Accepting your ‘transness’. A personal story

I started to realize that something was not right with me when I was at age 4–5. Something does not match. My self-consciousness was not in synchrony with my physical characteristics and at the time I really used the phrase ‘a girl trapped in a wrong, boy’s body’ to describe my… not feelings, not delusional believes/conviction or sort of twisted perception. It was my inner knowledge and core self-identification.

I hide it.

For me, growing in a post-communism Bulgaria, the revelation of this sort meant mocking, rejection and lack of support even from my parents. There were no answer or some solace in here. So, I decided to play a game — to ‘fake’ it. With time I had more problems with my appearance, because I have a facial anomaly, as well. This condition kind of take away the attention from my gender identity and brought a lot of pain. Because people in here love to humiliate everyone who is different in any way. It does not matter if you are born this way. They will mock you just to feel strong and important, valuable, beyond their own flaws.

I mixed it all. My gender dysphoria, that did not have a name back there except my desired one, girl name with my inner, kind of disfigured face. I had my imagination, saving me from hell. I can honestly say that people around me subconsciously or even consciously realize that there is something strange about me… deeper and deeper. Some boys and men were able to feel my femininity and to be attracted by it. But I hide it. Not deny it at all. Just kept faking ‘a boy’.

I kept my secret and used to imagine how should I look, my ideal outer-self, in every moment and that helped me to survive through my periods of depression and anger.

I did not have a lot of friends. ‘Friend’ was a category, that I defy for myself as someone who is here for this stage of my life and will be a good memory or faraway presence in the future. I was not allowing myself to have a real friend, with who I could share my deepest secret and pain. There were ‘good friends’, but the only one, the ‘true one’ had to wait to be discovered after 30 years.

What about love, sex?

Love was a mirage for the same amount of time. Oh, I fall in love, but I was not able to reveal my feelings to the guy I love. He might think that I am gay and I do not want to be seen as a ‘man attracted to men’… I wanted to be seen and accepted as a woman. The woman that my self-consciousness has told me that I am, deep inside. For me, personally, no one was strong, smart and open-minded, enough to see me as who I am… Maybe not as a woman or a man, just like ME! Beyond sex, gender, sexuality, and prejudice…

It was the same with sexual relationships. There were only auto-erotic acts and fantasies, short stories about the guys I liked. Thirst not only for sexual intercourse but for caressing, kissing, being one with someone you might love. Of course, I did not allow myself to get into it, because of the mentioned reason, upward, because of the hatred toward my body and myself and because of a little bit of homophobia. I tried to date gay men, but I never actually go out on a date with any of those we were chatting on a dating site.

When you are lonely, lost hope for love and the future, everything is fake, you are starting to search. I have not met transgender/transsexual women, never seen a real one, except some TV characters, but they did not impress me that much. I have read the story of Caroline Cossey, but I thought that this is impossible and maybe rare, like there are two-three trans people in the world. I pushed that information in the back of my consciousness.

Hiding. Slowly destroying myself. No hope for the future of any kind, about anything — love, happiness, desired work, family, etc. The only picture I have seen in my consciousness was me, slowly dying in despairer, alcohol, and loneliness.

And then I just decided to accept myself at 100%. There was nothing to lose. I was already dying, pretending that I am living, that I have lived. Almost 30 years I have to hide it and secretly living my identity, not by cross-dressing. Just drawing the perfect picture of what it was supposed to be, without forgetting what it was... how it was.

After 30 years I decided to find other people like me. It started with one site, where I was supposed to select ‘transsexual’ as an option for signing in, then I was found by a young trans boy, who introduced me to the man, that is currently next to me, the one who saw me — my true friend and the love of my life. After 30 years I have made love and felt okay with myself. I left the toxic environment of my birth town and my family. I started my hormone replacement therapy a year and three months ago. I started to meet psychotherapist, to clear the dark feelings in my ‘soul’. I found more close friends and life almost looks great…

I am moving slowly and determined step forward to my goal — not to be a woman, but to be ME.