I’m transgender. There’s no way around it, there’s no hiding from it, there’s no escape from it. I would have rather been born female, that means I’m trans. I have to face it, and deal with it. But that doesn’t mean it has to uproot everything in my life.
Saturday night, my wife and I were driving to a party, and I brought up the subject of gender again. I started talking about some of my concerns, like if I could be a good enough father figure for our kids, or if I presented more feminine around them while at home, they’d eventually start talking about it, and my secret would get out. (We live in a small town) She told me she didn’t think she could talk about it at that moment, since we were almost to the party and she was starting to choke up, so I dropped the subject for the time.
Sunday morning, she comes out of the bedroom, and the first thing she says to me, already choking up, is “I think we need to talk.” What followed was a long, tearful talk about how she was scared of what I’d do. Scared of what I might become. How she didn’t want to lose me, but didn’t think we could be together if I was going to be a woman, but also didn’t want me to suppress who I truly was and how I truly felt, because that would lead to even worse problems down the road. I told her that I’d do whatever it took for us to stay together, and for me to be there for my family. We talked for a long time after that, and she felt a lot better, but I swore to myself in my head that I was done with this whole thing, that I’d put all these feelings in the past, and live my life as 100% male. I took off my nail polish, cut my nails, told myself I’d stop shaving my legs and my hands, forget my desire for feminine clothes, and stop looking and reading about trans topics online. I spent the rest of that day feeling pretty depressed, but kind of determined.
But then Monday morning, I woke up to this absolutely vile, hateful DM on reddit. TW: Transphobia. I was so shocked at what I read, I almost couldn’t have an emotional reaction. Transphobia has always pissed me off, but now it felt different since it was directed at me. Now it was a personal attack. And a lot of the things that were written were like a direct attack at my worst fears. That I’m not worthy of love. That I’m disgusting for feeling the way I do. That I’m ugly. That my wife couldn’t possibly want to be with me anymore.
I didn’t even know what to do about it, so I just went off to work. I decided to tell my wife via text that I was feeling down because of a message I got, but didn’t go into specific details because I didn’t want to make her cry. It ended up consuming a lot of my thoughts at work that day, and I was reconsidering a lot of the promises I made to myself the day before. But also doubting my future in a lot of ways. Just all around uncertainty and confusion.
When we both got home, I gave her a big hug, and kind of leaned on her for a while. In our body language, that means we need to talk about something, so we laid down and had another long talk. I told her exactly what the message said. And for the first time since discovering all these things about myself, I was finally able to cry, be 100% vulnerable, and say exactly how I felt about everything. How I was scared, but also felt liberated at the same time. How I hated and loved this side of me at the same time. I told her that my main goal is still to have a family, and to be everything that they need me to be. But that means I have to take care of myself too.
I told her I don’t want to transition, but I’m going to continue doing the things I’ve been doing to alleviate my dysphoria. The nails, the shaving, the female characters in games, and my art. But that I’m also going to experiment with different things from time to time, to see how they feel to both of us. Maybe some women’s clothing to wear around the house from time to time, so I can be in “girl mode.” And who knows, maybe some of the stuff I wear might show off some of the parts she likes about me a little more. She was good with all of this, and wants to support me no matter what. And if there’s ever anything that makes her uncomfortable, we’ll talk about it and we can adjust. We’ve always been very good at communication and at being very open with our feelings.
I’ll still be her man, but I can also be my woman, if that makes sense. I think I’m coming back to the fact that gender fluid/non binary is probably how I really feel. We both ended that conversation very happy, and confident and secure in our relationship. We spent the rest of the night playing Yoshi’s crafted world, catching up on Brooklyn 99, and having sex. (Which again, feels so much better when I'm in this state of mind.)
So I think the future it looking pretty bright now! I think the next steps for me are exploring some clothes, and maybe a wig. And probably also getting in to see a gender therapist to figure out what these thoughts and feelings really mean. I'm seeing a therapist now, and she's really great and I trust her a lot, but I don't think she's fully equipped to help me with all of this. I wanted to post this update so share my good news with everyone. Thanks to everyone for their advice in the last thread. I took a lot of it to heart, and I won’t forget it! I'll keep coming back with questions about my journey, and to follow along with everyone else's too! :)
Now if I could get a few people to call me sis, I'd really appreciate it.
Submitted April 02, 2019 at 11:03PM by Mioke_Magic https://ift.tt/2WGbsCA
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