Coming out to yourself

[bi_weird]

When I came out to myself as bi it was big. Bigger than everything else in my life. I was in shock for a week, completely numb. I'd find myself crying for no apparent reason, or I'd be in class with no memory of how I got there. To fight what I apparently didn't want to believe, I ended up with no sex drive for about a month. I was depressed and honestly suicidal at moments. (Wow that's a big moment for me - I never tell people. Anyway.) It completely controlled my life for about six weeks, until I finally processed it and was okay. (As an aside, I still don't know why this was so hard. I have some ideas, but none of them add up to THAT level of denial in me)

When I came out as trans, things were totally different. In part because coming out to myself as bi was so traumatic, I made sure not to think to hard about it too often. I let myself occasionally borrow a guy friend's shirt. Sometimes I'd surf the internet or go to the library for information. But I didn't do it very often. Even after I joined this site and started visiting regularly, I still didn't put the label "transgender" to myself for months, and am just now accepting that I'm basically totally androgynous.

So yes, for me, two totally different ways of coming out to myself. The "HOLY F-ING S--T" model, and the just-drifted-into-it model. How was it for you in any of your various comings out? Was it a bolt of lightening that left you trying to catch your breath for weeks? Did you just start buying more and more guys clothes until you realized there was something to it? Did a fortune cookie change your life? Or did you just always know?

[Question Mark]

Hmm, this is an interesting question.

Well... when I was younger, I always identified with male heroes, or female-to-male heroes (those stories where women crossdressed and possibly turned into a guy at the end). I wanted to be a knight or a ninja or maybe a pirate. I thought nothing of it, because I didn't really fit the category of "tomboy" when I was a kid. I picked flowers and wild onions and blackberries and clovers and all sorts of wild plants instead of paying attention to right field. I picked up rocks instead of playing on the playground. I liked to do creative things and learn how things worked. I wasn't a particularly active kid, so much as a quiet nerd, and I wore whatever my mom dressed me in, not knowing at that point how much of an impact clothing made on how other people see you. In fact, the first five years of my school existence were spent wearing blouses and jumpers.

It was only by the time I entered high school that I really noticed anything. My doctor did all sorts of tests on me to find out why I hadn't hit puberty yet, but I found I didn't particularly want to, and looked forward to my lack of puberty almost with delight. Whenever there was a play, I always wanted to be in a male role. Usually with a silly moustache. When one of my friends and I used to go out and dress in costumes to screw around with people at the mall, I pushed the suggestion of us pretending to be boyfriend and girlfriend, me being the former. My friend told me later on that I'd never had a female vibe to her and that she had had a crush on me freshman year. Then again, she is now an out lesbian.

I constantly found myself drawn to male clothing. I wanted to present myself as "he". It wasn't out of some kind of unknown kink or because I wanted to submit to the male patriarchy or anything. I just felt more comfortable in said clothing, especially after I hit puberty and lumps grew on my chest and I had to hunch over to hide them. And I started cursing my ovaries.

At some point I came across a webcomic written by Jennifer Diane Reitz, a MTF called Unicorn Jelly. It was a great webcomic, but it also introduced me to the concept of transsexuality. I read her writings on it, then I went and researched it. I researched it for what must have been over three years.

At first I thought it was idle curiosity, like researching ingredients or biotechnology or silica aerogels. But I kept being drawn to it, like there was something in there that spoke specifically to me.

Well, to cut a long story short, eventually I figured it out. And now I'm here. :P

[John]

Well, several of my friends where out as bi by the time I realised I was gay, so it wasn't as big a deel as it could have been. Realising it wasn't an 'oh s####' moment, so much as many years of ever decreasing denial. And as for being trans...

While the idear of transgendered people was present in my mind through most of my life, it was mostly from TV and other media: read that as only MTF :rolleyes: (nothing against the girls, but really). The thought of ftm just didn't occour to me (not that uncomen I find).

Regardless of that, I did spend most of my childhood wanting to be a boy (and in fact being recognised as one by most of my friends, not to mention compleat straingers. hehe... I embarased so many techers with that :heehee: ). Then of cause on comes pubaty... *sigh*. I remember walking to school one day a couple of years ago (four maybe) and sudenly looking down at my chest and thinking, 'nope, that's not right. they should NOT be there'. And sudenly got cringingly embarased of them. There was a long while when I hated being undressed, even compleatly alone in the houce.

When I first went to uni, I met a post-op transman at the lgbt sociaty, and was francly intreaged. I started reserching on the net and when I could find in my psycology textbooks, all the while insisting to myself that it was pure curiosity and non of it applied to me at all. I'm so good at denial...

Finally admited I was transgender about december time. And so here I am...

[ZenFrost]

I remember lying in bed one night and wondering why my relationship with my boyfriend wasn't going anywhere... then I realized it was because I was a lesbian. It was kinda like "huh, well that explains it" but I didn't freak out or feel bad or anything. I just took it in stride.

