The Path Behind Me

it’s really long, and it tends to ramble… apologies up front.

Warning. Life Content Below!

I was born in Geelong, Victoria, Australia in 1983 through a caesarian. Relevant? Maybe not
It was a few months following the then worst bushfires in Victoria.

I, of course, remember nothing of that period, nor of the following years. In fact one of my first memories is of our house in Queensland (we moved), feeling that it wasn’t fair that I had to go to bed whilst my parents’ and visiting relatives got to stay up and watch Dark Crystal. I distinctly remember watching through the seperations between the logs used to make up the house’s walls (my Dad built the house in the “middle of nowhere” where my Mum’s mum was living), though I can’t remember what I saw if anything.

Fast forward several years and we’re back in Geelong. I don’t remember much but I know we were staying in a flat, around this time my Mum tried to enroll me in kindergarten. My date of birth was borderline for the then school year cut off (June 30th), so I could’ve gone into this year or the following. As it happened I was deemed not socially ready and was held back til the following year.

Around this time my mother took me to a paedetrician, I was a bit of a problem child. I was soon diagnosed with ADD (now known as AD/HD I believe) on top of an Asthma diagnosis.

We soon moved into our newly built (professionally this time) house. ‘We’ by this time included my then 4yr old sister. Much of what followed isn’t really relevant in the context of this forum so I’ll skip it. Though neither was much of what I previously wrote… Anyways…I went to primary school, but I was a terror so I was prescribed Ritalin and kept a “Behaviour Diary”. I got much better with age and learning. I didn’t play well with the other kids, being a terror and all, I used to like playing with little figurines or cars or Lego, sometimes I’d try and play pretend with my friends, but I was too controlling (trying to direct the story of our pretend!).

We move from that house into another one, around the same time as I went to high school. Also at this time Mum didn’t feel that ADD quite fit, so she sought more answers. At 12 I was diagnosed with Aspergers Syndrome.

My high school was a Catholic all boys school. In some ways this was a good thing…in others..not so much.

Soon after we moved into the new house I remember becoming jealous of my (then two) sisters for some reason. I distinctly remember wishing to be a girl even if only for a day. I vaguely remember such wishing from before such a time, but this is when it was it’s clear.

I was also becoming fascinated by my sisters’ clothes. I decided I would try them on. I immediately was caught. Nothing came of it, but when I tried again I was more diligent in my stealth.

These acts of crossdressing were at times exciting and others merely comforting. I was perplexed and confused but I didn’t let that stop me. I was caught a few times, but my parents assumed (as I did also) that it was just a phase.

I was accused a few times of being gay at school. But being in an all boys’ school and considering infrequency of the accusations I thought little of it. But it made me wonder why sexuality was such a big deal… I could see how it might be a bit discomforting in an all boys environment. However it wasn’t til I was about 17 that I understood physical attraction; there were a few female teachers that were said to be very attractive (though the terms used weren’t so polite), and I could see indeed how people came to that conclusion. But I often found other female teachers more attractive for different, then unknown reasons. (I was attracted to their intellect).

Throughout my schooling I learned mostly by rote. Input:Output basically. I absorbed the information taught; probably through what one teacher called “near total recall”; and then simply reproduced it on the tests and some projects. I was an A-B student. However I came unstuck when, in late Yr9 and Yr10 the assessment styles changed to more critical thinking based. One had to demonstrated the knowledge through reasoning, not just simply reproduce the answers. This perplexed me, it wasn’t a skill I was taught. Not in the any of the previous years was this taught to me… In fact my memory suggests that it was just assumed that the students would know this skill. By Yr11 I felt I was no longer learning anything, and my grades had dropped to C level. So I left school and took a year off.

By this time we’d moved yet again. Also during my latter years at school I was re-diagnosed with “Autism Spectrum Disorder”. The reason for the re-diagnosis was purely financial, Centrelink (Australia’s social security) did not recognise Aspergers Syndrome as a disability (even though it clearly is in social situations), but they did recognise anything with the word “Autism”. Kinda silly. But my Mum soon applied for the Disability Pension for me. I’ve been on that ever since.

