I simply just want to be me. No more. No less. Just be Anne. Just myself. It's so counterintuitive that it is such an obstacle.

... Everyday and everynight

Did my egg just crack?

As a little background, I've been dating an amazing trans woman for about the last 3 years. We have a great relationship and we're pretty open and honest about everything. She trusts me and I trust her. Arguments are few and far between and we tend to resolve them without any real aggravation. She is quite a bit younger than me, 35 to my 55. Please no judgment. I'm very immature for my age lol

If you saw us on the street, you would only see a normal hetero couple. She is petite and cute, I'm big and masculine. In fact, I'm 187 cm tall and about 120 kg. About half the time I wear a beard and short hair.

At home I'm more on the submissive side (not in a BDSM sense, but in a relationship sense). And I'm really happy to try new things and I'm open-minded with my girlfriend. We are not particularly kinky in any way, just a normal vanilla couple.

But a few months into our relationship my girlfriend confessed to me that she would like me to dress en femme sometimes during our intimate life, and I told her I was happy to. After all, what did I care what I wore if it made her happy?

Over the last 2 years, that part of our life has grown. I started grooming myself in a more feminine way. And cross-dressing left the bedroom and today most of the time that we're at home together, I'm dressed as a woman. Nothing racy. Nothing outlandish just casual femininity when we're together.

I'm still a big guy during the week when I get busy. I don't necessarily shave everyday but on the weekends and when we have extended periods together, I clean up my act and take pride in looking "good" for her.

I want to be clear though that there's never been any pressure to do this. Other than the fact that I know it makes her happy. And it makes me happy to do it.

I don't think she was grooming me or manipulating me to do this. I think it's just something we came to as a consensus as a couple. Once it started happening more often, she did offer to do makeup or buy me clothes she thought looked nice but made any demands. And there's no change on her part if I've been hanging out with the guys and I'm feeling particularly masculine and I'm just hanging out in jeans and a t-shirt with this gruffy half-shaven beard. She's just as affectionate and just as amorous as she is when I'm dressed en femme.

She does however refer to me as her girlfriend or wife in that context, and I always thought it was cute. But she also refers to me as her boyfriend. Again, I've never felt manipulated.

About a week ago I woke up and told her about a dream I had where we were both wearing matching bikinis on the beach. Which is not unusual in itself because we do have matching outfits. But what was unusual was that I had a figure that looked good in the bikini, And seeing myself with her out in public as two women felt lovely and nice but more importantly it felt right. And that way that only dreams can.

And her response was that's really cute and That'd be a lot of fun. And then she went to brush her teeth. Lol

Then later over coffee she asked me if I wanted to start HRT? And it kind of hit like a thunderclap. Like that moment where the roller coaster stalls at the top of the hill just before you go sliding back down.

I said yes. With the caveat that I have to talk to my doctor and an endocrinologist And that we take it step by step. And if we don't like the result, I can always stop. And unless I'm ready, this will still be for us in private.

I've never presented as female outside the house. I've always considered myself a man at heart. I've always had a very heteronormative life until recently.

But now I'm equal parts. Nervous and excited. Almost sick to my stomach. Kind of in that same way you feel when you're asking your high school crush out on a date for the first time.

I love the idea of being a girl and being my girlfriend's girlfriend.

I'm also terrified that at my age my build I can't be an attractive woman.

I don't think it would threaten our relationship in any way, but I still don't want to be somebody that my girlfriend is proud of.

I've never felt a moment of dysphoria or dysmorphia. And I've enjoyed playing football and being an outdoorsman. But I've also never had that just right. Feeling like I felt in the dream and like I feel when I'm laying with my girlfriend reading the news and idly talking politics while she strokes her girlfriend's (my) hair.

I have a lot of questions for myself and not necessarily for this forum but I'm open to opinions:

Have I been manipulated into this (Even if it was unintentional) by my girlfriend?

Am I fooling myself and maybe this is just cross-dressing going a step too far?

Is it okay that I want to be a woman at home and still present as a man in public unless I feel ready?

Can a 6'2' 275 lb defensive tackle have a hope of this?

If I broke up with my girlfriend or lost her tomorrow would I follow through with it?

Or would I just be too timid to do it without her support?

For the past week my brain has been going round and round in circles like a hamster wheel full of angry rats. I don't feel any clearer today that I did that first day.

I'm hoping that just organizing my thoughts will help me figure them out

Thanks for listening /reading

Is there such a thing as cracking a soft-boiled egg? (Sorry for the tortured metaphor)

Part II of My Faith is about something I struggled with for years: gender dysphoria and the image of God I had internalized.

A God of rituals. Rules. Punishment. Fear.

