the early years

I discovered my inner girl around age 4 or 5. I vaguely remember wanting to wear my oldest sister's clip-on earrings, and my mom actually put them on me. I walked around with them on for a little while. Then, I think it was me who asked to have them taken off.

A year or so later, I can recall walking, for a short spell, in my mom's high heels. Also, around that time, I did this goofy thing where I'd call myself by the name of various female neighbors. That would later evolve into having imaginary friends and playing with my sister's dolls. For Christmas of 1982, when I was 6, I got a Ken doll. I still wanted to play with my sister's Barbies after that, and I recall playing Barbie with my sister. My youngest sister was born in 1983, and I would play with her dolls, too. My parents tried to get me to enjoy more boyish toys, but I'd even pretend my toy soldiers were girls. I was more likely to make most stuffed animals as girl characters. I tried to have boy imaginary friends and accept some stuffed animals as boys. I never tried to feminize my Cabbage Patch doll I got for Christmas of '85. Still, though, I had pretend friends, and girls far outnumbered the guys. There's just something about girls' names that I, to this day, like better than guys' names.

I remember an incident in the spring of 1984 when I used to play with a hunk of modelling clay. One day, I asked my dad to make a person out of the clay. He made a man, and I threw a major tantrum. I wanted a girl. He angrily took the clay from me and fixed it so I'd shut up.

As I moved into puberty, I seemed to have somewhat easier success accepting masculine things. Still, there where times when I pretended my Alf doll was a girl. Now, I kept the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as guys. Michaelangelo was my favorite, and I impersonated him. Like narly, dude. Cowabunga. Still, below all that, the inner woman lodged, deep in the basement of my mind. She often came to the surface of my mind when I was with any man at all for any reason. That's always the way it is, and it's only gotten stronger in recent years. More often than not, I feel like a girl in the midst of guys or a girl sitting next to a guy. It's not a sexual attraction. That much I can explain, but the rest is unexplainable. Anyway, that's my transgender history from what I can think of. If more memories come to the surface, I may blog about them.