Why now?

One question I get is "Why did you wait until you were in your 30's?"

The easy answer is "That is when I was ready."

There is a more complicated one though. One of the major roles is society. When I was in junior high to high school, when the majority of your sexual self exploration takes place, what I was feeling was unheard of here in Newfoundland. I know it wasn't that long ago, really, but "trans" anything was a very fringe part of society, transvestites getting most of the attention and it wasn't welcoming.

That is roughly where I thought I was. I thought I was a transvestite, I was too sheltered to know the difference. I did know transvestites weren't the "sick perverts" they were thought of then because I was one. I didn't know it didn't normally come with the desires to BE a woman. If I had the opportunity, at any part of my life, to magically turn into a woman with no consequences I would have. I didn't know that THAT is more or less the dividing line between the two and I was WAY over on the transgender side. (Lets not argue over where the actual line is though, please.)

I remember consciously making the link of:

"Ok, people don't like TV's, they are perverts, etc. I am that, plus I want to be a girl, I don't want to be a boy. I am a boy who wants to be a girl in girl clothing.... what would people think of me?"

Though I didn't start thinking that until I started getting access to information of sexual nature. Not all the sources were reputable mind you.... Jerry Springer was where I seen my first TG for example. Eventually I realized that TV's didn't really want what I also wanted, and I still had no place for how I felt, being transgender.

All that really did was drive it deeper and deeper into hiding. Like I said, I seen what people thought of TV's in general, and especially my area at the time. I knew for sure that I was "more" then a TV, but I had nothing, no one to compare me to so I felt completely alone and with no one to turn to at all.

Newfoundland has changed though, thank god. We still have the backward old fucks causing problems for people but the younger generation here are fantastic. I would bet that you could tell any one person here under the age of 40 and you'll get a positive response. All the professionals I have approached have been wonderful, a particular pharmacists comes to mind who is the sweetest man ever. Even cashiers aren't bothered, at the least.

Society may have been what shoved me into darkness but it has been myself keeping me there, and that is the other part of the complicated answer to the question "Why now?"

A little background I started to really "know" what I was around my early 20's. The internet was hitting homes and I started having a place to find things that aren't "normal" especially for Newfoundland. I found out there are people like me, though not very many people, and the stigma was awful. I started to see all of the "trials" I gave myself for what they were. Wearing women's clothing, penetrating myself anally, fantasizing about men, etc etc, all centered around this "feeling".

So I went to Atlanta, Georgia to live with a couple I met online. They knew I like women's clothing, and were ok with that. They knew I wanted to be a woman but didn't quite grasp that, to them it was more like "hyper-TV"  and honestly I didn't want to explain the difference. Nothing suggested to me that they would be ok with the difference.

That was my "last chance" I told myself and I gave it about 6 months off and on. I had no way of working through the shame, self doubt... the dysphoria, it was simply an enemy I had no defenses for. Because of that, it didn't last longer. I guilted myself, shamed myself, into stopping, and not trying again. It was a little over a year longer I came back to Newfoundland, promising never to talk about Atlanta to anyone.

As if to drive the nail home, on my way back I stopped in Toronto for a few days where my uncle lived. He is gay and has plenty of homosexual friends many of which were at a party we went to. There was also a TG woman there, I was FASCINATED but couldn't bring myself to even get close to her in fear of alerting my uncle to my secret. The final nail coming in the form of the obvious disdain my uncle and a friend shared for this single TG.

So I went on like that for a few years, having it sorta in the back of my mind but mostly pushed back and forgotten about. The final step came in my mid 20's. I gave up women's clothing, and tried to ignore the desires to be feminine and a woman but I couldn't really stop myself from being sensitive, caring, the person who honestly means it when I say "How are you doing?". Then I lost someone to a guy who was such a typical "dude" he'd make you throw up and that was it. I remember being in my room laying on my bed screeching my eyes out, feeling like I was tearing out my heart, like someone just punched me in the stomach while I told myself over and over, "Stop being like this."

The answer from this part of the question is it has taken me this long to realize I have been miserable ever since I made that choice in my room. Anyone who thinks being TG, or transitioning is a choice has never tried to "choose" against it. Sure I made the "choice" to not recognize who I was, but that really has been a choice to kill myself through years and years of torture. I hope we would all agree that suicide is not a choice. It wasn't until I understood, not just understood but accepted, that this decision I made is killing me that I could bring myself to come out.

I think this is the formula we all need in the LBGT community. Enough self acceptance with enough social or community acceptance to feel safe enough to make that first step. How much is enough depends on the person, some will get by on more or less of one or the other, at least to start.

Ok, I could keep writing here for a week, but I need to cut this already long post off.