Confidence in passing and in myself and my sexuality challenged a bit recently

     Okay so I just got back from the grocery store and the checkout girl kept referring to me as he. I had to look in the mirror when I got home. I'm sorry after nearly sixteen months on hormones and a rather androgynous body to begin with I don't think I look like a man, but I've been getting a bunch of this over the past week or so. I started "passing" several months before I started hormones I wonder why all of a sudden I'm getting this.
       So I've had quite a blow to my confidence over the past week or so, but I'm not going to let it get to me. I do pass.
      Anyway so much of my identity is wrapped up in my being female that when I feel like I'm losing that or don't have that I kind of lose my sense of self. I spent most of my life as a guy not really sure who I was, or defining myself by things I did or places I lived. I was never "Nathan," I was "Nathan who lived in Richmond," or "Nathan the cook," or "Nathan the manager," etc. I think some of my blog entry just kind of questioning my sexual identity is some sort of reaction to this being "read" as male over the past week or so.
     One thing about being transsexual is that as a teen I didn't get to go through that process of self discovery that most teens do. As a teen everything I wore, or did, or liked, or disliked was mostly based on what I thought was acceptable for the type of man I wanted to be perceived as. So I really didn't get to explore that much about myself.
     One of the first things I noticed about myself as a woman is that I like all the same colors and things that I liked as a little kid. Also I started to see the adult version of who I saw in the mirror as a child. Some of these things I think people take for granted. When other people don't "see" my truth, it makes me doubt my truth a little. When I start to doubt my truth, my femaleness I start to lose myself. I wonder whether this is a self-perpetuating cycle. I was called "he" last week at work,  so I doubt myself just a little, that shows and someone else calls me "he" and I doubt myself a little more etc.
     What I need is to somehow get past being "read" as a man by these few people, because deep down I really do know that I am female, and there are certainly cis-gendered women physically very similar to me. The only reason they don't get "read" as male is because they know they won't be.
      Anyway with kind of all this doubt in my mind it isn't that surprising that I would doubt my sexuality even a bit. I mean, maybe I am a bit more bisexual than my practices, and maybe after my operation I will enjoy sex with a man. I don't know, I don't think I've ever known, but I think that "normal" life of being part of a "straight" couple was never really anything I could have had. I guess maybe that normality is more attractive to me right now having been called "he" so much recently.
       One thing I realized last night being surrounded by all these really attractive young lesbians, and some decent looking men, is that it's more about wanting to be perceived as normal that makes sexual activity with a man seem attractive. Allowing myself to think of the reality of that experience is basically the same as it has ever been...I don't think I would enjoy the reality.
      So I guess I'm back where I started. Anyway I really hope I get through this "he, him, his" thing really soon. I have a positive attitude about it. One thing metaphysical my therapist said was "when you tell the universe you want something, the universe sends out a bunch of challenges. Once you get through them you get through them and you never have to deal with them again."
       I think that it really was only recently that I have come to realize that though I don't want to "go stealth" I don't want people to think of me as transgendered. I'm not transgendered. I want people to think of me as just another woman, and I don't want my trans experience to hinder that. I want people to know about my trans experience and know that I was always female and that I always will be and that that is what being a transsexual is all about. So I think that having realized that and having stated that the universe is like "you think you can be thought of as a woman all the time by everyone? Lets see if you really believe it. Here's some challenges to that."
      Anyway I'm cooking ham and scalloped pineapple for dinner.