I know this isn't gender therapy, but it keeps me from going off-the-walls crazy until I get there. I have realized a couple things about myself. The first is that I have always felt "safer" around females. I know this goes back as far as early childhood, where my parents have told me about how girls used to help me in pre-k with things like tying shoes etc. In my elementary years, some of closest friends were female (and some were male). in middle school, this was not the case partly because there was extreme pressure to conform to masculine image. In high school, my friends were both male and female again and I would often sit with females at lunch. In college I had both male and female friends, but my closest friends were male,. I used to work in an ultra -masculine environment and I was very depressed and I did not know exactly why, considering I would benefit immensely if the company did rally well. I now work a blue-collar job with mostly female coworkers. This is complex for me. I feel less depressed while working in a more "feminine" environment, but shortly before I started was when I thought I might be trans. I couldn't vocalize it until around November. This is also when (September) my "small dysphorias" became something serious (I have never liked my voice that much and I have always really really hated my facial hair, and being "pre-transgender" was not the first time I tucked my genitalia, looked in the mirror and felt a little better, and not the first time I had ever worn articles of women's clothing). I'm wondering if this an early indicator of being transgender or just an indicator of being a human child.
The other thing is that before I realized I was trans. I had always desired a more effeminate appearance, while most men often desired a strongly masculine appearance. In the past I would have phases where I would attempt to give myself a more effeminate appearance, (these go as far back as 5th grade and come and go and never worked out all that well because many of the attempts were half-hearted). While many men liked being muscular, I preferred having relatively slight build and wished I had a much much slighter build and was glad I turned out to be relatively short compared to most males. I take this as a possible sign of being trans, but I am looking for the input of others.
I am also a fairly quite shy person, who isn't that emotional. A lot of time I have trouble expressing my emotions through a male persona, but not as much trouble expressing myself when I don't put on the male persona, although I am not the most extroverted in the world even when I d not not have to present as male. One of the things that bothers me is that I see a lot of women are talkative and laugh a lot and are more expressive than I am. Sometimes I feel sad that I just can't be "one of the girls" and look like a very quiet unemotional man with some effeminate mannerisms, I want to be able to communicate and connect in a visible way like other women seem to do. I do not fit in with men as a man even though I look like one and have a lot of their mannerisms and ways of communicating. Socially, I fit in best in very nerdy settings, were masculinity and femininity do not matter much and I don't have so many hang-ups about being "shut in" or "not fitting in." I think that estrogen might help with this, but I'm not sure. I am looking for input and I am wondering if anyone else here has felt they are not "one the guys" but feel "shut in" around females because of of voice, language patterns, mannerisms,and expressiveness.
