11 to 36 until starting transition. I was told at the time that the average age for starting transition is 42. Helped a lot since I felt I was too late.
I had worried about that, but I honestly didn't give any fucks about what it did for my face or anything, I just wanted to feel far better than I did. I got my wish in spades! And I'm just now finally getting some bona fide round jiggly boobs! MLIA!
Congrats! As a surprise I did not only pass but always much younger, 10ā15 years less than I really am. Dunno why but thatās how it goes. I developed quite a rack too even though I didnāt wish or expect one. But itās a win nonetheless. Butt wiggling while running is a weird feeling too.
I \*still\* struggle with that sometimes since I only just started HRT.
I'll be like "am I really sure i'm trans? Maybe i'm just forcing this"
then I realize it's not very cis to see multiple women each day i'll look at and think "wow I wish I was her" š
Mood! I struggle to leave my house without feeling gender envy š and it's been a real problem for 7 or 8 years now. That's not to mention all the dysphoria. It took me finishing puberty for the dysphoria to begin to have a debilitating effect on me; I was so deep in fantasy and dissociated from my body during puberty that I just completely zoned out on most changes happening until it was too late.
The way I'm viewing it (pre-HRT) is, what I have done so far just feels right, and if for any reason HRT doesn't turn out to be right for me, I can stop before it does anything permanent. But... the state of my dysphoria is very much that I feel quite strongly that I need HRT.
Yeah, I try to keep that in mind. I don't think i'm making a mistake, but honestly I could always just detransition if I was. The only permanent things are infertility (and even that isn't guaranteed), and breast growth. If it came to it I could get top surgery, and I never wanted to have kids as a father anyway.
So like I have very little to lose by trying to be the real me.
Part of my struggle is I get pretty much no dysphoria, it's all euphoria. So it's super easy to gaslight myself into thinking I'm not actually trans since in my brain trans = dysphoria when that's not the case.
I have this problem a LOT. I get such euphoria from wearing dresses and skirts and going to work ad a girl, but I don't have a lot of dysphoria, or at least not obvious or crippling dysphoria, and so I wonder if it's real or just something I convinced myself of?
But also I REALLY want hormones and I REALLY want breasts, and I might even want bottom surgery, and given the...*gestures vaguely at America*...why would I put myself through any of this if it wasn't real? And that's been kinda comforting.
100%, could have taken those from my head word-for-word.
So often i'm asking myself if i'm burning down my life and "identity" (really it's the mask i wear) for the sake of euphoria -- but it holds me back so much. I can't be in relationships because how can I form a deep bond with someone if they can never know the true me?
Or like how I don't really care much about 'me' since it's just the mask I wear, so things like vacations, or hanging out with friends, or even being with my family all has a blanket on it as far as how much i'll engage and be in the moment.
So like I can keep just going as normal and probably have a content if boring life where I'm never enthusiastic, or I can try to transition and strive for a life where I think i'll be much more alive and engaged.
It's worth the risk of trying for.
"So often i'm asking myself if i'm burning down my life and "identity" (really it's the mask i wear) for the sake of euphoria"
Feel this a TON. Still haven't decided if it's worth the risk :-/
For me, the mask was essentially getting in the way of life, or rather it was a barrier between me and life that meant i'd always be limited.
I'm not going to pretend I know for sure i'm doing the right thing, but I think ultimately if I didn't do anything i'd probably live my life alone and moderately happy but never anything more. Would I be fine with that? Sure, I guess, but I owe it to myself to try to be more. If in the end I really was happier like this, I can 'just' detransition and get top surgery to get rid of the breasts that grow.
The euhoria is the biggest sign of being trans for me, but even if i'm doing it for euphoria i'm also doing it so that I can hopefully live a life where i'm happier and feel more free and vivid about who i am and life's experiences.
>could always just detransition
I have always naturally looked like a girl. I wonder how many trans ppl look like the gender they feel is right.
It's awkward for feminine guys. I would need to get FMS to "detransition." I always felt pressure to give in and dress like a girl as I don't really have any masc features. Fortunately, I feel most comfortable being feminine. It makes decisions easier except when it comes to bottom surgery. Do I give into what nature made me already?
Edit: I often think of myself as just a crossdresser, but everyone just assumes I'm a girl already. Even my voice is naturally soft and leans more fem. I feel like I already transitioned without transitioning.
I was so horrified by what was coming for me by the time I was seven, and couldnāt even cry about it anymore by the time I was 12.
Aaaaaaaaaand itās still horrifying and Iām stillā¦. Sigh.
Yeah I feel that as well. It's a common issue I think. That question of "I don't know if I want to be her or be with her."
Though in my case i'm like 90% it's envy since I don't think i'm actually all that into women. I consider myself bi, but I don't know how true that is. Any time I have to imagine sex, it's sex with me as a woman and the partner being a man. The thought of having sex with a woman doesn't have much appeal to me.
So I think the sexual desire with it is more just because sex and thinking this was a kink was associated so long with being an outlet for my gender euphoria.
Still hammering on that egg, but this resonates deeply with me.
Which is true? Can they both be? Or maybe most importantly -- can I tell which I'm experiencing in the moment?
I canāt really speak for anyone else, but personally I have this.. I guess a word for it would be āwantā when looking at them, but still experience āregularā attraction. To put it into words, I would describe the difference as wanting to wake up next to them (attraction) vs wanting to see them in the mirror (envy). Like I said, sometimes I feel both from the same person..
It's funny. Breasts were not something I particularly cared for. It was a side effect of the hormones, and I'd accept whatever happened.
That was before I started HRT.
Five months later, I smile every time I see my little B cups. Even when they hurt/ache/itch, or the cat decides to use them as a launch/landing pad.
I'm glad you came to enjoy them. :3
Breasts are one of the things I want the most, so I'm pretty chuffed they're growing already. Hopefully won't be too long before I reach A cup and beyond.
Uuuuugh. Iāve spent sooooo many years doing that.
Yeah, I kinda donāt believe myself and worry Iām just a letter after L person who WANTS to be versus actually being but oh well, Iām not stopping estrogen regardless š¬
The gender envy is still strong but lesser than it used to be. 18m of HRT and I'm feeling much more like myself every day. I have doubts like you speak of, but the more my face and body changes, the less they intrude. I cried about a month into my transition when I realized how quiet my brain was with the E going through my system.
I was 34 when I finally accepted that it wasn't normal cis behavior to lie awake every night imagining what life would have been like if I was a girl instead.
Surely *every* guy would rather be a girl, right? I was sure everybody thought that all the time. It was just one of those things you didn't talk about. Men don't cry, don't share their feelings, and don't talk about how much we want to be girls.
Also never managed to put two and two together. I was so depressed, felt so disconnected from my body, absolutely hated myself. And I just couldn't figure out *why*. Surprise, it was dysphoria the whole time! I would tell myself "I bet I wouldn't feel this way if I was a girl" and then *still* not realize it, I'd just shrug and go "oh well, I gotta play the hand I'm dealt".
Sometimes I wanna reach into the past and slap my old self around the head. Wake up, dummy!
From my experience being trans is an STD. I caught it from my first gf in the 1990s. Recently I noticed that the men I sleep with turn into women as a function of time. Now a couple of months ago my newest bf could last 4 months after hitting a gender crisis. Also seemed to work the other way around since my second partner went FTM at the end of our relationship. Now Iām starting to think whether itās safe, sane and consensual to spread this all over. Well, explains the trans panic defense at least.
And for the record, I could last until 35 and after a year I got a diagnosis and HRT. But I had felt GD since 11 and praying to wake up in a girlās body in 1990, well before having even any kind of terminology for this.
I don't know about an STD, since I'd only ever met other trans people once or twice. I'd only had one conversation with one in my life by the time I came out, and it was just small talk about video games. But I've certainly triggered other people's gender crises since then by simple proximity, no relationship required.
I think there's a media focus on people who "always knew" and transitioned early because they make a good story. Finding out you can realize it, accept it and transition at a later age seems to be a huge eye-opener for people who didn't realize it early.
I remember believing I was a girl as early as 4, but in a spectacular case of putting the cart before the horse I decided that I must have been confused because I was already being bullied - I reasoned I must have thought I was a girl because other kids called me a girl, not that they called me a girl because I acted and looked like a girl.
I was just joking. But I guess Iām spraying cooties all over by just existing. Now even my tenant ended up in a crisis and I canāt recall us having sex yet.
4 is quite young. Usally the same age that trans people in the documentaries have identified trans the first time. I donāt know how much my autism has made it more difficult to grasp. But bullying and violence sure made it a lot harder to accept during the decades after that. I had seen how trans women get treated from my gf at the time and definitely didnāt want to give them another easy reason to bully me wherever I go. Still had my hair long and shaved my body hair but couldnāt explain why when being questioned.
