I don't know what I want....

[Auryn]

I don't know what I want. I don't know where I'm going. I just know what I don't like.

And what I don't like is being female. It's been incredibly hard to come to grips with. I'd think I'm male, but then I'd shrug it off. I'd say it was a phase. I'd say I like guys' clothes because I was so used to wearing my brothers' hand-me-downs (some of which I stole from their closets when we were little). I even had a dream about transitioning, but when I woke up I immediately started making excuses about how it didn't mean anything, about how I"m glad I'm female. I'd make excuse after excuse, constantly trying to be something that I don't feel that I am.
I'm 18. I still don't know what gender I identify as. As much as I want to be male, I'm also terrified. I don't know what I want. It's so ->-bleeped-<-ing hard to try to accept that maybe I'd be happier if I finally admitted that I'm not a womyn. Yesterday I finally broke down and started to let myself come to terms with it. I keep doubting it. It feels like a dream. It feels like a nightmare. I don't want this. It would be so much easier to just be the womyn that my body shows me as. I don't know what to do. Any words of wisdom?

[nicole99]

Well hun, you are not alone. I felt like you for a long time. I knew I was not a boy, but I did not think about myself as a woman. I totally get that feeling.

My advise, don't panic! Slow down. There is no hurry to decide these things. It sounds like you do have a strong feeling of not being a woman.  It is natural to have doubts. You will have a lot of fears. And it sucks, your right, it can seem like a nightmare and in a lot of ways it is. But the good news is lots of us find our way to become happy people. You can too.

You don't need to figure it all out now, allow yourself to just be. Find space to explore in safety. Do your homework - find out more about other trans people. You don't need to know your identity to know what you want to wear, how you want to act, how you want to be treated.

Good luck hun!
and big hugs!

[Cindy]

We take every day one at a time. We have to become comfortable with who we are. I knew from an early age that I was female, but it has taken a long tome for me to accept myself in public. I'm know living very happily as the woman I have always been.

But we have to be comfortable with our decisions. For once we make a decision to live publicly as ourselves there is no going back. I can't go back to work and say, I'm no longer transgendered I'm going back to being male. Once I presented in female clothing, make up etc and told people that I was female and would be presenting as myself, that was it.

So take your time, there is no hurry. If you can can you speak to a therapist about your feelings? In Australia we have to consult psychiatrists before we can receive hormonal treatment, and I did find it very useful. Not that I had any doubts but it is good to talk to someone who has counselled hundreds of TG people and knows the problems we may face.

Take care and keep posting.

Hugs

Cindy

[JoanneB]

The fighting, doubting, "it's a phase" feelings don't really go away. Being able to come to terms with them and finding your own unique way to address them takes time and help/support of others. Intellectually knowing you are not alone in having these feelings means almost nothing in comparison to emotionally realizing you are not. Finding a TG group was a life changing event for me after struggling on my own for nearly 50 years.

Most surveys show that none of us "want" to be trans. Just about anything else would be easier. Believe it when you see it, being trans is a great gift. We would not have been given it if we weren't able to bear the responsibilities.

It does get better. It does take time. It does take a lot of self-work.

[ny_country_Boy]

I understand what you mean. I fought this for awhile and I would identify myself as a butch or boi lesbian. The more I tried to cover it or deny it the more I became depressed and angry.
Listening to my family was not a good support, but I was lucky to have a wonderful gf and good friends that stood by me and how I felt inside, TRULY felt.
Its hard when you are so unsure, but there's allot of support on this forum that care and are here to listen and give advise. But only you can make the final decision.
I finally started wanting to change last year. I am 41 now. Its never to late.
I wish you much luck and happiness with whatever you choose. You have great support here.

[Auryn]

Thank you so much for your support and acceptance.
Since I posted this it's been really weird. I'm opening up to myself more about it, and realizing more and more that this is who I am and this is what I need to accept. I realized that I can't do any of this without a support structure behind me, so as terrifying as it was, I came out to some of my friends. Their responses were overwhelmingly positive. The first person I told I was so scared and upset that I just kept crying. Then I told another friend of mine over text. Their (I'm using they/them pronouns because they're genderqueer) response? "Whoa." Then after we had a quick dialogue about it "Well I support you in whatever you choose to do and think its awesome that yr coming to terms with that. It takes a lot of ->-bleeped-<-in courage." I made the mistake of telling some kids I used to be friends with in high school. That was ->-bleeped-<-ty as hell. All of them were members of the allies club,so I thought they'd be supportive. One thought it was a joke and when she realized it wasn't got incredibly cold about it. The other 2 made a really inappropriate joke about it and quickly changed the subject. The day after all of that happened I told another friend of mine, and she was happy for me. When I told her how afraid I was, she said something that describes it perfectly. "Nothing's changed but everything's different." After that it got way easier and way funnier. It was less of a thing to tell people and the responses were things like "congratulations!" or asking me what gender pronouns I want.

I'm still terrified, and telling people made it worse. I'm happier now that people know and I know that I can count on them, but it's also scary because there's no going back now. There's no more trying to hide it. There's a since of finality. From here on there's going to be no return to "normal" as I once knew it. The doubts continue to gnaw at me, but I also caught on to the fact that even though I know that gender is a fluid concept I keep trying to turn mine into a binary and using the feminine aspects of myself to try to pretend that I'm not a guy.
I'm starting to really look forward to things that are completely normal but now different. Like I'm going shopping today specifically so I can get mens' jeans. I had money set aside so I'm buying a binder so I can see what it's like to go out without boobs.