I had finally done it. I was on my own in my own flat. My marriage had failed and I had split amicably with my wife. She kept the house that had been paid for mostly by a trust fund set up by my parents. I kept the remainder of my savings. I did not begrudge her the house. She had been patient and understanding about my "condition". Both my parents were dead, which is why I was contemplating doing something I had been longing for all my life.

As far back as I could remember I had wanted to be a woman. I always felt more comfortable around females. I learned quickly though that it was not acceptable to behave in that manner when you were male. It seemed to me that being male was part of an exclusive club that you should be happy to be a member of and never want to join the other 51% of the population.

I learned to be a "chameleon". I joined in the crude conversations with the guys about "she's got nice tits". I seemed like a normal guy. Whatever that is. What none of them knew, including my parents, was that I would wear my mother's clothes whenever I could. It started out with shoes, then included underwear and dresses. How I never got caught. I'll never know.

I devoured any television or film where men were forced to dress, or disguised themselves as women. I would dream it was happening to me.
I knew that I was not "normal" and had seen the hate directed at people like me. Although I honestly didn't know what I actually was. I was certainly a crossdresser, but was I trans? The clothes excited me a little, but also it felt right. On the rare occasions when I got the makeup right, I just stared at myself in the mirror. I could tell by my smile that the woman in the mirror was happy. A lot happier than the man who had been shaving in it earlier.

I was never brave enough to share my secret. In fact, I was ashamed of myself. I stopped dressing, met a woman, and settled down to being the best husband I could be. Within the first five years, we both knew it wasn't going to work. She asked me if I found her attractive and wore the beautiful lingerie I brought for her. I just had trouble performing. I had to imagine I was her before I could make love.

After a few years of trying to get pregnant, our relationship was falling apart. I wasn't trying hard enough, I didn't love her, and she even accused me of being gay. Perhaps she was right. I had to come clean. I told her everything. Surprisingly she seemed relieved. I think she saw it as my fault, not hers. I was the one that was broken.

The divorce gave her a chance to try again with a "real man". It gave me a chance to find out who I really was. I got a small flat and quit my job. I had around £350k left from the insurance money left to me by my parents. I planned to take a few years off without complications.

I had been in contact with some trans women through several internet sites. The world they live in is very different from what you see in the media. The media shows them as uncompromising zealots that insist on the right to be recognized as women by everyone regardless of any counterarguments. While I did talk to some of those, most were nice normal people that just wanted to be left alone to live their lives quietly in their chosen gender. A lot of the ones I messaged had a great sense of humor. I supposed you would have to, to put up with the crap they have to put up with.

I learned so much. Even though I knew there were many others like me I never dreamed of how diverse it was. I thought there were men that wanted to be women and men that liked to dress as women for sexual pleasure. That is what the media would have you believe, well that and there were men that claimed to be trans so they could access "women only" areas.

There were trans women that wanted to alter their bodies to resemble a genetic female as much as possible. There were those that dressed and lived as women successfully without hormones or surgery. There were many in between both of those. In a way, crossdressers were the lucky ones. They could keep their desire to wear female clothing a secret mostly. Where I was on this broad spectrum was hard to know. I loved appearing to be female. Every time I dressed though, a little voice in my head would tell me that this is the real you. I always felt happier then.

I think I may have been trans, but lacked the courage to live as a woman full-time. The stories I heard from the trans women I spoke to confirmed this could be a very difficult life. From people staring at you to people deliberately misgendering you. Wearing a dress and makeup and having a shop assistant loudly say, " Can I help you sir?", must be devastating. What pleasure could anyone take from that? But this was the reality for many trans women. That was just the tip of the iceberg of the problems that trans people experience daily. It came as no great surprise when I found out that the suicide rate among trans people was many times that of the general population.

Every time new laws were passed to make it slightly easier for trans people, the media would scream that it meant any sexual predator could wake up and decide he was a woman and go and use a female bathroom or changing room at the gym. It totally trivialized the struggle that real trans women go through every day. The more I found, out the more it made me want to crawl away and just hide the woman in me in my little flat permanently.

That would have been the easy way, but the feeling I was missing something just would not leave me. I knew if I didn't try I would live to regret it. I had to make a stand. I had to try.