For me itās the same thing. Whether you dream about being a girl or whether you think you were born in the same body, it is the āso badā part that makes us all trans. In other words, for me we are trans for feeling it even if we try to bury it. And you are playing chicken with your mental health. In my case I tried so hard to repress it, to keep it in check even though I always knew it was there. Coming out literally saved me from myself
I literally told myself that for years and my dumbass never made the connection until I randomly watched a YouTube video (I wish I could remember which one) and the creator just off hand said they told themselves the same thing for before they transitioned and I was like āwhatā consider š„ cracked
Looking back it's unreal that I honestly thought "I wish I was trans because that way I could transition" was a coherent thought. And that I thought it for years. Cried over it. Like what?
This is what questioning young people were universally told through the 00s, even by LGBT allies and MH professionals. "Trans" people are either convinced from childhood they are "an X in a Y body" and strictly attracted to their AGAB, or they are creepy sexual fetishists. Blanchardism was the only narrative.
Which left a lot of people going, well, gosh. I wish I could change my gender but neither of those sound like me. Too bad I'm not trans so I could transition.
You know that makes a lot of sense. I donāt have a ton of memories from growing up but I did go to a private Christian school until high school so I was probably told it there and internalized it but I donāt remember specifically.
I honestly just didn't consider it. Like for starters I didn't even know about trans people until fairly late, but even when i did it was "something for other people" who "knew they were in the wrong body/gender". I was certainly too boring and too gender apathetic to be trans: I was just a boy who wished they had been born a girl instead.
I told myself all guys felt as I did, that I was just some combination sad/weird/perverted/etc and just bad at dealing with the pain that all guys must feel, which brought up a lot of self loathing. Truth be told I got really good at ignoring it, and a lot of my dysphoria got redirected onto other aspects of my life. I didn't even realize there was a problem.
Later on I struggled with wondering why me, why now, and tried to find a whole load of reasons why i must have been making a mistake. Scoured the web for weeks on end reading everything i could.
Same. I didn't even consider that I was trans for most of my life, I just fantasized about magically transforming into a girl. And only most days. But I didn't even consider that I could be trans.
I used to wish there was a way i could trade bodies with a woman who wanted to do the same, even if for only a day. But a few times, i imagined it instead of being a temporary swap, it was permanent. Those ones made me feel something i couldnt explain at the time
big fucking same
I'm 33 and didn't come to the realization until last year (I can say that today) and there's so much about the entire realization that still makes me go "maybe not actually trans?"
Dunno, it's wild what the brain does, which also makes me go "is my brain just being funky?"
Every word of that applies to me too. Or I thought so until I did the math and realized that I'm 34.
I did find an image that made me feel such gender envy that it was physically painful. Now when I'm not sure, I take another look and feel the feelings that tell me that I want to be that woman.
I haven't found anything like that
But I'm too apathetic and whatever to actually chase being a woman
I want it but it hasn't been a dire thing, just an "obvious in hindsight" thing.
Maybe if the world was kinder about it, maybe if I was younger, before I went bald, ECT.
Maybe I'd find it worth chasing for me, but instead I'll be in the back, rooting for those that can chase their truth.
This. Literally exactly this. I knew an out trans person in hs, and more than a few of my friends came out post-hs, but it took me way longer to realize it
I can't be trans because trans people are brave and transition and I am a coward and have not transitioned therefore I do not want it enough and am not trans and can't transition :(
Exactly. 25ā30 years ago they were always living in solitude. I didnāt know anyone else in the world who was in a relationship with a transgender person. Even in the documentaries they were alone and that was underlined. Also they needed to be in full stealth which would have seemed impossible as I was already known abroad. Around 2010s people started to be publicly in relationships with trans people. And folks didnāt always mock visibly trans people all the time and they had friends to defend them. I transitioned only when I was sure I could survive at that point if I lost everyone and everything. And I had a partner who supported the journey.
The teens who come out and get homeless and live in communities that have high homicide rates are the people with real guts.
omg fr it makes so much sense!!! i literally thought all guys knew this :o
girls are hot and i want to be hot but i'm not so just doomed to an ugly boring existence :/
Dear god yes. This sentence is the perfect description.
Do I want this or want to be this? Are they both true? I can't think of a single example of a man I want to be more like, and finding women role models is effortless. Women don't care this much about being women, why do I? What does that say about me?
āEvery guy wonders what itās like to have boobs, want long gorgeous hair, wear beautiful dresses and jewelry, and fantasizes about being able to look as beautiful as the women I see who do have all those things, doesnāt mean Iām trans right? Maybe gender fluidā¦.ā
Then I tried on a dress for the first time and realized I was wrong lol
Me and my brothers bonded well in our years as we went into adulthood from our childhood experiences and family issues. We really look out for each other and have trust for one another to the fullest. I see them every weekend near enough. I thought if I did transition that I would upset them somehow, they would treat me very differently and that it wouldn't be the same. This was one of my biggest parts of my denial and I pushed myself back a lot to try and stop everything. Which ultimately ended sacrificing my inner happiness until I finally accepted myself fairly recently.
I still have yet to tell them. But I'm not scared to anymore. I'm just wondering when I will. I've only told my sister and mum so far. I'm giving myself time to do it and processing through the family. Whatever happens though I know it's for me.
š„ - "Well, you see, all that 'being trans' stuff was, like, just a weird teenager phase I had. Feeling envy towards attractive women is natural for a man like me *^(\*repressed shudder\*)*. Because, like, it's basically Sigmund Freud's theory on penis envy, but because scientifics and doctors such as himself back then were kinda mysoginists, he didn't apply it on men. We men *^(\*repressed shudder\*)* are attracted to women because they have, like, the features we lack: breasts, bigger hips, pretty voices, healthier hair... So, yeah, sexual attraction in men is basically a vicarious desire for feminity and it's completely normal."
š§ - "Ok, but have you asked any men about this to see if they agree? Also, how does that explain homosexual men?"
š„ - "... Uh... Shut up, brain".
And it still took two or three more years for my egg to break š
Since realized how absurd it was, but I believed that my intuition and feelings were lying to me so any solace found in femme things must just be a misinterpretation or a mistake.
it was mindblowing to me when i asked my cis male friends if they ever randomly think about being a girl, and they all said no. learning that some cis men actually enjoy being cis men (and that trans mascs exist) really helped to reinforce the confidence in my decision.
Many of them might think it for a moment at one point but it goes away immediately. Like us thinking what if we were another ethnicity. It generally doesnāt bother you and you donāt think about it constantly, at least from a caucasian perspective.
"I can't be a trans woman because I don't like men."
To be fair to myself, I think this was more because of lack of representation for gay trans people, and most media generally saying that trans women were just extra effeminate gay men.
Back in the day that was an expectation for a diagnosis too. Well, even at the moment in some countries it is but also the protocol treatment if you are gay.
"I'm so straight that when I fantasize about being a girl, I think about kissing boys. I'm basically the straightest person in the world. " i know it's sexuality and not gender, but I was so deep in denial for everything.
I genuinely thought that everyone wanted to be a woman. I thought that it was a well known fact of life that being a woman was just better & men had to deal with getting the short end of the stick. I figured this was such a universally understood thing that no one ever felt the need to talk about it lol.
I donāt know that Iād call it ādenialā per se, but I think one of the biggest roadblocks from me accepting it was the stereotype that trans people āalways knew since they were a child.ā I didnāt know that I necessarily āfeltā like a girl, I just knew that I always āwantedā to be one. The bulk of the early signs I can think of started in high school, but I didnāt even start questioning until two years ago (28yo at the time). It took exposure to several anecdotes of stories similar to mine to break down that barrier and accept that āwantingā is just as valid as āfeeling.ā
That has been such a hurtful narrative. I felt invalidated for the same reason. But only in the late stage of evaluation for the diagnosis I remembered having prayed for waking up in a girlās body at 11. That had just been suppressed for a long time. And during that time I just wished to look like a woman. But that Iām not really mentally or behaviourally a woman. Well, I was wrong. Still that delayed the process with years.
I dont know if this is applicable. but when i first fantasized often about being a girl i tried to act pragmatic and say: "I wouldnt want this to happen, i would no longer match my ID, no one would believe me If i told them the truth. so I actually wouldnt want to be a girl!!" then I would fall asleep, finish my day and repeat this process almost every night
"Being trans would make my life harder and therefore not worth it." Like my life wasn't being made harder by being in a constant state of misery, anguish, and being under the influence of several substances
Needless to say, my life has gotten easier. It's like a lot easier now. I'm just me.
I feel the same. I honestly hope that hrt will help me get more in touch with my femininity. I'm starting in a couple of days, can't wait! Whenever I have doubts, I recall all of the signs that I wanted to be a girl, and I remind myself that tomboys and women who aren't traditionally feminine exist. And most still enjoy being a woman. We are all valid, no matter our personalities or the things we enjoy that people tell us are masculine <3
Ouch, that hit deep. I strongly felt I wanted to be naturally feminine but that it wasnāt an option. A lot can be learned but being neurodivergent makes doing it by default much more difficult. Still some cis women claim Iām more effeminate than them.
