Probably going to be a text wall here since I'll be dumping a lot of information to hopefully get as much of a picture of myself as I can. Summed up, I'm biologically female, but consider myself male. I was homeschooled as a child and didn't have that many friends, nor was I really influenced, from what I can remember, on gender roles, at least early on. I was allowed to do my own thing. Shorts, jeans, t-shirts. Couldn't get me in a dress. Half the time, I'd come up to the house covered in mud and mom would make me rinse myself off before I was allowed in. I played with both barbies and horses, but also toy dinosaurs (raptor fan, represent!), toy cars, and my favorite at my grandparent's house: the Tonka trucks. Two dump trucks, a digger, a bulldozer, and a...I forgot the name, but it's one of those trucks with the angular blade that levels dirt and stuff. It was a sad day when the digger's handles stopped working. Anyway. With other children, I was more inclined to wrestle with the boys, only stopping when my mom said "it wasn't ladylike", playing ninja with the boys, and kissing the girls in campfires. Again, stopping because mom said that "girls don't kiss girls". I struggled to be more feminine. During all this, I'd always get out of the shower and while my hair was wet, slick it back and wonder what I'd look like as a boy. I was also severely depressed, to the point of being suicidal. At 5. Not joking. I only realized this many years later when I was reflecting on my childhood. Major wtf moment. Continuing on. I've been off an on anti-depressants with a number of them being during my teens. Always trying to be feminine, and getting pissy when people called me male. I never really liked what I saw in the mirror, but brushed it off as being something everyone does. Anti-depressants never really worked for me. They'd do fine, but then they'd stop working and any attempt to up the dose would have nasty side effects. My mom has always tried to get me interested in make up or wearing dresses. Any attempts have failed. I own one dress and it's been worn the same amount of times. I loathe wearing make up. It isn't me. It makes me look farther away from what I want to look. Everyone says i look great with it. I don't. Back in December, i started questioning things heavily and went through a major depressive streak that lasted a solid two weeks. I have no idea how I kept my grades up. I came to the conclusion that I'm not female, and anytime I'd argue against it, memories from my child hood would bubble up to say "No, you're right". Since I started thinking of myself as male and "one of the guys", I've felt better. Cutting my hair helped, but I still see too much female. Being delicate sucks. I still hate looking at myself in the mirror. I can pick out a dozen flaws about my appearance and what I wished I looked like. None of them are female. This leaves me with a huge mess of issues. I'm still not entirely sure if I'm right or not, or if being on anti-depressants from such a young age screwed my brain up more than it already was. But then, I look at the fact that I fantasize about being male. It's constantly back and forth like that. There are other things I wonder about, such as telling my family, or relationships. I've hesitated on the latter because I don't think it would be fair to the other person right now. Besides that, my area isn't exactly accepting of alternative lifestyles. At this point, I think I'll worry about those once I figure out about myself. So, I guess I'm looking for outside opinions from people who've gone through this and are sure about themselves, because I sure as hell aren't.
Unfortunantly I cant say that Im completely sure about myself at the moment but your story is very similar to mine. I barely passed my classes last semester and im not sure how i even managed that i was so depressed. November was about the time I started questioning and March was when I had my major trans* ah-ha moment, which was pretty much a miserably depressive week or so where I barely left my room. Mirrors are tourture devises for me. Ive gotten pretty good at avoiding them unless im fully dressed. My best adivice is to let yourself question but just try to not freak out and simply analyze your emotions. Its ok to not be sure. It takes time and a lot of patience with yourself to figure these things out. Do you have a friend or therapist you can discuss this with? One of the best things that i did for myself was coming out to my friends and having at least one person that knew and would help me through it. It helped me a lot to have someone that i trusted to talk to face to face. Again questioning is OK, its better to give yourself time to be sure before you move forward. To me it does sould like you are trans* but as im sure many people have said, only you can say for sure. Best of luck.
I have told a small handful of friends, four in total, and they're fairly supportive. However, they're all online given that I have no real life friends. I don't have a therapist or anything. There's only one in the local area and that's a forty minute drive. Plus there's the issue of the $30 co-pay. I don't have a job currently since I just finished up 4 years of being a full time student at college and live with my parents due to heading for University in about a year and a half. Since I don't have any friends and don't have anywhere to really go, my parents would get fairly suspicious if I started going somewhere for three or more hours each week. I keep bouncing back and forth between telling my mom or not given that it's the only way I might be able to go. However, she has the mindset that "true transgenders all have a chromosomal issue and the ones that don't just need mental help to get over their issues". However, that was back before she watched some special concerning a pre-teen boy that considered themselves a girl. So, I don't know if her opinion has changed any or not.
