The first time I saw a transgirl

Highschool was super confusing, and kinda numbing. I'd known I was at least bi for a few years and was a closeted crossdresser since then, out to very few. By this point I had made out with a guy, gone to a gay bar, and some sexual stuff.

I was at a pre-party with friends, getting drunk before a friend's birthday where a ton of people were going to be. I was tipsy and told my friends I liked wearing skirts, to which they said I should wear one for the night. And fishnet stockings. Sooooooooo... obviously... being the naturally timid and scared boy I was.... I did. I was rather drunk by this point, but it was incredible, freeing, terrifying and kinda liberating slash erotic

As if that wasn't pushing my adrenaline, I saw her. She went to our school right? I knew her, but she was different before. My friend said she had changed genders, and internally my heart did a backflip. That's a thing? You can do that? Could I...?

I wanted to talk to her. I wanted to know her and ask her what the deal was cos I want in. I didn't, I was scared. But at least I knew I wasn't alone, and was surprised that I had even felt alone with this feeling.

Abandon ship

I gave up updating this place. For a while I thought it was because no one read it, but that didn't stop me from writing like 100+ posts. So why did I leave? It has nothing to do with the previous post, or who it's about.

It was about myself. I'd lost all hope and faith in myself. I'm not the person I want to be, and instead I crashed and burned out spinning my tyres. This place was meant to be my place to articulate my thoughts better than my diary, to post the refined thoughts so I could come back and re-read it in clarity. Nothing was happening in my life, so there was nothing to post.

I have a fire lit underneath me again. I feel.... things, again. I want things, again. I have a small light I can follow, and if that doesn't pan out I have backups. I'm basically starting my transition again, except I'm already out to most people in my life, I have tits from my last round of HRT and I have girls clothes. But in terms of confidence and self-discovery, I'm back to where I was in 2008 (not a good place). But I know relearning is faster and easier than learning new things, so I have an advantage from where I was. So maybe it's like I'm in square 1.5?

Years ago I met a transgirl who was just starting out, and I'd been transitioning for a while so I gave her advice. That advice was the bullet or the pill, and for a while I felt as if the bullet was inevitable. I'm leaning towards the pill now.

Btw, no, not The Pills. I'm still on them and I still hate them.

Better Living Through Chemistry pt7

It's coming up on a year on The Pills and I still resent them and being on them. Almost no one knows I'm on them.

I'm regularly forgetting to take them for days at a time, so I feel really strange sometimes and wonder why.

I'm getting more depressed lately. I feel a lot of stress from things I'm not doing. One of the big signs that I'm depressed more is that I'm playing TF2 again, a game that doesn't really bring me a lot of enjoyment, but just lets me waste away the hours.

Tomorrow is a convention that I've been looking forward to for months, but here I am, the night before, wondering if I really do want to go and considering not setting an alarm so I can just sleep through it. Why, though? I know I'll enjoy it while I'm there, and I know it will be a great learning experience for me in terms of media and the radio show I'm on. But... I just don't care enough.

Normally with my one year threads I look back at the positives of it all and how things have gotten better. I don't think I'll be doing that this time. I still hate The Pills, and I hate being on them, and most of all I hate the time in which I started taking them.

Confidence

Being that I grew up with no faith in myself or my own abilities, I constantly surprise myself at what I can do. I regularly test my limits nowadays, and initiate things that may not work. Sometimes they don't work, sometimes things totally fall apart, and so do I for a while, and I lose hope. But then I accept what happened, try to push past the pain, and try it again in a different way.

For example, I still want to go to kink events even after my almost traumatising experience, and more than just wanting to go, I've proven to myself that they can be fun and rewarding.

Being that I grew up without this feeling, I've been almost overdosing on it. I've been pushing myself too hard, too far, without realising it. I don't know my own ability anymore, because I suddenly have a lot more of it, I can't get a read on it. But it's an amazing feeling. I could almost describe it as drunk on power.

But this is a good problem to have. This is a better position than I've ever been in. I get to learn my capacity, and understand how I tick again, and once I do that, and learn how to relearn my limits, I can push them further and harder, without risk of it blowing up in my face.

I've been re-analysing my own capacity to get a partner, and I've had multiple people initiate with me in varying capacities, so my confidence there is getting a bit higher, which is amazing.

Wanting the best, expecting the worst

As usual, I'm in the middle of something I want, but don't believe will happen.

