amie

I have finished my social and legal transition from male to female.  Though I have found total comfort in my new identity I will continue to participate on tgguide as it was so hepful to me the last 3 years and I hope to be supportive to others as well.  

My first love is music and taking old songs and putting my own personality and style into them by performing.  I am a natural entertainer but I often get nervous before a performance. My profession is within the arts and helping others to preserve their memories in the digital communications industry.  I am well trained in public speaking and would enjoy participating in more support programs.  I enjoy Bicycling for exercise but would really love a ballet class as well as ballroom dancing as the female that I now am.  

I love the outdoors when the weather is perfect.  Writing and Home improvement are actually hobbies for me though recently I have wanted to learn more about sewing to possibly design some of my own clothing.  I am college educated and highly skilled in many areas.   Subconsciously I always felt that people sensed the female in me put couldn't put their finger on what was different.  I have often been put down and many creative ideas have been often taken from me.  Eventually I quit fulltime work because working as man around men became to much for me.  

In order to fully express myself the way I needed to I have run my own business for 10 years full time.  I love having control over the final product and the customers we have come back year after year.  Though wanting acceptance as transgender preoccupied my thoughts, since transition I have much more freedom and ambition to focus on my work and my family.  Before transition I felt limited internally because I was not able to pursue some of the more feminine areas of interest that I have.  

I now accept myself as a female and I am starting to have peace of mind.  I am a deeply spiritual person and I go to church every week but I know God cannot be confined to a building.  I have reached a point where my faith is internalized and I truly see God in others.  If churches didn't exist anymore I would still know that there is a higher power taking care of me and wanting me to practice real love for others.   I am attracted to men as well as women but I have found comfort in my family and being married to my wife.  Recently I have started to share my situation with some of my closest life long friends.  The fear of some friends and relatives causing me more trouble than it is worth has made me want to redefine my social circle.   I also have more than a few children with the same person and yet I feel alone.  

I am longing for a friend who has had a similar experience to me whom I could identify with.  I love my wife and she knows everything about me but she realizes that I need to have a friend like myself to identify with.  I love to socialize and have a interest in a wide variety of topics.  I have identified with females since before I could walk, yet I was forced to grow up as a man because I thought I was the only one who felt this way.  

When I got married, losing my other female friends caused me to become depressed and withdrawn.  Knowing a few people who have similar experience as me has helpedme get through each day a little better.  My transition was gradual over the last 20 year.  As of 3 years ago I wore woman's clothes all of the time, but most people didn't recognize.   The clothes were  conservative enough (more unisex) that people never know for sure and usually identify me as a man.  two years ago ago I was halfway there with Longer hair, earrings, cleanly shaven and the soft feminine style.  Now with 14 months of hormones, less body hair, and a more feminine shape,  I feel more like a woman than ever.  I have completely accepted myself as a woman, now it time for the other people in my life to catch up.  More recently, 6 months ago I had gender reassignment surgery by way of orchiectomy.  I look forward to a day where I can complete the final phase of vangioplasty and never have to look back.   I have come a great way and I am at peace.  

Amie