Tell us...I knew I was...

[Tommi]

~Butch ~ Femme ~ Gay ~ Queer ~ Trans ~ Straight ~ or whichever descriptive image/s you choose

When did you know?

What did you do?

Tell us about your truths, your travels, travails, and trust. Tell us your story.

[Tommi]

“Tommi! Tommi! Do you want some pie.” “No thanks. I smiled at the curly headed little girl cousin. Three year olds playing in the mud. The girls were making pies. The boys were making bombs. I was making tunnels and roads for my trucks to drive through. My folks had a trucking business, so, it made sense. My cousins played contentedly in their make believe. I searched through the dirt for sticks and stones to create my great escape.

An only child, I observed that girls made mud pies and were tiny little women. I saw that boys made things that went bang, pop, smash and were tiny little men. I knew I would not grow up and be like them. I wanted to make my own roads, build bridges, pave my own way for as far back as I can remember. I knew I hated to be dressed like a girl, because, I wasn’t. Dad grumbled about me being in that tomboy phase. Gramma announced this was not a phase I would outgrow, because I was like my Mom. Gramma called me Tommi Rae, like my Uncle Donny Ray and told the world, I was her little hero, and he was our Marine.

In the summer of my fourth year, I read all of our names in the newspaper. We were going to school. I announced I would be in Kindergarten with Janet Craig, that pretty girl with long brown hair she twirled around her fingers in the sun. I said I was going to marry her. I smiled and knew I would love school and the travels to and fro.

Jackie, my high school girlfriend, with the long brown hair took the place of Janet and moved in with us. This time, I twirled her long brown hair. My bedroom became the house where she was the tiny woman and I was the…. What? Exactly what was I? Jackie called me her guy, her hero, her knight. I had rescued her from an abusive alcoholic father. Dad now called me queer. Gramma called me Tommi, and Mom. Mom said she was envious for a happy life she could never have.

Several years later my Mother met someone she loved, came out of the closet, threw my father out, and we all lived happily ever after. Was that the end of the story?

Not on your life, that was just the beginning of an adventure that carried us across the country, on the run from a jealous husband, and angry town, and the Chief of Police. You see, Jackie was his daughter, I was queer, and my Mother had stolen money from the family business to support her mistress. A true story of love, loss , hero’s and heroines in the country where we are all born free. We made that great escape to live another day and to be free and gay.

[Soft*Silver]

I must admit that who I am is simply me. Everytime I think I have finally wrangled my defining label, I prove myself wrong. I started out straigt, moved to lesbian, altered it to femme, went back to straight, was told I was really bi, determined myself to be lesbian, was told I was queer, twined myself into a straight lifestyle, two stepped into a bi relationship, became celibate...etc and so on...

I think I am hanging up the labels for awhile. All I can truthfully call myself is Femme and even that has altered lately. I never thought I would strap on but that has changed. I know alot of femmes do but that never was in my definition of femme but it is now in terms of myself.

I am not afraid of self evolution, thats for sure...

[Tommi]

Awesome softness!.

All of our stories are so different, and then we come together on the Planet and all have a connection, no matter who, what or where, as we spin along the road.

I know of folks who have been along that very same path you traveled.
Thanks for posting.

[Gemme]

Though I had childhood explorations and inclinations, I didn't put two and two together until I was in my early 20s. I came out when I was 26. My marriage ended and I began the long road to myself. I'm still on it, but I can see the layout much more clearly now.

[Tommi]

Gemme,
interesting and constantly evolving wonders aren't we. I know many who have married then yearn and lean another direction. In fact, I have known several * * divorcee's up close and personal., but that's another thread

Thanks Gemme.

[diamondrose]

I remember feeling different and liking girls more than boys at a very young age. I came out when I was 16 years old. My mom and family were all very accepting. That was only the beginning. As I came into my late teens and early twenties, I realized there was still something missing. I never felt quite right at the local gay hangouts. I always felt something was wrong with me, because I never felt like the "norm" .The missing link was our wonderful butch-femme community! Finally home!

