[SelfMadeMan]

I knew I was a boy at the age of 4. I tried to tell my Mom around that time, and I just remember for years, her telling me, "you're a tomboy, lots of little girls are tomboys" and I didn't like that answer at all. I was just a boy. I used to lay in bed at night around the age of 9-10 and daydream about growing up and having a wife. I wanted to be a Dad. It wasn't because there was anything wrong with being a girl, or being a Mom, it just didn't feel like me. It wasn't what I saw when I looked in the mirror.

When I was 10, I would go stay at a family friend's apartment on the weekends. I LOVED going there because I told all the kids there that I was a boy named Larry. I even had a "girlfriend" - and this family friend was cool with it. Even to the point of buying me boy's swim trunks and letting me swim in the pool in just my trunks like the other boys. Life was so good then! At 12, puberty struck and Larry was no more. This would be the start of some VERY traumatic years for me. Traumatic because I felt betrayed by my body, and because we moved from the neighborhood I grew up in, in Houston, to a very small East Texas town.

From 7th grade until about 10th grade, I was bullied relentlessly. I was beat up, spit on, followed from class to class being called "dyke", "lezbo", "linebacker", "freak", etc. It was horrible. My parents tried to help but in the end, felt like I was bringing a lot of it on myself for the way I dressed and cut my hair. I remember my Mom saying that if I just TRIED dressing like a girl and wearing some make-up, that things would probably be better for me. Of course, I wasn't about to do that, bullying or not. It got better the summer before my Junior year when I tried out, and made the school (boys) baseball team. I was good at baseball, and earned my teammate's respect - then things started getting better - not great, but better.

My freshman year in college was bad - I wanted to keep playing ball but wasn't brave enough to try out for the team at my college. This started some major depression - I would go sit at practices and wish I looked like the other guys, wish I could play, but feeling like an outcast. Halfway through the 1st semester I would attempt suicide and lose a full ride Journalism scholarship and have to move home.

I moved to Houston shortly after this, and things got a bit better. I got very involved in the gay & lesbian community, and came out as a lesbian because it's the only way I knew to fit in. I knew I didn't feel like a lesbian, but it worked for awhile. After a couple of years, I was feeling very detached again and unsettled. I knew I was trans at this point, I was about 25, but still had NEVER seen or heard of a transMAN. I had seen transwomen on TV, and figured maybe there was a way for a biological female to have a sex change, but just had no clue how one would go about doing anything about it if it was possible. It was very frustrating. Then, one afternoon I was in a bookstore in Montrose (Houston's gay mecca) and found a gender section. I happened to pick up a copy of Body Alchemy by Loren Cameron - a photo book of FTMs including before & after pics - and I stood there with tears streaming down my face. I knew this was me. I knew there was a way. I sat there looking at the pictures bawling.

About 4 months or so later, I moved to Boston, MA and started my transition by changing my name. That was 1997. I started T about a year and a half later, had my hysto in 2000, and top surgery in 2005. It was a long, hard road to get to where I am now - but I wouldn't trade it for anything in this world! Where I am now is well worth all the pain. I have the wife I dreamed of when I was a little boy, and I am a Dad. I am everything I wanted to be

Thank you to everyone else who has shared their stories, I loved reading them all, and we are ALL brave - those who transition and those who don't... anyone who says FUCK YOU to gender norms and paves their own way - my hat is off to you