What's in a name?

Since most of us here were able to consciously choose the names we choose to use on the internet, as opposed to the names that our parents bestowed upon us without our consent, there is usually a story behind the names. Some may choose to tell that story, and others may not.  Since my site here is to tell my story, I will choose to relate that information.

For a great number of years, my inner feminine being existed solely through my desire to wear women's clothing.  Up until a few years ago, when the urge to seek community coupled with my knowledge of the internet and all that it can provide, Arianwen did not have a name.  The main reason for the lack of a name was the lack of necessity -- since Arianwen was only internal to M (and ensconced firmly and deeply in the closet), there was no need.  In fact, the necessity for a name never really materialized until a brief time after I outed myself to W, who would eventually become my spouse.

W, started the creative juices flowing with commentary along the lines of, "when you are dressed, there is a subtle shift in your personality."  As I had never been dressed in women's clothing, except in places and situations where discovery was as impossible as possible, I had never noticed that I might be "acting" differently.  After dwelling on this for a while afterwards, as well as with further input from W, I finally came to the conclusion that this "other woman" was distinct enough to warrant a name.

At about the same time that this was going on in my head, another consciousness was being developed -- W was only a month or two from giving birth to a child of our union and love, and we both decided to wait until the child was born to figure out the gender of the baby.  While I was nearly 100% confident that the baby's gender would be male (dare I call it women's intuition?), W was not wanting to leave the naming of the child to fate so about one week before the baby was due to be delivered, via C-section, we eventually decided to look at names in case the baby's gender was discovered to be female.  The name for the child, if the gender was male, was already completely covered, as I was able to successfully lobby for reusing my father's name.

Both M's time in Wales (M got to spend over a year living there while going to college) and his Welsh ancestry were very strong determinants in the choosing of names, and M was able to successfully lobby for names which would celebrate that heritage (this is also why the Welsh flag is contained within the avatar/image used for Arianwen's profile picture).  Since W and I found ourselves in a bookstore without her daughter, we came across a book of names and started to look through it.  I couldn't settle on any one name that sounded "right," (since I already "knew" that the child's gender would be male), so it was narrowed down to two names which would be reviewed after the baby was born -- Arianrhod and Bronwen.

After the birth of the baby, which of course was a male and was named, like myself, after my late father, those two names stuck in my brain for a while longer.  Although it was never a fully conscious decision, I ended up creating the name, Arianwen Morgana.  The first name is actually a cross between Arianrhod (silver wheel) and Bronwen (fair beauty), and the last name is a play on a common Welsh surname (Morgan).

The other names used throughout my entries are "M," for Me in male mode, and "W," for the Wife of M.

Can you help a fellow out?

I received this request, via e-mail, today.  I've already participated and it would be nice if you could help out in Tre's project.

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You are invited to participate in the Trans Gender Embodied States of Recognition research project, which explores recognition and experiences using personal identification documentation (IDs). The survey, which may take 10 to 30 minutes to complete, includes questions about your gender identification, IDs and experiences using them, name and pronoun recognition, your transition-related decisions, how you have felt in the past week, and basic demographic information.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/TG_States_of_Recognition

As a transguy, I am personally affected and committed to positive contributions regarding trans research. My goal is to provide information that can be used by social justice advocates to help improve our lives. One benefit of this research includes contributing to existing gaps in current research on recognition. Specifically, I hope to provide more evidence and support of the diversity among trans people in order to expand our legal recognition.

Please feel free to contact me or my advisor with any questions you may have about this research or your participation. I may be reached by email at tlwentli@maxwell.syr.edu. My advisor, Andrew London, may be reached by telephone at (315) 443-3252 or by email atanlondon@maxwell.syr.edu. If you have any further questions regarding your rights as a participant, or if you have any questions, concerns, or complaints that you would like to address to someone other than the investigator and project advisor, or you cannot reach either, you may contact the Syracuse University Office of Research and Integrity Protections by phone at (315) 443-3013. This research has been approved by the Syracuse University IRB (reference # 11-125).

