Super long gender confused post

Hope this doesn't double post. Messed up trying to submit it before.

Alright. So I'm finally going to deal with this. Let me start by apologizing for how ridiculously long this is. I'm looking for an outside opinion on what the heck is going on with me as I'm currently too stuck inside my head to see myself clearly. If you read it, thank you so much. If you can't get through it, I completely understand. I've been immobilized by fear for the past month or so (often staying in bed until 3 or 4pm on days I don't have to work, which can be as many as five a week). I'm afraid to feel anything because I'm afraid of what my feelings mean about my sexual and gender identity. Right now I'm going to focus mainly on my gender identity. I'm physically female. Growing up I never said "I'm a boy" or thought I was anything but a little girl that I can remember. I started really questioning my gender a couple of months ago after I had been on this site for a while and read a lot of posts by trans gender or confused people. When I was meditating one day (something I don't do all that often) it popped into my head that I might be trans gender. Later, I started thinking back and finding stuff that sort of supported it. I hated wearing dresses when I was little. My mom sometimes talks about how I often wanted "boy's" toys like trucks and cars. However, I remember playing with all kinds of toys from Barbies and Treasure Trolls to plastic lizards and Matchbox cars. My friends have always been mostly females. I liked playing dress up as a kid and frequently pretended to be a pioneer woman (nerd!).

Sorry if the following is a bit graphic, but I don't know how else to describe these specific experiences. Around the age of 9 I remember laying on my bedroom floor and suddenly getting the sensation that I was growing a penis. I got the urge to freak out, but pushed it aside and found that the sensation wasn't entirely bad, just weird. Maybe a year or two later I started thinking about sex. I think I thought sex with a penis would be better. I don't know if this was because I heard almost exclusively about sex being pleasurable for men and had no idea women got pleasure from it as well. Or if I was sensing my attraction to women and couldn't fathom a woman being with a woman. Or if I was sensing being trans. I was pretty ignorant of female anatomy until I was 17. Through my teenage years I got the message loud and clear from peers that sex was something for men that women gave them. Which made me angry, though I didn't know how to express it until I was older. Somewhere around that time I learned about women who got surgery to become men. I wondered briefly if I would ever get surgery to become a man, or get a penis. I decided that it wasn't worth it. Maybe I would have liked to have been born a man? But I could never see going to the trouble of changing. We had a family friend around my age who came out as FtM transgendered. I was couldn't fathom how someone born with female anatomy could think they were male.

Then, when I was a bit older I felt my cervix for the first time and was scared to death that it was an underdeveloped penis and I was actually intersex (though I didn't know the term at the time). I was freaked out because in my mind it somehow made sense that I would have been born a male. I had been I was scared for quite a while (weeks? months?) until I eventually forgot about it. Puberty was hell. I was very embarrassed by my body and wanted to wear a sports bra to bed every night because I heard it would stunt the growth of my breasts. I remember eying a small chested teacher in the lunch room and praying that I would turn out to be as flat as her. I was very scared of getting my period. It felt like the end of the world was upon me. When I finally did get it I realized it wasn't so bad, though I was kind of embarrassed to tell my mom. I was also mortified by the hair that started growing on my body. It also seemed like the end of the world.

Even before puberty I had started getting weirded out by my body and growing up. At 6 I never wanted to get any older and got depressed and scared that I would ever turn 7. For years after I still said I was 6 years old. In second grade I started crying all the time and saying I wanted to go home to Illinois (my family had moved to Connecticut when I was 3). This continued through fifth grade. When I was 9 I read a book in which a kid weighed 60lbs. and I thought that was so fat and prayed and prayed that I would never get that heavy. I would do stuff like scratch off moles and freckles until my skin bled and around the age of 12 I became obsessed with plucking my eyebrows and eyelashes until I had almost none.

When I was 11 my friend asked me why I always wore boy's clothes. At the time I didn't think I dressed any differently than my female friends, but looking back, I realize I did kind of dress like a boy. When out shopping I always wondered why the boy's section had better clothes and loved it when I got a few pieces of male clothing. A lot of it had to do with liking loose and comfortable clothes that were dull colored and wouldn't make me stand out.

Around ages 12 and 13 I became concerned with attracting guys and would let my sports bra hang out of my t-shirt a tiny bit thinking I'd look sexy (again, nerd). I wrote a lot of stories about making out with guys in the forest and couldn't wait to kiss a boy.

In high school we did a couple of plays where girls playing men or little kids had to bind their chests. I always kind of wished that was me. It seemed sexy somehow.

