Has anybody ever tried to be the gender they were born?

[Username]

...like really really hard.

Maybe I should start from the beginning, because I just tried to explain what's going on and it didn't work. Warning: This might get long.

So as a kid I remember being very tomboyish, boys never did completely accept me but some did and I was fine with that, I didn't try to fit in more, I never thought about getting my hair cut shorter for example. I only dressed like a boy because their clothes were more comfortable, at least, that's what I said, and it's still partly true. I remember once somebody asking (it might have been a dream) if I wanted to be a boy and I was very tempted to say yes, but said no instead. During elementary I was teased a lot, for no reason, eventually I just ignored them and it worked.

But then... in middle school, I don't remember why (I don't know if this is because I'm blocking the memories or they just faded...) I started to act like a girl. I tried to be girlish, I dressed in skirts, I hung out with girls. I never did fit in no matter how hard I tried. I always felt awkward (but I might just be a naturally awkward person). During this time I went to puberty and I don't remember it bothering me much. I thought it was normal to dislike that time of the month, and my breasts were super small so I paid them no attention. I only remember once being jealous of these girls in the locker rooms who had decided to wear boxers as a fashion statement and just generally trying to dress as quickly as possible because I didn't like being in there.

Anyways after I started being myself again in high school, I started to dislike everything puberty had done to me more and more. I was glad for not having PE. I started wearing a bra to actually hide my breasts (even though they're small they're freaking perky ugh). It was weird... I had adopted female things, and yet started to be myself again and dislike them, but I was afraid to go back to a sports bra and wear all guy clothes all the time. I had to transition back slowly and then finally in junior year I discovered I was trans. I threw away any clothes that even reminded me of that time and started to buy things all in the guy section. I felt very free, and then I realized that people would notice, and they couldn't notice yet, so I had to slow down. Even though I have a binder, I don't wear it much in fear somebody who shouldn't notice will notice I have a flat chest. I'm still not completely a guy, and I can't be myself when family is around. I feel stuck not being able to live as a guy, not being able to know if I'm not crazy and it really does feel right to be a guy in public.

Now the problem I'm having is that that weird part of my life were I tried to be female is just confusing me. I know it shouldn't, but I feel that sometimes I can't possibly be trans. I didn't struggle though puberty, I didn't have much dysphoria even thought I do now. And yet when I try to deny what I am it gets me nowhere, and yet, I don't really want to be trans. I don't want to deal with it on top of all the other things I have to deal with.  Ugh, I'm just having one of those moments of doubt. It would help me to know that I'm not the only one.

Have any of you ever tried to be the gender you were born with without really wanting to, almost to the point were you brainwashed yourself to believe you were happy?

Did anybody not struggle with puberty's changes until later?

Did the dysphoria become worse when you discovered you were trans? For me it's like I finally know what makes me uncomfortable, and yet at times, when I feel depressed and what to deny who I am, I just think I've made it all up.

Did you ever fear that somebody that couldn't know about your identity would ask about you wearing a binder or something and tried to hide it. I had to go to the bathroom the other day but I haven't gone into the men's yet and my family was around, and I had to go to the women's with a binder, I felt totally weird. I needed to be seen as a girl and yet when I saw myself in the mirror, I couldn't believe I'd passes afterwards.

Also does anybody else have moments were they just want to deny everything and they can't quite accept themselves, and yet others when they can accept themselves just fine?

...sorry about the length, and I'd appreciate any help.
_{PS:I don't know if I should have posted this here or in the FTM section (I thought transgender included FTMs...) but since I'm pre-everything and slightly androgynous in identity (like maybe 1/10 other, 9/10 male) when I feel like accepting who I am, I thought I'd post here.}

[Padma]

I think a lot of people have gone through (and are going through) what you've described. I find it interesting that we have this language of "stealth" and "passing", and yet we apply it to living in our actual (as opposed to biological) gender. I feel like I spent most of my life trying to "pass" as male, and living in "stealth" not wanting anyone (including myself) to know what was really going on. For me, the time for stealth and passing is over, I want to be myself.

And it's the same with people who aren't heterosexual - the "normative" culture we grow up in has ways to make us question our non-normalcy - I remember getting the "how do you know you're bisexual if you haven't done it with anyone?" thing a lot when I first came out, for example.

We repress things for safety - it's self-protection that makes a lot of us go underground with our sense of gender, until we're robust enough, or sorted enough, or the situation we're in has changed enough, to make it safe to come out into the sunshine. All that really matters is: who are we now, and what do we want to do with that?

[Cindy]

Hi,

This is probably as close to normal TG behaviour as we get .
I can only talk from MtF but many of us have tried to do the most macho hobbies, jobs, appearances that and 'male; would. I'm not sure if there is an expression for it, possibly 'The Cure' I'll be as manly as possible and I will grow to be a man, I will marry and have children, I will work out in the gym and get muscles, I will laugh at Gay people, I will be MACHO MAN.