During this year away from school, whilst everyone else was at their school or work, I had the run of the house. I was very eager to experiment with dressing, and experiment I did. It was then that I slowly figured that it was more of a comfort need than the excitement need that drove me. But I didn’t know what this meant, if anything.

My parents didn’t appreciate having a loafer son, and urged me to do something, anything. One day I spotted a advertisement stand for a nearby senior college (yrs 11, 12 and mature age) that had several computer courses. Being the nerd that I am I was interested. So I took some brochures. And through the encouragement of my Mum we contacted the school and setup a meeting with their careers/course advisor. Soon after I was enrolled for the following two years. I would complete my yr12 VCE, whilst gaining two TAFE qualifications in Computer Technician and Cisco CCNA. I decided against pursing an ENTER score (Equivalent National Tertiary Entrance Ranking (like GPA) ), mentally I figured I would’ve got around the 80-85 mark (out of 100, no one gets 100 though, highest I’ve seen is 99.95), however I knew that if I really tried and had pursued it properly at my previous school I could’ve achieved something around 95. But seeing as I wasn’t going to pursue such a score such thinking was moot.

I soon made friends the following year. Even though I was entering as a mature age student I still felt very much younger than I physically was, a feeling I’ve often felt. All through my schooling I was the oldest (due to being held back in kinder), but I often felt to be the youngest or least mature. In this situation it served me well. The friends I made were all yr12 students from the nearby yrs7-10 school. One of them in particular I soon became interested in. She shared many of the same interests as I and we got along awesomely. I eventually built up another guts to ask her out; but alas she was not ready for a relationship, we remained friends until a few years ago when we fell out of contact much to my dismay. That year was easy academically speaking. And socially fun; I joined the Student Council which helped organise the end of year social event…Which, through fear, I declined to attend much to my eternal regret. I was never a fan of social events and all the ones held during my time at the all boys school (held with a nearby all girls school) that I attended were boring, confusing, scary or a combination of all three. But given my higher maturity level and the fact I had a decent group of friends one of whom I was romantically interested in….. I still kick myself to this day for not going.

Enter year 2 of my restarted education. It began rather boringly, no friends; they’d all graduated. I still saw them from time to time, but it’s not the same as seeing them every day at school. However fate must’ve been smiling on me… Because one of my cousins had decided that he would restart his own education that year. Though, and amusingly so, we hadn’t seen each other for years. So long in fact that we didn’t even recognise each other when we were in the same class together. We both had feelings of recognition toward the strange person on the other side of the room, but beyond that we didn’t know who they were until the roll was called.
That was funny. But beneficial to us both as we didn’t have any other friends that year. Oddly enough thought I did re-meet one of the people I went to the all boys school with, though that was little more than a nod of recognition.

Me and my cousin shared many of the same interests also, and I was often over at his house playing the latest Xbox game (even though I only owned a PS2 at that stage), so we went from just being related to being good friends…and related.

Unfortunately my Dad lost his job (his boss died), and my parents could no longer afford our house. They decided, rather radically in my opinion, to move up to Queensland where my Mum had family. We often travelled to Queensland every Christmas which was lots of fun, but I was dubious as to the enjoyment I would feel at being ripped away from all that I had known and stuck in a place that I barely knew and only then peripherally.

As it happens, I was right. I hated it. Every minute of it. And worse than having no friends… QLD was a season ahead in Stargate SG-1! (Do I kid?) I missed an entire year of the goings on of the Cheyenne Mountain gang. Luckily the internet was there to save the day. Unfortunately this was before the time when one could download TV shows. I looked up episode synopses so I could at least get a handle on the changes. *SG-1 Spoiler*(I missed the season and episode where Daniel died)*** And in doing so I found a chatroom for people who liked Stargate. Through that I met a girl who had a Stargate ringtone, I professed a desire to also possess such a ringtone and her being a fellow Australian I mistakenly gave her my number so she could send it to me. Well maybe not so mistakenly… In light of the dangers of the internet it was stupid, but given the results it was a good thing. She called me! I was shocked, I hate having phone conversations (autism)… But she was percocious and set me at ease after a while. Eventually I found that was she was from Torquay…a mere 15min from Geelong!! Oh fate how you twist so!

