Hello!
I've been questioning my gender for as long as I think - well, at least since I started school. I remember feeling different as early as first or second grade. I absolutely hated going through puberty. It just felt wrong. I was pretty much suicidal as a teen. And then I watched TV one day and discovered that there were transsexuals and there was the option of surgery. I thought I had an answer to my feeling out of place, even if it wasn't always a 100% fit.
I was born physically female, but I've never identified as a woman. I often feel male, but there are also phases where I - I don't know how to describe it. I never feel like a woman, but I don't feel male either. I just feel like neither. I dress androgynously most of the time, but occasionally I feel the urge to put on female clothes. Most of the time I hate my breasts and bind. They still feel weird when I have those ,,phases", but I can kind of live with them then.
On the internet I'm exclusively male. There are times when it feels kind of weird to refer to myself as a ,,he", but being called a ,,she" feels even weirder. On the internet I'm a rather feminine gay guy because that's the closest description I can think of without going into some kind of lengthy explanation of gender identity disorder and possibly alienating my online friends (I'm incredibly worried that they'd just see me as some kind of perverted woman if they knew).
I guess I'm an androgyne, but I'd like to explore androgyny from the male side and transition FTM. Being seen as man and being called ,,he" does – while it isn't a 100% fit – feel a lot better than being seen as a woman. In fact I'm often close to freaking out when people insist on callilng me ,,she" and treating me like a woman.
Having a more or less male body would be a lot better than what I have now. I'm not sure how I know that, I just know, as certainly as I know that the sky is blue.
I've attempted therapy - twice, but it's very hard to find a therapist that is familiar with people who identify as androgynous here (I live in a small country in Central Europe) – and next to impossible to get any kind of hormone treatment or surgery. One therapist tried to make me trans and insisted I'm just too scared to admit that I'm a man, another one just refused to call me anything but ,,she" when I showed up in clothes that weren't distinctly male.
I've pretty much stopped going to therapy because it's just frustrating and concentrated on finishing uni. The problem is, in my country you cannot go on hormones or have surgery without at least a year of therapy. I've tried pretending that I'm just a regular guy trapped in a female body, but I don't know, faking it has never been my thing. It just makes me feel bad. I want to be honest and still get what I want.
I will likely move to the US next year to start my Ph.D., and I'm just curious, is it any easier to get surgery and hormones there, provided that you have the money to pay for it?
Are there any other people like me here who identify as more or less androgyne and have decided to transition?
What are your experiences?
And is it okay if I don't tell my online friends about the fact that I'm physically female and have some form of gender identity disorder?
The internet is pretty much the only place where I can be who I hope I'll be one day.
IRL I only pass sometimes and only until I open my mouth, so it's not quite the same.
I'm out to a few people though. I needed to talk to somebody about my issues to keep myself from going insane.
I hope you can answer a few of my questions.
