The Ship has Sailed

Image from Sebastian Bjune
on UnSplash

Very early in life, I learned being a male in any way was going to be a struggle.

In response I went through all the necessary contortions I could find to seek approval in a gender world I wanted no part of. Ironically I found I needed to be proficient as possible at being a male or be bullied. Even though, deep down, I knew I had missed my male ship all together, I kept on trying. I did my best to succeed in all the male-centric activities I tried. Even though I was a dismal failure at playing sports, I tried my best to play football and baseball through high school. It was my attempt at jumping aboard what was left of my male ship before it sailed totally out of sight over some sort of a distant horizon. Through it all, women still remained a mystery to me. As I wrote yesterday, I didn't have my first date with a girl until halfway through my junior year of high school. Deep down I felt girls had all the benefits of life because they could sit back in their pretty clothes and wait to be asked out.

I on the other hand, had to summon all of my courage to ask a girl out, which again, I was a dismal failure at. My first dates with girls were always set up by friends who I thought felt sorry for me. I never understood until much later in life the grass was not always greener on the feminine side of the gender border when my spouses explained to me the torment they felt as they waited to be asked out. 

As it turned out, my gender ship had already sailed no matter what I did. Even though I tried my best to lead a successful male life, I was always haunted and  pushed along by the fact I was always supposed to be feminine or any label you wanted to place on me. There were many such as cross dresser or  transvestite all the way to transsexual and finally transgender. None of them really mattered as I desperately searched for my gender truth. Finally, all the stress and tension my gender dysphoria caused me led me to a very serious suicide attempt. 

After taking all the pills and not dying, I returned to my old male life with a new purpose. I knew my masculine existence I worked so hard to maintain couldn't continue. The ship had sailed and if I was ever going to have a chance at living a meaningful life, it had to be as a transgender woman.

When I did come to my gender conclusion, I never looked back. I started my life all over again in a woman's world by beginning hormone replacement therapy or HRT. At that point I never did miss my old male ship at all. It was as if a huge weight had been lifted from my shoulders and I was allowed to live again. As I was given a second chance at life, I most certainly did not want to destroy it and I set out to become the best person I knew how to be. 

It turned out I wasn't alone in starting over. My inner feminine self was waiting for my male ship to sail also and lend a hand. She did a great job because she waited so long.to have her way. It was good because I needed all the help I could get.