My gender and identity struggle
This might be a bit rambly because I honestly don't know what I want to say. I just feel like I need to express some thoughts, feelings, and fears, and I hope that someone can relate or perhaps it starts a conversation. With that in mind, I apologize in advance if this gets long winded.
Identity to me is a strange concept. I'm a (soon to be) 41 year old man.
Never once thought as a kid I was a girl or trans. I still don't believe I'm trans, but I constantly find myself asking, "Am I? Why would I even be asking myself that (COUNTLESS TIMES) if maybe there wasn't a little bit of truth to it?"
Then I think to my physical body and physical condition as a means to rationalize and logic it away.
I was born with one testicle. The second never descended and never developed at all. I was told it was an inguinal testicle, and it was removed to prevent any cancer risks or health complications.
My logical mind says this is the reason I feel a sense of dysphoria. I have low testosterone and always have. In fact, during puberty, I never had the right amount to begin with.
That didn't stop my body from developing fully male, albeit less gifted than most in certain areas. I remember in my very early 20s that my partner at the time was jealous of my figure.
She said I had a better hour glass shape than she did. Well, that was nearly 80 pounds ago. Any shape I have now needs to be reconstructed.
But it was during those early 20s when things seem to just accelerate for my dysphoria.
I don't recall exactly when I started to feel feminine, but it was during that time. I discussed this with my partner, and she was extremely supportive. I began wearing some of her clothes at home, and it just felt right. It felt like that was my second skin. I made love to her dressed in something of hers, and it never once felt unnatural.
She wasn't super turned on or excited by it, but she also didn't shun and judge harshly.
Cut to a few years later. I'm with a new partner.
It had been a few years since I did any dressing up from before, and it was like an urge was seeping back. Just this drive to dress and express my feminine side.
At that time I had a very close friend in high school begin their transition phase. I had a lengthy discussion with them how she felt trans was right. How did she know she was a she? She said she felt that way since childhood. As a child, when still presenting male, she was able to excel at baseball and could have had a legit chance of being recruited by colleges. Even now I think she'll say she could still hit the ball 300ft. Even during the times when she excelled at things typically male, she said she still felt like a girl. She works full time now as a college professor and is fully female in presenting. She posts on her social media all the time what she's wearing, and she genuinely seems happy with life and how it's treating her.
I find it awkward to refer to people pre-transition. We all have a past, and it is very much respected and understood, but I worry I'll offend someone if I say "he" in the past sense when internally they were always she. If anyone has any thoughts or experiences in referring to people's past lives in a respectful way, I would truly appreciate it. My whole intent it to express myself and my experience and connect people. Not create conflict, controversy, or anger out of ignorance. (Again, rambly. Apologies).
For me, listening to her, it didn't feel quite like me. I didn't feel like a girl. However, I still felt very feminine.
At this time I did not know about my low testosterone. I would not get my first T test until I was 30.
My levels at 30 were 257ng/dl. The normal range at that time was 350 on the low end and 1200 on the high end. I knew that once a man hits 30, they lose 1 percent testosterone each year. If I was already that low, how low would I be when I was 40?
I began taking T shots that year because I had severe fatigue, and I didn't know why. I honestly feared driving sometimes because I would doze off at lights. I didn't feel safe. So my doctor and I decided to try T shots. I'll go into that roller coaster of mental states in a moment.
Back to the second partner. I shared with her (after being together a few years) my desire to crossdress and wear women's clothes.
She did not respond positively. She was very judgemental. Wanted to break up with me actually.
But we were in a terribly unhealthy, co-dependent relationship so we stayed together.
She's also the one who cucked me the first time. I have a massive (basically obsessive) compulsion with cuckolding and small penis humiliation because of my own mental distress and body insecurity. I know this.
I fetishized the pain into pleasure. It was a coping mechanism, but I do find it genuinely arousing and is a major kink.
As we stayed together, I began to buy some women's clothes. Nothing fancy. No corsets or anything. Simple shirts and a few dresses. Basic flats for shoes. Nothing that would really be impressive to anyone, but to me, it meant that I had this part of me. I felt like I had this girl in me that wanted
needed to come out. She was fighting me regardless if I wanted it or not.