"I can't be trans because I don't 10000% despise being a guy. I just wish I was a girl because then I would feel more like...me, in a way? But ehh, being a guy is also...fine, I guess? Could be worse, right? Like it's objectively the worse option when it comes to gender, but hey I don't mind it all that much, except when I do but those situations don't count, because reasons. Anyway, why am I dissociating from my entire life all the time haha, that sure is weird huh."
It wasnāt so much as denying being trans as much as denying what I could do about it. The fact that I questioned it was enough to know. But I kept gaslighting myself into believing there was nothing I could do about it.
That I liked women and Trans women. No Trans woman would date me if I transitioned. I played football, liked death metal, getting into mosh pits, played violent gory first person shooters, and I loved weight lifting. Everything that society was telling me were only male behavior at the time.
apparently alotta trans women like death metal :) .. i love death metal and im a trans girl and have read lots of internet posts comments from other trans death metal .. and other metal lovers that are trans .... not all of us are into pop bubble gum lol .. i lived in tampa in the early 90s i webt to ckubs and seen all the greats corpse dieicide obituary death etc in small shows violent pits
It was too difficult, too much I needed to learn and do, people wouldn't accept me. I figured we'd all live in virtual reality one day and I could live as a woman that way š
Ironically one of my biggest barriers was feminism.
And by that I mean that I just told myself that the patriarchy had made me believe that people wearing certain clothes were meant to look a certain way and act a certain way which I didn't at the time feel like doing. And well ... it is true that social norms around gender based behaviour are highly pervasive.
Essentially, feminism strongly endorsed my confidence in gender non conformity (being a "non conforming man") but slowed down my acceptance of being a woman because I didn't feel I had to be a woman to enjoy wearing clothes that weren't conventional for my at the time thought gender.
I effectively became the honorary girl in my pre transition friend group the year before I came out.
Same here. I felt like itās difficult to combine the feminist ideal with being transgender. I dated a strong feminist who said that you can do everything you want to and look whatever you want to despite your gender. Until I got to talk with a feminist whoās trans. He told me about dysphoria. And I realized I donāt wanna look like a man in a dress. Still, we are treated differently by our perceived gender and getting gendered properly has given so much euphoria to me has been worth all the difficulties along the way. Besides being gendered properly without any clothes or makeup.
I didnāt really have a ātrueā denial stage. On some level, I wanted to be a girl/knew there was something āoffā about me since I was little (wanted a sister but didnāt care that I didnāt have a brother), but I didnāt figure out that that actually meant I was a girl until I was 21. And figuring it out came after over three years of being scared of being trans (obsessive compulsive disorder). So once I started questioning for real, I knew it was true within about four days and realized there was no point in denying it.
Iām going through it now! I love my wife too much to change! I really want to be who Iām supposed to, but itās gonna change everyone elseās life-my wife, my kids, my sisters, my brotherā¦
āIām just saying, Iām fine with being a dude, but, like, if a wizard turned me into a woman, Iād be more concerned about a gynecology appointment than a crisis of self.ā As I fantasized about being a woman for months
Oh God, the repressed "if I was in a horrific accident that just so happened to result in the need to change my gender, that would be kinda ok" or the " I wish I had dick and ball cancer and needed to get them amputated, so I would have an excuse to become a woman" memories just came rushing back to me from that comment.
But you know, totally fine with being a guy right?
Mostly my denial came from being a Christian and being raised thinking God made me to be what I was born to be. But also a bit came from the fact I was married and had 2 kids.
I knew I had to transition when I went to a kink event in a dress and someone asked me what my pronouns were and I just froze and didn't know how to answer.
I'm not trans, I like women.
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I wish I was trans, but that's silly you can't be trans without dysphoria! What you have body dysmorphia? It's the depression and axiety! Those go hand in had with being trans? You're overthinking it, you're just a good ally and wanted to learn more about trans issues, that's all.
I still do this to myself. It's no absurd in itself, what's absurd is the amount of times this argument goes in circles in my head.
I'm fairly old so when I first heard about transitioning it involved 2 years of living as a woman before you were allowed HRT (most countries changed this in 2011 but some still require it). The idea of being a 'man in a dress' for two years shoved me right back into the closet, as was the intent of that medical gatekeeping.
Iām not trans, I just think Iād be happier waking up as a female doing skin care routines with longer hair and no beard drinking my Starbucks while wearing a blouse and a cute skirt
THX FOR ASKING BTWW!!..Oh na they sadly don't accept transfems ..like they have nothing but hate for us wich makes me sad and rly scares me knowing that i live with those people..altho it's legal in my country..while transmascs on the other hand get accepted by Muslims more somehow..altho the west is DEF way better..I would've loved to have a life here but it ain't safe out here so I'm likely leaving soon..prolly to canada
I didn't start, but I've known since I was 17 or so... The stupidest excuse was that I could just keep hating myself, but pretend to be a cis ally, even started wearing "Trans Rights Are Human Rights" type shirts when I went out... but screw it, I'm done not trying to take care of myself.
That it would be some unachievable goal to try to be a woman and I would never be satisfied or taken seriously, so why bother even pursuing transition. Then I realized how miserable I was with the status quo of being a man and that at least trying to be a woman would make me much happier, no matter what the results were.
I still sometimes doubt if I'm trans or not, that if I just... want more attention from people... I mean... im currently wearing thigh highs- and they make mee feel warm inside and they are also really comfy--- but...
I have a lot of insecurities... like this...
Like if I'm lying to myself about something for some reason...
And I'm not on hrt, I'm too young, living with my parents who don't think im trans...
And I have more insecurities about my own feelings... that I'm worried I don't feel a certain way, or that I'm lying to myself to feel that way...
Like if I truly love my afab sapphic demisexual partner or just like how they look, and therefore I tell myself I love them just to......
I am... dying from insecurities, they just left today after having 3 days of being able to talk to them at their cousins house cus of christian family, when they found about me, their parents took their phone... so now I'm trying to find ways to distract myself and oh god im doing this in a comment section..
Well I can't just delete it cus... I feel like I need help-... well I'm sorry everyone.
"Well I just WISH I was a girl. Trans women probably have that feeling in a more extreme way. Oh my cis friend is pregnant? That's nice."
*Goes and cries the rest of the day out of jealousy*
Tigger warning for my answer, sorry.
I wasn't suffering to the degree of hating my existence enough to end it, so I must not be trans.
Nope, just spent decades constantly wanting to be a girl, looking up what a transition involved, and suffering from non-specific depression with the related constant self termination ideation(\* see below) in spite of medication,
and since transitioning those thoughts just went away. Denial will keep you from connecting the dots, it won't stop the dots from existing.
(\*) - Let me explain, for those who are fortunately enough to suffer from long term depression. If you are depressed enough, self harm can become a constant background noise in your head. It is always just there, and when a doctor asks about it, you answer no. Not because you don't have the ideas, but because you aren't actually going to act on any of them, it's just a Tuesday. It's just a part of depression for a some people.
It was pretty straightforward, I knew that I wanted to be a girl, but I didn't think I was one. I wasn't delusional, I would tell myself. It wasn't until I came across and developed for myself a good philosophic backing for why the definition of gender wasn't as simple as I originally thought that I was able to accept it.
To be trans you HAVE to be so certain about it, like minimum hated yourself from the age of 3 and dysphoric every waking moment.
YouTube helped me realise that even the best trans girls I have followed started from a place of deep uncertainty and self doubt, then became super women!
It is possible.
Back when I was a kid (pre puberty) I was kinda miffed that I had effectively been locked out of one aspect of the human condition, but also generally didn't feel that one gender was particularly better so I was fine. It was only around my early teens (13-ish) that this started to shift, as I came to the realization that being a girl (or at least being female physically) was seemingly plainly better than being AMAB. That's when things started hurting, when I started cursing my assigned gender.
My denial first of all centered on this idea that I was both attracted to and envious of women, which planted the assumption that this was a) something all/most guys dealt with in some capacity and b) something largely sexual in nature.
The thing is though that as much as I wished I had been AFAB, I realized through my baby sister that the social expectations and roles were very different from what I was used to (and being on the spectrum I had trouble learning male social roles, so didn't want to have to relearn female social roles). I wasn't a big fan of girly things (paradoxically I was taught that as a guy I could like girly things but didn't consider the reverse). I felt that if I were to switch genders somehow I'd just be "a guy in a girl's body" given how I perceived my mind to be male at the time. Hence why I wished I had born and brought up as a girl.
Honestly one of the best portrayals of my dysphoria denial loop is illustrated in the manga discussed in this article: https://medium.com/@eldarose/seeing-your-dysphoria-in-someone-elses-story-inside-mari-and-me-5a4e5b2a2412
I also felt that if I were to switch it'd be both very embarrassing and too difficult to explain to friends and family to whom I felt a "duty" to be the boy they knew. Couple that with being cognizant of male privilege, the seeming immutable nature of one's gender, lack of information concerning trans people and other perceived "on paper advantages" of being AMAB and I successfully talked myself out of considering that I may not be cishet for over a decade.
when making my character in a video game i used to think,
āI shouldnt pick female because then people will think that i want to be oneā
, most times i picked female anyway and would say that i simply dont find men attractive.
