The absolute turning point was when I realized that in addition to a sexual relationship I started to understand I needed an emotional relationship as well with another man. Slowly coming to the fact that despite years of compulsory heterosexuality what I truly wanted was to be with another man totally and completely without hiding or pretending I was something else. It took a while to get that idea straight in my head, I fought it for a while. My internal homophobia tried to sabotage me more than once. After all I wasn’t fag, queer or homo! What a joke that was as I have come to realize I was always gay. However I continued to work on myself as I knew instinctively that I desperately wanted to be with another man. That work paid off.
I knew I was not completely “normal” boy, per se, as a child. I liked hanging out with my female classmates, and wearing my sister’s clothes, and my mom told me to stop it. But I *really* knew it when I started messing around with a male family friend - in high school. More partners in college, and beyond. But they were all short and long-term booty calls, essentially—cars, sneaking around... I’ve only had one boyfriend. He told me that he loved me and wanted to pay for some of the feminization procedures I was interested in. But, being insecure - from a conservative family (in San Francisco, of all places-lol) - I panicked, and shortly thereafter, moved away. Now I am married to a wonderful woman who knows nothing (to my knowledge) of who I am inside. So, in short, I’ve known my whole life...
At my age (a little past half a decade), your words elicit a feeling of anxiety within me. I lived a life like you describe (always doing what was expected of me, being the good son/brother/grandson/HUSBAND, etc.). I had the house and the car and kids. I flirted with my wife's friends at dinner parties. I made jokes about homos when I was with the guys. I was such a dude that NOBODY would ever have guessed. And, by the time I was 50, I wanted to self destruct.
