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Questioning my gender identity

Discussion in 'Gender Identity and Expression' started by BobJones, Nov 22, 2015.

  1. BobJones

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    Being a recent phenomena, possibly only a recent realisation, I have had growing unrest within myself regarding my preferred gender. Being an adult already has me a bit concerned as to where I can possibly go with this. On the first hand, I never noticed feelings of gender dysphoria throughout my childhood and adolescence, only my greater ability to associate with girls as opposed to boys, and feeling alienated and vastly different than the boys. I was never noticeably, even to myself, uncomfortable being identified as a boy or male, my greatest concern in adolescence was not being treated as a child, as I looked very young far into my teen years. Of course, I liked 'boy things' like guns and weapons, but I never felt a sense of masculinity, and only desired a masculine personality in order to fit in with my male cousins. Only recently, starting over the summer, have I had strong feelings of dysphoria. These feelings were accompanied by desire to have been born female. Next, I felt as if I would have preferred, or would prefer female body features as opposed to my own. I don't wish to be called a 'big, strong young man' as it doesn't seem to fit me. This came in my first major wave of dysphoria from July into August. The emotions involved in that subsided until recently, in which they have returned. All these major thoughts described as part of my first wave of dysphoria are relevant to me once again. What is deeply troubling is my uncertainty on the matter; I don't wish to hastily make a decision such as hormone treatment without fully assessing the situation, nor do I wish to start doing so in my mid to late adulthood, wasting my younger years, and looking like a man in drag for the rest of my life.
     
  2. MonsterAnarchy

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    I may be younger than you, but I have had a similar situation. Here is my experience (imma try to keep it short)

    I was female designated at birth, and throughout my whole life, I was raised as a female. Just like you, I didn't mind people addressing me as female cause back then, I thought vagina=girl. So I was like "well, duh! I'm a girl." Just like you, I never had gender dysphoria. It wasn't till 8th grade where I noticed that something was different, but I couldn't point out what it was exactly. Then, I started educating myself more on LGBTQ just cause I liked the topic and wanted to get more educated. And I realized that there are more genders than I have ever thought! The non-binary. But I still didn't know exactly what was wrong with me. It wasn't till my sophomore year (when I had my first trans friends) did I realize that I was trans also. I just couldn't find a term to describe myself. I kept label-searching, but none of them felt right. But genderqueer? Genderqueer felt right! (Just incase you are not informed) Genderqueer is basically an umbrella term for people who do not identify their gender as a binary gender (boy or girl), but on the non-binary (everuthing in between). Yeah, its an umbrella term, but thats how i identify, and feel comfortable identifying as this. I came out on Facebook on National Coming Out Day and I came out to my band class.. TONS of support. Including my band director. That's when I started having my dysphoria. With my gender, it fluctuates between female, male, and agender. Whenever I felt male, I would bind my chest, but once I take it off, I feel like shit. Cause I am presented as male for the day, but I have breast. It bothered me a lot.

    It's okay to be a transwoman and prefer to use male pronouns, if that's what you would like. And it's also okay to have gender dysphoria later on in life (though, it's not fun to have. Talk to someone you trust about your dysphoria and have them help you accept yourself)
    However you feel, don't stress out about it. I've learned that the hard way. Just take more time to reflect on yourself. I wish you well.
     
  3. TobaccoFlower

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    I think that I can totally identify with this and my whole life I was mainly bothered by people acting like I wanted to grow up and be a man and I hated being shamed for being sweet and caring and crying because those were not things that boys are supposed to do. But the more I dive into this gender thing the more I realize that it doesn't matter what this label is that I wear. What matters is that when someone calls me baby girl I smile. And I love it. When someone thinks I'm a girl on the phone it makes my day. And if that is gay or trans or straight or normal or cis or whatever I don't care. I know now that my entire life I have been a girl. I'm a grown woman now. And that is who I am. I have always had these symptoms of not knowing my identity because I always fought against it. But when I asked for things like cute haircuts or when I got my ears pierced I always had to "correct" myself and find a more masculine way of expressing myself even if it just meant wearing different earrings from the ones I like. And I told myself I like them but not for ME.
    But the simple truth us that I like flowers and dresses. And I always have. The only difference now is that I am allowing myself to openly tell somebody that I don't like being called a big strong man. And the reason behind it is that I'm a lady. And if they are jerk enough to tell me I have to cross dress like a man or that being born with a penis (I never really WANTED) makes me someone I'm not then they can leave me alone.
    My mother taught me from a young age that I am who I am and that nobody needs to stand in the way of that. They. Aren't. Worthy of me.

    And you are you. You feel like people are calling you something that goes against who you identify as you are allowed to be girl or boy or neither or both or a mixture of them and you already ARE one of those regardless of your body.

    The only search now is figuring out if you like being told you're a man. Except I think you already know the answer. Right? ♡
    *hug*
    You will make it. And you're always welcome to message me. I just barely got over the hump of indecisiveness, like, this week.
    And you don't even have to travel the same direction as me because you can be whomever you are.
    I just hope you find out who that beautiful and lovely person is.

    ---------- Post added 22nd Nov 2015 at 07:08 AM ----------

    And let it be said that I never felt overwhelmingly dysphoric about my body except for the onset of puberty and now after I got in the military and people started judging me based on my masculinity.

    ---------- Post added 22nd Nov 2015 at 07:09 AM ----------

    And let it be said that I never felt overwhelmingly dysphoric about my body except for the onset of puberty and now after I got in the military and people started judging me based on my masculinity.
     
  4. BobJones

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    That is similar to how I feel, and I never had clear dysphoria until a few months ago, but I have never been able to envision myself as a big strong man, it doesn't even seem ideal. I know that I don't want to identify with anything that is traditionally 'manly' or part of a 'male role' to have in society or personal life. In my teen years, I wanted to grow big and strong, because I had always been mistaken for a young child, and I wanted to look older and be treated my age. I do feel though, that I would prefer to have been born a girl, or that I today, was less masculine looking and sounding in my speech than I do today.

    I feel I should note that often times, I don't feel as if I am my real self around people, and that they're not really seeing the real me. I don't know whether or not this is connected to gender.

    Often times I feel like presenting myself as a woman in public if I could truly be seen as one without any doubt about my birth sex as opposed to a man/ male, or if I were born a girl and grew up to be a woman, it would be more ideal. Other times, not as much. It's varying. Some days, I want to be female, others, I'm fine. I often wear a bracelet or something very small that is feminine in a way in order to express femininity in some way.
     
  5. BobJones

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    Can anyone offer their input?