Your participation is deeply appreciated.

Tre Wentling, PhD Candidate
Syracuse University
Department of Sociology, 302 Maxwell Hall
Syracuse, New York 13244

Halloween 2006, Part II

Thank you for your wonderful comments on the first part of this story, and after a bit of encouragement, here is the rest of the story (my apologies, for taking so long, as that was not my intent).


I left my bedroom feeling as though I was way above Cloud Nine, and the tell-tale sound of my two-inch heels clicking and clacking on the floor were giving me tiny little thrills about the decision I had finally made to actually let Arianwen experience life in the physical world.  While I would have preferred to have a wig with red hair, that was the only negative thought going through my head during this two second passage out of the bedroom and towards the dining room/kitchen area.  My son and step-daughter were having breakfast in the dining area and were very vocal about the unpleasant surprise I gave them walking into the room dressed up as Arianwen. I knew that they were not reacting to my amateur application of makeup, and their reaction was foreshadowing of Arianwen's future.

Being the affable person I normally am, as well as feeling an exhilaration in how I was dressed for the day, I jokingly referred to my "costume" as a one-time thing and that as a Halloween costume it turned out to be scary for the kids.  Although I usually dropped the kids off at school in the morning, I had made arrangements with my spouse, W, to take care of this, so I bade everyone in the house a good day and proceeded to my car.  As I was walking down the driveway (again, with the wonderful click-clack sounds trailing behind me to remind me that I was not wearing M's usual clothing), I took those few seconds to worry about what might happen if I was stopped along the way to work.  The optimist in me refused to believe that this would happen on this day, and I stuck the key in the ignition and moved on to the next part of my day.

The thirty-minute drive in to work was uneventful, and I really have little memory of any specifics during this time.  For all I know, everyone who passed me by on the highway just saw a dark-haired woman driving along with them on the road.  The place I worked at this time was only a few seconds off the highway interchange, so when I entered the off-ramp, I took those few seconds to prepare myself mentally for that day's adventure.  I was definitely in "I Don't Care" mode as I exited my car, put my "purse" on my shoulder, and strode towards the office complex.

Fortune was on my side this morning, as I was able to walk straight to my office cube without anyone noticing how I was dressed.  After firing up the computer at my station, I discovered an e-mail from our HR director which outlined the official events for Halloween -- there would be lunch provided for all staff, where costume awards would be awarded for best overall costume, best women's costume, best men's costume, scariest costume, and best original costume.  A few co-workers walked past my cube and passed on their distracted, "Good Morning" statemet without noticing anything out of the ordinary and I just sat there for the few seconds it took for it to register with those who had just passed by.  It was almost comical as one of those who had just passed by stopped in her tracks as though she had just run in to a brick wall, and called out, "oh my God!"

I then proceeded to have the first of about twenty variations of the same conversation -- where did you get that dress/outfit; you're pretty brave for dressing as a woman; are you wearing panties underneath -- and these serial conversations seemed to be all that I did that morning.  Each of these coversations did nothing to discourage Arianwen from getting out in to the physical world some time in the future, and I was just filled with an overwhelming sense of satisfaction.  Before I knew it, the announcement was made that lunch was ready and everyone was to assemble in the conference room where the buffet was set up.  The HR director was taking individual photos of everyone who had participated in the costume event, and then a couple of group photos prior to releasing us to get some lunch.

About twenty minutes later, the HR director came into the conference room and announced the prizes to be awarded needed to be altered drastically in order to make it fair for all -- it turned out that one person had ended up being voted as first in all categories, so a few honorable mention prizes were awarded.  When the actual results were reported, the winner in a landslide in all categories ended up being... me!  Being able to be Arianwen in public was thrilling enough for me, and this "award" just made it even better.  What a day this had been, and I didn't want it to end!

Halloween 2006, Part 1

The place where I now work has way too many people, so I could never entertain the thought of going to work as Arianwen on Halloween; however back in 2006, I was working in a small office (only about 30 people) and the company for whom I worked at that time had announced that there would be a contest and lunch provided for those who chose to "dress up" that year.

