My Story

 So this is the first time that I have shared any of this with anyone.  I've never talked to anyone about being transgender and haven't tried to explain how I feel to anyone before now.  So this is a really big deal for me.

I just recently discovered that I was transgender.  I'm a Freshmen in college, so I guess once I left home for a while, I felt comfortable enough to start allowing myself to really be . . . well myself.

 I've always known that I didn't really fit into the boxes that people kept trying to put me in.  The only time I was ever truly happy with myself and my body and everything about my identity was when I was a kid.  From as far back as I could remember up until Middle school I always saw myself as a boy.  All my friends were boys and they treated me like just another one of the guys.  I was somewhat fortunate to have parents that allowed me to wear whatever clothes I wanted (i.e. boys clothes) most of the time.  And I always loved it when strangers called me a boy, even in front of my parents.  There were occasions when I was forced to wear dresses or skirts or whatever, but that never had any effect on me.  I hated wearing girls clothes, but they never once convinced me that I was any less of a boy.  I also didn't mind people using female pronouns because they were just words to me.

I mentioned that I didn't have body issues back then.  To me, the physical differences between boys and myself were minimal.  The only real difference was that they had a penis and I didn't.  But I didn't really see this as a problem back then.  It wasn't so much that I recognized that I had female genitalia as that I just happened to be missing my male genitals.

When they gave us the puberty talk about how we were going to start growing breasts and having periods and developing into young women, I just remember thinking to myself "this is never going to happen to me." I will never be a woman.  I'm going to be like everyone else (i.e. the boys that grew up to be men)

Then puberty hit, and the nice little fantasy that I was living in kind of dissolved away.  I started to develop breasts.  At first I ignored them, insisting that this too was just some sort of mistake.  I was still a boy as far as I was concerned.  But then in seventh grade I started to come into my sexuality, and my first and primary attraction was towards boys.  This was difficulty for me to handle.  Back then, I didn't know much about being gay except that it was a bad thing.  So that's when I started to question myself.  "I can't be a boy if I like boys." I tried to though.  My one and only boyfriend was in seventh grade.

After we broke up (as seventh graders do) I was from then on designated as "girl" by all my male friends who had previously allowed me to be considered one of their own.  They began to make fun of me for not acting girly enough because I didn't wear bras or shave my legs or wear girl's clothes.  I lost a lot of friends as I was slow to adjust.

I was a loner through the beginning of high school because i didn't really associate with girls too much and boys thought I was a freak.  But I eventually realized that guys liked girly girls, not "tom boys" as I was designated.  So i changed.  I stopped buying boys clothes and bought fem/gender neutral clothes so that boys would like me.  But it never made a difference.   I still have never even been asked out by a boy since seventh grade.

I was desperate.  In elementary school, being myself was enough to get kids to like me, but in high school, nothing I did was ever enough.  I tried to be feminine, but I was still considered to be too tom boyish.  I never once made the full transition to all out girly girl.

So I proceeded through high school miserably trying to fit in with the girly girls.  I found myself most comfortable with the athletic girls because I was an athlete myself, but I was never one of them.  I never once fit in at high school with anyone.

It was during this time that I was diagnosed with mild depression. It basically meant that I was not immediately a danger to myself or others, but simply meant that I was really never happy, and that I was also anti-social.  I kind of already knew that.  I was only ever suicidal once that I can distinctly remember, but it was over domestic issues and wasn't directly related to my issues about my gender.  But needless to say, i was a terrible emotional state from the constant rejection of my peers.

I finally graduated from high school this past June, but when I was preparing for college I kept the same mentality.  "People like the girly girl.  Be the girly girl."  So I left all my boy clothes at home when I left for school.  And when I got there, I kept up with my girly girl act for awhile. I got involved in the queer community at my school. (keep in mind that I identified as a straight female at this time).  And being around lots of different people made me believe for the first time that there might be a place for me.  So i went to a few parties and had some drinks and had my first kiss . . . with a girl.  From this experience, and from what I really already knew (I had always been sexually attracted to women, but i had never thought to act on it before then) I stopped identifying as straight.  After more investigation and soul searching and came out to my closest friends as queer. (I say that I'm not out because I never really made an attempt to inform every single person I know, but if they ask about my sexual orientation, ill be up front about it.  I am, however not out to my parents or anyone back home about anything)

So things were happening pretty fast, but they still weren't right.  I had wanted to switch teams completely and come out as a lesbian because lesbians were aloud to dress in boys clothes.  But it was at that point that I realized that I was done denying myself.  I was not going to deny the part of me that was attracted to men just to fill some sort of perception that only lesbians could be butch.  And I didn't like being put into the box of bisexual because I felt like that term over simplified how I felt.  

It was shortly after this that I met my first transman.  He passed so well that I thought he was just a cisgender gay man.(he was straight by the way).  But before this, I didn't know that there was really any such thing as an Female to male transexual.  I mean, i knew about trans women but never trans men before.  But once I started doing research I began to hesitate because most people described trans men as previously identifying as lesbians before coming out as trans.  Just as most trans women are often scene as just overly fem gay men.  Regardless, in my mind, this information ruled transgenderism out as an option for me.

But then I came across an article about gay transmen, and I immediately identified with everything they were saying.  I had always had these fantasies in my mind where I was sometimes in a relationship with a woman and sometimes a man, but I was always a man in these fantasies.  I had always thought of myself as identifying with gay men, but i never understood why because I don't really share any characteristics with them. (gay guys are supposed to be fem right?)  

It's difficult to explain, but despite my serious lack of sexual experience with either sex, I already had these instincts of how a relationship between two men was supposed to be which was weird to me at first.  I tried to reconcile it again with a female on female relationship, but it really didn't feel the same to me.  But this, this was like the obvious answer i had been trying to answer ever for years.

It was at that point that all the puzzle pieces fell together.  Everything I had suffered since puberty suddenly made sense.  I was transgender, albeit a queer transgender, but what mattered was that I was right all along.  I was supposed to be a boy.

So that's my story, and I haven't told anybody about it before now, but it feels great to finally tell someone about it.  I'd be grateful for any comments about anything because at this point I'm really to shy to try to approach anyone for any kind of help.