I know that feel. I've never liked being biologically female. It's caused me a great deal of pain (both physical and emotional) throughout the years, and a lot of people I've dated haven't accepted it. I'm lucky to be married to a pretty feminine man who doesn't believe in the convention of gender roles, but again, I'm just lucky. I kind of fell into his life, actually. I do prefer to be referred to with masculine pronouns, and I've always enjoyed being one of the boys. My area is very closed-minded toward this kind of thing, too. I don't wear makeup either, but I do like dresses sometimes. My husband did give me a helpful tidbit once, though. He said, "Why not just be?" That's what I'm doing, and it's working for me. I'm non gender-conforming, and I'm extremely happy with that. But back to your question: I do think you're right. I applaud you for doing so much reflection on this. Just keep digging. I've learned from my life coaching classes that we all have our own answers within ourselves. Your answers are there. It's all just a matter of finding them. I'm sure you will in time, and I hope you find peace. (*hug*)
I've never really liked dresses. There's a few pictures of me in them, but they're all special occasion type things. Awards, holiday get togethers, funerals, etc. More than anything, they were my attempt to fit in and they were a "because I should" instead of "because I want to" type deal. I've tried "just being", and it doesn't really work, not when I have a solid mental image of what I should look like. I have a friend that, I know he means well and he's an awesome friend, tells me to "stop thinking of yourself as male or female and be happy with yourself". It frustrates me to no end, because I'm pretty sure I know what I am. I'm honestly thinking that my back and forthing has to do more with I haven't quite accepted it.
I was also home educated when I was younger. So, I wasn't effected by gender until I grew older, went through puberty and school etc. I relate to your story, although just in the reverse. When I look in the mirror, I have a constant quest to find femininity in my body. I feel crushed when I can't find femininity, and outraged when people imply I'm masculine. Every one feels doubt and it's completely natural, questioning your identity is scary and we are trained to feel like we need proof to validate our feelings. Well, proof is hard to find when we reflect on our identity. Seeking for validation is exhausting, and you're not going to find it from others. Your behavior, attitude, emotions, feelings, depression they're all the validation you'll need. You're the only one with the answer, and the answer is going to take time to reveal itself. So, don't freak out over doubt.
I was homeschooled through my entire life. My highschool was through an online school, so I was able to walk and get a diploma. I have a lot of instances where I bounce back and forth between hating being female and being ok with it. Not comfortable, but not so much hate. Wish things weren't so confusing.
Dysphoria varies in different people, I'm just rather dysphoric myself. However some people may experience very little dysphoria or perhaps no dysphoria at all, yet still be trans*, it's different for different people. Not being comfortable in your female body is still dysphoria, even if you don't hate it.
It depends heavily on my mental state. If I'm depressed, I'm more likely to dislike my body. For example, I'm feeling fairly neutral right now, so I'm ok with it. I want to see someone, but I just don't know how to go about doing that. Money and my family and all. I'm leaning towards telling my mom, but I honestly don't know how she'd react.
Hey. I just wanted to give a little bit of my story. I hope it can help you. I came out to my parents a few weeks ago and my biggest regret is that I didn't tell them sooner. Don't get me wrong - it wasn't all flowers and butterflies when I told them. My mom cried multiple times. So did I. My dad still hasn't talked to me about it and pretends I didn't say anything. But a couple weeks later, my mom really surprised me with her understanding. In the couple weeks I was home she had researched a lot about HRT and read a lot of stories on the internet. So even though going through with it scared her, she said it wasn't her right to stop me. She told me if it's what I need to do to feel a right as I can, then it wasn't her place to tell me otherwise. I also thought she was against counselors because of some stuff that happened in high school, but she actually suggested that I should find a therapist to talk to while I'm at school. (Let me know if you know of a good one in Oklahoma). Good luck and message me if you ever want to talk.
I'm honestly debating telling my mom, simply for the sake of being able to go to a therapist. When it comes to depression and the like, she's decent since my dad was a rapid cycling bi-polar. I just don't know how to approach it yet. As for therapists in Oklahoma, there's one available to me because of insurance, despite there being five in the local area.
If it helps, I was planning on using a cake and I was going to write "Guess what, I'm not a lesbian... Sincerely, your son." I mean, being able to go to a therapist seems like it's well worth the initial discomfort of coming out. It'll be awkward, no lie, and I think the sooner you do it, the better off both you and your mom will be. Maybe consider writing a letter and gathering research/resources for your mother to read and look over so she understands what you're going through? Best of luck.
I actually told her tonight. It turned out better than I was expecting. She kept stressing that she wants me to be happy and agreed on a couple of points. For the most part she wants me to stay acting like a tomboy, but it's a start. Maybe she'll do research and stuff. Either way, she agreed on the therapist idea.
Congrats on telling her! Im glad to hear that she was accepting. Good luck with therapy and keep us updated.
Oh joy. The insurance did a revamp of the doctors and the therapist I was wanting to go to got taken off the list. Now I'm scrambling to try and find another.
