Pet peeve #1

I’ve been perusing a number of CD and transexual websites and blogs the past couple of days. On a number of those sites there are woman who talk about the CD or MTF in their lives that seem to have one thing in common. Their trans person has one little aggravating habit, their uber femme refuses to do anything that might break a nail.

PLEASE STOP NOW! I know several trans women that actually own more power tools than they did before they transitioned. They are competent and self sufficient. The kind of qualities I want my own daughter to have. There are times that i can be as femme as they come but I still rise to the occasion to kill a bug or fix a leaky faucet. Genetic women have fought for a long time to obtain equality. Don’t trivialize their struggle. If you truly want to be a woman you must embrace those things that modern woman do. Dont turn into a Barbie! Your wife, girlfriend, daughter or SO will appreciate it.

Overreacting

With all the emotional, physical, social, and marital changes going on I get lost sometimes. I overreact in the worst way. This is something I have done most of my life. It’s one of the traits that I got from my mother that I wish she kept to herself.

I thought I had done a great job tempering my ability to overreact since reaching adulthood. I tend to stop myself before I blurt out something stupid in the heat of the moment. However, when I started to remove the masculine barriers to my emotions the tendency is creeping back. Before I was stoic, now I can be an emotional wreck. Joy, sadness, anger, excitement, pride, etc. I am feeling this swarm of emotions in new and decidedly different ways. Not necessarily more feminine or less masculine just different. Combine all that with overreacting and it’s a recipe for disaster.

This is probably the same reason that my mom seemed so unhappy all the time. I sometimes wonder how she would have taken the news that she finally got her wish. I was supposed to be a girl when I was born. My mother even picked out a girls name for me. Nature and God had other ideas. She had a healthy baby boy who would one day grow up to want to be a girl (at least part time). Well Rachel is the result. Would my mom have loved and accepted me as the daughter she never had or would she have hated her for taking away her son? I guess I’ll never know.

My wife had joked that it was my mom’s fault for praying too much for a girl that God decided to play a great joke on all of us. What a sense of humor He must have!

“I’m beautiful in my way
’cause God makes no mistakes
I’m on the right track baby
I was born this way”

Thank you Lady Gaga (not a fan but this song speaks to me)

A big thank you to my all my friends an family who are providing support and encouragement during this difficult time.

Cant sleep

I couldn’t sleep so I got up at 2:40am. Wanted to put on a dress and go downstairs but I grabbed a pair of flats and went down anyways. We have marble floors and they can be really cold. I put on some music on my iPod and I danced for a while in the kitchen. As Rachel I have found an outlet in dancing. I never had any interest when in my male personna.

I had another setback today. Another blogger Wistful Life offered to be a pen pal to my wife. Wistful writes about what it’s like for the SO of a crossdresser and her posts are incredible. However, my wife declined ( at least for now). I said it might be a good for her to talk with someone else who would understand what she is going through. She said “The less I think about it the better.” she also said something to the effect that it is always in her face. I have tried very hard to tone things down. I mostly underdress which includes my favorite footless tights. She hasn’t seen me in anything else for weeks. I haven’t even dressed for almost two weeks. (The pressure is building too). I even skipped my support group meeting to spend last Friday night with her. I don’t see how this is going to play out. I’m starting to go back to that dark place where depression is just waiting to take me again. My heart sinks every time that I hear that another couple has found a way to live with and even enjoy their husband’s crossdressing. I keep asking “why not me?”. I know this is selfish and I can’t help it. I don’t know what I’ll do if we can’t work through this. I’ve always said I want to keep the marriage intact. I love my wife with all my heart and I couldn’t bear to live the rest of my life without her. But my trans feelings are not going away. In fact they get stronger everyday. I’m definitely a happier person the more I get in touch with these feelings and I can’t see supressing them again. Suicide is not an option and never was. Neither is divorce. I can’t even stand the thought of living apart without breaking down in tears. I just don’t know right now.

This morning I was really happy. Things went well at work. I didn’t even mind being in guy mode. Now I just sit here at almost 4:00 in the morning with a black cloud over my head. I can’t even talk to my wife about it because that would bring up “that subject” yet again and I’m afraid she will just tune out. We started out this journey really communicating again. We have been closer that we have for the last few years. Now she won’t talk about to me about what she is feeling. I have never made demands or even asked for compromises. In fact I have given up alot to work this out. I still have a mustache which she adores. I hate it but I keep it for now. If I finally ask her and she says that she will never be happy unless I give up this foolishness; I won’t be able to do that. It’s a part of me and I can’t cut it out like a tumor. I am crying again and I’ll stop here.

