I know when it started.

[Mirrabooka]

To be honest I didn't notice this biography subforum when I wrote my intro but I'm glad I found it now because it will give me the chance to tell y'all a bit more about myself and it might explain where I'm at.

 

I never played with dolls as a small child or was made to wear dresses or hung around girls. My very first memory of doing something that was not gender stereotypical was when I was about 9 or 10, early 1970's. It was a weekend, I was at a friend's place with another schoolfriend and we were all mucking around in the large shed on the adjacent lot owned by his father where he ran his business. There was a small back room that had all sorts of stuff stashed in it and my friend reached up and grabbed a pair of his mother's lacy nylon granny panties that he had hidden on a shelf. He pulled them up over his pants and pretended to sing an aria. We laughed so hard that we cried! I don't think it was that day, but not long after I must have had an opportunity at home to explore my mothers underwear collection, which I had never thought of doing before. I only found cotton granny panties. I did something different though, I stripped off before putting them on. The die was cast.

 

I'm not going to tell y'all everything, but there is one thing that happened around 12 years ago, which I only realized a year or so ago was salient. At that time I was a very active member on a home builder's forum when we were going through that process and I knew that probably 90% of the members were women but I felt totally at ease in their presence. To me, we were just people, sharing info and achievements but also de-stressing. I'm proud to admit that I am still in contact with several of them. One evening on the forum I was being particularly chatty and I was accused by a snobby woman in a demeaning manner that I was acting like one of the girls. What she said was probably true, but it actually upset me. Why couldn't I be accepted for just being me? Thinking about it now, I wonder, if my friends on that forum didn't actually know that I was male, was I actually just like them? One of them?

 

I cannot make the connection between childhood crossdressing and being like 'one of the girls' on that forum 40 years later, but there must be something there.

[Nicole D]

Hello again@Mirrabooka. It's funny how we don't know consciously but at some deep level something knows.

 

For example an odd thing about me is that my drivers license actually says female and has for the last 25 years. The reason is that 25 years ago I renewed my drivers license. I had a quite curly hair perm at the time and looked kind of feminine (and I was using a women's hair product). So the DMV worker looked at the photo put me down as female. I never corrected it, and though of it as kind of cute. I even showed it to male friends. Now most cis men would never have got the perm in the first place, or used women's hair product, and would have certainly corrected the gender. But something in me was happy with this, even though I had no conscious knowledge of being trans until very recently.

 

So yes, you were genuinely one of the girls on the forum and I think at some level you knew it.

 

Nicole.

[Mirrabooka]

Hey there, @Nicole D. Just goes to show, doesn't it, how wonderful hindsight can be. Nowadays I can think of so many examples of events and feelings through my life that didn't make sense then, but do now. I started joining the dots last year and, well, here I am!

[Gail]

we have all had those "events and feelings through my life that didn't make sense". Plus we had no one to explain them too.  It's no wonder that the general public doesn't understand Trans people.  It is after so many years of tears that we figure it out and that is just the start of the journey.

[Mirrabooka]

On 4/17/2023 at 8:36 PM, Mirrabooka said:

Just goes to show, doesn't it, how wonderful hindsight can be. Nowadays I can think of so many examples of events and feelings through my life that didn't make sense then, but do now.

So, here's another one.

 

I have no idea why I thought of this today, but I remembered something from my childhood that makes sense now. 

 

I never wanted to play sport. At the age of 7, I was asked if I wanted to play footy. Natural answer was no. Even at 12 or 13, when my best friend was getting into basketball, and I also had the chance, I said no.

 

I know that women play sport too but as a boy I just wasn't inclined to do anything physical. I'd rather help mum bake a cake.

[Mirrabooka]

Gonna treat this thread for what it is, a biography of sorts, and add to it every now and then. The chapters will be random and disjointed and not a timeline. 

A couple of weeks ago, I initiated a conversation with a nurse who was looking after me for a while, about her long, pretty nails. They were stick-on ones and clearly starting to grow off, but she had them painted a gorgeous shade of pink. We were both fully engaged in this short, whimsical conversation. Just for a few moments, to me, we were two women talking about women stuff, even though she probably didn't see it that way. I wonder now if she thought at the time it was strange, even though she was fully invested?

 

There's no way I would have even thought about launching into such dialog even a couple of years ago. It only happened because I have changed the way I feel about how my inner woman has her way with me - self-acceptance - and I love it!

[Ivy]

7 minutes ago, Mirrabooka said:

Just for a few moments, to me, we were two women talking about women stuff, even though she probably didn't see it that way.

I think sometimes when we are fully engaged with someone, gender can fade away for a moment.  We just connect.

[Mirrabooka]

@Ivy, yes, you are right. It actually made a welcome change for me. In that serendipitous moment, gender was the furthest thing from my mind instead of the nearest, but it all felt so affirming!