Transitioning, not transitioning

[jamie-lee]

So. Transitioning, not transitioning...

Let me tell you the story first. I kind of thought of myself as having a "male brain" and a female body for years, but I didn't give much meaning to it. I've never been too masculine, I believe I'm still not. I'm not the one to watch football, and I'm a fashion freak. I'm very girly. But I am a guy. There is a world of difference between a tough chick and a sensitive guy. I never believed I could be trans, because there is this typical trans boy story about hating your boobs, liking girls the romantic way, dressing in baggy clothes. I was none of those. I was a tough chick. I like action movies and train martial arts. I just love biking. You know this type. Waist long hair, tight sweats and jeans, lots of hot pink.

I kind of drifted slowly in the male direction for years. I felt irritated with being treated like a woman, I crossdressed secretly once or twice but was disappointed with the effect so I gave up. Binding boobs and tucking my hair into a hood. We all know how it goes. From a feminine girl, I became the tough chick, I tried on a variety of expressions, I always had a surplus of confidence, so I pulled off the look of an unshaved, bare-chested lady. I mean. There are people who get sexualised when a bra sticks out of their kimono. It was not me. I believe it is because I behave too much like a guy. Nobody ever gave a blink or commented on my body hair. By some coincidence, I have slight facial hair, and that - yes, that I was told to get rid of. I depilated my face for a couple of years. Recently I gave up and switched to shaving it. Once a week is sufficient. Also, due to all that sport I did, I do not have a typical female demeneor. My bones are thicker, muscles bigger, hands more wiry and bigger, I'm taller, more hairy and I can fit into men's shoe sizes. I'm ridiculously hairy, I believe that this excersicing and complete disregard for warnings that it will masculinise me, lifted my T levels a ton. I will be having my T levels checked next week, because I got acne, and I'm past puberty.

But let me get the story straight. I had and have a veriety of interests. I'm not stereotypically masculine. I like art and stuff, I like poetry, I like drawing, I'm a geek. Every kind of look at the story is biased. But I have to admit that my temperament always set me apart from other girls. I was the one with the ugliest writing and the best maths scores. But when it comes to my gender expression, I'm more like androgynous overall, a bit of this, a bit of that. I like to wear clothes that look good and are comfortable at the same time.

Anyway, all that is within norm. I'm not spiritual in general. But there was this voice in the back of my head that kept on whispering to me that I am a man. I had dreams. When I kissed my boyfriend, reality fell apart and genders reversed. I dressed in my leather coat ("It's great! I can't get a women's leather coat that is longer" said S, a friend of mine once) , combat boots, and my mind constantly flip-flopped genders, and A, a friend, called me sir. I daydreamed about being a guy. But it all seemed to be random noises in my head I can happily ignore, just be a tough chick, do some maths and live on. I knew where they were coming from, of what they were a result, and people aren't all that biased after all, are they? Some people have brains typical for their sex, some don't , just like with everything else.

Recently, I failed with dating spectacularily. I couldn't believe my own eyes that my own (now ex-)boyfriend is behaving different to me and to his friends, guys. It distressed me a lot, the way he behaved. It made everything impossible. I still cannot believe that my wish to dress as a guy... made sense. It scares me, it really scares me. That's a very real disconnect going on there. Another time, I talked with a dude I liked and when he got to know me closely, he seemed to be put off and surprised by the fact that I like martial arts and generally: act like a dude in many ways. Those two situations repeat. It's not the first time either of them happens, so I decided that I have to do something about it, that it is something about the way I present myself. That there is an image of who my family wanted me to be walking around with me like a shadow, or rather like a mask I can't take off and interact with others in an honest manner. That was a shocking realisation.

Before all that, I discovered that , when I wore a suit to some formal event, people just suddenly tend to start treating me like a man and assume I'm a lesbian. My male brain, right? That's the only explanation I can think of. I was in lipstick and heels and a blouse and all. But my suit was dark grey, I despise frills and colourful formal wear, I feel silly in them. I also didn't wear a skirt for so long that I felt crossdressed in a skirt at some point. Let alone heels. I wear men's shoes in general and it's been like this for a pretty long time. I flirted with a girl, and on the contrary to my experience with the guy who treated me like a girl, that was great, that was contact, that was sensual. She was quite much of a tomboy too. It all happened on the grounds of my attempts to present more androgynous.

I already did a fair amount of research about the subject, I'm considering to go to a gender therapist maybe, but I'm sort of not in the right circumstances right now, and will not be for at least a couple of months. I think I might be trans male, I suspect that. Even though it all looked quite regular until recently. Seriously, the dreams and such, it could have been anything. And who said females can't like maths, right? But I alwyas felt like "girl" was a character I was acting, that it was not me. I just can't explain it.