Then the realisation comes.

I am a woman. 

There is no hiding the truth.

Then you move forward.

I think it is the same for FtM, I have fantastic FtM friends who have tried so hard to be 'a woman' even to having a family. I have MtF friends who have done the same tried so hard to be 'a man' to the point of having a family.

In the end the truth comes out.

JMO

Cindy

[noeleena]

Hi,

This depends on a number of factors i lived as my self nether boy or girl . i was not pushed in to a role of ether, i did things that i liked not what i was told to do.  im not talking about theres set things for boys or girls to do i just did things as i was told by my Mum. no dad.

So really i had free reain in so many things, tho i think it was expected in some ways i was a boy from the out ward look & thats about it.

As i got older , i was thinking as both a boy & girl tho not fully as ether, i knew i was different just that mix of both male female .

Intersexed. & for me there was no difference at all. so what was i ,  I dont know , just me i spos .

I could not live as a true male  because i was not one & the same for a girl. & even now its still the same, tho im accepted as a woman in my own right.

For those of us who are intersexed , we are different to each other in so many ways as well.

so for my self , did i try to live as a boy male  man . ....no..... because i never was one, & the same applys to girl female  woman .....no....
same again because i never was one,.......   Just a person who stands in the middle some where in no mans land if you like.

Hard to accept ,   for me...... no ....... because i dont know any different , hey im weird strange different may be insane yet im happy contented & happy to be who i am .  you see i  dont have to prove what or who i am, i can just live & be me..

I will say this tho i do express my self in a very different way  because i was shut down for so many years  i did try & express  my self as a very soft kind loveing person , tho more towards my female side , my body langage will tell you im a woman in all i do & how i express my self this was allways there, ,

when you try to explain your self i find it very hard to do because i cant seperate the male / female . any way,

I know im accepted as a person first & as a woman of difference , so i think that takes some beating ,

Dont you,.......

...noeleena...

[Jennie]

You are very normal, I did the same thing but I am MTF, I tried many times to just be a man, I have a wife and kids a manly job, the works but it always came back, the fact that I was fooling myself, I was truly not a male, I was female and I also think it is the same for FTM.
Aloha from Hawaii

Jennie

[justmeinoz]

As they say these days-"epic fail".

I tried for over 40 years and never really felt like I was wearing the right skin.  As a teenager I didn't know there was such a thing as TS and just went straight past GID to full on Depression, and spent years fighting that with only limited periods of remission. It was a classic case of treating the symptom not the disorder.

I did typically macho things that a lot of girls here did, joined the Police, surfed, did martial arts, to try and prove to myself that I was a bloke. Pity nobody could point out that it was a total waste of time and effort.

Much better this way.
Karen.

[sunny-side]

Wow, I can identify pretty well with that too, only I don't desire to be a boy either.  Most of the time I just settle in the tomboy area of things.  It's comfortable and what can I say... I love cargo pants and I don't even know why as I don't use the extra pockets, lol.  I wear what I like and I do a lot of hanging around with guys.  I go through phases where I try to make myself more girly and it always feels uncomfortable.  There are times I want to so badly for one reason or another (usually for a guy >>: lol) and I always end up shifting back to my comfortable gray area.  I think the closest I've come to what you're describing would be my college years.  Staying in a dormitory, I was constantly surrounded by girls.  At the end of the first year I cried to them and said I'd never felt so accepted by girls in my whole life as I did when I was living with this bunch.  I found myself dressing a bit more feminine, really getting more into skirts (though that was also because of dress code) and not minding it nearly as much as before.  Now that I'm back on my own again, though, I've settled back into my high school ways of dressing more masculine and hanging out with guys almost exclusively.  *shrug*  That's life?

[VeryGnawty]

...like really really hard.

You mean like.... really really really super duper uber hard with a stone cherry on top wearing a bulletproof vest?

Yeah, I tried it.  "Try" being the key word.  Actually, I became really good at trying.  I am somewhat of an expert at trying.  I think I've probably found a few thousand ways to try the same thing.  I became the grandmaster of trying.  I also became the grandmaster at failing.

After many years I am a grandmaster at trying and failing, and a mere novice in accepting.  I'm hoping to become an expert at accepting, so that I can go on to become the girl I am and stop wasting my time with foolishness.

[eshaver]

I'm going to warn some of the Younger users here , Don't be stupid an do what I did .

User, yes , I spent near a lifetime doing everything to  "Hide " my feminenity, dammn near killed my self in the process as a result too.

I spent a lifetime studying Automobile Sheetmetal repairs , rebuilding heavy trucks , doing furniture manufacturing , laying carpet , staying tooooooooo dammn many years in the Heavy Wrecker business.

