Well! Congrats at figuring that out! Do you feel your gender ID and body dysphoria have anything to do with the ED issues, or do you mean to start an entirely different topic?
The former? I could probably fill a book on the other topic, but it seems like there's a better spot for the tachycardia show starring tachycardia. I'm probably going to be hanging at
Susan's more than here for a while. Maybe I'll end up back on these boards in the event I decide to transition and want a shot at being in one of the rare marriages that survives the change.
My gender identity is definitely related to the ED. For the most part, I enjoy "vanilla" sex only when I'm focused on pleasing my partner. I don't really like my body being touched. I kind of cringe at it, freeze, and try to hide it. If I'm getting head from my wife, I'm usually projecting myself into her and imagining what it would be like to be her sucking my dick (cf.
autogynephilia.) I gather this doesn't work with a new partner since I don't know them well enough. Also, I just have a general dislike for myself, and feel like there's something wrong with me, and like it's going to be found out, and I'll be crushed. Obviously it's difficult to relax and get into it under those circumstances.
However, I'm only aware of my transgender identity at an intellectual level at this point, as the psychological defenses of my "false self" have an epic stranglehold on my emotions. Really feeling my cross-gender identity has occured only in momentary flashes, as though I had peeked my head out of Plato's cave for the first time and retreated to the shadows after being blinded by the sun. So far, I've been clinging to the possibility that I'm not fully transgender, but rather genderqueer, agender, bi-gender, or anti-gender and that the only reason I would consider transition is because being gender non-conforming with a male body is so stigmatized. But those euphoric flashes are associated entirely with the concept of "girl." Just typing that feels good. Girl girl girl girl girl. So, I'm hoping saying "I'M TRANS!" a few times will loosen my stranglehold on my emotions. This thread seemed like as good a place as any to start.