My Own Brain Is Transphobic Towards Me

[HannahHindle]

I know the title may sound strange...but recently I've been feeling almost...transphobic towards myself. Like, I totally accept everyone else but when it is applied to myself I've been feeling disgusted and embarrassed with myself recently, like what I am doing is wrong. When I was younger I would constantly fantasise about being a girl and, although I thought it strange to myself, I knew it was what I desired and I accepted who I was...now I don't know whether it's because I've finally come out to some people and the doctors and it's feeling too real, whether I'm scared of rejection so my brain is gearing me up for it or whether it's because I am close to coming out to my dad and stepdad who are...probably going to be less supportive than my friends and other family members but I just am feeling not only doubt but an embarrassment and feeling of futility that I have never felt before that is coupled with thoughts of "this is wrong and you shouldn't be doing this" and "you'll never be a girl so why bother".

Has anyone else dealt with this. It's scaring me as it's rather new. I've always been embarrassed but never disgusted with myself before...

[RobynTx]

It's human nature.  I had that all the time but it gets easier with time.  The more I talk about it to someone the better I feel.  I know I'm going to be one ugly woman but at least I'll be a woman.  A good therapist will do wonders and having goals planned helps as well. 

[Janes Groove]

Yes. It's totally normal and is difficult to work thru.  MTF Transition is like a birth.  Ask any woman and she will tell you that birth is painful.  The old male self, dying, in it's death throes goes kicking and screaming into that good nite.  I remember after I started transitioning and living full time as a woman the first time I tried to watch Denver Broncos games on television like I used to.  I honestly couldn't do it.  I had too many weird feelings sitting their in women's clothes listening the the male announcers.   I had to turn the sound down.  The feelings were quite intense and confusing.  I'm not a big sports fan. I only really like football.  But I used to watch the games with my dad and brother and other male friends as a boy and later as a man, we even had season tickets at the old Mile High Stadium.  It took a while and transition itself is about becoming more comfortable with ones new gender role.  Now I never have those feelings anymore and I am only enthusiastic and looking forward and loving the new life I have.

[Sophia Sage]

I struggled with feelings like that back when I transitioned, oh yes. 

It takes a while for that "voice" to quiet the f down.  Me, I think that voice is actually a manifestation of dysphoria -- a response to the pre-verbal feelings of sadness, anger, fear, and disgust that combine so uniquely to become dysphoria.  Well, then the mind tries to process those feelings, and it identifies the current changes in one's life (transitional steps) as the cause -- which makes sense, actually, because when we transition it really does open us up to so much dysphoria that's been more or less effectively repressed before now. 

And as we transition, we become much more keenly aware of what it will take (both bodily changes and social ones) to get properly gendered by ourselves and others day in and day out.  That "self critique" will definitely feed the voice of doubt. 

But the thing to remember, always -- how do you feel about being gendered one way versus the other way.  Not about the possibility, or what it will take, or what it will cost, but just the feeling of being properly gendered rather than wrongly gendered.  That's what really helped me to know that I was on the right path.  Because those feelings never changed -- the wrong gendering made me angry, and upset, and hopeless, and despairing, and full of loathing.  The right gendering, on the other hand, always made me feel relieved if not euphoric.

Go with those feelings.

[MissKairi]

wouldnt worry about that.
human nature to doubt and also human nature to always try to take the path of less resistance.

I often think that no matter what I am still going to be a man in a dress but like with all things, once we push ourselves into these situations we start to accept that we are the gender we are and the body is simply a shell made from a mix up of hormones during puberty.

at least thats what i thibk

[Alex81]

I'm currently not in any way not transitioning, but this has been me for a very long time (at least 15 years). For me, its never gotten better, just comes and goes. Sorry I'm not helpful.

[NancyBalik]

Hannah,  I feel this so often--I also think that it is perfectly fine for others to be trans, and I celebrate their courage to be themselves.  But, (as I have posted elsewhere) I am totally closeted and live in a DADT marriage.  So I get messages all the time that who I am, what I feel, and what I do is not okay and unacceptable.  What you describe, and what I feel and struggle with, I think, is shame.  This is the internalized belief that somehow we are "less than" because we have the gender feelings that we have.  I saw it mentioned on another thread on this forum that shame about being trans is nothing more than internalized transphobia--makes sense to me.  I fight this every day as I try to embrace all of who I am.  Try to hold your whole self in warm regard (I'll try to do the same), Nancy

[amandam]

It's your internal self telling you to man up. Act like a man. What are you? Some kind of fruit? I do the same thing. I work out, lift, had tattoos, etc. all in an effort to be "normal". It just made me unhappier. I tried to like the muscular guy I saw in the mirror. I really did. And I was a player and chased women, pretty good at it back in the day. But now I think, that I did it to be close to them, cause I couldn't be them. I am in therapy now and my next goal is to work through all my macho barriers if they are in the way of self-acceptance. The internal war has to stop if I am to be happy.