Hello everyone,
I'm a person who was assigned male at birth, but I'm starting to think that I'm really a woman. While I'm certain that I fit somewhere under the trans* umbrella, I'm not 100% certain in my gender identity. However, I feel sure enough that I've decided to identify privately as a woman and have chosen a female name. A large part of my journey here is to hopefully confirm my female identity while being open to following my truth wherever it leads.
So with this disclaimer in place, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Hannah, I am a woman, and I am transgender.
To make this easier to read, I decided to make a list of some basic things about me in order to help others to understand a bit about my perspective:
• Female
• Transgender
• "pre-everything": have not begun transitioning and have not come out to anyone
• Lesbian
• Age: in my early 20s
• Location: somewhere in the rural southern United States
• Occupation: college student
• Family Situation: single/never been married, no kids, financially dependent on my parents
• Desired Career: high school math teacher
• Religion: Christian (conservative in theology, universalist, moderately liberal in ethics, progressive/non-literal in my reading of the Bible, and an independent thinker)
• Interests: math, psychology, teaching, poetry/music, computers, baseball/softball
To close this brief introduction, I'd like to make a few comments about why I'm here. I'm sure I'll be discussing a lot of these things in much more detail, but here's a very short autobiography of my experience with gender. I had a reasonably happy childhood with no serious trauma. Though I had a mixture of stereotypically masculine and feminine traits, I passed as a cisgender boy very easily. On the stereotypically masculine side, I enjoyed playing sports and playing with toy cars and blocks. On the stereotypically feminine side, I was/am very sensitive and cry very easily, and I have memories of playing with dolls with my sister.
I don't remember experiencing much gender dysphoria prior to puberty. The only specific early childhood memory I have related to gender variance is when I found a bottle of bubble bath product marketed for women in the house; I told my mom I wanted to use it, and she told me that it wasn't for boys. I think I felt a little ashamed.
My sense of being "different" became much stronger with puberty. My earliest sexual fantasies I can remember were from when I was 10 or 11. I didn't know at the time that this was unusual for people assigned male, but these first fantasies involved me turning into a hot girl! This was to become a pattern for me and my dominant and preferred type of fantasy. They went through an evolution. The first ones were about me turning into Britney Spears. Then I began to fantasize about swapping bodies with attractive girls in my classes. Eventually, I began to fantasize about being a female version of myself in romantic relationships.
While I enjoyed these fantasies, I had no concept of what they meant, and I didn't connect them with the desire to actually be a woman. Over time, I adopted the habit of crossdressing when I could while engaging in these fantasies, even though I had no mental concept of "crossdressing." This addition made the experiences even more pleasant.
Eventually, by the time I was in high school, I began to educate myself about topics under the transgender umbrella. At that time, I thought of myself as a crossdresser, perhaps because I didn't hate being a guy and I didn't think of myself as being very feminine. At some point after this, I began a long period of debating with myself about whether I was a crossdresser or a trans woman. I think a lot of what made it difficult for me is that my story doesn't fit the stereotypical narrative for a trans woman.
Here's the current conclusion I've come to. While I don't hate living as male, I don't love it either. From years of socialization, I'm very good at playing the "male role," and there's a comfort of familiarity in it. But living as a man feels like a role or a mask to me; it doesn't feel authentic or feel like I'm really being myself. By contrast, when I imagine living the rest of my life as a woman, I feel excited. Since I have not yet transitioned at all, this feeling needs to be confirmed. However, the strength and persistence of this feeling leads me to conclude that I am a woman.
Thanks for reading a brief version of my story. Of course, there are a lot of specifics that need to be worked through. I know that you all can't give me the ultimate answers. But I'm so grateful for a place like this. This is the first time I'm getting my gender identity stuff out of my head and into the real world. I look forward to fruitful conversations to come. The road ahead is long with many challenges. But I walk onward with faith, hope, and love. I'm thankful for your support along the journey.
Love,
- Hannah
