Do we have a choice in our lifestyles?

[Anonymous]

Thank you Christina for clarifying your position.

All I can say is – here, here. I so agree with what you eventually said.

I did make a choice. I choose to live a congruent life and to be all the happier and whole because of this choice. Fear is no longer my dictator and master.

[Anonymous]

Where to begin.

Aged four i had a realisation that i would be like my father when i grew up yet i wanted to have the form of my sister mother etc. This i clearly remember and obviously this was before any sexual characteristic thinking was at play.
I suffered trauma with this at about the age of five and the trauma manifested itself in many ways one being my speech and other aspects.
At around nine years of age i realised i envied the girls who would play seperate to me(the boys) and i always felt awkward and uncomfortable and aggitated. Around age nine i also had a secret hiding place were i put many girly feme things like a small doll and books etc etc.
My mother would let me wear my sisters clothes around the home when my “dad” was at work or asleep. I never thought anything about it then, only now do I analyse it all.
Twelve years of age the nightmare kicked in when obviously i was male least in form and my concentration and goals and life just seemed to be put on hold. This lasted till i was sixteen.
Sixteen I had to try to be a man. Had to prove i was normal to myself and to others. I joined the Royal Navy.
Eighteen I was out of the forces and scrammbling to pick up work and to exist confused about my sexuality and gender and still rather awkward.
By twenty I met my current”wife” and I told her from day one how I felt. She grew to love me and indeed i did her we married 3 years later and within 3 years my eldest was born.
Awkward to live with and very high maintenance emotionally i leant and leant on my marriage. Taking more and more to be the true person I was inside.
Going out more and more to Manchester and meet ups and the like.
At the age of 24 I knew i was different from the other people I was mostly meeting. People who were happy to cross dress and then be a bloke till the following week” I envied them”
I knew around this time that although I enjoyed wearing feme clothing and all the works it was not (hitting the spot) so to speak, I knew my body was not in line with my thoughts my soul my being my ME it was alien.
I tried to kill myself around that time, more of a cry for help really and I was officially diagnosed with Gender Dys.
The rest I know is probably the same for many readers, plod plod and struggle on with life not hoping because hope seemed too far away.

Then it simply happened. Total melt down when one falls to their knees and asks those ultimate questions.
Crying and cursing God and nature and everything, feeling cheated feeling betrayed and angry, followed by an overwhelming want to be able to be true to who what and how i am.
Then it clicked, i did not want to become a woman, i realised i had been one all along.
That was the defining moment about 4 years ago and now i realise that the rest of my journey is simply cosmetic of sorts, to put me at ease with my true self to make me whole and to live my life the way i should. It is normal it is wonderful and it is everything to be true to who you are, there is a price sadly to pay for me but i have NO regrets, how can one regret being who they are , a person a woman and no shame whatsoever. I hold my head high and that is my right.

So in answer to the question. It is not a choice I made it was already made for me, i just had to join up the dots to see the bigger picture.x