Reply To: What age did you know you were transgender?

[Sonja Strouse]

I remember at the age of 4 asking, “Mommy… why do I feel like a girl?” I spent a lot of my time wearing my sister’s clothes, getting into make-up, and walking around the house in my mom’s shoes. My mother created this myth about my birth. She would tell me that in her belly I was a girl, but she wanted to have a baby boy, so she prayed to God to make me a boy. That kept my questions at bay for a while. But then when I was a teenager, I was looking through my baby album. I looked at my birth announcement and it read that I was their daughter. It freaked me out! So on came more questions. My mother and father wouldn’t talk about it. They would change the subject, get angry with me, or just pretend like they didn’t hear my questions. It also didn’t help that I was having dreams where I could feel my vagina and my penis was gone. My teenage fantasies included me as a girl with guys that I would crush on. Overtime, my family labeled me a gay man and I went along with it. Then in my 20s my family found God and going along with them I thought that would set me straight. So I surrendered everything and gave the straight life a try. Let’s just say that didn’t work out. On my 30th birthday, I met my husband and we have been together for 18 years as a loving gay couple. He has always known my transgender identity existed, I was honest about that with him and over the years it would appear that I would never act on it. However, I feel like it’s time to transition. He’s not thrilled with the idea, but he’s not running away either. We are working through it. He was really upset about it until he spoke with my therapist. So we shall see how it goes.