An Introduction

I am a heterosexual cis-man, happily married to the woman of my dreams.

A small voice at the back of my mind dreams of being a woman. I love my life as a cis-man and have zero interest in transition. This is my story.

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I am incredibly privileged to lead a very happy life with few complaints. I am happily married to the woman of my dreams, work in a field I love, have a nurturing family, and am financially stable. By all rights, there is nothing wrong with my life.

I also have a secret that I have been concealing since I was young. Nobody in my life knows or suspects. For all intents and purposes, to the world it doesn't exist.

There is a small but undeniable part of my mind that dreams of experiencing the world as a woman.

This part of me has existed as long as I can remember. One of my earliest memories is of sneaking into my mother’s room to try on her jewelry; I was so young that I didn't yet realize that you need holes in your ears for earrings to fit. Throughout childhood the trappings and role of the feminine intrigued me.

However, I never felt like a girl trapped in a boy’s body. I loved my life as a boy, and enjoyed many stereotypically male activities: I played and watched lots of sports and devoured sci-fi and fantasy novels. I was never jealous of my female friends’ dolls or clothes. I never hated my penis or my body; I never at any point felt like I was born the wrong gender.

However, I always harbored a latent desire to, just for a few hours at a time, put on makeup and a dress and gossip or shop with the girls in my class. I never felt excluded per se, but wished that I could seamlessly transition between the boys playing tackle football in the mud and the girls trying on new skirts at Abercrombie. 

What is interesting is that filling the societal female role was most intriguing to me. In my fantasies, I was never a girl just in the privacy of my home; I was a girl out with a group of other girls, fitting seamlessly into the group.

These fantasies evolved throughout adolescence as I grew and matured. Like my other heterosexual male friends, I fantasized often about hooking up with girls in my school, or actresses on TV. However, in addition to these fantasies, I fantasized too about hooking up AS a woman.

I have never felt any attraction to men. I am a heterosexual man, and when I imagine myself engaging sexual activity with other people, I exclusively imagine having sex with women. 

However, in these fantasies where I am a woman, I am not myself; I am a different person, and that person is a heterosexual woman. The men in these fantasies are nameless and faceless; they were merely vehicles to expression of my female sexuality. 

There is a large body of literature defining a man's desire to live a female experience: the very controversial idea of “autogynephilia” coined by Blanchard, or the notion of “crossdreaming.” While I prefer the term “crossdreaming,” I find some of Blanchard’s categorizations useful for the purposes of understanding my own fantasies and desires.

Blanchard breaks down the desire for a man to engage in the feminine into four categories:

• Transvestic: the desire to wear women’s apparel. Personally, I often fantasize about wearing dresses and skirts, walking in heels, and wearing jewelry and makeup
• Anatomic: the desire to have breasts and a vagina
• Physiologic: the desire to have feminine body functions, such as menstruation or lactation. Personally, this does not apply to me in any significant way
• Behavioral: the desire to participate in stereotypically feminine behavior. I personally find it useful to break this category down into two parts:
• Sexual: the desire to engage in sexual activity as a woman
• Asexual: the desire to engage in stereotypically feminine behavior as a woman outside the bedroom. Personally, this manifests as fantasizing about being a bridesmaid, going shopping or getting manicures with girlfriends, or being in a sorority

I don’t yet know how to precisely define myself. I hope to use this space to further explore these feelings and fantasies and add to the conversation. Please feel free to comment on any of my posts, with either questions or comments: this will help me provide more material to explore these feelings and further define what it means to have these fantasies.