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Thought I’d do a quick blog as today is a momentous anniversary, well, kind of…
It’s five years to the day that I joined Trannyweb.
It is completely surreal to think back to how my life was when I joined, "looking for others like me" as we so often see in the "Welcome New Members" forum. How many others like me have had their lives turned around after joining TW, I wonder.
I’d been in a comparatively new job for about a year, which turned out to be utterly more miserable, depressing, frustrating and soul destroying than the last one, which wasn’t all that bad, but after 10+ years I felt I needed a change. The new job found me in a male dominated environment, dealing with male customers in a way that was expected of a male. Not really for me all that. I think all that was part of the catalyst that got me where I am today, and what led me to TW in the first place. I’d kept my head down in a gender neutral office job for 10 years, and in line with the rest of my previous life, I plodded along going with the flow, never really comfortable in my own skin, but somehow getting by. So things had changed, I found TW, I found others like me and after meeting so many people whilst being able to express my true nature I found myself.
I was out dressed in public for the first time within 2 months of joining. I think it’s fair to say I never looked back. I left my job within 5 months, it really was destroying me. And before too long I had made the decision to return to working in bands, which I had given up a few years previously, again for reasons relating to my gender dysphoria.
I don’t feel I have GD now, though it sounds a bit naff to say that I am "cured". But here I am 5 years on, post-op, really happy, now working in two bands and loving it. Never ashamed or embarrassed or uncomfortable being onstage like I used to feel occasionally when I had to attempt to present as male. Ugh, like I say, surreal. Did I really do that? For so long? I guess so.
TW gave me the opportunity to meet others, explore myself, and come to terms with the reality that Transition really could be an option.
Just about everyone is a little apprehensive of taking those first steps, You’d probably have to be bonkers not to be. But don’t talk yourself out of it, or at least finding some happy medium if you can. All things are possible. This is your one and only life, it would be a shame to waste it. Believe me, I spent many years wasting mine, but no more. Now I love my life, and every minute is worthwhile. No more despondency, doom, gloom, frustration.
I have to thank Katie with all my heart for starting this site and making it such a brilliant place, and shall probably do so again in another five years. Because who knows, without this place I may not be where I am today.
It doesn’t bear thinking about.
Thanks to all the lovely people here too, who continue to make this place great, and give such support and encouragement to so many people.
I see so many TS’s who shun such communities after transitioning, saying something along the lines of, "I’m a woman now, I have no place in a trans community…"
Well personally I think that’s a bit naff, though I do understand it. But I’m a woman too. I am not clinging on to the Trans community, being here does not make me any less of a woman or mean I have not fully integrated into society. I have, and I love it. It’s something I was never fully able to do in the past. I finally feel like I belong in the world.
And I still feel I belong here.
Be happy, and remember: it’s there if you want it, so go for it!
xx
