Im so confused and scared. Need serious advice.

[Jasonisscared]

So my names Jason and im 19 years old. When i was young i never questioned my sexuality or gender. I had very open minded parents who never gave any gender specific toy or forced any activity on me. Still, at ages 1, soon after i could walk everything i could find was a weapon. I loved fighting ,climbing ,sports and i was always attracted to women.  I truly loved women and never felt any sexual attraction to a man. However, looking back on it now i do remember thinking to myself sometimes that i wish i was a girl. This was not often and i always quickly dismissed it. Ive always always loved things such as fashion, romance type shows, and drama. I also frequently will read something like "men are like this" and thinking thats bs. I also remeber telling girls at school i feel like i had a girls brain because i loved romance, was very intouch with my emotions, and thought the same as them in many ways. However, this never made me question my gender in any way. This was when i was in 8th grade. When i went to high school, i went into homeschooling, and problems began. I was basically just played video games all day, became porn addicted(masturbated 3 times per day), and started smoking weed. 2 years into this my porn addiction led me to transgender porn. I was naive and thought these people where born this way and rationilzed by thinking these peopled needed love aswell( i always was a very loving and empathetic person). Eventually i realized my mistake but i was addicted. I watched this type of porn, sometimes experimenting in gay porn but that never really appealed to me. Eventually i began wanting to be a women. This only happened in the last 4months and for this last month and a half I've quit pornography. However these feelings have only gotten stronger. Im still not attracted to men. At all if its in a gay sense but if i am the women in a relationship i find them very attractive. I still find women attractive but not quite has much. I can kind of switch at this point from male to female brain at will. However right now the female part is stronger then ever and a bit stronger then the male   part. However i am an extremely attractive male(although ive never felt sexy or good looking but people always tell me how beautiful i am and i can see how women look at me) so id prefer to just get rid of this want to be a women if possible. Basically my question is do you think this just a fetish brought on by porn addiction or do you think its actually me realizing I'm transgender. I also want to make clear I'm not bigender. Although sometimes i feel like a guy and just want a wife to take care of and love. Then this female side pops up and wants a husband. Its really confusing and its like i don't have a gender i have both genders and its shifting right now which is scary. I also want to say that i look very masculine and very feminine at the same time and some of my parents friends have said i have strong masculine and feminine energy. This is my first forum post EVER so sorry for the monologue its just an expression of everything. I tried not to be too biased to not sway your opinion either way.
All opinion are appreciated!

THANKS FOR YOUR TIME!

[Jo-is-amazing]

As.for the fetishism I can't say. But just cause you are addicted to porn does not mean that you are/ are not trans. I'd recommend you find a gender therapist or better yet a local trans support group in order to talk these issues over with people who understand these feelings and are real people, in real life.

One way to look at it is this. If you were stick on a desert island, all by yourself with no people around for miles. Would you still want to be female?

Detach your sexuality from it if you can And just examine those feelings,  in the end though it's your decision.

[sonson]

you'll see a lot trans people say that there is no such thing as "the transgender narrative". this means that while we all end up coming to the same realization at some point in our lives, the way we get there, and the time it takes to get there, is different for everyone. no one can look at your past and pick out reasons x y and z and prove that you're trans or not. As Jo-is-Amazing suggested, I'd say your best option is to find a therapist or support group to talk to, and to just continue your self-exploration under the new idea that you may or may not be trans.

this concept is true for everyone, every single person may or may not be trans, but rarely does anyone contemplate who they are under these pretenses.

[androgynouspainter26]

Hey,

Welcome to the forum.  I understand what you're going through; I went though a very similar crisis about three years ago.  Before people turn up and tell you that only a therapist can tell you if you're trans or that you can't discover who you are through your sexuality, I want to tell you that it doesn't have to mean anything.  In fact, it makes a certain amount of sense that your dysphoria might first begin to emerge in a sexual situation.  Sex is the part of the psyche most closely associated with the unconscious mind, and all of the things that we've been keeping repressed over the years can often emerge in odd ways during sexual exploration; besides, escapism is something many trans girls fall into before they're able to figure themselves out.  It might be that this was how you used to cope.  Chances are, if you're feeling this conflicted about your gender, you have some major gender issues to resolve.  It's quite possible that you are a trans woman; you may end up identifying as genderfluid, or any other number of things.  The most important thing is that you figure out who you want to be before all else. 