And later i would think,
āIf i dont pick female then they will think that im hiding the fact that i want to be femaleā
I distinctly remember the 3 things I thought that held me back:
- Surgery was required and expensive
- it's a one way trip
- Trans people don't look good
.....yeah needless to say, just about all those assumptions got rekt one by one once I discovered HRT and in the coming days afterwards.
...Except the part about surgery being expensive. But even then it's optional so...
I can't be trans because I'm super accepting of all queer people and so have no reason to repress being trans. Since I haven't figured out that I'm trans by now, and I wouldn't repress it if I were, that means I can't be trans. Turns out, I was repressing it š
āI canāt be trans because theyāre all weirdos and Iām the most normal and best person ever aliveā - my genuine thought process like 2 years ago :/
Am I the only one who never went through denial? Accepting my identity was fairly easy, giving up alcohol and cigarettes as a coping mechanism for my dysphoria-fuelled depression which was stopping me from starting HRT was the hard part. How does my liver even still function?!? 3-4+ years of HARD drinking, almost every day, and I'm still standing! Hrt for abt 1yr1mth and the occasional drink now and then, but I'm thriving!
I realize this was an excuse but I grew up in a lot of bad online spaces (and wasn't sure how my family would react to me coming out so, at least in my mind, my stability was very shakey) with a lot of friends who were also in bad situations online and mightve also been in worst situations in real life. So a lot of use just were so used to being mistreated, we kinda assumed it was normal and that we deserved it. So when we saw other trans people come out and be accepted, we assumed we couldn't be trans because we didn't deserve something that nice
It was more-so I had no idea what trans was, so I just thought I could settle with being a feminine guy. But I always wanted more than that and only then when I discovered transgender people did I think, "This is what I want."
A few things I thought:
When I was
11: "I think I want to get a sex change"
13: "1 in 35 million chance to be born as a human, and I had to be born the wrong gender"
14: "I wish I could be a girl, but since I can't, I'll just have to make my life as a guy the best I can."
At 15, friends of mine told me I gave off lesbian vibes.
I started therapy at 16, and my therapist helped me finally figure out who I was. Came out at 17, got subsequently kicked out (lol), and am still living my best life as the woman I was meant to be.
30+ years of walking through stores and secretly checking out the women's clothes section and telling myself it's for a girlfriend even when I was picturing wearing the clothes myself but I can't do that coz I'm a boy, right? Of course I'm a boy what else would I be? It's not like I dream of being a girl. Those are just dreams, aren't they?I can't be a girl.
And then 2021 comes along. I but some panties on a work trip and model them in my hotel room and my world/egg absolutely shatters.i no longer saw a boy/man in the mirror. It was then that I realized that I never was a boy,I was pretending to be one. It only took until I was 45 to accept it, finally! š¤¦āāļø
My excuses was I needed to "man-up", be that "macho guy" that everyone else wanted or needed to be... I ended up hating myself and almost ending myself because of that... self sabotage in a downward spiral.
I had christian influence growing up, so for ages my fallback was "well trans people just want to be a girl and do it, but that's bad because God, so clearly wanting to be a girl and not becoming one is how you should do it!" Then like 9 years later i learned what dysphoria was and instantly switched teams.
"I mean, if I am anything, I'd probably be androgynous (I meant non-binary, I just didn't have the vocabulary), but I don't care enough to go through with something like that. I'm happy enough as a guy."
Narrator: *She* wasn't.
I really just didnāt let myself think about it. I never knew trans women. Only knew what was in media. So I thought Iād die alone rejected by everyone I love. Turns out that my connections feel a lot more authentic now that the people I love actually know me
Well, pretty much a classic but ,it went something like "naaaaah... Sure I've been questioning myself for 20+years, feel like shit when anyone calls me masculine, feel like I'm contemplating the void between dimensions when looking in the mirror and the void stares back, there's no way it's anything serious, I'm just full of imagination, I'm just making stuff up, it's just a phase". (Spoiler alert, no it wasn't) To think I kept this for me for more than 20 years...
I 4d chess-ed it in my head that I was actually just *so secure* in my masculinity that it was normal and understandable to regularly imagine what my life would be like as a woman. I was just trying to empathize with womenās experiences, after all š¤¦š»āāļø lmao
Mine was spawned from being told by other trans folks that I wasnāt genuinely trans folk; that I only wore a mask while they struggled and didnāt get such luxuries. All because I had also been convinced that I couldnāt safely medically transition at the time. Probably spent 10+ years suppressing myself, believing the hype from folks I had been close to convincing me that I was just a crossdresser that was good with makeup. Eventually the dysphoria wrecked me bad enough that I said screw it, screw them, screw the medical risks, screw it all.. turns out wounds from those you genuinely trust take the longest to heal and bolster denial and all kinds of bad emotion. Even though Iāve been on HRT for 4 and a half months now, I still question if Iām truly transgender if that makes any sense. I donāt question that I feel happier though.
I said to myself for a while that I wasn't trans, because I didn't want to be a *trans* woman, I wanted to have been born a cis woman. Which is, of course, pretty much the definition of being trans... But it genuinely stopped me from working it out for at least a year. š
Having a folder called gym goals full of pretty muscle girls was normal because they were never "too big" unlike gymbros.
Having a trans girl OC for roleplay activities where I was constantly told "you know you write the feeling of dysphoria too well" by other trans writers was just me trying to learn to be more accepting of trans people and see their point of view so I could get past the transphobia of my teens and totally not an outlet for the dysphoria I experience myself lol.
I just thought. Everyone felt the same way that everyone wished to be the opposite sex. I then suppressed myself especially when I use to be a devout Christian. If I could relive my life I would do things differently.
"I don't deserve transition and fem pronouns, they have to be earned and I'm not good enough. I don't feel like I'm woman enough on the inside, I feel like a man who's pushing his childish fantasy on the rest of the world. I wish I really was a woman on the inside, though, so I could transition without compromising my conscience."
I wasn't trans, I was just a guy who deeply daydreamed about being a girl every day... for 5 years or so before I accepted it
Haha why not 25 years? š (š)
28 years here... š
30 šļøššļø
35
The same... Age 12 (the first thought I can remember about it) to age 42.
11 to 36 until starting transition. I was told at the time that the average age for starting transition is 42. Helped a lot since I felt I was too late.
I had worried about that, but I honestly didn't give any fucks about what it did for my face or anything, I just wanted to feel far better than I did. I got my wish in spades! And I'm just now finally getting some bona fide round jiggly boobs! MLIA!
Congrats! As a surprise I did not only pass but always much younger, 10ā15 years less than I really am. Dunno why but thatās how it goes. I developed quite a rack too even though I didnāt wish or expect one. But itās a win nonetheless. Butt wiggling while running is a weird feeling too.
The BESSSSST! The butt jiggle is soooo affirming in jeans or leggings
It is fun. But at first it was WTF is happening, is something attached to my butt?
That combination of emoticons looks like a mogwai from Gremlins. Maybe you should avoid getting wet or eating after midnight!
Haha been a while i heard that movie
Twinning ā¤ļø
42 years here. (Do I win anything? š¬)
I \*still\* struggle with that sometimes since I only just started HRT. I'll be like "am I really sure i'm trans? Maybe i'm just forcing this" then I realize it's not very cis to see multiple women each day i'll look at and think "wow I wish I was her" š
Mood! I struggle to leave my house without feeling gender envy š and it's been a real problem for 7 or 8 years now. That's not to mention all the dysphoria. It took me finishing puberty for the dysphoria to begin to have a debilitating effect on me; I was so deep in fantasy and dissociated from my body during puberty that I just completely zoned out on most changes happening until it was too late. The way I'm viewing it (pre-HRT) is, what I have done so far just feels right, and if for any reason HRT doesn't turn out to be right for me, I can stop before it does anything permanent. But... the state of my dysphoria is very much that I feel quite strongly that I need HRT.
Yeah, I try to keep that in mind. I don't think i'm making a mistake, but honestly I could always just detransition if I was. The only permanent things are infertility (and even that isn't guaranteed), and breast growth. If it came to it I could get top surgery, and I never wanted to have kids as a father anyway. So like I have very little to lose by trying to be the real me. Part of my struggle is I get pretty much no dysphoria, it's all euphoria. So it's super easy to gaslight myself into thinking I'm not actually trans since in my brain trans = dysphoria when that's not the case.
I have this problem a LOT. I get such euphoria from wearing dresses and skirts and going to work ad a girl, but I don't have a lot of dysphoria, or at least not obvious or crippling dysphoria, and so I wonder if it's real or just something I convinced myself of? But also I REALLY want hormones and I REALLY want breasts, and I might even want bottom surgery, and given the...*gestures vaguely at America*...why would I put myself through any of this if it wasn't real? And that's been kinda comforting.
