Gender Evolution - Your Coming of Age Stories

[Bit]

What? Nobody's started yet?

I'll be back after I walk the doglet.

[Darth Denkay]

I'll bite...

Let's see, for many many many years I didn't understand the distinction between sex (biological) and gender (social construct/emotional/mental). When I was younger (elementary age maybe) I knew I was a lot more like the boys but didn't really know what that meant. And at the time I don't think it really mattered much. I was seen as a tomboy, allowed to do what I wanted, so my sex wasn't really much of an issue.

My first sense of being a little two different was during middle school when all my female friends went ga-ga over guys and I was feeling it - this ga-ga thing - for the girls. This was my first sense that all was not right with me. I knew enough not to talk about it. This was when I started to get some pressure from society (although not from my parents) that maybe I should grow my hair out, try a little make-up, and it wouldn't kill me to wear a dress once in a while. Course the idea of wearing a dress - to me - did almost feel like it could be fatal. In any case, I didn't do any of these things that I was supposed to do as a girl, and life still wasn't too complicated. In my mind I saw myself as the 'romantic partner' of the girls. Lots of crushes, lots of fantasies - about lots of girls - I was definitely a fantasy stud. At this point it really wasn't sexual for me - this was in the 80s when sex was really uncommon until high school, but I was definitely feeling something 'more than friends' towards a lot of female friends. Of course, at this point it really worked in my favor because I went to a few slumber parties - oh yeah, that's what I'm talking about!!!!

It was during high school that things really began to become an issue. I still was completely uncomfortable with the thought of makeup, dresses, long hair. On occasion I wore a dress, very rarely, just when Mom said that I really had to (weddings I remember were one such event). I did wear pants and button-ups to church - my mom overall totally let me be me. It was sometime during high school that I found a label that seemed to describe me - lesbian - but it wasn't something I talked about to anyone. This was also the time when my sex/gender became an issue for me internally. Puberty brought on changes that illuminated the difference between myself and the boys - it made it much more difficult to see myself as one of the guys. Thing is, I still really couldn't see myself as one of the girls either. What the hell was I???????????

In college I came out as gay. Overall it was a really positive experience, and removed some of the pressure to look like a girl. Even so, it didn't really relieve my internal sense that something wasn't quite right. I knew that beyond being gay, I was still really different than others of my sex. I also accepted the gender binary - I had to be either a girl or a boy. I felt a lot more like a boy. So here began the thought that maybe I was supposed to be a boy. I knew a little about transsexuals and wondered if that was what I was. It was a really scary thought for me, because while I had other gay friends and lots of supportive straight friends, I knew no one who was transgendered, and somehow that just seemed like a really horrid possibility.

After college I read a book by Fausto-Sterling - Sexing the Body. This was the first time I had any exposure to the possibility that gender was distinct from sex and might be more than just male and female. This was an amazing thought to me. I read what I could find on it, and although the books gave me somewhat a sense that maybe I wasn't a total freak, I still knew no one else like me.

It was 1999. I was 26 years old. I met a woman who identified as a femme. I had no idea what that meant. We became good friends, and through her I learned about this community called butch-femme. She explained a lot, and from there I hit the internet. I found a web-site that would change my life. I found others like me. I learned that gender really was so much more than male and female. I realized that transitioning was not the only option I had. I realized I didn't have to defined by my physical sex.

During the ten years I was involved on the site (for the first 5 years only as a lurker) my gender has shifted. I started as a lesbian who was uncomfortable with gender, who didn't understand my own. I claimed butch as my gender because it recognized - celebrated - my strong association with masculinity. I added trans because while I didn't feel like a woman, I also didn't feel totally like a guy either. I found a place where I wasn't in a box, where my gender was my own to define and describe as it fit for me. I also stopped identifying as a lesbian, for two reasons. One, I no longer identified as a woman so really wasn't a lesbian. Two, I knew that my attractions were towards a specific type of woman - a femme - and that many femmes did not identify as a lesbian either. I comfortably identify as gay (although within the butch-femme community technically I'm attracted to the opposite gender, which would make me straight...but that's an entirely different thread).

