Lea, I'm happy to answer questions. My transition was for many reasons. It started off as more of a cross dressing activity with sexual arousal to help me get through my extreme frustration having woman unavailable to me as a man. Just like when your egg cracked.

At the time I was divorced and was living in San Francisco a block from one of the most famous TS bars in the world (Divas). I did it for fun, and not only had a TON of fun, I was no longer invisible, I felt powerful, I could flirt, and date, and have sex MUCH more easily. No comparison vs. being a man. I then I got pulled up to the piano at a piano bar, and I was a big hit and I became a trans entertainer (I was always into playing piano, guitar, singing, and writing music, and I was pretty good - but now it was MUCH easier getting an audience).

All of this led to me finding the feminine inside of me, something that I think a lot of men have (straight, trans, cross dressing, or otherwise). I also developed a great relationship with genetic women, more as a sister, and that was SO eye opening. I had tons of trans friends, most of them more traditional trans, some more like me. My male life was just super lame, and I eventually starting become more and more trans, more like a woman. I felt more like a women, I acted more like a woman, but I was also living part time as a men, and I found myself switching back and forth very easily. I just starting spending more time as a woman.

Sounds like there are lot of similarities in our story.

Since every trans woman's story is unique, I can only make generalization about how I'm different from a more "typical" trans woman, and several are pretty clear to me. Firstly, I still have no problem going back and forth between being a man or woman, I'm perfectly fine either way, and I'm happy to be either depending on the situation. But since my life is SO much more rich as a woman, I perform in NYC regularly as a woman, I have sex with men as a woman, and people like me better as a woman, and I enjoy being a woman more because of it, I spend most of my time as a woman. Socially I'm 100% a woman. Secondly, I never felt like a woman before, I went trans simply because my life was SO much better. (I've always been somebody who was comfortable with multiple states of mind)

Sadly, the points I made in my post about getting shit mostly from other trans women was demonstrated in some of the comments, Despite what I said about all trans women being different, acknowledging the pain that the Autogynephilia (AG) has caused to other trans woman, asking for better understanding, some of them STILL CHOSE to attack me, claiming that I know nothing about trans women, that I'm NOT a trans woman, etc, without acknowledging a single thing I said. This is a sad situation, but we have to remember that in any group there are always people who lash out, either because they're in pain and/or they want attention.

I could go on and on, but I don't want to write too much and take up your time. BTW: I wrote a book about my experience and I'm finishing writing a musical about it (Link at the end of the post, which links to the book). Most books about being trans are mostly very serious and/or academic. Mine is more about the fun I had, including how the sex made me feel strong and proud (nothing wrong with that!), but I also include very deep and serious topics. As an entertainer, I found out that if you want to talk about serious topics, you'll generally get a bigger and more diverse and engaged audience if you also make it fun, and even sexy. And I stand by that, even through some trans women find that really offensive. I can guess why they would do that, but I won't bring that up there.

Thanks for asking, and I'm happy to converse more. Cheers!

Maria...