Quote from: MercenaryElf on March 31, 2016, 10:39:09 PM
It makes perfect sense -- there's no one way to be a guy, but that can be hard to explain to someone who may not believe that you're "really" trans because you don't fit the stereotype.
I naturally have a lot of masculine mannerisms, have always adored menswear, and was thrilled in my teens to pass my collection of Hot Wheels on to my baby brother, which he played with while we watched Batman and Sonic cartoons together. But I also didn't violently reject every aspect of being raised as a girl. I have some guilty feminine pleasures (my world stops when the ballroom scene comes on in Labyrinth). Also, I went through a misguided year just before coming out to myself where I tried to "cure" my sense that I'm not a woman by looking very feminine, which is something I haven't seen so far in the transman narratives I've been finding, and has been brought up as a strike against me by everyone I've come out to so far.
Maybe our best "proof" to others that we're trans is in how we carry ourselves through life as we transition. I keep telling myself that one day, I'll have the experience and story to help make things a little easier for other guys struggling with the issues I face now. Until then, I wish you luck (I'm really glad to hear that your parents accept you), and would be interested in knowing if you find any relevant narratives that help.
I guess I haven't done much in the way of research on this particular aspect of being trans, but it hadn't occurred to me that maybe I wasn't the only person who tried to "cure" themselves of being trans.
I think I was just scared, but I went through a couple years of trying to be really into makeup, conventionally feminine clothing, etc. I even changed my mannerisms consciously to appear more feminine. I also, when I was about 13, latched onto this one guy in my class and coached myself to act like I was madly infatuated with him. That was because no one could know I wasn't into boys. (That's how I felt at the time.) I figured, if I made a show of liking a boy, no one would figure anything out. It was like I was saying to everyone, nope, nothing to see here, just a Normal Straight Girl. A person who is a girl, who definitely likes boys, who is also normal.
I don't think I knew the word transgender at the time, but I knew I didn't feel like a girl. So, clearly, the proper solution was to perform heteronormative femininity to an exaggerated degree. I overcorrected, essentially. Everyone thought I was weird, but at the time, I was like, well, at least they bought the lie.
