Although it took me a while to realize it, buried within me was a solidly female identity. For a while last year, as I was coming out to myself, it felt as if I were really split in two - two different personalities, one male, and one female. And the male personality was really sick and dying. This was a really awful thing to experience. It was really hard to take. It took me awhile to not refer to "Scott" and "Paula" as if they were two separate people.

When I presented myself as a woman, I realized that the euphoria I felt was actually something very simple. I was happy. I'd just never really experienced that before in my life. Ever.

I later came to realize that my true identity was a female one - I'm a woman. I had built up walls of a deliberately masculine personality (at least as masculine as I could manage), to protect myself, but in the end, I felt I was suffocating in solitary confinement in this horrible prison inside of my mind. The walls of the edifice I constructed were almost pure fear. It was a horrible place to live, and by early last year, it was literally killing me. I had no desire to live anymore. Death was a far preferable alternative to life in that hellhole.

It's taken me a while to put the pieces together after coming out. I'm still have a sense of humor - that didn't change. I am still witty and intelligent. I present and behave in a stereotypically feminine manner - although that stereotype includes "soccer mom" as a part of it. My mannerisms are feminine. Some of my traits have surprised me. For example, I'm quite a lot more aggressive now than I ever was as a man. As a guy, I lived in fear. I was afraid of so many things, lest my awful secret be discovered. Without that holding me back, I've got a pretty strong personality. I'm mostly fearless now - I never was as a man. I have realized, thinking back on my life, that every time in my life I needed confidence, it came from someplace deep inside me. Turns out that place was my feminine identity. I'm far more confident now than I ever was before. I'm also more emotional, and I express my feelings as I never have.

I'm a different person now. Oh sure, there are common traits and history, but my family and pre-transition friends are finding it increasingly difficult to know me. I simply look, act, and think differently than the guy they knew for so long. Transsexuals frequently argue "I'm the same person after transition - just my body has changed." And perhaps that's true for most, I don't know. I can only say that as I've transitioned, I'm simply no longer the person I used to be.