20th Anniversary Edition by Melanie Anne With Commentary in Streaming Video

SETTING:

As my first entry starts somewhat into my story, a brief background is essential to an understanding of the text.

As of August 1st, 1989, when this journal began, I was living entirely as Dave - father, husband, small business owner, and free-lance writer/director/editor in the film business. I had been married for thirteen years to Mary, with a ten-year-old son, and a six-year-old daughter. My family life was good, my career growing, my future bright, but still something was missing.

I had first felt "different" in kindergarten, where all the other little boys seemed to know instinctively how to act, but I had to struggle to learn the male role by rote: it did not come naturally. I never considered the possibility I had the instincts of a female; I simply thought I had none at all.

By age seven, I was regularly sneaking off to dress in the girls' clothes my mother brought in as part of her short-lived ironing business. This was well before puberty and was not an erotic experience, but rather a feeling of completeness and contentment.

Throughout my teenage years, the need to dress as a female came and went in waves, sometimes intense, sometimes absent for years at a time.

I was non-agressive in school, both in sports and dating, and excelled at neither. My only erotic interests were not in what I could do to or with a woman, but what it would be like to be one.

I married as a virgin in 1976, and the longings to be female vanished more than they were there. But, gradually, as I progressed through adult life, the waves became stronger and more frequent. Only twice in my life (both times in my early teen years) had I ventured out as a female, both with such tension from fear of discovery, that I did not attempt this again until three years before this journal began.

Suddenly, the need to move in society as a woman became overwhelming, and within two months, I had made nearly a dozen outings, tentative at first, then growing more bold as I gained confidence in my ability to "pass" without being "read".

Throughout this period, I was constantly "purging" myself of this "awful" desire. Full of guilt I would throw away all my pills, wigs, clothes, and any other accumulations, only to be driven to rebuild my accouterments scant days later.

Finally, I came to the decision that this secret side, if not dealt with openly, would lead to self-destruction and the loss of not only my self-respect, but the love of those I loved. So, at the end of July 1989, I mustered the courage to call a gender "hotline" and get a referral to a doctor who provided hormone therapy to transsexuals. This Diary begins with my preparations for that appointment.

A Reading of this Entry with Commentary