I hemmed and hawed about participating almost up to the last minute.  I had a few wardrobe choices, but I didn't think I could work up the nerve to go to work dressed up as a woman.  Several nights prior, I talked briefly with my wife about doing this and received her blessing, if not approval.  Later that day, I started to talk myself out of going through with the plan, because I didn't have exactly the right something or other.  On the drive home from work that night before Halloween, I had just about talked myself out of dressing up the next day.

Just after my son had gone to sleep that evening, W (my wife) had inquired if I was going to or not.  Just as the word "no" was about to slip from my mouth, I instead said something to the fact that I would if I could find a wig at the local drug store.  While I was searching for a decent (meaning less than $10) redhead wig, I was mentally preparing for what else I might need for the next day.

I had decided on a long red dress with three-quarter sleeves and a high neckline.  A black bra and nearly matching panties underneath, with black pantyhose (I didn't have suspenders/garter belts at this time, unfortunately) and a long black nylon slip underneath the dress.  I didn't even bat an eye as I picked out some red nail polish and lipstick at the store, but had to settle for a black witches wig.

When I got these few things home, I then started to resent the fact that one of our cats had managed to puncture the blue gel (the stuff that helps keep your stuff cool in the lunchbox) filled balloons I had been using as breastforms up until several weeks before this time.  I quickly discovered that I still had a few of the pinkish colored balloons in a drawer and decided to fill them with water, as I didn't have enough time to find enough replacement blue gel.  After filling the balloons and leaving them on a towel near the bathroom sink, I determined that I was prepared to face the next day as I had hoped to do for many years -- dressed as the woman I felt inside.

I awoke the next morning, well before my alarm would normally would have gone off, and shaved off the goatee I had been sporting for about a year beforehand.  Then, I attacked the hairs on my legs which I had allowed to grow back in from the last defoliation event several weeks prior.  After cleaning up the sink and tub where these two shaving events took place, I took a quick shower using my wife's soap, shampoo and conditioner.  Knowing that W would be needing the bathroom shortly afterwards, I wrapped the towel around myself (girlie style, of course), grabbed the two water-filled balloons, and quickly moved off into the bedroom where everything I needed was either laid out on the bed before I took the shower, or stashed in the closet.

After inspecting the room to ensure that neither of the cats could sneak up and ruin things today, I closed the bedroom door, dropped the towel on the floor, and pulled up the black nylon panties into place.  Next came the black nylon pantyhose, which successfully did their job of bringing about that little thrill that comes with running nylon over recently smooth skin.  After quickly putting on the black bra -- of course, by hooking everything up in front of me and then carefully twisting everything around 180 degrees into place, just like I had seen W do hundreds of times -- with great anticipation I placed the rather cold artificial breasts into the bra cups and had them produce a double shiver within me.  The first shiver, of course, from the temperature of the water inside the balloons, but the second one was the unanticipated excitement from filling out the bra cups completely (and thinking about how nice it would have been to be real at that moment).  Rounding out the "buzz" factor was slowly pulling the black nylon full-length slip over everything else and enjoying the few seconds where the bottom of the slip caressed my nylon-encased legs.  I then placed the red dress above me and slowly work it down, making sure that everything settled correctly into place.

At this point in time, I was very grateful that it was the end of October and not the middle of summer, as I was feeling quite warm at this point and needed a few minutes to cool down.  I picked the towel up off the floor, pulled the only pair of women's shoes I had out of the closet and sat down on the bed for a few minutes, dabbing the small beads of sweat from my forehead with the towel until I felt cooled down enough to continue.  From the closet, again, I pulled out the lipstick and nail polish from the plastic bag holding the goods from my adventure the night before, carefully attached the plain fake nails I found in W's makeup collection, and proceeded to apply the nail color to each nail (since this time, I have grown rather fond of the cool feeling of the nail varnish being applied to the fingernail).  While I was waiting for the nail polish to fully dry, I say the error in my ways, as I still had liquid foundation, mascara, and eye shadow to apply, which I had never done before with false nails.  I did manage to do rather well with the foundation, making sure to get up to the hairline and down to the neckline, and rubbed the slight excess off on the back of my hands.  The mascara was a bit more of a challenge, and I took a lot of time to apply it, especially since I had not used it in a very long time prior to this morning.  By the time it came to the eye shadow, I was running out of time and patience and didn't really try to do a perfect job -- my post-rationalization was that I needed to look like this was the first time wearing women's clothes and makeup.  After cooling off again for a few minutes, I sprayed some of W's perfume (Chanel #5) on me, put on my two-inch heeled shoes, placed the new wig on my head, stuffed a few necessities into an old black computer bag with a long shoulder strap (as near a purse as I had at the time), and slowly walked out of the bedroom to face my family.

