I think I'm transphobic... help

[sad panda]

What is it about transgender/transsexualism that you feel uncomfortable with or do not like?

It's a whole lotta things, but the main thing would be how it is basically an identity revolving around being an incomplete version of something that's already normal. I don't like how it can carry subhuman status to people. I don't like how it makes life way harder. I don't like how it plays into/reinforces gender norms either, it puts them on a pedestal even when most trans people don't really fit their target gender's roles anyway. It causes people to change themselves to fit some stupid norm, and people can say they don't change but they do.

Another interesting question is, would you be ok being trans if there were no one else in the world or is it others perception and judgement? (even if they dont say anything)

Well, it is people's judgment, or like, how I think they will judge me, but I wouldn't be trans if there were no one else in the world. I wouldn't care what my body is like if I'm never going to see people again anyway. I only want to look good for other people. I spend most of the time in dumpy PJs with my hair in a sloppy topknot, looking horrid. It just doesn't matter to me if nobody's going to see me anyway.

I would personally say that talking to a professional about this is usually the best way to go but I understand that you feel that you cant.
x

I could probably talk to a gender therapist about it but I don't know if they'd be able to help me and normal therapists seem unsure of themselves on this issue.

But yeah I would talk to a gender therapist if there were one in my area (there's not)

[BunnyBee]

I think being aware that you have transphobic feelings (and that they probably are internally rooted in things you don't like about yourself) is the first step to getting over them.   It's not the last step, obv, but most people that have that kind of phobia (seen a ton with homophobia) don't even have that a whiff of that kind of introspection and, like, actually think their passion for that issue exists because it's some kind of a righteous cause.   So that's how I know you'll get over it.   Well I don't know-know, but I think you will.

A couple kind of pointless things I want to say, that I just feel like I need to say idk why—first, i know it's the narrative we're "supposed" to have, and I am sure many trans people claim it when it's not true, idk, but I really did know I was the wrong gender pretty much when I first understood the concept of it.   Many super early memories I won't go into because this already is boring, but just wanted to say that.  Maybe I'm just being defensive, but it is true.

Second, well, nah I won't talk about that, I've been defensive/making this about me enough in this response lol.

[Hikari]

SP it seems like if you could just redefine "normal" your quality of life would improve dramatically.

From what you have said I don't see how detransition or anything else really is going to make you happier until you come to grips with this strong desire to be normal. I would also assume that this transphobia and self loathing are deeply connected to this desire for normality.

The irony is wanting to be normal that badly is actually abnormal in and of itself for most people feeling like they fit in somewhere is enough because normal is usually connected with an ideal that is unattainable.

Good luck, I really think you and a therapist should explore those feelings but your life is yours to live so do with that advice what you will.

[Nero]

A couple kind of pointless things I want to say, that I just feel like I need to say idk why—first, i know it's the narrative we're "supposed" to have, and I am sure many trans people claim it when it's not true, idk, but I really did know I was the wrong gender pretty much when I first understood the concept of it.   Many super early memories I won't go into because this already is boring, but just wanted to say that.  Maybe I'm just being defensive, but it is true.

Second, well, nah I won't talk about that, I've been defensive/making this about me enough in this response lol.

I think there is a tendency, especially with trans people, to project our feelings onto others. If we've never experienced something and it seems foreign to us, we try to rationalize it any way we know how. For instance, there are some things other trans guys go through that I don't understand. I don't understand bottom dysphoria extreme enough to have surgery. I don't understand guys like Thomas Beatty. But I don't have to. I don't experience life the same way, and that's ok.

From what I understand, SP, your dysphoria is almost entirely social. So, you're just not going to understand physical dysphoria. And I think there's probably an awareness spectrum.  People who have known all their lives and people who haven't. People very invested in their identity as male/female. And people who aren't, but still needed to transition.

I wonder how much of this identity confusion you're having is just transphobia. Or perhaps, you really are just an androgynous soul without a strong leaning either way.

[BunnyBee]

Yeah totally, it's hard to understand something without contextualizing it with your own experience, impossible even.

I think projection is something everybody on earth does almost every single moment of being conscious.  It's just how we deal with everything outside of ourselves, for that same reason—contextualization through our own personal frames of knowledge and experience.   Everybody is a mirror.  We look at them, we see ourselves.  We look at them and see something about ourselves we hate, we hate their guts.

