Trans doubts (again)

I'm definitely NOT cis female but I keep getting these nagging doubts about me being male which really pisses me off.

If I say 'I am female' or 'I am a woman' it makes me feel eugh. If I say 'I am male' that feels ok but if I say 'I am a man' it doesn't feel eugh but it doesn't feel entirely fitting. If I say 'I'm male AND female' that feels eugh because I'm not female. If I say 'I'm not male or female' that kind of fits because I'm not yet presenting male but not really female either. Kind of unisex. I still wear 'women's' clothes but they make me feel yukky even though they're very much unisex (hoodies, plain tees, skinny jeans, converse). I don't really know how I want to dress as a guy but I definitely feel so much more comfortable in clothing that is designed for men.

I know that I have masculine AND feminine qualities but then so does everyone. I think I can trace that back to my childhood where I seemed to make a mental divide between them and chose the feminine side and suppressed the masculine side. But I sometimes feel too feminine to be a 'straight guy'. I don't feel the need to express this in my appearance at all. It's just internal and I often feel the need to put on a more masculine front to prove my identity to others (my family) but inside, I kind of know that I'm not all that masculine. I identify as a straight guy because I'm sure I would only want a relationship with a woman. However, occasionally I question my orientation. Sometimes, I am served in a shop or somewhere by a young guy who is kind of chatting me up thinking I'm a girl and then annoyingly, I find myself playing along with it and acting/feeling all girly. Afterwards I think why the hell did I do that, I don't like guys in that way... I'm not attracted to the male body but since I have come to terms with my gender not being female, I can now say whether I think a guy or girl is hot. If a guy is good looking (and I have to admit, more on the feminine side), and I get on with him well and can talk openly, I sometimes feel slightly attracted to them as a person but then I remember they've got a penis and that just kills it:icon_redf So yeah I'm straight but just get confusing feelings at times.

I am dysphoric about my body but keep getting doubts about whether I want to take t and have surgery. In a way, I kind of feel sorry for my body because I have put it through a lot with my ED in the past and it still has to go through a whole lot more if I choose to physically transition. I would happily have chest surgery (when I don't feel sorry for my body) but I don't know if I want bottom surgery. The idea of having a penis, muscle, body/facial hair and a deeper voice seems really weird at times and I question what the hell I'm doing with this gender thing.

I don't know what I'm asking really. I can tell by what I have written that these doubts seem silly. I am 100% sure I'm not female. I am 60% sure I'm male. I'm 40% unsure.

 

For me I was about 5 yo when mom explained I was like dad and not her. I forget my incorrect body until I look in the mirror. I have always been a extremely feminine woman. You may just be neutral or in the middle of the scale between feminine and masculine. Don't fret about it! June

 

OK, let's look at what you are NOT for a minute, shall we?

We know you are NOT completely female, if you are indeed female at all. Every time it comes up you feel bad. You have some feminine traits (but like you said, don't we all) but otherwise you seem to basically hate it.

Now the one thing that IS new is this thing with guys and how you go along with it if they flirt. Now you appear to see that as taking a step back into the female life. I don't. You say when that happens, when you go along with someone thinking you're a girl you feel bad about it afterwards. I think it's just the easiest way of getting through the situation.

Think about it, what is your alternative? Stopping the guy and saying "I'm not a woman!" How unpleasant would that be every single time. Keeping in mind that so far your brain has been trying to get you to do things that make other people feel better at your expense basically forever.

So I think if nothing else we can basically rule out female. So just for a minute (not permanently) forget about females.

That leaves us with EVERYTHING ELSE. Again we seem to be coming up against this 'easiest option' thing your brain is doing. You are sitting here now trying to force yourself into the male binary position because it's easier to explain and the more masculine you can be the more likely people (and I'm guessing people means primarily your parents) will understand it.

Thing is, I can probably list as many things you've told me that mean you don't fit the 'male' binary any more than the female.

So maybe you just don't fit that binary.

