Susan's Place Transgender Resources

This is my first time *publicly* (none of you know me, come on) sharing this with people. Hold on, it'll be a long one. Reading about the truly horrible situations people are in downright terrifies me. I have been confused about my gender for a good few months (15, mTf maybe, heterosexual, bicurious), and I think these stories have had an affect on who I want to see myself as, as i really don't want to have to go through such atrocities. Starting at around age 7, I became interested in the idea of being a girl. Sometimes I legit even pretended I had a vagina. Unlike most transgender people however, this feeling was not that strong. Besides that (well, alot of boys to some degree wonder the same), I have not always been noticibly different from other boys, but (go start at a point I can think of; im tired and in a crowded mall so it's hard to  think straight (hah get it)) when I was around 12-13, I was fed up with maleness and started from scratch with my friends, this time majority girls rather than guys. A running joke became that I was a white girl, which I thought was hilariously accurate based off of my personality. I was obsessed with taking personality quizzes so I took quite a few feminine/masculine ones, and sure enough, I was strongly feminine. Around the start of 9th grade, I started talking to a very opinionated friend of mine that introduced me to feminism. Of course it wasn't new to me; my mom raised me quite well, but I had never really thought things through until I started following Everyday Feminism on Twitter. A few days after, I came across an LGBT article, and I read article after article about acceptance, issues, problems faced by the community, and more importantly, things you should and should not say to members and non members of the LGBT alike. Those articles really made me reevaluate my speech; I have a quite nice, but racist, slightly sexist, and accepting but traditional older role model brother. I hadn't realized until then that I say alot of jokes and words that are offensive and I put and end to it there. Ever since, my relationship (at least on my end) has been somewhat hard with my brother, who had also caught on to my feminine qualities and makes fun of me for it. After my vocab correcting article binge, I took a break from all of that to focus more on school, as the second semester was approaching. After another short break and a break up, I became pretty bored, which led me to read more articles and talk to my friends more. Eventually, I came across one that documented the transition of a college aged student. I hadn't ever put much thought to it, but i had the epiphany that I may be transgender. It would explain a lot of my behaviors and a few little things from my childhood, though I was quick to realize that my story was different than others'. Most people just KNOW pretty much straight out of the womb. Me? When I was young, along with a few other things, in hindsight I was just a bit too obsessed with the "if you switched sexes for a say what would you do" idea. Despite that, once the seed was planted, I researched every possible thing I could about being transgender. About two weeks down that path, I decided I needed someone to talk to about it, so, naturally, I picked my most trusting friend, although she had only recently become one. I was relieved to hear that she supported me, so I went to her and still do nearly daily to talk about where I'm at. For whatever reason, I decided to tell a few more of my friends, the rest of whom also supported me, but only one other I talked regularly with about. By this point, I was already looking up information about hormones and actual SRS. It was something I wanted. Boobs were something I wanted. When I look in a mirror, I see a skinny pale boy with a hint of muscle that the male me wants more of, some leg hair, unkempt pubic and armpit hair, and my usual acne and excema, but in another part of my brain, I really want to just shave all the hair off my body besides the top of my head and have a chest and not have an apple in my neck nor bulge in my pants (I really hate that. stay in place, no random boners, stay invisible please). I have yet to act on the shaving thing (the one factor I can control) due to social pressure, and I'm not one to try stick out, open to all sorts of attention. Because of this, I just look like a lanky teen boy built like a flat rectangle with broad shoulders (no hope of a womanly figure even with hormones, in my opinion). And that's what people know me as. I want to be that girl - (whom I have already named) - but I wish I was just born that way, my life the same, but my body different. After telling that to my bestie, she and I decided that I should really talk to someone about it.A gender therapist.  A professional. But that requires me telling at least my mother (the more accepting of my immediate family; I'm pretty sure she would help me out) and a price for transportation and actual sessions. Since then, the talk has been quite minimal; I've just been absorbing and thinking. But, over the summer, I was asked to watch one of my close friend's dogs (the one who had introduced me to feminism) while she and her family were travelling. The dogs were kept in her room, and at around day two of three, I started a little snooping. It's a bad habit I have that I cant break when I get bored at someone else's home. This I'm not proud of and have told no one (until now I guess. Probably a mistake) So, I went into her closet and just examined what she had. Woah. Clothes. How special. After looking around some more, I came across a cabinet that I guess is her hamper. Curios, I dug through what was there, and cane across a sports bra and a thong. I look around (as if anyone was there), and then saw a bikini and bottoms. I guess in a rush of hormones or something, I tried both on. (Once again, I really shouldn't've. She doesn't know yet becuase I'm sure that would destroy our friendship) They were quite comfortable, different, but amazing. I don't know why, but I felt right in them... until I looked down, saw a curveless chest, and a penis.  Quickly, I put them back exactly how to hey were and left. Each of the next three days, temptation overwhelmed me, and I did the same (leggings ate super comfortable btw). After she came back, a huge wave of regret hit me and I pleaded that nothing would happen. Sure enough, my secret was safe. Fast forward two weeks, and I'm watching another friend's house for a week, this time a more distant friend. I was texting my neighbor and close friend whom I had recently told I was having gender identity issues, and she suggested that I steal a pair of her panties (I had read an article saying that at least wearing some undergarment donated to you or bought in public could help you really get accustomed to the idea of dressing how your gender dresses without mant consequences and discussed it with both my go to friend and this girl). I of course said a bunch of stuff quite hypocritical to my actions, and said no. The second to last day, I broke and took one pair home. VERY NOT PROUD of it. But, I really can't change what I've done. I just know not to do it again. And now you're all caught up.
I don't know who I am. Am I a boy going through a phase? Am I a person who thought transitioning would help them, but reallly I'm non binary? Or was I right, I am a woman, and I am transgender?
Now, after typing this all out, I realize you can't really direct me without being me and knowing every last detail, but I've already typed so much and it's hard to focus. Thank you for the long read, and if you don't mind, could you leave what you think of my situation and possibly explain how I could bring this up to my mother in order to get access to a therapist? Many thanks!
K/E