[sad panda]

I think being aware that you have transphobic feelings (and that they probably are internally rooted in things you don't like about yourself) is the first step to getting over them.   It's not the last step, obv, but most people that have that kind of phobia (seen a ton with homophobia) don't even have that a whiff of that kind of introspection and, like, actually think their passion for that issue exists because it's some kind of a righteous cause.   So that's how I know you'll get over it.   Well I don't know-know, but I think you will.

A couple kind of pointless things I want to say, that I just feel like I need to say idk why—first, i know it's the narrative we're "supposed" to have, and I am sure many trans people claim it when it's not true, idk, but I really did know I was the wrong gender pretty much when I first understood the concept of it.   Many super early memories I won't go into because this already is boring, but just wanted to say that.  Maybe I'm just being defensive, but it is true.

Second, well, nah I won't talk about that, I've been defensive/making this about me enough in this response lol.

Thanks Jen, it's okay to talk about yourself

I'm not trying to say I don't believe you or that trans people can't know from a young age or anything. I just can't personally judge anyone else's subjective experience, which is heavily influenced by personal biases and interpretations, even false memories are pretty easy to create, or real ones easy to repress. And most trans people weren't begging their parents as kids, consistently, to transition. Which is what most kids do when they want or need something, they don't really bottle things up or compartmentalize their feelings. There are trans kids out there, but they're a lot rarer than trans adults. I think most people's trans feelings are more complex. It's just my opinion though, I could actually be wrong, but who's gonna prove anything anyway? Most trans people already decided that science is going to vindicate their experiences, even though they don't understand the science and scientists don't actually understand the brain.

And I don't mean that any of this really matters to me, in any case, I would still believe that gender roles are crap and that transitioning reinforces them. I still believe you shouldn't have to change your gender to change your body or your interests or whatever, for whatever reason you choose to, and maybe that's not reasonable in today's world but I think being trans is used as a not so great solution to a whole spectrum of different problems. I just see a future where transition is totally unnecessary. For pretty much anyone, it's like getting a combo meal when you just want the fries. Why should you have to pretend you wanted the drink too? And this is a combo that doesn't need to exist anymore anyway.

SP it seems like if you could just redefine "normal" your quality of life would improve dramatically.

From what you have said I don't see how detransition or anything else really is going to make you happier until you come to grips with this strong desire to be normal. I would also assume that this transphobia and self loathing are deeply connected to this desire for normality.

The irony is wanting to be normal that badly is actually abnormal in and of itself for most people feeling like they fit in somewhere is enough because normal is usually connected with an ideal that is unattainable.

Good luck, I really think you and a therapist should explore those feelings but your life is yours to live so do with that advice what you will.

Yeah I think you're right, I've never felt like I fit in anywhere, I probably can't stand to just see people feeling like they belong to something. Honestly it makes me incredibly jealous but also makes me feel even more fake in acting like I really feel like something, because I don't, and I'm sad that I have to pretend I do just to get through life.

I think there is a tendency, especially with trans people, to project our feelings onto others. If we've never experienced something and it seems foreign to us, we try to rationalize it any way we know how. For instance, there are some things other trans guys go through that I don't understand. I don't understand bottom dysphoria extreme enough to have surgery. I don't understand guys like Thomas Beatty. But I don't have to. I don't experience life the same way, and that's ok.

From what I understand, SP, your dysphoria is almost entirely social. So, you're just not going to understand physical dysphoria. And I think there's probably an awareness spectrum.  People who have known all their lives and people who haven't. People very invested in their identity as male/female. And people who aren't, but still needed to transition.

I wonder how much of this identity confusion you're having is just transphobia. Or perhaps, you really are just an androgynous soul without a strong leaning either way.

Yeah, I think I'm just tired of being stuck in this limbo. It's not like I want to tell anyone what to do, or need their experiences to be any particular thing I just don't know what to do with myself and can't live with feeling so out of place everywhere. I just want to be myself Thanks FA.

[jussmoi4nao]

Ohh there's one thing I'm very sure of is I was very young when I knew. When I'm going through trans self hatred that makes it even harder because of how definitive that is...like firmly age 7, can't say before then cuz I don't remember much and it was pretty ungendered.

Anyway all I know is my whole life within memory it's been there...like a constant daily thing and it's always been like the one major thing I associate myself. Which I guess hurts and helps at the same time because while it doesn't give me room for excuses it also forces me to accept my decision to transition.

