I never had to come out to my parents, I guess I was lucky in that way. Almost as soon as I could think and speak for myself it was pretty obvious to anyone around me that I wanted to be a boy. I'm glad I never hid it. I don't even see it as brave of me to have been so open about it, I knew that I should have been male and it wasn't my fault I was born into the wrong sex. That's how I saw it then anyway, I didn't care too much about what other people thought of me.
A lot of my family probably just saw it as a harmless 'tomboy' thing, but I know it was more serious than that. Tomboys are just girls that like to do boy things, they're quite happy with being female. Not me, I hated it, I couldn't stand to look at myself naked as it would remind me I was really a girl. I wouldn't let my parents call me by my name, my Dad always had a nickname for me anyway so he used that. I had my hair as short as my parents would let me, which became shorter as I got older. And I insisted on wearing clothes from boys sections of shops. When I was possibly around 7 years old I refused to wear underwear, I didn't want anything meant for girls. As they thought I should be wearing some underwear at least my parents gave in and bought me boys pants instead, sometimes I even wore boxer shorts but not a lot as I found them uncomfortable under trousers.
I would never wear a skirt or dress, whenever I was made to (which wasn't much and only when I was really young) I felt wrong in it. When I was just a toddler and still had long hair, I remember my Mum forcing me to wear a dress for a photo, I hated it even then. That photo is in our lounge, I'm smiling in it but it's a fake smile, I wasn't happy. In infant school sometimes my Mum would walk me to school wearing trousers and I would change into a skirt in the toilets when I got there, I remember being incredibly upset about having to put it on one morning and Mum got very angry and threw it into the toilet. It was wet then so I had to wear my trousers that day, thing is my Mum told the teacher that I had thrown my skirt in the toilet so my teacher was pretty mean to me for the rest of the day. That upset me, that my Mum blamed me for something I didn't do, it made me respect adults less seeing as they're always telling you to tell the truth. From 2nd year in Junior school, I wore trousers instead of a skirt, no other girls did but no teachers tried to stop me. Then later I wore a jumper instead of a cardigan, only a small handfull of girls did this. The trousers weren't proper boys school trousers but black jogging bottoms instead, this is because proper trousers weren't comfortable.
That brings me onto another part of my childhood. I had weird habits and rituals. You know those games that kids play where it's bad luck to step on the cracks of the pavement? Well, they weren't games to me, I believed them. I was very superstisious, and a lot of the time obsessive. Say if I was closing a door and didn't touch the handle the exact 'right way' when I closed it I just had to go back and touch it again, if I didn't then I would risk my greatest wishes from ever coming true, and yes those wishes were to be male. I didn't even enjoy these superstitions, I hated it, it got me down a lot sometimes but there wasn't anything I could do about it. I prefered the extra effort of touching things and doing stuff the right way just incase it could help my wishes come true. I mentioned comfort earlier, well another obsession I had was being comfortable, usually with my clothes, I hated my trousers being twisted, for example and it would take me as long as an hour to get comfortable in bed at night, I would lay down hundreds of times before my pyjamas felt exactly right. I also hated clothes being too tight as I didn't like anything to touch my skin, I still don't like that and prefer my clothes to be baggy. Unlike with the gender identity, I was ashamed of these obsessions as I thought it was weird behaviour and that nobody else did it.
I wasn't a depressed child, even though the obsessions I described must sound pretty bad, I didn't let them make my life a misery. I was pretty happy and active and did well in school without even making an effort. Cos most of the time I could put the fact I was female in the back of my mind and just believe I was male, I was fine until I had to be reminded of what I was.
I think because of this that it made me grow up without a lot of confidence, especially in social situations. I could be quite shy sometimes and didn't have a lot of friends in school. In primary school I was odd to the other kids, as I was a girl who looked like a boy so they avoided me. I wasn't bullied, probably because I was taller than everyone else, and if anyone did actually try something I could stand up for myself pretty well, so they tolerated me, rather than picked on me.
There were then 2 milestones in my life which changed it a lot. In 1992 I was due to start secondary school and had already decided that I'd better accept I was a girl and to try to act like one. Less than a month before I started, the worst thing ever happened, my Dad died. I was used to death and bad things happening, I'd already had a grandparent die and just when I started primary school my Mum had to have an abortion and go through a nervous breakdown because of it (another thing I've never liked is being an only child, I wasn't meant to be one) but losing a parent is possibly the worst thing that could ever happen to you.
So when I started school the following month I was still coping with the loss of a father, I also had to get used to a whole new bunch of kids (not many of my primary school went to this school) and had to try to be a girl. Yes I've always had to try to be female, or at least what people expect of females, the behaviour that's always come naturally to me has usually been meant for the male stereotype. Stereotype or no stereotype all I wanted to do was fit in and be normal, but it was very difficult. One of my friends kinda 'grew up' and deserted me so I just had the one left who was even shyer than me. I still had fairly short hair and was always getting asked if I was a boy or a girl, sometimes it was a genuine question, sometimes it was someone taking the piss. I found it very hard to try fitting in with the girls, they were trying to grow up too fast, they were into fashion, make-up, getting their ears pierced and boys. None of that interested me, I couldn't understand the point of it. I was still into computer games, cartoons, general 'playing' and acting a little childish. The boys wouldn't go near me either obviously, because I was a girl, no matter what I was interested in.