The only good thing to come out of all this is that I found our missing chinchilla. While typing this post out I heard some noise from the laundry and found Haru trapped under the washer. How he got there I have no idea. At least he is safe now and being chased around by his brother Toshiro.

Previously in the life of Rachel

This is a post that I was going to put up a couple of weeks ago and though I had lost the original.

I was sick for four days this past week. It was a great excuse to femme out a bit in an old pair of my wife’s satin pjs.

Saturday i was feeling quite a bit better and we decided to go through a ton of old clothes that were building up. My wife and I started losing weight this year and a good portion of our clothes don’t fit. Fortunately for me I now fit in some of her old clothes. My wardrobe now has a nearly new pair of jeans, some stretchy slacks that hug my bottom just right and a slinky black dress. The best part about all this was trying them on with my wife present. No disapproving looks or comments. She seemed happy that I was having a good time.

Later that afternoon we went out to buy my youngest son some new shoes. That was not a good experience. Because we decided not to tell our boys about my trans self until they were older, I had to be in Dad mode. Not easy after days of being ‘blurry’. ‘Blurry’ is my term for looking male but presenting a bit more femme. We couldn’t find any shoes for my son but my wife started looking for herself.

My wife never ‘shops’ for shoes. If she can’t find something in 5 minutes or less she leaves. Now she was trying on all kinds of things, pumps, strappy heels, wedges, flats, you name it. I wasn’t prepared for the wave of intense jealousy that was building up inside me. To me she was flaunting her female privilege. It was like saying “see, I can try these on because I’m a woman”. That hurt me.

I switched from jealousy to a state of intense longing. Longing to be a part of what she took for granted. I think she noticed, since she put back the pair of sandals in her hand and we left. We did not speak for an hour after this. Looking into her eyes I think I saw that she was unprepared for the intensity of my feelings.

I have had some time to stand back and look at this a little differently. Transgenderism can make one focus too much on the ‘me’ and not on the ‘us’. I am going through some radical changes emotionally and psychologically, so is my wife. I tend to forget that. It’s quite possible that she is becoming a little trans too in her own way. I failed to see that she was able to explore some untapped store of her own femininity. That she could partake in the same joy I get in shopping for shoes would have been something foreign for both of us. For a crossdresser that is one of the rights of passage to the feminine world. It is also her right too. I should be proud of my wife’s newfound freedom to discover herself and to be just a bit ‘girly’ when the moment strikes.

Sometimes it can be hard to see how my being trans can have a positive effect on those around us and close to us. I normally brace myself for the negative effects that most would associate with crossdressing. But, I have been pleasantly surprised that almost everyone who I have come out to have accepted me and even complimented me on my honesty and courage. My gift has given me something beyond measure, the ability to effect lives beyond my own. Hopefully that effect will always be for good but I know that won’t always be the case. However that should not stop me from trying to change things for the better.

Crossdresser, or what?

I was reading some of the information on transgendercare.com and came across the term transgenderist. Their definition is one who presents themselves as androgynous but lives as either male of female depending on preference or circumstance. That sort of defines me most of the time. However, I get a mental picture of some half male,half female gunslinger riding into town. Or some androge magician waving his wand, “now he’s a man…swish…now she’s a woman”.

This led me to think a bit more about how I think of myself as a trans person. Am I just a crossdresser or something else? I’ve decided that I am more dual gendered (bi-gendered sounds like it could be confused with bi-sexual). I would like to live life in both genders. That’s my medium term goal. After that who knows.

So for now I’ll stay with crossdresser. Crossdresser seems more friendly. Dual-gendered sounds almost like some trans superhero’s special powers. I don’t think I’m ready to jump into a phone booth and come out Rachel, The Trans Defender. However, I do have a thing for spandex……

Back to the beginning

When did I know I was different? Depending on how you look at it, always. This a long story. My story. But it is also one I think many crossdressers can identify with.

The furthest back I can remember having feelings about being female I was about 6 years old. I had a Spiderman comic book that also featured Wasp Woman and Black Widow. Like most boys I dreamed about being Spiderman crawling on walls and spinning webs to catch bad guys. But sometimes I would stare at Black Widow in her skintight black outfit. I found myself wondering what it would be like to wear her outfit. That’s not something a little boy would normally think about. I pushed those thoughts away because they were ‘bad’ and not normal.

