" I was about 5 when I first realised I wasnt like the other boys.........."

Well,woop dee doo,thats something Im sure no one else has been through,not.
I guess I can skip the deep self analysis today,I must have read dozens of web pages that echo many of my thoughts and the feelings we all went through as we began to discover who we are.
The usual story,never really fitting in around "other" boys(do I write "other" boys,or, other "boys"?either way,I think you understand ),a very early memory,deep ingrained,is of waking up before the household,putting on the TV and sitting entranced watching a Ballet(wasnt TV in the late 70s eclectic? and realising thats what I wanted to be when I grew up.Not the silly man in tights wandering around looking like a spare part,but one of the Ballerinas.....still waiting for my call to the Kirov
(the minor tag to this is my popping a pair of socks down my top for the first time....)
Before I go on,here's what I'll call my IAQ,or Infrequently asked questions
Age; next...OK ,29,for the third time in a row .

Name;well,ClaireD is just something I made up for the forum,Clare D'lune was on the Radio:)Never really had a "girl" name( I asked my mum what she would have called me,yuck,the only time I felt glad I hadnt been born wrong )an Ex,who was a star,more about her later Im sure,asked me "does the girl you have a name?"(ouch,the "girl me"she later understood how wrong that sounds to people like me/us ) as I thought about it ,giving myself a name felt like playing a game...if you know what I mean,where as I felt like "me" being called another name would have made me feel like a charector,no disrespect intended ,but,in the situation I was in(an open minded girlfriend who enjoyed our "girlie weekends" almost as much as I did)of dressing en femme with someone else(actualy,with access to a complete wardrobe!) I felt that she would see me as a transvestite playing dressup and not just as the real me living for those 48hour periods as closely as I could get to being the young woman I knew myself to be inside.....ah well,Im toying with a few names though,maybe another day/post I will list a few to get a reaction.

Avatar; yep,l'il ole me,aint black and white a doll ? (the colour version I look like Homer Simpson... )

Sex;not lately

OK smartie pants,Gender; Ah well,thats where it gets kinda interesting;)

In/Out;yep,well,both,to most of the world Im just a less than macho hetro male,a couple of close friends,an Ex and my family know.(Telling my mum a few years back,her reaction after days,weeks of me agonising over how to tell her;" Oh,right,so this is meant to be a surprise for me?") I hav'nt approached any "profesionals" yet ,had planned to last year but life kinda got in the way.

When did you realise; Well,thats the pearl isnt it,my earliest real feeling of being out of place,or should I say,I felt everyone else had me out of place!, was in the nursery class at primary school,for some reason that day ,we maybe had a supply teacher,as our class was getting ready to go to assembly the teacher made us line up in two columns,yep,Boys line and Girls line. Although I stood in the line I was ushered into I can to this day picture the line of girls and feel the overwhelming emotion I did then of being in the wrong line.
Did I that day go home and tell mum I wanted to be a girl? Nope,not that I can remember,I probably went home and played with my Star Wars figures(one of the reasons my Mum eventually gave me for her always knowing was ,apparently,my style of play with the figures,maybe something to do with grouping them into little families and building houses out of shoe boxes for them,only going "zap zap ,peow" when I though someone else was around or if Id had a particularly stressfull day learning my 7 times table:) )

I may have mentioned something earlier to my mum,not sure,but I was lucky to be brought up by an open minded,liberal ex hippy in a very gender neutral way so maybe I just didnt feel the presure I would have had I been faced with a blokey father wanting to play footie with his "son". I actually had as many dolls as toy cars and never lost an oppertunity to play with neighbourhood girls when they got Sindy or barbie(ugh,barbie,hate hate hate,tacky,cheap inflated tart,and dont get me started on Bratzzz...slutzz more like.oops,a little daily mailesque there..cripes)although as I got older I learned to take my action man for appearances sake,he soon as possible got ditched for a brunnette Sindy almost everytime

The nights of my childhood where I didnt go to sleep terrified some man called reagan or some man called zbgztatinzzski would press a big red button(guess who secretly watched threads?!not a good idea ....) I remember were a constant round of" If I wish hard enough maybe I will wake up tommorow with long hair and a wardrobe full of pretty dresses and a tutu",well,shucks,it never happened,and BTW,I know I sounded like a prototype wag but,you know where Im coming from,the actualy whole biology thing was,not exactly unknown to me but was not exactly top of the list from 6 to 10
The only reason those dreams stopped(Ok,hands up,I still get em but with much less opptimism for succes) was that around age 10,maybe 11,I suddenly had a name for what I was feeling,and a face to it as well in the form of a magazine article I found in mums Womans own or some such.