But yeah now its MY turn to apologize for talking about myself. I guess to me it personally seems funny anybody would even doubt that because of what a major thing its been throughout my entire life...like just one fact of my existence like having brown eyes

Edit:

Also, I do have concrete stuff from other people like my grammar said she knew I was going to be like this because when I was little I'd play with her jewelry and talk about being a girl when I grew up and my sister said I'd always make her call me Stefani. Not that I need proof cuz again its just kinda a basic tenant if my identity unfortunatelt  more than something that's really up for debate.

But yeah I remember when I was really little I thought it was a sin. I thought it was called Feminism and I thought that's why my mom hated feminists lol. And I saw it on Oprah and Dateline and my mom and dad made fun of it so I knew it was a no no.

The only time I told my mom was when I said I wanted to be like I Dream if Jeannie and she yelled at me and told me I couldn't watch it anymore because it was making me weird lmao

[BunnyBee]

SP, in the end, I have to believe in my own reality and I suppoooooose I will let you believe in yours .

Abby, i try to imagine what life would be like feeling fine/good with your sex from birth and I try thinking of how I feel now, which is not great, but okay with who I am in the world and how I look, and then try to imagine feeling this way my whole life, and then I get sad and jealous of cis people.  But then I realize I have a layer that cis people don't–of spending so much time being anywhere from uncomfortable to (later on) being tortured by living a wrong existence.  I think that layer makes my imagination of a cis existence different from what it really would be like anyway.  So I just have given up on imaging what it's like to be cis, or to have lived GD-free, because I don't think i can do it.   But I did learn that my jealousy is more rooted in how it felt to live a lie than it is in some kind of supposed great experience I missed out on.

Idk, just some over-analyzation for ya there...

[sad panda]

@abby

Yeah I'm really sorry if what I'm saying seems invalidating. I mean I really don't know what it's like for anyone else, or for you, even though we're similar in a lot of ways, I just never had that feeling, or if I did, I don't remember it, I mean nobody remembers my past anyway so nobody would have mentioned it. I just mainly think it should be ok for everyone to be exactly like themselves, I guess b/c I'm so aware that I can't be.

@jen

That's interesting. I don't know if it helps but I feel like my childhood was a normal cis existence most of the time... or just, I mean, like it didn't matter. I had friends, we would do stuff. I was out at a sleepover every friday night. Actually, I was out all the time. Me and my best friend would do everything together--parties, hanging out somewhere all day, doing weird trendy crafts (y'know like cat's cradle, origami fortune tellers, bead animals, stuff like that), drawing, gossiping, listening to songs on repeat all night, going to theme parks or swimming or whatever. He was gay but he never told me. I had a crush on him. When he was 10 he got a cell phone so I did too to fit in, then he got a girlfriend so I did too to fit in, but I don't think I even remember her last name, we basically never saw each other and had agreed that kissing was gross. All that time I really wanted to kiss my friend. I had my first experiences with other boys right around then, never told my friend. I was around a lot of boys actually--I never liked boyish things but it didn't matter, I didn't have to like them, I just had to be nice and go along with it. I never joined sports, but I went to a training day with one of my friends who did once, it was awful to be honest but it was just a thing you do when you have friends. I had a friend who liked hunting, it scared me but I tried shooting his BB gun once. I had a friend who loved inuyasha, so I would help her print out pictures of him for this binder she had. Most if not all of my female friends got crushes on me and then got hurt by me being indifferent though. And I didn't even think about why I was indifferent, I hardly even thought about my sexuality, I went through a long asexual phase as a teen.

Getting fat around puberty ruined my life after that point but I mean, I had all these experiences where I just never thought about gender, it was just like a thing, I don't know. So I guess that's what a cis person's experience is like? It's something you just take for granted, really no matter what happens. It took going through puberty and then also having a very different body than guys to really push me to transition I guess, and even then, it was just something I sort of fell into doing, Idk. But yeah, just for me, as a kid I wasn't nearly self-aware enough to analyze it or identify myself as anything. Like when I envied something girls had/did, I didn't turn that into envying the fact that they were girls, I just envied that thing. I mean I never felt different than girls though or like I was stuck in boy land and they were going off into girl land where I belonged. I wasn't really interested in connecting any dots like that.

[Inanna]

When I was younger, I used to feel fairly intense internalized transphobia.  The older I get, the less I feel it.  Tbh at this point it's just an echo of an echo. 

