I’m sure if any other transsexuals are reading this, they will all be familiar with my story. Since about 4-5 years old, I wanted to be a girl. I remember being at pre-school and wanting to do the things the girls did; when I went to my parents’ friends houses where they had girls, I used to play with their dolls. From all the stories I’ve read about other people like me, this is all a very similar story

When I was very young, my parents got divorced and I lived with my mother from then on. I remember when we were living with one of her boyfriends, he used to tell me things like “that’s not how boys do things.” For me, these things just came naturally; but that’s when I first started to change my behaviour. Since then, I have always acted fake. Always attempted to appear as if I was just a normal guy. Of course, back then I had no idea about what I was feeling.

When I was about 7, my mother started taking me to see a child psychiatrist. She knew there was something strange with me, and wanted to know what it was. Over the months of seeing this doctor, I specifically remember once telling him that I did in fact want to be a girl. Looking back on my childhood, this is the most annoying time I can recall. Telling that doctor exactly what my issue was and having him just ignore it; instead, he diagnosed me with ADD and prescribed Ritalin.

Throughout my teenage years, I regularly took my mother’s clothes. Just to wear in private because they made me feel better about myself. I really wasn’t sure why I did this at the time. When I was about 16, I discovered exactly who and what I am. Around that time, I started to go online as my real self. No-one knew that I wasn’t who I said I was. It was a freeing experience. When I was 19, my mother discovered some clothes in my drawers and I came out to her about all of it. She said “I always knew there was something.”

My mother sent me to a psychologist who had a little experience in this area. It was expensive, but she said “we can’t put a price on your health.” Once I saw this psychologist, I got a referral to a clinic. I was going to call up and arrange an appointment when my mother told me that she couldn’t afford it. She has suffered from chronic depression all her life and was having an episode at this time, what she didn’t tell me at the time was that she was afraid they were just going to give me drugs and send me on my way. Instead, she just said she couldn’t afford it.

After this, I got very depressed. I told my mother that I was contemplating suicide and she took me to the hospital. They didn’t believe me at all and this just made it worse. I locked myself away in my bedroom for a couple of weeks, refusing to eat or do anything. My mother even called the police in to try and get me to eat and they organised for me to see a counselor at the local mental health hospital. I told this person everything and again, another professional fobbed it off. I was just put on anti-depressant medication.

I finally managed to get a job in software development and moved out of home. This job was a very interesting one. It got me into exactly the field I wanted, but they constantly had financial troubles. Most weeks, I wouldn’t even know if I was going to get paid or not. Because of this, I couldn’t afford to continue anything related to my condition; hell, I couldn’t even afford to pay rent. Since then, I just tried to put it to the back of my mind. I got a much better job and managed to negotiate a rather nice salary. I have again switched jobs since then and am living very comfortably.

Last year, I had fell out of contact with most of my friends. I was around this time when I just thought “fuck it” and posted a note on Facebook coming out. I didn’t care what people thought. I didn’t expect the response I got though; all of my friends were very supportive of me.

Now, I am an extremely bad procrastinator. Essentially, I have set up this blog to force myself to actually do something about the situation. Feel free to prod me a little if I don’t seem to be doing much about it.