About eight years ago I unknowingly decided to begin forcing myself upon myself; that was about the time that I began to fully dress as a girl. At the time, it just seemed like the thing I should do. Before then I had dressed in various articles of women’s clothing and had done a variety of other things, like paint my fingernails, but I had never tried to emulate a woman. I began doing it because I wanted to, but underneath it all, I was hiding.
This started to become apparent to me when I had the desire to get out of the house, while fully dressed. Before this point, my wife had been nothing but supportive of me. But this brought up unexpected concerns, for the both of us. Jules expressed some concerns about what I was doing, nothing unwarranted, but with each bit of doubt she expressed the more I sought out her acceptance. I needed for her to accept me, all of me, and for this I was willing to push myself onto her. It is unfortunate that this occurred as it really never had anything to do with her, it was really just me. I needed for her to accept me just so that someone would.
I didn’t really understand where I was at until one day, a few years into fully dressing and going out in public, I saw my reflection in the mirror while I was fully dressed. I saw myself and in my head I heard myself say the word “freak.” I heard it as clearly as if someone said it to me. And it made me stop and stare deeply at myself in that mirror and I almost started to cry. It was right then that I realized that it was I who did not accept myself.
Since that day, I have talked with Jules about it often, I have read about gender variances, and I have dabbled in writing about it. And inside of me, I struggle with it almost every single day. This is a good thing though, because now I am the one who struggles with it. Now, I focus on accepting myself and I am no longer concerned with whether or not others accept me. And the most amazing thing has begun to happen, the more I accept myself, the more I find others to be accepting of me.
Now that I know who I am my wife is more accepting than she has ever been. Every person I have decided to share my gender variability with has been totally accepting of me. And in fact even the general public seems far more at ease with me and the more time goes on, the more people just accept me to be whatever gender, or mix of genders, that I choose to present as.
I encourage you all, as human beings, accept who you are.
I will caution you though. Throughout my personal journey, I have not always enjoyed everything that I have had to accept about myself. But I have seen that only once I accept who I am can I do anything about it. For me, exploring my gender variance has brought me great personal growth, and harmed no one, so I have run with it. Other things like having a massive sugar tooth that can cause me to binge eat on desserts has been harmful, but once I accepted that this is what I will most likely do, I have been able to avoid it.
So, have fun, accept yourself, and be someone that when you see your reflection in a mirror, tell yourself that you love who you are. It’s not easy, but it’s worth it.
Love you! And love yourself!
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