[BunnyBee]

I can identify with a lot of that too, SP.   Just the whole thing of going with the flow when I was young and trying to fit in best I could with my friends and stuff.  Sometimes failing, often kinda making it work.

But that was mostly gender stuff, which I think of as being a separate thing from the feeling I had that I was/should have been/wanted to be a girl.  The two were definitely related, and I acted inauthentically in both areas for the same reasons (fear) but still they stand very separate in my mind.  One was this business of trying not to act like a girl (which never caused me too much internal discomfort, but some), and the other was the effort I was making to try to not BE a girl.  That was the one that was trouble.  It scraped at me and tore away at me bit by bit in such an erosive fashion.  Where I could handle it when I was really young, but the more time went by, the more pain it caused, until finally I was destroyed.

I don't know how else to describe it to anybody that never felt it.  i'm sure it doesn't make sense.  But idk, there was just this internal understanding i had that I was the wrong sex, and that is the thing that eventually broke me.   It was always there, though for sure the pain I felt from it intensified over time.

[Jessica Merriman]

And most trans people weren't begging their parents as kids, consistently, to transition.

There is a reason us older transitioners didn't beg for transition. Quite simply the times were VERY different and instead of acceptance some of us were subjected to awful and sometimes very abusive reparative therapy. It ranged from hypnosis to corporal punishment. I was subjected to it myself and was basically beaten into submission and accepting what I was born at, period. That is I think one of the reasons for so many older transitioners here.

[sad panda]

I can identify with a lot of that too, SP.   Just the whole thing of going with the flow when I was young and trying to fit in best I could with my friends and stuff.  Sometimes failing, often kinda making it work.

But that was mostly gender stuff, which I think of as being a separate thing from the feeling I had that I was/should have been/wanted to be a girl.  The two were definitely related, and I acted inauthentically in both areas for the same reasons (fear) but still they stand very separate in my mind.  One was this business of trying not to act like a girl (which never caused me too much internal discomfort, but some), and the other was the effort I was making to try to not BE a girl.  That was the one that was trouble.  It scraped at me and tore away at me bit by bit in such an erosive fashion.  Where I could handle it when I was really young, but the more time went by, the more pain it caused, until finally I was destroyed.

I don't know how else to describe it to anybody that never felt it.  i'm sure it doesn't make sense.  But idk, there was just this internal understanding i had that I was the wrong sex, and that is the thing that eventually broke me.   It was always there, though for sure the pain I felt from it intensified over time.

I actually read this post earlier and then I thought of it while I was watching one of my shows with a lot of gay romance... like, I don't know why, but I want to be a boy. I really want to. I really want to be like the characters in this show and have a lovely romance like that.

Then I was like, but how can I be a boy? What can I do? Should I cut my hair? Should I stop hormones? Save for top surgery? I mean I want to be a boy but it's hard to accept change. Mostly, I don't want to have to tell everyone. And I'm confused if what I want is realistic. I looked up some boy clothes but didn't know what I should get. Why can't I just wear girly clothes? Anyway, I mean these shows are made by girls, for girls. I'd love to have a romance like that but would it ever happen in the real world? PRobably not. Grrr. Guys would be grossed out by another guy falling in love with them right? I mean normal straight guys. Guys you meet everyday. Why would they be grossed out if I was a boy but not if I called myself a girl? It's stupid. Yeah.. I want to have that kind of love but it will probably never happen..right?

Yeah, I don't know if it's the same, but these feelings are so painful. I don't know what to do with myself, all I feel is this intense lack of something.  I really feel like I should be a boy but I don't know how to do that or if it will be real/

[BunnyBee]

Straight guys might not be into you if you came onto them as male, but gay guys that are into femmish boys, for sure.  I mean I've seen some very feminine (acting and looking) gay dudes than seem to do great with guys.

Why would they be grossed out if I was a boy but not if I called myself a girl?

Such an interesting and thought provoking question, esp because it's coming from you and I know your situation somewhat.

[luna nyan]

There is a reason us older transitioners didn't beg for transition. Quite simply the times were VERY different and instead of acceptance some of us were subjected to awful and sometimes very abusive reparative therapy. It ranged from hypnosis to corporal punishment. I was subjected to it myself and was basically beaten into submission and accepting what I was born at, period. That is I think one of the reasons for so many older transitioners here.

^This.