Perhaps you are just a more masculine a-gender person or one of the many different identities. Thing is more than anything you need to work on your SELF acceptance and completely ignore almost everybody else in the world. There is no point acting hyper-masculine to get your mum to accept who you are if it means becoming someone you are not!

 

Maybe I don't fit, maybe I do. I'm not sure.

The thing is my mum STILL keeps going on about how I used to like girly things, how I used to dress feminine, how I used to like the same things she likes. She said even if I am a guy, I should still like doing the same things and that I can't be a guy unless I'm gay because a man wouldn't have been able to dress the way I did or make the things I did.

So I don't think forcing myself to be hyper masculine binary male is easier for them to understand. It's probably me trying to prove my identity to them and myself.

If I think back to my childhood and teenage years and I'm 100% honest with myself, I can remember being aware that I had some masculine qualities but not wanting them to be there. When I was 16 and very unhappy with my weight and appearance, I remember that I started making a conscious effort to be more feminine so that people wouldn't question my orientation. I thought the way that I felt about my body could be fixed by losing weight, changing the way I dressed, wearing make up and for a short time, it did. At last I felt I was normal. I fitted in. I think from the age of 16 to 24, all that effort to be more girly created a false me and I got so good at pretending, I had even tricked myself. My friends were mainly girls, I studied at university on a course that was all girls yet even though deep down I knew my orientation, I never had a crush on ANY of them because I controlled it. I kept my distance so it would never happen and then when I decided I couldn't keep on like this, I realised that I couldn't even FEEL attraction to women as this person. I'd shoved it somewhere to the back of my mind and never dared face it and when I did, my gender identity went into question. I think I must have suppressed a part of myself by suppressing those feelings towards girls. So when I think back to who I was before I suppressed those feelings, I can remember feeling boyish but I was never a tomboy. I had a couple of friends that were but I never felt like I fitted in with them. They played with the boys and I guess I could have too but I didn't want to.

My overall feeling about my gender up until the age of 16 is that I was not really a girl or a boy in the way that my brother and sister were. My sister was a tomboy and my brother a 'typical' boy but I didn't really fit. I was just me Then I became a girl and a woman but it was all fake, or at least that's how it feels now. I know women generally have a lot more freedom when it comes to gender expression compared with men but they are all ways of being female and I don't identify with being female. I feel towards the male end of the spectrum but I don't know if I fit the binary. How will I work this one out?

 

You can start by ignoring your mother.

I cannot imagine for a moment that your mum still loves and actively engages in every single thing she was ever interested in.

Now you've just sat here and told us that when you were younger you felt masculine traits and you wanted them to go away. You then tell us that between the ages of 16 and 24 you forced them away and became ultra girly. In your own words "I got so good at pretending, I had even tricked myself".

If you had to force yourself to be feminine and ended up emotionally dead, why would you use that as evidence that there is something good about it. Your mum might think you were happy but as I've said before, she is not YOU and is not in your head. Parents like to think they know everything about their children and the reality is that for the most part they don't have a clue, any more than they know the next door neighbour, their boss or the prime minister. You can't 'know' someone else's mind without being let in and from the sounds of things you didn't even let yourself in, let alone her!

So I don't think forcing myself to be hyper masculine binary male is easier for them to understand. It's probably me trying to prove my identity to them and myself.

These two things are not that different. Either way you are exaggerating or outright lying about who you are to get them to back off. If you're going to lie about who you are for other peoples benefits you may as well just lie and be female. But we know how unhealthy that is and we know what it would do to you. If you can't do it one way you can't do it the other.

So for now, we don't consider your families opinions, OK? We can consider them when we know what you are dealing with. Until then it's between you and your brain (and us).

Which leads me to how we work this one out.

Well you've done what I asked, haven't you. You've told me what you are not.

You are not female. "I don't identify with being female"

You've started on the next one.

Now from the way you talk about it I can say happily that you are not stereotypical. You don't strike me as any of the handful of things I think of when I think 'male stereotype'. Not the plumber/builder type. Not the 'macho' type. Not the douche-bad bar fly type.

