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So, I asked a friend (cis-woman) if we could do lunch on Saturday - just said for now there was something I wanted to talk about. I plan to "come out" to her as transgender. It feels a little anti-climactic, after all she already knows I cross-dress and not for fetish reasons. But, outside of my therapist she will be the first person to whom (yes, i'm trying to keep "whom" alive!) I will have self-identified as trans. To me I think the big thing, besides actually saying it out loud, is thinking about how to explain what it means in my life. She won't be judgmental at all, she's awesome and totally supportive of pretty much everything, but it is a conversation and I'm sure she'll ask follow-up questions. Luckily i'm off work tomorrow, so I have time to think On another front, I fully merged my wardrobe tonight - I no longer own "mens" clothes and "womens" clothes, I just own "my" clothes. Hope all of the Christians out there have a lovely Good Friday, and happy Passover to all Jewish members! And a belated Blessed Ostara to any other Wiccans in the room!

WOW! Just wow. The phrase 'noblesse oblige' comes mind. On such a day too! BRAVO ZULU Karen. Awesomeness on like 7 different levels of awesome. :)

That's wonderful Karen! I hadn't thought about it before but i'm going to look for volunteer opportunities like that near me

Karen, have volunteered at various hospitals through the years, and I wish that I could have had the opportunity to volunteer with Dr. Marci Bowers! Monica

Oops, I meant to include a specific example of a question that gave me something to think about - it was recent, a quiz about Gender Reassignment Surgery - I won't try to quote the question exactly, but the thought process that it prompted for me was basically "if there were absolutely no downsides or difficulties in doing it, would you?" Of course there are downsides and difficulties, but I think it's a good starting point (it really works in many areas of life - "if there was nothing to fear, would you do it?"). But I agree, for me they're mostly just fun - and an occasional diversion from a job that I often hate. Adding to their deficiencies is that I'm pretty good at "putting my thumb on the scale" to get the answer I want (though again, that can be telling in itself). I do currently see a therapist, and put much more stock in him :-)

Yes. It's good for the complexion ! :)

Thank you, ladies!

Should I admit to blushing, thanks Veronica.

Hi everyone, So I just recently discovered this site, and since my transition is still relatively new I thought a blog would be a good idea - to keep track of things for myself and see what others might have to offer I guess I'll use this entry for a little background. My transition began in earnest about a year and a half ago (it was sometime in the summer of 2013). I started with cross-dressing and discovered quickly that every time I took a step thinking it was for reason "A" it turned out it was really for reason "B." With cross-dressing, I thought I was doing it for sexual/fetish reasons, but very quickly realized that wasn't my reason at all. The first bit of evidence that I recall is that the first time I shopped for clothes (on Venus.com) I went in thinking I was looking for "hook-up" clothing - when my order arrived a few days later I found that I hadn't ordered anything like that at all - what I got was arguably cute and flirty, but not hook-up. So that called into question my reason for cross-dressing. Even then, it seemed like cross-dressing was just it's own thing - I started doing it at home, and then eventually got up the guts to get dressed at home and actually go out! But still, at that point when I was a boy I was a boy, when I was a girl, I was a girl. The first break in that was my JLo bag from Kohl's (my favorite brand/store combo!). I bought it for cross-dressing as I needed a bigger bag so that I could carry a change of shoes. But almost immediately I started using it every day, boy or girl. Not the boldest, most obvious "statement," but it was a start, it was the first item of clothing/accessory that I used either way. Now I'm at point where I'm "feminizing" as much as possible - but it's really my thought process that's become more important. I'm hung up a bit on the question of what this - what being transgender - means to me? More later - thanks for reading!!!!

I took one of those on-line surveys, too, (do not recall the survey name) where the reader is presented with various situations or what if type questions and given 5 answer choices. It was fun and educational, but took it with a grain of salt.

In regards to Marci and support. She has done an excellent job for the people (employees) at my hotel who work with transgender on a weekly basis and are super fantastic. If I was in the area I would volunteer. Also the nurses in the hospital are well versed with us.

Karen and Emma, Wish Marci Bowers and other GRS surgeons had local VOLUNTEERS at their clinics and hospitals to provide their patients support . . . Monica

Congratulations on the end of your coping and starting a journey that will hopefully have you arrive to where you should be. Once you have a target date for surgery please do not put off hair removal for the private area as I did and ended up going twice a week for several months rather than spread it out over time. Good to hear True Selves was helpful. With me it was complete validation. In regards to hair thinning, please use caution when looking at options and depending on how much hair thinning there is don't rule out quality hair pieces. So the journey begins, be proud and be you.

Lisa, That's great that you're taking steps, and that your mom is supportive. Good luck on your journey, I look forward to reading more updates! Christie

I've been wanting to do this for my own purposes anyway, but since I have a blog now I should use it! In exploring my gender I've thought a lot about the past and anything that might have been an indicator of what I really was (am!). The earliest item is my very first best friend (only friend for awhile) - Missy (totally ironic that I now use that name for my drag name). I'm not even sure when we became friends, we were both younger than 5 years old though. She lived down the street from me, so to some extent it was convenience, we were the only people close to each other in age - she had a brother and sister who were both substantially older, I have a brother and sister who are older, but they lined up with other kids in the area who were around their age. Convenience wasn't everything though, we were very close and stayed close friends well into elementary school, even after both of us had met other people and could "travel" to play if we wanted. Our usual play routine involved things that I think would be typically seen as "girls" - basically "playing house" with various Fisher Price toys. I had a G.I. Joe, but it wasn't my choice, I would have preferred a Barbie (she had much better accessories!), and in my hands Joe didn't do the things that he would normally have done (he never went to war). Sadly we did drift apart - it was around the age when it was "wrong" to have friends of the other sex/gender (girls had cooties after all). I didn't have any close female friends through the rest of elementary school or high school - but I was friendly with more girls than boys (in hindsight I can see that they no doubt saw me as non-threatening, so it was easier to get closer). These weren't good years (for multiple reasons that probably had nothing to do with gender). After that I started having more female friends, and a wife. We ostensibly divorced when I came out as gay, but I can see things from the time of being married that suggested otherwise. One fairly substantial thing is that when it came to decorating the more "female" touches were generally my suggestion! I like pink, I like it anywhere that it looks good, which is pretty much anywhere (for example, I was very excited when I found that I could make this all pink! Hopefully it doesn't make it hard to read). To put an even finer point on it, we didn't paint our living room pink, we painted it "dusty rose." My choice. I'm sure I tried to keep some check on it, but not with complete success. Later on I would ascribe that to being gay, but now... Since then I've pretty much always had at least one very close female friend. Again I would have typically said that it was because I'm gay - but I honestly don't know many of my gay friends who routinely have female friends, they tend to stay more to themselves (I'm also not denying the possibility that both sexuality and gender play a role in this). I'll save the more recent indicators for later xoxo Christie