So, here's a question: If you could flip a switch, and transform yourself into exactly the person you'd like to be, what would their gender be?  What would their body be like?  What other qualities would this person have?  If you can imagine where you might want to end up at the end of this journey, it'll help make this crisis a lot easier.  It's not as simple as "am I this or am I that"-in the end, we all made a choice to deal with our issues the way we did (most of us by transitioning) and while it's tempting to say "I had no choice!" I think it's a lot more complex than that.  So, the first thing to do is just figure out, in a perfect world-who would you choose to be?  All predjuces, expectations, costs, fears and risks-everything aside, who would you choose to be?

Now, just to be clear-there's a huge difference between being female and being feminine.  Liking romance novels and fashion does not make you anything other than a person who likes those things.  The further I go, the more I realize how stupid statements like "these are for boys those are for girls" really are.  I am a femme (trans) woman .  I also happen to like gaming, haute cuisine preparation and know my power tools as well as most guys.  The two have nothing to do with each other!  So, don't let your interests guide your gender; being female and feminine are completely different things, and the sooner you're able to separate the two the more clarity you'll be able to find. 

It sounds to me like you're in conflict.  That's understandable; this is a scary issue to confront, and I hope you find some clarity.  In the end, nobody here can tell you if you're trans or not.  It seems pretty likely to me that you are, but in the end what anyone else thinks you may or may not be doesn't matter-you need to figure out what's going to make you happy.  And, you will!  I've been where you are hon, going back and forth between two potential futures, and I know how scary it can be.  I hope you can find something that fits.

Best,
-Sasha

[mrs izzy]

Jasonisscared
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[Jason C]

Well, your sexuality doesn't really matter. You can be a man and like men, you can be a woman and like women. You can be a woman and want a wife to love you. So try to separate your sexuality or your sex preferences from everything else. Being transgender doesn't have anything to do with other people, it's about you. When you're alone, how do you feel? Do you feel comfortable with your body, or are there times when you are uncomfortable with certain things about yourself because it's seen as male? Do you ever feel uncomfortable or unhappy when someone calls you 'he', or calls you a man?

If you never feel that way, you may not be transgender, but that's your own thing to discover. If you feel like that now and again (sometimes you're comfortable with who you are, sometimes you're not), you may be genderqueer/genderfluid. Basically, you don't feel 100% male and you don't feel 100% female all the time. Sometimes you feel male, sometimes you feel female, sometimes you're more male than female, sometimes more female than male, etc. Obviously, don't take this as gospel; everyone's different, and it's important that you figure it out for yourself, but this is just what I think. Just remember to not think about other people/sexuality/porn when trying to figure it out, because your sexuality has nothing to do with your gender, and if you try to understand yourself based on who you're attracted to, you'll probably just feel more confused.

[Foxglove]

Basically my question is do you think this just a fetish brought on by porn addiction . . .

My quick answer would be no.  Your story reminds me of one I once saw on a Christian, trans-hating website about a guy who was into pornography, drinking, gambling, stuff like that, and before he knew it he wanted be a woman.  Very bad, of course, and against God's will, so he turned to Jesus, gave up porn, drinking and gambling and all his desire to be a woman went away as well.

Since some Christians define ->-bleeped-<- as immoral, they associate it with other things they regard as immoral.  They're all linked together, you see, so the one can lead to the others.  Which is rubbish.

Obviously.  For two reasons that I can think of off the top of my head.  (1) Studies show that most transkids began the process of self-discovery between the ages of 3 and 6, with most of the rest of them following not terribly far behind.  Now how many 3-6 year old kids are into drinking, gambling, pornography, etc.?  (2) If pornography could lead to ->-bleeped-<-, the porn industry would collapse because how many guys would want to be turned into transwomen?

So, no, an interest in pornography isn't going to make you trans.  This makes sense to me:

In fact, it makes a certain amount of sense that your dysphoria might first begin to emerge in a sexual situation.  Sex is the part of the psyche most closely associated with the unconscious mind, and all of the things that we've been keeping repressed over the years can often emerge in odd ways during sexual exploration; besides, escapism is something many trans girls fall into before they're able to figure themselves out.  It might be that this was how you used to cope.