Over the years, my understanding about my compulsion for feminizing myself has evolved. Over the same time period, transsexualism has become more and more mainstream, and many things have changed with social acceptance as well as how it's understood by science.
I've been thinking of myself as a cross-dresser. I met with a sex therapist, who told me unequivocally that I am not transsexual, and that I don't have gender dysphoria. I simply have a sexual fetish for making myself feminine, which is very common.
Some of you reading this might have a powerful negative reaction: this sounds suspiciously like autogynephilia, which has been emphatically discredited for years. I'm certainly trans, you'd say, and I'm being misled and prevented from becoming my true female self!
Well, I'm not here to argue one way or the other. The truth is, I don't know: am I truly a woman in a man's body? Am I in denial?
It's always been an extremely sexual thing for me. In all but the most private settings, I'm a man. There's nothing feminine about the way I present myself. My family and my career are built on a masculine identity. These are incredibly valuable to me. Over the years, I've come to think of my sexual inclination to be female as a benign delusion, which quickly dissipates when I fulfill it -- the "pink cloud" as it were. But there's no question that at times I intensely wish I were female. I ponder how I could make it real. The closest I've come is to wear women's clothes occasionally.
So basically, by the current conventional wisdom, I'm definitely trans. If I look deeper than my sexual fulfillment, I am indeed a woman. I've rationalized away my dysphoria. I should embrace my true feminine self, and come out as the woman I've always been, but have been afraid to let out.
This is highly appealing to me at one level, but unacceptable due to the risk on my family and career.
It occurred to me the other day that the conventional wisdom has a flaw, which many have pointed out: gender is a continuum, not a binary. It's highly complex. However, for anyone wanting to transition to womanhood, there's a requirement to present as a conventional representation of a woman. It's necessary to prove that you can live your life as what most people would consider a female public identity. But what if I don't want my feminine identity to be public? I do want to be female, but I also want my family and colleagues to continue to think of me as male. Why can't I be female in private, and present myself as male when I choose? Why is that not a valid option?
Basically, the ideal way forward for me would be to transition to female (complete with surgery, hormones, etc.), but in public, continue to show my male persona. Nobody in public needs to know what sort of genitals I have! If I ever do want to go out in public as a woman, I could do that, too, whenever I want. I'd certainly want to present as female at times.
So I guess this makes me a transsexual woman with a male public persona, or a transsexual transsexual.
Realistically, my wife and kids would strongly object to this, so it's not feasible. But someday, perhaps...
The important thing would be that I'd be physically female, regardless of my clothes and outward presentation. This idea is highly appealing to me, because it strikes me as much more achievable than transitioning and presenting as female all the time.
Why isn't this option more widely available and accepted? Don't force me to fit into your neat little box!
