As of late, I have had a bug in my mind that has been just eating away at me. The feeling that my somewhat atypical experience makes me feel fake. The accusations of us users here being "fake transfolk" is not exactly helping matters for me either. It really boils down to a few bullet points that I can hopefully outline in a coherent fashion.
I have moved with incredible speed throughout my transition thus far. I am in my mid-30s. I started questioning my gender in mid-late 2019. My egg finally cracked in June 2022, at the age of 32. I started HRT a short two months later in August of 2022. Since then, I've changed my legal name and gender. I have also started the process of bottom surgery and am currently scheduled to have the procedure in April. That is 22 months from egg cracking to bottom surgery.
I never really questioned my gender during my childhood. I read a lot of stories about transfolk who have known for a very long time. Like, most seem to fall into the realm of having known since prepubescence or somewhere in the years of puberty. Now, I had a very...special...time as a teenager where I don't remember a godsdamned thing about any of it. To put it in short, I was thrown out of the house at 15 and was forced to take care of my dementia laden grandparent. Either way, I'm pretty certain that questioning my gender in any manner wasn't a part of it.
I honestly just feel like any and all signs I had pointing to the fact that I was trans all my life feel fabricated on my part cause I feel like I'm chasing a fad so to speak. Trying to fit in with my friends and my family. This thought isn't entirely unwarranted. I'm pansexual and came to realize this back in 2007. I knew this, yet still exclusively called myself gay at the time because I thought it would help me find friends. I just wonder if this is another of those cases.
I will post some positive reinforcement at the very least. As noted, signs did exist of me being trans dating all the way back to the age of 4. I used to pretend I was pregnant alllll the way back then when playing with my sisters. Something I did quite often if my memories serve me well. I never really cared for toys as a child as I preferred video games back then. I did, however, want toys geared towards girls back then, like Polly Pocket. Even to current me, those things were dope as hell and I wish I had one. Moving past the dark years, I wanted to dress in skirts in my late teens and try walking in high heels. I played girls in video games starting in my mid-20s. I openly wished to have breasts shortly thereafter. I m also on record at the time of saying "Y'know, I wouldn't mind having a vagina. I don't think I'd care that much if I lost my dick."
Ultimately, I feel as though maybe I'm just psyching myself out because I have a major life change coming up in a scant couple months. Even with all this on my mind, I still think it was the best decision I ever made for myself as of current. I can't imagine a life where I would go back to being a man. I can't imagine losing all that I've gained thus far. My body, my voice, my emotions. All of it. I don't want to lose it. At the end of the day, I'm just afraid I'm going to look back at all of this in 10 years and say "Boy I sure made a colossal mistake right there." My experience being atypical makes me think that maybe I am just riding a fad so to speak. After all, I never came to this realization until recently, so late in my life.
When it boils down to it, I'm not really looking for validation or any of that. I get enough of that from my partners. What I want is a raw opinion and some discussion into the matter. If you feel as if you wish to respond, feel free to ask me any questions you so desire. So long as they're not identifying, I don't mind sharing most information about myself. I'm an open book. Either way, thank you for making it through this post. It is greatly appreciated that you took the time out of your day to read me rambling on in a word salad only fit for a big trough.
TL;DR I'm extremely insecure about my transness due to atypical life experiences compared to the community at large and am scared of making a big mistake.
Not atypical. But your feelings are valid and grounded in your material reality.
A couple notes: bringing this up is at its core, is trying to find further justification for something you want - which is to be a woman in every way possible. A cis person doesn't want to change their gender, a cis person doesn't feel comfortable even with the idea of transitioning let alone following thought on it. As trans people we can be scared and have doubts, we're only human and it's a big life change in an unsupportive world. What's more, cis people don't look for clues and signs that they're trans. You're reaching for as much justification as you can get because we live in a world that wants to deny us an existence, and our culture really does that to all kinds of people - that's an ill of the culture, not you.
