So I'm 14 and biological female, and for about the last 3 years of my life I've been thinking a lot about my gender identity and sexuality, at first I was just focusing on my sexuality but in about the last 1 and half years I've been really focusing on my gender identity, for a few months in the beginning of 7th grade I had a short brown wig, and when ever I got home I would put it on and steal a bunch of my brothers clothes and pretended I was a guy, and I felt really comfortable like that, and that's when I really asked myself "am I a boy?" And I was like nah impossible, cause I liked doing "girly" things like my makeup, and wearing cute clothes and stuff like that, so I just forgot about it even coming up, but still when ever I got home I would wear my brothers clothes and just lay around the house or in my room. (Around this time I got my hair cut really short) So few months later I was scrolling through Instagram and I found a lgbt+ page, and I decided to look into it and it had a bunch of terms like qenderfluid and Pansexual and I was like THIS IS BLOWING MY MIND, there are so many different sexualities and gender expressions, and I just couldn't stop researching all theses terms and learning different pronouns, but gender fluid stuck out to me the most and I started questioning "am I genderfluid?" Maybe? So to figure it out I made a secret Instagram were I blocked everyone I knew, and in the bio it said he/they/she, after a few months I got up to 500 followers, and at this point EVERYONE called me they or he, I even changed my name in the bio to Aaron (close to my real name but more masculine) and being called he or they made me happy but I also don't mind she, but eventually I deleted it and forgot about it, now it's right now, a weeks ago the boy I liked told me I looked really good with a bunch of makeup on my face, like with dark eyeshadow and eyeliner and contour and all that stuff, so for almost every day after that I was extremely feminine, I wore dresses and pinned my bangs back and had a bunch of makeup on and I got really depressed, I enjoyed applying the makeup to my face but whenever I saw my face in the end I just couldn't believe it was me, I felt really gross. It got to the point where I would cry myself to sleep and I don't know if this was because he didn't ever said anything about it or if I actually felt like it wasn't me, I have never liked the way I looked with long hair or with makeup, I mean I knew I looked good but it never felt right to me so I'm just really confused, Transgender is such a heavy label to me cause what if I think I'm 100% sure and I come out as FTM but then later I realize I'm not, I feel like if I could choose my sex from the start I would of chosen to be male but idk if I would want surgery for a sex change, I don't know what body I feel like I belong in, and I know that I still have a lot of time to figure it out I just need a bit of help.
I'm kind of in the same boat. The best thing I can suggest is to really take your time and experiment with your gender expression. There's no rush to find a label, and you don't even need to define yourself if you don't find a term you like. Try experimenting with your clothes and hair and maybe have a few friends try calling you by a different name or pronouns. And if you do find that you're transgender, there's no hurry to come out. Take your time, make sure you're pretty confident in your identity first. Or, if your family is pretty accepting/open-minded, you could "come out" to them just to test out how you like living as FTM. Sorry I don't have much advice to offer since I'm not much older than you and don't have much more experience. Good luck figuring yourself out!