I cant remember all the details,but it told the true life story of a young boy who had told his mum he was really a girl,she had accepted him as her and her son had become her daughter.I cant honestly remember if she was full post op or not but the articale definatly discused the whole SRS procedure ,a revelation to me that I didnt have to rely on the power of fairy dust and really hard wishing! I remember the before and after photos,first a young boy,then teenage boy then young woman,this last I think had her pictured leaning on a wooden fence somewhere near to where she had moved with her mum all the way from the UK to Australia.
So,I knew by 11 what was possible,but,as they say,knowing and doing are different things.
x

Thank you for sharing your story. You look very pretty in your picture. You come across as very feminine in your writing style. Have you spoken to your GP at all yet? It's a real psychological hurdle taking the first steps, but in terms of what you need to actually do it is very, very easy. I'm about the same age as you and also taking my first steps. I wish you good luck and keep posting!

Thanks for your lovely comments and encouragement GQ.
lol,yep,B/W is quite flattereing isnt it,Ive plenty of pics I look a real munter in though Just a shame my gorgeous hair in that pic's out of a box but working on that,at the,if I ruffle it up,Natasha Kapsleepwithbossinski stage now
No,not spoken to my GP as of yet,may well have to change as our local clinic has some new Dr's from,shall we say,less enlightened cultures,great GPs,just not sure how positive or helpfull their reactions to me would be I hope that doesnt come across as bigoted,just realistic/pessimistic.
Also,I have to prioritise,other things in my life have to be resolved first. Good thing is though,Im a bit more patient these days,I figure Ive waited this long,a little longer wont hurt too much,afterall,Ive already missed out on the ideal age to transition so,what the hey,Take it easy as the sexy bunny used to say(not as sexy now I know it was Miriam margolies:) )

Again,thanks for the encouragement,I will,from time to time carry on with the "me me me" bit, its pretty good therapy,even if as I type I think "who wants to read this..".
x

_________________
Chrissy
Forums Moderator.

Always have faith and believe in yourself.
Never run from the truth.
Have the will to change your fate and your spirit will never die.
Check out the tzone team bios here: http://www.transgenderzone.com/bio.htm

Thanks Chrissy,
Just a thought but,does anyone else just hate the word BLOG? Sounds so awfull

_________________
Chrissy
Forums Moderator.

Always have faith and believe in yourself.
Never run from the truth.
Have the will to change your fate and your spirit will never die.
Check out the tzone team bios here: http://www.transgenderzone.com/bio.htm

I don't like the word either. It does indeed come from Web Log.

What was so wrong with Diary or Journal? Blog sounds like something you'd rather not espy in a butcher's handkerchief.

Part II
It was about this time,age 11-12,that things really fell into place for me,though whether everything was as clear as it is today is another matter. Im ashamed to say now but,around that time I began my brief life of crime! Suffice it to say that the undies drawers of many a female friend became somewhat familiar to me,and one or two pairs of sisters may or may not have had arguments over missing bra's or knickers. This "Grand Theft Undies" phase lasted through my early to mid teens and added to teenage angst and guilt over being "odd". ( Just to stress,and since studying criminology and psychology at night classes,all undies,er,borrowed were clean and never from random strangers washing lines! Others interested in criminal profiling will be relieved anyone else,possibly baffled ).

