Maiden’s Journey

I recently wrote about a seemingly quite common feeling among those trans folks who have cross dressed before realising that they are trans; that maybe it’s just a fetish that I have got carried away with the idea of.  To save you the bother of going back and reading the post, I concluded that it was the other way around and the cross dressing came from a wish to be female, not the other way around.  Of course my brain isn’t going to let me off that easily. Not when I can find other explanations to discredit my feelings of transness.  I should preface this by saying that I have no knowledge of neuroscience and that everything I am thinking is probably wrong. However, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing and has led me to some worrying thoughts.  Ok, starting with things I do know about the brain. There is something called neuroplasticity which means brains aren’t fixed, and if you do something very frequently the part of the brain responsible becomes more develope...

 Okay so this is a hard one to write about but it is important because it’s one of those things that I keep pushing to the back of my mind but comes back every time I think I am feeling confident that I am trans. Judging by comments others are posting on trans twitter I think it’s quite a common thing we feel, so worth discussing. Even though I think quite a lot of trans people get to know themselves and their female side through a kind of gateway of cross dressing or kink or fetish, to talk about it still feels quite taboo.  I think this comes from a place of uncertainty and the attendant fear that brings. “Am I trans enough” or “real trans” is something we all agonise over. I don’t think anyone wants to admit to themselves, never minds anyone else, that they might have done or felt anything that could invalidate their transness. Combine this with the likelihood that anyone you confide in might assume that “it’s a sexual thing”; or that you might be accused of autogynephilia ...

I don’t actually know any trans people in real life, so my observations are based on the trans community on twitter. A community I joined in my female name (Nicola if you don’t know) and on which I exclusively follow trans women and a few non-binary folk. Maybe I should start that sentence: I’m not sure if I’m trans, but I joined trans twitter as a trans woman. Erm...  maybe there were signs?!  And I have a profile pic of me in makeup, a long wig, skirt and bodysuit. No signs at all! I mean, I’m not sure if I am trans, but I started dreaming of being a girl when I was eleven when my puberty seemed to go in a less interesting direction than the girls in my class and have never stopped dreaming about it since. I think about becoming a woman all the time. If a fairy granted me three wishes, without hesitation wish number one is make me a girl.  I have been experimenting with female clothing, underwear and makeup from my teens on.  But For years I never knew whether I am...