I don't remember ever expressing such things to my family or anyone else, but as a little boy, at least as early as 4 or 5 years old, I fantasized about being a girl. A lot of the time I imagined myself in perilous situations, tied up and helpless as villainous figures hovered around me, prepared to do terrible things to me. I specifically remember one night when I think I would have been 4, riding in the car with my parents in the front and me lying down across the back seat. I put my feet together at the ankles, and put my hands together at my wrists behind my back, pretending to be bound and imagining myself to be a girl.

Where did this come from? I don't really believe i was abused sexually as a child, but these weird fantasies were definitely connected to what I think were sexual themes long before i knew anything about sex. It's frustrating to me... I'm positive something happened to me to set this off, but my memory isn't helping.

Starting in the first grade, when i would come home from school I would be alone for a couple of hours before my parents got home from work. During that time, i remember making rudimentary attempts at crossdressing, like using a bathrobe as a dress, or wrapping a towel around my waist as a skirt. My hair wasn't very long, but I tried making pigtails with it. I'd take some kind of cord and wrap it around my wrists and pretend to be tied to my bed post. I don't think i did this stuff very often, but it continued off and on until I was 10 or so. About the time i started "liking" girls. Puberty redirected my desire for femininity, i guess.

As i got older, i still had twinges of a desire for... i don't know what. Some kind of feminine expression. But that always got supressed, beaten back to the dark corners of my mind. Occasionaly, a memory of those fantasies would pop up, and I'd marvel at it... it seemed so strange. I'd forgotten that was ever a part of me.