During my teens I went through all the usual hormonal swings and roundabouts with the added bonus of gender confusion. Now just to clarify a point or two here,back in the day,well late 80s to early mid 90s,there wasnt all the info out there for me to research,all you lot in your early 20s may be amazed to know this but,I didnt have the internet to look on for advice or support back then So the finer points of Gender issues were pretty hard to pin down. I was born male,check.I knew Id much rather have been born female,check. I wore girls clothes a lot,check. Only 2 of those points had easy answers, Yep,I noticed I was born male every bath night and,wearing womens clothes when your not technicaly a woman,well,they were called transvestites,and tended to be married men ,with 'tasches and a really bad dress sense and a frankly odd idea about what women were all about. I didnt really identify with that scene at all ( before anyone jumps these are the views of my confused 13 -16 year old self.) and had only the memory of the magazine story I had read a few years before to show me I wasnt totally alone in my feelings.

One thing I was never confused about was my sexual orientation,I definatly fancied girls. I knew this for sure due to all the teasing I got and homophobic insults slung my way down to the fact I went to dance classes (billy eliot was not unique,every local dance school had a token boy dancer.) with getting so much random abuse I never had the slightest doubt about liking girls and having no interest in boys,in fact my lack of interest in boys is and was confounded by a general disinterest of most males and male "culture" in the odd few questioning moments of my life I would thank the stars I wasnt into lads as I can only tolerate so long in male company which would have made having a boyfriend a bit of a chore This isnt to say that in my teens I wasnt confused just a little about the nature of my attraction to girls.I was as hazy as most in those innocent days about the exact phsical layout of the "opposite gender" but as keen as anyone to find out,maybe keener than most with the added incentive of wanting to know more about who I should have been.

As I say,innocent times back then,it wasnt untill my mid teens that I began to find out these answers on a "first hand "basis Until then it was soft focus nudie scenes in movies,the occasional couple of pages of a porn mag discovered under a bush on the back fields( was there a porno fairy around back then,Im amazed just how universal the whole "pornos in hedgerows" phenomenom was ) and basic school biology books + the overwhelming curiosity/ability to stare at girls that seems commen to all teens.
Uncommen for those born male was my access to female sociaty through my dance class days,aside from the occasional routine where I was required to be "the man" I was treated no differently than the rest ,I even had to share changing facilities,let me tell you,not as great as it sounds when your an insecure teenage TS attracted to girls,lets just say akward doesnt do my feelings justice. The girls I went to dancing with I considered my mates so ruled them out in the fancying stakes (not to say I didnt invariably develop one or to serious crushes but, hey.) but I still had hormones to spare running through me not to mention the afore mentioned curiosity to find out what I was missing having been born male, all mixed up with guilt for peeking from time to time (sorry girls x ) but just in the changing room alone by 14 I had already learned loads of nifty girlie secrets,you know,the bra off and pulled through a sleeve so as not to flash your boobs around etc.

I think the best way to describe my confusion re girls is to lay it out in simple terms,way more simplistic than I really feel but something I figured out a few years ago and would have been nice to be so sure of when I was younger. Basicaly women (back then obviously girls) fall into 3 categories, 1,Those I fancy. 2,those I want to be like/am envious of. 3,just people.
1, Girls Im attracted too I dont generally get that pang of envy Im sure Im not alone in feeling,you know the," God,I wish Id been born (looking like) her."(or rather,grown up to look like her... my being born a fully grown woman would have been a tad painfull for my mum I imagine ) I just tend to plain fancy them.
2, This is the category that used to get me in trouble with G/Fs, I would see a girl on the street or wherever and ,as far as I was concerned would be innocently checking her out,maybe going a little green with envy.Only trouble was,G/Fs would invariably get the wrong signal and think I was staring at "competition" when In fact all I was thinking would have been along the lines of "what I would give to be her/look like her..." Funnily enough,these women/girls I tend to never fancy no matter how attractive they may be.Once my brain has said"want to be her" even if I get to know them I never develop more than an envious attraction for them. One thing I like is the almost randomness of my selection for category 2 , I dont just see young and gorgeous women with "great figures" ,in fact,although most are a contempory age too me thats about all they share in commen,from tiny sparrow like women to big n curvy,little bums to child baring hips ,flat chested to big n bouncy ,though the latter only natural and on curvy women,not big stuck on Jordan hooters,yuck.
3,the largest category probably(depending on where I am) is just what it says on the tin,most women just fall in to the category of other people be they mates,casual acquantences or complete strangers.
A sub category of all 3 however is those I may envy part of,for instance,nice hair,a pretty face,cute bum,nice boobs etc

