I do know that when I was 10 I went on a school trip, about a week, to the Isle of Wight. Taken away from the safe haven of solitude I could enjoy as a child at home this period away proved to be a total nightmare. no particular incident, just a pervasive, 24 hour a day feeling of not belonging. So strong was the imprint this left on my mind that even today I remain mentally scarred from it, stopping overnight or even for a few `days with other blokes on a "jolly" or corporate event etc. would fill me with dread.
Many people think of Gender Dysphoria as a desperate need to be one of the opposite physical sex. Not necessarily so, in fact its quite rare in childhood for those feelings to be apparent. I have no recollections of ever wanting to be a girl, although as psychologists point out in my upbringing as a child my mind would of supressed such socially obnoxious feelings. It was not wanting to be a girl that screwed me up, it was not wanting to be a boy, or in particular being unable to follow the stereotypical role model of a boy, that screwed me up.
I was a loner at school as long as I can remember. Not unpopular, ironically I was good at team sports and had a competitive agression but I preferred the solitude of my own company where I could fantasise, write silly stories, dream away and talk to God with childlike simplicity. I often envied girls with their wendy houses, their toys they could talk to, there ability to show tears of compassion. I couldn't even watch an episode of lassie without bursting into tears but that would only bring stern rebuke from a Father who wanted a boy's boy to grow into a Man's man. I loved cooking, not something exactly encouraged in a boy then, I loved to walk and travel but encouragement was always to go and mix with the gang of boys on the street corner, a scenario that would fill me with horror.
Just before my 11 plus I started to have very disturbing dreams. They revolved around a school or family scene, everyone being sent off into groups, except me. I was isolated, didn't belong, was improperly prepared and ignored. These dreams would leave me shaken and disturbed for the whole day, so distracted my school classwork would suffer and I would be frequently rebuked for inattentiveness. sometimes the dreams did end happily, I was accepted, placed in a group and was laughing, only in these dreams I was a girl and always that girls name was Jennifer, where my name today came from. Of course I could not tell anyone I dreamed I was a girl, that would bring scorn and derision from all sides.
By the time of my secondary school my inattentiveness and increasing solitary isolation was causing behavioural problems and a few months before my 13th birthday I was placed under psychological supervision for a while in a childrens home. A condition of my release from there was that I would attend a child psychology clinic, which I did for three years, the Portman clinic, ironically the same clinic that 40 years later would treat me for PTSD and identify Gender Dysphoria but back in those days I was just labelled "as deeply psychologically disturbed, no apparent reason".
By the time of my last years in school I was being torn apart by conflicting emotions. One was my inability to associate, I hated being in groups of boys even though I was popular amongst them, I could not under any circumstances be seen with girls as the scorn and derision would of been unbearable and I had a burning need to prove myself a boy amongst boys, to prove my masculinity. At this time, aged 14, I attempted suicide, incredibly surviving a massive overdose of aspirin, caused by a sheer inability to feel "connected" to anyone.
One thing was to come along to help e through this most desperate period of my life. When I was 13 I found the activity that was to save my mind, or at least help me remain balanced. I loved exploring, travelling, would spend hours on my own going on bus rides, exploring the London tube system, walking for hours. On one of my explorations I came across Harrisons rocks, a low sandstone outcrop near Tonbridge wells used as a rock climbers playground. I had found the sport that would solve all my problems. It was most definitely macho, away from people much of the time, no need to associate in large groups, one or two friends at a time max, and and opportunity to indulge something that was to develop as the main characteristic to repress gender dysphoria for much of my adult life, the ability to channel my competitive aggressivess into driven manic, activity.
By the time it came to leave school at the age of 16 I was well on my way to becoming one of the country's top rock climbers and well on my way to developing the mental characteristics that would keep Gender Dysphoria firmly buried in my subconsciousness.
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