Further, not remembering chunks of your childhood is symptomatic of trauma. This trauma can be something that was directly done to you, but also being raised as the gender that you're not is also traumatic but much harder to see than a flagrant abuse.
Talk with a therapist if you can get one! Either way, we will of course be here to lend an ear wherever we can!
I really should find a way to properly process the trauma that I dealt with as a child. I have some memories of the time between the ages of 14 and 17, but not very many. I know vaguely what happened during that time. Unfortunately, that was almost 20 years ago, so even if the memories are there, they might fade to the point where I won't be able to properly deal with them. I really should look into a therapist though. If only it weren't absurdly difficult to find one for LGBTQIA+ issues near where I live.
I definitely am just kinda fishing around for justification for being trans as well, but part of me also wishes I weren't. Life for me has gotten so terrifying and so fucking difficult since I made that jump to start HRT 17 months ago. Constantly having to worry about passing, how I look, how I sound, if my boobs are growing properly, if my beard is finally gone or not, if my clothing choices make sense, if some random chud is going to clock me and start shit with me, just everything really. It's just so much and takes such a mental toll on me.
Your last point is pretty damn good, ngl. You're right. A cis individual would never think such things or even do such things. I guess I'm just really scared of everything. I have a ton of major changes in my life happening over the next 3 months along with my bottom surgery and I'm just...not really keeping up with it mentally. It's rough. But you're right. This is my path. Just because it doesn't match up with others doesn't make it any less valid. It's mine after all.
Also, I love your username. That is all.
You say its atypical, but I'm in a similar cohort, with a similar trajectory (though I had been closeted for a while longer) I held off on transitioning because I felt just had too many other obligations.
I'm pansexual and came to realize this back in 2007. I knew this, yet still exclusively called myself gay at the time because I thought it would help me find friends.
For me being ace and trans really made me feel like I didn't fit in when I was younger, I didn't even have words to describe what I felt, or wanted. I just wasn't into bars, hookups or even being perceived and that made it pretty hard to relate to other queer people in my college years.
I've known I preferred being seen as a girl as a child, but it was always something that I wrote off as 'impossible' especially in that era there was just no examples of trans-ness aside from horrifying transphobia bubbling up to the surface in popular media. In that time I always more into video games where I could be escapist.
After all, I never came to this realization until recently, so late in my life.
For what it's worth you're younger than me and further along. We bottle a lot of shit up (for many reasons) and it doesn't really start to make sense until we've had time to process it. It's certainly never too late to start,
Thanks for replying. I don't really see or speak to many people of a similar age as myself going through transition, so your perspective is very appreciated.
I probably did bottle a lot of shit up when I was growing up. I know I always hated my body, but I could only guess that it was for one reason or another. Never really could put a finger on it. I posit that it was just dysphoria growing up, but I couldn't possibly really know since all of the memories are so faded at this point. But I grew up sheltered. A non-bigoted idea of even a gay person didn't even cross my mindspace until I was 17, when I started to realize that I was attracted to just about anyone. That was due to my extremely bigoted stepfather who is well out of the picture now, but that's beside the point. I had zero capacity for introspection as a child. It took graduating high school and talking to folks in the alphabet mafia for me to even consider that I may be part of it. Beyond that, I don't think I encountered a trans individual until like 2016 (aside from my wife, but she never spoke about it and didn't start transitioning until I decided to.) The media, as you mention, made transfolk out to be a sort of joke at the time. You never saw a trans individual in any other context rather than the butt of a joke. So it never really parsed to me as something that people actually did for the longest time.
Know what the worst part of this is? This is a very clearly logical thing to think, but then my brain follows it up with "You're just making excuses for yourself." Gods, I am fucked right now. I'm starting to wonder if this isn't entirely hormonal.