To be continued, in Part 2.

What am I?

I woke up early this morning, on a weekday where I didn't have to go in to work... so much for lying in!  When my body wakes me up in the morning (usually a bit before the alarm is set to go off), it is usually running through some thoughts (some trivial, some not-so) and today was no different.  Today's thoughts were a bit deeper than usual -- and is reflected in this post's title -- what am I?

The nice thing about categories is that they provide nice and neat little pigeon-holes in which to compartmentalise things.  The bad part about categories is that that they provide nice and neat little pigeon-holes in which to compartmentalise things, especially in my case.  I have never been one to fit nicely in any single "box" and here is no different.  Before I get to the categories, though, I need to stress that this is an exercise in the gender expression dimension, which is nearly always independent of sexual identity.

Am I Male?  While this is the gender I was assigned on my birth certificate, this box is too constricting to allow for the existence of my Arianwen persona.  While Arianwen is mostly an electronic artrifice, she will not always constricted to this realm.  While I do enjoy most of the perquisites of being born and raised as a male, there are parts of being part of this club, especially in the area of socialisation, which can and should be drastically changed: men don't cry in public; aggressive behavior is the norm/expected; etc.

Am I Female?  While this gender marker is not written on my birth certificate, it is the wall between the male/female divide which I find too constricting.  While there are times I would like to wear a dress in public, put on makeup, and even bring forth a living being from within my womb (not so much anymore, as I am getting too old for that now), I am resigned to the fact that this is a path denied to me by being born male.  While there are times which I wish I had been born female, there are a lot others where I am happy not to have been.

Am I a Cross-Dresser? For this discussion here, I am going to define a cross-dresser as someone who wears the clothing opposite of their birth gender (forcing this to be a bi-polar, either/or situation), irrespective of motivation. While I do have a collection of both men's and women's clothing, and I do put on the women's clothing only on an occasional basis, clothing is but a single dimension/layer to what Arianwen is; in other words, wearing women's clothing is not a terminal destination in Arianwen's expression, but (pardon the slight pun here) is only the outward and superficial layer of who she/I is/am.  This single category is too limiting as to how I define myself to myself, and am trying to share with others via these blog posts.

Am I Transsexual?  I am defining Transsexual as a person whose terminal goal is to alter their physical appearance so that it is superficially reflecting the genitalia opposite of their birth gender.  Most of the experiences I have read over time for those who have chosen this route (almost exclusively MtF, not FtM) have expressed a deep dissatisfaction and/or hatred of their genitalia and feel a strong need to remove them.  While I have never felt that my male genitalia were hated and/or wrong for me, I frequently have the feeling that something is missing.  One of the problems with this term is the inference that there is a desired "switch" from one form to the other, and this dichotomy is part of the problem -- either/or is not my situation, but it is more along the lines of both.

Am I Transgendered?  While this category may be the closest fit, when the term is broken down into its constituent parts, the "trans" part indicates a change or switch from one state to another.  Furthermore, the societal inference in the use of this term indicates a high degree of permanence.  My internal gender is not one where I feel that I am stuck on one side and yearn to being on the other side forever.  Once again, the problem here is once again the either/or scenario, so this term does not work for me either.

