I was an early maturer. My voice changed while I was in the 6th grade even though I was one of the youngest in the class. I also harbored the feeling that despite my obvious externals, I was female. This scared me somewhat as I feared being discovered. What if I walked like a girl? Actually not understanding the physical explanation for the different gait led me to think I had to be careful, I didn't need anyone discovering my secret and making my life more miserable than it was.
This feeling was with me throughout my teen years but what could one do in the 60's? I knew about Christine Jorgensen, but how could I become like her without resources? and besides I was 185 pounds and 6 foot tall by the ninth grade. Certainly not the proportions that one would want in a young lady. So on I lived with my secret.
Fast forward to my early twenties. Just back from Vietnam and out of the Army I started having recurrent bouts of diarrhea accompanied by extreme cramping. Probably IBS-d or lactose intolerance, or both, but at the time I was left to put this together alone. I had several female friends at the time who would often complain about cramps as a part of their monthly cycles. Since my episodes also came on a similar time frame and having no one to talk to about it, it seemed natural for me to go back to my inner female and determine that these episodes were my version of a monthly cycle. I never shared that with anyone, it was my secret, but I did share some of this with a female friend who was very accepting and informed me that there were medical procedures to deal with what I described. I objected that I couldn't afford to run to Europe and she let me know that there were clinics in the US that dealt in these things. It was intriguing but the me that was living on a few hundred dollars a month could see no way to afford that kind of care so back in the secret locker everything went.
It would be nice to say that I wasn't bothered anymore but that would be a lie. I would constantly be reminded of my situation. Married and with a child I would cry because I knew that I would be a better mother than my wife. Later with the birth of the internet and usenet I would discover more and in my 50's would try to breach the subject in therapy only to find my therapist didn't really want to address it and still despite my age and learning quite passive about self care, I let it go and lived vicariously on line chatting with others, hearing their stories, and being sure I was right to stay in the closet as I heard of the exploitations, sex work and the fear of not passing that came with coming out.
But the dysphoria does not go away, it ebbs and flows and sometimes overflows even now in my late 70's So I see young people today expressing themselves and living their lives openly and often I am hit with jealousy instead of joy. Joy for them is what I know I should feel, I should finally just drop the pretense, but then my life is comfortable at last and I don't really waant to lose that comfort for a few moments of self expression.
