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transWARNING: Serious genderconfused angst to follow.
This thing hits me in waves. Gender confusion, dysphoria, whatever - it's been crashing on me my entire life. When I was kid, it was just these tireless fantasies that I could hope and pray myself into a boy's body. As I got older, I let it out through those wonderful role playing games - GI Joes, Barbies, whatever, as long as I could briefly live out my male characters. I hated, and would not ever, be a female character in these games.
Puberty hit, as I was warned it would, and my body changed, as I expected. I got really, aimlessly depressed. No clue why, but I always felt the depression, the thought that I might be better off dead for some reason, lingering in the back of my mind. Eventually that abated. I began to wish not that I was a guy, but that I was a proper, real girl. That I could just be happy, beautiful, feminine. I still subtly tried to emulate my male role models and crushes, without really understanding what I was doing.
Then I realized I was queer, and still fought with everything I had to maintain the femininity I had mastered. But given the first opportunity, that crumbled, and I came out as butch... But that didn't work either. I discovered drag kings and started taking every opportunity to do drag. It got to the point where I'd lock myself in my room for a few hours when one of these 'waves' got too intense, and I'd bind and draw on facial hair. I never had the balls to go out. I never had the balls to name what this was either. I just really liked gender play, right?
I've never been butch. But I've never been a woman either. And as I've aged (I turned 21 yesterday), the waves of dysphoria have been getting more intense and closer together. Now I live in this constant anxiety... I can't go out without binding. It's hard now to do so without packing. I've started an intense and constant self interrogation: do I experience myself as male? Would I be happier in a male body? What do I stand to lose that I couldn't live without? Would I regret a decision to transition?
I think about transition constantly. I want to do it. I want to get on T. But I want to do lots of things that aren't necessarily 'right'. I feel almost as if I'm just genderqueer, not really male or female, which of course makes me feel confused and lost in this society. I want so badly to be one or the other... I always have. And my obsession with transition? Well, I'm thinking sure - I want a male body. But doesn't everyone go through moments where they do? I just somehow got it stuck in my head, and I'm completely crazy, and if I transition, I will lose everything, and wind up even further from my main life goal - which is, at this point, to love myself.
I've been happy in a female body. I've had entire chunks of my life where I didn't even think about it. Where I experienced my breasts as just beautiful sources of pleasure. So what's with these effing waves of anxiety that have me now constantly considering transition?
I'm wrought with self doubt here... and truth be told, I always have been. I remember going through much of this self doubt and feeling crazy and like I would live to regret my decisions just before I came out with my attraction to women. I remember thinking I had just got some crazy notion stuck in my head, and wasn't really attracted to women, and spent years in horrible denial and confusion. It's the same thing all over again, and I feel like, much like before, the only way to get past it is to make a leap. I'll never be totally comfortable with a decision to come out, change my name, and get people to start using male pronouns. It's all so weird to me. But if I don't make this decision, can I continue living in this obsessive confused state, where I feel like I'm constantly aimlessly wanting and doing without?
So I've come to a place, as though carried by a current, where I'm coming out to people, getting close friends to use male pronouns... Seriously considering a name change. I'm torn between Elliott, William, and Logan. I smile when I think about these names. And I cringe when I hear my birthname.
This is all so terrifying. Am I really trans? Or am I just some crazy dyke who's gotten so carried away while hating themself that they're convinced they have to go through a sex change? If I transition, could I be happy? I'm a happy person, usually... I've been happy before, so why can't I find a way to access that old contentment without doing something so radical?
I'm on the cusp of the most intense decision of my life. Sorry that this post is so long and aimless, but I just needed to reach out in an environment where I would feel surrounded by people who understand. I feel better already having just written this. It gets lonely going through this stuff...
This thing hits me in waves. Gender confusion, dysphoria, whatever - it's been crashing on me my entire life. When I was kid, it was just these tireless fantasies that I could hope and pray myself into a boy's body. As I got older, I let it out through those wonderful role playing games - GI Joes, Barbies, whatever, as long as I could briefly live out my male characters. I hated, and would not ever, be a female character in these games.
Puberty hit, as I was warned it would, and my body changed, as I expected. I got really, aimlessly depressed. No clue why, but I always felt the depression, the thought that I might be better off dead for some reason, lingering in the back of my mind. Eventually that abated. I began to wish not that I was a guy, but that I was a proper, real girl. That I could just be happy, beautiful, feminine. I still subtly tried to emulate my male role models and crushes, without really understanding what I was doing.
Then I realized I was queer, and still fought with everything I had to maintain the femininity I had mastered. But given the first opportunity, that crumbled, and I came out as butch... But that didn't work either. I discovered drag kings and started taking every opportunity to do drag. It got to the point where I'd lock myself in my room for a few hours when one of these 'waves' got too intense, and I'd bind and draw on facial hair. I never had the balls to go out. I never had the balls to name what this was either. I just really liked gender play, right?
I've never been butch. But I've never been a woman either. And as I've aged (I turned 21 yesterday), the waves of dysphoria have been getting more intense and closer together. Now I live in this constant anxiety... I can't go out without binding. It's hard now to do so without packing. I've started an intense and constant self interrogation: do I experience myself as male? Would I be happier in a male body? What do I stand to lose that I couldn't live without? Would I regret a decision to transition?
I think about transition constantly. I want to do it. I want to get on T. But I want to do lots of things that aren't necessarily 'right'. I feel almost as if I'm just genderqueer, not really male or female, which of course makes me feel confused and lost in this society. I want so badly to be one or the other... I always have. And my obsession with transition? Well, I'm thinking sure - I want a male body. But doesn't everyone go through moments where they do? I just somehow got it stuck in my head, and I'm completely crazy, and if I transition, I will lose everything, and wind up even further from my main life goal - which is, at this point, to love myself.
I've been happy in a female body. I've had entire chunks of my life where I didn't even think about it. Where I experienced my breasts as just beautiful sources of pleasure. So what's with these effing waves of anxiety that have me now constantly considering transition?
I'm wrought with self doubt here... and truth be told, I always have been. I remember going through much of this self doubt and feeling crazy and like I would live to regret my decisions just before I came out with my attraction to women. I remember thinking I had just got some crazy notion stuck in my head, and wasn't really attracted to women, and spent years in horrible denial and confusion. It's the same thing all over again, and I feel like, much like before, the only way to get past it is to make a leap. I'll never be totally comfortable with a decision to come out, change my name, and get people to start using male pronouns. It's all so weird to me. But if I don't make this decision, can I continue living in this obsessive confused state, where I feel like I'm constantly aimlessly wanting and doing without?
So I've come to a place, as though carried by a current, where I'm coming out to people, getting close friends to use male pronouns... Seriously considering a name change. I'm torn between Elliott, William, and Logan. I smile when I think about these names. And I cringe when I hear my birthname.
This is all so terrifying. Am I really trans? Or am I just some crazy dyke who's gotten so carried away while hating themself that they're convinced they have to go through a sex change? If I transition, could I be happy? I'm a happy person, usually... I've been happy before, so why can't I find a way to access that old contentment without doing something so radical?
I'm on the cusp of the most intense decision of my life. Sorry that this post is so long and aimless, but I just needed to reach out in an environment where I would feel surrounded by people who understand. I feel better already having just written this. It gets lonely going through this stuff...