I am so close I could nearly come out but!

[Anne Bonny]

you know...If only my oldest sister knew and were able to accept it....how unfortunate her value framework is out of the 1950's where it was formed, she is deeply protestant and a believer, she is traditional, and conservative on top of that. She has had to deal with many problems with her children...mental health, cancer, separation at times but...she as with most of society would see this as abnormal and needing treatment she might break with me about it. But I am closer to this sister than to my other who already knows.

having an expansive gender makes you a pariah and outcast the same way gays used to be but our acceptance will be even more difficult because we wear clothing made to fit on the opposite sex, we desire to look the gender we are very close to if we are not fully the gender opposite our sex.

I feel society would easily accept our being very like the other gender as long as we look the sex we were born on the outside...but when our outward appearance is brought by us into conformity with who we are on the inside...we are utterly rejected, seen as bazaar, as mentally ill or deranged, abnormal, weird, and we make them cringe with utter revulsion so strong most desire to be out of our presence so they do not have to see us.

That is changing some...but in our lifetime...once or if I am ever able to be as free to go anywhere openly able to be exactly who I am as freely as I do in male attire, there will always be a risk for us a risk of physical violence that could be life ending, vocal abuse, stares and people moving away or looking away, and yeah we will still be rejected by many who are in our own families, perhaps by our entire families, some of our closest friends even, work associates, we may lose our jobs, be denied housing...all for a very simple reason...our outward appearance fails to match the genitalia we were born with...GEEZE!!!!! GET OVER IT IDIOTS!!!!!!! Oh well.

Oh well...I can say I am finally here...It took a long time...a lot has evolved and now that I finally have this right. Well for instance calling to check on prices for having my ears pierced and intending to have that done. October 1 2 months since last haircut and it will grow for at least two possibly 3 more before I go to see my hair stylist again. I find and this is really incredible...I get up and even if I dress in male clothes at first soon as the coffee is made my gender sends me to change into the women's clothing I would normally wear everyday at home and it seems I am wearing it longer and longer even at night it is an evolving thing. I grab one of my night gowns for sleep and put on my make up also in the morning once I change.

There is a growing openness go out and get my mail...and garbage can... and I mean...yeah what all of my life I have held inside and have hidden is more and more in attitude that this is who I am and it is all evolving there more.

Could I post myself openly on Facebook!? I absolutely could...Answer the front door!? well I have but now also absolutely and probably will....

I am not yet quite comfortable with not caring if my neighbors see me, and I am not yet to where I would go wherever I go in male clothing but it is evolving and I can certainly in reality see I may indeed get even there because this is who I am and have always been it is unacceptable for us to prevent ourselves from living our lives openly. Just as an extremely shy person has to overcome their feelings...as I once did...overcoming whatever is holding us back will be such an enormous thing we will be like a bird set free from a cage. It is tragic what we do to ourselves and that many of us allow it to go on until the lid of our coffin is closed over us. We cannot allow this to happen to us that would be horrible because I believe once we are out we will wonder why it took so long to overcome our fear and we will have overcome the oppression of our culture and of our society and of the influence of oppressive religions.

What difference should it make to anybody if, though we do not share biology in common, the "who we are sense of ourselves" shares many or even much or perhaps even more in common with the opposite sex than we do with our own? Is that anybody's business? Oh but it then becomes their business when we wear clothing consistent with how we are inside? Absolutely not! Seems strange or upsets your sensitivities? They will just have to get over their selves. I am so tired that we are the ones put upon because the vast majority think we should be banished or because they would wish to grind us out of existence. You know what? They do not have that right! And I have every right to be who I am.

[Emily]

I feel society would easily accept our being very like the other gender as long as we look the sex we were born on the outside...but when our outward appearance is brought by us into conformity with who we are on the inside...we are utterly rejected, seen as bazaar, as mentally ill or deranged, abnormal, weird, and we make them cringe with utter revulsion so strong most desire to be out of our presence so they do not have to see us.

That is changing some...but in our lifetime...once or if I am ever able to be as free to go anywhere openly able to be exactly who I am as freely as I do in male attire, there will always be a risk for us a risk of physical violence that could be life ending, vocal abuse, stares and people moving away or looking away, and yeah we will still be rejected by many who are in our own families, perhaps by our entire families, some of our closest friends even, work associates, we may lose our jobs, be denied housing...all for a very simple reason...our outward appearance fails to match the genitalia we were born with...GEEZE!!!!! GET OVER IT IDIOTS!!!!!!! Oh well.

