I’m 39, AMAB, and
until three days ago I was convinced I was a straight cis male. Then a conversation with my wife cracked my egg wide open. Well, it certainly cracked it, and
three days of intensive internet research and introspection took care of the “wide open” part.
For context,
my wife and I have been together for nearly 14 years and married for half that time. She is my absolute best friend, my soul mate, and we don’t keep anything from each other.
About two years ago, she came out to me as bisexual. She told me she had only recently figured it out after her sister came out as bisexual. Her initial reaction was basically, “Oh yeah, every woman feels that about other women sometimes, don’t they?” But when her sister gave her a side‑eye, it dawned on her that no, not every woman does.
We talked about it a fair bit, and I let her know that I love her for who she is and that I was happy she felt comfortable telling me so quickly. We are fully monogamous and deeply in love, so she said it didn’t change anything for her other than understanding her own feelings better.
That revelation kind of went onto the back burner of my subconscious, although it worked its way into my fantasies when I masturbated. I loved picturing her with another woman, though the idea also made me jealous. I decided to resolve that jealousy by picturing myself as that woman. This came naturally, as I’ve had a lifelong fetish for transformation, especially gender transformation, and at least I believed it was a fetish.
This is probably where the story starts to sound familiar to some people here.
Picturing myself as a woman having lesbian sex with my wife became the most intensely erotic fantasy I had ever experienced. It grew to the point that it became the only thing I fantasized about when I masturbated. I would still seek out pictures of women I found attractive online, but it was like shopping in a catalog for which body I was going to imagine myself in as I made love to my wife.
That filled me with a lot of confusing emotions, including shame, because
it felt like I was letting the fantasy take over, even picturing it during sex with her in real life.
Three days ago, I sheepishly confessed to her that I’d been having that fantasy a lot recently, though I underplayed how long and how frequently. To my surprise, her response was: “That is so hot. I’m going to save that in my back pocket for the next time I masturbate.”
But what surprised me even more than her response was my own reaction to it.
I had the most intense euphoria I have ever felt in my entire life. It was so profound that I felt compelled to turn to the internet and figure out what the hell I was feeling.
To the surprise of absolutely nobody reading this, it was gender euphoria.
I realized then that I had completely shut myself off to the possibility of being trans, especially because I value my relationship with my wife more than anything else in life. I had never even considered the possibility that she could be attracted to me as a woman until she came out as bisexual. And even then, it took years to percolate through my thick skull.
Over the last three days, I’ve spent every waking hour reading everything I can about other trans women’s experiences. It has blown my mind how much euphoria I’ve felt reading through the list of HRT effects, looking at progress pictures, and imagining myself going through those changes.
I’ve been gathering the courage to tell my wife and plan on asking her if she thinks she would still be attracted to me if I medically transition. To be honest, if the answer is no, I would rather stay male presenting and find other ways to explore my gender identity. But if the answer is yes, though it terrifies me to imagine navigating the social and societal aspects of transition, I cannot imagine anything more fulfilling than living life with my soul mate as a woman.
I am not a straight cis man. I am a lesbian trans woman.
Sorry for the lengthy diatribe. I don’t know if anybody will read this or care, but this felt like a safe space to write down my feelings before I talk to her, because I don’t have anyone else to talk to, at least not yet. I’m a raw bundle of emotions as I realize how wrong I’ve been about my self perception for decades.
At the risk of making this even longer, fuck everyone who ever propagated the myth of autogynephilia. My teenage self tried looking up her feelings and became convinced that she was such a straight man that she couldn’t help but be drawn like a moth to the flame of gender swap, body swap, and gender transformation stories online. I thought that constantly fantasizing about possessing a female body was just a normal male thing to do.
Wish me luck telling my wife and figuring out where to take things from here. But I’m going to write it out one more time here because I need it:
I’m a woman. I always have been a woman. Holy shit.
PS, I could probably write 10 times more than this post about all the things I now realize were dysphoria and euphoria throughout my life, so I don’t want to give the impression that this is all about sexual fantasies. Interestingly, although I only interacted with these thoughts during arousal and masturbation in the past, for the first time in my life I am looking at, reading about, and envisioning transition without it feeling like a sexual thing. I’m sure that is once again to the surprise of nobody reading this, but the conceptualization of AG was so deeply ingrained in my subconscious for so long that it still feels like a surprise to me that this has to do with gender identity and not sexuality.
Also I think trans men are being erased on purpose. Because cis people have watered down what it is to be a cross dresser and the masculinity of it all.And I hate when trans men make excuses for it. I’m very masculine.I’m a faggot.