So we can rule out those things. We can start to rule out things that aren't right for you.

Now from what you've told us that leaves us with a few things.

You don't like your boobs at all, but you don't like the idea of bottom surgery or body hair. All perfectly understandable.

You feel 'more masculine' and appear to feel better about yourself when you are dressed neutral - which to be fair even then can be pretty masculine since there aren't many 'manly' clothing styles I know of!

If you want to do it like a spectrum then we end up with this:

Female ------------- Neutral --------------Male

Now obviously that isn't quite how it works, there are branches all over the place and all sorts of different things to consider, but for the most basic of points I can use it.

I would say you sound about here at the moment:


Female ------------- Neutral ------0-------Male

I mean we can rule out the whole female side completely because you've said categorically that it doesn't sit right with you. So we end up instead with:


Neutral -------------------------------------------------Male

I've made that scale bigger because there are about a million different things between neutral and hyper-male at the end there and you could be basically any of them.

Your identity appears to be somewhere between neutral and male and it's really up to you how far one way or the other it feels comfortable.

Honestly, what makes a man a man is up to you. What you call 'male' could be another persons 'masculine neutral'. It's up to you which label you choose but you do need to stop thinking about whether you can prove it to people.

 

See now I'm feeling all mixed up again. I thought I knew I was binary male or that's what I wanted to become but you can't become something you're not, as proven by me trying to become more female and then it all ending badly. So I don't want to make another fake me if that makes sense. Otherwise a few years down the line, my life will collapse again and I will possibly be de-transitioning to become more neutral.

I find it really really hard to think about what I want to do with my life. Idk why. I often feel myself being carried along with what other people want without knowing that it's not what I want. As long as they're happy etc. It's hard to know what I think or what I want because my answers are so tied up with other people's feelings.

I don't know what to do with my past either. I know there's no use living in the past etc. but I don't know what to do with all that pain. Part of me is worried that I am looking at transitioning as a way of getting rid of it, like I can become a new person and start again because all of that stuff that went before is irrelevant to me as a guy. I can pretend it never happened because it wasn't me back then, it was a lie.

 

So I don't want to make another fake me if that makes sense.

It makes perfect sense, which is why I advise people to not think about 'transition' as a verb. Transitioning isn't an activity, there isn't a certain way of doing it, it doesn't have a time-frame, it doesn't begin and it doesn't end. I prefer to use it as a noun, as an umbrella term for small actions and processes.

If we focus on expression for a minute. If you, for example, got yourself a short haircut and had it like that for a few years then decided to grow it out, is that de-transitioning or is that just you changing your hairstyle?

If you start wearing suits and then a few years down the line move to jeans and a t-shirt have you gone forwards or backwards in masculinity? Or have you made a lateral move?

If you stop thinking of things in terms of transition and start thinking of it in terms of "This feels right to me at the moment" you will find it easier. You can't 'de-transition' if you never transitioned. All you will have done is acted on what felt natural at the time.

Now if we think about your body which is obviously more permanent then we need to think a little harder. But ultimately it is your body. If you don't like your breasts, by the time you are able to actually have something done about it you will have hated them for years, so if that worries you then start noting any changes in your thoughts about how you perceive your body.

In terms of your identity, well that is more unfortunate. We don't have recognized non-binary identities in the UK so for more formal things you'll have to pick one or the other, by the looks of things, male.

If we are being honest, right now (and for at last 2 years according to you) the idea of being female has seemed like torture, so what are the odds that this is something that is likely to suddenly change?

Thinking about what YOU want is always going to be hard when other people make it their personal business to force you to think about them first. Believe me, if you are able to get your head around the fact that you have some value to yourself it becomes a lot easier to think about. Again, I'm pretty sure you will find this easier if you manage to get out of your house.

