l:
I identify as Transgender. I do cross the gender boundary, both at home and out in public. Last month I outted myself to a significant number of people. In one situation, I was dressed. In two other situations, I was not dressed, but I showed a photo of me while dressed. In those two instances, I stated specifically that I was Transgender, but that it was not of such significance that would warrant transitioning. The full accounting was in a thread that I created with SteppingOUT in the thread title.
While I have not done therapy as a means of figuring out where things stand for me, my logic is this:
Going back to childhood, there have always been things that touched me to the point of tears; or at least bordering on it. It could be something that I read, a movie that I saw, a perfect cloud formation, whatever. There is a quote from the late poet Audre Lorde that never ceases to effect me:
“When I dare to be powerful, to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.”
Whatever nerve it touches, it finds the same one every time. I spent 6 years working as an ex-patriot in Taiwan. Every now and then, I would be waiting for a traffic light to change and it would occur to me that what I was doing was far beyond any dreams that I ever had. I was living in a foreign country halfway around the world and I was doing just fine. A couple of times I almost missed the traffic light as I was wiping the tears away. Anyway, there has always been this other side that I really didn't understand (and seemed to be damned inconvenient), at least until I started dressing.
People here talk about the feeling of shame and guilt that they have experienced as a function of dressing and how many have purged wardrobes; even multiple times in some cases. I've experienced very little shame and guilt and the idea of purging never occured to me until I read about it here. There is very little in the way of negatives that I associate with dressing. In a way, it was like falling into a hole by accident and then discovering that you stumbled upon a Really Cool Place. It almost seemed to be too easy. When I looked back, I realized that maybe I had found something that was a major piece to the puzzle.
Along the way I made some other discoveries. I don't like to refer to DeeAnn in the 3rd person as I don't view her as a separate entity. I also don't wake up in the morning and think about if I feel like Don or DeeAnn. They are just different facets of the same gem stone. The same qualities are present with the difference being magnitude as a function of how I'm presenting. It's probably also important to note that I've never had a problem with presenting and functioning as a male. Part of that is likely conditioning, but I've never sensed a conflict between genders.
So, I've come to the conclusion that there is definitely a feminine side to my personality. Said another way, I don't view myself as 100% male. It appears that this female energy has always been present, but was suppressed and/or ignored in order to make it easier for me to fit into the world as a male. But, to this point it hasn't felt like the female part is strong enough to take over. So far Don and DeeAnn are coexisting nicely. Perhaps equilibrium has been reached.
DeeAnn
Jill 
Originally Posted by flatlander_48
