Exploring My Early Feelings of Femininity

By Jenny Beutler

Don was my childhood playmate, my confidante--my EVERYTHING--when it came to human love and companionship. For three long and happy years we'd done a lot of fun boyish things together. Now we were twelve years old and were attending our first day of seventh grade. I greeted Don after school and was going to enjoy a leisurely walk home with him. I wanted to discuss with him some of the interesting events of our first day at junior high. None of this would take place because Don had on his mind an agenda that would sweep all of my good feelings away in one fell swoop and change my life forever.
"I'm not going to be your friend anymore." Don said as casually as if he'd been eating Mom's apple pie.
"Wh-what do you mean?" I asked incredulously.
"I won't be going around with you any more." He explained with the skill of surgeon, cutting me right to the quick. "I'll be going with Mitchell and his friends."
"Can I go with them, too?" I asked, my heart beating rapidly, hoping to recoup some of my losses.
"They don't want you either." Came his quick reply. It wasn't said with obvious malice. I really don't feel he was intending to be ruthless. He was simply conveying his message with the objectivity of a town-crier.
"Oh." I said. And that was essentially the last meaningful word I spoke to Don for the next five years
Yes, I tried to speak to him during the ensuing months by calling him on the phone. After all, he was my only confidant. God knows I would never have spoken to my parents or even my sister about anything serious. But Don would not budge. His responses were mere grunts or moans, and not once did he address any of my serious questions. So it wasn't long before I gave up on him and tried to join other groups of adolescent boys my age.
Just like Mitchell's group, all the other groups shunned me, too. Did I have bad breath? Did I look like Godzilla after a bad night of terror and destruction? I peered into the mirror and saw nothing but a twelve-year-old boy staring back at me through eyes so wide and innocent that it damn near made me weep. I even started to use mouth-wash on a regular basis. But yeah, you guessed it, this made no difference whatsoever. I remember one day, after making a very serious bid to join a certain clique and failing miserably, I came home, threw myself onto my bed and cried my heart out. I don't think I had ever felt more lost, confused and just plain miserable.
Now one thing that might have worked in my favor was the 6 inch spurt of growth I'd experienced over the summer prior to going into junior high. Here was my chance to become a basketball hero. Not that the desire for heroism was in my blood. It was just that if I could play some really mean basketball, maybe I would attract some friends.
Tournaments were being held each day at noon. I still wasn't really gung-ho about the idea, but because of my excessive height for a seventh grader several students kept urging me to give it a try. I agreed to try it for one day. And one day was all it lasted, too. I felt gangly and awkward, and I had great difficulty dribbling the ball. Besides, I just wasn't into sports and had no desire to put out the effort it would take to improve my skills. Thus ended my short half-hour career as a basketball player!
As a young child, prior to meeting Don at age nine, I played games with my sister Kathy who is fifteen months young than me. Of course, since I was now almost a teenager, I could no longer 'play games' with Kathy. Besides she had her own clique of friends by then and wasn't available. Occasionally, I tried to tell her about some of the problems I was having in relating to other boys my age. She was very blunt in her answer. She said I was too much of a sissy to be tolerated by boys. "You're still playing with toys and doing other stupid things that boys wouldn't do!" That was the first time I realized that I was somehow different from other boys.
The toys she was referring to was a bag full of plastic figurines. They were mostly in the shape of soldiers and monsters. But these weren't just cold hunks of plastic. To me they were the equivalent of dolls. I knew I couldn't play with 'real' dolls. So I chose these plastic figurines. Each one had a name and a definite personality. I even agonized over the death of each monster as it was killed by a soldier. Suddenly it dawned on me that only a 'sissy' would create such an elaborate world. 'Real' boys would simply wage war against the villains and would not clutter the picture with such 'inane' feelings and personalities.
I only had to be told once that I was a 'sissy.' I never played with those toys again. Instead I turned to comic books. I liked superman comics, especially the romance that went on between Clark Kent and Lois Lane. Oh yes, I liked to watch him get the bad guy and perform superhuman feats. But what I came back to time and again was the relationship between Clark and Lois. Would she ever discover his true identity? Maybe then they could really fall in love and quit all the pussy-footing around.
I read all kinds of comics. But the ones I liked most centered around romance. On the lighter side I liked the love-triangle that formed between Archie, Veronica and Betty. Poor Betty. She always got the short end of the stick against the more cunning Veronica. I also liked the heavier romances, especially the ones that made me cry in the really sad places and then again at the end when everything turned into love and kisses. These tear-jerkers often had complicated love-triangles that looked as if they could never be resolved. Then, miraculously, something would happen that would make it obvious that the underdog--whom everyone was rooting for--was going to get his girl after all!
I never dared to show my sister any of these romance 'comics.' If she thought I was a sissy for playing with toys, she would have really had a hay-day with my desire to read romance stories. After all, no self-respecting boy would preoccupy himself with bleeding-heart tales of love and kisses. He would rather be off killing unfeeling, unthinking dragons and not caring one whit if there was a pretty maiden to be saved. The joy of conquest alone was enough to make the journey interesting for the typical budding teenage boy. But alas, as I was beginning to discover, I was NOT the typical teenage boy!
