Chapter 1

The journey started for me on Sunday, September 26, 1965 at 5:25 p. m.. But a mistake was also carried out that day also, the doctors considered me a boy. Well physically that was true, but inside I was all girl.

One of my earliest memories is thinking that God made a mistake, that I should have been born a girl. I liked to play with dolls, especially the Dawn doll. I did have a few of them and a Dawn colorform set. This contained doll cut out forms that you could stick the colorform outfits on. It was given to me my Fairy Godmother. That is what I called my godmother, my rationale being if Cinderella had a fairy godmother, and I had a godmother then mine had to be a fairy godmother. Give me a break, I was three when I started this. I remember being thirteen and trying to call my Fairy Godmother, just Godmother when she asked me to please go on calling her Fairy Godmother, so I pushed down my adolescent uncomfortableness and did what she wanted.

Also, when I was three, I knew I was going to grow up to be a woman. At that time I did not know of the biological difference so I thought it would be easy. At this time, I was into my records, playing with my dolls and when forced to playing with building blocks. My older brother was the most uncomfortable with my effeminate behavior and was constantly trying to force me to exhibit more masculine behavior.

My mother was 43 years old, when I was born and I was her second child after a 21 year gap. Since she already had a boy, I know she was wishing that I was born a girl. Sometimes I think God has a sense of humor. Since I was a girl, but no one could see it.

When I was three, I would walk around on the balls of my bare feet, pretending I was wearing high heels. Boy, did my family hate when I did that. This was also the time that I overheard my mother telling her friends, that it was just a phase I was going through. Also during this time, I remember walking by a friend's house when a teenaged boy called me a fag. I didn't know what that was but figured it had to be bad judging from the tone of voice.

I spent the first eight years of my life in Middlesex, New Jersey. It was a nice sized town, then. I have some very fond memories. I would mostly play with the girls, so that I could play with dolls, and other girl toys, that I could not play with otherwise. I would be encouraged to play with boys, which I would do as long as it was with one or two. I did have a few male friends, but they were usually of the not rough and tumble crowd. I did not understand the boys and they of course did not understand me either.

One of my favorite toys at this time was my Fisher Price Play Family house. This was the only type of doll house I had. I also had the farm and school bus at the time. Of course I would play more with the female figures more than the males. I remember being 4 and in the hospital, for a fever that would not come down. I had to have this house brought to me while I was there and so my mother brought it to me. I remember this hospital stay for another reason. One of the nurses did not lock the side of the bed right and I fell out of bed. I had dreams of falling out of beds for a long time. I mentioned this to my mother when I was older and she said “Oh, you remember that?”

I would play house or some form thereof with the older girls. They would try to get me to play the father, but I would refuse. I guess it was bad enough playing a boy in real life, I did not want to do it in play. Sometimes we would make up our own episodes of current TV shows, like The Partridge Family or The Brady Bunch. I would either play Tracy (Partridge Family) or Cindy (Brady Bunch).

I have vague memories of Preschool. I remember it being in a red house. My mother told me that I was shy and would not play with the boys. She said that they would pick on my and that the older daughter of the woman running the school would play with me and shelter me. I was a very quiet and gentle child. My parents said that all they had to do was tell me not do something and I would behave.

When I was two, my mother had to take in her parents, who were both in their eighties and her blind and deaf brother. She also had my dad, my older brother and a toddler to take care of at the time. Can you say Valium. This did not last for too long. When I was three my grandparents died. But my mother did not have peace for too long.

When I was about three and a half my younger brother was born. I spent a lot of time helping my mother with him. I was very protective of him, watched over him like a little hawk. But my effeminate behavior got more noticeable since my younger brother was all boy. Let's just say my toy cars got more play out them now. I rarely played with them. Of course, this also meant I could not get away from boy toys anymore. I was just never comfortable with all the cars and toy guns. Then people wonder why males are aggressive. Note of sarcasm there.

Chapter 2

I convinced my mother not to let me go back to preschool so I was off from school for a year. I mostly played with my Fisher Price play family, my Dawn doll while I still had it.

That Halloween, I was a Fairy Princess, it was one of those plastic ones that you could buy all over the place then. I think it bothered my family that I chose a feminine costume but that was who I was. I still remember it had a pink dress, wings. The blonde hair was molded and painted on the mask which was held over your face by a rubber band.

My older brother was trying his best to make me act more like a boy, but that was really a losing battle. He tried to get me more interested with my toy cars, but I largely ignored them. In a way, my younger brother took this pressure off of me since he gravitated to playing with the toy cars and guns.