What I have in mind right now, is that transiotion becomes more and more difficult with age, and that possibly, I could be hurting myself by choosing not to. I think I already did hurt myself by dismissing this voice telling me that I am a guy and to dress like a guy, if I listened to it, I would never be in the dating failure situation in the first place. I just can't connect, if anyone understands what I'm saying. Something doesn't satisfy me, there is or maybe already was (in the past) some mask in there.

Hence, after all that, I cut my hair to something like half my neck, I dyed it black, I got myself a sports bra, some looser shirts and I immediatelly started passing as male. In public. In front of all my acquiantances. In front of my family. Not much, I'd say I'm rather androgynous. But people stare at me a lot. It all depends how I dress.

I never felt... like I was born into the wrong body, I never had much body dysmorphia, although it happened sometimes. Like about menstruation. I chose not to do HRT or top surgery, let alone the rest, because it all has many disadvantages in my opinion and doesn't fix anything for me. But I worked hard for that passing.When I attempted androgynous presentation, I learnt everything about mannerisms, dressing and the such. I did some voice training, and I managed to drop it significantly, and I excersiced my arms. I don't bother about being physically androgynous, I was born androgynous anyway, I can't get more than that anyway. It hautns me anyway, I will not escape it and now I know it. Plus, I like all the changes I made. I don't like having a very feminine body, I want my body to keep up with me, with all the things that I love, and that requires physical strength and stamina. And a very masculine body would be bad too, I'm quite feminine, I like my slender frame.


I don't know where it's leading me, the voice, but it was so surprisingly right, it told me straight away things that took me such a long time to fully comprehend, I think I should trust it for once. Intuition.  But in general, I'm afraid of all that. I don't know if what I'm doing will suffice, how to navigate it all. Not to say, I'm not too happy about the circumstance I foud myself in. And I just came to terms with being a woman and started to feel okey with that and feminine roles to perform... I'm not that happy about the prospect of transitioning, but I'm afraid I need it. I'm not sure if what I'm doing is transitioning or not. I'm afraid of what I saw, I know I have to fix this major disturbance, but don't exactly know how.

[Dena]

Gender isn't always black and white. There are many shades of gray in-between. You could be gender fluid where you move between the two or you could be a mix of both where you combine features of both genders into your presentation. Only you can tell where you fit and at the moment I haven't a clue. I am going to give you some links to look over but you should consider a gender therapist where you can look into this deeper.

The first link is our WIKI where you will see the terms that define transgender. The next link is "the transition channel" where transsexualism will be explored in more detail. The last 3 links go into the Fluid/Bigender/non binary area. If you have any question, let me know. I may not know the answer but I will try to answer it.

https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,202966.0.html

https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,201219.0.html

https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,196073.0.html

[JoanneB]

I spent a good 50 years livin in the grey. I was far from a cis male but at 6ft tall and balding since I was 14.... What options did I have?

I faked it. Of course. Lived life as a chameleon. Blended in the best I could. Along the way, following the 'Male' path through life, no doubt there are a lot of 'Male' things that simply..... are who I am.

For 50 years I "Survived" by doing what little things I could, plus a few BIG things. I cross dressed, a given. Undies as often as I could since.... my teens and raging hormones. Fully, as often as I could or absolutely needed to. I fantasized about being a woman with a man. The reality of being a man helped to put an end to my "Experiments" at transition. I was sexually attracted to women... But FAR from the same way my guy friends seemed to be. So much I fell back on saying I am a hopeless romantic. Like how can you even think of having sex with someone you don't know?

So I muddled my way through life doing "What was expected". Back.... 40-50 years ago, it wasn't a different world, it was a different universe! Hardly anyone knew a thing about being trans. Today... Is so much better.

I self describe as Non-Binary now. Technically it is who I am though..... I have a wife, BFF, soul-mate, reality-therapist of some almost 40 years along with a career I cannot believe I get paid to have fun doing.... All male. I do NEED to go all in female, only want to. My toes are far from wet. In fact, the dangly bits are in so deep they have surpassed going "Turtle".

What helped me change my life around for the better was reaching out, as you are. Though at the time I was living in Hillbilly central, far away from my birthplace in the shadow of NYC, I reached out and found support. I learned I was far from unique. The night of my first TG support group meeting I was floored. By the end of the 3rd meeting I knew I NEEDED to be there.

It has taken years to unlearn a good chunk of the damage I inflicted upon myself by wanting to be 'Normal'. Much of the credit goes to a couple of angels in my support group who took a lot of time out of their days for me when I most needed them along with the group as a whole which I am still active in today.

With 2 prior "Failed" transition experiments in my early 20's , transitioning was THE Last thing on my agenda. Foremost was finding a way to get these seemingly disparate aspects of myself to live in harmony inside one healthy and hopefully happy Me. I am kind of sort of there, with a lot of hard work.

You got passed the hardest part, you not just realized something is "Not Right" but want to do something about it. Keep an open mind. Know in your heart what you need to do today to see a tomorrow will change, just as it dreams for everyone changes as they grow. Most important is to keep the dream alive.