Some years ago my mother took me and the elder of my two sisters aside and said, “Which do you want, a big 18th or a big 21st.” She choose 18th and received it the following year, I choose 21st and waited…Too long unfortunatley, as I was know living in QLD with no friends and few family when my 21st started to come around. Incensed at my parents (still am), I decided I would fly back to Geelong for a short holiday to celebrate a (relative to my sister’s 18th) tiny 21st birthday.

My cousin graciously allowed me to stay at his house with his wife and child. However once I got there I loved it too much…I decided to stay. It was surprisingly easy to find a cheap flat. However my cousin’s wife was getting angsty so I had to move out before I could move into the flat. Fate smiles once more and through a random conversation with an acquaintance from the all boys school I found some temporary accomodations with a female friend of his. Whilst staying there she had bags of old clothes that she was going to throw out. I sneakily appropriates some of those clothes for my own use. Or in other words…I stole them.

I moved into an empty flat with few clothes, no furniture, and no food… I quickly went out and bought a toaster and some bread with appropriate condiments (vegemite!). Toast soon became a staple of my diet, something I would regret later. My parents, thought disagreeing with my decision to move out of home so far away, but please I was moving out of home nonetheless, drove down from QLD with all my stuff annd some extra stuff…such as another toaster! Communication only works when one actually communicates My sister got the second toaster.

After they went back to QLD, I was free from my family…Not that I didn’t enjoy their presence, but without them I was free to explore myself, who I was, what I was. It was at this time that I seriously begun looking into transgender issues (I had looked into it a little bit a few years previous), and autism issues, but it was primarily transgender. I eventually got a referral to a psychiatrist…who said it was all “learned behaviour” (which still makes no sense). Not knowing quite what that meant, I assumed it meant I wasn’t transgender and decided to try and ignore the feelings. Around this time I “pretended to be a girl” online, which is an experience I’ll never forget. However as I became more interested in Autism stuff, I found an Autism forum which I wanted to join, I decided I wouldn’t “lie” about who I was and I put down “male” as my gender. I met a girl on the forum who lives in Western Australia, though she remembers meeting me through an autism mailinglist on which I was a girl! So I had to explain to her about my gender confusion, and how (or so it seemed) that it was all behind me. We got along awesomely online, and she decided she’d come over to Melbourne to meet me (Geelong is not far south of Melbourne).

Sadly the owner of my flat decided they were too old to leave standing and then decided to evict everyone. I was soon looking for another place to live. Some family friends were renovating a house in Geelong that they said I could stay in whilst they were doing it up; having not found anything at that stage I jumped at the chance, especially seeing as my parents said they’d investigate the possibility of buying it (which sadly never happened). Whislt I was living there I met the girl (whom I shall call renaeden) in Melbourne…even though I initially went to the wrong hotel! We got along better in person than we did online and we both assumed to each other that we were in a relationship. She back went home soon afterward.

However my time in Geelong was to be short lived, the option to buy the house fell through (family friends wanted more than my parents could afford), and I couldn’t find another place to rent that met my exacting standards (close to shops, bus, and within my budget)… So I decided I would move to this ‘Man-doo-rah’ (as I mistakenly pronounced it) where renaeden lived. She started looking for a place for us to live in, and eventually found one that met my standards and more!

So it was just a matter of moving my shit from Geelong to QLD and from QLD to WA… An easy task surely! …Yeah..Not. I moved my stuff into storage in Geelong and flew back to QLD. Some time later my parents drove to Geelong grabbed my stuff and came back to QLD (though also visited friends). From there I saved. There was actually some time between my deciding to move to WA and renaeden finding a place to rent, so I spent that time saving and looking for people who could bring my stuff over from QLD.