Welcome to Susan's Place. Clearly you need to see a gender therapist. In the end, you are the only one who can determine where in the transgender spectrum you fit. To help you with this, I am going to give you two links. The first is our WIKI  (https://www.susans.org/wiki/Transgender) where you will be able to learn the terms that are described by the word transgender. The second link is  "the transition channel"  (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfO3B57E6NpIn-KsVjvmLLw) where a therapist will as some of the questions that are used to diagnose transgender/transsexualism. After you review this, feel free to post your questions on this thread and I will try to answer them.

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I would not worry about your transgender story not matching the narrative in those articles. Sometimes trans people oversimplify for the cis world and their media. This does a disservice of course because so many trans people have more complicated narratives. Your story sounds very typical for a trans person. Of course you could be non-binary. That is something you will have to figure out for yourself. Since you like to binge read articles, go research non binary people and read their stories and see what resonates. You can also read stories by other people on this site and see if you relate. For example for me, reading narratives by butch women clarified to me that I wasn't a butch woman. The problem with trans narratives is that a lot of the "story" was invented by cis gender psychiatrists and doesn't authentically tell our stories.

Now that you know what size you are, no more stealing panties. Order them online.

With your youth, your body might change more on hormones than you think. Youtube has people's transition videos; check out videos by other young people. I think you'd be surprised.

One exercise that people sometimes do to try to determine what gender they are is to imagine yourself sometime far in the future when you're middle aged and at the height of your career; or when you're growing old. Do you want to grow old as an old man, or an old woman? Can you imagine yourself as a successful man or do you shrink from the thought? But would being a grown woman appeal to you? Or do you picture yourself as a non binary person? Try the different shapes out and see how you feel about it.

Thank you so much for your quick responses. After coming across this site awhile back and reading a few pages, I knew I should also post eventually, but only got round to it now.

Although my schedule is about to get quite busy with HS band, I will try to read as much of what you have linked as possible and then respond back here when time permits.

And for AnxietyDisord3r (I hope this tags you or something I don't know how to do that yet), to order panties I'd really need to tell my mom or get a friend to, but I'm quite apprehensive to do so even though I'm sure it will be fine. After taking that one pair, I vowed not to do it again just becuase how wrong it felt. Also, I have watched one or two videos documenting hormonal transition, but I'll definitely try to find more!
For the looking into the future exercise, I immediately see myself as a man, but I'm not really 100% comfortable with it, and nor am I with a trans woman, though when I dream of what i want to do now, I include being transgender? (I want to be a/(the first?) transgender astronaut).
I also think a part of my indecisiveness (besides the fact that I'm always like that) is not just that I've come across lots of press about how poor trans ppeople are treated, but that I don't think I'll ever look like what I want to without many many surgeries.
Once again, thanks for your advice.