At the age of 14 I was put on an anti depressant. It made me manic and my personality did a 180. All of a sudden I was outgoing, confident, and reckless where I had been a shy kid and a good student. This set off over a year of medication switches that I can barely remember because of how drugged up I was. It included a three week stay in a mental hospital and a trip to the ER due to medication interaction. During this time I had my first real boyfriend and lost my virginity. I remember dissociating during every single sexual encounter over the course of five months besides one where I was high on pot and actually enjoyed myself.

By the time I took myself off the medications at the age of 16 my life had completely changed. I'd put on a lot of weight (20lbs) and lost a lot of friends. I had become a terrible student and barely went to school between the ages of 15 and 17. Often I stayed home because I was embarrassed by my body and how fat I thought I was (at most 125 lbs and 5' 3", so not really fat at all). I became bulimic and fantasized about cutting off my stomach. I wonder now if this could have had something to do with dysphoria?

In college I learned about "penis envy" and all of a sudden I remembered the feelings I'd had as a pre-teen. It made total sense until I learned the concept was out dated and misogynistic. So I put it out of my head and didn't think about it again until just recently when I started questioning. I've watched a ton of YouTube videos of FtM's transitioning. They often make me cry when they say how now they just feel right with themselves. I've never strongly felt like a woman, but I also don't know that I've ever felt like a man. I've felt like myself and honestly it kind of feels like a mix between the two. Now I like wearing dress on occasion. I sort of like being that tomboy who surprises people by looking beautiful on special occasions. And I often like my boobs and like to show them off (tastefully).

Another thing that's been confusing me is determining what feelings are coming from my sexuality and what feelings are coming from my gender. I have always loved looking at pictures of naked men. Since I was 5 I would steal looks at guy's junk when ever possible. Girls were boring to me. Boobs became a bit more interesting around puberty, but naked dudes were still my preference (I think). However, for equally long there have been women that I had really strong emotional attractions to. I thought that I just wanted to be them, but since I've started questioning my sexuality I've learned that that can often be a cover for crushes. But I can't remember ever wanting to be a male celebrity or anything. But if, for me, wanting to be someone is actually a crush, then did I actually want to be the naked men and have sex with the women? But I've found that, in addition to the crushes, I do actually idolize most of those women. Like, I idolized Jane Goodall but never had a crush on her. So, if I idolize only women could I still want to be a man?

Also, I'm an actress and comedian (I know this post isn't very funny) and I love playing female characters. I have like two male characters that I play (and like playing them) but they're pretty two dimensional compared to the women I play. When I get mistaken for a man on stage (I do improv, so the other players kind of have to guess at who you are in a scene) I feel vaguely insulted. It never happens in real life, but I don't think I'd like being called a man there either.

And one last thing, I abhor the idea of facial hair.

Just writing this makes me feel a whole lot better. Sorry it's so long. There is so much more to it all. But this is a start to getting out the mess in my head. If you made it through all that, thank you so much.

 

Thanks for reading that fedora. I'm questioning both, but they seem to be tied up in each other. Like if I'm totally lesbian and didn't notice it for so long, then it seems likely that I could be trans* and not have noticed it.

 

Thanks fedora and Dhamma.

Dhamma, I really appreciate your take on this. I don't know about my sexuality yet, but it seems like in both areas (sexuality and gender) I'm probably pushing too hard to see things that aren't necessarily there. You've given me some more to think about. Something that's been plaguing me is why would I have spent so much time and energy questioning if there wasn't really something there?

 

Thanks seeksanctuary. I read about androgyny a while ago and it resonated. But I heard that it's extremely rare so I thought I was more likely transsexual since it seemed like anywhere between genders was a regular stopping point for people on the road to transition. I can't tell you how relieved it's made me hearing that you, Dhamma, and fedora think I might not be transsexual and don't necessarily have to transition.

How do I go about finding a gender therapist? I've got a major LGBT (Chicago) center near me, but I'm still under my parent's insurance and not ready for them to find out about my questioning. I don't have enough money of my own to see someone paying full price. Is there a way to find someone without going through the center or should I just suck it up (my mom is super nosy and would look up anyone I was going to see)? In your opinion (that of anyone reading this) should I see someone who's FtM, cis female, or what? I'm also afraid they'll encourage me towards a direction that I need to transition. It sounds crazy writing it, but I do worry.

 

Thanks for the advise. I have trouble telling what are my true feelings, what are conditioned feelings, and what is anxiety-produced noise. I can't really tell if I'm unhappy with my body or not. I don't like the idea of being called a man, but I'm not sure if that's just conditioned. Seeing someone who knows about these things would probably be helpful. I'm seeing a therapist now, but he is more for ADD. Though I've talked pretty extensively with him about this stuff I don't think he's ever dealt with it before and so he doesn't have much to offer. How do I know if a therapist specializes in gender?