I've wanted something like this for a long time, and unlike a lot of my previous encounters, this is pretty close to my fantasy, my ideal-world thing. I've been coming to terms with the extreme likelihood that what I wanted would never exist, and even if it did I wouldn't be anywhere near it. But now it seems tangible, plausible.

But wanting and getting are two different things. I usually have no problem initiating, but in the middle is where I fall apart most of the time. There's also so many things about myself that I believe are not only appealing, but repulsive, and leaves me in a limbo where I'm too far for one person, but not far enough for another. I've been on hormones for almost 3 years, yet I still have an insane amount of body hair? How can someone be so broken?

I feel like stagnation is my default.

Another time, another place, another person

In 2006 I met a girl, J, who I fell in love with, and who loved me back. We lived on opposite sides of the country though, and my anxiety was severe at the time. She came to visit, and I was awkward, and shy, and scared, and anxious, and unsure...

We broke up at some point, and slowly stopped talking. No communication for years.

We've been back in touch, and it's great talking to her again. We knew each other inside and out all those years ago, and we can still talk for ages and ages despite how much we've both changed. Talking to her now, it's kinda scary to see how drastic the change is. We're both completely different people, or rather, more amplified versions of ourselves. We're both still kinky, into piercings, into the same kind of lifestyles and really open.

She reminds me of how cloudy life was. How much I couldn't comprehend, and didn't see. How small my world was. I was in high school, and I could barely leave the house because of my anxiety and depression. I remember life with her involved quite vividly, so it's quite amazing to see myself here and now, and to look back on recent memories and sit in stunned silence that it's the same person.

She set the trend for people I would later date, and made me realise my capacity for caring for someone. She gave me a glimpse into the lifestyle I wanted. She gave me the most intimate night of my life so far. My benchmark for others. My realisation that no matter how amazing someone is, they have flaws, and sometimes gaping ones.

If it sounds like I'm still in love with her, I kinda am. You never really get over your first love, right? Not that I'm trying to validate my feelings for her, I've been dealing with them for over half a decade, and I've put them in their place. But every now and then I see a picture of her, or read something of hers, and I'm instantly that awkward teenage boy again, the one obsessed with that person larger than life, wishing he could be half as amazing as them.

Exploration

It's hard when someone is removed from your life so traumatically. It's even harder when you still like them, but they seem to treat you like poison. This blog is my place, yet why do I feel the need to censor myself just because I know she still reads it?

I've written about 3 drafts in the last hour, saying different things about something new in my life and how it compares to my last relationship, but the words either come out too harsh or completely missing the point I try to make.

So what is it I want to say?

I miss sex. I've missed it for a long time. I miss being penetrated, and having someone enjoy my genitals, instead of just tolerating them. I tried to tell myself I didn't mind how it was, but I missed it a lot. I recently asked someone I know if they'd be interested in doing something with me, and they said yes.

Many things are running through my head about this. I'm worried that I won't be good enough, or if they don't find my naked body appealing, or if they cancel... but I'm still going through with it. I'm also extremely excited. This is someone new, I get to do things to them, they switch and like a ton of the same stuff I like. I've had it in my head that I really really want to take her for a walk on a leash one night. I've wanted something like this for a while, and used my newfound confidence to get it.

Now if only I could muster up the courage to go to a kink event.

Out and about

It was national coming out day in America yesterday, and a friend of mine is talking about coming out to her parents as trans. Surprisingly, this got me thinking about coming out to my mother, but mostly, my mentality around that time.

I keep a diary, and I reread it sometimes, and the entries around that time are weird, and kinda distorted. Not that I need to read my old diary to know what I was feeling, I remember it. You don't forget something like this. This is the kind of thing not many people do, inform your parents that you're not really male, or female, and expose yourself after hiding for so long. I remember right before it, I was terrified. The only other terror that tops it in my life is when I was in hospital when I was 13.

I was at tafe studying multimedia. I didn't really want to do that, but I enjoyed it and I was good at it and couldn't think of anything else to do with my life. I met some good friends there, one of which I still talk to almost every day. But this is the time when my depression was at it's absolute lowest.

I was part of a forum for trans people (not Laura's Playground thank god) and it was a pretty relaxed place in one way, but really intense in the other. Everyone was really eager to show off their battle scars, tell everyone about their suicide attempts and DIY orchies and just wallow in self destruction. I stayed there to learn what I could, a lot of people had different perspectives and attitudes and threw them around liberally. But I hated the place because just as people were eager to show off how damaged they were, others showed how perfect they seemed. Posting timelines and stories and other things, and I was extremely jealous of their progress.