My first furtive forays were in the infancy of the internets.  Netscape 2.0 and lynx browser anyone?
There was some stuff around, but being trans was like yeah, I'm gonna go be a showgirl, sex worker, or go on Donahue.  The implication being, you're headed for the poor house.

I'm so glad it's better for the younger ones coming up now, positive role models abound.

Jessica, add exorcism to the list as well...

[Jess42]

There is a reason us older transitioners didn't beg for transition. Quite simply the times were VERY different and instead of acceptance some of us were subjected to awful and sometimes very abusive reparative therapy. It ranged from hypnosis to corporal punishment. I was subjected to it myself and was basically beaten into submission and accepting what I was born at, period. That is I think one of the reasons for so many older transitioners here.

Most definately. I shudder to think what would have happened if I told my mom or dad that I wanted to be a girl when I was five. Trans was something that just did not exist in the minds of people with their children back then especially in the area that I grew up. That was something that was limited to movies and TV shows and fairy tale places like New York,  Los Angeles and San Francisco.

My first furtive forays were in the infancy of the internets.  Netscape 2.0 and lynx browser anyone?
There was some stuff around, but being trans was like yeah, I'm gonna go be a showgirl, sex worker, or go on Donahue.  The implication being, you're headed for the poor house.

I'm so glad it's better for the younger ones coming up now, positive role models abound.

Jessica, add exorcism to the list as well...

My mom was a devout Pentecostal, so I can just imagine what would have happened to me. That church used to scare the crap out of me with people talking all funny and jumping whooping and hollering and dancing. So I can just imagine how in the mid seventies and I metioned that I wanted to be a girl instead of a boy with a mother so embedded into a radical religion. An exorcism might have been a leasurly ordeal compared to what may have happened.

In relation, though we dinosaurs can compare now to back then, but I don't think it is any easier. Definately safer and yeah there are a lot more role models and it is more accepted than it was definately depending upon what area you come from. But I think it is still just as emotionally and psychologically as hard on the young ones as it was, has been and still is on us. I still don't think people can understand what we feel when the internal and external gender is so out of synche with one another. Especially when most people's self identities internal and external match. I think most people can understand the LGB better because that is a sexual preference and what turns us on sexually is a lot easier to understand and explain away than a disassociation with internal feelings and external characteristics. I think a lot of us such as in relations to sad panda's OP can't even understand it, I know I don't. I go back and forth like a pendulem from day to day. Trying to keep both in harmony with one another gets confusing, exhausting and a lot of other feelings I just don't have words for. I wish that "pendulem" would run down and stick in the middle or one extreme side or the other. Even though I am not internally transphobic, I have experienced too many people from all across the spectrum for that, you are not alone in your confusion.

[sad panda]

There was some stuff around, but being trans was like yeah, I'm gonna go be a showgirl, sex worker, or go on Donahue.  The implication being, you're headed for the poor house.

I'm sorry but again, honestly what kind of child thinks this way? Or are we still talking about children? I'm confused 

Straight guys might not be into you if you came onto them as male, but gay guys that are into femmish boys, for sure.  I mean I've seen some very feminine (acting and looking) gay dudes than seem to do great with guys.

Such an interesting and thought provoking question, esp because it's coming from you and I know your situation somewhat.

Yeah, and I don't know if it even matters actually... at least I'd have the fantasy. I'm just feeling like I really want to be a boy, it's weird. I know it's not really based in reality but I want the comfort of being cis so badly lately. But then there's gender roles, and I really still can't find the answer for what I'm supposed to do. I miss not being aware of how limiting the presence of gender is. It's just not something you can up and change about yourself one day because you feel like it. I don't even know what it IS, beyond paperwork and a whole lotta expectations. The reason I want to be a boy so bad is because I want to drop out of this stupid gender parade that the whole world is in love with. But, it's really a sin to do that isn't it? Maybe famous people can get away with it, because they don't live an ordinary life. But I'm not famous or a saint, or even really an adult, I'm just a boring, plain average, lost person and I hate feeling like I have to fight a losing battle against the world's stuff just to be myself. I hate feeling like I have to become some kind of provocateur just to wear some freaking pastels and do my hair without pretending to have a uterus, you know? And by acting like they need to be called and recognized as a certain gender to look, feel, think or act a certain way, trans people are reinforcing all these roles that are leaving people to fall through the cracks. It's just like with sexuality... there are lots of essentially bi guys who might be interested in a femme boy like me but would tell themselves, "no, I have to be straight, that's how it is, it has to be a guy and a girl." They feel like they need some imaginary permission to like another guy. But people are easing up on sexuality and a lot of guys are realizing like, wow, I don't necessarily have to identify as gay to kinda like penises, I don't have to swear off women, I can just be me. When will people realize and feel able to act like they can just be themselves, look like themselves, act like themselves without having to be called he or she, or recognized as a he or a she? I refuse to believe that anyone needs those things because they're always tacked on to how a person REALLY feels. Like how I felt... "I want to act like a stereotypical girl.... so I need to be called she and her and pretend I have a uterus"