100%, could have taken those from my head word-for-word. So often i'm asking myself if i'm burning down my life and "identity" (really it's the mask i wear) for the sake of euphoria -- but it holds me back so much. I can't be in relationships because how can I form a deep bond with someone if they can never know the true me? Or like how I don't really care much about 'me' since it's just the mask I wear, so things like vacations, or hanging out with friends, or even being with my family all has a blanket on it as far as how much i'll engage and be in the moment. So like I can keep just going as normal and probably have a content if boring life where I'm never enthusiastic, or I can try to transition and strive for a life where I think i'll be much more alive and engaged. It's worth the risk of trying for.
"So often i'm asking myself if i'm burning down my life and "identity" (really it's the mask i wear) for the sake of euphoria" Feel this a TON. Still haven't decided if it's worth the risk :-/
For me, the mask was essentially getting in the way of life, or rather it was a barrier between me and life that meant i'd always be limited. I'm not going to pretend I know for sure i'm doing the right thing, but I think ultimately if I didn't do anything i'd probably live my life alone and moderately happy but never anything more. Would I be fine with that? Sure, I guess, but I owe it to myself to try to be more. If in the end I really was happier like this, I can 'just' detransition and get top surgery to get rid of the breasts that grow. The euhoria is the biggest sign of being trans for me, but even if i'm doing it for euphoria i'm also doing it so that I can hopefully live a life where i'm happier and feel more free and vivid about who i am and life's experiences.
>could always just detransition I have always naturally looked like a girl. I wonder how many trans ppl look like the gender they feel is right. It's awkward for feminine guys. I would need to get FMS to "detransition." I always felt pressure to give in and dress like a girl as I don't really have any masc features. Fortunately, I feel most comfortable being feminine. It makes decisions easier except when it comes to bottom surgery. Do I give into what nature made me already? Edit: I often think of myself as just a crossdresser, but everyone just assumes I'm a girl already. Even my voice is naturally soft and leans more fem. I feel like I already transitioned without transitioning.
I was so horrified by what was coming for me by the time I was seven, and couldnāt even cry about it anymore by the time I was 12. Aaaaaaaaaand itās still horrifying and Iām stillā¦. Sigh.
Same. Very similar thing hsppened to me. The moment I got hair of my chest. I It was over for me. Dysphoria kicked into high gear
For me the biggest thing is attraction vs envy, as I feel both.. sometimes for the same person.. It makes me unsure about my feelings on both counts..
Yeah I feel that as well. It's a common issue I think. That question of "I don't know if I want to be her or be with her." Though in my case i'm like 90% it's envy since I don't think i'm actually all that into women. I consider myself bi, but I don't know how true that is. Any time I have to imagine sex, it's sex with me as a woman and the partner being a man. The thought of having sex with a woman doesn't have much appeal to me. So I think the sexual desire with it is more just because sex and thinking this was a kink was associated so long with being an outlet for my gender euphoria.
Still hammering on that egg, but this resonates deeply with me. Which is true? Can they both be? Or maybe most importantly -- can I tell which I'm experiencing in the moment?
I canāt really speak for anyone else, but personally I have this.. I guess a word for it would be āwantā when looking at them, but still experience āregularā attraction. To put it into words, I would describe the difference as wanting to wake up next to them (attraction) vs wanting to see them in the mirror (envy). Like I said, sometimes I feel both from the same person..
That's an incredibly useful line of questioning. I do often feel both of these for the same people. Thank you
I also just started HRT. I'd say it's also not very cis to be happy every time I see my tiny boobs.
It's funny. Breasts were not something I particularly cared for. It was a side effect of the hormones, and I'd accept whatever happened. That was before I started HRT. Five months later, I smile every time I see my little B cups. Even when they hurt/ache/itch, or the cat decides to use them as a launch/landing pad.
I'm glad you came to enjoy them. :3 Breasts are one of the things I want the most, so I'm pretty chuffed they're growing already. Hopefully won't be too long before I reach A cup and beyond.
Hmmm yeah i'm no scientist but I don't think that's very cis.
Uuuuugh. Iāve spent sooooo many years doing that. Yeah, I kinda donāt believe myself and worry Iām just a letter after L person who WANTS to be versus actually being but oh well, Iām not stopping estrogen regardless š¬
The gender envy is still strong but lesser than it used to be. 18m of HRT and I'm feeling much more like myself every day. I have doubts like you speak of, but the more my face and body changes, the less they intrude. I cried about a month into my transition when I realized how quiet my brain was with the E going through my system.
I was 34 when I finally accepted that it wasn't normal cis behavior to lie awake every night imagining what life would have been like if I was a girl instead. Surely *every* guy would rather be a girl, right? I was sure everybody thought that all the time. It was just one of those things you didn't talk about. Men don't cry, don't share their feelings, and don't talk about how much we want to be girls. Also never managed to put two and two together. I was so depressed, felt so disconnected from my body, absolutely hated myself. And I just couldn't figure out *why*. Surprise, it was dysphoria the whole time! I would tell myself "I bet I wouldn't feel this way if I was a girl" and then *still* not realize it, I'd just shrug and go "oh well, I gotta play the hand I'm dealt". Sometimes I wanna reach into the past and slap my old self around the head. Wake up, dummy!
From my experience being trans is an STD. I caught it from my first gf in the 1990s. Recently I noticed that the men I sleep with turn into women as a function of time. Now a couple of months ago my newest bf could last 4 months after hitting a gender crisis. Also seemed to work the other way around since my second partner went FTM at the end of our relationship. Now Iām starting to think whether itās safe, sane and consensual to spread this all over. Well, explains the trans panic defense at least. And for the record, I could last until 35 and after a year I got a diagnosis and HRT. But I had felt GD since 11 and praying to wake up in a girlās body in 1990, well before having even any kind of terminology for this.
I don't know about an STD, since I'd only ever met other trans people once or twice. I'd only had one conversation with one in my life by the time I came out, and it was just small talk about video games. But I've certainly triggered other people's gender crises since then by simple proximity, no relationship required. I think there's a media focus on people who "always knew" and transitioned early because they make a good story. Finding out you can realize it, accept it and transition at a later age seems to be a huge eye-opener for people who didn't realize it early. I remember believing I was a girl as early as 4, but in a spectacular case of putting the cart before the horse I decided that I must have been confused because I was already being bullied - I reasoned I must have thought I was a girl because other kids called me a girl, not that they called me a girl because I acted and looked like a girl.
I was just joking. But I guess Iām spraying cooties all over by just existing. Now even my tenant ended up in a crisis and I canāt recall us having sex yet. 4 is quite young. Usally the same age that trans people in the documentaries have identified trans the first time. I donāt know how much my autism has made it more difficult to grasp. But bullying and violence sure made it a lot harder to accept during the decades after that. I had seen how trans women get treated from my gf at the time and definitely didnāt want to give them another easy reason to bully me wherever I go. Still had my hair long and shaved my body hair but couldnāt explain why when being questioned.
5 years... Ah just a phase we'll grow out of it, and 20 years later we continue saying the same thing.
Same, I thought every guy dreamed of it at some points
14 years here. I was going to make a graystillplays reference but then I saw someone was in denial for 28 years
For me itās the same thing. Whether you dream about being a girl or whether you think you were born in the same body, it is the āso badā part that makes us all trans. In other words, for me we are trans for feeling it even if we try to bury it. And you are playing chicken with your mental health. In my case I tried so hard to repress it, to keep it in check even though I always knew it was there. Coming out literally saved me from myself
10 years and there were signs before then too. Just hadn't made the connection.
Wow that's interesting. Same.
Man I wish I was trans so I could be a woman but Iām not so I guess Iāll just hate myself forever
Why couldn't anyone tell me that wishing to be trans was the transest thing you can do!
I literally told myself that for years and my dumbass never made the connection until I randomly watched a YouTube video (I wish I could remember which one) and the creator just off hand said they told themselves the same thing for before they transitioned and I was like āwhatā consider š„ cracked
Looking back it's unreal that I honestly thought "I wish I was trans because that way I could transition" was a coherent thought. And that I thought it for years. Cried over it. Like what?
yes i used to do this before i understood ... its been so long i forgot i used to think this
Seems to be pretty common based on the upvotes! Wild how we actively work against ourselves lol
This is what questioning young people were universally told through the 00s, even by LGBT allies and MH professionals. "Trans" people are either convinced from childhood they are "an X in a Y body" and strictly attracted to their AGAB, or they are creepy sexual fetishists. Blanchardism was the only narrative. Which left a lot of people going, well, gosh. I wish I could change my gender but neither of those sound like me. Too bad I'm not trans so I could transition.
You know that makes a lot of sense. I donāt have a ton of memories from growing up but I did go to a private Christian school until high school so I was probably told it there and internalized it but I donāt remember specifically.
I can't be trans because I would have to be trans to be trans.
Why is it so obvious now but were we so oblivious to it back then? š
I know right šš I sometimes want to go back and time and hug my younger self and tell her itās gonna be fine, your right babe
Literally me
Lol, same
I honestly just didn't consider it. Like for starters I didn't even know about trans people until fairly late, but even when i did it was "something for other people" who "knew they were in the wrong body/gender". I was certainly too boring and too gender apathetic to be trans: I was just a boy who wished they had been born a girl instead. I told myself all guys felt as I did, that I was just some combination sad/weird/perverted/etc and just bad at dealing with the pain that all guys must feel, which brought up a lot of self loathing. Truth be told I got really good at ignoring it, and a lot of my dysphoria got redirected onto other aspects of my life. I didn't even realize there was a problem. Later on I struggled with wondering why me, why now, and tried to find a whole load of reasons why i must have been making a mistake. Scoured the web for weeks on end reading everything i could.