As for your past...let's be honest it needs dealing with. There was a time I could have said that you seemed like you were trying to transition to get away from it. When you first told me you wanted to throw yourself into really masculine stuff to avoid dysphoria that was my first thought. Now you are sitting here talking about how you feel properly and appropriately and I don't think that is what you are doing. It may not look like it to you because you are in the middle of it, but you appear to be taking this as seriously as you can so that you can come out feeling like YOU instead of somebody else.

 

Ok. So I know from the gender clinic that I'm getting a referral to they require you to live as your preferred gender for up to 2 years before any surgery. I'm not sure about hormones but I imagine they're going to set me quite a long RLE because I have only been knowingly living with dysphoria for 2 years. That will be the ultimate test of whether what I'm doing is right for me so that's something I will figure out in time.

I'm absolutely certain I will never return to being female. When I say de-transitioning, I mean imagining I start taking hormones and then have another traumatic life change that causes me to go back to the drawing board with my gender, decide I'm none binary and don't want to proceed with physical transition but live as a male identity, albeit with dysphoria but knowing I'm happier there than if I went the whole route to binary male. I'm getting ahead of myself but do you ever get days, well not days, 'moments' where you think what the hell am I doing with this? It's just that really and then my mum's doubts and that I don't have a typical male personality.

I think for a time I'm going to have to be entirely selfish if I'm ever going to find out what I want. I seem to need to spend a lot of time away from my family in my room to get a sense of who I am and what I want, otherwise I will just be what they want. Then again, this really isn't good because I spend too much time in my thoughts and not in the real world. It's just too easy to lose a sense of your identity when every little interaction you have with people is telling you your the other gender. The only way I can hold on to what I want is by spending time alone because I'm not constantly reminded that I'm meant to be a woman.

As for my past, I don't know how to deal with it. Pretend it never happened? Try and bury it? Idk what to do with it all.

 

That 2 years before surgery IS your RLE, I think they only ask you to actually be living as your gender socially for hormones...last time I checked it was maybe 6 months. Keep in mind you wouldn't necessarily have got the referral in the first place if they didn't think there was a decent reason for it.

As for things like physical changes, I mean this is why they want you to be sure. But for the sake of argument, let's have a think about the things you like and dislike about your body.

We know you don't like your chest and you bind for that. No medicine required yet.

So what are hormones going to do for you that you actually WANT to happen. I know you don't want shark week anymore, so that's one thing. Is there anything else?

I have some moments where I question some aspects of things. I posted a thing about top surgery the other day, that is one of my big concerns. So yes I have moments where I question what I want and how badly but I always end up back in the same place. No matter what I get done, I won't go back to male because it just feels wrong.

Now you need to ignore your mum, because she is clinging to something that was never there. As for your personality not being typically male...I don't think I've ever met anyone with a typically male attitude. Almost all my friends are guys and they are all very different in terms of almost everything. You personality might not be super masculine but it doesn't mean it isn't a guys personality.

You are going to have to be selfish. This decision might affect others, but so does EVERYTHING. The difference is that other people need to get used to it, where as you need it to happen. Your mum isn't going to die from having a non-binary child or a new son or whatever you turn out to be, but how many times have you come close to that edge thinking about how life isn't worth it if you can't go on how you need to?

It IS hard yo keep sight of you when everyone tells you that your are somebody else, but it's harder to pretend they are right.

Don't bury it or pretend it never happened. As you said, you're not running away from it, you're evolving from it.

Look on my profile, there is a picture of a man with a beard. I didn't put it there JUST for comparison's sake, I put it there because once upon a time that is who I thought I was. I was living as that guy to the best of my abilities. Sometimes I was even happy with it. Fundamentally I'm still that person. I don't dress the same, I don't have a beard, I have a different name and so on, but it is still ME. I'm not afraid of that guy. I feel sorry for that guy, because he was missing something really important. Something I now have. I'm proud of that. I found what was missing for that guy and now I'm better for it.

You came from your past, you learned things and now you are moving on. That is how life works. Don't try to pretend your past DIDN'T happen, because it did. It did and it shaped who you are now. Instead try and remember that the person you are now is working towards being better than that person you were.