What am I, then?  I am all of the above collectively and none of them exclusively.  While I did come across an article using the term Polygendered, I didn't feel that this was close enough to how I feel.  For lack of a more commonly used term, I will settle on the term, "Omnigendered."  My use of this term is a rejection of the bi-polar dichotomy in the terms prevalent today without disparaging those who closely hold to any of those terms for themselves.

The best of times

Dressing up as Arianwen (I wasn't using a female name at this time) in private, was starting to be something I would do on a regular basis.  Since I couldn't always indulge in the full experience, what I would normally do would be to wear a pair of panties and sometimes even pantyhose under my male clothing (even though I would have preferred to be using a garter belt and stockings).  There was safety from discovery here, for me, since I was working for smaller organizations, with bathroom accommodations which were private, so no fear of anyone seeing the female clothing from under the privacy partitions.

If I am being totally honest, here, there were two competing feelings going through me when I first started: one was a sort of comfort or rightness in wearing the articles of female clothing I had on at the time (whether it was just underthings truly under things or as close to a full outfit as I could piece together at the time); the other was a sexual thrill, which would sometimes elicit a bashful or shameful response afterwards.  Over time, though, the former became much more prevalent (which is still the case today).

As I was becoming more familiar with this aspect of my life, I started dating a woman with whom I felt a very strong bond.  We initially connected via an on-line matching website, and quickly moved our communications off the site and directly through our respective e-mail accounts.  After a short while, the relationship added the physical dimension to the electronic, and then not too much time after that, we added the co-habitative dimension.  In short, we met on-line, learned to like one another, and then I moved in with her.

Before I had the advantage of gaining advice from others similar to me on the internet, I was forced to confront the first hurdle in a relationship with a special person like myself -- how/when to introduce the fact that I have a certain "hobby" which does no one any harm, but is disdained and/or shunned by western society.  In my case, this other person (who is now my wife) and I were on parallel thinking paths.  I knew that my "hobby" would potentially cause some problems and would need to be brought up before things got much further with her, and she had a minor suspicion that I was keeping something from her.

I had a feeling (dare I call it female intuition?) that this initial hurdle would be encountered not too long after I moved in with "W" (for wife), so I bagged up my meager collection of women's clothing and stashed them in the trunk/boot of my car.  Several days after doing this, on a Friday when we had her home to ourselves, W asked me if there was something I needed to tell her, as she had a feeling that I was hiding something from her. Since honesty and trust (which are important in any long-term relationship) were extremely hot-button issues for her, almost without thinking I calmly mentioned that I had a "hobby" of wearing women's clothes.  While I didn't know what to expect when envisioning this conversation, nowhere in my imaginings did I foresee the possibility of her response -- she said something to the effect of, "is that all?  I thought that you were seeing someone else on the side."

I assured her that it was only my "hobby" I was keeping secret from her, and to prove it to her, I went out to my car and retrieved the clothing I had placed there.  Now that I am recounting this event, I am very happy to report (for myself, that is) that there is no photographic evidence of this introduction of Arianwen to W, as it would have made quite an awful sight.  The bra I was wearing was way too big in the cup size, and stuffing a few pairs of panties and hose into the cups did not make for a smooth appearance in the bust area.  While the matching panty did fit, the black pantyhose on top of them along with the "silk" pajamas on top of the underthings didn't make a very good ensemble.

Fortunately, over time, W came to accept Arianwen into her life as a somewhat separate entity, and I was able to build a much more respectable collection of clothing.

A little bit closer to the present

A quick recap of my early days can be found here, while this post has what I had to say about some of my teenage years' experiences.  Most of my experience during my under-20 years involved a bit of confusion along with trying to overcome the socially ingrained homophobia to which I was exposed regularly.  Infrequently, during this time, I would reflect upon girls/women I would encounter and wish I was not only dressed like them, but also was them.  However, my testosterone poisoning during this time tended to twist these feelings around towards more of the socially "normal" lust.  It was never that simple back then, and it is even less simple now.

