I did tick the good story box, but this was a very sad tale, My tick was because you did it so well. It was almost a poem with its repeated phrases and structure.

I just wonder, how many of us behave like this - afraid to let the girl inside come out and live too, or if thinking of themself as female, letting the boy loose as well ?

Several times people have written in stories here on BCTS that someone has to be brave to transition. I am a devout coward. At least I have always regarded myself as one. Yet somehow I found myself going to Northern Ireland in the middle of the Troubles, staying, as the only guest apart from one American, in a hotel in the middle of Belfast that had been blown up so many times they had a permanent iron net all round it and a 24/7 army unit guarding it. I travelled to No Go areas and demonstrated a new wound treatment to both sides. In a top range hired car from Avis, because my Company would not risk one of their cars, I was escorted from hospital to hospital and saw wounds like one just did not see in English hospitals. Both sides protected me and were glad for the help. Later I cut loose and volunteered to work in East Europe, living behind the "Iron Curtain" and finding that they were just the same as us!

I decided I wanted to use these opportunities to jump a few rungs in the upward climb to top management and huge salaries.

My Daddy, a career soldier invalided out at end of WW2, advised me to avoid being conscripted as he felt my feminine bodyshape and wee titties would cause me so much trouble among the lads.

Some of us have gender confusion thrust upon them, others can choose.

Chimerism is a rare but recorded phenomenon, my sort happens when twins are conceived but instead of separating they form one foetus with XX and XY cells more or less evenly distributed throughout the one body. There are thought to be about 500 of us, most live in China.

Most chimeras die early. I am a lucky exception. Life Assurance is unavailable to me, but so what? When my time comes I will walk into the sea, so no funeral needed, no body left to bury, at ridiculous cost - recycling perfected. I will NOT put up with being put in a "home" or hospital to die. I have done my duty to humanity and I owe them nothing, and I am not brave enough to die slowly, rotting as bit by bit turns off.

The hardest thing is to decide what one wants. Getting it, is easy after that!

You've said in a few short words what it would take me reams of paper to convey.

This is a very bittersweet, sad little poem that serves to remind me how fleeting time came be. It is extremely powerful and well done.
I guess it's my turn to cry.