Charlie:
I identify as Transgender, Non-binary. It is something that I really didn’t sort out until the age of 67. In the Media Review section of Articles there is a link to a video of a speech that I gave last March. It is named:
From THERE To HERE…
It chronicles my journey with a fair amount of detail, but the abridged version is this. I crossdressed at home and at the end of 2014 I got invited to a monthly crossdresser/transgender social gathering an hour and a half from where I lived. For the next year I attended nearly all of the gatherings as well a support group twice a month just an hour away. The dressing part was very important to me and I enjoyed it. One evening I was deciding what to wear to one of the gatherings and my wife asked me what dressing did for me. I can’t remember what I said, but my wife’s reply was: “You may be transgender.”. In an instant I looked at things in a different way. A lot of things from my past began to make sense and there was a shift, it seemed.
On the other hand, I knew my situation was different. I never felt that I was in the wrong body. What did occur to me, finally, was that I never felt completely male or completely female. For the last 6 1/2 years I have presented as DeeAnn nearly all of the time. I am very comfortable living as DeeAnn.
The vast majority here only know DeeAnn. Very few have ever met Don. It doesn’t really bother me to present as Don, and occasionally I will. Most recently, I didn’t dress when we got our first 2 vaccines. I didn’t want people to freak because my driver’s license didn’t match my presentation.
In the time that I spent processing what my wife told me, some thoughts came back to me. One thing I learned from reading about the experiences of crossdressers was that the majority talked about their female persona compared to their male persona and the differences. For me, there is very little that separates DeeAnn from Don. For example, DeeAnn is a bit more outgoing and is more likely to initiate a conversation. It is more degree than difference. I’m still as much a motorsports fan, architecture fan, amateur photographer and computer enthusiast as I ever was, but I’m also more open about scouring Etsy, Poshmark, Thrilling, Mercari and Ruby Lane for copper jewelry and silk blouses and blazers. These things may seem contradictory, but they all represent parts of the real me.
This weekend is a case in point. I’ll be watching the Formula 1 events from Canada, the NASCAR truck series race on dirt from Knoxville, IA and possibly the MOTO GP from the Sachsenring in Germany, but on Sunday morning my DVR will get a workout as I’ll be at a women’s brunch to recognize Juneteenth. To some it may be a WTF, but it is just what I do.
The vast majority of crossdressers view themselves as heterosexual. About 25 years ago I realized this did not describe me. I also realized that I tended to approach problems, and life in general, from an intuitive viewpoint. I can do logic, but it usually tends to be in support of the intuition and not the other way around. This is pretty unusual behavior for a mechanical engineer, now retired.
I think the important thing is that we all need to do what it takes to make ourselves whole…
Anyway, happy to have you join us!
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