December 29, 2004 9:19 AM GMT
Sandra,
I can't class myself as a "true TS"; if I am it will be a "true shock" to me. What I have been aware of all my life is the act of, but not the causative factor, working hard at being "masculine".
I can remember actively doing things to make myself appear more masculine. At 17 I even set a 10-yr plan to be macho. Learning to behave, walk, move, think and feel like a macho male. Martial arts (0200 in the lounge on a rug covered concrete floor to practice Jujitsu), military training, becoming a drill instructor poured into a uniform that gleamed...volunteering for the extra combat training and taking over units...landing dates with the desirable girls, then multiple girls, becoming a "win at all costs" mentality, soccer goalie in college, pistol club, horseback riding, rock climbing, camping, becoming someone other men stepped aside for and followed.
But it was all acquired behavior to cover my natural behavior which was soft, gentle, quiet, timid person who wanted to be left alone, not to hurt someone. There are even old, perhaps pre-teen feminine sexual tendencies I had buried yet which leaked out all my life. I didn't have much interest in girls until testosterone hit hard, in my late teens. I think it was, in reality, my doing the reverse of behaving in a feminine manner. After a while it became habit and even I believed it....it had become reality. That's why I asked about the possibllity of it being, for some, a matter of just letting the natural tendencies out.
When Wendy "appeared" and I accepted her it was almost like I gave myself permission to behave more feminine and the changes were almost scary. No they weren't. They were damned terrifying to Him, once even to the point of being physically immobilizing. Did I "learn" that or was it discarding the scenery and script of my "male" life? Or was it both because I never got to learn a lot of feminine lifestyle growing up. A number of years ago I realized how little of each other's lifestyle men and women knew/understood and started picking up consciously information about women's lives, like studying an alien species (Venusians?). Since I was studying brain sex, I saw no special significance to this. I suspect, for me, it was both dynamics working. Learning new behaviors and letting old ones loose.
I think that must be true for many of us for some behaviors are genetic/hardwired/anatomical/physiological and some are cultural/learned.