One day, in a usual Help me come out thread, someone posted a short story of their life as most people did. But unlike the others, this person resonated with me, and said something I still remember, 4 years later: it's either the bullet or the pill. It's a twisted form of motivation, sure, but it worked. You get to a place where you're at rock bottom, nothing else matters. You move forward, or you just don't.

Offline, my life wasn't very good. I was depressed, and didn't know what to do. I had no motivation to do anything. I felt like I was just living for someone else, because this wasn't the life I wanted or cared about. Eventually, I settled on the fact that I was mostly numb. Sex didn't feel good. Getting drunk didn't do anything except make me sick the next day.

I was having an exceptionally bad day one day, I felt absolutely horrible about myself and everything, and looking back on it now, I went home from tafe that day knowing I would either be out to my mother by the end of the night, or I would kill myself. I told no one else this plan, though. Some people knew about me already, which was good, but wasn't enough. I needed to progress.

I had no safety net, though. No job, no money. I couldn't leave if she reacted badly, I couldn't call for help. I had nowhere to go. The only safety net I had in my mind was, essentially, suicide.

I felt Walled off that whole night, before I told her. I'd spent so long hiding any aspect of myself from her, more than just being trans, and I was about to expose everything. I felt like I was on the edge of a cliff, staring down it. She could tell something was on my mind, but I kept deflecting her questions. I wasn't ready.

I went into my room and got on the laptop to get my mind off it and maybe get some confidence up. Then out of the blue, it hit me. I told my friends what I was about to do, and I went to talk to my mother.

"I need to tell you something"

We sat down in the loungeroom, and I told her everything: I'm a girl, I like guys and girls, I've had sex with both and I'm really depressed.

She asked questions, I answered them. It was all over in less than an hour, but it felt like days. The chatroom I was in had exploded at the news of what I was doing, and then it exploded again when I said I was back, and that it went well. It was really comforting to see these people care about me so much. Then I told my best friend, and he was so excited for me. I was actually happy that night, for the first time in a long time. I felt like I could think again. I felt a massive weight lift off me. I... felt.

So what did coming out do for me? It let me move in a direction I actually wanted. It let me feel comfortable in my own house. It made me feel like I didn't have to hide myself from the world. It set me free.

Busted

Talking to other trans people, or just reading their stories, there is a huge occurrence between almost all of them: being caught dressing while still in the closet.

I've been close once and only once. I had gotten my first tights and was showing my friend on webcam. My computer is in the loungeroom, so I was exposed, but I thought mum would be out for hours. Since I live with my mother I was the only one home. I was feeling awesome dressing how I wanted in that part of the house, usually it was just reserved for my room. Then I heard the door and all the good feelings left instantly. Now, the loungeroom is next to the kitchen, which is where the door is. My room is on the other side of the kitchen from the computer. This was it, I thought. This is the night we're going to have that talk, no psyching myself up all day, no saying "mum, I have something to tell you", it was going to be like this: busted in front of the computer crossdressing. I ran.

There are two ways back to my room. I ran into the back of the loungeroom and called out to mum to lure her one way, so I could run the other way. Somehow I made it into my room without my mum seeing the skirt, tights and girls top. It all felt unreal, like it wasn't happening. How could she possibly not have seen what I was wearing? There was a clear line of sight at one point, I was sure of it. I called bullshit on reality itself when I was in my room, naked, and it just stared back at me and said "No, you made it. Somehow"

By the way, this all happened with my friend watching. The webcam was still on.

It all happened in probably 10 seconds, but felt like hours. Hours of panic and fear and frustration. I was off the hook. Mum asked what I was doing, running around the house. This part was easy to bluff. I just said I was in my underwear and didn't want her to see. That had actually happened before, so it was a viable explanation for me.

In my room I got on the laptop and signed into MSN but appeared offline so it would sign me out on the big PC, and turn off the webcam. When I got back out to the big PC I got back on MSN and talked to my friend, who demanded to know what had happened and refused to believe that I had not been caught. He said it was like watching a slasher movie, the killer was right behind me.

That was the end of my crossdressing.... for about 3 days. I couldn't make it go away, I needed the clothes too much to stop. After I had calmed down that night, a bizarre thought popped into my head: I almost wanted to be busted. It would take the matter out of my own hands, out of my control. Be done with it and get it out ion the open, remove the need to hide.