 

As for your past, you have two equally valid options:

1) Try to forget about it/ bury it. This is what I did for about 12 years but then I realized that time did affect who I've become.
2) Own up to it. There are different ways of going about this. You can acknowledge it as a time of confusion, frustration, and pain (or whatever it was for you). If you want to take the more dismissive approach, you can acknowledge it and basically laugh it off by saying: yeah, I'm hot as a man and as a woman. :roflmao:

Undoubtedly, there are other ways to address this also. Good luck! Ignore your mother!!!

 

I think I would want to be living as male for longer than 6 months before hormones. Maybe I won't need to, that's just how I feel right now.

No I don't want shark week. I also get really dysphoric about my voice sometimes but other times I don't mind it. It kind of depends on who I'm with tbh. If I am with someone who accepts my gender identity then it's not so bad but if I'm with people who are challenging me about it (i.e. my family), they are far more likely to bring something up about the way I speak or something that means I 'can't be a man'. So then I feel more self conscious and unhappy about it. Talking to strangers as well who assume I'm female again makes me more dysphoric about my voice because I know it's going to be the ultimate give away if I ever do manage to pass before hormones (unlikely! ). I just feel more self conscious with strangers. If I'm with people I trust to respect my gender identity, I generally feel less dysphoric because they already accept me as the gender I tell them I am. I don't have to prove anything to them. I would like to lose some weight off of my bum and thighs and gain some muscle tone which hormones could do for me but I suppose I can start working on that by exercising.

I do realise a lot of my struggle with my identity is because of my mum constantly telling me I can't be male so I am forever trying to convince her, even myself that I am trans. I can't explain to her that although I did used to like doing certain things, I don't anymore because I have changed. Then she says 'Yes, you have changed. You've MADE yourself change. You have brainwashed yourself into thinking your a man and got rid of EVERYTHING. It upsets me every day when I think about what you've done.' My mum really doesn't know me any more but she thinks she does. She thinks I am the same person I was 5 years ago. I told her that I have to change. That's what happens in life, we never stay the same but she says 'No, we don't but nobody changes like YOU have. That's not normal, it's not natural.' She always makes me feel guilty for who I have become. No one really knows exactly why we're trans, whether it's purely biological or a combination of things but my mum will say 'I did EVERYTHING properly when I was carrying you. It's not biological, I know that. You have made yourself like this.' It makes it difficult to be selfish when all you're getting the impression that you're this terrible person. I can't even think about what I want because I don't feel that I deserve anything. My needs don't seem to matter. It's all about my family and how it's affecting them. I've always felt that my brother and sister are more important than me because they were straight when I thought I was a lesbian, and now because they're cis and I'm trans. My family have never considered that I might be lonely never having had a relationship and not having many friends. I just feel like I don't matter and shouldn't expect anything out of life because pursuing what I want upsets other people, making me feel like a terrible person.

Sorry I've been ranting again haven't I?:icon_redf I just feel so hopeless, like I should sacrifice what I might want or need for the benefit of others whose feelings are more important than mine.

 

If I came to you and told you those things, would you be sitting there telling me that I deserve to feel bad about it? Would you be telling me that my families feelings are more important than mine? Would you be telling me that I am right, and that my siblings ARE more important than me?

Of course you wouldn't, but you're telling yourself that.

I know it's easy for me to say that, and I know how hard that is to change (believe me I've been there more than enough times) but the fact of the matter is that if you wouldn't say it to me, you didn't ought to say it to yourself.

You deserve better than what you have. It's not like you're making a big deal out of nothing here, the people who are 'supposed' to love and care for you spend their time telling you that you are broken in the head and trying to shame you into being what they want you to be.

The thing is, your mum may have done everything properly when she carried you, but she sure as hell isn't right now.

