Androgyny And Sexuality: My Case

[Guest midori]

Hi everyone,

I’m new to this forum and enjoy being here.

I’m a biological male in my mid sixties. I’m somewhat reluctant to give my age (but decided to be open about it) because I feel that the matters I want to talk about are ones I should have sorted out many years ago, during what’s been a confused, confusing and –where gender and sexuality are concerned, which is all the time, every day, because they’re part of the core of our being-often unhappy life.

I recently did the COGIATI test (and intend to do it again, to double-check the scoring) and found I was on the border of “androgyne/probable transsexual”. This gave me a very positive feeling, one I find hard to describe. I felt happy about it, certainly, because if this is indeed the case, which I believe and hope it is, it helps explain so much and makes me feel that I’m beginning to know, at last, who I am, whether I’m bisexual, homosexual, or neither of these, or whether I am- because in part my gender is female, in part heterosexual.

From the age of twelve to the time I was eighteen I attended a boys’ boarding school. When I was about 14, while in a neighbouring town on a day’s holiday, I bought my first item of women’s clothing, a somewhat dangerous thing to do since the places we kept our belongings were subject to instant search by the school authorities. My private thing was never found, however, and I don’t remember what happened to it. At that time, or soon after, I liked to pretend I had female breasts, making a physical substitution, which was very arousing. Later, in school, ballroom dancing classes were obligatory: I hated them, feeling clumsy and awkward, and wasn’t good looking. I also hated all sport, particu;larly team games, but was forced to play rugby, hockey, cricket and softball, and go cross-country running. I loved creative writing and foreign languages but hated science (which nevertheless I found myself studying at an advanced level, on account of future career expectations). For about one year, at this time, I all but quit all academic work, devoting my time to writing “black” poetry. By then I’d fallen deeply in love with a boy over four years by junior; though we later lived together for two or three years, the relationship was never consummated: he was 100% interested in girls, only.

I won’t try to give a blow-by-blow account of what followed but cannot avoid mentioning a few things. My first sexual experience, in my early to mid twenties was with a woman the same age. I’m not sure why I did that, except that it was “the thing to do”. She was fun and enjoyed the company of the local gay men in our town’s two gay bars. She and I would be there with them but I never really identified with them or felt attracted to any of them. I have, though, frequently been attracted to men who were, as far as I know, heterosexual, though have never done anything physical with them. I’ve been pursued by men: those few I’ve been to bed with didn’t attract me; I guess I wanted to be wanted. At other times I’ve run a mile.

In my early and mid twenties I wore women’s clothing from time to time, and make-up, and combed my hair in a girly way, but always in private. I wanted to “pass” as a cross-dresser and meet men. At that time, all this was arousing: at the same time I used to wish I were “normal”, attracted to girls.

In fact, I’ve never known, until now, perhaps, what I am. At age 30 I got married, a liaison which lasted about three years. After separation, a kindly and sympathetic woman doctor who I’d consulted about some other matter decided I needed pschiatric counselling, which I underwent.

As a full-time student in my mid thirties I continued to have relationships with women, particularly an extremely attractive one, slightly older than me, who I now recognise as predatory but whose interest and attentions I found flattering. The women I went with started the thing off: my friendships with men, never consummated, were –and are- I now realise, based on my sexual attraction to them.

I remember how, particularly in my mid-thirties I would love to look at and admire certain women without wanting to be with them in a sexual context: only I wanted to BE that woman.

For a period in my late thirties-early forties, my encounters/relationships were exclusively with MF transsexuals. I felt no attraction to “conventional” men or “conventional” women. At the time and for some time afterward I felt that during this period I was in fact having relationships with men, whilst denying that this was the case, while claiming (to myself) that “I wasn’t gay”. But now I no longer know or understand.

My life has been punctuated by buying binges during which I’ve bought lots of wonderful female (under) clothing and sometimes dresses and skirts, and shoes. I’ve periodically disposed of it, but now the urge is stronger than ever. Three weeks ago I went shopping and again, having added to my “collection”wear exotic stuff all the time, cross-dressing fully at home but “superficially male” while out and about, and feeling so good, so “whole” I can say, knowing how, privately, I’m really dressed. My second marriage is solid and has been so for the past sixteen years. Before marrying I made sure my wife knew about certain parts of my nature and she is very understanding. Nonetheless, she married me understanding that I’m a man not a woman, so I feel that the way that I am, with a carefully shaved body and so on is not what she really wants.

My understanding of the COGIATI test, however, is that the result shows my gender to be about 40% male and 60% female. As I said at the beginning, I hope this really is the case and if it is, am happy to know that.

However, I am confused and do not understand my sexuality. I understand, I think, that both my genders may be heterosexual, homosexual or neither. Is the male part of me homosexual with regard to my attaction to men, or does that attraction arise from being a heterosexual woman? Does my attraction to certain kinds of women, and my attraction to woman-to-woman relations, arise from the woman within me? Does that make me a gay woman, in part?

Now I don’t think of myself, essentially, as a man. I know that if I could choose, I’d have been born a woman; sometimes I’ve wanted to be rid of the particular part that makes me a biological male, and I want to be a complete woman, physically, but I don’t want this enough to actually make that transformation. During “heterosexual sex” I feel myself to be be exclusively a woman. When I cross-dress to the extent that I now do, habitually, I find a certain peace and contentment, I feel it’s “right”, I feel no sexual arousal just a very strong urge to dress as a woman, to have a woman’s hairstyle, to be “womanly”.

A complication, I think, is that I have, at this point in my life (and have felt this way for some years) two almost equally strong desires: to have as my partner a woman who has to wear, or wears, long leg braces and uses a wheelchair; and to be a woman like that, a wheelchair user, in a relationship with, or attractive to, a heterosexual man/heterosexual men. If forced to choose, I would be that woman. This last part, about the braces and wheelchair, I do not understand, knowing only that it’s a key part of the wanting to be a woman and cross-dressing..

In the above I’ve shared some of my feelings and asked some questions. I hope to hear from people who’ve been to some or all of these same places or, like me, are there now.

Many thanks,

Midori