I'm a 21 y.o person who was assigned male at birth.
Does my experience sound recogniseable for someone who is trans or totally not?
I feel very feminine. I am drawn to physical femininity too. If I see the face of a normal guy, I would never want to look like that, even if he is handsome. When I see very feminine looking cis men who could pass as girls I feel envious of their physical femininity. Same with certain girls. I feel envious of their face and posture.
I have always had a strange feeling towards my penis. In my imagination it is never there. I just don't like it. I don't terribly hate it. I even masturbate. I just don't want it to be touched and I would want to cover it up in a relationship. I intensely hate facial and body hair, dislike my rather manly shoulders and my large masc feet. I wish I would have girly little feet and narrow fem shoulders. I love having a feminine voice and feel very pleased when I'm gendered female on the phone. I would rather want soft facial features than sharp facial features.
I recognise everything trans people experience. It all clicks when I read what other trans people mentally went through.
I feel a strong urge to feminize my body and face.
On days that I feel masculine I want to puke. I hate feeling like a man. On days that I feel girly I'm relaxed and comfortable.
I have no desire to be with a man as a man. Not out of disguest or something like that, it just doesn't feel like me when I imagine my male face and body having sex with a man's body. In my sexual imagination I always imagine myself as a woman with a man.
I feel a strong envy towards trans women, not towards trans men. I feel envious that she gets to look like she looks.
I hate everything masculine because it doesn't feel like me. I love feminine things. Everything feminine.
There is a voice in my head that tells me that maybe I should just live as a feminine gay cis man. When I try to think about that it doesn't feel right because I would be with a partner who expects me to be a man and who would treat me like a man. A gay relationship doesn't appeal to me because that would mean that I still have to be a man in the relationship. There is a very girly gay guy who looks so feminine that I envy his appearence. There is one thing that I don't envy and that is his facial hair. Facial hair makes me depressed and grosses me out. He looks like a girl with short hair and I want his soft features and his tiny feminine body.
I want to be with a partner who treats me like a girl. When I think about pushing a button and being reborn as a woman I don't think I would push that button. I would want the body of that woman but not be viewed by society as a woman. I wish I could have a female body and enjoy male privilege. My desire to have the body of a female is not driven by a sexual force. I'm not aroused by being a woman and I am not focussed on women clothes. It's more a feeling of a woman's body matching with how I feel inside.
When I think about being a woman in society I hate being treated by men as weaker, I would hate not having a big career and I hate never being able to have the status men have. In a perfectly equal world I would push the button to become a woman in every aspect but not in this world.
I had counseling for more than a year and didn't come home any wiser.
From doing my own research I feel a strong connection to trans women living non-op and to very feminine gender non-conforming men with a feminine body, face and mind with almost no male characteristics in their appearence. The desire to have a feminine body and face is very strong and unexplainable. Picturing myself with a very male body makes me extremely depressed and angsty.
Picturing a situation where society sees me as a cis woman feels wrong. Picturing a situation where I can live as a woman while being seen by society as a transitioning individual that is not strictly male or strictly female but more in the middle feels exactly right.
I have this voice in my head telling me that I'm just an effeminate gay men with internalized homophobia. It doesn't ring true though. I experience intense gender dysphoria, hate being seen as male and hate looking male. It also wouldn't feel right if a man saw me as a man. I just don't want to be seen as a man by my partner.
I wish that it was possible to find a balance between male and female. Female body, gender neutral presentation and social status.
I don't know what my future will look like or if I will ever have a partner. I have thought about living as a gender non conforming man and while that could work on the short term it would give me more dysphoria once I will start becoming more manly and age like a man. The route of a fully transitioned post-op trans woman doesn't appeal either. I want to be a person with a feminine body who is not strictly male or female. I just don't know how I can accomplish that.
The route of a non-op trans woman minus her binary gender expression sounds more or less right.
Sometimes I wonder if there are other people like me on the trans spectrum. Who deal with transgender feelings, sometimes think that they are just really gay despite knowing that a complete life in their birth gender doesn't feel right either and who don't want to restrict themselves to just male or female but want to live in the middle and have a body with equal amounts of sex characteristics of both male and female.
Am I really the only one?
Kind regards,
genderfused
Hi Transfused,
I'm Laurie and I am mtf. I do not have and answer for your question though there is much of what you say that we have in common. I guess I would fall into that non-op transgender woman because at this late stage in my life I doubt I will need the GCS surgery though I feel it could be confirming and would be correcting my body to reflect who I believe I am. If I were younger I would certainly opt in for all the feminization procedures I could afford. So I do not quite fit the bill as the person you describe. Perhaps there are others here that do fit your description and will be able to give you their ideas on the subject.
