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With all the things I’ve come to believe about my existence and life manifestation I’m always wondering about nurture, nature and channeling past experiences especially towards my feminine expression.

There have been several studies on the propensities of 1st or 3rd sons being gay or gender variant (I’m a 3rd). I do know that after 2 boys my mother was hoping like crazy for a daughter. I can only imagine what all that mental energy might do to a gestating child.

After I was born I remember her using a feminized version of my middle name as a “pet name” (Willamina). I think that further indicates her desire for a daughter at that time. She did get that daughter on the next and fourth try and I was expected to be the little “man” after that.

When I was about 3 I also remember announcing to the whole family that “I wanted to be a girl named “Mary”. I was soundly shamed by my two older brothers and never spoke of it again though I did get caught about the same age after I looted the neighborhood mother’s panties from their garage laundry piles in our cul-de-sac. Imagine my mother’s embarrassment after she found them and took them around to ask who’s was who’s … I still giggle thinking about it.

Dressing was my “dirty laundry” starting from there. I then went to raiding my sister’s laundry hamper in the “lockable” bathroom at age 9 or so. Later, any girlfriend or wife’s wardrobes were open game - at least until I discovered I had much better taste than them and purchased my own. I have never “purged” but have Goodwilled the older stuff and have quite the large closet now.

After my split with my wife and connection with the TG community AND time to think and experience all this unhindered, I’ve come to understand more of myself at least and how it relates to my gender variance.

I find happiness and drive in “being appreciated” and being recognized for my talents. After years of unbalance and neglect of needs imagine the rush of suddenly being wanted and admired and having non-judgmental friends from this “new internet”. Was it my innate being coming forth to blossom? Was it a compensation for neglect and my imbalances? Was it my failure to excel in normal society and here was a place no one would dare criticize me? Am I channeling past lives and past experiences of things that I am still open to? Today I think it is a synergistic melding of all these things and more. (Funny enough my ex-wife had a “reading” done and the woman focused on our lost relationship telling her that her husband wasn’t sure if he wanted to be man or woman in this life – she hadn’t mentioned a word, spooky).

Here in San Francisco I have settled down to a life with a rainbow of friends and gender expressions. I no longer feel I have to put on women’s clothes to feel myself. I have people who regard me as a woman while I am in drab and most just regard me as a amalgam of all I am. The drive that I have to “change” or “get somewhere else” to be happier has subsided and thankfully as I never did find the right type of ruby slippers that fit my big ass feet, lol. The days of too many identities to channel and fumbling with the remote seem to be over and instead of asking why …. I more just try and “be”.

-Miranda Skye