly, maybe, but who cares? As long as they don't hassle me, I don't care what they think.)
tl;dr: I'm happy, and if J. K. Rowling and Michael Pence don't like it, they can just go [stuff I can't say on this site] themselves!
I can only speak of my own experience
which is badly shaped by being raped at such a young age. But for me, as much as I like the clothes, its more that I want to be seen and accepted as a woman, and feminine clothes makes that easier. But, as I said, that's just me, and your mileage may vary.
Yes Dorothy, "that's just me,
Yes Dorothy, "that's just me, and your mileage may vary." We all have our own way of getting there. I may one day, but not just yet.
I dont have the dysphoria that many have. Just a feeling since a younge age that I should be a girl.
I don't hate the man that I am most of the time.He has been a good provider and a father to 3 great boys. (except when they forget my birthday)
Leeanna
Why
Why the clothes? For me it's because for 35 years I was forced to wear everything but what I wanted to wear and I intend to spend the next 35 years or so wearing what I want. I'm not just a girl... I'm a girly-girl... so girly that it overcame me being born physically male to shine through. I love doing my makeup, dressing and looking feminine, wearing heels in spite of my 5'11" stature, etc.
I transitioned full-time almost 14 years ago (though I was wife and Mom at home for 9 years before that) and ever since I have refused to wear anything that looks even remotely masculine... I don't even own a pair of pants. Part of that is because my extended family majorly opposed my transition, my sister going as far as suggesting that I could just dress 'metro-sexual'. Wearing pants, even ladies' slacks, would be like saying, "OK, you win." to my family. Some of them still think it's just a 'phase' I've been going through... since age 2.
They don't understand the problem. The problem is being seen as a man in any way, shape, or form... because I'm not one. I have severe dysphoria and major body-image issues. Being seen as a man, even by strangers, is almost physically painful to me. I know that wearing a dress everywhere gets people's attention, but then I want to be seen as a very feminine woman.
I'm most fortunate though in that I was blessed with the wisdom to come out to my co-wife on our first date. I had just gotten out of a very bad (and abusive) relationship that exploded when it came out that I was trans. (admittedly, when we started dating I was trying to 'get over it'... like it was a bad cough or something) As a result of that bad experience, I promised myself that any future relationship I would have I would tell her from day one just who it was she was supposedly interested in. I'm doubly blessed in that her response on that first date was, "Is that all?", followed by her proposing to me 3 days later. That was almost 23 years ago and we're still goofy in love with each other! She's been my biggest cheerleader the whole time, pushing me to come out to my family, insisting that I be 'Mom' to our two boys, telling me how beautiful I am each day, etc.
Yes, I've been lucky. I've never been raped. I've never been 'clocked' in public by people that might want to do me harm. Some of that is where I live, (Nevada is a very 'live and let live' kinda place) and some of that is my attitude. I simply don't care what other people think anymore. I'm me and if someone doesn't like it they can just pound sand! I'm not hurting anyone and the only ones making a big deal of it are those I don't care about anyway.
As for labels, labels are for food. However, as you point out, human beings are designed to categorize everything. It's how we deal with the world and how we have done so for over ten thousand years, so I don't think it's going to change in our lifetimes. The best we can hope for is a little understanding. (which we should do anyway)
I didn't so much learn to cry again as much as I stopped repressing my feelings, which all men have pounded into them by the world from all corners and across all cultures. "Feelings are a weakness." "Showing them is showing weakness." "Man-up." "Boys don't cry, even if you break your legs." Lucky for me though, I'm not a man. :^)
TL/DR: Clothes are the socially accepted outward symbol of who we are. I'm a feminine woman, so I dress like one... whether anyone likes it or not.
Just my 2¢, for what it's worth.
Roberta
Sounds like you have a
Sounds like you have a wonderful woman there Roberta.
I do hate that "men don't cry" they do , but mostly when there is no one to see or help.
Leeanna