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Help! - I have no idea whether I'm Transgender!

Discussion in 'Gender Identity and Expression' started by Emma_K, Dec 13, 2013.

  1. Emma_K

    Regular Member

    Joined:
    Dec 12, 2013
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    Location:
    Southern California
    Gender:
    Female (trans*)
    Out Status:
    Out to everyone
    I am a 17 year old biological male, and after years of introspection, I am utterly clueless as to whether I am transgender, agender, or some other permutation/combination. So first, some background: I am an avid gamer, I enjoy reading, researching science-y stuff, and school, really just anything that I can become immersed enough to escape reality.
    Now, a list of personal traits and more background stuff
    I will probably go into engineering,
    I am a Junior in highschool,
    I had childhood A.D.D. (which my mom denied that I had),
    I have Asperers (which is essentially high functioning autism, meaning that there is no hit to intelligence, maybe even a benefit, but most importantly a lack of social skills, such as the understanding of social boundaries, or peer to peer interaction).
    I am a child of divorcing parents,
    I was heavily bullied and alienated as a child (something I will touch on more below)
    Perhaps most importantly, I have been dealing with cancer since right after I turned 13.

    Because of my experience with bone cancer, the most relevant side affect is that because of the nature of the chemotherapy, I am experiencing a delayed puberty, and I will probably never achieve a full male puberty. So essentially I have been on somewhat less effective hormone blockers for the last few years. The other main side effect of cancer is that I have grown to be emotionally numb as a result of being bullied and alienated to being verbally abused by my mom to dealing with the prospect of being dead within 3 months.

    However, with the completion of the super harsh hormone inhibiting chemo, my puberty has resumed, and this has created a problem of time.

    Something important to note is that as a result of the treatment for cancer, my memory of my childhood is anything but vivid, and I can't remember specific's of events from further back.

    I never felt strongly male, but when I was younger I didn't have much of a concept of gender. I only had access to male toys because I grew up in an athletic household, my brother, my dad and my mom and I, so there was very little estrogen in this house. I was never really exposed to the female side of life until kindergarten. With my parents being athletes, I had less access to technology than I otherwise would have (didn't have access to a computes until I was 8), and athletic families with girls for me to interact with were few and far between. As a child, I was very socially awkward. I failed to develop friendships with anybody at school. I was different, I had a better understanding of reality than most, and I had a very strong sense of social justice, making me kind of hard to get to know seeing as I was always "right" even when I wasn't. At this age, I didn't have any transgender thoughts or feelings (that I can remember), and was content with being male. As kindergarten progressed, my problems grew, leading to me feeling completely alone in the world, with nobody understanding me. I had (and still have) both male and female friends. My first girly experience (that I can remember) happened when I was 8. I went on a playdate at my friends Melissa's house, and the babysitter offered to paint our nails. I remember getting my nails painted, and I can still remember thinking "I'll just go with the sparkly blue color (rather than pink or purple), as it is a boy's color", thinking that it would be more easily accepted than pink. Even at that age, I had a decent idea of gender boundaries and crossing them was unthinkable as the prospect of any further bullying/alienation was utterly terrifying. So I had my nails painted a light glittery blue. Upon returning home, my mom freaked out. She sent my dad to the drug store to get nail polish remover, and took it off immediately. At this time in my life, I was so beat down by bulling at school, and passive aggression from my mom, I denied myself any further pursuit of this anything to do with this "nail polish experience" as by my 8-year-old logic, it would only lead to bad things.

    When I was 10-11, I stared going through prepubescent changes, and I grew more and more unsure as to who or what I was. That summer, an interest in girls' clothing grew, I was wondered what it would be like to be a girl, which turned into an ever increasing desire. 6th grade was better to me than elementary school had been, although I had been put into speacial ed classes, as a result of my mom's ignorance and that I had given up with school by the 4th grade(for reference, I am now in AP/Honors). So I felt even more alienated from my friends, who were all in honors classes, and at this point I closed myself of from the world, keeping any and all true emotions and thoughts hidden away. Near the end of 6th grade, my best friend at the time, who was gay and in the closet, started coming down on me at night when we were at sleepovers. This made me even more confused as I now seriously though I may be gay (not understanding that things are not so black and white). Also it may be noted that I reached the peak of my depression when I was about twelve, and had a very warped view of reality. I felt so alone in the world, and because I could never understand why people thought/did the things that they did, I never thought that in a million years they would even understand what I was feeling much less accept it. I turned 12 the summer after 6th grade, and at this point I would go to bed and hope that I would wake up a girl, or rather, have some complex series of events happen in which I would end up a girl. I understood the idea of transition, but I was absolutely terrified of it. During the 7th grade I reached rock bottom and planned suicide twice, at one point i even brought a rope to school. It should be noted that my suicidal thoughts were probably mostly from being bullied at school, and then my personal identity crisis being a secondary contributor, with my mom's passive aggressive verbal abuse coming in last. However, it is all relative to each other, and it is unknown as to whether I would have been at this point without being bullied/alienated at school.

