Be, who you wanna be! (Patreon)

TGK Origin Story Part I

In the epic Broadway musical, Kinky Boots, there is a song that goes like this: 

Just be, who you wanna be. Never let 'em tell you who you oughta be.

By the time I saw Kinky Boots-- for the first of six times-- I had embraced this idea, and I remember  clapping and cheering when i heard it, thinking, yes.  yes!

The show, if you haven't heard of it, centers on a cross-dresser, and it is a story of fathers and sons and self-acceptance. It had taken me years to get to the point where I could not only hear this message, but embrace it.

I come from a repressed family.  We didn't talk about sex, let alone anything that might be considered kinky sex. I never got a birds and bees talk.  Raised Catholic, what I mostly knew-- or thought I knew-- about sex was that it was evil and bad and that people who engaged in any kind of sex act outside marriage were sinners. 

I bought into all these ideas.  I had no other ideas to consider. And then, I stumbled on gender bender stories.  At first, fairly g-rated-- the Turnabout Intruder  episode of Star Trek, for example.. Later, I came upon what I would later learn was called forced-feminization.

Now,  my fascination with the rare gender swap story-- my life begins before the Internet-- was played off in my mind as tolerable because it wasn't "sex."  However, all my lifelong intolerance training kicked into high gear when I not only was exposed to forced-femme, but really liked it. I was horrified to realize I was a sinner. I was bad.  I was going to hell.

Being of the mindset I was, I resolved to NOT allow myself to FEEL they way I felt.  This began a cycle akin to that of someone who starves themselves for days then binges.  it also led to serious substance abuse, as I struggled to NOT FEEL. More, I became a person I didn't like and was not proud of.  I was filled with hate, and just as the old adage goes that you can't love others if you don't love yourself, I could not love others.

I hated everyone and everything.   I lived in a constant of jealousy and anxiety.  I lived a life of darkness.

Eventually, I took action in terms of the substance abuse, which left me with enough focus and energy to realize I had to do something about what I felt were my "gross," "deviant desires."  I found a therapist with the absolute belief and expectation that she would cure me and make me normal.  Forever more, I would only want sex in the missionary position!  I couldn't wait.

I didn't know the term at the time, but I was seeking conversion therapy.

Well. good fortune coming my way, I was in for a big surprise.  After beating around the bush for a few months, building up trust, I finally revealed my "problem" and what I hoped to achieve: the blessed state of normalcy.

The therapist, however, did not have any interest in "curing" me, nor in making me "normal."  In fact, she suggested that if I wanted to be happy I needed to accept myself as i was. This idea angered me.  I knew that the world rejected people like me.  They branded us freaks.  How could I accept this? 

The therapist would not yield.  Over time she explained that most people have what the TV show Transparent calls "secret kinks"-- they just hide them.  Media refuses to portray them, unless it is to brand a character as a deviant outcast, or to make a joke.  However, the reality is that the world is a lot-- my term, not hers-- kinkier than people want to believe.

In addition, she was very much of the opinion that my preferences were A) very likely hard-wired into me, B) legal C) healthy.  

It took years, but I started to embrace myself, to accept myself.  Part of that was writing stories and later making art. I found happiness just as she predicted, and if the great majority wasn't interested, I didn't care.  I liked me.  I learned to celebrate difference. I was no longer jealous and afraid of people who "live out loud."

In fact, I feel so normal now being who I am, I don't even spend a lot of time thinking about it anymore, which can lead to problems.

Sometimes I let my guard down, and I get a very clear reminder of how the rest of the world looks at my "interests."  They still think-- weird, pervert, deviant.  

I have to say, a recent experience unnerved me, triggered a lot of my old fears and anxieties.  I was tempted to delete this Patreon, my blog, everything.  I was worried the person meant to expose me, to hold me up to the whole world so they could laugh at the "freak." 

Hide!  Part of my mind said. Hide!  They are coming with their torches!

But I've hidden before, and it almost killed me. It's not a choice.

 So, I am here, and here I stay.  I am going to be who I wanne be.  I'll never let them tell me who I oughta be.

Let's all stick together and support each other.  Let's all love!  It's a dangerous world out there for people who don't conform, and we need each other more than ever.

Stay safe, and please never feel alone.  There are always people who care and are ready to accept you for who you are.  Starting with me.

TGK