 

No I wouldn't be telling that to someone else. I'd be saying get the hell out of there! I am working towards that, believe me, but to do that I need to think about what I want and what I need which I seem unable to do. I don't really think I have ever been able to. I've just let life control me but then controlled myself, if that makes sense

 

I'm really hoping things get better for you anonym. I guess the only advice I can give is to just remember that living in the closet is a choice, and living as a woman is a choice. They have their own rewards and consequences too. And even if you do decide to live that way, keep in mind also that it might not be enough. Your mom knows about you, and that has changed your relationship with her forever no matter what you do.

I know all about feeling powerless though And doing what's expected of me by the people around me. Please don't feel bad if you catch yourself doing those things, or even if you have to a little for this reason or that. I have found that when I have goals to keep me going, I usually find a way around the little obstacles life gives me, even if I have to take the long way around sometimes.

I really don't think you owe a daughter to your mother though. Just because I'm pretty sure, if you're going by her expectations of a daughter, at this point I think it's literally impossible to give that to her. She may want it, she may make you feel guilty. But you are not required to do impossible things for anyone.

You'll get through this dude (*hug*)

 

Thanks Jess.

But things are getting worse. Just been involved in another row with my mum. I seriously can't take any more. It started off me asking if she would mind dropping me off at the shops on her way out in the car. She said no, I've not got time quite aggressively and I said ok, don't bite my head off. I'll walk. Then she started asking me if I should be going out alone because I'm not well, I'm on meds etc etc and admittedly I got annoyed because for years and years now my parents have been massively controlling trying to wrap me in cotton wool. I mean one day quite a few years back my mum was walking the streets crying looking for me at 6pm at night because arrived back home from uni for dinner. We were working late on a project and I think my phone battery had died.

So back to today, I said 'well what am I supposed to do, just sit in the house all day because I'm on meds and have depression. That will really help.' A while later, my mum was leaving and told me that she would rather take me down the shops when she gets back rather than me walk. I'm 26 ffs. I said no it's fine I'll walk. Then she started going on and on again about how I've changed, I'm a horrible person, I am changing myself into someone else, I used to be this and that etc etc etc.

I am literally fed up. I am constantly being made to feel like I am the worst person in the world. The only thing that's changed really is I have realised who I am and that's not what my mum wants and I have also realised how controlling my parents and now I'm breaking out of their control. Now when I think about it, I can't imagine anyone living with parents like mine for as long as I have and allowing them to control me the way I have. I have been foolish and now I realise that. I just can't cope living with my mum any more. What do I do?

 

So my mum's out and I'm at home with my sister. Break from mum I make another attempt to repair things with my sister asking her if she wants to go for a coffee with me (lame, I know) but she says no. She's going out with my mum later and they might be going for a coffee together.

Can't get anywhere with my family. I try to get my brother and sister to spend time with me and they won't. If they do they only feed back everything to my mum.

 

The thing is you couldn't be what she wants anyway because what she wants is a doll.

You're taking meds so she doesn't want you to walk to the shops at age 26? That's not how you treat an adult, hell that isn't how you treat a child. Heck if you repeatedly told a child they had something unspeakably wrong with them as often as your mum does the kid would be taken away.

Stick your name down for a council house. Get on the phone to the people in charge of it and explain the special circumstances - specifically abusive, trans-phobic mother.

 

Yeah, staying there is doing nothing good for you! There's got to be some way to get out of there!

 

You have to get out of there or they'll break you. Don't be stubborn about it, just go.

 

What everyone else said. People in the place your family is at, they only change when they have to in order to stay a part of your life. Every second you can spend away from them for the time being is a second well spent.

If you can get on a dating site, or just go to movies - I know it sucks going alone if you have to but it still helps - basically anything you can do away from the house. Just make more and more excuses to avoid them. They will figure out why eventually.

Or if they don't figure it out, that will give you time to figure out a better plan as far as moving out on your own. I know that might seem impossible now, but when you have every day to plan a little bit it will seem more and more possible.

These situations get so so much easier to resolve when you aren't trapped and you can talk to your family on equal footing.

From their point of view, they might have convinced themselves they are doing the right thing. They really don't understand what they're doing to you at all or how much they're hurting you or how much you need to be you. So it might not actually be possible to reason with them right now.