I’ve been questioning and curious, and I wanted to talk to some people about my experience, who know more about being trans than I do.
I am almost 30, I’m bisexual, and I was assigned male at birth. I was raised in a very Catholic household (and went to Catholic school from elementary through high school), so it wasn’t exactly an environment that was going to give me the language to understand who I was, or encouraged to explore my sexuality and gender identity.
I was always more emotional than my peers - my parents put me in wrestling and karate during elementary and middle school to “toughen me up”. Although that may have had to do with my RSD (rejection sensitive dysphoria) from my ADHD.
I never really enjoyed sports like wrestling or football - I ended up liking volleyball and distance running. I preferred hobbies that are more traditionally feminine, like baking and sewing. Don’t get me wrong, I also liked camping and stuff with Boy Scouts (not that camping and hiking are inherently masculine) but I definitely never felt like a super masculine as a kid.
I would get in trouble for growing my hair out as long as I was allowed to, and then some, and I got in trouble for wearing more jewelry than a Catholic school was appropriate for boys too (too many rings and necklaces). I was made fun of in middle and high school for wearing pink, or liking things that were too girly.
About 5 years ago, I started to identify as nonbinary, as I learned more about queerness and started to find the language to describe what I was feeling. When my wife came out to me as bi, I finally felt comfortable coming out as nonbinary to her. And since then, I’ve started to feel more confident expressing my gender differently, mostly in small ways, like growing my hair longer and painting my nails. I’ve still only come out as NB to a small handful of people, and day-to-day I probably present more as “eccentric guy” than anything else.
The thing that I’ve noticed, though, is that the less masculine I look, act, and present, the more I feel like myself. I feel like men’s clothing is so limiting, and I always feel out of place when I’m in a group of otherwise all guys.
I feel like If I had been born as a woman, I would prefer that to having been born male. And if I could flip a switch and instantly be a woman, I would. But I don’t experience the sort of revulsion at my genitals that I hear some trans people describe (although I do hate being so hairy).
All of that said, I don’t know what exactly it feels like to be trans, or be a woman, so I don’t know how to compare my experience to how I “should” or “shouldn’t” feel.
And obviously right now is a scary time in the US to be queer of any kind, so there’s a part of me that’s very scared about what if I am trans - what that would entail in terms of how people/my friends and family would react and treat me.
Anyway, I’m not trying to presume anything about the trans experience, and I apologize if anything I said seemed ignorant. I guess I’m just confused and looking for some insight and support, since there aren’t many people in real life that I can talk to about these things (wife and therapist aside).
WYKYK; “When you know, you know.”
Don’t rush yourself. Don’t let anyone try to crack your “shell” or treat you like an egg if you feel uncomfortable with that. Be yourself and feel it out.
If after hearing a few testimonies and stories from other trans people you personally feel that experience more closely matches yours; by all means don’t hesitate to consider yourself trans.
Explore our communities, hear some stories, explore the meanings on your own terms and find what fits!~
Welcome to being Queer/Questioning. <3 Lots of space to explore and even decide you want to venture out to explore under the even wider umbrella of being trans.
So yes; technically you could argue you’re trans; even as you are. If that makes you comfortable; do it. If it does not; you don’t have to. It’s your own labels and your right to self-assign whatever labels you feel fit you best.
Now that the mandatory reminders of “It’s your choice” are out of the way; fwy will tell a bit about how fwy cracked.
Fwy has always been fascinated with various feminine things from a very young age; and that includes things like fashion, makeup, and other ways and forms of creatively expressing fwyself with fwy’s very own body.
Of course as you probably know, or have experienced, being AMAB typically means you get pidgeonholed into very specific, very utilitarian clothing and you don’t often get a lot of choices on the colors or things of that nature; and it’s typically even enforced at a high level that AMAB bodies also do not sport very many types of body accentuation or decorations that are not of a permanent and irreversible nature. No offense to those who do sport very colorful tattoos.
Even when Fwyfwy was just 8 years old; Fwy found immense pleasure in simple decorations of fwy’s own body. Given a box of washable markers and privacy; fwy would be very artistic and decorate fwy body, usually fwy feet and legs as those were easiest to sort of color or decorate to emulate something in some manner, to look like whatever fwy felt she most resonated with. Most frequently; fwy would resonate strongly with many female characters and found it strongly maddening that fwy couldn’t display fwy’s self decoration publicly; but it at least kept fwy sane to know fwy had the decoration on fwy’s own body underneath fwyfwy drab clothes.
This is only a fragment of fwy’s experience of being trans; but fwy feels it’s the best fragment to offer. Fwy does not want to be discouraging when you may just be seeking to feel like you are not alone. Rest assured that you are not alone.