okaaay sooo i used to be a pretty regular member here for a bit. i was under the username Stefani2 and am a 18 year old transgirl who posted prettty regularly before deciding to take down my profile after deciding i wanted to go stealth and gain distance from the lgbt community. anyyyywho, long story short its been a long... month or however long and welll life has happened and i am now at probably the most complicated crossroads in my entire life and really need.. SOME kind of lgbt support. okaaay soo i have known i was female since i was 4. like seriously from the time i was 4 i identified as 100% completely female and lived with dysphoria day after day until finally deciding to transition (i still have it a lot but its different). okaaay but soo for a very short amount of time, like just a few months, i lived as a gay male. i began transitioning... i guess 6 months after coming out as gay? and i made up my mind to waaay before that. i wanted to since i was 16 but a lot of my anxieties held me back until the dysphoria - which seemed to increase after coming out - got so bad i was suicidal. now... at this point i am at this crossroads. okaaay so lets get one thing straight. with long hair and a female presentation i am told i pass well as a... wellllll i dont mean to compliment myself but i pass welll as a quite pretty attractive feminine girl. my voice is also 100% female sounding to others. buuuut with short hair... again not trying to compliment myself but with short hair and a male presentation welllll i made an incredibly good looking gay male for those few months and had quite a lot of men interested in me. either way i get the attention of boys looolz XD now... and i am trying to put every word of this as delicately and accurately as possible... in my MIND i am female and nothing has ever felt sooo right as transitioning and having estrogen in my body. like.. this is just RIGHT. like when i was living as a gay male every day was trying to sync that. like how who i AM on the inside and the person others saw on the outside and it was a constant pain inside of me cuz i KNEW i was female and always have. but now... now that im living this life... my old fears have come back to haunt me. and its like... all of a sudden... even though i KNOW this is who i really am.. i feel less authentic then i did when i was living as a gay male. like i am happier and am starting to love myself and my body in an indescribable way i never felt before... but then at the same time, even though i was sad and lonely and depressed as a gay male, i felt... reaaal. and i also before i transitioned i waaanted a straight relationship, but now i realize a couple things. one, straight men suuuck sooo bad OMG sooo bad. they're just... ugghh and straight relationships these days for the most part? they're shallow and boring and like meaningless. and like for ME... i have two options here: i never tell my partner im trans and have a totally shallow meaningless relationship where i lie about my past and who i am, or i DO tell him and always have it hanging over my head. like always wonder and obsess over whether he sees me as female or whether he's picturing the old me or whatever else, it would be hell having him know for me and i just KNOW it. and also... and this is whats been reaaally scaring me... i look at gay males and gay male relationships... verry longingly these days. i could be romanticizing but like there is something so sweet about them to me. like chrolli? OMG soo cute. and like i guess... maybe its the fact that both are the same gender and like its even everything is even sooo it makes for like this true and sweet and like adorable amaaazing love that straight relationships lack. and like i dunno there is something about them that i just love and feel.. jealous for not being able to be apart of anymore and almost like.. entitled to (i guess i could try being with a girl but it wouldn't be the same at all, for one cuz im not attracted to girls even a LITTLE). now i feel like im totally lost and confused and have no idea what to do. im at a crossroads... i could legitimately back out now cut my hair stop taking hormones and live my life as a gay male. and part of me... i cant even believe im saying this cuz before i started transition that would sound like absolute HELL... but part of me is tempted to cuz i would gain back my authenticity. no one could EVER question who i was or that i was male like they will CONSTANTLY do with me being female... like i feel i constantly have to PROVE im a girl and i can never be pretty enough or feminine enough cuz the way i was born will make it always a lie to people. and the only way i can escape that is to go stealth which equals living a lie and shunning the lgbt community which im sooo proud to be apart of. but i know if i WERE to live as a gay male.. the depression would return soooo bad. i would have day after day dysphoria and hate myself constantly and i would end up just longing to be female. but now that i AM living as a female (wellll part time the other part is technically gay male)... yess apart of me is happier and loves myself more and feels more like myself then EVER before and like