there is an anxiety in my trans circles that the future might become worse, that access to surgery, new passports and stuff might become harder. i feel like i should hurry to get shit done.
but i can’t. it took sooo long until i knew for sure, i wanted to go on hrt. i am now and it’s great. not for the reasons i imagined, but for all the small things i never thought about. yet i don’t know what i want my name to be. it is such a hard question for me. i start to rethink sexuality aswell esp. since my libido seems to have vanished under estrogen. this i like also. but what does it say about my sexual identity? or my gender identity? will there be a point at which i want a bottom surgery? there are so many questions that i can’t answer (yet).
meanwhile the whole world seems to demand these answers and wants them to align with their cis-het assumptions. health care wants me to display a binary persona for access to hrt (i played the part), and surgery. my aunt immediately fantasized about me “certainly” looking for a man to have a family with. everyone really wats to have an update on how to handle me. no ambiguity.
i realised that in my trans specific therapy group i get quiet and anxious when they are all discussing hospitals, doctors, procedures and all the technicalities. i feel like i am behind. always behind. i haven’t done my homework. i didn’t know forever that i was a girl. i don’t know today. i’m just starting to get a sense of self. something that was shattered and buried through thorough suppression. i am putting together fragments like an archeologist. but being trans is in a way still just a working hypothesis. it’s highly plausible, but i can’t see the bigger picture yet.
i am afraid, that all of this will take me too long, that i will have to jump over new hurdles, or old ones, like when the rubber stamps from my therapist will be too old. i feel like i have to figure out myself now. i feel alone with that. even in self help, and therapy groups everyone is always so sure about themselves. just not me. i should seek out enby groups maybe? plz hit me up, if you ever felt this way too. 😥
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I understand that sense of urgency, I feel it as well. And it did help me speed up my own transition a bit. But I think when I started to feel the urgency, I had already figured myself out a bit more than you have right now. You’ve said in another comment that it’s 14 months now that you’re sure you’re trans. I had a non-binary phase for more than two years before deciding to transition medically and call myself a woman (-ish), so there definitely was a time where I wasn’t ready to take action. What changed everything for me was meeting and befriending a transfem IRL, that made everything seem so much more realistic and achievable all of a sudden. Up until that point, transition was something that “only internet people” could do for me. When I met that friend, I was suddenly able to take the first steps toward HRT and was on it just a few months later. Ever since then, my conviction that transition is the right choice for me has only strenghtened which in turn has helped me toward my decision for a name change and surgery.
Hope my perspective helps and I would add that u/shirow is right. Do what you feel like doing and don’t ever do anything because other people tell you to. You and only you know what’s right for your body and identity. No one else can decide or judge about that. Also: something that has helped me accept being trans was the realisation that being a woman is just easier for me than being a man. So based on that I’m probably a woman (-ish, again).
Also: something that has helped me accept being trans was the realisation that being a woman is just easier for me than being a man. So based on that I’m probably a woman (-ish, again).
I’ve also struggled like OP to come to terms with whether I’m trans, whether I’m non-binary or a binary woman, whether I want surgery, etc. When my egg cracked I didn’t think I had experienced any real dysphoria, I was pretty certain I had no bottom dysphoria and would not want bottom surgery, and all I knew was the evidence was mounting that I was probably trans and should take steps to transition for my mental well-being.
Within a few months my repression and coping strategies like dissociation were diminished by social transition and I realized I had significant and severe dysphoria, and had suffered it most of my life. I went from thinking I had no awareness growing up I was a woman to realizing that some of my earliest memories would count as awareness of my gender identity (and even are common tropes), and that I had basically been trying to variably reconcile and repress this fact my whole life.
Since then I have had to acknowledge that my repression has left me ill equipped to be “in touch” with myself about what is best for me, and that even when I can’t tell if I would like something (e.g. before HRT I worried I wouldn’t like having breasts, I couldn’t tell beforehand), that I should probably take the steps I can.
So far that has worked well for me - and I think in the end I’m realizing I’m not non-binary like I originally thought. Like you, I went through a phase of denial that took the shape of identifying as non-binary, because it made it easier to rationalize not transitioning or admitting I was “trans” enough.
What helped orient me was to realize that there was no part of being a man that I wanted to be or keep. A beard was the opposite of me. My penis felt like a silly and foreign object, particularly when erect. My testes and scrotum made me nauseous. I had become good at ignoring or rationalizing away signs like the pervasive and intrusive genital mutilation ideation that came up for me, and lo and behold since bottom surgery I haven’t had any genital mutilation thoughts! In retrospect it all seems obvious and easy to discern. On the other side from a place of repression, it can feel very ambiguous and uncertain.