This ties in with the testosterone roller coaster at the time. My body never made enough, so I guess I never really understood what it felt like to have "normal" testosterone. My shots were every two weeks. So week 1 of this shot I get this massive boost, but during week 2, there was an extremely depressive drop. I felt like there was a wall I just couldn't get past to feel. Anything. I would become so depressed nothing was of interest. I was feeling so lost and torn about who I was. Testosterone made me feel more "me", but then I suddenly felt "her" even more forceful. I was in pain and didn't know who to talk to or who to turn to.
My partner at that time and I were fighting more and more, and I eventually threw away all my girl clothes. I tried to repress that part of me. There was one event during our relationship though that brought me true joy.
We were at Macy's, and she knew I was struggling, and I think she was supporting me more as a friend then than a partner. She took me to their makeup area.
She was getting some MAC makeup done, but she said I should find somone to do makeup for me. So, for the first time, I wore makeup. I went to the Estee Lauder lady, and she was so caring and kind. She didn't judge me at all. I talked with her quite a bit about myself and my feelings and such. She was very supportive and listened. I felt validated in just sharing with someone. When the makeup was done, I was ecstatic. I felt pretty. Now, I didn't look very girly or feminine. I looked like a guy with makeup on, but it was the feeling that I remember the most. Like I was finally letting out the part of me that needed to come out.
Later that night, my partner had a photo project due for school, and she wanted to take photos of me dressed in corsets and lingerie. She juxtaposed this with me in my regular clothes earlier in the day in various places and poses. She actually gave me persmission to wear her corsets and lingerie, and for the first time I had on professional makeup and a corset and accessories. She even curled my hair for some extra effect. I felt so comfortable.
Like finally slipping into the skin I belonged, but I also felt extremely aroused. Like I was sexy. I was pretty. I could seduce. I wanted a guy to just take me and have his way with me like I was a girl.
She got an A on that project. What stood out most in the photos were my face. Not my clothes or my body, but my face. And it wasn't because of the makeup. I didn't look very girly.
In the photos where I was dressed up, I beamed. I glowed. It was obvious how happy I was. That was the best experience dressing up with her that I had.
Skip to a few years later, I'm not with anyone, but my emotions were all over the place. I had left an eight year relationship with the truly worst person in my life. I was just lost. I didn't have any girl clothes because I threw them all away. I was dealing with this major duality of my testosterone shot lifting me up one week then absolutely dropping me the next. Not only was I confused and in angst and turmoil, but she was too. That feeling inside of me. I kept thinking,
"Am I trans? This doesn't feel right. My face doesn't feel right. My hips feel wrong. But then I get my shot, and I feel more 'me'. I can't explain what that means exactly. Just that I felt like I was right again. My body was right.
So, am I trans because my hormones were going crazy and during the drop is when I felt the dysphoria the most, or was I perfectly normal with low testosterone and depression from gender confusion?" That line of thinking is still absolutely true to this day. I still have that struggle.
During this time though I began to explore once again with girl clothes. I purchased a few simple things, took some photos at home (which no one ever saw), and then just let it all disapear. I was so emotionally all over the place that I was lashing out at things that had no basis on my mental and physical state. One of those was blaming my girl clothes. Blaming her. I keep saying "her" because it's how I feel about my internal self, but I don't have a name, personality, or manifestation of that. It's just this feeling inside of me that's feminine and very much a "her". In my desperate attempt to understand something, anything, about myself,
I threw away all my clothes again. This was the third wardrobe (albeit modest), that I threw out. Each and every time felt like I was throwing out part of me and it broke my heart. I didn't know how to be both male and female. I felt like both halves of me were spliting me in two.
I met a new partner online about five years ago. She helped so much in me learning about myself and letting go of some of my past.
She was my first Domme and truly changed my life. She had me keep track of when I gave myself my last shot. She would notice the dips in my mood and pattern because I kept a mood tracker also. I didn't do any of this before her. I was upfront with her early about how I felt inside and what my struggles were, and she had some ideas to help.
I gave myself my shot once a week instead of bi-weekly. I adjusted the dose of course to make it all even for the month. That was the goal. To try and get more even. I did. It was working pretty well. I didn't have the dips and valleys.