    3 weeks after my birthday, I was diagnosed with cancer. I keep remembering back to when I was in a room with a nurse, and she was asking me personal background questions and I came so close to breaking down and telling her I wanted to be a girl, and i needed help figuring this all out, but I didn't; possibly because I was so numb at this point, life just felt surreal. Another thing is that I kept seeing thing about how much harder it would be to transition as I got older, and I thought that being 13 and a half, it was already too late. From July 2009 to May 2010, I went through chemotherapy, and during this time, there was a massive outpouring of support from the community. This was an amazing relief, to not feel alone to know that there are caring people in the world, but then again it was terrifying as I feared that if I came out, that If I was to transition, that I would face the judgment of not just my peers and my family, but from EVERYBODY. Additionally, during chemo, I became a bit more satisfied with myself. With no hair, both boys and girls with cancer look the same. Around June of 2010 I was almost fully recovered from all non-permanent side effects, and given the increase in hormones I realized that as my sex drive increased, there would be occasions when masturbation felt wrong, when I wished I had a vagina. Also around that time, I felt started to pee sitting down, and I wanted to feel feminine. Unfortunately, in September of 2010 my bone cancer came back, meaning another 9 months of puking my brains out among other less than pleasant side effects. Needless to say, I was very emotionally empty during this time. I finished Chemo/Radiation in May of 2011, and my life was effectively unpaused. 10th grade began, and for the first time, I felt accepted by my peers. By the end of the year, I felt comfortable enough to wear nail polish to school. I dressed up in my mom's very few skirts and dresses when I could, but it was very rare for me to be alone for more than a few hours, but i relished every opportunity that I got. In August of 2012, I had a second recurrence of cancer, and being that my prognosis was 50/50 I fell into a deep depression. At this point my dad had burned up every bit of vacation/sick leave that he could get, and I was forced to have to have my mom accompany me to Houston, where I received a relatively new treatment. Having to rely on my mom was hell, and she by the end of the treatment my self-confidence and self acceptance was nearly gone. Then in march of 2013, my younger brother (2 years younger, your typical jock, super athletic and very social) found my secret wardrobe of some of my mom's old clothes that she thought that she had donated to goodwill (only consisted of a 3 bras, a camisole, blouse, and somewhat short shorts) but they were MY clothes. . He confronted me about this, and I thought I was going to die. While he didn't get physical, his reaction was not exactly welcoming, and later I found that he had thrown it out and he tried to blackmail me a couple times after he found it.

    I am utterly terrified of rejection, failure, and of others Transphobia. As for the Transphobia, whether this is a manifestation of a fear of change within myself, I am unsure, but regardless, I'm really freaked out by the prospect of rejection. with this being said, I do live in a rather forward thinking area, (2 of my classmates are openly gay, and nobody treats them differently, so in a way my fears are unfounded, then again, transitioning is a different concept for people to understand than being gay.

    What I am having the most trouble with is that after all that I have been through, I am pretty emotionally numb and for the last year and a half or so I have felt an emotional disconnect with the world around me, life just feels surreal almost like a vivid dream, and I have so sense of self, no Identity to speak of, sure I can whip up a list of traits that define my actions, but I don't FEEL... right. Whenever I think of myself I naturally gravitate to 3rd person, almost as if I am just stuck in this body, but I don't feel connected to it. What confuses me the most is how a lot of the time, especially if I am swamped with school, I barley think about being a girl, or my own identity. Or to be more precise, I DON'T feel. However, whenever I am feeling emotional or rather, actually feeling complex emotion, these feeling rush back.

    How do I know if these feelings are true? Are these feelings indicative of being Transgender, or something else? How do I know if I am transgender, and if I'm not, what am I?

    If anybody has ANY insight that can help me, PLEASE share it, it would mean the world to me.
     
