I've poked around on here hoping to gain some insight into why I'm questioning my gender and the thoughts and feelings that I've been having for several months now. Hopefully someone here can provide some insight. So my problem is, I'm gay and I've started questioning my gender. To back track, I've struggled with my "masculinity" for years, probably the majority of my adulthood and adolescence. The catch however is I've had a rather intense desire to be more masculine and more attractive not less and/or not more feminine as I would perceive the majority of TransWomen would have desired to be leading up to their decision to transition. This desire has been so intense that numerous times throughout the past I've seriously considered cosmetic surgery (cost and embarrassment being what's stopped me) to increase or creature more masculine looking features, a stronger jaw for example. The majority of this struggle has centered around physical "flaws" but internal/emotional struggles have been a major issue as well (feeling inferior in comparison to other guys, not being strong or tough enough, being too emotional, sensitive, etc.). Looking back, I've never felt comfortable in my own skin BUT I've never had the thought, "I'm in the wrong body." I'm an extremely anxious and overly analytical person and because of this, now I'm completely confused and have no idea how I feel about anything. I'm questioning everything and at times I'm thinking I might be more gender-fluid or androgynous if anything. Are they any gays/lesbians/questioning individuals or TransWomen that may have some insight or could offer up some constructive comparisons?
Hi. Welcome back! I remember you were here a while back asking questions. So from what I can gather you have absolutely no desire to be feminine in appearance and you also dislike your sensitivity/emotional side because you don't perceive it to be 'masculine' enough? Based on this I would say it simply sounds like you are struggling with accepting who you are as a guy (appearance and personality) because you don't see yourself as fitting the stereotypically masculine image and character that society tells us guys we have to match up to. But then you say 'I'm thinking I might be more androgynous or gender-fluid if anything' which makes me wonder.... Hopefully someone will be able to offer you some further insight.
Thank you for responding! Yeah, I've been lucky enough to open up to and share all these concerns with my best friend who's also gay and one of the most open minded, supportive people ever. He flat out said, "If I genuinely thought you were trans, I'd be the first to support and congratulate you but I don't think you are." Looking back as a gay man and before I came out, I really had a strong dislike of the stereotypical gay man and the gay lifestyle. I shyed away from most things that were considered flamboyant but there's no denying, I do have "gay" tendencies. I love tough female tv characters, I admire the tall, thin, sleek and metro look of high fashion and even though all the experts say there's no such thing as "brain sex" I often think in a similar way to that of an average woman (emotions, relationships, etc). This kind of stuff, coupled with my overly analytical and obsessive thought process had caused to me to feel numb and indecisive about everything. I've begun to to wonder if I'm genderfluid because in this current state of mind I feel as though I could easily go either way gender wise.
Well with this...I mean just realise that anyone of any gender/non-gender can have any sort of personality/behaviour/emotions/thinkin etc. Like me. I'm a guy, happen to be trans, and I'm very emotional and expressive, and overall you could rate me as quite feminine. So just throwin that in there I guess.
Yeah and logically I see that and agree with that. There's really no such thing as having a man's brain or a woman's brain. Its just all this confusion that's causing me to question everything and form all these theories and reexamine my behavioral history which experts also say is a bad thing to try to do.
You sound a lot like me. I over analyse and over think everything which has made me constantly doubt myself. Are you at all uncomfortable with being male?
Sometimes yes...when guys (gay or straight) behave a certain way, usually in regards to sex and their libidos, I get a little uncomfortable and think "ugh I don't want to be like that." Then again, I grew up watching my dad and my step dad abuse and cheat on my mom constantly so who knows how much tat could play into it. I've also begun to realize that I too have a raging libido at times. More than often, I've really enjoyed that feeling I've gotten when I'm treated like one of the guys at work or in a social setting. I ended up having more straight guy friends after I came out rather than when I was "straight."
Obviously it's different for every single person but I guess my question is, how do discern the difference between all these confusing thoughts and narratives? As a gay guy, there's a burden when it comes to the idea of "Am I attracted to this guy or do I envy this guy or is it both?". Apparently this is a very common thing for a lot of gays and lesbians to experience and question and that along with everything else popping into my mind is causing a lot of confusion. I never used to feel this way but since I've been driving myself insane with doubts and theories, lately I've started to wish I could step out of the whole gender classification completely that is, to be neither a guy or a girl. In these kinds of moments, I don't feel like a guy or a girl.
I know this was a while back, could you let us know how you're getting on? I relate to your story so much and I'm in need of help.