I think most people advise to be slow and cautious, and this aligns with cis society’s fear of transition as well: insurance companies and governments enforce long wait times to have access to care, despite clinical evidence showing this is harmful. So I tend to take the opposite tact: don’t gatekeep yourself and seek access to care ASAP. It’s nice to be able to go slow, but the system will force you to go slow anyway. Get on the waitlists now, make the appointments now, etc. Even if there weren’t an anti-trans campaign threatening to take options off the table in the future, there is also just the reality of your well-being and how long transition takes. You want to get through it so you are healthy and happy sooner, and so you reduce the risks that come with delayed access to care.
yes i heared that one too. i even said it to others: ‘go to surgeons/endos, let them inform you in detail. you can still say no after that.’ but all of these appointments are a lot of stress and at the moment i don’t feel that strongly like you reported. i think.
the only harmfull (or at least world-denying) ideation i had was that of being impaled by some angelic being (think of Bernini’s Ecstasy of Saint Teresa or if you like Alucard vs Incognito). being pinned down, or picked out of the world, giving up all responsibilities and ties for and to it.
a few month/years ago i recognized that this ideation went away slowly. after i started hrt it shifted further. in those situations in which i would flee into this fantasy, i started to imagine spreading my wings instead.
that’s super corny but i guess there is a self somewhere that started breathing again. i wish it would talk to me more often and openly. this would be my motivation to do stuff. wether it told me through nausea or happiness, doesn’t matter i want this person to say something. i need that to motivate myself (the ego) throughout the stress and pain of surgeries.
you commented on my kind of genital dysphoria, that is a helpful comment. thanks alot, again. but phenomenologically its just that i don’t find particular pleasure in people doing things to my genitals. it’s rather boring. i feel like i miss data, in this respect.
ps: yes, i grew up within (liberal/leftist) catholicism. some motives of catholicism will be with me forever, i guess.
I do not recommend letting the surgeons or endos inform you in detail, in general my advice on that is to know more than your doctors.
I know you mentioned you felt you hadn’t done your homework, and I think this communicates both that you feel overwhelmed and like you’ve started this process that demands so much more knowledge than you feel you have, but also that you might feel like you don’t have the level of certainty or clarity about your own dysphoria or needs to direct the transition.
Both are aspects I struggled with in my transition, and the first 3 - 6 months after my egg cracked and I realized I was trans, I read quite a few books, articles, etc. to educate myself while I was also going through the earliest stages of social and medical transition.
You can absolutely educate yourself assuming you have the time and opportunity to read.
Regarding the uncertainty about dysphoria and imposter syndrome (wondering you’re really trans, whether you really suffer from dysphoria, etc.) - that has basically never gone away for me, it’s just a question that becomes less relevant as I get on the other side of major transition milestones.
Even now I still wonder if I’m somehow secretly a cis man who tricked myself into transitioning. Such thoughts I now realize mostly come from a combination of irrational fears and internalized transphobia - I am older and grew up during a very transphobic time, so on some basic level I don’t really emotionally accept the medical establishment’s claims about gender dysphoria, and I worry someday I’ll wake up and feel differently … that said, I’ve wished I was born a woman my whole life, so now that I live as a woman it’s never an issue for me, and objectively I’m much healthier and happier now. So everything objective and concrete makes it clear transition was worth it, the fears are genuinely irrational.
So, given what I know about my fears, I took transition steps with the understanding that I was probably a binary trans woman and it’s safe to take every measure to help me live as a woman, and so far that has worked out perfectly for me even when I wasn’t sure beforehand. I even had bottom surgery without feeling certain about it, and I’m glad I did.
I know you mentioned you felt you hadn’t done your homework, and I think this communicates both that you feel overwhelmed and like you’ve started this process that demands so much more knowledge than you feel you have, but also that you might feel like you don’t have the level of certainty or clarity about your own dysphoria or needs to direct the transition.
im crying. thank you for caring so much and for your reccommendations!
hey, thanks! i do use this negative approach a lot. i don’t like being a boy, so let’s try girl! i had a long phase of negating myself before. i avoided saying “i am X” i’d rather say “i don’t like/do Y”. that also prevented me from calling myself an enby. that would’ve been too much of an affirmation. it was more that at some point i grew tired. i changed a lot of thought patterns in therapy which led me to abandon a lot of my self negation. i just wanted to be something for once. and that culminated in the point at which i said: “i want to be more feminine, but i am unsure about breasts. i could live as a man for so long, i will survive having breasts too. fuck it. ill go on hrt!”
i guess the new thing, is that i care sbout myself all of a sudden.
knowing trans people helps a bunch, yes. i live in a quite queer circle for years. it helped me to see that transitioning is possible. but i was still so disconnected from myself, that nothing came of it.
sry i see how the way i put that made it sound that i suddenly found myself to be queer. that point 14 month ago really was the “i want hrt” moment. but i guess we have similar experiences. :)
for surgery i am at a point at which i’d say “i like what estrogen is doing. i sure could live without a penis.” i think however this step might not be for me. if i’d suffer more from the surgery than i suffer from my current state … i shouldn’t go for it. would i be more intetrested in having a sex life with another configuration? idk.
