Mixed Feelings on ->-bleeped-<- (May be using triggering words.)

[Bryceroni]

Let me start off by saying I am a ftm(female to male), pre-everything. I am 28, and I recently completed my therapy sessions and am all set to get on HRT. (I just have to find an MD first.) I in no way have doubts about wanting to transition. I am 100% for it, and want to go through with it.

With that out of the way, let me be rather blunt, when it comes to transitioning, I personally feel this is just a way to help me feel better about being born a woman. Is this a bad thing? I personally don't think so, though I could certainly see how the norm would think me insane. But transitioning for me is just a way to help me be happier. I in no way feel that I was born in the wrong body like most trans people feel. I was born the way I was. It was an act of chance, and I unfortunately came out a girl. I know this. I am in no way delusional (Not saying other trans people are. I'm more saying this to reassure myself.)

However, I am not happy with this knowledge. I am not happy being what I am. Hence, why I want to transition. For me, being male would feel more comforting to me. I want to say almost natural. I guess this is coming from the fact that I hear quite a few people say "it doesn't matter if you get sex reassignment surgery, you're still a girl, and nothing is going to change that." or "if you have a vagina, you're a girl. And if you have a penis, you're a boy." They're right. Nothing is going to change that. I can't change what I was born as, but I can change my appearance. Within the next 5 years or so, no one as far as I know is going to tell me I am a woman, because I will not look or sound the part. So who are they to tell me what I am or I am not?

It just bothers me that people can be so black and white. But I suppose that also bothers me because I don't like being told what I know to be true, but deep down inside, I try to push it aside and tell myself, "no, they're wrong. I will be a guy. I'm just not at that stage yet. Not by a long shot." But at the same time, it gets to me, and I begin to feel like my changing is pointless. I will never be seen as a guy, and I'm crazy to think that one day I will be. That I'm just being forceful and crazy to have all of my friends and family call me something I'm not, nor ever will be, no matter the amount of surgeries I get, or steroids I inject into myself.

But despite these thoughts, I still want this. I want a chance at happiness. Is there a genuine guarantee for it? Of course not. I know better than that, but the chance is still there, and I can live with a chance then to be told, no, it won't make you happy at all.

I just needed to get this off my chest and share it with people in the same boat as me. I for one would never wish this on anyone. Being trans sucks and I hate it. I hate going through all of these negative feelings. I hate being unhappy for something I realistically can't change. I wish I could blame someone for this, but there's no one out there for me to blame. I would never blame my parents because it's not their fault, nor is it mine or anyone else's. It's mine and every other trans-folk's burden to bear, and for this I am at least grateful that this is stuff we can share and relate with one another about. Be you a transman or a transwoman. We're all in this together, and I wish you all the best of luck with your situation.

Life just isn't fair, and I'm not going to sugar coat things and say it's going to get better, because heck if I actually know that. I can only ever lend an ear, or a word or two, and I'm sorry there's not much else I can do. I am sorry this is something we all have to go through. The only good thing I can say about any of this is at least we're not alone. To an extent, we have each other.

[ImSomething]

Hiya!

So I sort of think I understand what you're saying. In no way is my experience like yours, but I figured I would share it with you in case it is of any help to you. Before I accepted myself for who I am, before I came out to anyone, I was insistent that I was male. No possible way I wasn't. I was born this way, I don't feel dysphoria, and I'm not trans. Nope. Not at all. I had talked about it with my girlfriend recently because it was something plaguing me and I figured she could comfort me. Eventually it came to my attention that I don't have to even necessarily feel physical dysphoria to be trans. Just the desire alone for me to be a woman and the fact I had been uncomfortable with male pronouns since I was somewhere around 10 was enough to suggest to myself that I was most likely trans. And once I finally said it out loud and started to accept it, my perspective changed. I started to realize that I do experience dysphoria, and I experience it quite a fair amount on a day to day basis. I started to feel differently about having been born physically male. It no longer was just something I lived with that I was neutral about. I very quickly started to despise it. For me, time and the realization that I wasn't in a dilemma of not being "trans enough" made me feel comfortable enough to realize key aspects of myself that I had long since buried.

I don't know if this helps, but I hope it does!   

[Bryceroni]

Hiya!

