On some occasions, I draw heavily on masculine energy, such as when I need to problem-solve, or work with mechanical things. I am pretty much in male mode when I assemble a computer or flat-pack furniture, service a small appliance, or work on my car or bicycle. I’m doing it now, because I am writing analytically rather than from my emotions.

At other times, I draw heavily on feminine energy, such as when I hunger for (or achieve) emotional connectedness, when I need to stymie some big bully who is over twice my size (it occasionally works on women, too, because they do not expect it from a man), or whenever my feelings and emotions are up. When talking with women, depending on the conversation, I can be anywhere from the masculine side of center, to fairly girly. In the female-only online marketplace venues where used, vintage, and discounted women’s clothing and accessories are exchanged, I am a natural-born woman to the other women, there.

Like many of us, I prefer to be feminine in my down time, to balance how I often have to present myself to the world. Since with my build, I could not be mistaken for female on a dark night from yards away, I just wear a dress and sometimes some heels. Just like with women, it is ultimately all about how it makes me feel. As long as I stay away from the mirror, I’m OK.

More recently, though, I’ve managed to dredge up the courage to wear some of my heels (tastefully coordinated with shirt and trousers) in public on some occasions, such as when running errands. I get some stares, sometimes, but fortunately nothing worse than that has come of it. I believe we have come a long way since the time of my childhood.

I first discovered the TG scene in the late 1970’s, when I was in college. Virginia Prince was forming her “Tri-Ess” (Society for the Second Self), and publishing her books and Transvestia magazine. In the mean time, Drs. Green, Money, and Stoller were publishing findings from their work in the gender clinics at Johns Hopkins and UCLA. Other people were publishing (auto)biographies and multidisciplinary research findings (from the viewpoints of psychology, sociology, and ethnology). When I transferred to a 4-year school, a lot of that was available in the university library.

I read everything I could get my hands on, including a remark in one book about how people like me read everything we can get our hands on. :D I read how people were attempting to classify and categorize different aspects of the TG experience in their effort to bring some understanding to it. I read how cross-dressers in particular compartmentalized their femme selves, and how they showed up to Tri-Ess meetings in “drab” to maintain confidentiality, and cryptically referred to their femme selves by name as being in their luggage.

Of course, I was trying to understand my own experience…except that it never quite fit in any of the pigeon holes or boxes of the time. I tried to decide if my feelings were wholly a result of my experiences, or if there might be a physiological component, too. Finally, I decided that none of it really mattered, except that compartmentalizing was not good for me.

This is not an easy place to be, because most people, including those in the TG community, want us to be masculine or feminine, not “somewhere in-between.” The large body of TG fiction about boys of apparently ambiguous gender who can only find fulfillment as girls reflects this reality. I’m not comfortable among men, because many of my values and viewpoints are traditionally feminine. Being among women is sometimes a difficult proposition because of the assumptions they make about me simply because I am male. I won’t even talk about how far and few between intimate relationships are. It is a lonely place to be.