I also remember watching scary movies with my dad to prove how brave I was. Some of the monsters would scare me so bad I would sneak into my younger brother’s bed to sleep. If my dad found out I would get spanked with a belt for being a baby or acting like a scared little girl. I think my dad was afraid that I would turn out to be a homosexual.

My mom would take me to buy shoes at a store that also had ballet wear. I remember staring at the leotards and tights imagining what they felt like to wear. I was also jealous of the girls since they were allowed to wear them when I couldn’t. About the same time I found out what most ‘normal’ boys thought about ballet and I figured I would just forget about leotards unless I wanted to get beaten up.

When I was 8 I had a very intense dream. This is a dream I can still remember today with almost the same intensity. In the dream I am in our living room with a box on the floor. It is the kind of gift box that normally would have held a shirt or pair of pants. When I open the box there is a strangely smooth and light garment in it. I put it on and I feel warm and wonderful. We had a mirror on one side of the room and I look into it and I see a beautiful girl looking back. I revel in the strange feelings I experience until I hear a sound like someone coming down the hallway towards me. I jump behind our couch and suddenly I change back to myself and the garment is gone. I am scared that someone had seen me so I continue to hide. While I hide, I experience such sadness and loss that I wake up from the dream.

Just before my tenth birthday and our move to the west coast I had my first experience with woman’s clothing. My brother had a handmade stuffed animal that happened to be filled with old pantyhose. The seams had split and the ‘stuffing’ had come out so my mom had thrown it away. I noticed the hose in the trash and stole one of them on impulse. I had hidden it in the cabinet behind my bed. My parents liked crime shows and I had seen the bank robbers on the shows hide their faces with panty hose so I put them over my face to pretend I was a notorious criminal. That to me seemed an acceptable way to play with them. To actually put them on my legs was too sissy. Well that thought didn’t last long and one night I put them on. Oh I was in heaven, electricity shot through me. It was like nothing I ever felt before. Shame and guilt took over and I literally tore them off and hid them deep in the trash can the next morning.

It was years after before I had any more thoughts of becoming a girl or wearing their clothes. I was very thin and not as muscular or athletic as most of my friends. I was always chosen last for sports at school and I stuck with the more nerdy or outcast guys. However, when it came to be chosen for study groups I always ended up with groups of girls. I had a knack of being able to understand them and bridge the male-female communication gap. They liked
me because I was articulate and could explain math and science concepts in a way they could understand. The girls in my groups always got higher scores than most of the boys and they loved that. Unfortunately the boys didn’t and I got called sissy, fag, homo and other things because I hung out with girls.

By high school I started to avoid those situations for self preservation. I saw how the more effeminate guys got picked on and beat up because other guys thought they were gay. I started acting more masculine even though I didn’t feel very masculine. I would curse and make fun of ‘those’ guys. I joined in the homophobic banter of my fellow ‘real’ guys. Pretty girls became sex objects to be ogled and the less attractive ones were to be made fun of. Basically I became a thin, gawky, nerdy bastard. And as such I couldn’t get a girlfriend to save my life so I took up long distance bike riding. I repressed all feminine thoughts as deeply as a I could.

At 17 i got a job in the camera and electronics department at a local store. A perfect job for me because i loved helping customers and i knew my products like nobody else. My people skills and technical knowledge finally merged and I was happy. I had finally become accepted as a normal guy by my friends and coworkers.

Because I was still a bit nerdy I had joined up with a group of Anime fans. Anime are Japanese animated shows that are more sophisticated then the general Saturday morning fair most American kids are exposed to. I immersed myself in Japanese culture and even took Japanese language courses at the local community college. I loved how many female characters in Anime are strong, intelligent and incredibly sexy. I began having dreams where I was an incredibly beautiful Japanese girl who was a race driver by day and a ninja secret agent by night. These dreams lasted on and off until I started seeing the woman who became my wife.

After I was married I got a job as an artist for a video game company. By far the best job I have ever had. There was a group of hardcore Anime fans there and we traded videos often. One friend introduced me to Ranma 1/2. In this show the main character is a chauvinistic young martial arts student who gets cursed. When he comes in contact with cold water he changes into a girl. I instantly fell in love with the series without making the connection to my earlier sex change dreams which I again had suppressed.