I then spent the next several years CDing constantly, without fully realizing it. All my friends were guys, people thought I was a guy when they first saw me, and I liked doing guy things instead of girl things. After I started college, I bought a bunch of women's clothes and a bunch of new men's clothes. On a trip to California several months ago, I went as a man. I wore men's pants, dress shirts and a tie the entire time. I even went out and bought some ACE bandages to bind my breasts. I remember how it felt so right. When I got home I started looking up crossdressing, I found this website and decided I wanted to join. But there was a whole bunch of stuff going on in my life right then and I decided I'd wait another half a year before joining.

In early January, I was in Illinois on a trip and I decided to join this site, by that time I had figured out I was a crossdresser and was comfortable with that. But then I started thinking about things and I realized I was not just a CDer, I was Transgendered and I didn't just want to dress like a man, I wanted to be a man. I guess that's when I really came out to myself. And it wasn't a big deal, I just took it in stride and accepted that was who I was. I'm still figuring things out though, and I'm gonna stay openminded like I always do.

[MJ]

When I came out to myself as bi it was big. Bigger than everything else in my life. I was in shock for a week, completely numb. I'd find myself crying for no apparent reason,

wow i knew at 5 or 6 but i had to fight with myself for years and years . please don't take this the wrong way but at one time going from f2m was easy "i dint believe that now " but there was no way in he*l i was going to be the real me m2f no way , i thought i was going to be killed if i did the transition thing , and like you when i could not fight this i too I was in shock for a week, completely numb. I'd find myself crying for no apparent reason, i am what i am...


or I'd be in class with no memory of how I got there. To fight what I apparently didn't want to believe,

well try driving for 45 minutes to work and have no memory of how I got there. *was that light red or green * and like you To fight what I apparently didn't want to believe my god how can i be a woman dare i have a female soul how can that be??? i can't do this... can I , in the end you can't run from yourself and you can't hide from yourself, to yourself be true

[Tristan]

I can relate to the holy **** reaction of realizing being transgender. I had been posing as male for a while online but I just told myself it was roleplay for a long time. I dressed in guy's clothes but I was just a tomboy or so I told myself. I remember walking home from class for college and about halfway home it just hit me. I wanted to be a man! I freaked out bad and went into denial for a long time after that. Did everything to try to repress the feelings that for whatever reason just hit me that day. Since I've stopped fighting those feelings and stopped repressing them though I overall feel a lot more happy in general. I mean it's not an easy wait, but I know it can happen. I also feel a lot less suicidal. I know it might be bad to say but I was always prone to these severe depressions and I'd walk that line so often but my own father's attempt as a teenager I think just hung over me enough to keep me from doing it. I didn't wantn to take my pain and leave it to my family or whatever. Anyway I think coming out to myself was hardest. Even harder then telling anyone else I've told so far.

[jsoto81]

I'd always known something was different with me, I'd even informed the carpenter that was working on our house when I was 5 or 6 and I'd been running around in the back yard with my shirt off, that I wasn't a girl and then as I'd gotten older I'd fight more when my mom tried to get me into girls clothing and I'd always insist on having short hair.

When I was in elementary school and high school I had to change with the other girls, and I always dreaded it, I was the fastest changer in the groups. When I got into high school I always sat hunched over and at the back of the class, and when I'd walk from class to class I'd pull the back pack straps close together and walk hunched over. I'd never look at anyone.

I never really knew what this was and why I hated my body so much and suffered from depression most of my life (even thoughts of suicide). As I got holder I realize it was because I wanted to be a man but still didn't know what it was called, and then my ex saw a show on Opera about this very same thing and told me, I recorded it and now I had a name for what I'd been feeling all my life and that there were others out there that felt the same way. For a while I felt better and even lighter because of it, but that quickly faded because I did nothing about it, I didn't talk to anyone about it and my ex had told me (which I found out was a big fat lie but that's another story) that she loved me and was attracted to me the way I was. But after a while I was back to where I was before I'd found out.

To make a long story short, the initial realizeation was very wonderful and reliving.

[CaptLex]

How was it for you in any of your various comings out? Was it a bolt of lightening that left you trying to catch your breath for weeks? Did you just start buying more and more guys clothes until you realized there was something to it? Did a fortune cookie change your life? Or did you just always know?
Well, I've had some strange fortune cookies in my life, but none of them predicted this. :heehee: For me it was both: a slow re-realization (realized it for the first time at the age of 4, and re-realized it 40 years later) that led to a bolt of lightning striking me upside the head. :eek: I went from crossdressing as a youngster to living a gender-neutral existence for a couple of decades to suddenly wanting to crossdress again (all hormonally induced in my case).

Once I started wearing ties and boxers again, I knew I had to find out why this was happening all over again. It took about six months to figure out that I'm transgendered/androgynous and I was cool with that, but one day out of the blue it hit me like a sledgehammer that it was more than that and that really freaked me out. I was so upset 'cause I knew my life would change forever and I didn't want that.

I immediately came out to my best friend - or tried to but I couldn't say the world transsexual ('cause I was so freaked out). I had already told him I was between genders, but when I tried to tell him that I definitely knew I was a boy, the word kept getting stuck in my throat. Fortunately, he figured out what I was trying to say and told me not to force it - that it would come out when I was ready. And it did (about a week later).