I have no plans at this time to transition. I do want chest surgery - at the very least an extreme reduction if not complete removal. In this way I guess I am uncomfortable with my female body. Beyond that, right now, the rest is okay.

My sex = female - biological
My gender = trans butch - because it's who I am

[Darth Denkay]

Okay folks, I wanna hear your stories. I didn't write mine out for my health. So come on, get with it! Seriously though, we all experience an evolution of gender. Even straight folks do but they never have to actually pay any attention to it. So butch, femme, however you identify, you better share. Don't make me have to be a mean little ewok (remember, we defeated the empire, don't fuck with us)...

[atomiczombie]

As early as 2 years old, I hated the dresses my mom would put me in to go to church. I never liked all the girly, frilly things in my bedroom or closet. I can remember at 3 years old, my favorite shirt was a beige sweatshirt with bugs bunny on it. With that and jeans and sneakers, I was totally me. At age 5, the winter olympics were on and Dorothy Hammil, the famous figure skater was on tv. I can remember my mother saying how she liked her short hair, and I told my mom I wanted my hair short like that. I was allowed to get my hair cut short for the first time in my life, and I loved it. I was often mistaken for a boy by strangers, which I loved too.

Later that same year, (1976) I finally figured out that I wasn't really a girl. I had crushes on little girls in my class at school, and ran around with the boys when they let me. I coveted my brother's toys and hated the barbies my folks got me for christmas. I began announcing to anyone who would listen, that I wanted to be a boy. The reception of this news was met by either dismissal, laughter or shame. My mother told me I wasn't a boy, that I was a girl and that was that. I was silly to think otherwise, and told to stop such nonsense. My heart was broken.

I remember in first grade, crushing on this little girl with long brown hair in my class. I opened doors for her, pulled out her chair and scooted her in to her desk, and followed her around like a puppy. One day, I boldly confessed to her that I loved her. Many people found this amusing, however my teacher did not and called my folks. I was lectured to leave her alone, so I did. My heart was broken again.

I resigned myself to being a girl with great sadness when I hit puberty. I quit playing little league baseball and was pressured to conform to the gender expectations of my sex by everyone in my life. I was made fun of by other kids, particularly my older brother, and no longer tolerated as a "tomboy". So, I grew my hair out just to get people off my back.

When my body began to change, I was horrified and miserable. Growing breasts, hips widening, new body hair, menstruating; it all was sickening to me. I hated it. But there was nothing I could do. I still refused to wear dresses, and wore jeans and androgenous clothes as much as possible, but the pressure to be feminine was HUGE. I think this was the first point (but most definitely not the last) in my life when I thought about suicide. I was so depressed. But I decided that what I felt and wanted just wasn't important to anyone, and my only value in life was connected with living up to other people's expectations of me.

So I tried to conform. I tried to wear make-up and act like my female friends, to fit in. I fell in with the drug-using crowd and got high to escape my misery. I pretended to crush on guys, all the while lying to myself about my real feelings. I ignored and suppressed my true self in order to survive my teenage years. By age 15, I was drug-addicted and cutting myself. I swallowed a whole bottle of prescription decongestants and slept for almost 20 hours, awakening to the worst headache ever and wishing I had never awakened at all.

Long story short, I went to an in-patient drug rehab and psych ward, where I was diagnosed bipolar. Then next 10 years I was clean of drugs and alcohol, but miserably depressed. In my mid to late 20s, I finally saw a therapist who helped me process all the painful things that happened in my life. At age 28, I began to talk about my feelings for girls, that I had repressed for so many years.

I finally came out as a lesbian at age 29, and met my future wife that year as well. I fell madly for her and although my hair was still long, our dynamic was clearly butch/femme. I didn't have a name for it at that time, but as I was more involved with the gay community, I began to see that some other gay women had a similar dynamic. By age 31, I was finally able to embrace my masculinity and call myself butch. Cutting my hair and shopping in the mens department was very scary, but insanely liberating. A great weight had been lifted from my shoulders, and I felt so much better about me. My wife, however, did not feel the same. She eventually asked me to grow out my hair again and said ugly things to me like, "if I wanted to be with a man I would be with one." This and many other issues eventually led to our separation in 2005. Our divorce was official in 2006.

