4:02 a.m. - Thursday, May. 23, 2002
How it Feels to be a Woman
I've had all this trouble reconciling the way I look with the way I feel. With hormones and the electrolysis, and the makeup, I've gotten to at least approximate the outward appearance of a woman, but even with all that, I've felt somehow dishonest in my efforts to "convince" the world that they behold a woman in me. Right up to now, I've had that feeling, even though I'm accepted everywhere I go.

I think I've been waiting for something inside to change. Waiting for my own feelings to somehow change and be more female... but really, what does being female feel like? How would I really know? What needs to change inside?

The answer is this: NOTHING!

THIS is what it feels like to be female. It feels exactly like I've always felt. No change will ever take place because I am already there. It's really really hard to understand this. Especially when I look at my morning face or see my penis, or even just my overall body shape and size. I'm doing all this stuff to 'transition' and 'transform' myslef into a woman, but it's all physical. I guess it's just easy to assume that with all the physical changes that some kind of mental or emotional change will naturally come with it. I got confused when it didn't. But I'm just recently coming to understand that I really can't change the feelings. If I could, then I wouldn't need to go through all the physical stuff. That's what it's all about.

So even if I don't always recognize my feelings as genuinely female, they are and have always been so. They're the true reason I'm horrified by my body and face. I'll never feel "more" like a woman than I do right now. This is it. I may never be the most feminine woman in the house. Maybe I'll always walk like a man and never be comfortable speaking with a new voice, Maybe I'll always have some typical male attitudes or thoughts, but I'm still a woman. I'm just so hampered by a lifetime of learning and a lifetime of hormonal damage. There are a lot of feminine things I can learn, but learning them won't make me more female. They'll only make it easier for me to be alive as a woman.... and more free. More important than all the learned stuff put together is just letting myself be me and not being self-conscious about it. I need to allow myself to see Leslie in the same way everyone else sees her.

I think people have always recognized me as female. That sounds strange, but I think it's true. That's why men have always treated me in a subordinate or condescending way. It's why some of them have taken me on (non-sexual) "dates". It's why some others have known they could seduce me with very little effort.... and why not all of those others were gay.

It's why my wife took the dominant role in our marriage, even though I was the breadwinner.

It's part of the reason my mother never had any confidence in me as a man.

It's why my friendships with men have been close and exclusive. I've deldom had more than one friend at a time, and even though most of these have been platonic, I've always been the companion.

Even with a beard and coveralls, I've been a woman and acted in some unalterable ways as a woman. People have sensed this and subconsciously treated me as one. Even though they could never have known on a conscious leverl that I was anything other than a man. Now, with all the physical changes, every time I remove some male aspect of my appearance or behavior, I make it easier for the people around me to recognize me. I'm not transitioning or changing into a woman. I already am one. I'm just dropping pretenses and disguises so that I can take my rightful place... and I'm looking to the medical community to help me correct some of the physical damage my body has done to itself... and one more very personal thing... I'm looking to them to give me the right genitalia so that every day, in private when I look at my outside, I'll be able to fully recognize myself at last. That part is for me, not the world. I hope someday to share it with selected others, but it's really for me, even if no one ever sees or shares it.

Leslie

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