This part really jumped out because I think I know exactly what you are trying to say. Part of my fear of coming out was because of those exact things. But I see things from a totally different perspective these days. Being out and openly trans, I sometimes do get "the look", but that is it. I feel that society is changing and that there is so much more awareness these days. Thing is, its not always appearance that's the most important. It's the attitude, it's that feeling of accepting yourself and not caring one bit what society thinks. It was this... epiphany that got me where I am today. Still a long road ahead, but you'll never reach the end if you don't take those first few steps. It does get easier.

For me, my thing was to adopt more of an androgynous look, but every now and then, I would add something a little more feminine. I think in terms of family, this helped. Small, gradual changes and finding that comfort zone. All while maintaining that attitude - that one that come from within, that one that says this is me, this is my life and this is the way I want to live it.

And that definitely sounds like what you are doing. Definitely get the ears pierced, go out get the mail or the garbage can - just continue to evolve, but most of all, be you, be happy and be true to yourself.

[Anne Bonny]

I still go through periods when I have no particular desire...or as the past two days spent let's see 6.32 miles jogged, 2 miles walking the dog, 16 hours of bedside care on my total care wife who is out of it anymore, and about 5 hours mowing the front yard one day, doing the back yard the next.

The yard badly needed mowing and was causing me stress so with everything else it is a burden and after I am glad the yard looks nice again but last night I did not care how I was dressed ... I was in male attire and am today so far too.

My mood and my emotions tend to send me one direction or the other. Seems when I am at peace and relaxed and happy and things are quiet and I am at home I gravitate to things feminine because my gender gravitates there...when stressed or I have lots to do my gender gravitates to masculine more and I am there. Seems at times I can become full of whoever I am and it sends me back to my masculine side...feeling what's the point? feeling a bit ridiculous, silly? You know as a man...I also feel quite bored, and dry, and weary I suppose it is just the human condition. I am isolated and alone and have worn people out or driven most away and my wife is no longer able just waiting for death. And...I am stuck here alone and confined me my mind and a keyboard...waiting for death so that I can be released from my confinement and so that I can rejoin life and have all the freedom once again to live it.

[Anne Bonny]

I have been ... well sometimes you have to educate your psychologist...Know this from listening to another Gender Therapist ...I bought her book her name is Dara Hoffman-Fox and she does videos on you tube. My Psychologist knows about me, had this discussion several years back, and then came back when I was trying to stop...a fools errand and he warned me. Now I am back and he states I am clinically depressed...technically I mean who would not be in my circumstances but my gender is a thread that runs through my life so as I happened to mention I would come out but for my oldest sister... He did a role playing exercise with me playing my older sister...Ah!...I don't know but he did have me thinking about coming out to her....but I do not want to lose her. So I was messaging my younger older sister to see if she might be willing in some way to help...no dice though.
_________________________
Ok...you said at one time, I was selling T*** short. And that I put you in a bad situation by wanting it kept from her, she would be upset with you....and by my not trusting her. This is not sexuality, but it is very similar. Gays are not making a life choice for something they are, and were born that way.
This is gender...the same thing, it is not a choice or something we do. It is something I am. I was born this way. I have hidden this since I was 9 years old...and see before I had understanding it goes back further than that. I would tell T**** but with a value set formed in the 1950s protestant deeply faithful, traditional, conservative, and with a tendency to bore in tenaciously well... I love T***, don't want to shake that relationship or lose her. I would come out but for T***. I would not be the gay but the transgender brother. You would have to admit my life is sound. The psychologist states there's an absolutely nothing wrong with who I am. It's not a mental illness.
Of course as with my sons...and with you and your family I would not parade this in front of you or T***...but I would come out on facebook, to the neighbors though they have probably seen me. I really do not go public though I have been out a few times.
I can wait I suppose, what for T*** to... granted we live 8 hours apart. But why should I hide who I am!?
I am back from the psychologist..Dr. P. E. Ph.D.
Scares me to death...
I told you but you are pragmatic lucky you...
Oh well
He was working me on this
It is an issue...
_________________________
My mind is mulling all of this over, as well as the MIL and my wife's old friend who drives her over...hum...Sons are both adults and out of the house. My wife is receiving very good care by myself and is documented by Hospice, we had a good marriage...But I suppose sometimes you have to draw a line and just not go there right now. After my wife is gone My wife's family except for a niece who knows everything about me and is very supportive, then all they could do at that point is be very harumphed about it all and have absolutely no ability to do anything other than cut off relations with me completely...no skin off my nose they live an another state about 80 miles away and I never see them anyway and won't once my wife is gone. Yeah...time will help on that one...honestly I have no problem telling them all point blank, I don't care but the safest course is to let any toe hold they think they may have if they really wanted to what get a lawyer!? And for what reason!??? Still I would rather know they are completely walled off and frozen out which will occur when my wife finally succumbs to her Alzheimer's.