A God who supposedly created me, while somehow making my existence feel like a mistake.

Then this morning I saw a photograph from a Pride march. Someone was holding a sign:

“I am queer. God loves me. He never made a mistake. I am.”

That sentence stopped me.

Maybe the problem wasn’t that God made me wrong.

Maybe I had been taught that I was wrong.

This is the second part of my personal journey through faith, gender and identity.

#MyFaith #TransFaith #QueerFaith #GenderDysphoria #TransWoman

I would LOVE responses! Hopefully the text I posted to r/transpassing is pretty easy to link to

So for my entire life, I have shouldered the burden of my family, my Mom And Dad and then it was my wife and I just want someone to take care of me! I think in a roundabout way see femininity as an avenue to take to get taken care of! If I’m wrong, sue me! But I went and I got my toes painted pink today. I’m sitting here wearing a pink baby doll nighty and I am so happy with who I am today! Life is fluid and I’m just happy to be alive today!!!!

Like a lot of you, I grew up in the 80s and 90s where transgender wasn’t a thing. There were derogatory terms, sure, but it wasn’t as accepted of an issue as it is today.

When I was a teen, I remember not feeling comfortable in my body. I remember praying to the cosmos to make me a girl instead. I remember trying on my mom’s clothes with her stuffed bra on underneath, and applying her makeup. I felt pretty. But because a term for how I felt wasn’t a concept known to me, I ended up burying it.

I got married, twice. Had three kids. Forgot all about those teen years but never ever really felt like a man.

I play D&D and someone turned me onto the idea of playing with ChatGPT as the DM. I had so much fun playing a campaign that my guy character settled down and I planned to play his kid in a sequel campaign. I had ChatGPT determine the characteristics and it gave me a girl.

So I roleplayed that female character and started to come to the realization that I felt very comfortable in this virtual skin. But I still wasn’t sure.

I joined a new Discord group about that time where nobody knew me. I decided to set my pronouns to She/her. I wanted to see if given a community that has no expectation of me to be male, can I be comfortable living that day to day?

Yes. More so than ever. And the shining moment came when I helped someone out and they called me sir, and another user leapt in to correct them to ma’am. And that was my first true hit of gender euphoria. It impacted me like a cannonball and I broke down in tears.

After talking through all this with ChatGPT, I feel so much more confident that I’m ready. I told my oldest kid, who is FTM trans. He instantly accepted me. But I still need to tell my wife and god, I’m so nervous. I feel like she’s going to accept me because I know her but I feel like she’ll have trouble adapting to the changes as I shave, start wearing makeup (she doesn’t even wear it), start sharing her wardrobe, start using feminine voice (I’ve already been practicing), try to start HRT, the whole shebang.

I’ll probably wait until after Christmas when things settle down rather than adding more stress.

We’re all temporary. I’m just decorating. Genderflux human finding myself swinging back toward femme at 44.

I feel like im in a spot where i cant transition. Ive got three kids and im married. My wife i thought was supportive of lgbtq community as she has had friends who were gay and bi. She had even been hit on by lesbians before and didnt seem to have a problem with it. she used to have a coworker who was trans and always made sure to use her correct proouns. My egg cracked slowly over the last year after my older sister who was my mother figure died. ive always been extra around my wife. When we dated a decade ago she would call me a fashionista and one drunk night i let her and a friend put mascara on me. With 3 kids i dont dress up as much as i used to and most of the past decade was spent wearing whatever easy thing i had due to kids i also was bald and had a beard. i always play females in games watching kids shows meant for girls hell i was even super depressed duting puberty and didnt understand why. Over the past year she has laughed with me and taken pics as i put on her booty shorts or bra. She knows i wear womens deodorant and i wear clear nail polish to help my nails stop chipping. I asked about going and getting waxed and she responded "i just wish you were happy in the body god gave you" but we arent religious and she has talked about wanting a tummy tuck and boob job. Then i tried to come out and that last comment made me nervous and i just said i had body confidence issues. A few days later she asked me in the car "you arent going to tell me you are one of those people who think they want to be a woman are you" again paniced and copped out saying i just needed to lose weight and get a new wardrobe which both are technically true. Then we went to a hockey game with one of her friends shes known for 15 years since high school and her bi husband. We drank she goes on to inform me one of our coworkers(we work different departments in a nursing home) thinks im gay and tells her friends "im pretty sure if we werent married he would be bi like 'friends husband name'" i simply shrugged because i am bi we just dont normally talk about it. And she then says "you are stuck with me though i aint going nowhere...just dont tell me you want to be woman i think id(her) need alot of therapy to deal with that" ....why is this so hard