When I was five, I did have to go to Kindergarten. I lucked out in that I had morning shift. I was real shy in school and kept mostly to myself or with the girls who I had an easier time making friends with. I was never really comfortable around a group of boys. I always felt like I was playing a part, that I never really wanted to do anything that they did.

I remember walking from school, either by myself or with a group of kids that lived in my part of the neighborhood. That was the days when kids could go off by themselves without the threat of anything happening to them. In school, the only things we were taught about strangers, was don't accept rides from them and/or candy from them.

Also, around this age I really wanted to get a Raggedy Ann doll. I dressed up as Raggedy Ann for that Halloween and I asked Santa Claus for one that Christmas. I remember opening my gifts that morning and being very disappointed in finding Raggedy Andy instead of Raggedy Ann. I was so annoyed at getting the boy doll. Oh well, the bitter disappointments of the gender dysphoric.

After school, when playing with the older girls we would play dress-up in their parents clothes. I remember that there would be a choice of men's clothes and women's clothes and that I would gravitate to the women's clothes. I especially loved to wear the high heel shoes. It just felt so right to wear the feminine clothes. At least I could get away for a little while from male clothes.

When choosing sheets and spreads for the room I shared with my brother, I usually chose floral prints and pastel colors. Boy, did he hate it when I chose the bedding. I had feminine tastes even then. I used to love to help my mother plant the flowers and couldn't wait for them to bloom in the spring.

I remember when the weather was nice we would walk to the old McDonald's before it was renovated. It was a small white building and you could not eat there, you had to get carry-out. Now when I was growing up this was a treat. My mother always made lunch and dinner, we very seldom ate out. We were allowed to drink soda at supper only. The rest of the time it was juice, milk, Kool-Aid or water. My mother's rules.

Also, when I was five I had to wear leg braces to correct my walk. I hated them and fought to get them off. If anybody has seen Forrest Gump they were just like the ones he wore when he was a child. Matter of fact watching that movie brought back memories of them. I also have fallen arches and at that time I had to wear metal arches that had sides to them. I had to wear shoes a size or two bigger and sometimes they had to be specially made, so sometimes I could not wear what the other kids were wearing.

A major event that happened in First Grade was it was noticed that I was starting to have trouble seeing far. It came to head when my grades were falling because I had trouble seeing the board and would just try to guess at the letters. So of course, I had my eyes tested and had to get glasses.

Class wise I had to major problems, until learning to write cursive. I usually volunteered to stay after school to catch up with the other kids. Also when I was eight I had to join the cub scouts. My mother thought that this would help me get over my shyness and I also think she thought that hanging with a bunch of boys would stop my effeminate behavior. Didn't really work, but I did have some fun with the cub scouts. Unfortunately this wouldn't last long as my family was about to move to Lawrence Township, New Jersey.

Chapter 3

Another toy, I got the Christmas when I was five was a toy stove and oven. It came with pots and pans so that I could pretend I was cooking stuff. My older brother hated that I got that toy. I remember all the comments he would make about it because he would say them every time that home movie was shown.

I remember using the towels when I would swim in the summer as sarong dresses and long hair. Of course this was usually by our little kid pool. I was not much for swimming until we got our above ground pool when my family lived in Lawrence. I remember until then I never liked to get in water too much higher than my knees. I vaguely remember my first swimming lesson when I was three and going under the water because I cannot float. A friend of mine that I met in my college days had the same problem.

We moved to the house in Lawrence on July 5, 1974. It was a nice four bedroom house. Two story split level. At the time we bought the house it was Charcoal Grey with White shutters. We were on top of the hill. My brother and I were terrified of flooding because the house in Middlesex was in a flood area. I remember using a rowboat to float down to the street towards my aunt's house. I remember all the washing of toys and records after the floods receded. This was one of the reasons we moved, the second was that my dad did not want to commute to work anymore. He worked in Trenton, for the State. He was also closer to his mother and she ended up babying him again.

It took me a little while to get used to the kids, but I made several friends in my development. Fourth Grade was an experience for me. I had to get used to going to all my different classes. I loved it at Eldridge Park School. For Christmas, I got a Hardy Boys book which I did not really like. Too much rough and tough. I guess my family was still trying to make a man out of me. A year or two later, I talked my mother into getting me a Nancy Drew book. As I remember it was The Clue in the Diary. I loved it. I loved how she used her brains and wits to get out of situations. My other favorite books to read was The Little House series. I loved following Laura's adventures.

It was during chess lessons, I met one of my closest friends. She is transgendered like me except we both hid it from each other. I have since reconnected with her and we are still the same with each other. I remember my mother would always say my friend and I were a lot alike. Makes me wonder what my mother saw. Of course, my mother would say during my teen years that I would make some man a wonderful housewife.

