Maiden’s Journey

Office day today, so back to normal, in most senses I suppose, after the imagined drama of nothing happening yesterday.   My head is certainly doing its normal thing: I've had a small disappointment, therefore the whole trans idea is nonsense, I'm kidding myself, I'm just a man and always will be, blah blah blah.  Every single time I even think of doing anything and then pull back from taking the leap, do I go back around this never ending cycle of doubt and negative thinking.  I even know I'm doing it and that it isn't real, but still spend the whole day telling myself bad things.  So now I am frustrated at myself for doing this yet again.   Even someone commented on my Twitter from yesterday's blog that it doesn't get better by leaving it longer and I replied that I knew that the outcome would be the same today, tomorrow, next week, next year, ten years hence.  Which rationally I know is the case, so there is no point in putting it off because i...

Sunday today and with a free day and the teenager out for the day, it would have been the ideal time to speak with my wife.  But once again I didn't.   I'm really frustrated that I just can't manage to do it.   I am preventing myself from ever doing anything.   What am I going to do, spend the rest of my life hiding my underwear and day dreaming? This is just the same as any other day really, but because I had this sort of vague idea that today should be the day, I am now feeing really down about it.   I would try to focus on the positives, like today is actually one month of shaved legs and underwear, but I am not feeling positive and those seem trivial now.  

I said at the weekend I would have time to properly think about objectively reviewing my options as regards transition or partial or not; and then the pros and cons of each.  There is of course a broad spectrum of options from being 100% man (whatever that means!) to full transition.  Far too many choices to even begin to list, never mind analyse the pros and cons of.   For me there are only two options anyway: all or nothing. By which I mean, I can either stay as I am, ostensibly male but secretly doing some small amount of feminine expression for my own benefit; or I go all in and fully transition to female socially, medically and surgically.   I think there is no middle ground for me because I already am in the middle ground doing as much as I can reasonably getting away with whilst still maintaining my life as it is.   I know that there are intermediate steps, all of which I will have to pass through of course, but I don't feel I can stop at a...

One of the problems of not yet speaking to my wife about my transness is that I can’t just pop my female underwear in the laundry basket with all my other clothes. It’s not that I expect her to do all my laundry by the way, we don’t do stereotypical gender roles in our house (I wonder why?!) but she does tend to do it more often than I do and set it going whilst I’m working. I’m quite surprised that she hasn’t yet noticed that I have put no male underwear in the laundry for a month to be honest. But even if she isn’t paying it much attention, a pile of women’s knickers is probably going to get her wondering.  As a result, I have got to the end of my supply.  I was in town today for a meeting so I had the opportunity to go to the shop and get some more.  The lingerie department used to be such a big thing to enter as a man. It always felt forbidden to me to go in. But also fascinating and exciting with all the variety of colours and styles and shapes. When I was younger an...

After yesterday's blog, one of my Twitter connections Joanne (@JoNextSteps) reached out via DM with the suggestion that I could try to objectively set out the pros and cons of my different options.   This makes sense and is the way I would approach a project at work for a client.  I wouldn't just let them go around in circles never deciding anything (well some do, you can't help everyone if they don't want to help themselves). I would apply some logic and structure to the discussions.  I'd sit down and identify all the options.  There are usually one or two that are non-starters so don't warrant detailed consideration.  Then the remainder, we work through, understand the benefits, costs, risks, etc. and an informed decision can be made.   This seems like a good thing to do for my situation. List my options.  Analyse each of them.  Choose the best.    That feels like quite a big project and not something I can dash off in a snat...

There is some cliché motivational quote that I see on Pinterest quite often that goes something like "everything you want is on the other side of what you fear".  Or words to that effect.   I don't know whether this is true or not, but I do feel that I am at that sort of point in my life.   If everything that I want is to be Nicola, live as a woman, and all that entails, then all of that lives on the other side of coming out to my wife, which is of course, the thing that I fear.   Why do I still use "if" when talking about transition?   Am I still doubtful about whether it is what I want?  Whether it's possible?  Am I really trans? Would facing the fear be easier if I could be 100% confident in these things?   The easy one: is it possible?  Yes, loads of people transition. I have done my research and I know how to do it.   Am I really trans?  Seriously, am I asking myself this again? And again?  OK...

Having talked yesterday about whether I can transition and hope to progress my career, my feeling today is that I'd probably rather be me.  I work closely with a woman in my team and we get on quite well.  I haven't come out to her or anything like that, but I have been able to share a few little things and she is encouraging.  We were talking today about hair, as I had to rearrange an appointment to work around a meeting, and she asked why I am going to get it cut if I want long hair.  I replied that it needs tidying and levelling up as the front and back are mis-matched, and that it's far more complicated than just hair.  This is a long way from coming out or sharing who I am, but dropping a hint.    We have talked about hair before and she knows that I would like to grow it out to a bob, like actor Jodie Whittaker has in Dr Who.  Funny, I had forgotten that I had told her that. I am still surprised that I would have, because telling someone tha...

Today was an office day so very much boymode. Well apart from the underwear, but no one else knows about that.  I do like the office though as it is majority women and being around them is helpful in learning how to be.  My role in the organisation is quite senior but there is an opportunity maybe, to take a step up. I was speaking with a colleague today who was encouraging me to go for it. I’m keen and would like the role but more importantly feel that I should be doing it.  There are some issues here though.  The place I work has no trans people. At all.  The leadership team has only ever had one woman, and certainly no trans women or any member of the LGBT community.  It’s not that they are actively sexist or discriminatory, but it’s self evidently not a culture that has enabled women to progress equally. Being an almost all-male group, it is not a culture that I naturally fit into or feel comfortable in.  To take this on as male me, is a serious en...

Having set out to make 2023 my year to start transition and been doing a few small things towards that for over three weeks now, the big un-done task is talking to my wife about it.  During this time, I have been through a few cycles of "am I doing the right thing?" but (as I wrote yesterday) I have (for now) figured it all out and rationalised to myself why full transition is what is needed for me to truly be able to be the person I feel I am and need to be.   The logical immediate next step would therefore be to charge out of the closet full-speed and tell my wife and family this is who I am and what I am doing.  Today, I had plenty of time alone with her and so the ideal opportunity.    Of course I didn't actually do that.   I just thought about it, worried about it, felt uncertain, didn't say anything, and then the opportunity had passed.   Why do I keep doing this? Partly, it is scary because coming out is a one-way ticket.  On...

This journey has been long and all the time, I am learning about myself.  There has been a whole lot of self doubt and questioning and going around and around the same loops. But I think it’s all coming together and making sense now.  I’m now clear that it isn’t clothing. I’m not as I have sometimes worried, just a cross dresser who has got carried away with the idea and thinks he’s trans. Wearing a skirt is nice, but it doesn’t mean anything on its own.  Nor is it about female embodiment fantasy or autogynephilia. Sure the idea of boobs is nice but I have found that the more I normalise thinking of myself as a woman, the less I think about the physical aspects as an end in themselves and more just as a thing that I will have because that’s normal for women.  It is far more important to me to be able to fit in with women, be one of the girls and be accepted as one of them. Wearing a skirt by myself doesn’t do that. Some of the happiest times of my life have revolved ...