Associations

Recently I've been further analyzing my motivations, and the stimulus that provokes my GID (ok I always tend to do this) with my wife. I decided this time to focus on the incredible feelings of longing associated with GID. I looked specifically at that which I was longing for. As I did so, I had to admit things that were hard for me to hear - judgments I made within, and prejudices I held somewhere deep inside.

I would ask that you do not judge me too harshly for the things which I discovered about myself - aspects of them are shameful to me enough as it is. I share my discoveries with you all in hopes you can relate and perhaps this too will help you in understanding your feelings.

I was to be an incredibly sensitive child. I had a bleeding heart for nearly everything and everyone. I didn't meet a person who didn't get the benefit of the doubt, who wasn't worthy of total forgiveness, who wasn't someone I poured my heart out to, and who I wouldn't offer comfort and caring whether they asked for it or not. When met with those who didn't like me, or were angry with me, I was often confused because I didn't want anything but the best for them. I told people often that I loved them and did my best to show it. I would get overwhelmed at times, and even in my prayers as a child in the fact that I couldn't help everyone at the same time, that ultimately helping one person meant leaving another person on the wayside for a time. My prayers themselves were long because I felt the need to fit everyone in - as if their very welfare depended on my adding their names to my young prayers (I didn't grow up Mormon BTW).

I often watched television as a child, movies and kid's shows that often displayed good morals and positive human attributes. Often the attributes showed that most represented me, and those I most modeled were those portrayed by female characters. Specifically self- sacrificial female characters that seemed to find their greatest joy and purpose in giving of themselves wholly to the service of others. I felt these characters were the ultimate role model and most akin to my own heart. I wonder if this isn't where my female associations began - from a very early age. Associations referring to the fact that I took a trait that was my own, something essential to my character and then associated it to a feminine stereotype, rather than accepting it as gender neutral.

As I grew older, telling my male friends, or new males I met that I loved them, offering things like hugs, and reaffirming physical gestures were often met with terrible disdain. I lost so many male friends back then - people whom I cared so much about and wanted to see happy, but who I drove away by my outward gestures of caring. I was called names, told I was gay, and ultimately treated with contempt. The girls though were not nearly as offended by my actions, though some still thought I didn't act enough like a 'boy'. These consistent rejections coupled with my associations that such actions were appropriate for females, but not for males, I think is where my GID began - truly began. I felt that in order to interact appropriately with others according to my sex, I needed to act different than I was - so I became a chameleon and I lost myself in pretending to be like others.

I cannot erase the effects of the chameleon - it has become so ingrained upon my psyche - with exception of one condition. When I transitioned I dropped all pretense of my chameleon self, all traits of the "Actor" as I called him, and became the same person I was as a child, only this time was far more accepted for my outwardly caring behavior. In fact, when I transitioned, I was often told by friends that I cared so much about others that it seemed like it might be a farse - until they really got to know me and realized how real it was. I was asked in all seriousness by a co worker of mine who I comforted after he had a tough time at work one day, if I were really an angel - like a real angel. I laughed and told him no, but he told me that he would have believed me if I told him I was. I don't tell you these things to extol my virtues but to demonstrate as accurately as I can how I tend to behave when uninhibited.

I think I transitioned mostly so that I could become this person again outwardly, someone who I had long buried due to the pains and rejections felt being that person. Transition represented a chance to be an uninhibited me who wouldn't be met with comments that I wasn't acting appropriate to my sex. I realize how sexist this all sounds. Girls are not inherently the way I'm describing myself no more than boys are - it is just in our culture, it is far more acceptable to have a girl act this way than a boy.

When I transitioned back, I went back into hiding. I mean, I let a little bit of myself show through now and then, in times when those closest to me were in deep distress - so I developed close friendships as people came to know that I had their best interests at heart. However, I still felt like the vast majority of the time, and I still feel like this today, that the part of me I keep so sacred, the part of me that represents my true nature, I must kept hid from the world so long as I remain in my male form on this earth.

So, when my GID strikes, it strikes in such a way that: perhaps it is not so much I need to be seen as a girl (though that is how it feels), though that is a strong association I have with it, but it is that I want to be myself, the real ME, the one who is so buried. But I have so strongly associated this notion of myself and my true nature with female that the two feel inseparable now, and it is almost impossible for me to act on my nature while others perceive me as a male - some sort of mental block.

When I feel those terrible feelings of longing to be female that often accompany GID, it is always coupled with times when I wanted to be myself, but felt restrained. As such, I've discovered another one of my triggers.

So what does all this mean? Am I not REALLY a transsexual, but someone who is having a terrible identity crisis? Or does this cultural component play a part in everyone's GID?

Regardless of the what it means, it is real, and I deal with it today. Coming to this realization has been tremendous, and I feel a bit of relief, like... my inner self might soon be able to have full expression even while in my male body. Perhaps I can break those associations, and become an example of a male who epitomizes what are traditionally considered "female" qualities.

My friends have a nickname for me. Everyone here has heard of the Alpha Male? They call me the Omega Male. Perhaps I can define what it means to be an Omega male and pave a path of acceptance for others like me.