Cured from the Pink Fog

[Yasmine]

Cured from being trans - My life story – childhood to pre-transition and back to being a man.

I was brought up by a loving mother with brief annual visits to see a loving (but free-spirited) father.

Temperament can be described as: Independent thinker, shy, kind, introverted, intelligent, rebellious and creative.

Notable factor is that I was inappropriately touched once by an adult female when I was about six years old. This female defined my aspiration, ideal and desire of sexual femininity throughout my life.

My mother, a working single mother, left me home-alone often and I found wearing her clothing to be very comforting. I started to dress in her silky petticoats and tights at about six or seven years old (as early as I can remember) and wore her shoes, bras, skirts and blouses –imagining myself totally to be a girl – by the age of ten or eleven. Dressing was not an erotic activity when I was pre-teen (perhaps this is obvious). This activity was always kept a secret and I considered myself the only boy in the world who did this.

In “boy mode” I didn’t like sport at all and preferred to tinker with things and especially liked making things out of cardboard or paper with female friends. Also enjoyed going out on my bike with male friends. I could spend hours alone happily making things out Lego or things I found around the house.

I became aware that I was much more introverted than others and preferred to be alone. Social contact became increasingly harder each day and I started to miss school preferring to stay at home watching television and sometimes dressing up.

Dressing became a sexually-charged, “magical altered state”, experience as I hit puberty and by the time I was a mid to late teen; I spent any money I had (which wasn’t much at sixteen years old) on lycra dresses, shoes, wig, make-up, tights and false-nails. I was too young for any club-scene and couldn’t relate to being tied up in leather and latex (which I’d seen in a “0898” advert. )

Not having any contact with other trans people in the 90s I continued to keep it a secret. I felt lonely and ashamed. I didn’t identify as either a man or a woman although I liked girls and liked being a girl. When I read about transvestism being a sexual fetish, and thought about my own pre-puberty history of dressing-up, I considered that perhaps it was more than just a sexual fetish.

From using the dictionary I was aware what “transsexual” meant although from my shameful position of being “in the closet” living openly as “trans” seemed (at my age) like another world entirely which I couldn’t yet relate to.

Aged nineteen I found it increasingly difficult to function in the world and had a nervous breakdown. I kept all this secret and started to explore transsexuality on USENET / the early internet. My head was a mess and I found myself having a total identity crisis.

I started to hate having this secret and, as I finished school and experienced the world, thought that the only way out of this mess would be to live full-time as a woman. I didn’t know for sure but hoped that living as a woman would somehow be a “magical pill” that would allow me to live a normal life.

I started to dress ambiguously and started to grow my hair too. When I was in art college I told my GP that I felt like a “woman trapped in a man’s body”. I was referred to a nurse at a NHS gender clinic who told me “we can’t tell you if you’re male or female gender, you must decide that for yourself, but we can support you if you wish to transition (subject to real life test of course)”.

I was prescribed anti-depressants from my GP but didn’t feel confident enough to continue on the path of “real life test” immediately so carried in with collage, growing my hair out and building up a female wardrobe.

At age 20 I had my first long-term relationship with a girlfriend. She was so accepting of me and I felt safe with her. Knowing that she had a gay friend I decided to came out to her. She was supportive when I said that I might have to live as a woman and I that’s why I dressed androgynously and removed my body hair. I made myself up in front of her and she told me it was like seeing the man she knew disappear in front of her eyes as I pressed the powder into my foundation and (voilÃ*!) applied my Claire’s accessories synthetic blond bob. She told me she loved me no matter what and I was happy to have someone who I could venture out into the real world with whilst dressed.

We had a normal straight relationship and although the anti-depressants (Seroxat ) numbed me sexually they enabled me to take stock of the life altering decision facing me. Wearing “normal” women’s day-wear now seemed no different to wearing men’s wear. This journey started to become less and less about “me” and more about my role in the world.

I felt empty all the time yet I had to consider if transitioning would give me the chance of ever living a fulfilling life… A difficult decision to make, staring into the unknown, with very limited life experience.

Really I had no idea who “I” was so had to take a pragmatic approach and consider what any other woman would do if they found themselves in this man’s body. If I was a women (inside) and the perceived phenomena of “women’s trapped in men’s bodies” was real then how should I proceed? I considered that my ideal of a virtuous woman would live as a man if for no other reason than to be able to give back to the world as fully as possible.

At this time, aware that I could wear men’s clothes and still act however I wished without fear of being perceived as gay or a weirdo, I felt more “normal” than ever. I considered that perhaps living as a woman wouldn’t actually make “me” feel any better at all and keeping up a female appearance is hard work too.

I slowly started to decrease the anti-depressant dosage. I started to be able to feel my orgasm normally again and after several months was still able to function normally in life although my identity crisis worsened and I felt a deeper despair of being lost than I previously did. I would have many emotional times when I couldn’t deal with life but found comfort crying in my girlfriend’s shoulder.

Perhaps my girlfriend had taken on the role of a female presence which I needed so much in my life. The world seemed like a bizarre show wherein I couldn’t find a way to grow into who I needed to be in order to function as I should.

One evening alone whilst watching television I lost all hope in the world. There seemed to be no difference between my own troubles and all the troubles in the world. The world, seen through the television, seemed to be as troubled as myself and so far in my brief experience (the world) was only getting worse each day.

As I lost all hope, in my emotional state, I felt a source of energy connect with the crown of my head. Instantly I left my body and flew through a black space like I was in outer space. I was totally surprised to exist without a body and very quickly became aware that I could feel all my identity as a residue of memories clinging to “me” in this black space.

Automatically I started to deconstruct all the false ideas about who I was, impressions about relationships and past life experiences. I was able to feel through all these residues as if clairvoyant. As ‘I deconstructed my identity’ (more accurately ‘it happened to me’) there was an increasing presence of love. Finally I was swept into a great ocean of unconditional love where I drifted in amazement. Words cannot describe this experience of infinity

When I tried to cognize this “space” I was ejected back into my body. At once I became aware “I’m back in normal reality” and thought “I must breath!”…As I took a breath of air like it was breathing for the first time. I could actually taste the nitrogen and oxygen. I had been reborn.

My identity crisis had ended. I felt totally healed and whole. I was (and still am) so thankful. I realized that as I’d existed without a body, outside of normal space-time, then “I” must truly be spirit. The unconditional love had healed my spirit (i.e healed me). My spirit must have become broken or damaged at an early age but finally I was repaired.

I didn’t dress as a women for 15 years after my transcendent experience of unconditional love. I was too busy just enjoying life to worry about making it any more difficult than it can be anyway.

I now continue to live my life growing each day without the intense identity problems which made me unable to function for many years.

Recently I assembled some stuff (had nothing) to see how it felt to dress up.
I don't really feel any different in women's clothes but it's funny and amusing to see myself as a woman after all these years.
Although I think I look okay:.. I'm really not a trans person anymore. More like a man in a dress.
I'm proud to say I'm a a man but not ashamed to share this video of myself....