Since I was either living at home or living in a college setting (dorm/frat house), I never tried to accumulate any form of female wardrobe, mostly in fear of being found out, but also from not being able to find items which would fit my large frame (this was well before the advent of the internet, as well as the BBW retail stores like Avenue and Lane Bryant).  I would often review what other women were wearing and frequently had to squelch the urge to ask where some appealing article of clothing had been purchased.  While Arianwen's taste in clothing grew from whatever was available towards more traditional female garb like slips, stockings and skirts, her tastes as well as her experiences stayed exclusively in the male body's imagination.

From an experiential standpoint, there isn't much of my gender-variant side to explore here, as the next 20 years or so beyond my high school days, there was always one reason or another not to allow Arianwen to be present in the physical world -- living arrangements, financial insecurity, lack of access to suitable clothing, and (probably foremost on this list) fear of discovery.  However, that would change a bit in my mid-thirties, when the long-term, loving relationship in which I was in at this time, suddenly and inexplicably went awry -- after living together with "Liz" (not her real name) for nearly two years, she asked me to move out temporarily, due to problems she was having with her ex-husband.  For several months, I would expend a lot of time and energy to try and keep our relationship alive while being separated, but one evening I had become so frustrated that I didn't know what to do.

I was driving around aimlessly for a while when I came across a discount department store which was having a chain-wide "Going Out of Business" sale.  I don't really know why I stopped, but I did and wandered around the mostly empty store -- empty of shoppers, that is.  The reason for the emptiness probably had more to do with the fact that it was well after 10pm than anything else.  After about fifteen minutes in the store, I found myself in the Plus Size section of this store.  I found a dark blue satin bra, matching panties (both from Vassarette), and a satin pajama set and took them to the checkout counter.  The entire time I was waiting for the cashier to ring up my purchases, the only thing I kept thinking was, 'I hope that I grabbed the right sizes.'  It wasn't until I was half-way home before I realized that I should have been afraid of being a man buying womens' clothing.  Fortunately, everything that I purchased fit and I wore all of them to bed that night and enjoyed waking up with them still on.

Over the next few months from this time, I was able to try picking up a few more things for Arianwen.  Oddly enough, the fear of being "male while buying female articles of clothing" became stronger with each successive attempt -- when I started trotting out the, "I'm getting this for my girlfriend" line (at a Victoria's Secret store, nonetheless), I knew that I was in trouble.

A little bit further from the past

In my previous post, I explored a few of the formative events in my early life which put me on the path to where Arianwen is now, which I hope you have read before getting to this part.  Please remember when reading through these historical reflections that my physical form is very large, and not one which would ever be confused with being female.

I have always been someone who needs only a little amount of sleep, so in my earlier years, I often found myself not only being the first one up in the morning, but almost always the last one asleep at night.  I also had the fortune of having family members who were not light sleepers, so if I was moving from room to room in my home late at night, I only needed to be moderately quiet.  As with most histories I have perused, I am not sure exactly when or why I started on the path I find myself now, but at about age ten while I was having one of these late nights alone in the waking world, I came across my mom's clean laundry in the basement.  On or near the top of the pile of clean clothes was an all-in-one undergarment that was calling out to me to try on.  With only a small modicum of hesitation, I removed all of my male garments (including underwear) and stepped into the top of the all-in-one.  I carefully pulled the garment up my torso, while only slightly struggling to get the straps at the top over my shoulders.  When I was finished getting myself into the all-in-one, there was a feeling of rightness and completeness which came with this initial foray into transvestism.  I then tried on her nurse's uniform over this (back before they allowed the use of scrubs as a nurse's uniform), but since I couldn't get the front zipper all the way closed and the uncomfortable feel of the the fabric of the uniform, I reverted to wearing the all-in-one and padded around the basement for a few minutes enraptured in this experience.

Periodically after that initial time, I would troll through the laundry area here trying on anything which looked remotely interesting.  Most of the time, though, the items of interest would turn out to be too small for my frame, and I would have to just be satisfied with the mental exercise of wearing the selected garment.  Over time, as my frustration grew with not finding anything which would fit, I would start to go through a bin of items we called the "rag bin."  In this bin, I eventually found a pair of pantyhose (with a large run up one of the legs) which I not only successfully tried on, but also smuggled back up to my underwear drawer for future use.

