Butch transwomen, out of the woodwork with you

[girl-kat.livejournal.com]

Hi everyone.  I've been needing to do this for a while, so here I am.  This will be an introductory post in part - my thoughts, doubts, and questions will follow.

You may call me Kat - I am 23 years old and have been transitioning from male to female for the past four years or so.  I've been on hormones for a bit over two.  I have not had surgery done, nor do I, in the foreseeable future, intend to have it done.

All throughout my transition I have had doubts, and recent events have only magnified them.  I need to get this stuff off my chest or I will not be able to have any sort of peace.

So with the introduction basically out of the way, allow me to get to the heart of the matter....

To begin with, and I don't mean to be arrogant,  I was very attractive as a boy.  There were always girls (and guys) that were interested in me back in high school.  So keep in mind that I was coming away from that.

It took me almost three years, but recently I've been able to see that I'm beautiful as a girl, too.  I've had people, who do not know I am trans, tell me that I'm gorgeous, beautiful, sexy, and so on.  You get the idea.  One person, who I ended up being involved with for a while after coming out to him, told me that he could "never imagine me as a boy."  Another that I came out to thought I was lying to try to scare him away (in a sick way, that was a compliment).

I've had people tell me, completely unsolicited, that I have a beautiful voice, and I'm glad for that.

Basically, I'm sort of at the end of my transition in a lot of ways, but now I'm wondering if I should have started it to begin with.

Recently I became involved with a very feminine, cute, shy sort of girl.  As I've been with her, I've been acting more like I did as a boy - being gentlemanly, chivalrous, whatever you'd like to call it.  I've been realizing that I like this - I like being masculine.  I recently got my hair cut shorter with bangs (which I previously did not have) and in some photos I've taken, it looks like my hair is quite short.  I liked it.  I like how masculine I look, or "dykey" if you prefer.  It makes me want to cut it even shorter.

Am I out of my mind?  I've tried to look up information about butch transwomen, and they seem not even to exist.  Surely there are people who transition away from a gender yet aren't uncomfortable with still acting like it?  I know there are lots of transwomen who, initially, are rather masculine, but not by choice.  I was like that myself.  I'm talking about choosing to be butch.

Once upon a time, I saw a photograph of a trans drag king.  Honestly, that's been my entire experience of purposefully masculine transwomen - that one photo.  And they looked good.

So I don't know if I'm a boy or just a masculine girl or what.  It's driving me crazy.

I can't be the only transwoman out there who actually likes being masculine, right?

I'm aware of the fact that, if I come off as butch, I'll be mistaken for a guy.  But seriously, that's going to happen whether I'm trans or not.  When I'm out in the "real world" I'm not mistaken for male as I am now - that stopped happening a long time ago.  So I'm pretty secure when it comes to that.

Thoughts and questions are greatly appreciated.... and if you'd like to contact me privately, e-mail me or send me a PM here.  I don't mind.  Just please, whatever you say, don't sugarcoat it.  I'm a strong woman .. or man ... or whatever.

Thanks for listening.

Kat