I am a 23 year old guy questioning whether I want to be a girl. I've always fantasized about it to some degree, starting before puberty and popping up every so often throughout the rest of my life since. In the past few years I have been thinking more and more about it and recently I realized that I couldn't keep pushing those feelings down if I wanted to be happy and healthy.
I have never had especially strong dysphoria, and unlike some I didn't know that I was a girl from a young age. I always got along really well with girls when I was young, better than most of my male friends, and I had a weird fascination with feminine things. Barbie dolls, girls clothing, the girls bathroom- these always seemed both strangely alluring to me and yet unquestionably taboo, so I just ignored those feelings. I would have fantasies about turning into a girl at times, and I loved watching any show that had a male/ female body swap or gender change episode. I also started playing female characters in games, though I felt scared that someone might notice so I usually played male out of obligation.
In middle school I kept questioning whether I was gay, which confused me because I knew for certain that I was only interested in girls, yet the feeling that I was different somehow persisted. I generally liked and felt more secure around my female friends, though things did get a little more awkward when I started discovering my sexuality, which I'm pretty sure I found when watching Sailor Moon for the first time. Holy guacamole.
In high school I found it easy to be friends with girls but impossible to flirt. I had tried crossdressing wearing some of my mom's clothing by now and I was a little bit aware that I liked the idea of being a girl, and this frightened me. I ended up crossdressing in private quite frequently but I always felt really embarrassed about it. I wrote it off as a purely sexual thing at the time and told myself that I just couldn't ever tell anyone about it, and I think this acted as a source of shame for me for many years to come. I felt supremely uncomfortable in the locker room but learned to compartmentalize those feelings and get by. I started bottling a lot of my negative feelings and was only able to manage them through exercise and masturbation. I found that my primary sexual fantasy was imagining myself as a girl, either enjoying my body alone or making love with another girl, usually a crush or a fictional character whom I thought was attractive.
All of these feelings bottled and bottled up into college, where they finally burst. I had found a pair of panties that had been abandoned in the communal laundry room, and when no one claimed them after a week I washed them and brought them back with me. I was ecstatic to be able to have my own pair and I found myself wearing them a lot. At some point however the sense of shame came back in force, and I washed them and donated them at a clothing drive to get rid of them. I ended up going through a pretty serious period of depression, and looking back I think that this was part of what set it off. I got help and recovered from that, and have been trying to explore who I am and who I want to be in earnest ever since. I was still nervous about my possible trans feelings, because I was afraid that I hated myself for feeling that way, and that friends would leave or just not understand. I kept trying to put them out of mind until one day a good friend and crush of mine sat down next to me looking absolutely gorgeous in a long flowing dress. I told her that she looked amazing and, smiling, she took a flower out of her hair and put it behind my ear. Something in my brain kicked into place and for the first time in years I felt really pretty and attractive. I hadn't felt this way in a nice suit at my senior prom, or in a slick shirt giving presentations to a class. To this day I am astounded by just how good the next half hour felt due to that one little gesture. It occurs to me now that I didn't just like this girl romantically, I admired her and wanted to look and be more like her.
I recently began experimenting with my gender now that I have my own place and a job. I bought a skirt and a few pairs of panties recently, which took a lot of willpower as I was mortified about being seen browsing and buying women's clothing. I managed to spend an hour and a half in the women's section looking at dresses and skirts so that I could start forming an opinion on what I actually like and don't like. I was really pleased to find that no one bothered me or gave me more than a short look before moving on, and I am thinking about going back and trying on some dresses soon just for fun. I hated shopping for clothing up until now, but this was actually a lot of fun. Women's clothing is just prettier in my eyes. I have been wearing the skirt I bought whenever I am home for the past week, and it is incredibly comfortable compared to shorts. I'm finding myself wanting to wear it outside my apartment but I'm still far too nervous to do that. Panties feel nice apart from simply not fitting my current anatomy, and I like seeing myself in them. I also just shaved my arms and chest for the first time, and no matter what I decide in the future I intend to keep doing that.
I am still a little bit uncertain about how I want to proceed from here. There are times where I feel that I want to be a woman wholeheartedly, especially whenever I am feeling romantic or sexual in any way. I have a hard time imagining myself in a happy relationship as a man, but as a woman somehow it all clicks and feels right, like I have the confidence to love myself. I feel like going into a relationship when I'm uncertain about all of this is dishonest as well. On the other hand, there are swathes of my day where being a woman vs a man seems unimportant. I go back and forth between preferring to be female and just not caring that much, though I can't say that I ever have felt a strong preference to be a man. It has made me confused about what I really want and if it is worth the effort.
I've done some research on the process of transitioning, and I find it both alluring and frightening. On the one hand, I feel like having a female anatomy would be incredible. I already imagine myself having that anatomy when aroused. If I could snap my fingers and be a woman right now and have no way to go back I would do it in a heartbeat and deal with the consequences as they came. On the other hand, I know that it is nowhere near that simple. The financial cost, numerous surgeries, and social factors all keep me at bay. I've lived my whole life as a white apparently cis apparently straight guy, and I know that has made things easy in many ways. The idea of suddenly facing potential discrimination as a lesbian trans girl definitely makes me nervous. At the bottom of it all I still have that nagging voice in my head asking, "What if you are wrong? What if this isn't what you want and you ruin your life by going down this road?" I'm healthy right now and by all rights should be happy, but I can't help but feel that I'm not being true to myself, that I'm pretending to be a guy.
I'm still not sure exactly what it is I want to do. I think I'm trans, but there is a big part of me that is frightened of that concept and that is casting a lot of doubt. I think I've been afraid of this part of myself for a long time, and my psyche is still trying to combat it. I know it won't ever go away though, because it has always been there, and I no longer wish to deny it. I just want to be honest with myself and do what I need to do to be happy with who I am.
This felt good to write. I've needed to tell someone about these feelings, even if it is anonymously.