I was able to explore my SPH kink and cuckolding kink in a healthy manner for the very first time with her. I didn't have the same gender dysphoria as I did with the previous partner. I felt so inadequate with the previous person that I just didn't even feel like a man.
So when I got to experience these things in a healthy atmosphere, I did feel like a man, but humiliated and degraded, and I loved it.
This allowed me to find some answers. I knew my feeling girly wasn't tied into how I felt as a man. That might seem like a simple conclusion, but when the darkness, confusion, anger, outrage, fear, anxiety, and internal strife are so rampant, any light is a welcome change. This was a ray of hope. Maybe I was finally figuring out who I was. I was a man.
Well, untill that urge to dress up came back. It always comes back. I threw away a wardrobe three times, and she still wasn't gone. I decided then and there that I had to accept this part of me regardless of what it is. I had to embrace her and give her expression in order to be myself. I bought some simple lingerie and my first corset. I had very fond memories of that photo shoot with my ex, and I really wanted to express my sexuality. I wanted to be pretty. I wanted to be wanted. If you look at my photos, you'll notice I don't show my face in those. That's because I don't have a feminine looking face. I had facial hair, and I wanted to look like a woman, not a dude in a corset.
I vowed then that no matter what, I was not throwing away this wardrobe. Not a fourth time. Maybe it stays in the closet, (which is how I feel about all of this. That I'm in the closet, but I don't even know what closet.) but I was not going to throw anything away again.
This brought me peace. This actually felt right to me. I felt like I had two halves, and one was 65% dominant, but that 45% that is her is very much demanding and needs attention and expression.
Here's how I feel now. Still confused. Still lost in a way, but more at peace. I can live with who I am. That statement alone speaks volumes to me. I can live with who I am, but I'm not happy with who I am. I know my body is male. I gain muscle easily when I work out. I talk like a man. I act like a man. There is no one in my life that knows how much I struggle internally about this.
I recently looked up how to get hormones online. I thought maybe if I just took some spironolactone and estrogen to see how I felt it might give me some answers. Many issues with that. First, it would be behind my doctors back. So suddenly I'm getting testosterone levels that are 70ng/dl when all along we've been trying to get it in the normal range of roughly 500 - 650. Also, if I do that, and my body does change, how permanent is that? Like, if I began to develop breasts (not saying that would happen in the first month), but if I tried to take hormones for six months, what then? Things will become noticable to people. How do I explain that? So that's my current dilemma. If I'm even thinking of hormones in the first place, am I trans? I don't know. I just thought maybe I could be like Alice and try all the things to learn what doesn't work to find out what does by process of elimination.
This morning I looked up videos to hide facial hair shadow and body shaping videos. I desperately want to go to a queer event or kink event dressed as a woman. But my self esteem and image are such that I just don't feel confident. In fact, the idea terrifies me. She is giddy at the idea. Internally, that feminine aspect of me doesn't care if my face still looks manly, or my voice is deep. She just wants to be seen. Flaws and all. She wants her time.
I don't feel comfortable doing that until I can at least become semi-passable. Maybe practice some makeup. Get some body shaping stuff. Just keep doing things at home, by myself, and basically still hiding from the world.
This has been a sort of writing out my thoughts, and what I think is, my logical and reasoning brain just can't rationalize how I feel.
My internal persona very much has a feminine side to me. I have to embrace that and accept her. I'm not sure to what extent, but I have to keep her safe and let her know that she's not alone either.
Her struggles are my struggles because we are the same. I just don't know how to be her that feels right. I don't know if I'm trans and should seriously talk to my doctor about things or if I'm just a crossdresser. I just know I feel like I'm predominately male, but I have a very strong feminine internal sense of self. I just feel like I'm never going to find the answer, and while I can be content with who I am, I never really feel like I am who I am. I feel like I continue to hide about half of myself.
I let fears overrule many of my own desires.
What would my sister think if her brother of 40 years suddenly said she had a sister all along? But it wasn't all along. I absolutely feel male a significant amount of the time. And that's the crux of all this. I feel male, but I just can't shake the femaleness to me also. I just try to balance the two as best I can, but I know I'm failing. There hasn't been any balance to this since in manifested in my late teens and I got to express that in my early 20s. So I struggle on.
Tags: Trans,Crossdressing,Mental Health,Acceptance,Struggle
Jan 17, 2023