Funny thing . . . we then both immediately realized that I'm gay and at the same time said, "Oh, no wonder!" It suddenly made a lot of sense why I've always been very much into gay culture and events, and always had gay male friends (though I'd never put up with being called a "fag hag"). He thought it should have been a clue, but I don't think there were enough clues to have put it together before.

[bi_weird]

I can relate to the holy **** reaction of realizing being transgender. I had been posing as male for a while online but I just told myself it was roleplay for a long time. I dressed in guy's clothes but I was just a tomboy or so I told myself. I remember walking home from class for college and about halfway home it just hit me.
Isn't it odd how you can repress something so fully despite such obvious signs? I was having fantasies about being with a woman pretty seriously for months, and still had no idea that I was bi.
And yeah, Cap, I can relate to the inability to say the word. The first two people I told I was bi I never said it. I told them I wanted to talk to them about confusion with my orientation, and said that I had at that time had feelings for two people in my life, a guy and a girl, and still couldn't make myself say it. And with gender things, I still can hardly say (type) 'transgender' or 'androgynous', even though I'm pretty darn sure that's where I fall.

[false_dichotomy]

I didn't really have the holy s--t reaction. My trans coming-out-to-myself was a really slow process. It was buying boys' clothes secretly and wondering why I felt like I had ot hide them. It was identifying with male characters in books and movies and wanting to pretend to be them. It was being jealous of all the guys around me who were growing facial hair and deepening their voices without realizing it was jealousy. It was something I pieced together really slowly and stepped into very reluctantly. If there was one of those "Oh s---!" moments for me, it was the moment in which I realized for the first time that if I did not transition, if I tried to keep acting like a woman, I would eventually kill myself. The inevitability/necessity of my transition struck me much harder than the realization that I had gender issues.

[Evert]

My coming-out to myself was no shock for me. More a relief! For some time I thought I was crazy, a freak, what the hell was wrong with me! So when the schoolcouncelor introduced me to transsexuality I finally knew I was not alone. :happy:

[Abraxas]

I've always been ridiculously laid-back when it comes to things about myself. Like, when I realised I had an aneurysm, or when my mum told me I'd almost died as a kid, or when I found out I had a mitral valve prolapse, all that stuff, I just went, 'oh. Well, that explains it.'
Same thing when I realised I was trans. Except it was more along the lines of, 'Okay, I'm an idiot. How did it possibly take me that long to figure it out? It was so obvious!'

I'm probably just one of those people who won't realise the psychological trauma of all of this until I'm 40. Then I'll be a complete basket case. But for now, I'm chilled out. My friends tell me I'm so laid back they're surprised I can stand up. *shrug* At least I don't have to worry about stress-related high blood pressure, right?

[happyfish]

When I realized I like girls it was an 'omg! sh*t!' reaction, though I really, really don't know why I didn't notice. It was just so freaking obvious, looking back, that I sometimes feel like of stupid for being surprised. I'd always checked out girls and thought about them. Took me four years to realize that I was bi, but by then I was pretty much comfortable with anything my sexual orientation decided to throw at me.
In January, when I suddenly had an overwhelming urge to cross-dress all the time, I spent a lot of time on GBLT websites looking for a reason. Then I read a definition for 'transgender' and thought: "They actually have a word for that? 'Cause that's totally how I'm feeling right now!" It was like I'd opened Pandora's box in my head, only not so bad and whatnot, but just that there was all this stuff that I'd never thought about that just exploded into my mental space and now I have to try and sort it all out again.
Though I can't see as many obvious hints in my past about me being transgender (don't really like that word) as there were about me liking girls. And I'm sort of afraid of reading too much into things in hindsight. I think I may have always thought like a guy, but I didn't grow up feeling like a guy who was trapped in the body of a girl. I was just...me. I don't know. Maybe it's the whole repression thing as well. I tend to be pretty good at the mental white-wash.
To answer Bi's question, my different comings-out seem similar in the omg! factor now that I think of them, though I think when I came out to myself as transgender it seemed to come on more gradually and thus be less...losing-sleep-over-ish. Technical term, that.

[Charleen]

Can I relate! Coming out to myself on both counts!! The OMG! that explains it!
I was married for 30 years, before I lost her, and played the part of the "guy" well. The entire time I was supressing Lily and was depressed constantly and had suicidal thoughts most of my life as well, but didn't put 2 &2 together.
After my wife passed I gave in to the urge to CD that I've had all my life without understanding why I HAD to do it. I found this site and what an eye opener!!!!!! In the less then the year I have been here I have not only come to terms with why I am but who I am. OMG! I'm TS! Yeah, that explains a hell of alot!
I was talking to some dear friends and it hit me that I was Bi! my first experiences were with my best friend and even then at 14 and 15 I put on a bra to do it. Talk about an OMG!
I guess what I'm saying is that you are not alone in the OMG department.
Love and xxxx, Lily