Hi Amanda.

IMHO from what you have said in your post you sound more TG/CD than TG/TS. I cannot speak for our TS folks here but from what I have read and insight gleaned through my own therapy, being TS brings an unbridled need to correct one's birth sex in order to function in the world (e.g., I was suppose to be a girl not a boy). From your post I get you are happy as a guy but from time to time would like to be a girl. When I first started therapy my biggest confusion was that I wanted to be a girl (in my mind). I explored this with my therapist and she asked me one day to describe my feelings when I see a woman out and about. So I recalled one time when I was waiting in line at a gas station and there was a 30-something woman finishing up pumping her gas. She was dressed in a skirt, leggings, boots and jacket. She finished up and walked over to pay. My heart skipped a beat when I saw her and not in that "guy checking out a girl kind of way". My therapist asked me point blank did I want to be that girl. More specifically, did I feel as though I could not function in this simple task (pumping gas) unless the world viewed me and I viewed myself as a woman? I had to think and then said "no". So the next line of questioning went to why I was so enamoured with this woman? After a game of twenty questions we discovered while I did not want to be a woman (e.g., change my sex) I wanted the ability to dress as she did, express myself as she did - essentially be that pretty woman at the gas pumps. In essence, I wanted to be a boy who dressed as a girl (TG/CD) not a boy who wanted to be a girl (TG/TS).

As I have explored Isha in public, I have found inner peace with this desire to express this side of me. So now from time to time I get to be the pretty girl (okay that may be a stretch ) at the gas pumps and for me that feels right.

Hugs

Isha