After the end of my marriage, I found a new freedom. And, I found the butch-femme community online and in the SF bay area, where I lived at the time. It was here, in this community, that I learned that sex and gender were not the same and that many people like myself considered themselves transgendered and preferred male pronouns. That totally resonated with me. As I began to hear the stories of other transguys, I realized that so much of their stories were my story too.

In 2006, I told my very good femme friend Nicole and my buddy Sugar, that I preferred male pronouns. Nicole immediately announced that I needed a new name, and went to work thinking of one for me. She tried out a few that I didn't like, then one day left a text message on my phone. It said she thought of the perfect name for me: Drew, and that I had to say yes to that one because she already changed my name in her phone to Drew, LOL. I thought about it for a while. I found myself sitting at my desk at work and practicing my signature: Drew Nelson. It seemed to fit. In December 2007 that became my legal name.

My journey continues. I am determined to start testosterone at the beginning of this next year. I want to have chest reconstruction surgery, and I'm currently trying to figure out how to raise the money for it. I am grateful to everyone in the community for helping me with my journey, and I am on my way to being the guy I was always meant to be.

[MrSunshine]

I was just born like this. Imagine mommy dearests surprise.

[Bit]

I haven't got the energy to write anything more today--at least nothing deep *wry smile*--but I promise I really will be back.

Here's a beginning for you to hold hostage against my return: I was born a girl, and I always knew I was supposed to be a girl, but I never fit in anyway....

[Just_G]

I did not see this thread here and accidentally started one very similar today...oops! Oh well, right?

So here is something I posted several years ago in my blog:

Being me has been a hard road mentally. I know we all have our stuff, and I am not saying that mine is any worse than anyone elses, so please don't get me wrong. I just want to let you into my head, into some of my thoughts, my past, my journey, and let you see what makes me tick the way I do. Perhaps this explains why I am the forgiving person that I am; something a lot of people have never understood about me.

You see, growing up, I thought I was a boy. For the first ten years of my life, I was a boy. It sucked when mom put me in those dresses, it sucked when I had to wear tights, it sucked when I had to get my hair curled for family functions and school. I was a boy, I wasn't supposed to be doing all of this. Why did all of that have to take place?

Then, it started to happen. I started looking like a girl. Things were going on with my body that weren't happening to all my other guy friends. When this started to happen, they quit wanting to go ride bikes, play ball, climb trees, and go goof off at the park picking on all the squealy girls. I was floored that they didn't want to be my friend any more. To top it all off, my parents divorced. So, now you have a pre-pubescent, confused, pre-teen that thought she was a boy, torn up by a not so pretty divorce. I started pulling my hair, getting little bald patches on the back of my head....all of this stress triggered TrichoTilloMania; a hairpulling disorder that is usually caused by traumatic events in one's life. (www.trich.org) Boy, if I wasn't different before, I sure was now.

I went through jr. high getting tripped, getting the books knocked out of my hands, getting my locker slammed, and getting called every name in the book that they could think of. "baby dyke"..."hello, you are a girl!"...."lesbo"...."freak"....."baldy"....I hated going to the girls locker room, I didn't belong there. I hated school. I quit sports, the one thing that set me apart from all the other girls and made me happy. I didn't have many friends....I was a freak in my own head, I didn't need them to tell me that. I just wanted to be one of the boys going into the other locker room. I didn't want to shave my legs and deal with monthly girl issues. I just wanted to be with the guys.