Life is a series of compromises. You try to balance a myriad of conflicting needs and wants. Plus they always change. Much of what you wanted as a a 5 y/o seems silly today. Twenty years from now......

What I needed to do, what I did, what I am now doing, has all been a great balancing act. It will likely always be a balancing act. I try to keep all the various aspects of Me happy without placing unreasonable burdens on others. For about 40+ years I asked way too much or demanded way too much. I paid the price.

Balance

[Ayla]

I think that it often takes quite a bit of time, experimentation and introspection to really find and accept your self.  We may start off thinking (or hoping) that it is just a phase, a minor kink or something that we can just learn to ignore and to live with.  However as you have found, your self demands to be heard.  Most of us have tried and most have found that our journey of discovery and expression is both challenging and enriching.  Not many of us end up where we first thought we would be.

Many of us NB types defy description and just as we don't relate to cis normative gender boxes, many reject the idea of a spectrum.  Gender seems to me to just be code for 'self'.  I am still surprised and delighted by the dance that my life has followed as I reached out to a great gender therapist, found an exceptional endo and started to meet other folk on their journeys of discovery.   I think that the moment that I started coming out to family, friends, colleagues and clients that I felt that I had really found, accepted and expressed my self.

It seems that you are well on your way.  It is very true that the journey is way more important than the destination.  I wish you luck on your journey. 

Safe travels

Aisla

[jamie-lee]

Thank you for your replies

Sorry for not responding for so long, lots of stuff going on. Still, I read everything right when you wrote back    I thought it all through. Um.

I went during that time through a couple of phases like "I must be binary trans, what should I do" then "Transition all the way doesn't feel good, I must be female and making it up" and went back to identifying as completely female but androgynous in gender expression, which was a disaster, because it basically went back to my thinking when I was still wondering what is off with me (As for a woman, I AM off...) and feeling dysphoric, and then I decided to end with this, went back to non-binary, let go of wearing feminine clothing, because I plain feel bad in it ,I stopped being so harsh on myself, went to "Um, I'm trans?" , completely let go of it and accepted that there probably isn't a label for me, and then recently settled on androgyne-ish transmasculine. Genderqueer. Something like this.


@Dena

Yeah, definitely it's not black and white at all. I might be some completely strange creature. Now I'm thinking that bigender/androgyne/genderqueer... That might be. I'm leaning transmasculine somehow, though, 70 male and 30 female. Thank you for the link to the channel, I found it very interesting. It's funny that I fit the description of an MtF crossdresser  And the links too. I will have no way to go to a gender therapist any time soon, but ... I belive I have sorted it out somehow.

Oh wow, I didn't know some gender fluid people go on some HRT. I don't really see an option in it for myself, I just hope that if I keep fit my body won't go anywhere unwanted. Btw, my hormones apparently are normal.

One of the links to the forum reminded me that... or rather gave me a thought... that's also a  result of my thinking over the past few months, that a transition is more like... individual. Some people pursue medical and legal transition, but the crux is becoming comfortable with yourself and in your own presentation, behaviour, skin. So it's more like a transition to comfort, and that, indeed, is extremely important, and indeed the later in life you are, the more ties you have to cut loose.I really, really rethought all that, and accidentally stumbled upon an anime with some great tomboy characters, experimented somewhat with the ways I express my gender, and the results are very creative    I went away from the notion of passing. I mean if it happens by accident, that's okey, but I work on expressing myself as a tomboy, more on conveying masculinity than passing as male. I must say I am much more comfortable once I kind of learnt myself how to express masculinity and became at ease with that. Because it does take some getting used to, it's all new, at least to me. I always expressed myself more as an active girl than a tomboy...  The masculine gender role has it's own rules, somehow, and those I think I'm getting to know and making up my position with regard to them.


@JoanneB

I also got very... gender-y looking at about 14.

Thank you for your post, it's so reassuring   :')

Yeah, finding harmony between different aspects of yourself... This. So much this.



@Aisla

Thank you for the best wishes

I ended up so far completely not where I thought I would, that's true.



Thank you all once again for reassurance and advice

I think I simple don't fit into boxes

[JoanneB]

The simple fact is people only fit into "Simple" boxes wen they want to. We also like to fit things into boxes, at least for a first cut, in the quest for finding order or otherwise understanding or cataloging things. (aside: A few threads have asked why so many techie types are TG. I believe the drive to find some boxes that actually work by consistent rules)

Most things in life aren't simple. The big bits can be readily observed and broken down. As a life long trans person I can assure you, absolutely no one aside from a few people have any hint at all of the real me. One look at me in my typical male mode and you cannot imagine I am this "This not bad for an old bat" woman.  Not bad for a 6ft tall bald but ugly guy by day.

I know, OK have very little doubt, I'd smoke a few heads at work if I ever needed to do a full transition. The woman in HR had a hard time hiding her shock a few months ago when I reached my BS limit dealing with BCBS about my HRT.