Hi so I've being going back and forth about my gender identity for years now.
At the moment I'm saying FTM but questioning if I'm really bigender. I know labels are labels but the dysphoria has been creeping up higher and higher since accepting myself.
I've been acting like and convincing myself I'm female for a very long time and wondering if I've created this "attractive female" mental image (I know this sounds a bit up myself) to handle the dysphoria. For months I've been extremely dysphoric and desperate to change my appearance and go on T. At the time I was angry with my body and ready to rip out my hair but now that I've had a hair cut, dressing in male clothes and binding, I've calmed down.
I notice when I have 'gender flips' its dependent on mood and situation. I'm confused as to whether these 'girl modes' are real or actually the product of low dysphoria/socialization. The thing that makes me suspicious is that I can control these modes most of the time. If I make myself angry/do masculine things or if I'm around women, I feel strongly male. But when I calm myself down and am around men, I feel female and comfortable with my voice.
The suspicious thing is I can make these shifts happen multiple times in a short span of time (seconds-mins). Whenever I hear about bigender/genderfluid people, it's like they wake up one day male and the next day female or flip less frequently.
Since living full time as male, I haven't had the desire to change my appearance. If I imagine myself reverting back to feminine presentation, I cringe. I considered I might just be a tomboy but if I was a girl, ideally I would look feminine.
A bit about my history:
I've always known there was something different about me. Growing up, all my interests were masculine- action figures, playing soccer with the boys, video games, etc. Whenever we dressed up or played pretend, I would always be a male character. In RPGs, I would always make my character male and my brother would comment on it and say it was weird. Feeling guilty, I made the excuse that that the men looked better than the women in the game.
When I started liking boys, I felt unattractive and they wouldn't like a girl who liked to pretend to be a boy. I hated dresses but I started wearing them for approval. I began acting feminine to please my parents and other people. I didn't feel it was wrong but I was a bit uncomfortable. I brushed if off and thought it was the right thing to do and other girls felt like this.
Puberty hit and I went to an all girls' school, there were no boys and I felt free to be myself. I began to have chest and voice dysphoria, and felt like the opposite gender to girls. I never fit in with girls and always felt discomfort in the changing rooms but during that time it was like a switch going off in my head. I felt like a perv in the changing rooms. When I started liking girls, I felt straight and it didn't feel wrong. At the time I didn't know what transgender was.
But then because of religion and family, after I graduated I resolved to stamp out the 'sins'. I went ultra feminine and kept repeating to myself "I'm a girl, I'm a girl" to stop liking girls. I attracted straight guys and felt desirable and happy. But as time went by I felt empty and I was just going through the motions each day, reading off a script.
Fast forward to now and I've finally accepted being trans and bisexual. For months I've been waking up every day thinking "I need go on T, I was meant to be a man". I told myself I didn't need to transition years ago but now I don't know if I can live like this any longer. I highly suspect these 'flips' are the result of fluctuating dysphoria and me just being used to being socialized as female.
But it's scaring me and I really need advice (my counsellor doesn't know much about bigender people).