Slowly I began to realize that I must be giving out 'girly' vibes to the boys without even knowing it. There was nothing overt or well-defined. Maybe it was in my gestures or the way I walked and spoke. I never thought of myself as being effeminate. But something was giving these would-be friends the impression that I was more girlish than boyish.
I remember one very explicit girl-oriented event in my early adolescence. It was when I was still going around with Don. I was at his home one Friday afternoon after school. I was stretched out beside him on the couch. And I was admiring the shape of my backside, marveling at how girlish its curves appeared to me. I remember thinking how lucky I was to have at least one part of my anatomy that looked feminine. For one fleeting instant I even wished that I had a vagina and small budding breasts just like my sister Kathy. I don't believe that I explicitly conveyed this message to Don. But I'm sure he was aware of my desire to look feminine. And all it took was several events like these to convince him that our relationship must end. How was I to know that other boys my age were NOT exploring the girly side of themselves! Hell, for all I knew this was just a normal part of growing up male!
Over the next three years, from age twelve to fifteen, I slowly learned how to be a boy. I didn't go at this task in any explicit way. I just learned from trial and error and my sister's negative comments to avoid being called a sissy. By the time high school rolled around, I was ready to play some very rugged football. Again, I had to be persuaded to play because sports were never in my blood. But I was well-developed physically for a boy and looked the part of a mean lineman. So I joined the team and was so successful that I lettered in my first year. And for the next two years I was part of the main-string and played almost the entire game on both offense and defense. I was also a successful wrestler and could pin almost anyone I wrestled. I was also a high-jumper and could jump several inches above my own height of 5' 9".
Even my sister no longer thought I was a sissy. In fact, she was rather proud of her 'transformed' brother, who was now very popular and could have had any girl in the school as his girlfriend. But I didn't want girls. I didn't want boys either. I stayed mostly to myself, except for a newly acquired friend named Verl who, much to my surprise, actually seemed to like my company. By then I had apparently toned down my girlish vibes and was doing a lot of boyish things. And Verl, who played half-back on the football team, was picking up on this change in me. His willingness to go around with me contributed to my self-esteem. But there was always an undercurrent of uneasiness--a stubborn core of 'girlish' (I didn't think of them as girlish then, but that's what they were) feelings that would not go away, not matter how hard I tried to subdue them.
Even Don jumped on the band wagon! He had observed that I was no longer an untouchable but was in fact one of the most popular guys in school. His own attempts to garner notoriety by becoming a football player were only moderately successful. I'm sure he was amazed at my success and thought it would be to his credit to seek me out as a friend. I have always been a very forgiving person. So I welcomed him with open arms. We even double-dated a few times. And I was amused at how proud he was to tell his girlfriends that he was once a solid buddy of mine in our pre-teen years. I wondered what they would have thought of Don if I had told them how ruthlessly he had dumped me and left my soul spiritually bleeding to death! But I was just too kind to do something like that. Besides, I really did like Don and was glad to have him again as a friend!
Because of my popularity as a macho sports stud I could have had any girl in the school. But I preferred to find girls outside of my own high school. At the time I figured it was because I was too shy to face girls in my own school. But I know differently now. I didn't really want to go out with girls. Subconsciously I knew I was a hetero-sexual woman who wanted to go out with guys. But that would not square with my macho 'male' image of myself. So I preferred to go out with girls whom I hardly knew, then dump them when the relationship got serious. Talk about love 'em and leave 'em. I think I wrote the book on that subject! And did it ever earn me a bad rep. After horribly wounding a few hearts my image as a Casanova was so strong that I couldn't get a date to save my hyde.
Before I go onto my experiences after high school I want to mention the fleeting images of myself in female clothing when I was about five or six years old. I remember being in the company of an older neighborhood boyfriend who used to encourage me to dress up in girls' clothing. I enjoyed doing this for him and had no qualms about running back and forth from my house to his in full female drag. Of course, this came to an abrupt halt when our parents found out about it. God, how cruel and unfeeling the jaws of social convention can be when they snap shut and coldly cut off the natural, heart-felt explorations of an innocent six-year-old who was only following the dictates pouring forth from his now mortally wounded soul!
At age twenty-three I started to court a woman. I was the aggressive one during the full year of courtship which ended in marriage. But as soon as the marriage took place I fell apart. It was as if I was the 'house wife' who was supposed to stay home while Dianne, who had a steady job as a school teacher, brought home the bacon. Of course, this was not to Dianne's liking. And eventually I acquired various menial jobs just to save our marriage.
It was not till a dear friend introduced me to marijuana (MaryJane) that I started to wake up and smell the roses. Irreverently referred to as 'pot' that beautiful and largely misunderstood woman was literally my savior! Without her gracious intervention I would not be here today. She literally pulled me out of the mire and infused my soul with the will to face my past and forge from its ruins a bold, new future! I still don't know exactly where that future is leading me. But I do know that I will face that future as a woman and NOT as a man. Facing the future as a woman endows me with more strength than I could ever have imagined--let alone realized--as a man!