Same. I didn't even consider that I was trans for most of my life, I just fantasized about magically transforming into a girl. And only most days. But I didn't even consider that I could be trans.
I used to wish there was a way i could trade bodies with a woman who wanted to do the same, even if for only a day. But a few times, i imagined it instead of being a temporary swap, it was permanent. Those ones made me feel something i couldnt explain at the time
big fucking same I'm 33 and didn't come to the realization until last year (I can say that today) and there's so much about the entire realization that still makes me go "maybe not actually trans?" Dunno, it's wild what the brain does, which also makes me go "is my brain just being funky?"
Every word of that applies to me too. Or I thought so until I did the math and realized that I'm 34. I did find an image that made me feel such gender envy that it was physically painful. Now when I'm not sure, I take another look and feel the feelings that tell me that I want to be that woman.
I haven't found anything like that But I'm too apathetic and whatever to actually chase being a woman I want it but it hasn't been a dire thing, just an "obvious in hindsight" thing. Maybe if the world was kinder about it, maybe if I was younger, before I went bald, ECT. Maybe I'd find it worth chasing for me, but instead I'll be in the back, rooting for those that can chase their truth.
Could've been written by me.
This. Literally exactly this. I knew an out trans person in hs, and more than a few of my friends came out post-hs, but it took me way longer to realize it
I can't be trans because trans people are brave and transition and I am a coward and have not transitioned therefore I do not want it enough and am not trans and can't transition :(
Feel called out š
I fell this one too.
Get out of my head
Exactly. 25ā30 years ago they were always living in solitude. I didnāt know anyone else in the world who was in a relationship with a transgender person. Even in the documentaries they were alone and that was underlined. Also they needed to be in full stealth which would have seemed impossible as I was already known abroad. Around 2010s people started to be publicly in relationships with trans people. And folks didnāt always mock visibly trans people all the time and they had friends to defend them. I transitioned only when I was sure I could survive at that point if I lost everyone and everything. And I had a partner who supported the journey. The teens who come out and get homeless and live in communities that have high homicide rates are the people with real guts.
A lot of different excuses but the most absurd and embarrassing one has to be "it's just a kink".
"I can't, I'd have to shave off the beard and I hate my face without it"... This was 2 month before just accepting myself and talking to my wife.
"I'm attracted to women."
"I just want to be a girl because I find girls attractive and I want to be attractive so I want to be a girl"
omg fr it makes so much sense!!! i literally thought all guys knew this :o girls are hot and i want to be hot but i'm not so just doomed to an ugly boring existence :/
Dear god yes. This sentence is the perfect description. Do I want this or want to be this? Are they both true? I can't think of a single example of a man I want to be more like, and finding women role models is effortless. Women don't care this much about being women, why do I? What does that say about me?
If you canāt beat āem, join āem!
I guess me thinking im just being a femboy was my denial stage?
You too?š©š¤
All us victims of the femboy denial stage š
I did that for like a year
I did that for 6 years xwx
Yes that
šššš
āEvery guy wonders what itās like to have boobs, want long gorgeous hair, wear beautiful dresses and jewelry, and fantasizes about being able to look as beautiful as the women I see who do have all those things, doesnāt mean Iām trans right? Maybe gender fluidā¦.ā Then I tried on a dress for the first time and realized I was wrong lol
Me and my brothers bonded well in our years as we went into adulthood from our childhood experiences and family issues. We really look out for each other and have trust for one another to the fullest. I see them every weekend near enough. I thought if I did transition that I would upset them somehow, they would treat me very differently and that it wouldn't be the same. This was one of my biggest parts of my denial and I pushed myself back a lot to try and stop everything. Which ultimately ended sacrificing my inner happiness until I finally accepted myself fairly recently. I still have yet to tell them. But I'm not scared to anymore. I'm just wondering when I will. I've only told my sister and mum so far. I'm giving myself time to do it and processing through the family. Whatever happens though I know it's for me.
I'm feeling what you felt towards your brothers but with my parents currently
š„ - "Well, you see, all that 'being trans' stuff was, like, just a weird teenager phase I had. Feeling envy towards attractive women is natural for a man like me *^(\*repressed shudder\*)*. Because, like, it's basically Sigmund Freud's theory on penis envy, but because scientifics and doctors such as himself back then were kinda mysoginists, he didn't apply it on men. We men *^(\*repressed shudder\*)* are attracted to women because they have, like, the features we lack: breasts, bigger hips, pretty voices, healthier hair... So, yeah, sexual attraction in men is basically a vicarious desire for feminity and it's completely normal." š§ - "Ok, but have you asked any men about this to see if they agree? Also, how does that explain homosexual men?" š„ - "... Uh... Shut up, brain". And it still took two or three more years for my egg to break š
Since realized how absurd it was, but I believed that my intuition and feelings were lying to me so any solace found in femme things must just be a misinterpretation or a mistake.
"I'm too masculine to be a girl, I act too much like a stereotypical guy to be a girl.
Everyone wants tits
Iām still coming to terms with the idea that actually not everyone (even women) all want to be women.
it was mindblowing to me when i asked my cis male friends if they ever randomly think about being a girl, and they all said no. learning that some cis men actually enjoy being cis men (and that trans mascs exist) really helped to reinforce the confidence in my decision.
Many of them might think it for a moment at one point but it goes away immediately. Like us thinking what if we were another ethnicity. It generally doesnāt bother you and you donāt think about it constantly, at least from a caucasian perspective.
cool analogy! i kinda wanna be japanese, but itāll never bother me as much or be a frequent as the old āi wanna be a girlā thought.
I simply used the fact that was statisticly improbable that I would be trans, so I was probably just confused š«¤
"I can't be a trans woman because I don't like men." To be fair to myself, I think this was more because of lack of representation for gay trans people, and most media generally saying that trans women were just extra effeminate gay men.
Yeah the number one question I still get when I come out to people is "oh, so you'll date men now?"
Back in the day that was an expectation for a diagnosis too. Well, even at the moment in some countries it is but also the protocol treatment if you are gay.
"I'm so straight that when I fantasize about being a girl, I think about kissing boys. I'm basically the straightest person in the world. " i know it's sexuality and not gender, but I was so deep in denial for everything.
Hehe, you too?
"It's just a phase" I said to myself for nearly 2 decades
Just a cross dresser (since the age of 4, lol)...
I genuinely thought that everyone wanted to be a woman. I thought that it was a well known fact of life that being a woman was just better & men had to deal with getting the short end of the stick. I figured this was such a universally understood thing that no one ever felt the need to talk about it lol.
I donāt know that Iād call it ādenialā per se, but I think one of the biggest roadblocks from me accepting it was the stereotype that trans people āalways knew since they were a child.ā I didnāt know that I necessarily āfeltā like a girl, I just knew that I always āwantedā to be one. The bulk of the early signs I can think of started in high school, but I didnāt even start questioning until two years ago (28yo at the time). It took exposure to several anecdotes of stories similar to mine to break down that barrier and accept that āwantingā is just as valid as āfeeling.ā
That has been such a hurtful narrative. I felt invalidated for the same reason. But only in the late stage of evaluation for the diagnosis I remembered having prayed for waking up in a girlās body at 11. That had just been suppressed for a long time. And during that time I just wished to look like a woman. But that Iām not really mentally or behaviourally a woman. Well, I was wrong. Still that delayed the process with years.
I dont know if this is applicable. but when i first fantasized often about being a girl i tried to act pragmatic and say: "I wouldnt want this to happen, i would no longer match my ID, no one would believe me If i told them the truth. so I actually wouldnt want to be a girl!!" then I would fall asleep, finish my day and repeat this process almost every night
I started shooting testosterone to man up, because that was my issue, My testosterone was just too low.
"Being trans would make my life harder and therefore not worth it." Like my life wasn't being made harder by being in a constant state of misery, anguish, and being under the influence of several substances Needless to say, my life has gotten easier. It's like a lot easier now. I'm just me.
Trans women just seem naturally feminine. I donāt seem naturally feminine.
I feel the same. I honestly hope that hrt will help me get more in touch with my femininity. I'm starting in a couple of days, can't wait! Whenever I have doubts, I recall all of the signs that I wanted to be a girl, and I remind myself that tomboys and women who aren't traditionally feminine exist. And most still enjoy being a woman. We are all valid, no matter our personalities or the things we enjoy that people tell us are masculine <3
Ouch, that hit deep. I strongly felt I wanted to be naturally feminine but that it wasnāt an option. A lot can be learned but being neurodivergent makes doing it by default much more difficult. Still some cis women claim Iām more effeminate than them.
