I am 22 years old and in my second year of law school. I was assigned male at birth and have assumed that I was until recently. That said, I have always wanted to be a girl, and I am starting to wonder if maybe I am a woman. This is a little long, but it felt good to type it all out.
I have wanted to be a girl since I was very young. I remember feeling closer to girls as early as four, and I consciously wished that I was a girl by the time I was six or seven. I also tried to be a girl as much as was possible without calling too much attention to myself. During recess in either first or second grade, kids played freeze tag, boys versus girls. I always played as a girl. We also did dancing in gym class and boys danced with girls. By whatever fluke, there were significantly more boys than girls in my class, so the gym teacher always asked for some boys to volunteer to be girls, and I always did. Perhaps the difference in number between boys and girls was why I was never picked on for being a girl in these situations. I also tried to like the things that the more popular girls liked. I listened to the same music station, and I was always disappointed that I didn't like shopping because I felt like girls were supposed to like shopping. As I got older, there were fewer and fewer situations where I could act as a girl and not draw attention. I think I stopped hanging out with girls and playing tag as a girl by the end of second grade. I think we did dancing in gym through fifth grade, so I probably still was a girl there through fifth grade, but I don't remember. I also wore a night gown as pajamas until I stopped having designated pajamas.
When I hit puberty, I started feeling some sort of dysmorphia, and I grew out my hair and developed an eating disorder. Those two things made me feel a lot better about myself because for the first time when I looked in the mirror what I saw was roughly how I pictured myself. I have always compared how skinny I am with skinny women and judged my beauty compared with women. I also had sung in multiple choirs and taken voice lessons when I was in middle school and during my freshman year in high school, but when my voice changed when I was fifteen, I stopped singing. Because my voice changed later than most of the other guys I knew (also they wanted their voices to change and I didn't), I had convinced myself that it wouldn't happen. I stopped singing for three years, by which time I had gone from a first soprano to a second bass.
Throughout high school, I always assumed that I would start crossdressing at some point in my adult life, but I never tried it. I also researched transsexualism, but I concluded that I wasn't transsexual because I didn't "know" I was a girl: I just wanted to be a girl. I have recently started to question this. First, as I have been exposed to more stories featuring trans people, it seems like there is often much less certainty than I thought with regard to people's understanding of their own genders. Second, I have been feeling more and more that crossdressing (which I still have never done) would not be a complete solution because I would still have a male body. I think I look very feminine for a man, but I am really scared that that will change as I age, and I wish I looked even more feminine than I do now.
This has all brought on a sense of urgency for me. I feel like I am growing more masculine every day, so if I do want to do HRT, then I should start immediately. This is all so sudden, however, and the idea of actually declaring myself to be a trans woman and transitioning doesn't seem real. When I think about it, I can picture my future as a woman, but I also still can picture my future as I have assumed it would be as a man. Being transsexual doesn't seem real. I also feel like it is a distinct possibility that I am not a trans woman, and have instead latched onto a narrative that is currently being talked about in the media because I sort of identify with it.
There is also the problem of my girlfriend. We have been together for three years, although the last year has been long distance. She is my best friend, and the only real friend I have ever had. She is the first person I have ever felt comfortable around in my life. We both have always assumed that we would get married and live the rest of our lives together. I can't imagine my life without her. She is my only real friend. We tell each other everything, so a few weeks ago I told her that I thought I might be transgender. She did not react very well. She begged me not to be trans, and said that I couldn't be. She also said that she could not date a woman, so we would have to break up. She said that if I was transgender, then I would have wasted years of her life where she could have been trying to find someone else, and she said I had to decide quickly so that I didn't waste any more of her time. She also asked how I could still be questioning this, if I knew that it would mean losing her. I decided not to talk about it with her again, which was hard because I always talk about whatever is on my mind with her. Today she asked me if I had decided, and I said I was still thinking. I can't imagine being without her, but I know that in the end I have to be true to myself no matter how hard that is for both of us. I also don't want to blow things up while I am still not sure.
So that pretty much sums up where I am right now. My university has gender and sexuality counselors, so I know I should make an appointment to see one. That just would make everything seem even more real, though. I feel like things are moving so fast, but I also feel like I should be moving faster to preserve as much of my body as possible if that's what I ultimately decide to do. I know that a lot of things in my body are changing permanently around my age, but I also don't want to move any closer to the hard choices I might have to make.
Anyway, thanks for reading.