Maybe for someone else it's... "I feel like I'm really supposed to have a vagina so I guess I also need to be called she and her and amend my birth certificate"

But there's always this obvious discomfort with simply wanting something for what it is without deferring to the institution of gender to validate it. What would be the difference if we simply accepted men who just wanted to take hormones, get SRS and BA and FFS, and do whatever else, maybe date men, maybe paint their nails, whatever, and didn't judge them for it? What would really be lost if they didn't have to legally transition to do those things? Tons of shame and fear over passing/not passing? Being treated like a criminal for using a public bathroom? Social rejection and isolation? A ton of administrative nightmares? Serious dating and sexuality issues?

But, sigh, I'm just ranting at nobody and nothing in particular. I just feel like the world is made for people who are not me. I feel like I'm a foot tall in a world of normal-heighted individuals, and the worst thing is that if I don't hide being a foot tall, people will mostly either act like I should hide it or otherwise shame me as if I chose to be, because they're not. There are a few other people like me, but they don't really get me, cuz they all walk around on goofy stilts and peer down at me as if I'm really different than them. As if they're not just wearing goofy stilts. They're actually trying really hard to forget. I mean I know they have a lot of reasons and feel like they need to, and admittedly it can be hard for me to reach things, cuz nobody planned the environment around short people. But I still think those stilts are goofy as heck and that they're hurting themselves by desperately trying to pretend they were born tall. They're hurting short people, because they're trying so hard to make it look like short people don't exist, or being short is a mistake, so people don't adjust to and nothing is made to serve the needs of short people. Even though people just honestly think it's goofy that a bunch of short people are walking around on stilts anyway. I mean at best, they go, "wow, it's like you're actually tall! You can be one of us." When there shouldn't have been a separate us in the first place. I mean even tall people come in different heights, even if they're a lot closer to the average. Everyone's still a person though.

This is why, in my daily life, I personally will hide being trans as long as I am stuck in transition... it's not because I'm afraid or ashamed that people will think I used to be a boy... it's because I'm afraid people will realize I'm actually pretending to be female. I just feel goofy as heck about the whole thing.

[Hikari]

I don't really know what advice to give, it seems like everything is going to lead to a sort of circular logic of keeping you unhappy and on the outside looking in. The ideal of being normal or even authentic that you seem to harbor doesn't seem very realistic.

Do you have a sense of self? I mean what is wrong with accepting that no matter if it is agendered, bigendered, male, female, etc? No matter who you feel you are people will have a problem with it from Christian to Muslim to geek or jock someone will hate you. So why not just be true to however you feel since you have to know you can't win acceptance from everyone.

Perhaps it is hard for me to understand but it should be simple, accept who you are and let the chips fall wherever they do. I felt female, so I decided to embrace that, maybe that makes some people dislike me and may make others like me but what does it matter I just embrace it and let people feel about it however they do; if they are with me great if they are against me then screw em.

[sad panda]

Do you have a sense of self? I mean what is wrong with accepting that no matter if it is agendered, bigendered, male, female, etc?

No, I  don't 

If it was anything it would be agender but I  get so wrapped up in what people think bc it's literally all I have to define my self. Esp when I spent a long time isolated..  I wasn't even human. Honestly I still don't feel human.  I'm basically just a thing. So no wonder it's not making sense to me :/ I  guess it's not fair of me to ask when I  can't even understand the answer.

Sorry if I'm really irritating. Ultimately I am an outsider looking in.

[Jessica Merriman]

Honestly I still don't feel human.  I'm basically just a thing.

I feel sad for you. You find no joy at all in being alive and a unique human being with feelings and emotions? How is that even possible? I have to say it, but you have bigger issue's than just gender identification. Please find a competent Psychologist or Psychiatrist and see if they can unravel the mystery which binds you into an existence and not life.