I'm 16, a transguy and planning to come out to at least my dad pretty soon via letter or email or something like that (Hoping to ask him to order a binder for me- I'm not particularly worried about his reaction) but whenever I sit down to actually start writing, I get these little niggling doubts at the back of my mind. "What if you come out and turn out to be cis after all?" "What if you're wrong?" "Hey, you don't get bottom dysphoria all that much, how can you be trans?" and that kind of thing :bang: About a year ago, I told my sister and people at school that I only like girls, but every now and then I'll see someone who's not a girl and just be like "wow, you're hot, let's kiss and stuff- wait, what?" in my head. I fancy more guys than girls nowadays and I'll even be attracted to the odd genderqueer person here and there. I'm quite happy not to label my sexuality for now, but I'm too scared to tell people I was wrong about it. Coming out and being wrong about my sexuality has just completely put me off coming out as anything else ever again. I know I'm not wrong about my gender, though. I remember being like 5 years old and telling everybody that I should've been born a boy and even now, I'll force myself to imagine living as female forever and I just break down completely because I can't stand the thought of it. Any advice on getting over these doubts? I know waiting to come out is the obvious answer, but I really don't know if I can handle the dysphoria that long. I bind as best I can with what I can get, but nothing will be as convenient or as suitable as a real binder.
You might have a look here: http://emptyclosets.com/forum/gender-identity-expression/153143-so-confussed.html#17 and here: http://emptyclosets.com/forum/gender-identity-expression/153143-so-confussed.html#12 and here: http://emptyclosets.com/forum/gender-identity-expression/156085-i-just-im-kind-scared.html#4 If you have questions, just ask... and its ok if your orientation might change, at least a bit. It has a lot do do with acceptance and imo its a process... quite a few transgender people have experienced this, me, too.
For me it kinda went from female to male/female to predominantly male attraction. I think I was always bi, but since I was raised to like females my mind denied anything else and I focused on what was tangible. As I transition I find myself more and more wanting a man and having trouble seeing myself with a woman. All those childhood love/hate relationship and whatnot make sense now, I was always bi I just didn't see the forest for the trees. Maybe in your zeal to 'be yourself' you didn't realize fully who you are and opted to close a few doors for the sake of opening a few rather than letting time do it's thing. Now that you're finally catching up and opening up about yourself, you're backing out of that forest and starting the see the whole picture more clearly. Maybe you were always pan/bi but were wanting to assert who you are and got too rigid in stance. Liking guys does not make you any less of a guy, and vice versa. Write down all your thoughts, give it a read, sleep on it, and see how you feel!
Doubts are annoying, true. My advice would be to come out to some people you know you can trust to love you regardless of your orientation and identity- it sounds like you are pretty comfortable at least with your dad and sister- maybe don't come out to the WHOLE WORLD just yet, but come out to a few people, wear your binder, and gradually shift and see how it goes. And remember, PLENTY of trans people don't have bottom dysphoria, so that doesn't make you less trans, and if your top dysphoria is really bad, I'd say work with that for now. Also I'd hope that you can remember, at least for yourself, that teens go through a lot of crazy hormonal shifts- orientation and identity change a lot over life, but if you are 16, things are probably at their craziest right now. When I was 16 I had my first and only crush on a girl- I thought I might be bi for a little while and then I went back to liking guys exclusively- still not sure what happened there. So if things do change, try to be ok with it?
