Hello, I am new to the community and I am fairly young and still in the process of figuring things out.
I recently came to terms with my gender confusion and would like some advice/help (warning..wall of text).
Let's start with some background information.
I am biologically a female, but have always been in favor of male clothing/attributes/traits. As a child, I was led to believe this affinity stemmed from my older brother, who was my sole friend and playmate. I followed him around and tried my best to make myself into a copy of him, which I hear is quite normal behavior for a younger sibling. My parents always dressed me very femininely, in cute little dresses and whatnot. I was very athletic, liked to run around and ride my tricycle and eventually my bicycle. Growing up, from about Kindergarten to 4th grade, most, if not all of my friends were male. I never played with action figures or dolls, only stuffed animals. In fact, when I was about 6-7 years old, for my birthday a family friend bought me a Barbie doll. I showed disgust when my mom presented it to me and she placed it somewhere in my room. I brought it back to her months later, saying "Mommy can have this. I don't need it anymore." I consider that my earliest memory of my gender confusion. I also had strong yearnings for a short haircut, often imagining myself with short hair, more like my brother's.
Around 4th-5th grade is when I began puberty and started to hate my body. I hated the monthly periods, the development of my breasts as well as my hips, everything. I felt uncomfortable in public while adjusting to these new body parts. It felt and looked so incredibly wrong, that I did not know what to do. At school and at home I was taught that it was normal to feel confused during puberty, but to what certain degree? I didn't know. I thought my dysphoria was normal, and that I would get over it. During 6th grade I became more social (I was an antisocial recluse before) and became friends with people. This was my effort to be normal. And it worked, for some time. Eventually I reached the breaking point. I tried to kill myself for reasons that I did not even understand at the time. I only knew that I felt very sad and depressed and had given up and had thought that life was not so worth living. Unfortunately my breakdown was during a school event and I was required to have a psychiatrist analysis before returning. After, I went into therapy for a year. During that year, I lied. I told them all my problems were because I didn't like the people at my school. To be honest, I didn't know what was the matter. At some point, I got involved with a girl and I started to develop feelings for her. It wasn't until long after until I realized that these feelings were beyond the point of friendship and I started to think I may be gay. At the time, I didn't understand homosexuality and was afraid of it because of the heteronormativity that exists in our society. Over the years I realized this was something I had no control over, and accepted my sexual orientation. I came out to my closest friends, and I felt so relieved when they said they didn't have a problem with it. But I knew that wasn't the end of it. Something still felt wrong.
Last year in the beginning of freshman year I joined our school's GSA and one day we were talking about transgendered people. I was instantly intrigued and found out more about it in my own time. From watching YouTube videos of transitioning people and their thoughts and feelings, I felt that I could really connect and relate to what they were saying/going through. I began binding daily and dressing in a more masculine/unisex way. I never wore feminine clothing and to formal events (I play the piano so I am always playing at recitals, competitions, auditions and such) I wore collared shirts with ties. I hadn't worn a dress or a skirt in 10 years (14, almost 15 years old now). Just the thought of doing so felt undeniably wrong, as if doing that would break some kind of secret rule that everyone knows about without anyone telling them. At this point my parents noticed that I was more masculine than feminine and my mom was truly upset about this, never being able to have a "pretty little princess." They said I was a tomboy and that was okay but my mom told me that I would probably start dressing more feminine when I became older, that now was my "experimental" stage.
Now, more than half a year from then, I have felt more uncomfortable with my body than ever before. I stopped binding because it's hard to breathe (my chest is not that large...32A cup, but I have a small frame in general...I'm only 5 feet) and it hurts and I worry that if I wear it for too long that I will start having respiratory problems, which I absolutely do not want. I don't wear bras anymore because they feel wrong as well. Instead, I wear baggy clothing like sweatpants paired w/ a sweatshirt/jacket and I wear a tank top underneath. I cut my hair shorter, and often get mistaken for a young boy from the back. I receive tremendous discomfort from looking at my breasts/hips/waist/butt, those are really the only areas that I have a problem with. I looked into solutions for these and plan to have top surgery + mansculpture with Dr. Garramone in Florida at some point when I am in college (4+ years!). My only concern is that I do not consider myself trans...I really don't see myself as male or female, I just see myself as myself. I also don't mind being called a boy or a girl, he or she, etc. So I would like to remain female because if I decided to transition then that would result in the loss of my family and probably some of my rights (unfortunately). My family is not religious at all, but they come from China and it is quite obviously something unknown to them and that means they probably disagree with it. I also have not come out to my parents (as gay). I often find my father making nasty comments about gay men, which my mother berates him for because it's none of his business and it's mean. I remember once my mother told me that she watched the transition process of a male to female transgender. The way she talked about it didn't really seem like she was bothered by it. She did refer to the person as a ->-bleeped-<-...but she probably did not realise that it is a derogatory term. It seems that my mother is more accepting of gays and transgendered peoples, but my father is not so fond of it, often joking about it and mocking it. However, I feel that if I did come out to them they would be horrified and our relationship would become strained and eventually fall apart. They feel that being gay/transgender is fine because it's really unrelated to them and it's other people's lives and they can do what they want, but if it was their own child they would not even tolerate it. Right now I'm just trying to ease my dysphoria with my body, and there's not much I can do. At 5'0 and 100 lbs, I'm at a healthy weight level so losing weight is not an option, and I am already quite fit since I jog a lot. Yesterday I told one of my good friends about my confusion and she seemed to be okay with it, but she didn't really know too much and could not offer me any advice. Before I realized how I felt I never understood how a person could feel like they were different from what they were born as, but now since I am going through it I understand it but I still can't believe that such a thing can happen, regarding psychology and biology. I began to cry because I was so confused and didn't understand anything. All I ever wanted was to be normal. It's not enough to have issues with thinking you're too fat or too skinny, I had to have problems with the actual structure of my body.
Right now I am just wondering what a person should do in my situation. I do very badly want to get surgery to solve my dysphoria issues (really the only issues I'm having right now). I always wear long shirts (naturally, clothes don't fit my because I'm so short) & wear my pants low (don't worry I'm not sagging) to conceal my butt and hips. I want to know if there are other people like myself, who don't really care about their gender but have major dysphoria with their body and do want to proceed with surgery. Could I even get surgery? I read on Garramone's site that one of the requirements for surgery was to have a letter stating that "This is the next step in the transition process." But is this even considered transitioning? I still want to remain my biological gender but in a way, I guess my body will be transitioning. And if anyone has done mansculpture w/ Garramone please let me know what the results were (significant decrease in hip size or no? noticeable?). I am at a stage where a lot of things are turning out completely different from what I expected and I need some support, advice, help, just to know I'm not alone. I would see a gender therapist but obviously that would not work out because I am still a minor and live with my parents (they're not accepting and plus I would not want to spend any more of their money on my personal problems).