Several events throughout my life have convinced me that I am different from most men that I know. For example, when I was twenty-two I went deer hunting with my father and older brother. Female deer were legal that year. And it wasn't long before I bagged one with my father's rifle. The only problem was, I was not at all prepared for the horrible sight of watching her die. And I was even less prepared for the outlandish event of having to 'gut her out.' The latter experience was so unpleasant and downright disgusting to me that I was never able to go deer hunting again!
Another eye-opening event occurred when I took a writing course from a male instructor who was very impressed with a short story I had written. He marveled at how well I could write from a woman's standpoint. And when he asked me how this could be so, I quickly told him: "because I feel like a woman when I write." Needless to say, he didn't want to pursue this event any further!
It wasn't just when I was writing that I felt like a woman. Whenever I saw signs that read 'for women only' I felt a pain deep inside me. It felt like I was being excluded from something very important to me. And the book title 'Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus' caused me even more pain. Down deep I knew I was from Venus, even though I looked like I was from Mars. I even wanted to join the Lady's Guild in my Catholic parish till I realized how 'silly' that would look to others.
Eventually Dianne and I got a divorce. In the twenty-six years we were together we had become good friends but not very good lovers. At every point when our relationship would begin to get intimate I would do something to block that intimacy. Finally Dianne had had enough and bluntly told me one day that she was calling it quits. This event shocked me so much that it forced me to realize that I was multiple. Usually I--the 'host personality'--am able to take almost anything in stride. But not the tremendous shock of a sudden divorce. So several different personalities had to take over for me till I could stabilize.
I was very fortunate to find Janice Marcus, a kind and sensitive therapist who is used to dealing with multiples. Among other things she has helped me uncover the female side of my personality. I told her once that I empathized so much with females that I occasionally acquired bladder infections that resembled the kind that women typically get. Recently I had even contracted a case of cystitis that was so severe that it started to bleed. At this point Janice wondered if this startling event might be the result, not of empathy, but of the actual mutilation of my male organs. She then went on to suggest that I might be transsexual, since some transsexuals have a history of mutilating their male parts. Her suggestion intrigued me so much that Janice suggested that I explore this subject on the internet.
I did as she suggested and was amazed to find voluminous amounts of very helpful material regarding transsexualism on the internet. The more I read the more I became convinced that I was indeed transsexual. And it wasn't long before I had the strong desire to put on make-up and dress in women's clothing.
The very first time--as an adult--that I was dressed in women's clothing I felt so comfortable as a female that I actually had the stamina to go into a local supermarket and do some shopping. I felt a little out of place at first. But the joy of knowing that I was finally able to express myself in public as a female was so overwhelming that I was soon doing all of my shopping strictly as a female. I even eat out at local restaurants and have found the waitresses to be very friendly and helpful.
I no longer care if poeple read me as a male or if some of them snicker behind my back. Being able to unleash the female powers that have lain dormant inside me all these years is such a rush that a little embarrassment here and there cannot even begin to undermine this beautiful feeling. I don't even care that the poeple in my apartment complex now know that I am transsexual. In fact, several times, in broad daylight, I have walked past fellow tenants while I was fully dressed as a female. And to my surprise they have all responded favorably. Recently I had a conversation with one male tenant who knew me strictly as a male in the past. At first I was worried about what his reaction might be. But his calm demeanor put me so much at ease that I was able to tell him all about the wonderful changes that were taking place in my life.
Of course, I wonder how I am going to break the news of my gender change to my employer, my relatives and close friends in my Church. Actually, I have broken the news to three close friends at Church. They all took this revelation very much in stride. And far from these relationships being damaged, they seem to be stronger than ever. These people have not yet seen in me female clothing. But when that time comes, I feel they will react positively to what they see.
Recently I joined a group called the Engendered Species. This group is comprised of several fun-loving yet serious-minded transgendered people who are not only finding ways to cope with their own unconventional gender identities but are also very successful in demonstrating to the public that transgenderism is not a disease but is rather a legitimate human condition worthy of more than mere tolerance. If nurtured it could blossom into the viewpoint that gender is not a binary, either-or phenomenon, but is a complex gamut capable of many different expressions. Wouldn't it be grand if rednecks and liberals could sit down and freely explore the hidden aspects of their own gender without fear of reprisal or ridicule!
I feel that the key to my acceptance by others is acceptance of myself. I feel very comfortable in the role of a female. And I am hoping that this feeling will positively influence the attitude of my friends and siblings, as well as my own children. It is not my intention to alienate or hurt anyone. But one thing has to be clear. The decision has already been made. I am living the life of a female. Now I am trying to find the least painful way to break it to others.

What I am giving up by becoming a female:
** Getting ready for work in ten minutes.
** Dressing more sloppily than a woman can get away with
** Short cuts in speech; less enunciation
** Careless posture in public
** Not worrying about how much hair is on my body
** Close friendships with some people who may find it difficult
to give up their male image of me

What I am gaining by becoming a female:
** Closer friendships with women
** Caring for my body's health
** Caring more about how I appear to others
** Being able to browse the women's sections of supermarkets
and department stores without feeling self-conscious
** Being able to express my deep-seated feelings of femininity
** Being able to receive friendly sisterhood smiles from other women