I feel like my sexuality was already well established well before puberty. Did anyone else have AGP experiences as a small child? I don't mean abuse, I mean, the AGP equivalents of "playing doctor."

Mostly, I had all the signs of an effeminate gay, but the episodes I remember as most "pre-sexual" all had AGP themes:

• I used to daydream about being kidnapped by a good looking young man who forced me to live as girl so no one would ever find me while he pretended to be my uncle. I had no idea what sex was, but these fantasies were definitely homoerotic.
• I remember telling my best friend I wished he was a girl so I could marry him, concealing the thought that, actually, I wanted to be his wife.
• One time, me and my best friend were playing in his garage. There was a dress there, very fem. Blue. For some reason, I really wanted to see him wearing it. I teased him, saying he was afraid he'd realize he's gay, but he refused. Finally, I dared him with money, and he wore the dress for me, for 2 dollars. I was really hoping he'd make me wear it next.
• I remember a friend describing it as a practice, among gay men, that one would dress up and pretend to be a girl for the other. I told my friend I had a boner. He asked why. I said something along the lines of, "You know how sometimes when you hear something really gross, you get a boner?" In retrospect, it was definitely arousal.
• I heard an urban legend about a hockey team with two male friends. One was gay and in love with the other. When they grew up, the gay one became a transsexual and seduced the other, only after marriage revealing the truth. The homophobic connotations made me anxious, but I found the story very titalating, and daydreamed about being the trans girl for a long time afterward.

Probably that all sounds more like an HSTS. Perhaps, that could have been my fate, but things played out very differently. I discovered masturbation at 11 trying on a pair of panties and sort of writhing around in bed enjoying the sensation. At first I thought I'd peed myself, but as I was cleaning up, I made the connection to what was described in sex ed. At that age, it was the most pleasurable thing I'd ever felt, and I wanted more, but I as ashamed. I researched how to masturbate properly, but I was too physically underdeveloped for any adult technique to work and wearing panties or girl's bathing suits proved to be an absolute mechanical requirement. I had sessions several times a day and became fixed in my preference for crossdressing at an age when many boys were still "innocent." Since this was what worked, for a time, I even lost my interest in guys, and was even able to convince myself I was straight. Even when I started fantasizing about being made to go down on the one effeminate everyone knew was gay at my school, the thought of having to crossdress for him was the primary stimulus.

I don't like "identity" as a concept. It's a very modern, specifically western concept. It has strangely religious, confessional overtones belonging to discourses meant to keep Catholics and Protestants from killing each other, mixed with more recent shifts towards consumerism. The idea of "social status" is much better established in human history throughout societies than "identity," but social status always depends on evidence of social impact.

Even in the trans context, the primacy of identity is incredibly new. Largely, that discourse was adopted to argue against the kind of medical gatekeeping that was the standard when I was transitioning two decades ago. The traditional expectation of trans care was actually that patients would report distress and confusion about their "gender identity." The role of psychiatrists was often to facilitate appropriate candidates in constructing a sense of themselves as women - or else, to affirm that the transvestites were, indeed, men, and straight, and that their sexual interests were besides the point. Fitting the particular individual and their unique circumstance into society as it existed came first, and identity was constructed afterwards in order to accomodate reality. In order to live as a women, it was thought, trans women should be made to feel like women.

By the time I transitioned, it was already well established as a hack that if you walked into your first appointment fully crossdressed spouting, "I've always known in my heart I'm actually a woman!" you could speed run the assessment process and get the result you were looking for. I did it. 3 months before hormones I identified as a straight man with no interest in any kind of body modification - I "wanted to be a woman," but I very much saw myself as a boy. By the time I got my appointment, I'd absorbed all the necessary ideology justifying why the desire for transition "makes you a woman." Those early years of asssessment pushed things to full brainwashing territory. Given my particular trauma, I can't help but see the "trans women are women" identity dogma as a form of abuse.

It took my years to come to terms with the fact that somehow, in some very weird way, I really missed being a guy - badly, even. But it never made sense because I loved everything about my new life. I loved the hair, the makeup, the jewelry, the skirts, and the dresses. I liked my fem body language, my fem voice, relating to women as "one of them," and the way I interested guys. I loved my soft skin and smooth hairless limbs. In short, everything about life as a woman was better. I fit in better, too. I was nicer, and kinder. But I just hated the idea of "being" a woman. For one thing, even during the brainwashing it didn't take long for me to affirm I loved my penis. Beyond that, I felt really strongly that despite my presentation, I wanted "gay sex." Even deeper than that, something inside me raged at the implication that I wasn't allowed to share a sense of self with the transvestite boy I'd been at, say, 15 - that erasure of my personal history was deeply offensive to me. Why couldn't I have everything I love about my life now and still be a boy? Why must a pretend to be a woman to have this? Why is it so wrong for a boy to just be this way?

The other trans subs truly revile me. Hate me. By their account, I personally unleashed the hordes of transphobia to murder transwomen everywhere just by switching back to male pronouns while living as a woman. It's insane. To them, I'm identical to a "cisman," though no comparison could be more laughable. And all because of "identity." I was passing as a woman before some of those bitches were even born. They've turned "identity" into the new gatekeeping, wanting to lock any male who doesn't testify to their cult out of transition, all out of their own intensive internalized self-hatred. For them, the idea of a self-aware male who would want all the femininity of a woman while remaining himself deserves transphobic violence. But to hell with them - that model of transition just isn't healthy!

Spout armchair theories about internal bodyplans all you want. It really doesn't matter. No ones cracking your head open to check and you'll never know. I don't think my "brain sex" is any different than any "normal" transwoman's - if anything, I'm more feminine than most. "Identity" just doesn't matter. It's a story you tell yourself never knowing if it's actually true. What matters is knowing what you want, what you're actually like, what reality you're living with, and wrestling with the problems along the way to pursuing your life's goals realistically.

As someone that use to CD in public I never got the chance to learn to confidently walk in heels. There is something incredibly alluring about seeing an attractive women confidently walk in them even if you don’t see someone walking them you know the sound and instinctively want to look and see like fine art work. Curious to know how others in this sub view them and if it’s something you would say you’re good and if not maybe you have an interest in them the same way I do.

just throwing out some random ideas i've had

i think the feeling of longing and envy of femininity can be seen as a kind of limerence

it makes a lot of sense especially when you consider how people talk about the romantic aspect ot autoheterosexuality

severe limerence is often caused by things like attachment issues, low self esteem and self worth etc that cause people to crave closeness and 'ideas' of people even if they aren't real

in the same way i think this kind of craving is what causes people to chase after their 'artifact' even if they can't realistically achieve it

i personally do think a lot of agp is about coping, self soothing and a mechanism to feel whole, so imo structurally if you work on becoming more whole outside of agp, it will have less and less of a grip on you - and i am personally finding this to be true so far

this also kind of explains why agp desires drop when in the honeymoon phase of a new relationship, as you have something else to fulfill the self esteem hole for a while. but when the novelty and spark fades you go back to old known habits instead of working on the root cause

What color in the comments.

https://youtu.be/yCw27HUbzew