[Tommi]

Originally Posted by diamondrose

I remember feeling different and liking girls more than boys at a very young age. I came out when I was 16 years old. My mom and family were all very accepting. That was only the beginning. As I came into my late teens and early twenties, I realized there was still something missing. I never felt quite right at the local gay hangouts. I always felt something was wrong with me, because I never felt like the "norm" .The missing link was our wonderful butch-femme community! Finally home!

WOW diamondrose....thanks for saying that* It is great having family support.
I have heard that recently about the BFP community. In fact , we heard that a whole bunch at the Reunion in Little Rock. I guess that is why this whole BFP works so well.

[diamondrose]

Originally Posted by Tommi

WOW diamondrose....thanks for saying that*
I have heard that recently. In fact , we heard that a whole bunch at the Reunion in Little Rock. I guess that is why this whole BFP works so well.

Thank you!!!

[princessbelle]

I love this thread and sharing of our stories. It truely makes me smile and it makes me so very thankful that we have a community here. A community to at least share our feelings and to know there are some people out there that truely do understand.

I was six, his name was Rick and all the little girls were in love with him. He liked me, a little blond girl in pigtails who loved all the things little girls were thought to love.....dolls, barbies...pink, pink and more pink.

Rick followed me around my yard and one day gave me a fish pin. I was ok with that and the other little girls were in awe that he gave me that fish pin. I really didn't care at all. However, later on that day he put his arm around me while we were sitting underneath that tree in his front yard. I punched him in the arm.

That is when i knew something was wrong. Not wrong in that little girls do go through the icky stage of not wanting to be around boys and thinking they were gross as in boy germs and all that. My knowledge came from deep within me and i remember thinking "I wish he was a girl". I will never forget that. I can still close my eyes and feel that feeling just as vivid today as i did when i was six.

I knew i was different. I knew i was a girl and loved being one but loved the tough, rugged tombois. I didn't understand being a femme until i came on these sites actually. I thought i was just an "odd" gay women that liked girly things and was even more confused than just being gay like society had taught me.. I hid many years from the outside world, but never from myself. I always knew. I always dreamed. I finally came out after years of thinking something was wrong with me.

Nothing is wrong with me.

[ravfem]

i took Health in HS because i wasn't allowed to take PE. Every day, i would sit almost holding my breath waiting for Coach Rogers to come into class. She was a little butch, maybe 5'2". But o.m.g. when she walked into class....my heart would beat a thousand times a minute and i would just about swoon, i swear!! i never, ever allowed myself to think about why she had that effect on me. i just enjoyed it.

Several years out of HS, i finally figured out i was gay while watching a music video of "Wild Nights" by John Mellencamp (he'd dropped the Cougar by then) with MeShell NdegeOcello. Every time MeShell would flash on screen, these strange things would happen to me.....new things.....yummy things! That was the first time i said to myself, "i'm gay".

i've always been attracted to butches. i tried dating a femme once....didn't last long at all. Just isn't my thing.

[girl_dee]

I knew I was gay from the time I wore diapers.. always chased the tomboys and liked the girls..

yup.. gay.

[bigbutchmistie]

Growing up I always knew I was different. I loved girls. They were so cute to mess with.. As a young butch, I'd pull their hair, pick them flowers, whatever I could do to get their attention

I enjoyed the feelings I would have for different girls. Really girly girls really made me swoon.. to smell their perfume watch them walk in heels, to watch them put their makeup on. I was so sprung. LOL By my teen years, my adopted parents had it figured out I was gay. I was banned to stay home. I had the biggest crush on my Youth Pastor. She was big and beautiful. So sexy and so femme. She would walk in the room and my jaw would drop.

