Their faces are always there; looking, watching, leering.

I try not to look back. If I don't look back then I can pretend that they are not real. I tighten the veil of my glamour around me. It helps to hide me from them. I am not one of them. I'm a creature of duality. I am both male and female, and at the same time, in between the two. They can't understand how I even exist, and honestly, neither can I.

It is easiest when they do not know about me. For the most part, my glamour holds. If I speak and move carefully, I will be seen as female. Yeah, I know I have male bits, but oddly enough, unless they are exposed, I just don't present as an adult male. Well, even exposed either. My bits are enough to declare me as male, but definitely not adult. They are also the ultimate irony about me as they are the only male thing about me. So I target my glamour to the only gender that works.

Lincoln said, “A house divided within itself cannot stand.” That statement is so true. My brain, definitely female, and my body aspiring to be male were a divide at a core level. I did not even understand the conflict for so many years, even though it was tearing me apart. My instincts, so wrong for acting male. Honestly, I did not mean to jump up and down and wriggle in excitement. It just happened. I promise! Or worse, those animalistic urges driven by the bodies hormones gave me drives that left me feeling violated over and over again. Is it surprising that I repeatedly tried to make it all go away the only way I could imagine? In the end, I fell, and fell hard.

I had to get my house together. I had tried the full myriad of psychological drugs, but they only suppressed my ability to feel and think. In a way, the “psych meds” were just another way of dividing me. Take away the destructive part, and only leave the safe, weak part. No, those were not the way I needed to go. That was not living. It was merely surviving, and barely at that.

I also tried therapy to mentally change who I was. I could change so much, but the basic emotional needs and physical drives cannot be touched by intellect. I could set up masks and filters to change how I appeared on the outside, yet I was still divided. I could not decide to feel any differently. And I could not make those horrid dreams leave me alone. In the end, I gave up on that as well.

My only solace was feeling that there had to be a reason for my pain and sorrow. I knew that God would not do something so terrible to someone without a purpose. And I have learned so very much. I have learned compassion for others because I understand the depth of sorrow within myself. I have learned humility as everything I had was stripped from me. And I have learned strength. Yes, strength. Each time I experienced a greater loss or the next challenge, I survived. I do not know how other than I have a source of inner strength that I have learned I can rely upon. Finally, I have learned that giving up is not an option.

It was during therapy that I realized transitioning was the only hope for my life. I had to get rid of the discordance within me. I could not change my mind to meet my body, but the other, for all practical purposes is possible. And my mind, my intellect, my soul were all more female than male. So it made sense to accept transitioning and run with it.

I chuckle to myself as I think back to my ex wife. She said I was never enough man for her. How that hurt at the time. Now, I get an impish smile on my face that makes my bright blue eyes sparkle, and I think to myself, “Boy was she ever right.” I giggle softly to myself as I follow my thinking with “I was too much woman for her to handle.”

Just the decision that I was a girl totally changed my natural glamour. My social awkwardness turned into a form of shy beauty and my soft timid voice seemed to take on a feminine huskiness. It seemed that as I allowed myself to feel female inside, I was projecting it as well. So much so that not even my worn out boy clothes prevented people from seeing a woman.

Odd thing about that. A woman can wear men's clothing and no one thinks anything of it. I had thought that I would have to change my wardrobe to present as female, but I was so wrong. My attitude changed my wardrobe just like in the Metamor City podcasts. I had become an androgyne by merely flipping a switch inside my brain. It was so simple and so unexpected. I mean, I had grown up being taught that Clothes makes the man and now I was finding that The Woman makes the clothes.

And then the miracle of hormones changed everything. Oh my God yes! The underlying grating that constantly wore me down had vanished. Along with it went the constant sadness and feeling of loss. I had always suspected they were hormone related as they appeared when I hit puberty. Now I knew that was true. I was finally free.

Mmmm, it is not like all my troubles fell away. No, they are still here, and more so, the grieving that accompanies the loss of all the ancillary issues was in ways just as bad as the depression I had suffered from before. Only now, I was finding that I could rise above it, and I knew that eventually it would end.

Coming back to the outside world. I peek out and the faces are still there. Probably wondering what I had seen to make me go from such a serious look, to a melodious giggle. I stop looking again and rebuild my glamour; calm, a touch of sadness and mystery, and definitely female. And I continue on my way.