this... indescribable feeling of rightness with my self and my body growing and growing everyday. but apart of me also feels... fake. not real. like everything about me is a lie and im stuck trying to fit into this straight cis world that i wont ever belong in cuz of who i am. whereas i would 100% belong in the gay world if i lived that. but then i'd hate myself a part of me hates even admitting i have these feelings cuz i LOVE being a girl i really do sooo much and it feels soooo true to myself and right. but regardless these songs are there. i guess i see it this way: i could never find true love as a girl but i will be being true to myself, even if its fake to others. i COULD find true love as a boy and regardless of what others thought of it NO one could question my identity, but living that way would consume me and make me miserable. but i would have a companion to maybe make it better? i dont know i dont know anything anymore and the thing is i am literally in between right now cuz i am part time... i am about to get these fusion hair extensions and go full time but now... i am sooo lost. any advice or just words of support are MUCH appreciated ---------- Post added 8th Aug 2013 at 02:26 PM ---------- wowww that really WAS waaaay tooo long sorrrrry XD... i guess i just had to get those feelings out
Well, there seems to be a lot of conflicting factors here. First, physically. There is no such thing as being authentic to your creation, only authentic to yourself. There will always be predisposed expectations and assumptions about you because of your gender, appearance, or expression. It doesn't matter what society wants; the only thing that should ever been important is what you desire of yourself. There is no doubt that your external struggles would be easier if you went on to live life as a gay male. Though external struggles are miniscule in comparison to what you could face internally for not being true to yourself. Being who you feel in your heart is the only way you are going to be content in your life. Straight men are not that bad; it probably looks much worse if you are mainly interacting with shallow, sex-crazed ones online. The biggest form of advice I can give is, that although I completely understand why you would want to keep your orientation under-wraps, I would honestly recommend being open with it. Being LGBTQ can be a bitch at time, but the only way you are going to be able to truly be comfortable with yourself is if you have no shame in who you are. You don't have to shout it from the rooftops, but it shouldn't be a secret that you will forever be tripping over yourself trying to hide. Some people will think less of you, but it will just make it easier to spot those who won't. I'm sure it seems crazy now, but you are you. There is no reason why you should feel less than anyone else.
@gen, thanks soo much for your response. and you know thats exactly it.. that distinction you made between internal and external struggles. like.. if i lived as a gay male yes there would have been external struggles still but i could have handled it cuz no one could have denied my identity or who i was. but internally.. it would be suicide. cuz i am female inside and i can't ever change that. but as a female i ummm... internally living this way i LOVE myself sooo much more and internally i am soo much more content with me and i am learning to LOVE the girl i am seeing in the mirror personally. but then ummm like... i can admit men find me very attractive (at least before they find out) but i can never be enough. not pretty enough not feminine enough or whatever cuz to everyone else? its all a lie and how i was born.. i can try to pretend it all away but it will always be there. and i always feel this urge to like go to extremes like for guys cuz of that... i honestly.. i know i can NEVER go back. it would kill me noo question. but apart of me is just bitter about that. like.. why couldn't i have just been a gay boy and been able to be happy that way? its not fair. why did i have to have a girls mind? i never thought this way before i transitioned and realized 1. how hard it is to be a girl in general and 2. how its a zilllion times worse if you are trans. i guess no matter what i will be missing something and i have to find a way to live with that... also yesss straight guys dooo suuuck they sooo suck XD online or offline if anything they are worse offline. suuuch jerks uggh XD gay guys can be too but its not the same XD i WILL always have the jealousy with gay males.. like a part of me will always look at that bond and those relationships and just romanticize them and look at them with envy and feel like i was almost entitled to it? (i could have seeriously had any boy i wanted if i were gay looolz i can admit it) and like i dont even know WHY i look at them that way cuz i defs didnt use to and i use to defs prefer straight relationships but now its just the opposite XD probz cuz i see that guys that like girls are just more jerky in general XD but yeaah i wish i could have either just been born in a girls body or with a boys brain not the way i am girls brain boy genes. this inbetweenness is causing seeeerious mindfucking
