I think I’m enby now, but I always just thought I was weird, and people certainly told me so a lot. To be fair, I’ve always been pretty contradictory and would seek to enjoy things that others disliked or couldn’t understand. A lot of unusual fashion and music.
At some point as an adult and through a confluence of elements of my life, I opened the “gender is a social construct” box and I realized that in my mind I haven’t been passing as a man for a while, and I don’t really need to try. I can just be myself. Still a lot of unusual tastes, but they’re mine.
Repression. I never hated being my birth gender, but there was 100% a whole other half of me that I tried to hold back out of fear. That half of me was the half that knew what I wanted to wear and what I wanted my voice to sound like, all that stuff.
The only thing I ever did for that half of me (until I was in my 20s) was grow my hair out, because that’s socially acceptable for men. I was envious of people like Jaden Smith for wearing skirts, and of the women around me, both for dressing how I couldn’t and for being able to dress like a boy and still be pretty.
I was afraid. Still am. Basically I learned at a young age expressing my preferred gender would cause me harm, and that it would be terrible if anyone ever found out about it. I was aware that there was something I desperately wanted to feel but was terrified to face or understand it. So I constructed ways to access that feeling in a cheap and pornographic manner that barely satisfied the need. Fortunately I realized I can feel it any time I want by just telling myself, “I’m a girl.” or when people use feminine pronouns. It took me forty years to figure it out.
Repression. I fought most my life, telling myself my thoughts and feelings were wrong while also finding outlets that felt “safe” and telling myself that was it, I just needed a way to get the thoughts out and they’d go away. Anything and everything was a way to stave off the thoughts about myself, my desires, and my own needs.
It’s taken me time to really accept it, but it’s more than a dislike. I was fucking miserable identifying myself as a man. Looking back now, all I get in my head is Edgar, from Men in Black. Ill-fitting, angry, and ugly(more mentally/emotionally than physically).
Repression. I had some thoughts that aren’t cis at all but in my mind possibility to be trans just didn’t exist and I had execuses for those thoughts. Society played big part there. In country where I live a lot of people are anti LGBT and whole community is missrepresented. Because of that I didn’t know what being trans actually means. After I actually learned about gender identity and gender dysphoria it took me some time to start questioning, while I realized that what I previously thought wasn’t true it still made me repress. I’m not sure how to answer 2nd question because I never really thought about my gender before my questioning phase, it was just a neutral thing to me, but I did feel like I’m different than most boys I knew.
It was mostly not knowing that I would like being a girl. Before I was an adult, I never considered that being femme would be something that I might like. Even when I considered it to be an option, I legitimately couldn’t figure out how I felt about it. I don’t recall ever thinking that it was what I wanted, only being very interested in other people crossdressing.
Thanks to my autism, I need to observe myself like I’m observing another person to figure out what I’m feeling or what I want. I look at my behavior, physiological responses, thought patterns, and the context to figure out how I feel. I have wants, but I struggle to know what they are. I knew I hated something about myself, but not what it was.
I questioned myself so much because I didn’t want to be a girl consciously as a kid, but after enough experimentation, I finally realized what I wanted. It took me longer to realize that I fucking hated being male. I feel so much happier as a woman than I expected would ever be possible. I never really felt alive until I realized who I was.
I’d love to hear from people who were entirely convinced of their cisness and then later discovered they were trans:
Were you actively repressing yourself or had you just not given it thought?
Did you generally not like being your birth gender or did you just really find that you liked being your preferred gender?
Thanks!
I think I’m enby now, but I always just thought I was weird, and people certainly told me so a lot. To be fair, I’ve always been pretty contradictory and would seek to enjoy things that others disliked or couldn’t understand. A lot of unusual fashion and music.
At some point as an adult and through a confluence of elements of my life, I opened the “gender is a social construct” box and I realized that in my mind I haven’t been passing as a man for a while, and I don’t really need to try. I can just be myself. Still a lot of unusual tastes, but they’re mine.
Repression. I never hated being my birth gender, but there was 100% a whole other half of me that I tried to hold back out of fear. That half of me was the half that knew what I wanted to wear and what I wanted my voice to sound like, all that stuff.
The only thing I ever did for that half of me (until I was in my 20s) was grow my hair out, because that’s socially acceptable for men. I was envious of people like Jaden Smith for wearing skirts, and of the women around me, both for dressing how I couldn’t and for being able to dress like a boy and still be pretty.
Tbh I haven’t gotten over that fear to this day.
I was afraid. Still am. Basically I learned at a young age expressing my preferred gender would cause me harm, and that it would be terrible if anyone ever found out about it. I was aware that there was something I desperately wanted to feel but was terrified to face or understand it. So I constructed ways to access that feeling in a cheap and pornographic manner that barely satisfied the need. Fortunately I realized I can feel it any time I want by just telling myself, “I’m a girl.” or when people use feminine pronouns. It took me forty years to figure it out.
Repression. I fought most my life, telling myself my thoughts and feelings were wrong while also finding outlets that felt “safe” and telling myself that was it, I just needed a way to get the thoughts out and they’d go away. Anything and everything was a way to stave off the thoughts about myself, my desires, and my own needs.
It’s taken me time to really accept it, but it’s more than a dislike. I was fucking miserable identifying myself as a man. Looking back now, all I get in my head is Edgar, from Men in Black. Ill-fitting, angry, and ugly(more mentally/emotionally than physically).
Repression. I had some thoughts that aren’t cis at all but in my mind possibility to be trans just didn’t exist and I had execuses for those thoughts. Society played big part there. In country where I live a lot of people are anti LGBT and whole community is missrepresented. Because of that I didn’t know what being trans actually means. After I actually learned about gender identity and gender dysphoria it took me some time to start questioning, while I realized that what I previously thought wasn’t true it still made me repress. I’m not sure how to answer 2nd question because I never really thought about my gender before my questioning phase, it was just a neutral thing to me, but I did feel like I’m different than most boys I knew.
It was mostly not knowing that I would like being a girl. Before I was an adult, I never considered that being femme would be something that I might like. Even when I considered it to be an option, I legitimately couldn’t figure out how I felt about it. I don’t recall ever thinking that it was what I wanted, only being very interested in other people crossdressing.
Thanks to my autism, I need to observe myself like I’m observing another person to figure out what I’m feeling or what I want. I look at my behavior, physiological responses, thought patterns, and the context to figure out how I feel. I have wants, but I struggle to know what they are. I knew I hated something about myself, but not what it was.
I questioned myself so much because I didn’t want to be a girl consciously as a kid, but after enough experimentation, I finally realized what I wanted. It took me longer to realize that I fucking hated being male. I feel so much happier as a woman than I expected would ever be possible. I never really felt alive until I realized who I was.