What were my rewards ? Hummmmmm, Both Forms of Arthritis , I have on- set Emphazemiea , I have two herneated discs oin my back . I'm currently on Social Securty disability, a mere pitance of what I made in a week .

Had I listened to Ms Christene Jorgensen back in 1971, I could have stayed in College , perhaps been in Advertising today . Instead , nope , I continued drinking , doing drugs , staying around all kinds of toxic chemicals . Icontinued to stay in the frickin Wrecker business even though a doctor even warned me it was starting to take a toll on me . I could 't come out of the damn closet . Once I did, it was near too late . I had already contracted too manyof my current ailments ............ ellen 

[nogoodnik]

I certainly have. At various times and in various ways, but the biggest period in my life where I did this was after my first failed attempt to discuss my gender issues with a therapist. I had no confidence at this point in my life and felt like I never would, and that I would never be able to convince someone I was really a man... so I thought, well, better enjoy being a woman, then.

I've always been creative and loved costumes and dressing up, and that's exactly what it was for me — a costume. I liked that finally I was getting praised for things like my appearance, my outfits, my makeup skills, etc. I'd always been the awkward ugly shy kid, but once I ramped the feminine appearance up to 11 everyone wanted to tell me how wonderful I was.

But of course... nobody else saw it as a costume. Everyone developed this bizarre false impression of who I was as a person, based on the fact that I wore a lot of sparkles and mascara. I hated being treated like it meant I was the girliest girl who ever girled. I wore a convincing mask that fooled everyone, but I was the one who suffered for it. I was constantly miserable.

I think the part I regret most is that in the middle of this phase, I moved cities and made a lot of friends. I haven't worn a skirt more than maybe once in the past three years, and yet I still get people saying things like "Well, for this Opposite Party you have to wear trousers, because you ALWAYS wear dresses.". Do they not have eyes? I've had to back off from several social scenes because I just can't handle the way people refuse to update their opinion of me no matter what I wear or do, despite the fact that several others in the group have drastically changed their personal styles or even personalities in that time and everyone seems to have no trouble understanding that.

Thankfully I have one good friend IRL who sees the real me, and who I can complain to and laugh with about this kind of thing. I don't know what I'd do, otherwise.

[Username]

Thanks to everyone who has replied. It's really helped me. I didn't really know that many had gone through something similar. I'm still quite new to all this. I just felt kind of awkward when all the transgender people I found on the internet, or most of them, had never spoken about something similar. I had no idea. Some of you seem to have gone through a rougher patch than I did.

I'm still having a hard time with that period in my life, I wish it never happened, because it did me no good. I only presented a fake me to the world, a fake me that delayed me being myself, that hurt me, but I'm starting to deal with it. As somebody mentioned, it's a like costume. It wasn't part of me, but it's hard to accept. That costume wasted a year or two of my life. Hopefully the memories will fade some more and I'll just forget, that would be nice.

[Silas]

I think I tried. I kind of just realized I did.

One day when I was about 10-11, I decided to wear make-up and throw on this girly tanktop and shorts. My friend came over, was completely weirded out, and I told him I just felt like dressing girly that day. Somewhere in fifteen minutes my ponytail was back up and we were playing the same way we always did.

I wore make-up sometimes, playing dressup or when I wanted to look like my mom for church. But I think I mostly did that because I felt like it. That one day I wanted to look girly. But it never happened again after that.

Going into 6th grade, middle school for me, my mom did say I needed to change my style, and I'm a huge pushover. So we got a lot of girly clothes and jewelry. I'm not a skirt-man, so none of that ->-bleeped-<-. The draft creeps me out, and they're impractical for playing. I wore all that stuff the first week in, and my grandma said I needed more that showed off my tits. People told me it looked weird, and I wasn't comfortable, so I just wore my old clothes. T-shirts and the like. I did kinda like the idea of looking girly, but I wasn't into looking like a girl, as I was still a bit confused at the time.

But I'm a very... well, my focus isn't very sharp. I do things that make me comfortable.
Puberty was just a minor annoyance, and I didn't really get dysphoria until I knew I was trans. But before I knew I just felt very empty in terms of gender, and confused. Finding out there were people like me, and imagining myself as a man felt right, not empty. The dysphoria comes in short bouts. It's rough, but bearable.

[gandaberunda]

Where I am now, I just want to be me, whatever shape or form that is.  But I've often thought: "Why should I go and take estrogen to become more feminine?  Why don't I take testosterone to be more masculine?"  I was born male.  Makes sense that if I feel "girlie" I should be pumping iron and chugging Creatine like there's no tomorrow.  My heart tells me "no!".  But if I just tried... if I took a few doses of testosterone, maybe I would start to think differently.  Maybe I would become more assertive, aggressive, strong, less limber, less puny.  Maybe my mind would start working differently, not worrying about emotions, not being drawn toward connections and empathy in social relations.  Maybe I would be more goal-oriented and focused, with the confidence to be fiercely independent.