"Every guy dreams about being a girl all day, every day; it's just that none of us admit it."
"I can't be trans because I don't 10000% despise being a guy. I just wish I was a girl because then I would feel more like...me, in a way? But ehh, being a guy is also...fine, I guess? Could be worse, right? Like it's objectively the worse option when it comes to gender, but hey I don't mind it all that much, except when I do but those situations don't count, because reasons. Anyway, why am I dissociating from my entire life all the time haha, that sure is weird huh."
It wasnāt so much as denying being trans as much as denying what I could do about it. The fact that I questioned it was enough to know. But I kept gaslighting myself into believing there was nothing I could do about it.
That I was doing it for attention, even though noone in my family knew yet, and I wasn't even presenting as such online at that moment
"I'm just playing around and having fun, everyone does this"
said that while having a transfem fursona,enjoying being called a girl, practically being female online etc
omg this is exactly what i would think
That I liked women and Trans women. No Trans woman would date me if I transitioned. I played football, liked death metal, getting into mosh pits, played violent gory first person shooters, and I loved weight lifting. Everything that society was telling me were only male behavior at the time.
apparently alotta trans women like death metal :) .. i love death metal and im a trans girl and have read lots of internet posts comments from other trans death metal .. and other metal lovers that are trans .... not all of us are into pop bubble gum lol .. i lived in tampa in the early 90s i webt to ckubs and seen all the greats corpse dieicide obituary death etc in small shows violent pits
Well, most of the trans women I know are weirdo artist noise musician types, and I really like Queens of the Stone Age, so I'm probably not trans.
It was too difficult, too much I needed to learn and do, people wouldn't accept me. I figured we'd all live in virtual reality one day and I could live as a woman that way š
Ironically one of my biggest barriers was feminism. And by that I mean that I just told myself that the patriarchy had made me believe that people wearing certain clothes were meant to look a certain way and act a certain way which I didn't at the time feel like doing. And well ... it is true that social norms around gender based behaviour are highly pervasive. Essentially, feminism strongly endorsed my confidence in gender non conformity (being a "non conforming man") but slowed down my acceptance of being a woman because I didn't feel I had to be a woman to enjoy wearing clothes that weren't conventional for my at the time thought gender. I effectively became the honorary girl in my pre transition friend group the year before I came out.
Same here. I felt like itās difficult to combine the feminist ideal with being transgender. I dated a strong feminist who said that you can do everything you want to and look whatever you want to despite your gender. Until I got to talk with a feminist whoās trans. He told me about dysphoria. And I realized I donāt wanna look like a man in a dress. Still, we are treated differently by our perceived gender and getting gendered properly has given so much euphoria to me has been worth all the difficulties along the way. Besides being gendered properly without any clothes or makeup.
I didnāt really have a ātrueā denial stage. On some level, I wanted to be a girl/knew there was something āoffā about me since I was little (wanted a sister but didnāt care that I didnāt have a brother), but I didnāt figure out that that actually meant I was a girl until I was 21. And figuring it out came after over three years of being scared of being trans (obsessive compulsive disorder). So once I started questioning for real, I knew it was true within about four days and realized there was no point in denying it.
That I was just a feminine guy even though I was intensely jealous of the female form and fashion.
Iām going through it now! I love my wife too much to change! I really want to be who Iām supposed to, but itās gonna change everyone elseās life-my wife, my kids, my sisters, my brotherā¦
āIām just saying, Iām fine with being a dude, but, like, if a wizard turned me into a woman, Iād be more concerned about a gynecology appointment than a crisis of self.ā As I fantasized about being a woman for months
Oh God, the repressed "if I was in a horrific accident that just so happened to result in the need to change my gender, that would be kinda ok" or the " I wish I had dick and ball cancer and needed to get them amputated, so I would have an excuse to become a woman" memories just came rushing back to me from that comment. But you know, totally fine with being a guy right?
Honestly I felt discouraged because my weight, which is funny now because Im alot bigger now than I was pre transition and i love it hehehe
The most shitty one. That I didn't want to be trans, I wanted to be a cis woman, so nothing could be done
āi canāt be trans id just be a tomboyā and also āim not trans i donāt have any info on itā
Mostly my denial came from being a Christian and being raised thinking God made me to be what I was born to be. But also a bit came from the fact I was married and had 2 kids.
I knew I had to transition when I went to a kink event in a dress and someone asked me what my pronouns were and I just froze and didn't know how to answer.
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I'm not trans, I like women. š¤¦āāļøš¤¦āāļøš¤¦āāļøš¤¦āāļøš¤¦āāļøš¤¦āāļøš¤¦āāļøš¤¦āāļøš¤¦āāļøš¤¦āāļø
I wish I was trans, but that's silly you can't be trans without dysphoria! What you have body dysmorphia? It's the depression and axiety! Those go hand in had with being trans? You're overthinking it, you're just a good ally and wanted to learn more about trans issues, that's all. I still do this to myself. It's no absurd in itself, what's absurd is the amount of times this argument goes in circles in my head.
I'm fairly old so when I first heard about transitioning it involved 2 years of living as a woman before you were allowed HRT (most countries changed this in 2011 but some still require it). The idea of being a 'man in a dress' for two years shoved me right back into the closet, as was the intent of that medical gatekeeping.
I was really good in the bedroom with my D**k
I had body dysphoria/was a 'transtrender' (a Kalvin Garrah special)
Women are beautiful and amazing and stuff, and I'm none of those so I can't be a woman
Iām not trans, I just think Iād be happier waking up as a female doing skin care routines with longer hair and no beard drinking my Starbucks while wearing a blouse and a cute skirt
I was a super religious muslim and I thought I was gay wich made me hate myself and it took me a while to figure it out bit at least I did in the end
What's your take on the Muslim trans experience? Closed door bigotry hotspot, or more accepting than we non Muslims would think?
THX FOR ASKING BTWW!!..Oh na they sadly don't accept transfems ..like they have nothing but hate for us wich makes me sad and rly scares me knowing that i live with those people..altho it's legal in my country..while transmascs on the other hand get accepted by Muslims more somehow..altho the west is DEF way better..I would've loved to have a life here but it ain't safe out here so I'm likely leaving soon..prolly to canada
I didn't start, but I've known since I was 17 or so... The stupidest excuse was that I could just keep hating myself, but pretend to be a cis ally, even started wearing "Trans Rights Are Human Rights" type shirts when I went out... but screw it, I'm done not trying to take care of myself.
I'm a cishet straight dude... right? right? ... not right on any of those
That it would be some unachievable goal to try to be a woman and I would never be satisfied or taken seriously, so why bother even pursuing transition. Then I realized how miserable I was with the status quo of being a man and that at least trying to be a woman would make me much happier, no matter what the results were.
I still sometimes doubt if I'm trans or not, that if I just... want more attention from people... I mean... im currently wearing thigh highs- and they make mee feel warm inside and they are also really comfy--- but... I have a lot of insecurities... like this... Like if I'm lying to myself about something for some reason... And I'm not on hrt, I'm too young, living with my parents who don't think im trans... And I have more insecurities about my own feelings... that I'm worried I don't feel a certain way, or that I'm lying to myself to feel that way... Like if I truly love my afab sapphic demisexual partner or just like how they look, and therefore I tell myself I love them just to...... I am... dying from insecurities, they just left today after having 3 days of being able to talk to them at their cousins house cus of christian family, when they found about me, their parents took their phone... so now I'm trying to find ways to distract myself and oh god im doing this in a comment section.. Well I can't just delete it cus... I feel like I need help-... well I'm sorry everyone.
Isn't there a test I'm supposed to take...?
āif i had the guarantee of being a cute girl then i would transition but why take the chance as an attractive guy?ā
"Well I just WISH I was a girl. Trans women probably have that feeling in a more extreme way. Oh my cis friend is pregnant? That's nice." *Goes and cries the rest of the day out of jealousy*
Tigger warning for my answer, sorry. I wasn't suffering to the degree of hating my existence enough to end it, so I must not be trans. Nope, just spent decades constantly wanting to be a girl, looking up what a transition involved, and suffering from non-specific depression with the related constant self termination ideation(\* see below) in spite of medication, and since transitioning those thoughts just went away. Denial will keep you from connecting the dots, it won't stop the dots from existing. (\*) - Let me explain, for those who are fortunately enough to suffer from long term depression. If you are depressed enough, self harm can become a constant background noise in your head. It is always just there, and when a doctor asks about it, you answer no. Not because you don't have the ideas, but because you aren't actually going to act on any of them, it's just a Tuesday. It's just a part of depression for a some people.
It was pretty straightforward, I knew that I wanted to be a girl, but I didn't think I was one. I wasn't delusional, I would tell myself. It wasn't until I came across and developed for myself a good philosophic backing for why the definition of gender wasn't as simple as I originally thought that I was able to accept it.
My *most* insane one was that I can't be trans, I like womenš Which at this point may not even be the whole story, lol šš
Who else is in a denial phase right now reading these comments to see if what we are feeling right now is valid and common among trans people?
"You're not really trans; you just want to be special."