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Quote from: Transfused on September 03, 2017, 01:51:49 AM
I have this voice in my head telling me that I'm just an effeminate gay men with internalized homophobia.
It's not in your head...it's on the internet, and it's utter BS. You're transgender.
What you do with that is up to you. Get a good counselor and find a group of affirming friends/family.
Best of luck on your journey.
Hi Transfused (waves).
Welcome to Susan's, and welcome home. First things first though - start the search for a good therapist, they will help you sort out some of your questions, and help you decide on what your future looks like.
Your desire to retain male privilege is understandable, but it sounds to me like you're not enjoying the benefits of it - and if you were to present female, then the assumption would be that you were, with all that it entails; and it sounds like you are in a greater or lesser part being treated socially as female already.
We'll keep the kettle on,
(Hugs)
Rowan
Quote from: Transfused on September 03, 2017, 01:51:49 AMThe route of a fully transitioned post-op trans woman doesn't appeal either. I want to be a person with a feminine body who is not strictly male or female. I just don't know how I can accomplish that.
Well, I guess hormones would do that. A lot of trans women don't go for any surgery - I myself am finally convinced of my femininity, but not convinced I'll ever want someone cutting me open, and may be quite happy to end up as a person with a female body and a penis. But then, who can say if we'll want to go for surgery once we start on hormones and like the changes that are taking place? (Because yeah, speaking as a non-expert, it sounds to me like you're as close to MTF as vermilion is to red...)
Start experimenting! Get some make-up, use a female identity online and in games. While it's all in your head, it's never gonna do you any good.
L x
Quote from: Transfused on September 03, 2017, 01:51:49 AM
I feel a strong envy towards trans women, not towards trans men. I feel envious that she gets to look like she looks.
I hate everything masculine because it doesn't feel like me. I love feminine things. Everything feminine.
I wish I could have a female body and enjoy male privilege. My desire to have the body of a female is not driven by a sexual force. I'm not aroused by being a woman and I am not focussed on women clothes. It's more a feeling of a woman's body matching with how I feel inside.
When I think about being a woman in society I hate being treated by men as weaker, I would hate not having a big career and I hate never being able to have the status men have. In a perfectly equal world I would push the button to become a woman in every aspect but not in this world.
I experience intense gender dysphoria, hate being seen as male and hate looking male. It also wouldn't feel right if a man saw me as a man. I just don't want to be seen as a man by my partner.
It's your right to use the labels that you feel suit you the best. But to be honest, a lot of what you say matches up more with a trans woman with a lot of internalized misogyny rather than anyone I've met who identifies as non-binary. Going by this post, you identify exclusively with femininity. You just don't want to let go of the privileges being read as a male brings.
Either way, as a non-binary person, I hate to break it to you, but the "best of both worlds" scenario that you're seeking really isn't possible. By presenting androgynously/feminine enough to be read as anything but a cis man, you're going to get treated less seriously for it, and face the same discrimination that trans women face. It sucks, but that's the society we're stuck in at the moment. If you avoid that by continuing to present as masculine, then you'll be treated as a cis man, and the dysphoria is just going to continue to build.
This isn't to say that transition can't be worth it, even for a non-binary person. Living as our true selves is the only way some of us are able to keep going and maintain our sanity. But it's important to be realistic about your transition goals going in. You have to prepare to take the drawbacks along with the positives.
Quote from: widdershins on September 03, 2017, 05:17:26 PM
This isn't to say that transition can't be worth it, even for a non-binary person. Living as our true selves is the only way some of us are able to keep going and maintain our sanity. But it's important to be realistic about your transition goals going in. You have to prepare to take the drawbacks along with the positives.
Thanks for this advice. I need to know this as well.
And to the OP, you're the only one who can identify where you are in the spectrum but, as others said, if you look like a female and people treat you as such, it's very unlikely that you'll retain male privilege.
I wish you the best of luck in your journey!
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Here's the best advice I can give you. Pick one small thing and make a change. See how you feel. Maybe it is getting your ears pierce. Maybe just one ear. Maybe it is dressing with more color. Maybe it is wearing a pair of women's jeans in public or replacing one pair of your underwear with a pair of panties. If you do not currently shave, maybe that is what you do. Grab an electric razor and shave the hair on your arms shorter to see how it feels.
You don't have to go zero to sixty.
For me, I opted later in life to go the hormones route. After 20 months, I did need to opt for the little blue pill to go with it to keep my wife happy. I have no current plans for a "full" transition, although I have quite clearly had a transition of sorts the last few years.