The sister!? That is a big issue because women tend to live on and on and on into their late 80's, 90's And I am 60...I do think if I want to be out...I have to talk to her. I want to be open, even out on Facebook, and of course any woman I find to spend the rest of my life with has to be fully accepting without any problems with who I am at all from the start, and my hope would be she would even take my hand and encourage me so I can get over the hump of going out openly into public. So...Now that sister as I said does live 8 hours away but she does have children on Facebook...I do not want roadblocks when my life should all be out in the open allowing me to be free.
______________________________
I could not help it...My sister and I were messaging they are in Las Vegas, had been to Arches, Capital Reef, Zion, and the other one and we were talking about our travels through the west with our parents...she stated she was bored...I was not...she stated "Yep. And being a boy of 8 or 9 as opposed to a social butterfly teenage girl ... BIGGGGG difference. Stuffed black bears, btw, were in the Smokies. You mingle your memories. We're off to casino and dinner. Bye."

Well I did not like her apparent implication that who I am is just bull manure...as 90% of society seem to believe...I cannot stand that attitude so I could not help it...I wrote back:

There is a big difference. I make no claims to be anything I am not. My gender however is expansive but is what it is and has always been... I have struggled with it my entire life. I am well aware of those who object but they have no clue and are wrong on this Gender and Sex are two different things. T*** lives 8 hours away...don't know what I will do in the end but I may just leave it all as it is. Funny I am accepted and supported everywhere I turn as who I am when it moves into appearance on the outside people go crazy. Served in the Military at times with shaved legs and glossy toe nails and panties under my uniform...Don't ask Don't tell... We are free to be whoever we are inside our head...oh well. I cannot live like that anymore so I am more open with my life style and have a growing list of people in my inner circle. Restraint is outrageous because of a society that insists on dragging it's knuckles on the ground...but it is changing at all the speed of a glacier melting...oh well. I am no different than I have ever been but I cannot live anymore in a straight jacket just to make other people happy. The majority of society would feel the same way were they forced to live as we do for some reason.... It is not right. Everybody has the simple right to breath free air and to simply be who they are in this life. It is not right. Just venting... nothing personal. You were lucky enough to fit in with the norm. I was not in this respect. It is really only a slight difference but the reaction even so is just amazing. Oh well.

[Lacey Hadley]

Anne,

I certainly can't tell you to come out especially to your very orthodox conservative sister, only you can make said choice to or not. Most of us cders notably more in closet types as well as tgers who still have not come around to being out struggle with this decision, I know I do. I often so want to tell all and be free to be me to dress and be in or out anytime I want, but fear (often inflated in our own minds) of losing things and others in my/our lives preclude me/us from doing just that.

In recent years, oh the last 2-3 for me, I've really embraced looking to be as feminine as I can when fully dressed. Less ham fisted as a dude who crossdresses, which for most of my adult life was good enough. But I see Lacey in me when full en femme and feel very endeared to her in my clear feminine side. Maybe its age/maturity but many things in my life have shifted in recent years... I took the red pill about 2-3 yrs. ago and no longer attempt to virtue signal in self-loathing of my race, my actual male gender as well as my nationality and living in the greatest society man has ever created, the western developed world. NOPE I saw since taking the red pill that all too many others who want me to beat myself up in all their social cuckoldry of virtue signaling have never done or been there for me if/when I needed them. I now see life much more clearly, the good, the bad and the ugly of it all. I now better give of myself when I am able to do more as I can out of a desire to give and be there for others and not out of mindless, zombie like virtue signalling and P.C. bull$hit!