So I sort of think I understand what you're saying. In no way is my experience like yours, but I figured I would share it with you in case it is of any help to you. Before I accepted myself for who I am, before I came out to anyone, I was insistent that I was male. No possible way I wasn't. I was born this way, I don't feel dysphoria, and I'm not trans. Nope. Not at all. I had talked about it with my girlfriend recently because it was something plaguing me and I figured she could comfort me. Eventually it came to my attention that I don't have to even necessarily feel physical dysphoria to be trans. Just the desire alone for me to be a woman and the fact I had been uncomfortable with male pronouns since I was somewhere around 10 was enough to suggest to myself that I was most likely trans. And once I finally said it out loud and started to accept it, my perspective changed. I started to realize that I do experience dysphoria, and I experience it quite a fair amount on a day to day basis. I started to feel differently about having been born physically male. It no longer was just something I lived with that I was neutral about. I very quickly started to despise it. For me, time and the realization that I wasn't in a dilemma of not being "trans enough" made me feel comfortable enough to realize key aspects of myself that I had long since buried.

I don't know if this helps, but I hope it does!   

This does actually make me feel a little better. For a long while I had this stupid notion in my head that I wasn't "trans enough" because of how I felt, but it makes me realize there's no such thing as being "trans enough". Trans simply means transitioning to one gender to the next, which is what most of us would like to do.

[ImSomething]

This does actually make me feel a little better. For a long while I had this stupid notion in my head that I wasn't "trans enough" because of how I felt, but it makes me realize there's no such thing as being "trans enough". Trans simply means transitioning to one gender to the next, which is what most of us would like to do.

Precisely. I know for me it was only a few years after becoming aggressively uncomfortable with male pronouns that I started to desire with a burning passion to be physically female. My experience is different from many of the people on here and different from your experience. That's okay. Because we're all driven by the same base feeling, whether it's also accompanied by dysphoria or not.

Now for me to try and regroup some self-confidence and self-esteem by getting some homework done.

[CarlyMcx]

I never thought of myself as a girl or as being trapped in the wrong body -- but from the time I was four or five I sure wanted to be a girl and I never really knew the reason why.

Far into adulthood I told myself that it was a fetish, a choice, an impossibility, I could never be feminine enough or pretty enough, and besides I was afraid of losing my male equipment and kind of wanted to keep it.

Fast forward to a little past my fortieth birthday when I started having panic attacks.  My doctor and I fought them for more than ten years before I finally broke down, saw a therapist, got diagnosed as transgender and started hormones.

It is only after nine months on hormones and a lot of reevaluation that I see that there were a lot of little things wrong in my previous life (other than ten years of white knuckle oh my God I'm gonna die panic attacks) that were due to the dysphoria.

And there have been lots of little confirmations since -- such as, if I wait too long to change a hormone patch, I get really grumpy, irritable, and bad tempered.

But beyond that, I really like being perceived as a woman when I go out in public.  Even when I was at my manliest, I was full of insecurities about who was looking at me, why, and what were they thinking, and I now realize that that was the dysphoria talking.

Give the hormones a chance.  For me they worked a miracle that none of the other medicines I was on ever did or could.

[Daniellekai]

Yeah, we all have a slightly different experience starting out, from what I've seen T does quite a job for FTM folk of any age. I don't have a whole lot of physical dysphoria either, but I think it's because my body is already a bit feminine other than the hair, and equipment... And size.... But proportions wise it's halfway there even without HRT. But I have strong feelings about the social aspects, and maybe HRT won't magically make me pass, but it's sure better than doing nothing.

It's kind of a spectrum, some of use despise our bodies, but others would just rather have a different one, and would be resigned to accept ours if it couldn't be changed, but the good news is it can be! For a number of other side effects anyway...


I also felt like it was a fetish at first, but after accepting that I was trans it lost all sexual appeal, which was a huge sign to me that this is the right thing to do. After all, it would be a terrible idea to start HRT or get any surgeries if it was just a fetish... I'm currently even comfortable enough with male pronouns, but that's because of the way I think, why should I expect someone to call me she whilst presenting as a male? I just know that I would be far more comfortable, and more able to express myself if I looked female, if everyone around me considered me as such, got a long, bumpy road ahead, but maybe it'll turn into a nice ride, who knows...

[FTMDiaries]

Let me start off by saying I am a ftm(female to male), pre-everything. I am 28, and I recently completed my therapy sessions and am all set to get on HRT. (I just have to find an MD first.) I in no way have doubts about wanting to transition. I am 100% for it, and want to go through with it.

Hi, and welcome!

I'm FtM, 45, and have been on T for 3.5 years. I've also had top surgery, and am on the waiting list for phallo. I'm further down the line than you are, so I've seen this from a few angles you might not yet have encountered.

