Christina Asks….

My recent rerun of the Reasons vs. Excuses essay prompted this comment from our friend Christina:

Lovely article Kandi. You may have written this article before and I missed it, but if not, I would love to see an article where you talk about how you mentally came about to realize you were not just a “crossdresser” but rather transgender. And maybe even talk about how your wife felt about that. Was there an “aha moment?” Or something that just slowly peeled away over time? For me, it was more of a slow realization over time realizing I was transgender. It helped me personally that I read hundreds of transgender origin stories to see how I was feeling was similar to other transgender individuals. I went from crossdresser to gender fluid, to transgender. There may be others that identify as a crossdresser that reads this page and find out it is more than just crossdressing; it is something even deeper.
-Christina

For all of us, this is an evolution. We all know how we feel inside, it then becomes an issue of how we manifest that given all the variables each and every one of us have in our lives. Where we live, who we live with, how we look (it matters) as it relates to height, size, etc., family circumstances, religious beliefs, political climates, on and on and on. Most of us very early in our lives know we are attracted to things feminine, be that simply clothing or wanting to be a woman. We also know it is not “normal”. I use that term to make a point, we are all normal, but if it wasn’t viewed differently by those who are ignorant (in the dictionary definition of the word), why would we ever have a hesitation? We all do, we all always will. No one chooses a more difficult life to a simpler life.

Now me. I have very early memories of wearing a dress and panties. Probably before I turned five and it never left me. Ever. I can almost describe the dress, the feeling, the thrill. I have no other memories of that part of my life. I know who I was with and where. I have used this analogy before. It is NOT the same thing but makes the point. If you beat a young child, they may very well grow up to me an abuser themselves. If I beat you as a 30-year-old, you will fight back and mentally process that event differently. If you dress a young boy in girl’s clothing, it could get hardwired into their still-developing brains. They may well become a crossdresser, trans or something in-between. No, not always. But often, it increases the probability. I know this personally and from conversations and interactions here and elsewhere that this is true.

In my life, there were ebbs and flows, periods where I did not even think about it. But it always circled back. The absolute best thing that ever happened to me, to get married to the Angel Known as My Wife, was the absolute worst thing for “this”, I was now around women’s clothes all the time. The kindling was set and a match thrown on it.

As I have always said, when my mind is idle, this all comes rushing in and always fills the void. Work, children, their schedules and activities and life in general fill the mind enough that “this” was infrequent. Then the nest was empty, and I have the most mindless job in the world, and “this” swallowed me whole. Plus, it was just after I turned 50, the point in many lives where you stop caring what others think of you. You can read in greater detail on the About page with regard to my breaking point.

Now I personally hate labels. A crossdresser, trans, a boy, a girl, what am I? After the creation and evolution of who you now know as Kandi, she has been a real, in-the-flesh, human being interacting in many ways with the world. To say it was simply about the clothes would be a lie. The clothes paint the picture that the world sees, the internal joy I feel when allowing myself to be vulnerable, to be feminine, to embrace the things usually associated with women, that was when I knew in my heart, I am a transgendered woman. I tend to think I am simply a woman, but I also know that will never, ever happen.

I know you will call BS on this, but it is true. When I told my wife in 2014, she accepted it and we moved forward, almost immediately. And she had zero reason to ever expect that conversation. I have used Kandi to foster a life for us, to be a better person to live with and to be married to and I am a much, much better person than I would have been had I kept my female side bottled up. I would probably be dead by now, not by suicide, but more by not giving a shit about myself. Kandi was born, I adapted, I became much healthier, achieved so many things I could never have imagined, and I continue to thrive, for now.

I created Kandi’s Land to give my life purpose. To express myself. To do what I love the most, write. It is only by sharing as we do can we walk through the gauntlet that is a world driven by the binaries of male and female. These are roles as old as time and may never change. But we have to be open-minded and kind to those that deserve it, those that themselves are open-minded and kind. If not, just let them be, walk away as they do not deserve the richness we all know we experience as the women we are!

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