So close yet so far

I've never been sure how to start writing a blog. I'm guessing these probably aren't the best two opening lines though. There are so many things I'd like to say but its not clear to me at all how to start. So I will begin with the basics. My real name is not Shandy. And the "Ms." is debatable. I would say about 99.999999% of the world considers me male. And I don't hold that against them, because most of the evidence does lean that direction. I'm right at 6 feet tall, have the figure of your average scarecrow, can grow a beard in two days. I have facial structure so overbuilt it looks like you could bounce bricks off my brow harmlessly. I have hair every place I shouldn't and am losing it gradually from the top of my head, the one place I would actually like to keep it. I was born physically male and have been raised so. And though I have been lucky in ways, testosterone has definitely had its effects on my body.

But all of my life I have known that despite being male, I'm not a man, and that I can't be. I have never figured out how to explain it in a way that doesn't sound crazy or mystic, but I know that mentally and spiritually I am a woman. I knew it when I was a child. And when the world has subtly stirred me in another direction or made me feel guilty and shameful of it, sometimes I have managed to lose sight of it for months or years at a time. But deep down I have still always known.

I don't have any dramatic proof. I have no especially feminine childhood to point back to and say "See, before people got me all confused, and testosterone messed me up physically I was just a little girl." I wish I did have something like that. Because I'm at a point in my life where I need self affirmation and I'm struggling to make my family understand. But all I know is that I am a woman, and I need the world to see me for what I am instead of what I appear to be. And though I'm off to a slow start, I will fight tooth and nail for it when I ever gather the strength to.

I'm transgender, and my life dream is to have hormone replacement therapy, be able to live full time as a female and eventually have sex reassignment surgery and be able to live as much as possible like a typical woman. Other than that all I care about is being accepted as who I am by those close to me. Everything else is on the periphery.

And so concludes my first blog entry!