The odd thing,for all Im not into men or male company I do envy sometimes the TS girls who are,it must make some things so much simpler,especialy if youve always been that way. Although sex enters my story much later just as an example,all you straight girls out never have to lie in a post nookie glow feeling shitty through clitoral/multiple orgasm etc etc envy and knowing it could all have been yours if it wasnt for that drated teeny boost of testosterone at precisly the wrong moment .
Anyhow, a bit of a ramble,almost as confused as teenage life was but more later..
x

Ah, the phantom knicker nicker!

My ex-missus used to tease me when I told her I'd been 'round to Mum's to do my laundry and hang my knickers on the line...

"Are they going to be safe? Just imagine if the local knicker thief has them, the whole of Wedmore will be talking about the only trannie in the village having her knickers stolen."

We had a laugh about it. I only wore my Mum's knickers once when she put a pair that looked remarkably like my boys undies in my laundry one time. They were a perfect fit. I put them back in the laundry in due course and didn't see them again.

I find male company rather tedious, unless they're builders having a pint in the pub. I grew up with them and I know the shitty job and understand the things they talk about and "site humour". They're good lads for the most part. I don't really fancy guys, but of those few that I do, they're fit lads from the trade.

_________________
Chrissy
Forums Moderator.

Always have faith and believe in yourself.
Never run from the truth.
Have the will to change your fate and your spirit will never die.
Check out the tzone team bios here: http://www.transgenderzone.com/bio.htm

There are quite a few of the younger lads who have no problem calling me Irene or Reenie. Cheeky beggars, I know what they want...

I've sorted out the more gentle ones, and Mickey, looking a little sorry for himself when he's normally chirpy appeals to the auntie in me. He gets to rest is head just there and I go "There, there, Mickey, it'll be alright..."

It never goes any further and everyone happy afterwards...

he he,I still cant get over the fact people are reading this I may get delusions of granduer and run off and become a writer....or maybe not...
Yes,my "confesion" I used to feel guilty,now I just look back and chuckle to my self about all the headless chicken moments I must have put various girls through when they searched for their missing undies...ah well maybe thats the answer to the missing sock Xfile,there are certain people fixated on single socks and go round nicking them out of unsuspecting folks washing machines.....
lol about the getting teased part,in my 20s a girlfriend knew all about me and any time she couldnt find an item of clothing I got the blame,guilty or not ( ok,guilty 95% of the time..well,I say it was her fault for having a wardrobe that fitted me almost perfectly,including footwear! )).Nope,was never tempted by mums wardrobe though,I know its fairly commen but just didnt appeal to me.
Yep,the internet has been a great find for me,a great source of info and moral support and I think I may echo your thoughts regarding this site,it has been fantastic to find somewhere I can write my inner feelings and have people just get it with no explanations or diagrams needed
Regarding men,the thing with me is,I cant say Ive ever found any particular man in real life attractive and have never felt the urge to "go with" a man despite many opportunities that have presented themselves to me over the years and especialy in my bohemian early/mid 20s,I just find the idea of sleeping with a guy not very appealing in my present physical and mental state.But,and this is a biggie,I do find myself occasionaly wondering what sleeping with a man would be like once Im "me",I get the feeling I will want to at least "give it a go",see what all the fuss is about,experiance things from the other side,so to speak. I only have one stipulation for the proposed job ,prospective male partners have to be Johnny Depp or Montgomery Clift,maybe James Garfield...so thats two dead guys and a married man.....

One builder I know with the fittest body I've seen... 6'3" and a proper physique, not you're contrived body builder... had had a few ales in the pub one night.

He had this big beaming grin. He's a great laugh; he gets it from his dad...

