The charm of knowledge would be small if so much shame did not have to be overcome on the road to it. - Nietzsche

 

Please Allow Me to Introduce Myself

I'm Donna (my femme name obviously.) I am a Leo, born in 1964 in New York City and am the oldest of three kids (I have a sister and brother, in that order.) My family moved out to the suburbs somewhere around 1971 where I have lived since. I have been married since 1987 to a wonderful woman I met in college. She is the love of my life and I love her more than she realizes. I would not give her up for anything. In 1994, we had our first child, and in 1998 we had our second. Both are beautiful daughters whom I cherish deeply.

A wanna be musician with marginal talent, in college I used to joke that I'd either become a rock star or a cocktail waitress. But as luck would have it, something more practical came along.

I am a computer consultant with a degree in computer science and a minor in philosophy. I enjoy reading science fiction, psychology, philosophy, sociology, linguistics and just about anything that piques my interest. I like movies (sci-fi and horror, especially B movies), roller skating, music (listening and making), photography and futzing with just about anything technical. (Show of hands, how many of you girls out there can write a recursive decent parser for a subset of English grammar?) The popular colloquialism for me is geek, but hey, why attach a label to myself. Actually, I'm proud to be a geek!

So let's see. I've got a good career, a nice house and great family. Sounds like a pretty good deal so far, doesn't it? Well, It is. So, what's the catch? (TANSTAAFL: There's always a catch!)

Oh, did I mention I'm transgendered? (Cue the sound of tires screeching...) Leave it to me to go do something stupid like this.

What that means, in general is that I gender myself differently than society has choosen. I reject the notion that there are but two genders, and consider myself as neither a 'man' nor a 'woman' as society defines them. What this does is place me outside the man-woman gender system. I have decided to define who I am, and not submit to having an identity choosen for me.

As a part of my expression of my sense of self, I also get to wear the label of crossdresser. In case you don't know that that means, I wear clothing usually intended for individuals gendered opposite to me. For those non-trans people out there: I wear women's clothing. (My wife knew about my crossdressing to some extent prior to our marriage, but it hasn't made my life any less complicated.)

While there are people who crossdress to get their kicks (and there is nothing wrong with that), I do it because it is one of the few ways I find that I can express express what amounts to my true self.

After much introspection and agonizing, I have accepted who I am. It has taken a long time for me to get to a point where I can say I like who I am, but I finally there (for the most part). I make the distinction saying who I am and not what I am. As I have come to realize, what I am hasn't really changed throughout my life; I've always been different, only know do I fully understand how.

Now who I am, that is something, which has undergone a lot of change. So, read on and watch as I try and figure this out all by my lonesome. I finally do, but it is quite a trip getting there...


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