Could I be transgendered (FtM)?

[wanderer]

I'm a 22 year old lesbian woman(?) and I'm really confused, and have been for a while. I think I might be actually a straight man in the wrong body. Looking back in the first years of my life, I don't remember feeling either a boy or a girl. I didn't identify with either gender very much. I was a bit feminine, but didn't care for dresses. That intensified in middle school, and I started hating everything girly, but in high school I became girlier. Then I entered this stage I am now, of total confusion, swinging from girly to total boy within a matter of days. But I'm certainly more on the boyish side. Perhaps even to the point where I'm trans, but I'm not sure, because I'm so inconstant.

There are some things that point to me being transgender:
-Virtually all the times I dress girly I feel like a drag queen, ever since I was little.
-I tend to nervously scratch nail polish from my nails, since middle school. I hate it.
-I used to envy boys' short hair when I was a kid. And getting my hair cut short later on felt liberating.
-I hated it when my breasts started growing, I liked the seemingly genderlessness of being a kid. I still dislike them, btw.
-I have an unhealthy body image. So much so that I hate looking in the mirror, 'cause I don't see myself in it. I don't like what I see. I wreck my body in more ways than one and suffer from depression and anxiety.

But some things point to me being indeed a girl:
-I like my female figure in myself sometimes. I do like women, after all.
-In my childhood, I always played with barbies and I was always the mom playing house. It felt right.
-On the other hand, the male figure is unappealing to me. I don't think I would like to be hairy and have a penis.
-This is the most important trait I have that confuses me the most: I am stereotypically female personality-wise. I'm delicate, tender and compassionate. I'm not strong and brave at all. My hobbies are such as cooking and gardening. I hate sports.

I know the right thing to do is to find a gender therapist, but I have a real difficulty sharing these thoughts with others. In fact, this is the first time I've expressed them, ever. I don't expect you to tell me what I am, just tell me if these traits are consistent with gender dysphoria or I'm just your average butch lesbian. Hope someone can assist me, because I don't understand myself at all. Thanks for reading, and sorry for the long post.

[maverick]

But some things point to me being indeed a girl:
-I like my female figure in myself sometimes. I do like women, after all.
-In my childhood, I always played with barbies and I was always the mom playing house. It felt right.
-On the other hand, the male figure is unappealing to me. I don't think I would like to be hairy and have a penis.
-This is the most important trait I have that confuses me the most: I am stereotypically female personality-wise. I'm delicate, tender and compassionate. I'm not strong and brave at all. My hobbies are such as cooking and gardening. I hate sports.

I'm not a specialist or anything, but these things don't really make you seem transgendered to me...or at least they aren't consistent with what I felt growing up.

Growing up, I was always attracted to the female form, but it felt alien to be female. Playing house, I was always the father (or the dog! ) I'm stereotypically masculine in my personality. I was a bit bookish because I had a strong escapist streak, but I was also the hiker, hunter, fighter. I pissed standing up (at a young age and long before I knew that it was "wrong" for women to do so). I snuck into my father's closets and wore his clothes (also in secret). I was always drawn to "boy toys" growing up. When I got to an age where it was no longer "cute" for me to be a tomboy, I kept my interests as gender-neutral as possible to avoid criticism, though I was constantly told by people that my writing style, my art style, and my mannerisms were oddly masculine. My mother tried hard to battle my cross-dressing and was always on me saying things like, "Would it kill you to sit like a girl?"

Gender dysphoria is pretty intense...it's almost like a diassociative state. I avoided mirrors and cameras growing up not because I hated what I saw in the mirror, but because I absolutely did not recognize myself. At all. Being born female felt like a fairytale curse.

As far as the body image issues you mentioned go, many people have discomfort with their bodies in adolescence, it doesn't necessarily point to a transgender issue. That being said, there's no need to label yourself. If you feel comfortable in high heels and a skirt one day and cargo shorts and a wifebeater the next, there's no reason you can't happily jump between those two extremes whenever you like.

[seeksanctuary]

You could be transgender, but not transsexual. Gender is a spectrum... maybe you're not entirely male or female, but somewhere between or neither. :]

[wanderer]

I wonder if there is a way to distinguish between unhealthy body image that is generalized nowadays, and the body aversion that comes with being trans?? I'm thinking I might be gender fluid, perhaps... Don't know what that implies, though?

[Hot Pink]

I would also like to point out that not all men are masculine. You can be a feminine man if that's what you are. I know a FtM personally who identifies as male, wants chest reduction surgery, but also doesn't mind dressing in feminine clothes.

[b0i70y]

At this point, I don't think you're FtM. You could just be a heavy tomboy. I know many girls who dress, act, and appear manly, but they're not transgender/sexual. To me it just seems like your preferences range to the more masculine genre of appearance, which is totally cool.

Ultimately, time will tell.

[Hexagon]

You sound possibly gender fluid or bigender.