From: an1154@anon.penet.fi (Erika)
Newsgroups: alt.transgendered
Subject: Awakening
Date: 30 Dec 92 00:27:48 GMT
Organization: Anonymous contact service
X-Anonymously-To: alt.transgendered

This group has had a dramatic impact on my carefully constructed vision of
myself.  Through reading what others had gone through and finding a number of
startling similarities, I have had a number of long buried memories come to
the surface.  There is a common thread through my life that points toward
a TS orientation.  How strong this is and what I do with this information
is something that I am going to have to work on answering.

I remember many times going into my parents room, when nobody else was at home,
and trying on my mothers bra and girdle.  I don't remember trying on her 
nylons, but I did like walking in her shoes.  After I realized what females
looked like, I would move my penis to make me look the same.  This was all
done in great secrecy since at this time, anything to do with sex was 
considered dirty.  I did this dressing up to find out how I looked and what
it felt like to be female, not to achieve sexual arousal.  I wished that
I was female.

School life was very hard for me.  My family had moved around and I was always
the new kid on the block.  I never seemed to fit in with the other _guys_
and was picked on regularly.  I was not the _macho_ type and didn't fit in.
I still have very strong memories of embarrassment having to show my naked
body in the locker room and showers.  This feeling remains with me today.  I
don't feel right being in there with these _men_.

I got married very young, after all this was what I had been programmed to
do.  I had learned a strong sense of duty and self-sacrifice.  I continued
my infrequent secret dressing up in my wife's things.  That marriage 
eventually ended in divorce after we had grown in different directions.
I had been typed as the _too nice husband_ in the same manner that 
people saw me as a _nice_ person.  Not _macho_ or feminine, just _nice_.
There were a number of years that I dated with the same result, they saw
me as a friend and not a romantic interest.  Maybe they knew something that
I had not realized.  I was very lonely and eventually remarried.

Throughout this time, I had many thoughts about Christine Jorgensen and
wondered about her journey.  In more recent years, Dr. Rene Richards had
created a scandal in women's tennis due to her TS status.  These things
always seemed to stir something inside of me that I would fight to supress.

About a year ago there was a documentary film on PBS about a TS in California.
It took her from the start of her SRS transition period through the uncertainty
of whether she would have/be allowed to have SRS.  The empathy that I felt
while watching this show remains with me today.

The thing that probably kept me _on the straight and narrow_ was fear.  I
was terrified with the thought that I would have to tell wife, parents, kids,
friends, and employers the perveted thoughts that were swimming around in my
head.  I would have to move, divorce, get another job, and be very alone.
I didn't think that I had the strength to sacrifice all those things, I still
don't.

There are a number of things that make me think that I may be in a _no-op TS_
category, even if I determined that I was a strong enough TS to warrant it.
The foremost among these is the work/rework that I think I would need to 
pass.  I have little arm/chest hair and my facial hair stops halfway up my
face, never was able to grow sideburns when they were the in thing.  I
would be a _big girl_ at 6'1" and 200lbs.  Good proportions for a male, big
and no curves for a girl.  Growing breasts, therapy, hair removal, and 
ultimately SRS (if allowed to get that far) would take years.  Since I am
older, I have less of these available.  By the time I got there, how many 
years would I have to enjoy the accomplishment?  Such may be the price for
growing up in a time when TS was less known and SRS was less available.

Now it is time for me to start reading to find more information and answers
to the questions that have been filling my head since I started to face
my tendencies.  If someone saved the book list, could you please send it
to me since I lost the one that was posted a while ago.

Love to all,

Erika
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Newsgroups: alt.transgendered