All through school, I would make one close male friend but would hang around with the girls more. It was easier for me to talk with and relate to girls than boys. When I was around boys, I always felt like I had to think how to act with them. I was also very quiet and gentle. A general comment that fellow students would write in my yearbook was that I was sweet. My mother's favorite adjective for me at the time was delicate or if she was among her Italian friends delicato. Not a very masculine way to refer to me I guess.

Around the time I was nine, my mother noticed that I did not like to touch my penis when I was washing. I did not like the sensation I got from it. She told me it would fall off if I did not keep it clean. So of course I wanted to find out if it would. It did not and I was relieved as I would not have to see the blood. But looking back, I sometimes wonder if a part of me was not disappointed.

Most of school was routine, except for a few incidents in High School. One very embarrassing moment was when I was in Tenth Grade. I had to go to the bathroom so bad, that I went in one but I did notice that it was a girl's room. Nobody was in when I went in the stall so there was no problems there. I heard some voices, but did not realize they were girls voices until I left the stall. You should have heard the teasing. I remember several weeks after that incident that I dreaded being called down to the office.

When I was twelve, I started to feel stiff between my legs when I was dreaming, but did not look to see what it was. Around my thirteenth birthday, I mentioned it to my pediatrician because it was starting to get more frequent. Still did not see what it was physically. That was when the doctor tried to explain male sexuality to me. I did discover auto-erotic sex. And this was the period where I started to hide my body especially when the body hair started growing, yuch. I feel the same about facial hair. The two things I love about my puberty is one, my voice never changed and two, I don't have a visible Adam's Apple. I never noticed that until one of friends noticed that when I mentioned my voice never changed. Another thing I discovered is that my ring and index fingers are the same length.

Now I was tormented by a small group of bullies in High School and my defender was a tomboy in my homeroom. She always wore steel-toed boots and threatened to kick them where it counts if they did not leave me alone.

Chapter 4

Summer of 1980, I went to summer camp in Blairstown, NJ. This was the camp that was used in the first Friday the 13th movie. I know this because one of the boys in my cabin would say that is where Jason came out of the lake. I definitely did not go swimming, lol. Camp was fun, I took horseback riding lessons which I really enjoyed. At camp, is when I first had suicidal thoughts. Also, fueling this was a vision I had seen of me in a coffin earlier that year. My fourteenth year was a very hard year, I lost my paternal grandmother. I knew the minute she died on Christmas day, and at her funeral, I saw her spirit rise out of her body and climb upwards to Heaven. I still remember seeing that to this day.

When I got home from camp, I told my doctor about my feelings. That was when I started psychiatric therapy which lasted through to my Senior of High School. I was put on anti-depressants and after a few months of just individual therapy, I was allowed to also attend a group session with kids my age which helped me to see I was not the only one suffering depression. One of the medications I was put on was Xanax. That did help me a lot, but when I was taken off of it, my doctor had me just stop it. The withdrawal was hell.

Crossdressing at this time was very low keyed. My mother was way shorter than me, so I could not wear her clothes. Looking back, I can see at the time I preferred unisex styled clothes. My mother always had a big battle getting me to wear suits and ties. The only thing I could borrow my mother was her costume jewelry and some of her shoes. In my fantasies I was always pure girl. At this time, I was really into Gone with the Wind, both the novel and the movie. So I would pretend to be Scarlett O'Hara. I also read a lot of Nancy Drew and romance novels. I guess you could say I had a feminine test in reading. I also loved to read mysteries and suspense novels.

At school, I tried to keep a low profile as I was still very shy at the time. One of my most embarrassing moments happened when I was in 10th grade. I had to go to the bathroom so bad, and I saw one which was not marked so I went in. It was empty and I went in a stall, like I always do, I have never liked to use the urinals, so I never paid attention if they were there or not. I came out of the stall and into a group of girls. And no, there was no screaming, just teasing. But let me tell you, for the next week or so, I was afraid of being called down to the office and punished. Thankfully that did not happen.

In 11th grade, I took some painting and drawing courses, and rediscovered my love of Art. I had a lot of fun learning how to paint and draw. During that year was the first time I worked on the sets for the High School musical which I enjoyed doing. It was great fun to paint the sets and watch while the student actors rehearsed on the stage.

My Senior year, flew by. I remember I took the SAT once. I got over 1100, thought I did bad until my Guidance Counselor told me that score would get me in most colleges so I decided not to retake it. Then just before Christmas, my mother had her first heart attack. So I had to cook and clean for my family for a little while. My art talent was developing along nicely and that was what I declared as my major. I finally got accepted at Trenton State College (it is not College of New Jersey but I refuse to call it that on principle.) And that started my battle with them about living on campus, because of guaranteed housing and my living to close to the campus. That battle was finally resolved that summer when I got a roommate assignment.