IMO "what gender am I" is kind of an academic question. You aren't a gender, you're a person! What I know about the trans, just from living it and letting it be, is just this. * I need to be a girl That's it. That's as much sense as it makes. That's what's there. I can argue definitions and read up on this gender theory or that opinion. I can try to make sense of it. I can look at similarities and differences between me and other people. I can have a ton of "oh wow this explains so much!" moments. I have certainly felt more female in ways that are hard to describe since forever. But you see, all of that, is my understanding of something, not the thing itself. I know some things about being a person - male or female - were things I learned. I also know that some aren't. And the truth is, there is no way now that I'm a grown up to sort the two out. So all the defining and labeling and what not, really it doesn't change that basic truth. And the truth is what you're after. This has nothing to do with "the trans", but one time, when I was in the military, I slept in a bunk. The bed above mine was really close. And one morning, I woke up real fast, and hit my head, and fell back down. Before I could make any sense of anything. I didn't know what was happening. My entire reality was my head hurting. I was a confused animal that had not woken up enough to be able to form sentences or anything. But there was something undeniably there, very real, that I could not possibly explain (for a few seconds). And that taught me a lot about what words like "truth" and "real" mean. So my gender, whatever it is, is just the stuff that's like the bunk above mine. That's the level I try to look at "the trans" at. The stuff that's there when I wake up in the morning, whether I like it or not, whether I think about it or not. The stuff that doesn't rely on my defining this and labeling that. The stuff where, if I ever get something wrong, I can just take another look at it and see exactly where I went wrong. So the truth is there are three sides to all this crap. There's * that part of me that really needs to be a girl, * that part of me that tries to get me to do certain things socially at an instinctual level, to "fit in", * my own and other people's ideas of what sex and gender are to begin with And it's that second one that I think is what screws with all of us. I think gender-the-social-thing is very real. I have responses that are undeniably there when I go against what I know is expected of me. I actually get it both ways. I know when I'm "being weird" in "boy mode", and in "girl mode". And the few times I tried to kiss a guy in guy mode - and when I hold a woman's hand now as myself - I definitely got that "being weird" feeling. I think this part of us, it's kind of a vicious cycle. Gender-the-social-thing starts out this exaggeration that no real people are ever going to meet. But we kind of play into it, because mother nature's telling us we should. And mother nature literally gives us drugs that make us more this thing or that. The fellas get big muscles. The ladies get smooth, hair-free skin. And nature follows up. Nature gets a direct line into your emotions, to see how much of a man or a woman you seem to be based on your feelings related to what you know are boy things and girl things. It'll adjust the drugs it's giving you depending on how you feel they're affecting you, or what you're doing. If you lift weights, you need more muscles. If you're bawling your eyes out and feel like a million bucks after a good cry, you need more estrogen 'cause it's working. And when you fall short of what a "man" or a "woman" is supposed to be? In my experience, my chemicals react just the same way they did when I was legit scared for my life. I really think part of me thinks "oh shit, I'm not doing this right, something bad is going to happen". A huge part of that was part of my "over-the-top" macho stuff in my 20s, and my hiding basically everything about myself in my early teens. And I'm betting you can identify with that a little. What's different about me, from most people, is that I could never ever get it quite right, because that first part of me - the part of me that knows I need to be a girl - could screw with me just as much as that second part. More even. And always has. No matter what. I basically can't win this game. With the first part - "I need to be a girl" - though, the feeling isn't so much "I'm afraid for my life" as it is "this is never ever in a million years going to get any better". Like despair. Sometimes, not going to lie, a little darker, "and I don't know why that second part values this 'life' thingie so much anyway", it's a very powerful feeling. Just the way this stuff works, all this is lizard brain crap I can't argue with. So I mean I can't experience what you experience. I may be off base. But I can guess. I really feel like you are feeling some of what I felt at that second level the time I kissed a guy in "guy mode". I did it actually because I needed to know if it really was just that I felt like I had to conform, or if I really didn't like guys. I think the same crap that gets gay guys like yourself to question your gender, got a trans chick like me to question my sexuality. It's so hard to separate this stuff out, or answer simple questions like "why do I feel this way". And those feelings can get way way strong. A lot of the time I feel "this is stupid, just go back, what the hell are you doing" when I'm out as a woman. When I was trying to make the boy thing work, I completely understand how you felt with that jaw surgery stuff. I lifted weights, I would drink straight whiskey or beer when I was with my friends. So if that's the case, maybe just a suggestion, but I had a safe way to find out I was only sexually attracted to women. Do you have a safe way to try dressing up to see how it makes you feel? Yeah there's a difference between dressing the role and being the role. But you know, you can ask yourself things like "how would it work if I was like this all the time". More than that though, I think this stuff is a million times easier to sort out when you feel good about yourself. That part of me that wants me to do what I'm "supposed" to to be a boy or a girl, that's constantly in "oh crap" survival mode, it at least knows to shut up when things are going good. And it is way easy to see myself for what I really am at those times. ---------- Post added 2nd Nov 2014 at 02:44 PM ---------- Crap didn't see how long ago this was :| Just read the first few responses. I think I'll leave it up though, helps me to get my own thoughts out there like this sometimes anyway.
I never had an 'I'm in the wrong body' moment. For me it's my body, it feels like my body, but it has a missing feature and got an extra one. I've always been me, and my body just needs a tweak.
