The Woman Within

Two years ago, if you asked me as I took those first steps out the door, if that would be enough.... enough to just occasionally be allowed to present as the woman within.... I would have said.... "YES!" Two years have gone by.... and in that time of those two years, I have carefully kept close track of my own sense of being.  I've allowed myself to be myself for the first time in over 40 years of my life.  I've expressed as I feel natural and without the constraints I had unconsciously engrained into my own psyche over the years of self repression.  And with my allowing myself to be myself, I have come to shed the shyness I once had.  The panic attacks and anxiety which resembled some horrific cross between complete catatonia and a heart attack disappeared, as did the nervous cold sweats and involuntary twitches and spasms which had become a sullenly accepted facet of who I was. In expression of the feminine, I became aware, for the first time in my life, that...

Be it far from me to ever wish to stratify, segregate, elevate or separate myself within the transgender realm, yet interestingly, I have begun to notice and piece together just this sort of rift which has begun to developed.  In the transgender continuum, there is a huge difference between "doing" and "being".  There are many I know who find that simply emulating a woman in form and fashion is but enough to suffice their being.  They are those who "do".  Dressing and emulating the feminine form are the key and primary factors.  Photos and pictures arise in high numbers which validate presence and to entice with a show of form. Then there are those of us who are out as transgender women, as women.... who dress because that is who they are and feel they are... deep inside.   The dressing is simply a state which provides for the congruency which exists deep within and allows for integration and association within the female group which one feels most comfo...