Chapter 5

My Senior year of High School was very memorable for me in a few ways. School started well. I was doing great in my Art classes which was something I enjoyed doing. I decided to go to college as an Art Major. I excelled at drawing and painting. I could pretty much get a drawing's perspective down the first time I sketched it. I haven't done much with that lately but I do miss it as it tended to make me relax a little.

The first bit of tragedy was about a week or two before Christmas, my mother had her first heart attack. It started out as indigestion, which got bad at a party with the women she worked with. This led to me and my older brother taking care of the house and my younger brother, who was a handful. During this time he went out on the lake near our house, it was thinly iced over and could have led to a disaster. Luckily it did not. He did not let anyone know where he was, and unfortunately my mother called and wanted to talk to him. I could not find him, so I had to tell her.

She did come home, around Christmas time, but had to do physical therapy some afternoons. Getting dinner fell to me on those days.

I finally stopped group therapy around the middle of the school year. I was mixed about that, I spent almost three years going to it. I did get a good handle on my depression.

The school year seemed to fly bye and Graduation Day came. I was happy to leave the school, but sad about leaving friends behind.

My college years were a great. I went to a local state college and worked my way through it. I was on the college work study program. I worked in the school library which I love doing. It was easy to learn the Library of Congress filing system. One of my job duties were putting the books back on the shelf. This involved putting the returned books in order on shelves behind the Circulation Desk. After they were in order on the shelves, I then had to load up a book cart. After it was loaded I would have to push the cart to the appropriate shelves in the library and put them back. I used to love to do this and during the summer, I used to love to do the fiction books, as I would read books, while no one was looking. I would also have to shelf read, this is basically making sure the books on the shelves were in order. If not, I would have to reorganize them.

I would work in the library during the summer. The summer when I was 21, an incident happened.

I was shelf reading in the upstairs part of the library, when this guy past me going out. I remember thinking that I was glad that he was leaving as I did not like the look in his eyes. I was all alone there as the upstairs librarian was out on lunch.

The guy returned and went into the row of shelves in front of where I was. I was also taking the books down while I was shelf reading and moving them to a table nearby. I was doing this so that I could put the new check-out stickers in the books. While I was still in the row of shelves, I heard a rustling in the row ahead of me, but did not really pay it much notice.
While I was at the table the guy called me over. I thought he had a question. He asked me if I wanted to get together. When he noticed that I did not understand, he directed my attention to his erect penis which was sticking out of his sweat pants. I said no, and turned and left. He hung around for a little while and then left. Right after, the shock set in and I was afraid that he would return and force me.

I told one of the librarians, and she said I should report it. Unfortunately, I chose not to as I was afraid that the police would think that I asked for it as I was effeminate acting.

I have highlighted the major bits of my college years, but I have to back track a little and tell of some of my experiences when I lived in the college dorms.

To begin with I had to fight my whole Senior year of High School to be able to live in the dorms. I lived within the 10 mile radius and the college was denying me the right to live on campus because of that. Meanwhile they also guaranteed Freshmen housing. See the conundrum.

It was a great battle with government at its best. There were many times I was ready to give it up, because it was never ending, but my guidance counselor told me to keep at. And she was so right. By the time I was ready to graduate, I was told that I could stay in the lounge until I had a room assignment. Then about a month or two after that I had a roommate assignment.

My first roommate was very active sexually and this cause a lot of problems in that some of the guys would like to get even with him. I remember one time waking up to see a clay penis on the room door. I left it up hoping that he would take care of it, but he didn't. I guess he thought it was a compliment. I had to remove it and felt disgusted at the time.

At this time, I was very inactive sexually. Just pleasured my self. I guess I am what you might call asexual as I really don't have real strong desires for sex. I love cuddling and that sort of stuff, but I can take or leave the sexual intercourse part.

On my dorm floor were two brawny football players, (American Football). They were bigger than me and loved to render me helpless especially after they found out I am very ticklish especially the soles of my feet. The two of them would love to get me on their laps and take my shoes off so that they could get to my feet. They loved to make me laugh so hard. To describe how I was at the time, 5'7” and about 140 pounds. I was very scrawny at the time.

As for my gender issues, I was back to trying to force myself to accept being born male. I still thought of myself as female, but decided that since I was born male I should try to accept it. Big mistake as it led to many years of misery.

I have always imagined myself in female roles. For example if I was in a scary situation, I would pretend to be Nancy Drew working on a mystery. When I was younger, my mother tried to get me into the Hardy Boys, but I did not like them, but fell in love with Nancy Drew books. I loved how she used her wits to get out of situations instead of physical force.