By this time our three cildren had been born and I was bounced around through various game projects. I wasn’t able to spend much time at home since I was pulling 14 hour days for weeks at a time. During one of the slow times I had bought my wife some underwear as a gift. Not being an expert in panties, I had inadvertently purchased a style she did not like. They were not cheap so I joked with her about not letting them go to waste. I was going to wear them if she wouldn’t. She said “ok then” not thinking I would do such a crazy thing. Well I did wear them and loved it! My first piece of woman’s clothing which I still have to this day. I was hooked and began swapping out guy underwear for girls underwear. Since I do a lot of our laundry I was able to hide them for quite a while. When my wife did find out I turned it into a joke by saying it was actually her fault. If she had only worn that pair of purple panties this would never had happened. Needless to say that didn’t cut it and she was not very happy (I think the thongs really threw her for a loop).

I tried to go back to my old Hanes briefs but found out I couldn’t stand them. I feel ugly in baggy old man underwear. I want clingy silky things, not drab old white cotton. I still “Butch up” for my wife every once and a while and don’t underdress. I know she can tell how uncomfortable it makes me feel. But she really appreciates that I make the effort to be regular guy for her. My gender issues seem to permeate everything in our lives nowadays and this is one way we can leave those issues behind for a while. At least now she understands when I yank those briefs off and change back into my regular things.

That is how it all began. There are probably other things that are buried in my head but I can’t or won’t remember them. All I know is that is how I am. I can’t blame anyone for turning out this way, nor do I want to. Some would think this is a curse or the cause of a bad childhood. Neither is correct. By all accounts i had a good childhood. I was raised to be a man by parents who thought they were doing the right thing. And I still don’t think that God in his infinite wisdom would place a curse like transgenderism on so many people. What would be the point in that? I have always been told that God has given everyone certain gifts and it’s our job to
make of them what we will. For good or bad. Being a crossdresser or just being transgender is not always rainbows and sunshine. But if I look at it as a special gift, I can use that gift to make this place we live in a little better and a lot more interesting. -Rachel

To set the record straight…

Yes, there is a sexual aspect to crossdressing. I think that anyone who tells you differently is either lying, in denial, or fibbing to protect their significant others.

Oh, this is going to get really personal. When I started this blog about my transgender journey I did make it a point to be honest. Sometimes brutally honest. (I do want to point out that i sometimes avoid certain details to protect my family and myself, not in an effort to present untruths. That would not be fair to anyone and would turn this journal into a pointless exercise)

So here it goes….

I get turned on seeing myself en femme. I get turned on by woman’s clothing in general. I don’t consider this a fetishistic act because I don’t crossdress just for the sexual kick of it. I do it to feel good, to feel feminine and to express that side of myself as a woman. However, the sexual charge I get has diminished slightly. It changes to more of a warmth and comfortable feeling the longer I stay female. More like the afterglow of orgasm.

More recently I am also finding that I have a more feminine way of looking at my sexual relationship with my wife. Not lesbian, just feminine. She turns me on. She is my focus. I feed off of her sexual energy and return it fully. It’s more intense and more fulfilling then anything I can express. I no longer need to achieve climax if I know she has been satisfied. To me that is pure love.

There are other aspects to my sexuality that transness has changed or altered. Those things are either too personal right now or best left for another time. I hope you understand.

Waiting is the hardest part.

I have been focusing alot of my free time on my health and appearance. I’ve lost over 20 pounds since December. I’m not that big anyways but those 20 lbs really were not flattering. I also have been doing yoga to help with with my posture and flexibility. Another few weeks of crunches should give me a flatter tummy. (I have joked with my wife that bikini season is fast approaching). She also has been losing weight and exercising more. And I can honestly say my wife looks hot and I am a little jealous of her curves.

I am glad that my one win with genetic roulette has been my relative lack of body hair. It’s been about 9 months since I first started shaving my legs. Nylons look awful with leg hair and i love the smooth feeling. My wife couldn’t understand why I would bother but she didn’t seem to mind after a while. At that time she didn’t know i was wearing thigh highs almost every day under my work clothes. Recently my arm hair has been bothering me since I have a beautiful slinky black dress that is sleeveless. I don’t have ‘gorilla’ arms but the hair I had is definately not attractive in that outfit. I do have a couple of other tops that benefit from hairless arms too. Because of my wife’s negative reaction to my removing my mustache I told her what I was considering and she just said it was my choice. Well I’m nearly hairless now and I’m starting to really see myself with a more feminine body. I never cared much about my appearance except keeping clean and not looking messy. In fact now I am getting a little vain. I wonder about a little tuck around the eyes or maybe a bit of FFS (facial feminizing surgery). Maybe a bit of electrolysis or laser hair removal. Even hormone treatment has it’s allure with softer skin, some breast growth, and a little softening in the face and other areas.