If this organ between my legs bothers me, rather than cut it off, maybe I should embrace it with more manly activities.

Yet I've heard and read from countless MTF's who have done far more than myself to hide their true selves.  I'm reminded of those who entered the military in order to "cure" themselves.  I've had that thought too, but I never had the fortitude to follow through with it.  I'm grateful for that.

My point is that there are other people who have done far more than myself to deny who they are deep inside.  Somehow, they failed in their attempts, only to discover happiness by letting go.

[annette]

Hi User

Yes i tried, and I tried very hard.
Doing the things that are expected from a boy.
Playing the role of a boy.

It didn't work, people are who they are and one day the decor falls and there is only you left, feeling naked and starting from the scratch again.
Than....life begins.

Annette

[JennX]

Yep... for about 25 years I tried.

Short story: It didn't work. 

Life is too short, be happy. 

[AbraCadabra]

Tried for 40 years.

Don't ANYONE say I didn't try!

Axelle

[Janet_Girl]

Does being married three times, working as an auto mechanic and having four children; count?  For 40 years, I tried.  I tried for my parents, because they saw me as male.  I tried for society, because they saw me as male.  I tried, because others saw me as male.

Then I looked at me, inside and quit trying, because they saw me as male.  I saw a woman.  And I am a lot happier.

[Ryno]

haha. Your story is a pretty close description of my high school life too. I'm betting many of us have similar stories.

I was really tomboyish too, even when I started high school (junior high for you I guess, I was 14.) Then in grade 10 I started pulling off more and more feminine behavior. A new friend in grade 11 got me wearing cover up every day. I wore skirts and tight-fitting tops, and spent most of my time with girls. I considered myself a lesbian but I was more on the femme side.

Then, gradually, from grade 12 through just this past fall, I slowly started collecting more and more men's clothing. Last August I sent a message to a trans friend of mine letting out my feelings of being trans and asking if he would be surprised if I came out. Sadly after that I buried myself in another brief femme phase, buying a cute purse and a women's wallet with a cute dragonfly design, and I started with the make up and tight clothes again.

Then, I guess, around the end of December, I just couldn't take it. I slid back into a more masculine role, cut my hair above my shoulders, and told my roommates and girlfriend at the time what I wanted to do.

I sure as hell doubted being transgender. Even since December I've gone through doubtful periods of thinking I should happily identify as androgynous, that gender roles aren't necessary and I shouldn't comply to either male or female. But, here I am now, awaiting a call from an endocrinologist to get my prescription for testosterone.

Needless to say, we all have doubts. Being trans isn't something people usually talk about every day. It's really, really hard to believe that out of how many billions of people, YOU are one of the few who have to endure this dysphoria and confusion. But if you have these feelings of not fitting into your assigned gender, chances are you're not meant to be wearing skirts and make up. Whatever that means, how far you need to go  in fitting into your true gender, is for you to discover over time.

[JungianZoe]

Oh yes... for about 25 years of my life I tried.  As a child, I was forced into "boyness" at my dad's house, but allowed to be myself at my mom's.  And since the custody arrangement from when I was 3 to when I was 13 had me swapping houses every other night, things got very confused.  There were times when mom used to do my hair and put makeup on me when I asked.  But I was severely abused at dad's house and often got double helpings of any beating because I was crying/acting like a girl.

Got to a point when I was about 8 that I pushed it all down, no matter where I went.  I tried sports but was hopelessly clumsy (still am) and that only led to bullying from the other boys (as well as shame from my athletic, record-breaking father).  Something was never right about me.  I wasn't one of the boys and couldn't be one of them.  Gave up sports at 15 and turned to punk and goth.  Pretty boys... mmmmmm.  Still tried to pass as a guy though and started dating a girl at 16 in order to make all my confused feelings go away.  This was still the days of the Prodigy service so internet was incredibly unpopulated.  I also lived a sheltered life in a conservative suburb of a metropolitan cowtown.  No info on transsexualism, but I knew something was awry.

After that relationship ended at 21, I entered hermit mode.  Though I dated sparsely, I spent most of my time locked away from the entire world.  Meaningless job after meaningless job, wandered blindly into a marriage, decided to get a second degree, got a divorce... years of blurriness.  I was running from what I felt inside, slightly content with my effeminate nature, but still knowing something else was wrong.

Then a lot of fog lifted when I was 31 and learned what transsexualism was, and that my feelings had a name.  All pretense of living a male life shattered right then and there and I spent a year and a half feminizing myself before starting HRT.  But I'll say this: the boy years were a vacant living hell.  I'm so glad they're over!

[Julie Marie]

...like really really hard.

Yes.  And I fooled everybody, including me.