This made me a pretty dull teenager compared to the more fun kid I was. I couldn't be myself anymore as I had to be a girl, so most of my personality and intrests had to be hidden or stopped completely. Because of this I missed out on a lot of fun that I should have had and I look back and get very upset and think I've wasted my young life, especially when someone else starts talking about a load of fun they had when they were young. I just wish I'd done the same as them, but I didn't.
I'm 19 now and for some reason the gender identity problem became worse again over the last year or so. I'm not really sure why this is, it's always been a problem but I think maybe I realised I couldn't hide it and shouldn't have to fit in anymore with any stereotype. From early 1997 to early 2000 I had a pretty crappy depressed time which involved me dropping out of 2 different colleges and not knowing where I'm headed. I tend to self analyse myself a lot and of course had a lot of time on my hands to do this, so I was always trying to think of theories and reasons to explain how I feel and why I couldn't handle college. I think seeing some transsexuals on a talk show made that click inside me. I suddenly started thinking how things might have been different if I'd either been born male or had changed to one before my teens. This made me think maybe my gender was getting me down more than I'd thought. I also had a chance to talk about it with someone that didn't already know me when I was younger as a friend of mine on the internet started to believe before the end of 1999 that he may be transgendered too, it was great to find someone that would understand.
I don't know what other people I know would say, even my family members and the few friends that have known me since I was in that 'tomboy phase' would be shocked to find out that deep down I really do hate being female. So who knows how shocked people that haven't known me since I was a kid would be? Everyone would be very uncomfortable if I ever changed sex I know that for sure and how it would affect my relationship with people is one thing putting me off. When I first told my boyfriend he didn't take it very well, but I guess that's expected if you're straight and find out your partner wants to be the opposite sex. I would probably act the same way if he'd told me he wanted to be a woman as I'm only attracted to men. To make him feel better at the time I told him it probably wasn't too serious and I was just thinking of reasons for why I'm unhappy with my life. Since then I've often openly commented about things I hate about being female, sometimes serious but sometimes in a kind of light hearted way. This is often a good way to talk to someone about something serious because you can test their reactions and it gives them a chance to say something more if they want.
So would I want to actually change my sex now? When I was a kid then yes definitely, I would have given anything to be able to have done that. And probably during most of my teens too. When I wrote the first version of this story one of the things putting me off was the fact that I make a pretty unique girl as I am. I don't like to fit into 'normal' stereotypes and thought I'd be able to break them better staying female because I mosty act male. This now doesn't worry me as I should put my own feelings before something like this, and I'm sure I would still be an individual male. I don't like the way that gender is stereotyped by society, especially women/girls and thought it would be hypocritical of me to change sex as it'd be like admitting that women weren't as good as men. This point doesn't worry me anymore either. How women were portrayed on TV, etc used to make me so angry but since I came out to myself about being trans then it doesn't worry me as much. I really think the anger came from feeling like I had to be this female stereotype and it just felt wrong. I realised that most women don't really hate how they're treated and referred to as much as I was. I hope that paragraph makes sense, it was hard to put into words.
I've never been comfortable with having a female body, there's so many design faults with it. It's such an annoying feature to have blood pouring out of you once a month. And boobs, I really hate having those, I'm a D cup so have to wear a bra or it hurts to walk and run. Bras are incredibly uncomfortable and wearing them makes me angry, since I got a sports bra called the Frog bra it has been a bit better but very far from perfect. Losing weight, which I need to do anyway, would reduce the size of my breasts but probably not enough for me. I just don't think I could ever be comfortable with having them even if I chose to stay female. Also I'm not comfortable refering to myself as a 'girl' or 'woman', other female words or even my own name, they just doesn't sound right to me so I try to avoid them whenever possible.
I don't want to live my life pretending anymore, I did that during my teenage years, I pretended to be a girl. I always kept an eye on the clothes I wore, the way I spoke, acted and the things I did just incase they weren't feminine enough. If I decide not to transition then it'd be like this again, I would want to be at least a little bit feminine if I stayed being a girl so would need to make some sacrafices and pretend again. I just couldn't be me, I'm too male and I don't want to be a masculine butch woman. Please don't ask me to explain this it's just how I feel.
Sometimes, if I think about what it would be like to be male I feel happy and 'free' like a large weight has been lifted from my mind, but it only lasts for a second before I remember it's not so simple.
So what's stopping me? Well right now the main thing that stops me is children, I really want to raise my own someday and don't want to regret destroying this ability for the rest of my life. However, the mothers role doesn't interest me, I wouldn't miss being pregnant and actually giving birth, it's raising the children I want and seeing how a little version of me could turn out. There's also relationships, I'm still seeing my ex-boyfriend and we're at the kind of state where we're not sure if we're going out or not. We did break up but nothing really has changed. Now he knows about me being trans and is comfortable with it being a thought in my head but isn't comfortable with me actually doing something about it, if I transitioned we would break up and we may not even be able to be his friends. I don't hate him for feeling that way but not wanting to lose him is keeping me back I think. I just wish I was a girl inside sometimes and had no interest in being male but this is not something you choose, if you could then you probably would get many people changing sex. It's not a fun game for them it's a necessity.
I hope that my story has made sense to its readers and I hope it's not too damn long!! As soon as I started reading other peoples experiences I wanted to write my own story for others in my situation to read. It helps a lot when you read someone else saying the exact same things you've always thought, especially if you thought nobody could ever understand you.
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