I as a result personally embrace more stronger myself, my good and bad sides and accept my own decisions good and bad. As such I love dressing full en femme as Lacey more today than ever before as I see my truths better today and not hate myself as much as I once did. Am I just a cder or am I tger??? Not sure as I can't quite put a finger on either or for me... For now I try to enjoy dressing up and being more my femme side as Lacey... I have also found my sexuality to be more in mind in recent times. As a dude I have no interest in any relations with a man, but since my red pilling and taking my life's personal blinders off, when dressing fully and carrying myself Lacey, I do think about and wonder what it may be like to be fancied and swooned by a gentleman who may find me dressed and acting as a girl I feel to be attractive and interesting ... It's a most odd feeling for me and rather new in my mindset. It does add complications as again like most cders or tgers who are in the closet so to speak, that is hard enough, but dealing with new sexual feelings for me again complicates things. I guess what I'm saying Anne and others here is none of it all is easy or straight forward. One person may have it easier to be out and about, another person not so easy. Work or career, maybe running a business, toss in family, neighbours, friends all factor our situations... All will have effect on our futures good or bad.

I know decisions for me will have to be made in and at times now in my life.

[Anne Bonny]

Yes. There are many who like myself now age 60...who have waited and waited and waited all of our lives. We met the expectations and desires of others got our education and we were sons....went to school and married, were parents for children, met our employer's expectations...had our casreers...now children are out on their own or know in my case being of age...Wife in my case is just waiting to succumb to her fate...and finally....after waiting all of my life my time has finally arrived, there are no more expectations, no one can lay a finger on me anymore...finally my time has come to be able to be who I have always been inside.

Right! Well What I am finding is the sister who does know is really just being snarky and passive aggressive and thinks all this about my gender is pure bull manure...for her I am nothing but a life long sexual pervert dressing and masturbating until I pass out I suppose in her brain...that is what society thinks about "transvestites" as they snicker behind our backs with pure revulsion and hatred believing we are mentally deranged and need to be on powerful psychotropic medications receiving ECT and be under a Psychiatrists care in a mental hospital until we are turned into zombies...Hide the kids and god forbid we should ever be let loose in society to show ourselves anywhere except perhaps on as stage as female impersonators living on the seamy side of town....Hatred. Gee when our own families believe this about us...well and I am hiding it from the one sister which is why we are still on very good terms!

It is infuriating that we are required to continue to lock away who we are under our cranium do that and suddenly there is no problem. Have a preference for feminine fashions and fitting in with women and everybody flips out and wants to put us all under a slimy heavy rock buried with whatever is slithering under it.

I am tired. I do not know...maybe I am full of manure!? I was hearing myself tell the psychiologist - who should know - that gender is just this nebulous sense of who we are...that's all it is - as if I am some kind of authority...NO! After 60 years that is my best conjecture but it is only a personal belief or opinion. I know who I am is not personality, or personality traits, or mannerisms or how I speak or my bearing - has nothing to do with any of that...what else can it be that is left over after eliminating everything else is that our gender is just this sense we have that either "I am a Man, or I am a woman?" We do not think "I am a penus or I am a vagina!" We may think I am a boy or I am a girl because of our sex...but this can also occur inside our head. Bullshit!? Well! That is as correct as anything I have ever found or arrived at what else could our gender be but that? Why is it I feel feminine and sometimes I don't and revert to a more masculine baseline??

Oh well it is all just infuriating. I will just leave it all alone. Screw the sister I told she is so exceedingly focused on her own life, If she had any feelings at all about me as her only brother...why in the last 6 years have I only seen her when my mother's will was probated...and again at my son's wedding, and except for about 2-3 phone calls out of the blue all during this time - Zip! My other sister also senses this about her so it is not just myself. Yep...that's it for me...you want nothing at all to do with me, and do not even care enough about the pure hell I am living through you cannot take any time to come over to see me as I am trapped here as if I am in prison then I am completely done with you!!!!!! Sigh...

[Anne Bonny]

Being rejected by your own family does hurt, but I cannot help being who I am.

[Ralitsa]

You are letting the fear of what your sister might think, control your behaviour???

All I have to say to that is, WTF??? Does she care half a speck of sand what you think of her? Because if she did, and if she read what you wrote about her, she should be mortified. But obviously she doesn't give two cents for your opinion, so why do you keep beating yourself up all these years about people who clearly look at you as only someone to be bullied and manipulated? It is past time for you to put on your big girl panties write them off.