High school came and it couldn't end soon enough. I tried to grow my hair, put on make up, and carry a purse just so I would fit in with the other girls....it didn't work, it was too late. They all knew....."she's a dyke" I would hear them say. "No I'm not, I am just one of the guys" is what would pound through my head. I wanted to play football and fit in where I thought I belonged. I was a jock, and had no way of proving who I really was. Doing this whole drag routine and trying to fit in with a bunch of girly girls was not making my life easy at all. To compound the problem, I still pulled my hair. I wore hats when I could so nobody would see what they were doing to me when they were so hateful. My own family told me to "just quit it", but how could they understand? They had no idea what I went through on a daily basis!

I have always been a boy in my head. When I look in the mirror, I don't see a female. I see one of the guys. To go through my entire life, knowing I was born in the wrong body has been such a rollercoaster for me. At several points in my life, I wanted to kill myself. I just wanted it to end....all the hate that I had for myself for being so different was driving me to suicide quicker than the hate around me. Then, when I was 21, my cousin Rob committed suicide. I saw what it did to my family, how it tore them up, how they didn't understand why he did it....how it just shattered that part of my family. I could never do to them what he did. He just saved my life without even knowing it. To this day, my family doesn't know it. I want to tell them, but I don't think they would understand. I had to find a way to go on and not think those thoughts, but it was hard. They always sat in the back of my mind.

For years I ran around with the andro lesbian crowd, because we all had that one thing in common, we all liked girls. I happened to look like a girl, so it was a well suited disguise. I never liked the term lesbian; I didn't want to date the butchy looking girls; I liked the girly ones. I still do to this day....

Then, it happened, light had arrived at the end of the depression tunnel. 8 years ago I discovered the butch/femme website, I thought I had struck gold. There were all kinds of butches on there that didn't want to be called "she" either. I developed a brotherhood of butch friends that understood where I was coming from. I met femme girls that thrived on our masculinity. People that I had never met in person understood me and accepted me more than the people in my every day life. "I am not the only person that feels like this....I am not a freak!!" No more suicidal thoughts, I now had the support of this wonderful on-line community. I read and read all of the threads, and I read stories similar to mine. Butches and FtMs that had some of the same experiences....people that felt as trapped in their biologically female bodies as I do in mine. I felt at peace, at home with these people.

For a long time, I thought that the only way I would ever be happy would be to transition to live as a male. (some days I still think about it) I seriously thought about taking testosterone and changing my gender all together.....but, would that truly make me happy? No, because then I would have lost my family and a lot of my friends along the way. I didn't want that. I just wanted to be me. My therapist asked me one day; "what would be the ideal solution for you?" I told him that if I could have a chest reconstruction and a hysterectomy, I could live like that the rest of my life. I want no association with the physical female part of me, the daily/monthly things that remind me that I am not a biological male. My therapist told me to do what it takes to create my own life, then go out and live it. He was right, and that is what I have done. I have since then had a hysto, and plan on having my chest done some day.

It has taken years of self discovery, but I finally accept myself and all the qualities that make me who I am. I am not a freak. I am not a male. I am not a female. I am transgender....a perfect mix of both worlds in my eyes. I accept, that in everyone else's eyes, I may be "different", but to me, I am normal. This is who I am supposed to be. I am not sure why I was chosen for this once, really confusing life; why anyone would have to go through their life not knowing who or what they are. I might not find that reason, ever.

I still have to deal with the derogetory terms, the negativity, the ignorance, and the downright hatred. In fact, I still have bad dreams from a recent experience in my life. An experience that has made me realize that some people think they understand, they say they do, but they truly don't. When they say negative things in regard to my transgender identity, I don't fight back or try to hurt them with words, that would only be doing to them what has been done to me all along. I want to pull them aside and explain to them; to help them understand that not everyone is like them. I can't get mad at them, they simply do not understand.

I hate that I have to explain why I don't dress like a girl, why I don't label myself as a "lesbian", why I don't shave my legs, and why I really don't mind when someone calls me "sir". However, it is something I will have to do the rest of my life, I accept that. For the most part, I just let it be, but when I meet new people, I want them to understand that about me. I feel if I do this, perhaps someday they might meet someone that is like me, and be more understanding and accepting of them. It is my own form of 'pay it forward'....

Peace-
G