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[flamesof-ice.livejournal.com]

Hello everyone! I'm new to the community and thought I would introduce myself. My name is Katie (or Kat/Kate, whichever you prefer), and I live in Maryland. I'm now a senior in high school, and since my sophomore year especially, I have been struggling with my gender. I have so many memories of feeling wrong within my own body, like I was a fake wearing some sort of costume (actually my first memory is of my dad telling me I had to put my shirt back on when I was 4 or 5 because I was running around with the other boys topless). For the first eight years or so since that memory (until I was around 13), I acted how I felt (aka, "tomboyish"), and was always disappointed and frustrated when the boys wouldn't let me play with them, and when I had to start playing softball instead of baseball, etc., because all I wanted to do was be one of the guys. For a few years, I prayed every night to God that I would wake up the next morning as a boy (and I did so trying to feel full confidence that he would do it, since by that age I had heard Jesus' saying that if you believed that God would help you with something, he would...I think Jesus said "move mountains" or something of that nature). The next morning, I would look down and be crushed because I realized again and again that I would never be the boy I felt I was, and not even God would help me. After 7th or 8th grade, I just sort of gave up. Since then (until recently), I've been pushing back the thoughts about my gender, about feeling like I'm somehow wearing a costume with no zipper, so it will never come off. Well, now I've decided to accept it, as much as it can be anyway. I try not to think about it for the most part, since it only makes me sad that I can't do much about it. Still, I can't help but see a guy staring back at me in the mirror for that half-second before it turns back to a girl. Usually I stop that train of thought before it can go too far. My occasional (fine, not-so-occasional) guilty pleasure is cross-dressing sometimes when I'm alone.

Well, that's the shortened version of my life story ^^ . So here are some pics of me both as a girl and as a guy. Enjoy! (x-posted to...oh I can't do the link-thingys...was never good at them, but FTM and Genderqueer)



Here's my girl self:


And here are a few of me when I crossdress:





For the hair, I pulled my hair back in a low ponytail and then pinned it forward, and to give myself the 5 o'clock shadow, I ground the tip of an artist's charcoal pencil up and rubbed it on my jaw.