First let me say: I have not been honest with pretty much anyone on the unfiltered true version of me. I promise there was no intent to lie, even though honestly I lied to myself for a long time and even when I realized the truth about myself I still denied it and tried to fool myself by burying it deep down and ignoring it. It'll make more sense as this goes on, trust me.
Let's start at the beginning: When I was very little, around 2 or 3 years old, I had a moment that I still remember to this day. It's actually my second oldest memory that I have. I remember being in my mom's room and finding a pair of her boots, they were fuzzy on the inside and were brown. I picked them up, knowing very very well that boys don't wear those kinds of things.
But I also remember thinking about how I really wanted to wear them and feel like...well, not what I was. I remember knowing that I wasn't supposed to feel that way and think that way but I did. At 2 or 3 years old I was too afraid to tell anyone because I knew boys wear boy things and girls wear girl things. I was scared and pushed that thought down and didn't do anything about it.
Over the next few years, I had many random moments when I saw girls doing things that I remember clearly wishing I could take part in but I had to play with toys that I was supposed to play with. For the record, I always hated GI Joe, transformers and tools. Yet I said nothing and got toys like that. There were toys I did play with and have fun, it wasn't like torture all the time. I played with Thundercats and He-man toys, which were both my favorites for a while, but for the most part I wanted to play with...other things.
So for my younger years (between about ages 6 - 12) I tried constantly to have fun with things like GI Joe toys and cartoons. The whole time I was so embarrassed to be honest with parents or friends because I knew it was a shameful thing to want to play with dolls and fashion and the things that girls played with. Makeup was a huge fascination for me, second to things that accentuated feminine features.
This brings me to 13 years old, and to be as delicate as I can about this stage as I can, I started to understand the physical side of life. My imagination has always been very vivid and I'm sure you can guess what any 13 year old boy has n his mind at 13 so...fantasies were rampant with me.
My earliest fantasies were very specific and they centered around a beautiful woman forcing me to ac as a girl. I actually saw a board game cover once with a rich looking woman on it and for so long she was the center of my fantasies, she'd kidnap me and force me to wear makeup and big frilly dresses and drug me so I wouldn't do anything or try to get away. In this fantasy, over time I would have to accept my new life and would eventually forget that I wasn't that rich woman's daughter or whatever. Dirty, right? There was actually a time when my mind was innocent and pure.
I only tell that because I want to describe how my mind took in everything. At first I just hated playing with toys I didn't truly want, then my imagination created a force scenario so I could justify changing genders without me having to actually do it myself. My fantasies did turn more adult in the next few years but there's no need to get into that here, the only part that needs to be added here is the progression: my fantasies turned sexual but always revolved around me being forced or seduced into being feminized. And the more I buried the truth of wanting to be female, the more it became depraved and dark.
Around my 19th year, I got into church. And things seemed to be getting better...for a while. I met good men who were good fathers and I started to see what good families look like, I even snuck into a house surrounded by a great family. But...there's always a but, there was still this other side of me that I was burying deep.
Depression sprinkled itself throughout my whole life, I remember being about 7 or 8 and trying to climb out a window to jump while my biological parents fought downstairs and I remember when I was living at someone's house and considering taking a bunch of pills just to stop the hurt. Obviously I did not go through with either but those kinds of feelings took over at times and depression was and is always with me.
Alright so I ended up going to a bible college, suppressing this part of me the whole time. After that I bounced around a lot and couldn't even think about anything, let alone think about what I am or feel like I am. It was't for another 12 years before I even thought about my gender and what's going on in my head. All I knew was I distanced myself from everyone and I was less and less okay with anything.
A few years ago, I started asking questions but ONLY asking anonymous people. I went on websites where my identity could not possibly be traced and asked people who transitioned what they went through, most of them only gave half decent advice that I still see as immature. Their advice usually consisted of: be you and do whatever you want and if anyone disagrees with you or doesn't want you to do absolutely anything you want then f**k 'em. And in my opinion, only immature people ignore everyone in their lives just to do what they want. Everything I do affects the people closest to me and treating those people with such disrespect is taking their entire friendship for granted, like they owe me something. Not cool.
Even though the majority said basically the same thing, I did glean a few bits of understanding from all of that and began to know a little more about myself. I even found a transgender youtuber that I was/am a big fan of who is political, smart and understands that she is biologically a male and always will be but she does her best to feel comfortable with that knowledge.
This brings me to 13 years old, and to be as delicate as I can about this stage as I can, I started to understand the physical side of life. My imagination has always been very vivid and I'm sure you can guess what any 13 year old boy has n his mind at 13 so...fantasies were rampant with me.
My earliest fantasies were very specific and they centered around a beautiful woman forcing me to ac as a girl. I actually saw a board game cover once with a rich looking woman on it and for so long she was the center of my fantasies, she'd kidnap me and force me to wear makeup and big frilly dresses and drug me so I wouldn't do anything or try to get away. In this fantasy, over time I would have to accept my new life and would eventually forget that I wasn't that rich woman's daughter or whatever. Dirty, right? There was actually a time when my mind was innocent and pure.
I only tell that because I want to describe how my mind took in everything. At first I just hated playing with toys I didn't truly want, then my imagination created a force scenario so I could justify changing genders without me having to actually do it myself. My fantasies did turn more adult in the next few years but there's no need to get into that here, the only part that needs to be added here is the progression: my fantasies turned sexual but always revolved around me being forced or seduced into being feminized. And the more I buried the truth of wanting to be female, the more it became depraved and dark.
Around my 19th year, I got into church. And things seemed to be getting better...for a while. I met good men who were good fathers and I started to see what good families look like, I even snuck into a house surrounded by a great family. But...there's always a but, there was still this other side of me that I was burying deep.
Depression sprinkled itself throughout my whole life, I remember being about 7 or 8 and trying to climb out a window to jump while my biological parents fought downstairs and I remember when I was living at someone's house and considering taking a bunch of pills just to stop the hurt. Obviously I did not go through with either but those kinds of feelings took over at times and depression was and is always with me.
Alright so I ended up going to a bible college, suppressing this part of me the whole time. After that I bounced around a lot and couldn't even think about anything, let alone think about what I am or feel like I am. It was't for another 12 years before I even thought about my gender and what's going on in my head. All I knew was I distanced myself from everyone and I was less and less okay with anything.
A few years ago, I started asking questions but ONLY asking anonymous people. I went on websites where my identity could not possibly be traced and asked people who transitioned what they went through, most of them only gave half decent advice that I still see as immature. Their advice usually consisted of: be you and do whatever you want and if anyone disagrees with you or doesn't want you to do absolutely anything you want then f**k 'em. And in my opinion, only immature people ignore everyone in their lives just to do what they want. Everything I do affects the people closest to me and treating those people with such disrespect is taking their entire friendship for granted, like they owe me something. Not cool.
Even though the majority said basically the same thing, I did glean a few bits of understanding from all of that and began to know a little more about myself. I even found a transgender youtuber that I was/am a big fan of who is political, smart and understands that she is biologically a male and always will be but she does her best to feel comfortable with that knowledge.
I started telling my close friends about me and since then I've been exploring every avenue of transgendered people. Watching documentaries, reading journals from doctors and psychologists and Christians and atheists and as many medical reports and articles as I could find. And after all that, I learned about a place near me that deals with Trans people and I made an appointment there. It took me months to even get that and it's not for a few months from the moment I'm writing this right now (Monday July 24th 2017) so I'm waiting to go and start my transition.
So this is the real me: Layla Lee Gilmore.
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