I took his wedding photos and I know his missus too. er...

I'm 6'0" and of substantial build, but he "surrounded" me for a cuddle. Wanted a snog, he said. He'd certainly had a few and I explained to him that I wasn't Laura (his missus).

Another lad tried it on and I told him to bugger off: "You're not Kev".

part III
or possibly more ramblings...
so,just a thought here but,does anyone else pre transition rarely xdress? I'll be honest,for me it comes in phases,I am always aware of my gender variance just dont feel the compulsion to "act" on it all the time.
Does this make me more or less transsexual?I mean,because I am quite content letting my body hair grow,I prefer nice smooth legs and face but,to be frank,can find the whole thing of shaving more disturbing than a fuzzy face.
For me my trans status is very definatly an internal thing, I dont feel less trans with a full beard and "blokey" clothes,ie looking a bit of a scruff (and would never mix the 2,ie beard and dress,ugh:( ) and I certainly dont feel more so when I xdress,though I do share that "feeling of (almost) completness" that others talk about,and Im not going to lie and say I dont have a ball when I do(pardon the possible pun.),OK,of course i have the ocasional "bad hair(face,figure,voice...) day" where I will look in the mirror and think,"yeah,right,who you trying to kid?" but heck,Ive been out with some cute girls that have said exactly the same no matter how good they actually looked so I dont get too down on myself and it never makes me question my feelings re wanting to eventually transition FT.
Appearence;
For me this is a secondry issue.Dont get me wrong,Id love to say I can look in a mirror now and say,"yep,your one cute looking lass" but for me the whole issue of looking ultra feminine ,or wanting to just seems pointless. For a start,define feminine? For instance go to Holland and you are surrounded by strapping women many with rather,for want of a better phrase,chiseled features where as all the Polish girls that have turned up in my town(as I imagine is the same in anyone who is reading this's town lol) all seem to have very delicate,girly features,apart from the odd couple of former communist shot putter/collective farm worker types . I know in many ways Im lucky,and dont get me wrong,I realise its fine for me to be blasie ,Im not 6 foot or built for Rugby, Im about 5.6(never sure,maybe 5.7) slim to skinny as heck,and have very small hands and feet and what Id describe as "gender neutral" facial features,neither craggy nor totally soft n girly. I know that I pass pretty well already ,at least in limited situations,ie the right light or lack of lol, and cant wait for the time when I wont need to trowel on the mix of foundation,conceler and talc I need to cover shadow and for my hair to grow out just a bit more so I can do away with the no1 giveaway,the dreaded wig. Its a really nice one,not cheap but,still,out a box and cause of great worry regarding potential for snagging ,blowing away or slipping captain manwairing like to a jaunty angle
Like I say,for me,appearence has never played a part in my self acceptance/awarness of who I truely am,I suppose that falls on my life experiances,as I touched on in earlier posts I was brought up without the usual gender stereotypes being applied to me( god bless a liberal mum with a psych' degree eh?) and soon enough found myself enrolled in dance classes,something I kept up from about 9 to 19, this experiance just reenforced my feelings as I knew I was where I belonged and with who I belonged just as sure as I knew the opposite from my brief daliance with soccer.
Only pity was non of the other girls new that so I was always slightly left out.With other girl mates it was always something similar,I would definatly be more "in with" them than the other "lads" but always more like a gay mate who happened to be straight....think thats why as I got older I ended up with lots of lesbian and bi mates,they never had that "will we wont we " subtext that friendships with straight girls ran the risk of containing. Anyway,all that was just to get round to saying that in my 10 years of dance classes and regional competitions I must have seen thousands of girls and young women,and ,due to the nature of costumes,seen the hundreds of varieties of female figure and know mine,obviously once sans facial hair,er,bits n bobs,and with a couple of little bumps will fall well within the range of british womanhoods figures so with that I relaxed about it years ago(not to say were i to be given a magic wand it would be my 1st choice like ,for me its the emotional questions and the ,despite how strongly I feel and have done all my life,will life be ,in the long run ,easier for me if I just muddle along or go for what I know would make me most happy internally?