As I gained a few years from this point, my forays into both the "rag bag" as well as into clothes given to our family from different friends of my parents, I accumulated almost enough for a full outfit -- a pair of pink cotton panties, moderately laddered pantyhose, a white all-in-one with a broken crotch panel, and a short ruched peasant blouse/dress -- except for the shoes.  One evening, when I was about fourteen, I was feeling adventurous enough to put all of these articles of clothing on, experiment with some makeup I found in the bathroom (mascara, lipstick, and green eyeshadow), and venture outside for a walk around the block.  Since this took place around midnight, I wasn't expecting to run into anyone from the neighborhood, but if I did I would have made quite an ugly sight -- an outfit which did not look well put together, along with my (male) suede shoes, and probably the worst makeup job known to man or woman.  Fortunately, I did not encounter anyone on my walk, and I was both highly thrilled and extremely nervous about being out in public dressed as I was.  This was the only time I ever went out in public like this, although "ensemble" was used quite often in private (mostly because they were the only women's clothes to which I had access).

How did I get here?

The main reason why I decided to start this blog was to publicly explore the events in my life which have lead up to my participation in what I call my "hobby."  Most of the "good" blogs I've read over the years have included a good but high-level description of major events in the authors' lives.  Since imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, I will attempt to imitate the form, if not the content, of those "good" blogs.

Early Years

I ended up being the eldest and only son produced from the union of my parents, who remained a loving couple until the death of my father (from cancer) when I was 21.  My father and I were the only males in the household, while I had five younger sisters, my mother and her mother, filling out the roster on the female side of the ledger.  The house in which I was raised was the same one in which my mother had lived as a child -- that home has only known our family since it was built just prior to World War II.  This house was in a very blue-collar community just outside the city of Chicago, and our family was similar in size to those in our neighborhood; in that others around us also had around 4-6 kids in a typical "nuclear" family.  While we didn't have a lot of money while growing up, we at least had a wealth of friends and family nearby.

I experienced what, on the face of things, was a normal male upbringing -- pick-up baseball/softball games throughout the spring and summer, pick-up football games during the fall and winter, with cars and trucks to play with during the time inside.  Riding bikes with friends and assisting my father in the multiple and myriad household repairs/improvements rounded out where most of my time as a youth was spent.  Sports was a major form of recreation most of the time, and I was one of the best players in the neighborhood.  One of the other better athletes in the neighborhood was the girl across the street (whom I will call "Anne" but was not her real name), who I had originally befriended at school several years prior to her family moving there.

While I believe that being raised with nearly only females in the house (even the pets) explains my deeply-ingrained respect for women in general, I feel that my friendship with "Anne" was the beginning of the emergence of Arianwen.  "Anne" and I would spend Saturday afternoons together watching her younger siblings while her parents were out for the afternoon (work, errands, etc.).  Every once in a while, there would be short periods of time where we would be at her home while everyone else was away, and it was at these points in time where we explored another dimension of our friendship (only in a very PG-13 kind of way).  Multiple times when we were leaving her house, we would have to check to make sure that none of her other girl friends would see us together (the time frame here is roughly 10 years-old).  More than once, "Anne" would comment along the lines that, "we wouldn't have to sneak out like this if you were a girl."

Several years afterwards, another formative event in Arianwen's development was a typical event in a teenage boys life.  During an unstructured gym class period, I was whispered in by one of my classmates to the boys' locker room to check out something, "you have to see."  The spectacle in question was a skin magazine someone had smuggled in, and prominently displayed in this magazine were nude pictures of a woman who had the external genitalia of both male and female.  This event was probably the first of countless others since then where my internal response was atypical from the male stereotype -- while most of the other boys who viewed those pictures thought about mating with her, I was thinking more along the lines of being like her.  Even to this day, I will often see a good-looking woman and want to "be" her more than "do" her.