Tamsin

I never really tried putting all of this in a list before. It’s always just random stuff popping up when I think about this. Some of these memories are over 30 years old. And I repressed a lot of them.
So this is just a short list. There’s more, but some of it is too personal for me to share.

• Having a phase where I tried wearing masculine office wear (but no ties) and feeling very out of place.
• Never shaving my beard, because I don’t want to see what’s underneath. Using it as a mask to hide behind.
• Hating the general shape of my body
• Feeling very out of place in all-male groups.
• Feeling very in place when spending time with the few female friends that I did have.
• Internally wincing at being called handsome
• Looking enviously at my wife as she squeezes herself in a tight pair of pants, making me wish I didn’t have to deal with all that dangling stuff between my legs.
• Being very involved with helping my wife pick out clothes.
• Playing an online game under a female persona. *Pretending* to be a girl and really enjoying my interactions with everyone. Making a few female friendships that felt genuine and made me happy. And then deleting the whole account for feeling guilty because I believed I was deceiving others :(
• Writing a game module in my teens, wherein all the adventurers were turned into women by a wizard’s curse. And dropping it after a couple of hours when I realize having six women try out different dresses doesn’t make for an exciting fantasy adventure (and was getting uncomfortably close to a truth that I wasn’t ready to face)
• Thinking how nice it would’ve been if I were a lesbian instead.
• Trying out pantyhose and wearing it under my pants when I was a teenager. (Weird when under pants, better on its own when I was home alone :) )
• Also in my teens, fantasizing an entire alternate life as a girl when I was lying in bed.
• Feeling strangely positive when a girl in my class said that I walk like a girl.
• And of course, always choosing a female character when playing games. (With a whole bunch of other in-game activities that could form a list of it’s own)

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I still remember playing Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines. Seeing those slender elegant fingers (*my* fingers) picking a lock gave me such a good feeling that I can still recall it up to today.
Of course back then I was totally oblivious and didn’t understand where that feeling came from.