Either way, thank you a ton for the response.
i feel the same way sometimes. i know a lot of us do. i don't know that it's possible to know the self to any permanent extent, but personally anxieties about the way i might feel in the future aren't what i want to base my choices on. and i am happier now. imagining going back is a nightmare. if i change my mind in the future, i was happier for a time and i think that's worth it
sorry if this isn't a helpful perspective, but it's something i think about a lot and this is always the answer i come to
What makes your experience atypical? What specifically does that change about transition?
Doesn't seem atypical to me. The common narrative that is presented to cis people (often by other cis people, but also by trans people trying to present their personal experience or provide a compelling example) is that of a specific subset of trans people, which is partly dependent on certain conceptions of gender, life experiences, etc.
Personally, I didn't really grow up with strict gender norms in the household (mostly because my mom doesn't follow the social expectations of her AGAB) and didn't know anything about trans people. Gender was just the body parts you were born with, so of course I thought I was in the "boy" group: behaviors, preferences, etc were all irrelevant. Sure, I conformed more when in public, but given I'm also ADHD and probably autistic, masking was second nature from a young age.
For other's, they had a very strict family with regards to gender conformity and never really had a chance to express themselves any other way and never realized how much they dislike the box they were forced to occupy because they knew nothing else.
For many trans people, there's the knowledge that they're different from others with their AGAB in some ways, but they lacked the conceptual framework/language of gender or being trans to have the words to put to their experience.
My honest thought reading that was that I don't see that as very atypical. Or rather that atypical experiences like that are pretty typical. Vaguely having some things in childhood that could have just been a boy playing around but not actually being able to process any of it for years due to processing trauma instead until it comes together all of a sudden? I've heard that one before!
For me I don't think I'd ever be able to afford it and I don't think I'd ever be in a position socially where I could safely come out. And I don't always feel that strongly about it, sometimes I think if I had been born a woman I'd just want to transition to being a man. Sometimes I think it'd be cool to just have a vagina but still be a man or get an orchiectomy and leave it at that but I can't see committing to either one.
To put it in short, I was thrown out of the house at 15 and was forced to take care of my dementia laden grandparent.
Just want to point out that something like this would be so pressing that you really might not have had the liberty to think about your gender as much as you might otherwise have done were it not for this. It’s a lot harder if you’re struggling to survive.
As others have pointed out, your experience is actually highly typical of the community at large. As in, you hit all the marks of actually common trans biographies. The thing is, if you feel that you're speedrunning your transition and that you aren't ready for bottom surgery yet, it's ok and valid to postpone and make another appointment at a later date, or to call it off entirely. You can progress through this at your own pace, it's your decision which steps to take and it doesn't make you less trans or less of a woman when you're unoperated, the only question should be what kind of body you want to live in and that just varies a lot from person to person. I know several people who went off testosterone HRT and still identify as nonbinary and are still gender as fuck and active parts of local queer communities. I just met another one yesterday at my local dyke bar, bowl cut, miniskirt and complete bear mode body hair, pronouns any / all, but statistically they count as a detransitioner when the reality is simply that they've gotten all they want out of T and are fine with that. The idea that we need to follow a pre-determined checklist of necessary transition steps and must not deviate from it, the threat that backing down, reversing, stopping or just pausing aren't acceptable options, that's such a pile of horseshit. This isn't how our lives play out irl, people are messy and complicated and we're allowed to have messy and complicated relationships to our gender and to our transition.
I'm not so concerned that I'm not personally ready for it, but rather that I don't deserve it. As noted, I'm moving super quickly through this whole thing and I know that there are a ton of folks out there who have been waiting for so long and have known for so long. It's a matter of I feel guilty that those other people are getting what they need over me, someone whose egg cracked a mere year and a half ago. I just feel...fake. I hate feeling like this. I don't want to feel like this. I don't like the doubt. It's really unsettling and just fucks with me fully.
Also, I refuse to detransition. I'd rather die. Hands down. I want to keep moving forward. It's why I refuse to cancel my surgery. It's why I do my damnedest to give my injection every week. I don't wanna go back. I never want to be a "man" ever again.