Don’t rush yourself on anything you’re unsure about. IMHO, it’s the people who are sure, as well as older people who might not be able to have surgery in a decade due to age related health concerns who really need to maybe rush a bit.
Although things are heading towards being bad, political pushes that rely on hate and prejudice generally are short-lived, relatively. It’s just a question of how bad it gets before people are forced to revolt in order to survive.
For me, I’m in my late 40s, and so I was in a bit of a rush to get my surgeries, and I had to have bottom surgery to get my name and gender marker changed due to the state I was born in, so that was my first priority. It may be that in the next year or two it becomes impossible and cases will pile up for a few years and by the time the system can catch up I’d be too old. That was my thinking. But I already was sure I wanted surgeries and was already using my name for quite some time. Plus there are a lot of things that have dependencies and expiration dates and with everything slowing down, it is really stressful.
The hurdles like the letters are going to be required multiple times due to expiration and delays in the systems. So dont worry too much about them expiring, it’s going to happen, just accept that a good therapist or doctor should be willing to write new ones as needed. And there are therapists out there who will write letters for you without establishing a relationship, anf sometimes at reduced cost or free, if yours won’t, because they know it’s nonsense anyway.
thanks for putting this feeling of urgence into perspective! i guess my therapist will be with me for a while.
in writing the last sentence, i just discovered, that a lot of this urgence might come from a series of losses in the last years, that makes me feel like the world is moving to fast for me.
❤️🩹
I would add that I don’t get the feeling that most people are sure. Everyone is on their own journey, I know it feels like the rush is needed, but there is no right or wrong time to start transition, get surgeries etc. you just go at your own pace. I certainly didn’t know, or wasn’t ‘sure’ for a long time. Even then, I wasn’t sure about surgeries, I knew I wouldn’t ffs (damn capital ridge!) but the bottom surgery I wasn’t sure until I had gotten going.
To echo the other commenter, don’t do surgeries in a rush unless it’s what you want! This is your journey! Take it at whatever pace feels right to you, and don’t worry about having everything figured out instantly.
I don’t get the feeling that most people are sure.
but we all act like it. sure we have to be tough in a world that tries to put us back in the closet; or i’m sure there are a lot who do really know themselves that good.
i feel though that i need to see more that others struggle and doubt aswell. that needs a lot of trust. especially when the societal climate is becoming harsher. maybe my group likes to discuss doctors so much, bc it’s easier than sharing feelings? or they really don’t feel my flavor of anxiety? well, i’m gonna need to ask this in group.
i won’t rush, but i can’t promise that i won’t feel bad about being slow at times. ;)
Oh hell yeah we all act like it. At least in public. Close ranks, claim you knew when you were still in the womb and dressing in your mom’s clothes before you could talk! But that’s for all the frustrating hoops you have to jump through, and because nobody wants to debate their right to exist.
In private? Idk, some people are sure, and have always been, but many didn’t know or weren’t sure or repressed forever.
This is a safe space to discuss feelings and doubts, I would hope!
As for not feeling bad, yeah. It’s a struggle, I repressed for a long time and did what would make others happy, not me. Sometimes I’m upset at myself, all the time missed out, all the changes from T that I might have avoided, but there’s nothing to be done now. Just move forward, try to learn, try to forgive yourself.
for what it’s worth, in a context where you have access to informed consent care like in the US, being completely honest about my uncertainty with my gender-informed therapists didn’t cause problems for me … obviously with old-school doctors and gatekeepers, you will run into issues (but maybe avoid those doctors anyway). I only mention this because you don’t always have to lie or pretend you always knew, in the right context it’s OK to be vulnerable given it’s safe.
though it’s hard in my case, because when I was 5 I distinctly knew I was meant to be born as a girl and felt there was some kind of “cosmic mistake”, and when I was 4 years old I was trying on my mom’s heels in her closet … so even if I’m on the far end of having stereotypical signs early on, I think what’s important to clarify is that I didn’t know I had those early signs until after my egg cracked as an adult, and I suppressed my awareness of it until then. I didn’t think either of those signs were indications I “knew” I was a girl or anything like that - I just thought it signaled I wanted to be a girl (not that I was one), and I didn’t know this could be roughly the same thing in terms of experience of gender identity.
Honestly. The only advice I can give you is to not succumb to pressure. Do what you feel like doing.
As for every human being. Your body is yours alone and it shouldn’t be otherwise.
Maybe some people needs some assurance so they feel choice is valid and will find anything that they think as a hint that they were trans and wanted everything all along. But even if there is no justification of your past self wanting to transition. That’s ok too. You shouldn’t justify your choice to others to make them feel happy. I’ve done that a bit.