At this point I have to step back and really look at myself. I haven’t even experienced being Rachel as a complete person yet. I dabble in clothes and makeup but I’m nowhere near ready to step out into the world en femme. I have to ask myself what is my goal. Is is to be happy being a woman sometimes? Or is that happiness only going to come through a full transformation? Now I come back to the transition question. Will that ultimately make me truly happy? Maybe, but I know several people that would be unhappy with that choice. Me being one of them.

I hear trans people tell me “be true to yourself”. Am
I not being true to myself if I don’t transition to keep my marriage and my family? They are my greatest source of joy in this world. Plus my gender dysphoria is not based on my genitals or my lack of breasts. It’s a need to dress as a woman and experience life as that woman, even for just a while. I never felt as though I was a woman trapped in a man’s body. I just felt that if I was going to present as a woman I would make the effort to do it the best I can.

I think for now I will keep working out. Experimenting with makeup and fixing my eyebrows. Playing with breast forms. Feminizing my voice and movements. And doing all the other things that will make Rachel look as fabulous as I can make her.

Weird things are happening

I am having a weird experience. The last few days I have spent my time after work in ‘blurry’ mode. I’ve been wearing women’s jeans and my favorite ballet flats. However I catch myself acting in ‘extreme blurry’ mode. I walk differently and act differently. More feminine than masculine. I find myself getting questioning looks from my sons. When I try to push myself back into dad mode I can’t remember how. I worry about how I walk or talk. How I hold things or pick them up. I find that I have mood swings and intense emotions. I start to cry at sad movies and tv shows. I can even cry at intensely happy moments. My boys need a father not an overly feminine half dad. Even my wife has trouble understanding why my feminine experience feels so extreme. This scares me.

I might have to tell the boys if this keeps up. That’s something I was going to wait a while to do. I wanted them to decide for themselves who they were. I did not want to confuse them with my transgender issues. I would love it if they could accept me as I am. But, having one teen boy and another who is almost there causes some problems. Teens have a hard enough time fitting in and finding their place in the world. Having a parent that looks like he can’t make up his mind to be a man or woman won’t help. I do have the responsibility to teach them tolerance and acceptance of all people. It’s harder when I’m one of the people they have to be taught about.

My kids already know that I do not tolerate offensive remarks about gays and lesbians since I have gay friends. But it’s hard for me to explain why some depictions of transvestites and crossdressing that they find funny can be deeply offensive to me.

My wife feels strongly about those moments too. For entirely different reasons. To her those moments make her feel like the world is making fun of her too. Almost as if they are pointing out that she married someone who is not ‘normal’ and should be mocked. Its not enough that my wife has to deal with my transness every day without this extra baggage. I hate that she has to suffer through this. She tolerates my crossdressing as she struggles to understand it. I know that every day she prays that I will come to my senses and give all this up, even though I can’t. Or that I will be miraculously cured and be ‘normal’ again. Sometimes I wish it would happen too.

Two months and counting

Today is my two month anniversary of coming out. It is also my 60th day of World of Warcraft sobriety. I used to be asked why all my characters were female. My response was “who wants to stare at a guy’s butt for hours and hours a day”. Well I think the real answer is obvious by now. Thanks to WoW I was able to be female in a safe and fun environment. Virtual worlds can be a really good way to begin exploring your transgendered self. A number of players actually thought i was a girl in real life. Unfortunately, it became an addiction. I was spending the time hiding from my family, friends and responsibilities. A virtual closet where I could hide away just like I hid my trans self. As much as I enjoy playing I had to leave Azeroth for the real world.

Now I do the mundane things of life like taking out the trash, doing dishes, grocery shopping, and helping the kids with homework. It’s strange but I am so much happier now. I never realized the time lost connecting with my family and my wife. Also the time lost exploring my real trans self.

Wearing a dress online can be fun but not nearly as fun as wearing a real one. Also, I wish I could have 5 years worth of subscription fees back. I’d have a really amazing wardrobe by now.
Oh well I can’t go back and change things now. Nor do I want to. Being a part of my family takes most of my time now and I’ll never trade that for anything. I might go back to World of Warcraft from time to time but just to visit. I still have friends there that I would like to stay in touch with. Most don’t know I am Rachel but I don’t think they would mind much. They already know me as Kailonia, Marifane, and Tesalia. What’s another name?