With that out of the way, let me be rather blunt, when it comes to transitioning, I personally feel this is just a way to help me feel better about being born a woman.

Let's get one thing crystal clear: nobody, in the history of humanity, has ever been born a woman. Or a man, for that matter.

Nobody.

A woman is a fully-grown, adult female human. But like everyone else, you were born a baby. An innocent baby that happened to have female genitalia, so everyone presumed you were a girl and you were assigned a female gender by other people. Your parents, teachers and society in general imposed a female role on you; you didn't have any say in it. None of us ever do. You were raised in that role and I daresay you did your best to adopt it, as most of us do. But if it makes you desperately uncomfortable, then transition is the sensible choice.

We don't transition because we're unhappy with being 'women'; because it sucks to be female. Or because of the patriarchy. Or because we want male privilege. We transition because moving through the world in a female form is distressingly at odds with who we are and how we need other people to perceive us. Trust me, there are plenty of things that suck about being male too! But it's a more appropriate kind of suckiness, if you happen to be a guy.

I in no way feel that I was born in the wrong body like most trans people feel.

This 'born in the wrong body' thing is a trope created by the media, who love to sensationalise our stories. We were all born the way we are, and many of us are actually pretty happy with most of our bodies; we just want to improve a few details.

For me, being male would feel more comforting to me. I want to say almost natural.

Me too! And I can honestly tell you that it does feel very comforting, and very natural, now that nobody can tell I was assigned female at birth. For one thing, I get to wear normal clothes now instead of having to cross-dress in skirts & dresses so I'll look 'appropriate' in a work environment. It's so incredibly liberating to be free from having to do that.

I guess this is coming from the fact that I hear quite a few people say "it doesn't matter if you get sex reassignment surgery, you're still a girl, and nothing is going to change that." or "if you have a vagina, you're a girl. And if you have a penis, you're a boy." They're right. Nothing is going to change that.

They're wrong. And they're incredibly ignorant. Being a girl or a boy is much, much more than just a couple of body parts. There is so much more to it but most cisgender people don't realise this, because they don't have a disconnect between their gender and their sex so it all seems like the same thing to them.

Within the next 5 years or so, no one as far as I know is going to tell me I am a woman, because I will not look or sound the part. So who are they to tell me what I am or I am not?

Exactly! And once you've transitioned, anyone who tries to do so will look like they've lost their marbles.

But at the same time, it gets to me, and I begin to feel like my changing is pointless. I will never be seen as a guy, and I'm crazy to think that one day I will be. That I'm just being forceful and crazy to have all of my friends and family call me something I'm not, nor ever will be, no matter the amount of surgeries I get, or steroids I inject into myself.

A lot of us have these negative thoughts, sadly. It's because we've spent so many years being beaten down by other people because we can't comply with their idea of who we should be. For this to change, we have to lead from the front - and your friends & family will catch up. It's also very difficult to believe how much - and how fundamentally - we can change as we transition. Y'know, I recently looked at my old (pre-transition) passport photo compared to my current one. I look like an older brother & his younger sister in those photos: clearly related, but not the same person. You could experience something similar!

But despite these thoughts, I still want this. I want a chance at happiness. Is there a genuine guarantee for it? Of course not. I know better than that, but the chance is still there, and I can live with a chance then to be told, no, it won't make you happy at all.

Transitioning s not a magic wand that'll fix all your problems. You'll still have bills to pay, you'll still need to clean your toilet, you'll still need to find & keep a job. But what it does do is it lifts you up to the same sort of level that cisgender people start out from. Gender Dysphoria puts us all at a massive disadvantage by making it more difficult for us to do everyday things. Once that disadvantage is out of the way, we just have to deal with the same nonsense that everyone else has to deal with. It's a heck of a lot easier!

Being trans sucks and I hate it. I hate going through all of these negative feelings.

Yes it certainly does. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy.

The only good thing I can say about any of this is at least we're not alone. To an extent, we have each other.

And for that, we should all be enormously grateful. Many of us grew up in the days before the Internet when there was absolutely no help out there and no hope for us. We all felt completely alone, and we felt like we must be crazy or something. Things have already improved enormously and they are improving further still for the new generations coming up behind us, and it's thanks to the hard work we're all doing now that they'll have a much easier time of it.

[Kylo]

Funny thing is nobody knows what it's like to be a man or a woman in collective terms, they only know what it's like to be the consciousness in the particular body they have. They have no idea how other consciousnesses in other bodies really feel and whether it is exactly the same as what they experience. What it comes down to in the end is just what hurts and what doesn't and moving away from things that cause pain.