Also, I refuse to detransition. I'd rather die. Hands down.
I feel you, i wasn't suggesting that, either. Just saying that constantly pushing forward isn't something that should be expected of trans people.
I also get the doubt and how that fucks with you pre-surgery. Like, i know i need to get something done every time i have sex, and 90% of the time when i look at my junk it's "wtf even is that stuff", but i still worry if it's the right decision from time to time even though it's super fucking obvious that yes, yes it is the right decision. I think that's normal, just as it's definitely normal to feel like a fake trans person even though you're very obviously not fake, i hear that all the time from people who are very clearly super mega trans 3000.
That really helped. Not gonna lie. I suppose this is what I needed to hear this afternoon. It genuinely makes me understand that I’m just…scared. What you experience is pretty much what I experience. Almost word for word really. It is also reassuring to hear that a lot of other people go through this; Not just me.
I know I can keep going and moving towards the real me. I am genuine. Not a fake like my damn brain is making me feel like. This happened because I am trans and not for any other reason.
Thanks to you and the others here, I can be reassured that I’m not truly atypical, but just another face among the crowd and that truly makes me feel better. Thank you. Seriously
I'm really, really glad to hear this! It means a lot that i could help.
Idk this seems a lot more concrete than my gender feelings… My only memories are actually of being HYPER conformist to gender norms when I was really young, and later on feeling kind of “butterflies in my stomach” when I started internalizing that having others view me as a woman was possible.
I feel like you’re basically the poster child of trans women given this story and it makes me feel kind of inadequate
When it comes down to it and what I've learned the last few days while this thread has persisted is that regardless of what our background was, regardless of what other say, none of that matters. Do you feel like you're trans? Yes? Then you're trans. Who cares about the periphery. None of anything matters aside from who we feel like on the inside. That's a lesson I've learned over the last few days and a very important lesson that I think we all have to learn.
Part of what triggered this post was a lot of doubt that was created by close family of mine in recent months. A certain individual kept attempting to push a narrative to me that I was not trans even though I thought I was. It was very subtle, too. It wormed its way into my head without me knowing. The worst part about all of this is that it crept up right as I was about to get hit by PMS. Even after 17 months, I'm still not used to the significant mood swings created by it. Since it crept into my head during such an emotionally vulnerable time, it sent me for a fucking loop. Why do I say all this? Because well, I'm not sure where you sit in any of this, but if you're MTF and on HRT, you can get blindsided by PMS, and not dispelling such thoughts can send you down a very dark path. I'm not simply saying "Get over it" as that's horribly irresponsible, but I will say that it might not hurt to approach and confront the doubt within you to rid yourself of it so you're not dealing with it during more vulnerable moments in your life. Cause it can crush you without you realizing it.
“Thankfully” I’m not on HRT yet. I should probably start it soon, but my feelings about gender have always felt squishy enough that it felt too much like a risk or luxury.
You seem to have very mixed feelings on the matter. In one breath you say that you want to do it, but then you become unsure. It sounds like you have a lot to unpack still quite like I did this past week. Granted, I can understand how that feels. HRT can feel like a huge undertaking. The trepidation and the apprehension involved therein is terrifying. It's a big change. So I don't blame you for waiting to ensure that you're comfortable and/or resolute in your gender identity. I just hope that you're able to find it someday
Well, part of it is both the fact that my time is quickly running out to do it and that I’ve been sitting like this for… what? A year? I’m considering doing it experimentally, at least
What do you mean by your time is running out? And you can do it experimentally to my knowledge. None of the permanent effects happen for a while into HRT on both FTM and MTF. Though the former would probably be uncomfortable with hair growth and voice deepening, but I imagine that takes a while. Breasts for MTF take a while to start anyways and a long time before they become noticeable. Well, that also depends on genes, but that's beside the point.
Also, if you ever need some assistance, feel free to contact me in DMs. I'd be happy to help you to the best of my abilities.