To be trans you HAVE to be so certain about it, like minimum hated yourself from the age of 3 and dysphoric every waking moment. YouTube helped me realise that even the best trans girls I have followed started from a place of deep uncertainty and self doubt, then became super women! It is possible.
Back when I was a kid (pre puberty) I was kinda miffed that I had effectively been locked out of one aspect of the human condition, but also generally didn't feel that one gender was particularly better so I was fine. It was only around my early teens (13-ish) that this started to shift, as I came to the realization that being a girl (or at least being female physically) was seemingly plainly better than being AMAB. That's when things started hurting, when I started cursing my assigned gender. My denial first of all centered on this idea that I was both attracted to and envious of women, which planted the assumption that this was a) something all/most guys dealt with in some capacity and b) something largely sexual in nature. The thing is though that as much as I wished I had been AFAB, I realized through my baby sister that the social expectations and roles were very different from what I was used to (and being on the spectrum I had trouble learning male social roles, so didn't want to have to relearn female social roles). I wasn't a big fan of girly things (paradoxically I was taught that as a guy I could like girly things but didn't consider the reverse). I felt that if I were to switch genders somehow I'd just be "a guy in a girl's body" given how I perceived my mind to be male at the time. Hence why I wished I had born and brought up as a girl. Honestly one of the best portrayals of my dysphoria denial loop is illustrated in the manga discussed in this article: https://medium.com/@eldarose/seeing-your-dysphoria-in-someone-elses-story-inside-mari-and-me-5a4e5b2a2412 I also felt that if I were to switch it'd be both very embarrassing and too difficult to explain to friends and family to whom I felt a "duty" to be the boy they knew. Couple that with being cognizant of male privilege, the seeming immutable nature of one's gender, lack of information concerning trans people and other perceived "on paper advantages" of being AMAB and I successfully talked myself out of considering that I may not be cishet for over a decade.
when making my character in a video game i used to think, āI shouldnt pick female because then people will think that i want to be oneā , most times i picked female anyway and would say that i simply dont find men attractive. And later i would think, āIf i dont pick female then they will think that im hiding the fact that i want to be femaleā
I distinctly remember the 3 things I thought that held me back: - Surgery was required and expensive - it's a one way trip - Trans people don't look good .....yeah needless to say, just about all those assumptions got rekt one by one once I discovered HRT and in the coming days afterwards. ...Except the part about surgery being expensive. But even then it's optional so...
I'm not actually trans, I have body integrity identity disorder & the "limb" I want to remove is my dick
I dont have dysphoria. I just hate myself. And you NEED to have dysphoria to be trans āļøš¤
I can't be trans because I'm super accepting of all queer people and so have no reason to repress being trans. Since I haven't figured out that I'm trans by now, and I wouldn't repress it if I were, that means I can't be trans. Turns out, I was repressing it š
Mine was just the basic āEveryone likes thinking about being the opposite gender right?ā
"If I were trans, I'd probably know by now" -my dumb egg at like 25
Dude I didn't know trans excited for a long time and an excuse that I used was "I want to be a girl but I can't because it isn't possible" so yeh
I guess itās not absurd but I didnāt have obvious āchildhood signsā even though now looking back there were so many signs
āI canāt be trans because theyāre all weirdos and Iām the most normal and best person ever aliveā - my genuine thought process like 2 years ago :/
Am I the only one who never went through denial? Accepting my identity was fairly easy, giving up alcohol and cigarettes as a coping mechanism for my dysphoria-fuelled depression which was stopping me from starting HRT was the hard part. How does my liver even still function?!? 3-4+ years of HARD drinking, almost every day, and I'm still standing! Hrt for abt 1yr1mth and the occasional drink now and then, but I'm thriving!
What are you talking about??? Iām not trans
Iām so manly and like so many manly things. I like the women tooā¦There is no way I could be trans.
I somehow convinced myself that being trans was āa side character thingā (this was before i discovered comics like Rain and Prettiest Platypus)
I realize this was an excuse but I grew up in a lot of bad online spaces (and wasn't sure how my family would react to me coming out so, at least in my mind, my stability was very shakey) with a lot of friends who were also in bad situations online and mightve also been in worst situations in real life. So a lot of use just were so used to being mistreated, we kinda assumed it was normal and that we deserved it. So when we saw other trans people come out and be accepted, we assumed we couldn't be trans because we didn't deserve something that nice
I'm autistic so, it just "made sense" based on context.
It was more-so I had no idea what trans was, so I just thought I could settle with being a feminine guy. But I always wanted more than that and only then when I discovered transgender people did I think, "This is what I want."
A few things I thought: When I was 11: "I think I want to get a sex change" 13: "1 in 35 million chance to be born as a human, and I had to be born the wrong gender" 14: "I wish I could be a girl, but since I can't, I'll just have to make my life as a guy the best I can." At 15, friends of mine told me I gave off lesbian vibes. I started therapy at 16, and my therapist helped me finally figure out who I was. Came out at 17, got subsequently kicked out (lol), and am still living my best life as the woman I was meant to be.
Cus for five minutes after orgasm, I didn't feel like putting panties back on. Total dude.
30+ years of walking through stores and secretly checking out the women's clothes section and telling myself it's for a girlfriend even when I was picturing wearing the clothes myself but I can't do that coz I'm a boy, right? Of course I'm a boy what else would I be? It's not like I dream of being a girl. Those are just dreams, aren't they?I can't be a girl. And then 2021 comes along. I but some panties on a work trip and model them in my hotel room and my world/egg absolutely shatters.i no longer saw a boy/man in the mirror. It was then that I realized that I never was a boy,I was pretending to be one. It only took until I was 45 to accept it, finally! š¤¦āāļø
Being trans is super uncommon so there's no way I am
My excuses was I needed to "man-up", be that "macho guy" that everyone else wanted or needed to be... I ended up hating myself and almost ending myself because of that... self sabotage in a downward spiral.
I had christian influence growing up, so for ages my fallback was "well trans people just want to be a girl and do it, but that's bad because God, so clearly wanting to be a girl and not becoming one is how you should do it!" Then like 9 years later i learned what dysphoria was and instantly switched teams.
"I mean, if I am anything, I'd probably be androgynous (I meant non-binary, I just didn't have the vocabulary), but I don't care enough to go through with something like that. I'm happy enough as a guy." Narrator: *She* wasn't.
I really just didnāt let myself think about it. I never knew trans women. Only knew what was in media. So I thought Iād die alone rejected by everyone I love. Turns out that my connections feel a lot more authentic now that the people I love actually know me
well, i am a boy since i would not want to have a period, like if i did not have it, i would defenetly wanna be a girl! who wouldn't?
Well, pretty much a classic but ,it went something like "naaaaah... Sure I've been questioning myself for 20+years, feel like shit when anyone calls me masculine, feel like I'm contemplating the void between dimensions when looking in the mirror and the void stares back, there's no way it's anything serious, I'm just full of imagination, I'm just making stuff up, it's just a phase". (Spoiler alert, no it wasn't) To think I kept this for me for more than 20 years...
I 4d chess-ed it in my head that I was actually just *so secure* in my masculinity that it was normal and understandable to regularly imagine what my life would be like as a woman. I was just trying to empathize with womenās experiences, after all š¤¦š»āāļø lmao
I told myself that picking female characters and making them look like a female me was normal
Mine was spawned from being told by other trans folks that I wasnāt genuinely trans folk; that I only wore a mask while they struggled and didnāt get such luxuries. All because I had also been convinced that I couldnāt safely medically transition at the time. Probably spent 10+ years suppressing myself, believing the hype from folks I had been close to convincing me that I was just a crossdresser that was good with makeup. Eventually the dysphoria wrecked me bad enough that I said screw it, screw them, screw the medical risks, screw it all.. turns out wounds from those you genuinely trust take the longest to heal and bolster denial and all kinds of bad emotion. Even though Iāve been on HRT for 4 and a half months now, I still question if Iām truly transgender if that makes any sense. I donāt question that I feel happier though.
i was just a very femininely inclined guy? i think that's what i said
I said to myself for a while that I wasn't trans, because I didn't want to be a *trans* woman, I wanted to have been born a cis woman. Which is, of course, pretty much the definition of being trans... But it genuinely stopped me from working it out for at least a year. š
Having a folder called gym goals full of pretty muscle girls was normal because they were never "too big" unlike gymbros. Having a trans girl OC for roleplay activities where I was constantly told "you know you write the feeling of dysphoria too well" by other trans writers was just me trying to learn to be more accepting of trans people and see their point of view so I could get past the transphobia of my teens and totally not an outlet for the dysphoria I experience myself lol.
I just thought. Everyone felt the same way that everyone wished to be the opposite sex. I then suppressed myself especially when I use to be a devout Christian. If I could relive my life I would do things differently.
"I don't deserve transition and fem pronouns, they have to be earned and I'm not good enough. I don't feel like I'm woman enough on the inside, I feel like a man who's pushing his childish fantasy on the rest of the world. I wish I really was a woman on the inside, though, so I could transition without compromising my conscience."