I’ve put word in my transidentity a long time after. Some things makes sense now. I have liked some times as a cis man too before but some things were missing. Like I couldn’t express myself fully. I rarely laughed like more than a chuckle. Now I feel more in tune with myself and I feel a bit more things since my egg cracked and started HRT.
I had bottom dysphoria and then 3 days after it stopped. Why? I can’t really say for sure. Something about my sexuality or my own insecurity about my feminity?
For some transpeople they will still have a cis view of gender as it is also part of their dysphoria. I have some too, will I deconstruct everything? Probably not. Probably some view are already.
I’m just scrambling my process of thought right now. I don’t mean any disrespect to any choice anyone makes.
All our answers are valid to each our own. Desconstruction of gender or not. To me as long as their is respect of other people choice. I don’t see any harm.
I’ll probably never have a clear answer of my spectrum my own sexuality. I know I tend and want to open myself to a femine identity. I want to be seen feminine. If I don’t tick every boxes that will be ok and I think it should be.
Anyway I hope this will help you a bit and whishes you the best and give you a virtual hug! ☺️
thanks a lot! hugs! :3
i don’t have clear bottom dysphoria. i realised years ago, that i actually didn’t want others to interact too much with or focus on my parts during sex, but i’m unsure wether that’s just being concious about how they perceive me? plus a while ago i got myself into tucking bc some outfits make me feel quite exposed otherwise, but that might be a fashion statement?
so yeah. oversharing? sry. i’d be courious though, how other ppl expierience this, for my self exegesis workes a lot over my reaction to other peoples stories. i guess most wouldn’t want to share. that’s fine. :)
i realised years ago, that i actually didn’t want others to interact too much with or focus on my parts during sex
you should know this is stereotypical bottom dysphoria, e.g. Stone Butch Blues - the idea of being “stone” had to do with not wanting someone to interact with your genitals during sex (more common in trans men than in butch lesbians, hence “stone butch” was that line crossing over into trans territory)
i had a quick look around, i am a bit scared of the book now. do you know a good discussion of it msybe?
thanks though, this might help me a little to come closer.
I wouldn’t recommend reading Stone Butch Blues - it’s traumatizing and not particularly affirming
I’ve already shared the relevant part from that book. I suggest you read a lot more about trans experience - I have a list I can put together if you’d like.
i’d love to! but please don’t put in too much effort. 2-3 suggestions would be great and fit in the next months. :)
if you just want 2 - 3 suggestions, I would start with Julia Serano’s Whipping Girl and Sexed Up, and then maybe something like Mia Violet’s Yes, You are Trans Enough
I feel a bit the same.
I don’t have really any taboo, so that’s fine with me. I haven’t yet crossed the step of going into feminine clothes nor makeup outside (that’s still relatively new. I understood my transidentity 3 months ago and started hrt 1 month ago DIY.)
Only went out twice with mascara and feminine shoes (well they are not the most feminine ones but still dark and pink).
But clearly I’m not passing and not trying hard to do that now. I’m haven’t done my CO to my parents nor at work. (And oh boy that will probably be bad knowing I’m in workplace that half is probably leaning far right.)
I’ve been lurking in some discord server trying to read other people stories and their view to forge mine basically and here I am.
oh, i always assume everyone is in the game longer than i am. (14 months, that i consider myself trans, 2 months on hrt). turns out we are kind of at similar points.
(in case this might help you with clothing. the best fashion advice i ever heared is: “don’t wear clothes that are too small”. a lot of my denial stems from that. when i got clothes from girls that were a bit smaller, i could wear them but they wouldn’t fit me well. which then made me look bad and therefor feel bad. that still happens to me in store sometimes. but knowing this rule helped me to see that its the clothes fault, not my bodies.)
i hope your parents and workplace will accept you, that workplace sounds scary, but the other half of people might be more important? ;) at least you are more important.
my workplace is very inclusive and yet i haven’t come out there. partly bc i feel i should bring a name. otherwise it’d just be “weird how i grew boobs over the last months, right?”
Thanks for the clothing advice.
As for work well… That’s a wait and see… Probably will wear a sport bra real soon. My breast growth has been fast for a month.
For work, I’m contracted for 3 years. I will fight and not be silent towards incorrect behavior.
As for parents it’s more complicated. My dad is racist (not hatred towards everyone but still the mind of the good ones and the bad ones), homophobic (like saddly a lot of 60 years old)but dependant administratively on me or my brother and sister. Since I’m the only on close physically. He won’t have a choice to accept, and probably because he loves us in the end. As for my mother. I’m afraid to trigger something about her schizophrenia. I won’t extend about it because the goal is not to trauma dump.
In the end I’m doing this for myself. My choice to transition will have consequences but I choose to care and express myself now. Better that than living and denying my own needs and wants like did before.
