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Adolescent sexuality & flatness envy

I don't know why it's taken me so long to buy a girdle (apart from the fact they seem hard to find these days - they are out of fashion).  When I was a teenager I remember looking through my mum's home shopping catalogues at night when everyone was gone to bed and felt both thrilled and ashamed of looking at the women's underwear pages.  One of the things I felt most vividly was - I don't think there's a name for it - but the opposite of 'penis envy'.  The photos of women's smooth profile was totally preferably to my maleness.  The appeal of the girdle in emphasising flatness (rather than protuberance) was especially appealing.

Apparetly TG children are avid collectors of mermaid objects; toys, ornaments, pictures. Perhaps it is the sense of not entirely specific feminine that appeals

This memory of enviously looking at photos in catalogues only came back to me a few years ago and surpised me as I didn't really appreciate that I'd had any transgender feelings before in my life until about ten years ago when I was unexpectedly 'liberated' from straightforward masuclinity.  Maybe that appeal wasn't so entirely out of the blue after all.