Why are people confused about their sexual orientations?
For me, I was never really confused about my sexuality. I have always known that I have been attracted to boys for as long as I can remember.
My problem was that I also knew that I was a girl because I felt like a girl and only wanted girl things (clothes, toys, books, etc.) and only was interested in doing girl things. Unfortunately, I was born with a boy's body and thus was not allowed to do any of those things. When I told my mother I was told not to be stupid. I was a boy and that was that; the end of the conversation.
A few years later when I got caught as a 13-year-old having sex with other boys, I was taken to a child psychiatrist to straighten me out. He told me about homosexuality and explained it was most likely a phase I would grow out of. I told him I was not a homosexual because I was a girl. Supposedly that was also just a phase.
Over the ensuing years, I continued having sex with boys my own age except for a few older men who raped and abused me for years. I developed a complete and total disgust for men older than me that exists to this day. I grow physically ill at the thought of sex with men my age and older. God forbid that any male, older or younger, should have a trace of hair anywhere on their body other than their head. Just seeing a picture of such a person sends me into meltdown mode. I can’t even take a shower at the gym for fear I might see something and have to be taken away by ambulance (Yes, it is really that bad at 58 years old). Also, I am unable to develop an emotional attachment to any man.
I allowed other people and myself to believe for over 49 years that I was just a picky gay man because it was easier than coming out and facing the stigma of being transgender. Even real homosexuals rarely actually understand what drives someone who is transgender and believe we’re just confused or unwilling to face being gay or lesbian.
At the age of 58 and after 49 years of suppressing my gender dysphoria because the church, society, and family expected me to be a man and put other such foolishness aside I finally couldn’t bear the pain of pretense and being someone who is not myself. I came out to my family first and then to my distant family and friends from social media. I am now in the process of becoming and living what I have always been. My greatest fear is that my wife will never come to accept me as I really am and will end up leaving me. I feel as though I really have no other choice. Either I live the life God created me to live as a woman or end up dead from the overwhelming depression that leads me to suicide. I would give anything to be s real man or to have been born with the correct body. That wasn’t how I was made, however, and now I am beginning to transition into what I should have been all along.