i'm looking, Reine, and i don't want to prejudice what is put here, nor do i want to constrain responses. Melissa's response is what I hoped to see from one perspective. :-)
My late-onset realisation of Gender Identty
These are hindsights:
I recall my maternal grandfather being a lookalike of Alastair Sim, a renowned British actor who played the CD role as headmistress of St.Trinians. My sisters tell me that my father told them he used to be a little girl but grew up to be a man. He did commit suicide, and like myself wore the brightest drab/man-clothes possible.
My sister’s first cogent words to our mother were “why wasn’t i born a boy?” - she’s always late and i’m always early or on-time - plausible we ended up in swapped bodies; she wanted to be a boy all her childhood. I got a sense on piecing all this together that my soul chose her conception because she was late, and so she got my conception instead - such is the nature of cosmic jokes. When I was born i had to be a male presence (longer story), and when she was boen she could be the female, and i never got to any reason/cause for my deep-set anger at her then - despite the best methods in the business, but with the gender hindsight it became clear.
I remember hating gym and liking the look of ballet aged 5,6,7-ish. I did not understand the growing violence of other boys as I grew up, really my best early friend was a Tomboy - presenting as male without the aggression. My favourite times in childhood were always the girls’ parties, I preferred being with girls, and had little opportunity outside of those times. At 12 or so I remember liking two of my mum’s tops, so she gave them to me. I wore them to death, but then looked in men’s departments to find more - i just did not even think to look in the women’s.
15-23 I had a boyfriend in secret in parallel to all my girlfriends. We both thought we were straight, we maintained that fiction, and eventually life drifted us apart. About 23 years old i remember being in a pub, and seeing a guy in women’s clothes for a stag night. I was envious, desiring to do the same, but did not act on it, nor did I tell anyone else.
In my 30’s, probably, I started a panties fetish, and from 41 I was able to indulge it once together with my present SO. I started wearing them, eventually going fulltime underdressing. At 54 the lights came on, and I started to CD. My management style was likened to female, and really my philosophy was altruistic not for personal gain.
From 40 to present I indulged in almost full-time personal development - a complete therapy for the self, enlightenment, travels to the lands of the gods and back, the whole nine yards, including integrating the goddess, and realising that once a man has evolved enough he can be a woman in his next life. This self-development has stood me and my SO in great stead, giving us an easy ride with the trans awakening of 2015.
I’d never considered gender identity before. I quickly realised there was no defining male nor female behaviour; that is all socially-conditioned. All I could say was the happiness of wearing female clothes outshone the depression of being in drab to such a degree there was no going back. I was happy to be a man in a dress, I did not feel a need to hide or disguise, though i do like occasional make-up.
Eventually though, the chronic body signals came home to roost. Chronic testicular pain was the root of my unconscious dysphoria, together with beard/shaving loathing, but loving the underarm shave, and loving smooth legs and so forth. The dysphoria is suppressed/hidden/disguised from the present self of a late-onset like myself, and so it leaks around the edges however it can, rather like a child that’s been hiding too long from the seekers and wants to be found.
My hypothesis is that many late-onset will have had unconscious dysphoria and suppressed wishes to be a female.
