Maiden’s Journey

I feel like I have lost sight of who I am.  Up until my wife caught me out with my female underwear, I thought I knew who I was and where I was heading.  I had the official diagnosis of gender incongruence and dysphoria and a referral for feminising hormone replacement therapy. I had been wearing female underwear full time for three months, was shaving and waxing my leg and body hair, and sleeping in a nightdress every night. I had pushed the boundaries of being visible presenting female by going out in a dress to a lesbian bar and to a restaurant and even hotel breakfast. The latter was a bit uncomfortable but it felt like part of the journey and an important step so that I almost welcomed the stares and unsubtle comments.  So I knew who I was. I was Nicola. A transgender woman who was working towards coming out and beginning transition.  Then at the end of March my wife found some of my female underwear that I had forgotten to hide. This could have been the crucial...

I commented to a friend yesterday that I had once had a dream that I would run away to New Zealand to live as a woman.  This was when I was around seventeen and in the sixth form at school. I still had lots of confusion about who or what I was but had been secretly cross dressing and wishing I was a girl for five or six years by then.  I then saw a documentary on television called A Change of Sex, which followed the journey of a “transsexual” man who was undergoing a “sex change” to become a woman. These were new terms to me. I had heard of transvestism and there was an old transvestite in our part of town that everyone referred to as a “tranny” and my mum had explained when I was younger was a “very sad person with mental problems”. So my limited knowledge of gender non-conformity was that a man in a dress was sad, mental and an object of ridicule. I also had no idea that he had any options beyond wearing a dress and being a transvestite. Of course I liked to wear women’s clo...

I’m wearing a soft crop top and Brazilian knickers under my male clothes today and it’s the first time   I’ve done so since my wife found out about my underwear.   I did wear some knickers last weekend for a day, which was nice but this is the first time I have had the crop top too.  Considering that I was wearing the underwear full time and the crop tops every weekday evening and all weekends for the previous month, this has been a big gap.  I have really been craving the feeling of a bra or crop top. That stretchy tightness of the band around my chest and the straps over my shoulders. It is such a relief to have one on now.  Because I’m a bit scared about getting caught out again I have only worn the soft crop top as that is least visible under my clothes. The more structured crop top has bra straps which are a bit more noticeable so although I really want to wear that, it felt a bit too risky.  This is so rubbish that I have to hide who I really am ...

I’m wearing female underwear today for the first time in a month.  I feel more myself. It’s just more right for me.  I have also been using the loo seated again, which I do automatically when I am wearing female underwear.  It isn’t like I’m super aware of the knickers all the time, but it does feel different and when I do notice it, it feels nice.  Whether this is related to doing something a little bit feminine, or that I have just come out of a spell of depression, but I feel more optimistic today.  There are scenarios that I can imagine where I get to be Nicola. For the past month I have felt without hope on that front, so it is nice to feel that there could possibly be ways to be me.  Clearly my need to be a woman hasn’t gone away just because I have repressed it and taken no steps in that direction for the past month. Not that it was ever going to and I didn’t expect it to at all.  One of the thoughts that troubled me whilst I was repressing my w...

I have now not done anything feminine, worn anything feminine nor shaved any of my body or leg hair for three weeks now and I’m just getting more and more sad.  I have given up on the only thing that I hoped for and so now I have nothing.  What is the point of anything? This is hardly helped by the news.  I have been reading all the news coverage of the court ruling on the definition of a woman in the Equality Act and it is so very depressing.  Although the judges pointed out that trans women are still protected from discrimination, it is hard to see how that is going to be meaningful.  If there are only two categories provided, whether that is toilets, healthcare or societies, and trans women are excluded from the female category then it is a choice of nothing or having to be in men only spaces, clubs, etc.which is clearly intolerable and unsafe. So effectively then, trans women are excluded from all things.  This is so upsetting. 

We had a nice day out at a flower festival.  Something I am finding challenging now is being around a lot of women and girls. This place was crowded and flowers are more interesting to women than men generally so it did seem to be majority female. Seeing women now is making me sad. They have long hair that I don’t have, wear pretty clothes that I can’t wear, have voices that I can’t emulate and body shapes that I don’t have. They move differently and are natural among the flowers posing for photos with the blooms.  Everywhere I look there are reminders of what I am not. What I can’t be. What I can never have. And even if I did destroy every part of my life and go through all the pain of transition, I still wouldn’t be one of them. No one would be taking my picture crouched among the flowers because they thought me pretty. This could never happen. The most I could ever achieve is taking selfies alone whilst other people nudge their partners and point out the trans person. This ...

I had a haircut booked for today and it had grown pretty long by now.  As a gesture to placate my wife, I had it cut short and masculine.  I have to admit it is tidier and smarter.  But it represents the giving up on my dreams and that has made me really sad.  And I have started wearing male underwear again.  Although these are fairly trivial things on their own, it’s what they represent that matters. I’m already regretting the hair and feeling like there is no hope for my future. 

I’m usually so careful but I suppose I was in a rush leaving early for a meeting and I forgot to hide the knickers and crop top that I had been wearing and left them visible in my bedroom. Many days that might not have matters at all as my wife may not have gone into my room. But today she did.  I didn’t know this until I got home after 9pm and she confronted me.  She said that she had found something in my room and she didn’t know what to make of it. Then stormed off to her room.  Because I had actually forgotten about the underwear I had to go to my room to see what she had found, which was just the underwear. It could actually have been worse.  It was awful, she was so upset.  I thought that as we were now forced to have the conversation, I might as well tell her all. I tried to tell her my story beginning from the start but she didn’t want to hear it.  Even though I had come out to her a year ago it was still like this was a complete surprise to her. He...

I have really now normalised wearing female underwear every day, only ever using the loo seated and now also wearing a crop top or first bra every day. I have been wearing the crop tops every weekend day for a long time, but I have now made it part of my routine to change into one at the end of the working day when I get home and change. So each week that is now two full days and three to four hours every night, so it has become normalised for me, like the underwear and I am becoming less aware of the sensation of the band around my chest. I’m also changing into a nightdress for bed every night which has again become normal for me.  It is nice that I am able to do all these small things for myself to help me to feel feminine but none of them are real progress. For me to really become feminine, I am going to have to get on hormones and make actual changes to my body. That means organising the blood tests and then booking the appointment, which itself is difficult due to the refusal ...