This past month I threw away all my female clothing, started correcting my body language and speech and stopped using make-up. One day I suddenly couldn't deny it anymore - I wasn't happy with who I was. And as soon as I began to realise why, I got really freaking scared of the future. I wouldn't say I was one of those girls who refused all sterotypical girl things and refused female clothing. I was kind of boyish until puberty hit. Also, when puberty hit, I started self-harming and hating my body with a passion, that led to eating disorder and severe depression. But all in all, beneath this, I sort of enjoyed dressing as a female. I've been stuggeling to find my own personal style of clothing and I often wore dresses and skirts. I was content with my gender before - even thought i sometimes played with the idea of being male. I've always sort of had some "masculine" traits. But just these past months, things have changed really much really fast. I keep on wondering If I'm just creating a gender dilemma that just isn't there and I am wondering what others thought when they began questioning their gender identity. I get dysphoric over my gender. Sometimes I hate the fact I have breast, my voice, lack of muscle. I hate how guy's pants won't fit me. I hate it when I get treated like a girl, and annoyed when refered to as girl. (Prounons don't really bother me all that much.) I hate it really badly when I'm with other guys and they won't treat me like one of them. I've always felt sort of out of place around only girls. I just can't relate to them. When I hear the term "opposite sex" girls are what spontaniously appear in my head. But with the term "same sex" I don't really see guys, not girls. I am pretty sure im not a cis-female. I don't know yet which label I'd use, right now problaby transmasculine or androgyne - I think it may change. But somehow I have this feeling when I think about testosterone, top surgery, using male pronouns and basically coming out as a guy, like it's a very possible route for me. What hinders me from thinking clearly is fear. I may think I know who I am. But I'm so scared of the reaction I'll get. I'm scared I'll make the wrong decisions. I'm scared of the complications in life coming out as trans may bring - mostly about gym locker rooms, relationships and school. I love to swim. It's one of the few things that keeps me mentally sane. Without that, I don't know how I'd cope. I also love going to the gym. All of those things I love will be compromised and complicated if it turns out im a transexual male. It's so scary to have these thoughts - everything I thought I knew about myself and the future is so different now. And I don't know anyone in my surroundings who'd understand. Basically, I'm feeling really sad and scared. If someone have some similiar experiences or can relate to these fears I'd love to hear about it.
This hits home so hard for me. A lot of your experiences mirror my own, and I feel for you. I consider myself a transmasculine androgyne, and honestly you're the first person outside of myself I've heard use both of those labels to describe themself. I'm working on finding solutions for swimming, since it's my favorite way to keep fit. There are binders that you can wear in the water, but they sometimes bind less tightly when they're wet. But my point is, hope is not lost! I understand how you feel. If you need anyone to talk to, I check EC once or twice a day.
Hey, many here at EC have similar experiences, so you came to the right place to ask . I'd go into more detail for my own experience, but I'm kind of tired at the moment. I'll probably post a better reply tomorrow or something, but I just wanted to let you know that you're not alone in this. In the mean time, feel free to read my blog or look through some of my previous posts. They might give you an idea of what's going on inside my head.
I think we can all relate to at least part of that! The one thing that stuck out for me most in your post was this phrase "I keep on wondering If I'm just creating a gender dilemma that just isn't there". I don't know if this is one of those thoughts that comes up from time to time, annoys you and then you can make it go away, or if part of you really believes this, but what I will say is that of all those things you listed that you hate, how many of them have other, better explanations?