In the end the removalists I chose were actually a week later than the date they said they’d be there… Which was nearly a month after I got to WA! Anyways…

Fast forward a year or two, and renaeden and I are now married. I still maintained an interest in transgender stuff so when an intriguing two volume fiction novel crossed my eye (a self published book called “No Half Measures”) I decide to read it. And in doing so I reignited my gender confusion (which I feel would’ve inevitably come back anyway, just a matter of time).

Throughout my life I’ve experienced little bouts of depression, nothing as serious as clinical depression (such as renaeden has), but enough to make me sometimes contemplate less than pleasant options… During this “reignition” of my gender feelings I experienced a longer than ‘normal’ period of this depression. I figured that it was serious (the confusion) this time…So I sought out a psychologist (Maddalena Torre) who was experienced in both autism and transgender. During this seeking I found the ‘Freedom Centre’ (truth be told I saw the card and adverts floating around for ages…just never acted on it), I contacted them for information which she so graciously gave and she plugged the Outspace session that they were running the following weekend which was to be about Gender issues. I decided to attend.

My new psychologist, who was equally baffled by my previous psychiatrist’s “learned behaviour” pronouncement, said that I likely have gender dysphoria, and that it was clear (because I said it) that I wasn’t happy as I was. I decided to seek HRT, and got a referral from my GP to see a psychiatrist (Russell Date), I saw him a few times but he wasn’t convinced that I was convinced that I wanted HRT…So he set me a task I writing something to convince him… Acting much like the gatekeeper he specifically told me in our first appointment he wasn’t.

After some discussion with my psychologist, I wrote the following:

I’ve spent the past few weeks pondering how best to phrase this…I’ve kinda worked it out in my head; I’m aware that you said I need to write this to convince you, but I believe that you feel that I’m the one that needs convincing. And you would be correct. I was never at a point where I felt like Estrogen and Hormone intervention was the best option. Though it did at times seem like the only option. I had all these gender feelings since puberty, and often tried to ignore or supress them. Crossdressing helped give it an outlet, but it never seemed enough; like being really hungry and only allowed a mouthful.

At 20 I sought a psychiatrist (back in Victoria), but he seemed to believe my feelings were the product of learned behaviour, I wasn’t quite sure what he meant, but I figured my gender feelings were false and tried to ignore and supress them, obviously that didn’t work or I wouldn’t be seeing you and Maddelena Torre. My thoughts were if I couldn’t supress or ignore the feelings, and cross dressing wasn’t enough what was the next step? I figured hormones. Change my body to suit how I feel I want it to be.

Note how I said “feel I want it to be”. My thinking is geared toward reason and logic, and whilst I certainly feel emotions I find it difficult to identify some of them, and work out how and why I’m feeling them. There is very little knowledge here. I have only feelings to go by, and there is much I do not ‘know for sure’. The only thing I do know for sure is that I do not like/enjoy/feel comfortable in my current state. Body and facial hair irritates me, my voice offends me, the rough feeling of my skin, my hair. I do my best to mitigate these dysmorphic(?) feelings, through shaving, moisturising, styling my hair and Maddelena is trying to connect me with a speech therapist/voice trainer…. But it’s not enough.

Estrogen and hormone intervention along those lines is a risky thing, that much I am aware of. I do not know if it’s the right decision for me, I feel the only way I could possibly know is if I were to take it. Kinda like trying a new activity. But that can be a dangerous path to go down, if I decide that HRT isn’t for me, after I’ve been on it for a while I could put myself in a difficult position.

There is another option that I feel is a good option. I have no qualms about heading down this particular path at all. Anti-Androgens. I’m no medical expert, but far as I am aware it could lessen (to a degree) some of the masculine secondary sexual characteristics that distress me, and could be seen as a sort of “toe-in-the-water” as far as estrogen is concerned. If I find that anti-androgens don’t sit well with me then that would be a clear sign that estrogen is not the right path. However if AA is good decision, then we could reassess the situation further down the line.

