Being manlike for 49 years came close to damaging me. I contemplated suicide twice. Once when I was twenty-six and again when I was forty-five. Both times were right after my two divorces.
Because I felt a strong resemblance towards women and everything associated with them, I naturally gravitated towards all that women exemplify. As a male, I spent time with women to the point where I avoided socializing with men.
I was a crossdresser for 25 years, and I mimicked how women walk, talk, and appeared. I tried to stop cross-dressing many times but the desire to be an imitation woman overwhelmed me.
The more I occupied the world of women’s beauty and fashion, the more I paid attention to the women I met in theater and in my own community. My best friends were always women and gay men.
I was born with a mind more closely aligned with women than men. I felt like a female because everything aligned to help me express my natural female self.
My feminine side was also expressed when I embraced my creative energy, acting in thirty community theater productions.
Gender dysphoria is not a mental illness. Rather, it defines unease stemming from the discrepancy between the experienced gender (female) and my assigned sex at birth (male).
Of the transgendered patients surveyed, 96% reported first experiencing gender dysphoria by age thirteen. For me, it was when I was eleven.
Now that I am completely a woman, I strive to honor my feminine energy. I dance, embrace nature, appreciate my femininity, encourage beauty, and relish my creativity.
