Hey there people!
I just wanted to write down some things here and by the way get my thoughts in order. I know I haven't participated too much, but I have read you all for months and well, I reached some conclusions.
As I wrote in other posts, I've been experimenting with female clothes and gender expression, and asking my close friends to be treated in private as a woman. I found around me a great group of support and confidence that let me to express myself as I feel, at least within my inner social circle, and it has been amazing, I feel more comfortable, I am quite happier than before and all my questions now are not only surrounded by fear, but also by hope. Now I feel like I am able to break the jail of masculinity.
One of my biggest concerns about this is the contradiction I thought existed between wanting to be socially read as a woman and my feelings escaping gender binarism. A post written by Mikka (who I thank now) made me see that there are more people facing the very same feeling I had and allowed me to reach some conclusions about it, allowed me to see that there is no real contradiction. I've always thought that gender is a jail, something that limits the free development of your personality, something to be abolished (at least in my body). To my mind, gender is a social construct that consists in the imposition of some social rules and behaviors depending on your genitals and gender assigned at birth, indeed, I'm still deconstructing myself, trying to figure out what part of me is really a decision freely made and what part has been socially imposed, what I want in my life and what I don't want in it. I feel agender, in the sense I don't want to limit myself to a set of rules based in my external appearance, I'd like to be just me as I really am.
Furthermore, and dividing this like I did in the post I mentioned, I want to talk not only about my gender, but also about my sex. I wouldn't say I hate my body, but I'm definitely not comfortable with it and with how I'm socially read. If I have something clear is that I don't feel like a boy and I have never felt as one, I am not one and want to change this. As I was saying, although identifying as agender, I don't only love wearing female clothes, but I also feel amazing being treated as a woman and nothing else, like if it fits me, and makes me happy. Those days in which my mind restarts (afternoons and nights filled with a desire of changing my body and expecting a future transition, and mornings filled with fear and thoughts of me just being stupid) are now less, from some time to now they've been decreasing and I maintain this desire.
Now, with the contradiction erased and having my feelings more or less stabilized (I think that that contradiction was the thing it was causing confusion), I've decided to carry on and start a non-medical transition. I explain this, I want to to feminize myself as much as I can till I'm comfortable with my body, but with nothing else more than a gender therapist (no HRT, no surgeries now; only make up, clothes, non-permanent facial hair removal...), and I'll stop when I feel comfortable, continuing with HRT and medical transitioning if at that point I need to. It'll may be an slow process, but it'll be also a safe one. Switching from questioning to genderqueer.
As long as I will have my next course abroad, I'll delay this in order not to interfere with my studies. Starting point: September 2018?
Thank you all for maintaining this wonderful support group, and sorry for the long post, just needed to express this.
Hugs,
Q.