You need to do what is best for yourself. It is clear to me that many in your family do not care about what is best for you, they only wish to maintain the control over your life that you (for some unexplicable reason) have chosen to give them. JUST SAY NO.
It really is as easy as that.

[Diana Michelle]

Well put Ralitsa! Anne, it is your life to live as your sister's is for her. If she loves and appreciates your views and beliefs 1/10th as much as you do hers she will learn to deal with it. Trust me on that one.

Being rejected by your own family does hurt, but I cannot help being who I am.

I hear you Anne. Been there myself and that pain is beyond words. It causes you to question many things. I have worked with several girls as they have come out and transitioned. The one thing I have always told them is you are Number 1 and if you don't look out for yourself no one else will. Yes the love and support of family is the optimal however there are those of us who have made it without that.

The question here is a simple one. Is your sister's beliefs more important than your happiness and mental well being? Anne only you can answer that.

[Anne Bonny]

September 23rd...today is November 6th...time does pass and things do change. I have realized...well my gender is on again and of again..."fluid." Depression has hit and it hit big time related to my circumstances as a caregiver still for a while past week or so male gender has pushed everything else to the side...but as I work with the Psychologist and primarily with the Hospice Social worker and making lists to regenerate a normal social life and get back into living even as I continue care giving...with lists and check off blocks...I am starting to make progress and feel much better, some excitement has returned as I feel I am making way and have plans again for living and getting out socially to be with and around people making connections that are so vital to a happy healthy life. So as I feel more positive ...Anne has been stirring this morning.... Anne comes when I am happy and relaxed and at peace.

My sister did demonstrate she cares called before during and after the hurricane hit us so she still cares and knows and has not rejected me, may come on Thanksgiving I'll see. The other sister I also love and am close too. Telling or not is of course my decision as is the drive to be fully out or not or to be comfortable for now with the status quo.

So...I am not feeling the push from within at this time to be fully out being comfortable for now where I am. There is a friend coming and we are going to eat next saturday, she knows and I have never dressed around her. I am not an exhibitionist I do not see going out as Anne or who knows!?

For now I am ok with where I am at....that is what it is all about...being comfortable...and outting fully is still a very real possibility for me out there.

Anne

[Bernice]

For now I am ok with where I am at....that is what it is all about...being comfortable...

Bingo. You've hit on the most important part of all of this.

Do not think that failing to divulge everything to your backwards thinking sister is being dishonest. Frankly, there's little reason it should come up in daily conversation. If she bluntly confronted you demanding that you confirm/deny, then lying might be dishonest, but before you even answered, you'd have a right to know why it matters to her. My guess is that it would probably never happen unless someone rats you out to her.

I let my mother go to the grave thinking that my crossdressing was "just a phase" that I outgrew at the age of twelve. That was the price for not being disinherited.

My wife loves me for who I am, and not who I could pretend to be. That's why our marriage has been so successful.

Control what you can control if it needs controlling, and don't worry about the rest.

End of sermon...

Hugs,

Bernice

[Amanda R]

So perfectly put Bernice. Too many stew and fret over that which they cannot control they cause great harm to themselves as well as those around them.

Too many wander through life wondering where they belong and worrying about are they happy and is that all there is. Rather than looking to others as the beacon of truth look to yourself. A friend of mine here who was about to undergo her GCS said it perfectly when someone told her she admired her for what she was going through although she admitted she would always she would be just a CD. My friend said something to the effect of it is not important what you are but rather in being happy with who you are. Truer words have never been spoken.

Anne you have gotten lots of excellent advice from many here and yes it is your life to live and others should respect that. In a perfect world that is how it would be however I think the one thing we can all agree on is this is far from a perfect world. Your desire to retain a relationship with your sister Anne and your recognition if you were to come out to her could jeopardize that shows how important it is to you. Granted she may shock you and accept you as you are for they say triumphs over all. However if you feel it could change that relationship in a negative way there is no harm in not telling her. To be honest Anne ask yourself does she really need to know? In the face of risking this relationship do you have to anything to gain? Yes we all have that need as well as the right to be ourselves to all and yes she should respect your right to do so but we also need to respect the feelings and right of others to be themselves.