Am i really Non-Binary at heart?

[SailorMars1994]

Its been ages since i popped in on this forum. This is a serious question and one that may come as confusing to those who have talked to me. Am I more non-binary or am I a transexual woman who has been lost her whole life. I have been living full time female with a higher dose of E for quite sometime. I find the higher the doasge of E the better my body does run. With that, i find that I love love love being seen as, treated as and feeling as a woman. I love every second of this transformation and love shedding the old costume i had for 2 decades. Still, i find that as much as I would love a vagina over a penis, i am kinda scared about going through with surgery. I recall for a long time i would get gitty with joy over the idea of surgery, and i still kinda do at times. But maybe it is the E making me think more rational about risks ect but i am also highly nervous. Getting rid of facial hair is a no brainer, one that i would do no matter what as i hate facial hair even more then my penis (which i am not fond of at all). I tried living androgynously at one stage and tbh, the over all effect wasnt too bad. But it bugged me that i couldnt be a woman all the time and I would still have both the junk and would probably still be counted as one of the ''guys'' since we still live in a very binary world. Also, I love my estrogen so much

On the other hand there is that doubt. That doubt of not being a real female has gone down dramatically in the past couple months, and anytime i think about living as a cisgender typical male i actually will feel ill and gross. I guess I am just babbling but like, i could have done the non binary/androgynous thing probably if I lost the male aspect of it... Idk, maybe i am just rambling idk what to say exactly. Love ya my Non Binary peeps <3

[AnonyMs]

There seems to be two reasons you think you may be non-binary - fear of surgery and doubt about being a "real" female. I can't see it myself. Heaps of people fear surgery, its kind of normal and nothing to do with gender. The change in interest may also be HRT. I found it calmed me down a lot.

Being a real female sounds like imposter syndrome or something similar - and I can relate to that, but I don't think its anything to do with being binary nor not. Its not like you don't want to be female.

Personally I'm not really sure if I'm binary or not. I think I'm binary, but I'm strangely ok with my current situation, which is very non-binary. I don't suppose I know for sure until I transition all the way and find out how I like where I end up. However it doesn't matter. Being happy is all.

[SailorMars1994]

True say. I suppose it is a catch 22.

My thing is, although I am far happier now that i have been on the HRT and living female for past few months full time I want to make sure this will be one of those things that will be like what ya expect for life. I guess, because I actually am in the position to get surgery within the next year now I just want to make sure everything is 100% is all. I really want to keep going foward but sometimes my scaring can plauge mind for quite some time is all

[AnonyMs]

There's no guarantee's in life though. All you can do is try to make the best decision at the time and hope it works out.

I like the saying "life is not a dress rehearsal".

Personally I don't think of surgery as a big deal. Coming out is, because its you can't undo it and it does have an effect on your relations with others. GRS though, its not like anyone knows if you don't tell them. For me GRS is a very private thing and doesn't have anything to do with any other parts of transition.

I think I'm trans enough that I find it hard to conceive of serious regrets, as long as it was technically successful. And if there were regrets, then at least I tried. More than anything I fear getting to the end of my life, looking back, and finding I've not lived.

[RobynD]

All of these feelings and questions are common. There are many, many trans women that never have SRS and you are no less of a woman because of that. Fear of surgery is common too, nobody likes pain and recovery and adding any risk to our already complex lives, but it is temporary and you have the positive results the rest of your life.

Its hard to discuss gender socialization or presentation without getting stereotypical which never really works very well for anything. So how you prefer to dress, what your hobbies are etc is not really much of a determination factor. It helps a little, but its not black and white.

I consider myself a bit of a tomboy and my dressing style ranges from that to slightly more feminine. Whenever i questioned whether i was non-binary or genderfluid etc, i looked at the times that i still presented as male and compared them to all other times, i was not comfortable with it or actually that comfortable with the identity except in a few contexts (fatherhood and parts of husbandhood), so that told me indeed i was a woman and ended that speculation personally.

[VeronicaLynn]

This question is a tough one for me also.

