Ok, this is a hard post for me to write, so please bear with me.
I've lurked on this board for quite some time, read numerous posts, agreed with some, disagreed with others. When I first came across this site (and this section of this site in particular), I was disagreeing more than I was agreeing with what I was reading. But what I read lead me to think more about what was being said and try to understand why such views were being expressed. Doing so has resulted in me stepping back and re-evaluating my own subjective view, and more importantly, my own actual identity.
I am 44 years old. I am male. I am transgendered. I have no desire to undergo surgery of any kind. I like to dress in clothes that can't be purchased in the men's section in stores. The society that I live in would deem me as a crossdresser for this reason. When I was younger - a child - I used to dress in secret, and I carried with me a sense of guilt and shame, for even at such a young age (just before my 5 birthday being my first time) I knew that my family would not only mock me but punish me if they ever found out. So I kept it hidden.
I'm glad that I wasn't I wasn't born 5 years ago and feeling the same urges today that I did back then. For I feel that I would have been led down a very different path to the one that I have ended living in my life up to this date. If I was born 5 years ago, then given what is currently happening I feel that I may have been encouraged to transition, despite my tender years, irrespective of my immaturity. I know that that would have been the wrong decision made for me. And it makes me sad that many do seem to be placing decisions on children who have not yet actually had the experience to fully understand, or to fully comprehend their own identity. If such a decision was made for me, at such a young age, well, knowing what I know now about myself 40 years later, it's an understatement to say that I would have resented those that made such a decision. It wouldn't however be an overstatement to say that I probably wouldn't be alive today. Simply put, such a life-changing decision should not be forced upon the shoulders of those so young.
I say that I am transgendered. Well now I am taking that back. Because the word no longer resonates with me. While I will continue to dress, I simply can not abide what the word transgender now stands for. I can not abide the arugments put forth by trans-activists, who claim to speak for me based on a shared identification. I can not abide the extent that transgendered people are seemingly intent on encroaching on women's spaces and more importantly women's identities, with the intent to claim the word "women" for themselves at the expense of those who are actually born female. Emulating/impersonating is one thing. Trying to redefine what it actually means to be the people they are emulating/impersonating is something else entirely. Something that I can not/will not ever agree with.
I rarely go out dressed in women's clothes. On the few occasions that I have, I have never used women's bathrooms, for I'm not a woman. That is not my space and I don't want to encroach on a space that is not intended for me, irrespective of how I present myself.
I have now reached my own personal trans-peak. I can't associate with trans people anymore, even though I would be identified as being trans myself. I just want to say I'm sorry for being part of a group of people that has resulted in so many women feeling uncomfortable, threatened, violated, devalued. That was never my own intention, but it is becoming more and more clear to me that while it may not have been my intention, it is nevertheless becoming a consequence of being trans. For it seems that the more trans people are being accepted, the more they are seemingly intent on over-stepping the place in this world in which they actually should reside. And that makes me feel cold inside. I just can not relate to that. Nor do I want to.