This is embarrassing and extremely perplexing. Mental illness runs on both sides of my family, making me a depressed, anxious, obsessive, overthinking mess. My upbringing was a little warped, although I wasn't abused in the traditional sense.
I'm a genderqueer ftm (I think?) and have been taking testosterone injections, as prescribed, since the end of March. Overall, I like the changes very much, although my hair is starting to thin and I'm worried about going bald. What I'm finding that creeps me out is that I'm more different from most cisgender men than I realized. Sometimes I feel like I've transitioned into a handsomely baby-faced whatchamacalit instead of a man. I don't think there was really a way for me to find this out until I transitioned, anyway, because men generally act differently around women than they do around men. I grew up with a distant, eccentric father and no brothers. But suddenly, I've taken a plunge into the world of being a man around men, and I feel pretty disoriented and worried that I fooled myself into doing something crazy.
My upbringing was somewhat sexist and warped by conservative Catholicism. Sometimes I worry that this made me so unable to cope with being female that I'm not really trans and my parents just made me crazy. They made me so afraid of men that I avoided them during my teenage years and missed out on male socialization. My parents were so pro-life that they were against abortion even for rape victims, but they were also anti-contraception, which basically made men like monsters to me. They constantly warned me about rape, but they didn't tell me what I could do if I did get raped. I struggled with bitter misandry and a feeling of eventual doom during those years. I was disgusted with myself for feeling attraction towards men. I thought I'd have to marry one and gestate his offspring that I didn't want.
I was traumatized by puberty, but it is even difficult for me to tell if this was because I'm really transgender or if it was because of what my parents believed. They were very sex-negative and slut-shaming. They also made it sound like pregnancy and childbirth were not optional and my puberty was a one-way street toward that. I'm still pretty upset that my hips are wide, so I hope that means I'm really trans.
My sister is also afraid of men (I am less so now that I pass), and she told me once that she was genderqueer and never brought it up again. She gets very anxious when there is a sex scene in a movie, even if it's consensual. If there is anything having to do with rape on the tv, she has to leave the room. I'm worried that this is a sign that we both have the same problem from the way we were raised and neither of us is legitimately transgender.
Societal sexism against girls and women was also difficult for me to handle. I have a naturally strong personality, but I was coaxed and shamed into being more generic. I was always very opinionated, but I was praised for being passive and shamed for standing up for myself. People assumed things about me that were the opposite of the truth. I was told that motherhood was the highest thing I could achieve, which crushed my self-esteem because pregnancy is involuntary and parenting requires no exceptional talents. I was manipulated into dressing pretty when I wanted to dress like a man. The dignity and respect I craved were reserved for my future husband and caretaker, who would accomplish great things for me and I'd have to act grateful for it.
My parents put unfair restrictions on my playing style. They told me not to make my toys fight or bang them together. They told me not to growl or yell. They explicitly told me that these things were appropriate for boys but not for girls.
But still, I showed signs of being different from a young age. I never really had a problem with my genitalia, but I wanted to have my hair cut short and dress like a boy. Of course, my parents wouldn't allow that. I think I was like an androgynous tomboy without a female identity, but I did like to indulge in girliness sometimes. When I was 10 or 11, I worked up the courage to tell my mom that I wanted to be a boy, but she yelled at me. I did the chest-binding thing at puberty, where I wore double sports bras not to accentuate my breasts, but to squash them down. My name, though beautiful, always made me cringe inside. Female pronouns made me cringe inside. Sometimes, I enjoyed dressing like a girl, but I felt like I was crossdressing. Dressing like a man does not feel like crossdressing to me. I strongly prefer being called handsome over being called pretty, and if I'm called pretty, I hope that it's the male flavor of it.
I feel like each sex has a magical essence, both of which I lack, and neither is very relatable on average. Most men are like intimidating aliens and most women are like cute aliens. Masculine women are pretty hot, but not relatable. Masculine men, now that they interact with me as a man, are just intimidating. Before I transitioned, they put on a different face for me. For some reason, I seem to "click" pretty well with feminine men, but not so much with feminine women. It might be worth bringing up that I have always had difficulty catching onto social norms and was diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome when I was 15 (I'm 24 now), although I don't think my symptoms are strong enough for me to have it for real. So yeah....