  2. BookDragon

    Full Member

    Joined:
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    Messages:
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    Location:
    Cambridge, UK
    Gender:
    Female (trans*)
    Gender Pronoun:
    She
    Sexual Orientation:
    Other
    Out Status:
    Out to everyone
    If you don't mind me saying so, that was a fascinating read, and not meaning to sound condescending or anything but if my mind was working even half as well as yours appears to be at 17 I don't think I'd of had half the problems I did at the time, seriously, that was a very well thought out post and you've given us a lot to work with!

    Anyway, there seems to be this idea, and I've heard it from mental health professionals as well as just random people, that in order for you to be transgender you need to have known about it or at least seriously considered it as a child.

    That is a complete load of crap, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. I'm not saying you definitely are trans, I'm just saying that even though you weren't thinking 'I'm a girl' at age 5, doesn't mean you aren't!

    So if nothing else, we can say fairly comfortably that the idea of being a girl has been appealing to you in the past. You've had and worn girls clothes, painted your nails, tried peeing sitting down to feel more feminine. Typically not something your average manly man does.

    When I last spoke to the doctor, he suggested that it would be interesting to see if the gender clinic thought that my desire to change my birth gender was a way of me escaping from the bullying in the past. I was bullied because I'm different. He suggested this may be a way of me pretending that didn't happen by being someone else. Again, I call bulls**t on that...who in their right mind goes from being bullied for difference and then does something like this? He also questioned my history of depression. I informed him that he would be bloody unlikely to find anyone going through a gender transition who didn't have SOME history of depression. He stopped objecting after that.

    What was the point of that paragraph? You suggested that for the reasons I said above, bullying and depression, you might be over-reating and trying to escape it. You might be, and in the end that is for you to decide, however, I find that those feelings tend to manifest, as you have discovered, in suicidal thoughts or wanting to be somebody else, but not a different gender. I mean once you transition you are still the same person, if you were trying to escape that, what would be the point?

    My experiences are similar to yours (minus the medical side). I'm the oldest of two boys, so no girls clothes or games or any other way of expressing any femininity as a child. I used to have long hair and wore it in pigtails, once or twice I had ribbons. I used to have my nails painted whenever a female friend offered (which was rare, but I loved it when it did). It took me a long time to decide where I needed to be, and it was hard work.

    What I find interesting is one of your last paragraphs.

    "Whenever I think of myself I naturally gravitate to 3rd person, almost as if I am just stuck in this body, but I don't feel connected to it. What confuses me the most is how a lot of the time, especially if I am swamped with school, I barley think about being a girl, or my own identity. Or to be more precise, I DON'T feel. However, whenever I am feeling emotional or rather, actually feeling complex emotion, these feeling rush back."

    The third person thing I can mirror completely. For a long while I almost lived my life in third person, while I was working my last job. I worked a stereotypically female job and loved it, but it always felt like I was on auto-pilot if I ever felt sad or worried. I now realise I was trying to suppress the absolute hell out of my feminine side. I was never ever happier than when I embraced it, the times I did my job and embraced that feminine side were the best in my life.

    Additionally this idea of when the feelings come to you is fascinating. Now obviously you have a HELL of a lot of things going on in your life, since you have the medical things along with the usual stuff. Honestly, I didn't think about it much either until recently, because I buried it under everything else in the world. But just like you it came out when I got emotional. When I was alone with nothing to distract me it all came up again.

    What does this mean for you? Probably not a lot, we could experience the exact same things and it means something completely different. For me, I realised what I needed. It took time and work and was hugely uncomfortable. I had to hide everything from everyone, I was scared, in the end I lost my job (and I remain convinced that I was chosen because of the time off I kept needing for the depression this whole thing caused...an idea furthered by the fact that my boss cries every time I come up in conversation since I told her what had happened).

    How do you know the feelings are true? Embrace them. Explore them. You're already about 10 steps ahead of half the people who come asking this question because you've already felt that desire to feel feminine, you've worn womens clothes and loved it. Does that make you more trans than them? No. You still might not be. But the only way you'll find out is by trying it and seeing how it feels. How do your thoughts change when presenting, even to yourself, as a girl? What thoughts stay the same?

    Figure those things out and when you have done so, we can worry about your family and everyone else. We can deal with the potential transphobia once we discover if it is necessary.

    I hope you find your answers! If you ever want to talk, send me a wall message!

    Holly xxx