Posting The Initial Post

[Guest Lothar]

Hello everyone.

It's very nice to have space for a first post on the forum, it's a nice ice-breaker (or so I perceive it).

I came to find out about Laura's playground from a TS friend and came to check it out myself since I am ... I think the term was gender-fluid.

The thing is, I am very open and accepting to everyone's identity and uniqueness but my own - I feel I am a prisoner of fear and cliches that I have been taught and internalized.

I have female genitals. I love my vagina. I dislike the presence of my breast - I would my chest to look like of all the other men yet I don't like the idea of surgery (I was raised into the belief that the given body is to be accepted and loved and that doing any surgery that is not crucial is a laughingstock matter - keep away from the doctors and don't try changing your body, every body is beautiful the way it is).

My first memory of wanting to be a boy is when I was five, when I was wishing so hard that I could be a boy so I could have a girlfriend when I grow up (and since I was born a girl, I'd have to be some boy's girlfriend myself - I absolutely loathed the idea).

Years past and I have realized that one can be a woman in flesh and still have girlfriends - it's called lesbianism:)

Ever since the discovery I have been actively enjoying my lesbian identity - however I still

First of all, I do not believe in gender-based clothes (clothes do not have genitals, so how can you possibly tell whether it's male pants or female pants?). I feel best in comfortable clothes. Most of the time I prefer what people would call "male"-looking or unisex clothing. I have worn a dress three times in my life (end of primary and secondary school and when my leg was so badly injured I could not wear pants). I enjoy wearing shirts that emphasize my breast on rare occasions when I go to lesbian clubs (I go to lesbian clubs often, it is on rare occasions that I enjoy such clothing - simply because I know the pleasures that might follow if you get a girl excited about your body).

However, I have a strong dislike for "feminine" clothes - as soon as I could talk, I refused to wear skirts, dresses or "girly shoes".

I have spent my time with boys, playing with cars, playing football, hockey, chasing cats ... doing everything the rest of the boys were doing.

In all my day dream, I was a boy. I didn't ponder on the physical aspects (e.g. having a penis), although I did always want to pee standing up. All my life - up to the point when I had to start to wear a bra - I remember feeling proud that my chest looked like a boy's - proud to the point that I would take off my shirt each time somebody came to visit and walk into the kitchen, hoping granny hadn't told them she had a grand*daughter* so they would believe I was a boy.

Anyway, all this and more did not make me think that it was in any way unusual behaviour for a girl ... Not the desire to be male, being thrilled when I manage to pass as a boy (on the street, on the bus etc.). Doing drag - pleasurable. Once I was lying next to a lesbian lady I liked very much ... knowing she was a lesbian and only fell for girls and feeling extremely attracted to her. When she started stroking my hair I was thinking to myself "I could make love to her right now if only I were a girl ... Wait a minute - I am a girl! (my point is not that we made love but that I forgot I was a I girl )

However, I wasn't paying much attention to all that cause it was obvious to me that this is normal. Surely that is what all girls want.

Then recently I started reading a book on transgender/transsexualism. And in that book there is a sentence that goes something like this: Many transgendered (or did it say transsexual, I'm not sure) people have reported the experience of feeling puzzled and extremely surprised when they spoke about their thoughts (the desire of either to have the visual physical traits of the other biological or to be treated as a member of the opposite gender) and found out that most other people do not share these images, desires or dreams. A TRANSsomething person (again, I'm not sure which it was) is often suprised to find out that other people do not wish to be of the other sex/gender. And I went: "What do you mean, other people don't have this desire? Surely everyone does!"

In disbelief, I started making an enquiry, asking friends, classmates, room-mates, fellow lesbians ... turns out the book was right. There are women out there (even lesbian women) who are satisfied with their gender roles, who are proud of having to wear a bra, who do not want to pee standing up, who do NOT WANT TO BE MEN.

Realizing this, I started to view my experience from a new perspective. It's nothing heart-breaking; this is have I have been all my life. Giving it another name, I haven't changed. I just know that what I am experiencing is not common to all women as I have thought before.

Anyway, I hope that I will find some further insight with the help of Laura's playground and all its professional and amateur users.

The pronoun I use online is not of such importance (although I wouldn't mind a "he") because, to me, the virtual world is of minor importance compared to the world. Where, unfortunately, I don't feel safe enough to tell my story as openly as I have here.

Be it enough for now.

Greetings,

Lothar

[Guest Michelle M]

I agree with you on the clothes. People should wear what they want, not what society dictates. Chris Crocker is male and wears skirts/girl shirts. Paula Poundstone is female and wears men's suits with a tie. Some items are inevitable though. Dresses look bad on a male body because they were cut for a female frame. But things like robes, yukatas, kimonos, kilts are technically feminine but look fine on men, and society has men who wear those items. For transsexuals, it's not about clothes, it's about identity and how they're treated. It's just that the clothes help society to recognize your assigned gender by the clothes we all subliminally associate as being masculine or feminine.

I like how you have a very strong sense of yourself. You know who you are, and you listen to yourself, not society. There are a lot of humans who go through life not knowing who they are, and they make their own lives or other people's lives miserable over it. Knowing yourself is one of the most important parts of life.

[Guest Lothar]

Hey Michelle, thanks for the reply and the kind words.

I was away for the weekend, thus the belated reply. It's nice to get some interaction going, I always feel slightly intimidated when joining a forum or any other already existing internet community (I am not that virtuous in online communication) so I was very glad to come home now and see that someone has posted a reply.

Sending kind regards to your part of the world,

Lothar

[MaryEllen]

Hello Lothar,

Welcome to Laura's Playground. You don't have to feel intimidated here. You're among friends who understand how you feel.

MaryEllen

[Guest Rika-chama]

Welcome to the forums Lothar. Thanks for sharing your story with us and I'm glad that you know who you are and ignore what society says about gender

[Guest Drew]

hi Lothar, welcome to the forums