All my life, I have felt wrong. And I do mean all my life.

Since before I could even put a full definition to what gender even was. I have always felt off in my own body, as though the world I expected and desired did not sync at all with what was happening around me, happening to me.

I have hidden from my true self all my life. I did what was expected of me, what was expected of all boys...to be a man. To do all the things boys are supposed to do. Act the way boys are supposed to act.

I have the brain of a female. In all likelihood it is biological, caused during foetal formation by little more than a slightly “off” series of hormonal developments. My mind is a girl’s, but it’s in the body of a boy, and it has been this way for the entirety of my existence, regardless of how I’ve been raised or how my worldly experiences have influenced me.

Imagine for a second here what that would be like. Imagine you, a girl or boy, in the opposite body, and unable to do anything about it. You see the world as a guy or girl, but have to live as a girl or guy, pushed along by societal current, tradition, and bare survival instinct into positions and identities that are increasingly uncomfortable to you, unpalatable to you. Everything about your existence is laced with lies, and it feels like there’s nothing that you can do about it.

This is how it is for me. This is how it’s always been for me. If you’ve always seen me as a Herculean pillar of masculinity, then I guess it just means I’m a good faker. I’m sorry if this makes you feel betrayed, or wronged. That’s never what I wanted to do.

For years I felt that there was nothing I could do about what I felt, and so for years I didn’t intend to do anything about it. Unsurprisingly, this did not work. Transsexuality, I have found, is not a habit you can break, a mindset you can force your way out of, or something you can treat with psychotherapy or drugs. It is a genetic construction that will never, ever change, but as it turns out, there is something that can be done about it. I’ve always known it was a possibility, but until now I’ve been too terrified to make it a reality. It took time, it took lots of time, for me to build up the courage to admit to myself that it would be a mistake to continue living as a male. To understand that any apprehensions that I had about doing anything to solve my problems were very much outweighed by the problems themselves, and the implications that they would have on my well- being for the rest of my life.

May 10, 2014 my life came to a cross-road. I was at the point of Transition or commit suicide. So I’m doing something about it, and I’m transitioning from male to female. It’s the only cure for my condition, and I am more than happy to take it on. Above all of the rest, this is the part I want you to understand the most. This is the part where I’m going to be emphatic, where I’m going to be angry, and where I’m probably going to cry a little.

This is the part where I want to make clear that this was NOT a choice.

I am not deciding to become a girl. This is me allowing myself to be who I am, and it is the only route that I could take, because I am done lying about who I am. In transitioning from male to female, I have become a second-class citizen in the eyes of many people. I have opened myself up to discrimination and hate. I have jeopardize my likelihood of finding a life partner who accepts me. I have jeopardize my job security. I have opened myself up to abandonment and rejection by family and friends. I am diving headfirst into what is really a whole world of social trouble, and it is not something that I would choose to do.

This is the next step of my life, of my existence and of my development as a human being, and this was always going to happen, because it was never my choice.

Coming to grips with this has been an absurdly hard process, and it has constantly sent me into depression and loneliness. Nearly every personal problem that I’ve had over the course of my life, I can trace back almost certainly to repressed questions of gender identity. Making myself realize it and embrace it took years, and even after that the fear and uncertainty of what to do about it made me miserable.

I never told anyone. I lied about what made me sad, or I just didn’t say. Coming out and actually telling someone “I’m transgendered” was a prospect far, far too scary to even consider. Instead I sank inside myself, jealous of people more brave than me and full of self-pity. It’s all because I was too scared to just tell anyone that there was something wrong with me. It took being completely low, down, and beaten for me to finally tell my best friend. It was a year after that before I told anyone else. After that person, a couple of weeks to tell another. Despite how scary it was all those times, and despite how scary it still is, it gets easier.

I lost friends and family with my decision to transition. My middle daughter, age 25, has disowned me and tells people I am an embarassment. A few friends have stopped talking to me, which just tells me they never were my friends in the first place.

August 21,2014 I started HRT and began the process of transition. I doubt my transition will ever end, as humans tend to evolve over time. We develope new interests and loose interest in other things. For me its just about living and being happy as the REAL me.

Surgeries? After weighing all the pros and cons, I've concluded that at my age and the inevitable witing list for C.A.M.H to approve government medical coverage, not to have SRS. I will be having an Orchi done this spring. Two reasons for Orchi...to get off the spiro and to get rid of the two things that represent to me the symbol of masculinity.

Ok that's all for now.

Merry Meet and Merry Part, and Merry Meet Again

Blessed Be

Haley