Journey out of Narnia.

I have a confession to make. Please, I want you to prepare yourself.

Mom, Dad... I think I may be straight.

OK, maybe that's a bit anticlimactic, unless you are confused as to what it means for me. I am a woman. I am only attracted to men. Therefore I am straight. Get it? Got it? Good.

When I came out as transgender I think it's safe to say that it wasn't exactly an earth shattering revelation. I had long hair, I had pierced ears, I wore make-up, I had feminine mannerisms and interests. The strongest and most common reaction from people was an "Oh, that's what it is. It's your round, by the way."

My journey towards being straight is an odd one. It starts with thinking I was straight. I was obsessively fascinated with girls bodies as a teenager, with testosterone flowing through me. I was as interested in sex as anyone. What I wanted to do once I got there I was a little confused about (It goes where?) but I know sex was a game I wanted to play, and I had no interest in boys at all. Boys were the people who taunted me, who beat me up, why would I be interested in those? And yet when I was eighteen and an older man made a pass at me I suddenly had a damascene conversion and found myself enthusiastically consenting. I was confused what that meant for my sexuality. Was I gay? I experimented with gay porn, and found it about as erotic as a plumbing manual (unless that's your thing, in which case, nowhere near as erotic as a plumbing manual). OK, not gay then? Bisexual? Nah, it was just a thing to do until a woman came along, right? Women were the real deal. I was just very open to new experiences, yes, that's all it was.

Then I had an affair with a woman for the first time. She was much older than me, and had a thing for feminine men. She was always dropping hints that she wanted to have sex with a transvestite, to which I'd shudder. No way. That would just be weird. I mean, I'd been quietly dressing in women's clothes in private for years, but she didn't know that, and I didn't want to have sex with a woman as a woman anyway. So I quietly demurred.

For a few years after that I wandered from one awkward sex encounter with men to another. They were never quite doing what I wanted right, something didn't feel right, and I couldn't quite put my finger on it. What it was was that they put their fingers on it, but I hadn't quite figured that out.

Then I met someone that eventually became my wife. That's the main bit that means I have to come out. Yes, I used to be married. Weird, huh? On our second date I came out as bisexual, because that was the best explanation I had at the time. I used to joke I was a lesbian trapped in a man's body, and the joke for me was that if i were suddenly turned female by some miracle there was no way in hell I'd be a lesbian. But naive as she was (a fair bit younger than me) she accepted me, and we got married.

And making love with her was awesome. I mean, it made me feel properly like a normal man for, ooh, simply hours afterwards. She was a bit prudish, and it suited her that I was prepared to make all the running and get her off, with scant regard for myself. because i was getting all my pleasure from her pleasure. Because I was imagining I was her. Oh, shit. Once you realise that's what you're doing that's very difficult to erase.

So, yeah, that ended. Should never really have started. I'd feel guilty about it if she wasn't so awful to me for the last few years, so we'll call that one a wash.

So I came back here determined to just be gay, to let out my feminine side. I tried to have a gay relationship, and it was still too awkward. Finally I admitted the awkwardness to a guy I was seeing, on and off. After years of therapy, it was the first time I'd said it out loud to anyone. I see myself as a woman. All this stuff is just trying to make the best of it, because I'm not one. and he said, well, then why not?

So I go to the doctor, and I say, am I transgender? Is that what this is? And a succession of doctors say, hell yes. I got an official diagnosis of 'Duh'.

For me that's part of the problem. It feels like such a cliché to be straight and transgender. I keep having to explain to my friends that have only ever known this one transsexual that I'm unusual, because I'm so much what they expect it to be. I still call myself bisexual in some circles because anything else denies my past, and I want to be part of that LGB club. Mostly I say I'm "Theoretically bisexual", because, I don't know, I guess I could see myself with a masculine lesbian, maybe? Or a trans man, no issues with that at all.

But these are such exceptions as to not really be exceptions at all. Really they're just people I would be willing to experiment with, rather than something I might lust after or fantasise about. Nope, I think it's time I stepped back out of the other side of the closet.

I'm here. I'm not queer. Get used to it.