What do I identify as? That’s a key question. I do not quite know, it’s difficult to identify as female whilst I have a male body, like desperately wanting to play a particular sport but you don’t have the equipment. I know what I don’t identify as. I don’t identify as male. I’ve never seen myself as part of the “male group” or the “boy’s club”. Everytime I go into a men’s only area I feel like I’m invading, like I don’t belong. I strongly am attracted to a “tomboy” or “nerd girl” kind of identity, but it’s not like I’m trying to find a specific label to apply to myself. I have my own internal identity which doesn’t quite match any pre-existing pigeon hole, so when asked what my identity is, I have to squish or stretch it to fit other people’s pre-conceived notions. Which means it’s all very inaccurate.
I identify as “not-male”. In a binary world that mean I would be female, but the world isn’t binary…And therein lies a problem.

As I wish to move away from maleness anti androgens would be beneficial; with AA I believe there would be some suppression of testosterone and other androgens..obviously. This would lessen some of the male secondary sexual characteristics, such as a decrease in body hair. So with AA and general maintenance I could attempt to pull off a more androgynous appearence, which I do desire, greatly.

That would be a starting point. Something to get some “data” from, to get some “feeling” from. If I like being androgyous and it’s not enough then HRT would be the next logical step. If I don’t like being androgynous then we can cease AA and go back to the drawing board as it were. That’s an expectation. And a key one. Because I have no idea what it’ll feel like, so I have no basis for judgement. Which makes it really difficult for me to make any concrete decision, or a decision I’d be happy making. Like a blind leap.

So if AA is good, and being androgynous is good but not enough, the next step would be HRT. With which I would expect the development of some female secondary sexual characteristics such as fat redistribution, breasts, softening of the skin, etc. There might be some mood changes as would be expected with hormone fluctuations, though I would expect the biggest ‘mood’ or ‘affect’ change would come from having a body that I better identify with.

Alot this is stuff I’ve read; just rote knowledge. I can only know what I have knowledge of. Someone else can just know something based on a feeling, that is a difficult skill for me to grasp… My feelings, as I’ve said, are hard to put into words… I’m attracted to the idea of going on HRT. Even more so about lowering my testosterone. Beyond that, it’s just a desire.

Allow me to relay a recent anecdote, in my garage there is a storage room. In that room I discovered my wife’s old chest protector from her martial arts training. This protector is made of plastic and has the shape of breasts (obviously). I wore this under a t-shirt I had and looked in the mirror, and I liked the shape of what I saw. It was weird, the first time I actually liked the shape of my body.

I have these feelings and they cause me some amount of distress, in that I have these unattainable desires and wants. I look for solutions but beyond cross dressing or transition there doesn’t seem to be much at all… I’ve tried cross dressing and whilst I do like it, it’s not enough, so transition would be the next step. But I don’t feel comfortable transitioning without some body changes and voice changes, otherwise I feel it’s too obvious to the eyes of the others that I’m “really a guy”, and I fear the possible negative repercussions of that.

Sometimes it feels like I’m trapped in some kind of Catch-22 loop; I can’t know if I would be happy as a girl unless I am a girl which I can’t do without going on HRT which I can’t do without knowing if I’d be happy as a girl. It’s intensely frustrating. I just want some answers, some solutions. And the one I am drawn to, positives and negatives all of it, is transitioning, even if it’s just transitioning to androgynous.

My next appointment where I will discuss this letter with him is the 17th of this month……

My relationship with renaeden hasn’t faired well due to these gender issues. Thought we’re both asexual, she feels she’s not attracted to females and would find it difficult to be in a relationship with me as a girl. There is a general feeling from both of us that the relationship is headed for an end, which saddens me.

That is the path behind me. The path before is shrouded in mystery and scary stuff.