The idea of surgery scares me too, but not everyone that is binary trans has surgery. Some people who who identify as non-binary also may want surgery, though they may have more trouble getting it. Really, these are two separate things, though I have a tendency to think that when I'm thinking I want surgery I am binary, and when I'm thinking I don't want it, I am non-binary, though I don't think it's necessarily a good idea to combine them as surgery has a lot of pluses and minuses, throwing gender identity into it makes making a decision on that even harder. Whatever I am, I know I am not cis-gender, sometimes it helps to look at things like that.

I'm not easily passable though, and that weighs on me even more. In theory, that shouldn't make a difference, reality is something else. I'm often OK with the idea of thinking of myself as a trans woman, and presenting as basically an androgynous male. If because others view me as a guy, it causes me to start thinking of myself as a guy and trying to act like one again, it causes a lot of dysphoria.

[Elis]

From your post it sounds more like you're afraid of living up to society's expectations of what a woman should look like or be like; rather than being uncomfortable because you're forced by society to be a woman just because you feel more comfortable in a more feminine looking body.

For me I feel a lot more comfortable in a more masculine looking body and I need T to stop feeling dysohoric; which leads me to the problem of constantly being misgendered as male. But this makes a huge improvement from being misgendered as female as I in no way identify as such.

To add for me T is a compromise; there are are some changes I like and some I don't. I haven't come across one binary trans individual who hasn't embraced or loved every part of physically transitioning by taking HRT.

So sorry to say you seem to be an ordinary  woman who also happens to be transgender 

[LindseyP]

I am a 50+ amab, married 25+, with 2 kids, and an established life for personal, faith, and profession.  I exude white male privilege. 

I've only been actively dealing with my trans nature for 3 years, but I have been the way I am my whole life.  I can remember actively questioning my gender in my teens - but every time I thought for sure I was female, I'd run into something that would make me throw that conclusion out.  The 70's/80's were a very binary time to live in.  The biggest revelation to me when I started therapy was that gender was fluid, and that it wasn't like a light switch.  If I had that concept available to me in my youth, I would have had a lot less confusion. 

When I first came to the conclusion that I was non-binary, I figured I was gender fluid.  For sure this concept made it a lot easier to explain my situation to my wife and for her to absorb it - after all, there was still a male part to this identity.

As I have gone on, I recognize that even if there is a male piece there, I spend the majority of my time somewhere on the female side of the scale.  With that, I now know myself more as trans-feminine. 

The long set-up brings me to your actual topic of doubt.  I know me, but what I don't know is how much of what I feel on the male side as a child was me accepting the expectations I thought society had for me as amab.  Now that I find myself actively dealing with things as a 50+ person, I ask myself how much is me really having a male side, and how much is just 50 years worth of muscle memory from acting male?  I don't have an answer for that. 

What I do know is even on lower doses of HRT, I am happier than I have ever been.  I've had fears over going on higher doses - most of those have to my role in my marriage and my wife's feelings.  My wife has not been full on cheerleader supportive but she not been the exact opposite either.  She loves me and is working with things as best she can.  As long as that is happening, I am going to keep doing my best to find some kind of middle path that we can both be happy on.  I am not always sure how long term successful that will be and we've talked about it.  The important thing is that I know she appreciates that no matter how hard, I have tried to make it work.  I am pretty sure there is a part of her that is starting to accept that I might ultimately fail - and she has not shown any signs of running the other way.  And my HRT has crept up along the way. 

I'm really not sure if I addressed your actual question.  This is my first post in the NB area, and I may have shared much more than was needed.

[JoanneB]

You are now relatively happy living in your own skin
You are now living full-time as female with moderate success
You have achieved a life long dream of being seen as and accepted as a woman

Today, living that dream, the old dream of having an "innie" to be where you are today isn't as important as it once was. The only reason you cited for having GCS was that at one time it seemed to be important.

If you are at place now that you find joy. A place where you now at peace. What is wrong with that? Priorities in life change with time. Today GCS isn't as high up on the list as you thought it was. Worry about not getting if or when that tomorrow comes when it's importance does rise.

There is no "Rule Book" for being trans. No "Have to's" aside the ones you discover fumbling around in the darkness of life trying to find some light. Today, your life is working. If you don't feel that GCS is all that important today to have a life, that is OK. The only person who can stop you from having surgery in some possible Tomorrow is you.