Living the Dream

Transsexualism has seen a bit of media attention in recent years. It seems every TV talk show has had a special on this issue. Several movies and documentaries have seen the light of day as of late. Largely the attention has been on young children or teens that have always known and felt that they were born in the wrong body. There seems to be increasing support and sympathy for these young people yet at the same time there is some controversy about starting them on ant-androgens to delay the onset of puberty. Going this route as many advantages for the true transsexual individuals and can make it vastly easier for their transition to their true gender. But I understand for the majority of us this realization of our true nature sets in our teens. This is true of myself I was in my teens when this realization took hold of me and when it did it hit me hard.

I clearly remember a time in my teen years wondering what was wrong with me. There were many times I would take long walks wondering what was wrong, what was different about me. For several years this continued. I never mentioned it to anyone and there was no one for me to talk to. Then one day I came across an article about someone that had undergone gender reassignment surgery. It was like the smashing of a wall the blinders were removed, I could see. I've never been the same since that moment. It hit me like a load of bricks. Years of pressure to conform, to live up to societies expectations of what a boy should be were suddenly undone. In an instant my true nature had finally been revealed. While all my friends and family were making fun of this individual I knew I would have given anything to have been born female or to become female. In all the decades since that moment this desire, this dream for lack of a better word, has never lessened nor abated one bit.

I began to seek out short articles and stories of others that had gone the same route. Or at least I did so when no one else was around to see me doing so. This idea of transcending ones birth gender was not very well accepted in those days. I would dream about being female, presenting as female, living as female. Yet I knew I could never do so. No one around me would accept it and I believed I didn't have the body for it. I could never pass as female. I would never be female. I told myself that it could never be. So I settled for the fact that I could, at best, only be a guy in a dress. So for many years whenever I had the opportunity and when no one was around I would dress in female clothes and dream of being female. It was my last thought each night before I went to sleep and my first thought in the morning. It was my dream. Yet for so many years, decades even, I never mentioned a word to anyone else. It was my private dream and my private hell.

I also believed it when others would say that doing this was wrong and a great sin. This led me to try, on many occasions, to exterminate this thing from my life. But no matter how hard I tried the dream refused to die, it was always there taunting me whenever I was alone. I would stop cross-dressing and get rid of everything yet the dream refused to die. The longer I refused to do it the more intense the dream would become until at some point the pressure would become over powering and I had to indulge once again. I was locked into a pattern of indulgence and guilt, purging and rejection. Every passing year this battle wore on me slowly taking me down a black hole in my life. I was slowly sinking into hell. For when one tries so hard to eradicate a dream as powerful as one's true nature it's bound to have consequences. And through all this the dream refused to die.

In recent years I realized I had to come to a decision. I could either continue to fight this dream and ultimately be destroyed doing so or begin to embrace it. I didn't want to be destroyed, I no longer wanted to live in my private hell. It is time to embrace the dream. I have been, slowly working towards becoming the female I've always needed to be. The more time I spend as Anita the better I get at being female and the better I feel. As Anita I feel most like me. I am starting to live the dream, the dream of a life time. I was not born female but perhaps I can at least live as female after all.

Living this dream has been costly. I've lost my ministry, my church, my pension and my home. My wife and I have separated. It remains to be seen how much more living the dream will cost me in money, friends, family and perhaps other jobs. I've had to find a new church that can embrace Anita even as I've had to learn to embrace Anita. Yes living the dream can be costly. Is it worth it?

A resounding YES. I'm living the dream of a lifetime. I only wish I had begun to live the dream long ago. But perhaps I needed to go through the hell that I did so that I would know the value living the dream, living my true nature really is. I do pray that others may learn the value of living their true nature without having to go through the hell I did. Perhaps I can be of some help. Perhaps my story can help someone else come to terms with their true nature.

Anita