Am I cursed?

[Katelyn]

So many times I do sooooo want to transition and be female.  Many times I've felt like be a super feminine woman (in terms of clothes and demeanor) and even more felt like having sex as a woman.  But there are many times where I'm just stopped in my tracks (in planning transitioning) because I'm "too guyish", because I feel too aggressive and masculine, or attracted to a woman in a "romantic gentleman way", only for awhile, but enough to throw doubt on me and mess me up.  Not only do I deal with dysphoria, I deal with situations which make me feel like my desires are stupid and irrealistic and at times even that I'm a fool that deluded myself into the idea that I could be a woman and transition.

And then I wear women's clothes and then I feel like a woman.  I feel soooo aggravated and confused.

It's like I'm tri-gendered but with a desire to have a female body and be female, but I feel like I can't deny that I'm tri-gendered.

I had dreams of being a business leader and an organization leader.  In that context, being male would have helped me a lot, but I didn't want to deny my female feelings, and crush my dreams of being a feminine woman.  I feel like if I built a life as male, it'd be a life built on sand.  But on the other hand I don't feel female enough to reliably transition.  I'm stuck in a world that, even though is more friendly to LGBT people now, still is full of people who don't understand and don't tolerate LGBT people, and my gender issues would be a liability to any mainstream organization (especially if I took a leadership position.)  I mean, you can't be seen as a freak and easily get a job, let alone a leadership position (of course its hard enough for anyone to get a job nowadays.) Unfortunately I am not a highly talented musician or someone else who can successfully make money while being able to be very idiosyncratic.

I don't want my gender issues to be an anchor or dead weight to my future.  I don't want people to see me as a freak and that it'd be a liability.  I can't be a damn loner and cutoff my relations with cisgendered people. 

I feel like my future is evaporating and I dunno if it was worth it.  I don't want to have a failed life, dammit!

[Ms Grace]

I get the feeling that, if you are not on hormones, then testosterone might be screwing with your brain in regards to some of your aggressive emotions and behaviours. Pretty hard to feel like a woman when you have that stuff in your body. I should add that there is nothing wrong with being a trans woman and being attracted to women. Also, transition does not have to preclude you from relationships with cis people, from a fully lived life or a successful life. Yes, your life may be different but in no way does it have to be a "failure".

Are you talking to a gender counsellor or therapist? This might allow you to work through your concerns.

[JoanneB]

You are far from alone in the back and forth feelings. I've been dealing with them for years. A positive way of looking at them is that you are blessed in not being a member of the "Transition or Die" club. Arguably it may be a form of denial. Yet today after a lot of work on my emotional health plus 5 years of HRT I don't think it is denial. Just that today, I do not NEED to transition. Though, I know my true lies living as Joanne... if it can be pulled off balancing the other as important aspects of my life.

I can also tell you that in my case the gender issues are, will be and become a much much larger "anchor in your life". Even if you utilize my 3D's of DIversions, Distractions and Denial to "get by". Anchor just does not describe the full depth of becoming a lifeless soulless "thing" that wakes up every day and does what she is "expected". No Hopes. No Wishes. No Dreams. Bar one given up on long long ago yet somehow the embers remain glowing no matter how deep they are buried.