I feel like a phony!
I clearly remember the first time I ever felt like I wanted to be a girl. I was very young, maybe ten or eleven years old. It didn’t feel odd or wrong, it just felt like I would be happier if I was a girl. I wanted to do the things a girl can do that boys were forbidden to do back in those days. Yeah, boys could take ballet lessons but not normal boys. Ballet boys were weak and gay and basically freaks. What parents would even allow that back in those days? You have to understand this was a very, very long time ago. Anyway, I could never show any interest as a boy so I just continued to dream as a girl. I never thought about anatomy or anything sexual. I only knew the very basics of sex but really didn’t know enough for any of that to factor into what I wanted. I wanted to dance and be a part of the ballet community. I wanted to be one of the girls on stage in my leotard and tights. I wanted to be with the girls every day in dance class, hanging out afterwards, talking about costumes, makeup and everyday life as a dancer. It was very simple and innocent and a very comforting dream for me.

As the years went by my interest in ballet and ballet dancers never waned. My desire to be one of them never waned either. A few times as a young teen I flirted with the idea that I should ask my parents to enroll me in dance class. I wanted it so badly but could never utter the words. Instead I just kept it in and dreamed insistently about what my life would be like had I been born a girl. It would have been so easy if I were a girl, almost expected back then. Of course, every girl took dance lessons, but no, not the boys. We had to play baseball and football which I was never any good at. Maybe I wouldn’t have been a great dancer either but at least I’d be doing the thing that I loved. So I secretly kept my interest alive, learning and vicariously experiencing all I could about the world that I couldn’t be a part of in real life. I started collecting dance clothes and secretly wearing them when I could. My wardrobe began to grow because I had to have outfits to wear to dance class and after dance class when I went out with friends. The girl inside of me began to have her own personality. She has her own style of clothing and love for all things dance related. Over the years she became a woman and began to develop sexuality. From the very beginning she was confused because she was attracted to both boys and girls. This was very foreign to me because I never believed that type of sexuality was possible. Remember, I grew up in a time when being gay was a mental disorder. Terms like, Trans and Queer and Non-Binary didn’t exist. There was nothing for me to reference on this topic and yet that woman inside of me developed in a way that I couldn’t imagine. This presented (and still does) an entirely different set of questions and confusion.

So, years went by and I tried from time to time to push all of this hard to deal with stuff out of my life. But it never left me. It couldn’t leave me because it was and is me. Unfortunately the taboos that I grew up with are also still with me. Younger people today think that it is hard dealing with gender issues but I am telling you that you have no idea how hard it was years ago. I am not saying that it is easy in today’s world, just that it is much easier than it was 30 or 40 years ago. There is a lot more acceptance in today’s world and so much support if you know where to look for it. I know what to do. I know I need to find good professional help. I know that I need to transition to finally be happy. I have the ways and the means to do whatever I want with my life and yet I still wallow in this pitiful, hidden world. The negativity and awful lessons learned from so many years ago are still holding me back. I know it sounds like an excuse but I don’t know how else to explain it. I have wasted an entire lifetime living a lie. Only being my real self behind closed doors, inside my home. What a phony I am.

I have no real friends because no one knows the real me. When I say that it is due to my own fault for not being able to be honest with someone close to me. Even when I had a wife for many years I couldn’t tell the whole truth. Now, I guess everyone thinks I’m fucked up in some way but they can’t quite put their finger on what that is. Even here on this website where I can vent honestly, everyone gets tired of me after realizing that I am a lost cause. I guess I am just that. I have no excuses for not coming out and transitioning. Most of you probably think that make me a phony. I’ll probably die soon and take this to my grave, wasting a life that could have easily been saved.