I used to hate my body because I didn't find it good looking. I thought it was fat and didn't reach societys standards. Now, it's not like that. I just feel like my body is someone elses, and althought it's a pretty nice female body, I'm not happy. I'm really all about gender equality and I see clearly when I'm being discriminated against or when other sterotype other because of their gender. It ticks me off. But I shouldn't expect straight guys to not hit on me, treat me nicely as a female and not want to wrestle with me. When guys don't let me in on their guy stuff, I feel betrayed and left out. I think they would like be and we could be friends if they gave me a chance. But I don't want to be their girl-friend. I want to be a solid bro. I feel scared that someone will look at my female body and be attracted to it. And all theses signs I see, are all connected to this deep down feeling of not being female. It's hard to explain. It's just this feeling in my gut, my instinct says "Hey, this is what you really are." But I've always had problems listening to my guts, and always compromised what I felt with what was logic. I guess it's a war between my head and my heart. My head says that I'd should try to be happy as it is, and gets angry with me for coming out as queer to my friends. My heart feels good about it. I guess I'm scared, because my past mental issues with depressions and mania, have left my brain in soft of a chaos. I have a hard time to sort things throught, and even if I know what I feel and see inside, there's this thing inside me that always complicates everything. I have a hard time recognizing feelings of "happiness" and "sadness" inside me, do I don't know if im taking the right path for my own wellbeing...
That sounds like me. Looking back over the years, it's almost like there were so many little things and events that were all leading up to this moment, like I was trying to come to terms with my self for years and just kept talking myself out of it. The thing is, those "little" things weren't really little. If they were I would not have remembered them. Sure they may seem insignificant to others, but they are very meaningful to me. I think that it was, in part, the views of others that led me to feel like I was just making myself confused. They told me that I was a boy and I couldn't do girly things. Over time, my head started to accept that and enforce it, driving my feelings deep down. This didn't make them go away, however. It only caused depression, anger, and apathy. These negative emotions constantly played on one another. It usually went something like this. First I would get depressed at the state of things. Then it would turn to anger and I would get worked up over stuff. After the anger subsided, I would just be left feeling drained of emotion and didn't care much about anything. I actually developed a phrase that sort of described how I had come to feel: "I'm a cynic in my head, not in my heart". By that I meant that deep down I was still hopeful and could see the good in things, but most of the time I was the opposite. When you get to the state of mind where you can't find anything that seems worthwhile, it does indeed feel like you don't know who you are. The question of "What makes me happy?" almost has no meaning when your head and heart are against each other. It's like they both negate each other and leave you in a void, pulled toward nothing. That makes it exceedingly difficult to get out of that place. What you have to remember is, the mind can be changed relatively easily, the heart... not so much. It takes something truly major to change your heart. That's why I try to listen to mine, it's more constant, more stable, more... me. I know it can be difficult at times to go with your "gut feelings", but once you start, it gets easier, and you'd be surprised just how well it can work.
It took the courage to make a few solid bros for me to realise how right it felt being treated like something other than "THAT ONE HAS BOOBS", or even "GIRL YES THAT'S A GIRL GOTTA WOO HER LIKE A GIRL". Now, I don't mind being femme, because part of me is femme, but I have realised that my body image issues surpass the standard - I never wanted to be more womanly looking, I wanted to be more ambiguous looking, and more recently, more masculine looking. I think one of the most difficult parts of all of this for me is that I believe everyone is inherently equal, and I don't believe there's a superior gender. But for the longest time, I tried to tell myself "maybe you're just another kind of woman, maybe you're just a really laid back tomboy". I wrote my own feelings off because I was afraid that it would be strange and incongruent for me to acknowledge them. I was afraid of looking like a mysogynist. Which of course, I realised was riddiculous because there's all kinds of guys out there, and they're not all sexist, and doing what I need to do to be me and feel authentic has nothing to do with negative views towards women. It took me some time, and a lot of people laughing at me for even thinking that others would see me that way when I treat everyone with equal respect and interest, to accept that. I guess that was my biggest struggle so far in self-acceptance. The other main issue I had was the perpetual thought, "well if you're not 100% a guy either, why do you want to look like one? why would you think of changing at all? why can't you just be happy with your body?" and I guess that I don't have a solid answer for that. I'm just not comfortable the way I am now. I can't see myself growing old like this. Nonbinary or not, my body doesn't feel like my own, and that's something I can't really help.