I didnt have a clue as to why I had the feelings I had until I moved to Dallas/Fort Worth. And I wanted to kiss a girl so bad. I was shy, still like I am now to make the first move when I met my first girl who thank God was aggressive. She kissed me in the elevator at Northeast Mall in Hurst, Texas and dropped my knees to the ground. It felt so right. It felt so good. And I spent years in love with her. We were never together in a relationship but she was my first sexually. I wanted to marry her though. LOL And, that was the first time that I realized I really loved women. I was 18

[DomnNC]

I cannot recall a time where I thought of myself as a "girl". I'm like Tommi, I never had an interest in boys, cuz I was a boy. I had two lil girls that used to fight over me in first grade,lol, they were both cute, one a lil spitfire redhead and the other was a dark brunette. I hated being made to wear girl clothes. When "girls" were finally allowed to wear pants and shorts at school (yes, I'm that old!!) I'd sneak and carry a pair of jeans and a tshirt and change as soon as I got there, lol.

I always played with the trucks, cars, GI Joe, etcetcetc and then finally someone was born to play with the girly toys everyone would get me, my baby brother!! Yes, he's gay, I have 2 other brothers who are straight.

I've never dated a boy, never wanted to do so as they woulda made me queer, lol. I had a girlfriend in high school. I joined the Army straight out of high school, when I got to my permanent duty station she moved there with me.

This is all I've ever known, that's to be simply who I am.

[Soft*Silver]

I know this is going to sound strange but in my evolution, I now feel heterosexual. But in a lesbian way. I date masculinized people. Male Id'd butches. FtMs. CIS men. When I am in a relationship, I live a relationship patterned after traditional 50s type heterosexual norms. Clearly defined male female roles. I see myself as a lesbian who lives a heterosexual lifestyle but then I date people who ID as men or at least id with male energy. So how does that fit?

[LipstickLola]

I have always been different, the proverbial 'black sheep' (now PINK) of the family Along with my dolls, I played with a metal, yellow Tonka truck that I got one Christmas. Played in the creek with the neighbor boys finding crawdads to keep in a coffee can. Wore overalls and a pixie hair cut and always had a crush on another girl. Yet when I brought my high school g/f home.......the crap hit the fan. It was 1977 in my traditional, southern, religious family, I know'd I done wrong!! Thus began the stiffling of Lola.

I married a guy that was my best friend who had been dumped by his fiance, we shared lots of the same ideals, and more importantly? the family approved! We had kids and a great life, until I got so sick that I tried to end my life......what was at the bottom? me, the real me. I'm so happy I found her in time to live the second half of my life as the person God made me to be, today, on Thanksgiving, I'm thankful for that, among many other things.

[Ebon]

I knew I was queer when I was 8 and always played husband in our game of house with my little girlfriend at the time. Then when I was 12 I wanted to marry Mariah Carey and be her husband.

[LipstickLola]

Originally Posted by Organicbutch

I knew I was queer when I was 8 and always played husband in our game of house with my little girlfriend at the time. Then when I was 12 I wanted to marry Mariah Carey and be her husband.

I love this story.......my cousin, who was gay, and I used to play bride and groom, he always got to be the bride!!! I miss him so much, he died of AIDS in 1987.

[Diva]

It was 1980 when I actually thought to myself, "I may be a lesbian."

At the time, I was married to a man and about 6 months pregnant. I had had an erotic dream about women...the next day, I wrote it down.....and added to it. <smile>

I held onto it for a few weeks...but then I began to get scared I would be found out and I burned the story in the wood-burning stove and suppressed it for years.

Then, in 1989, I was drug out of the closet in the worst way; but in the long run, with the kind of suppressed life I led, being drug out was the only way it was going to happen, as I was a big, fat coward.

Yes, having the courage to do it myself would have been optimal. Hindsight is 20/20, is it not?

[Cowboi]

In my mind I always felt like I was a boy. I went hunting with my Daddy. Wanted to wear my cowboy boots to church. My poor Momma always had hell trying to get a dress on me!!! LoL

I too was always the "daddy" when we played house. I can remember in grade school, when all the guys had a girlfiend, I didn't know why any of the girls didn't want me a for their boyfriend.