Hello everyone and sorry if this is triggering, insensitive etc.
The reason I'm writing this is because my anxiety has spiked on this issue after reading papers on trans people, trans experiences etc. and finding some similarities, I think that these similarities are either surface level or my mind is distorting/misunderstanding the core issue but I'm also afraid it's not. I'm sorry for doing this and seeking reassurance, I know it's not right, but it's also very addictive and I don't know how to handle my anxiety and despair.
I'm a gay man (I hope) from Greece in my mid 20's and my issues arose in November 2022 when I came out to some of my friends (I've known that I'm gay since 2015 and it felt far more natural than pretending to be straight, where I pretended that I wanted to be a virgin for life etc.) . I was readily accepted, and one of my friends then started laying out some of his weird sexual fetishes about genderbending etc. which culminated with her coming out of the closet as an MtF trans person.
Initially I accepted this and had no trouble with it or her identity. I even had another trans friend that came out to me in 2020 and had no issues. I succumbed to the impulse of looking up our past conversations and noticed that at some point she asked me seriously if I'm trans or non - binary myself and I answered without any hesitation no, which is what I would still answer. I also didn't feel anything, I just felt uncomfortable that I even gave hints that I might be trans. One of my core fears is that if other people ask me if I'm trans or if they tell me I'm trans I will somehow lose control and like the idea of being a woman and start transitioning etc.
When my 2022 trans friend came out I started researching out of curiosity about trans issues (I knew of trans people since elementary/middle school but didn't pay much attention to them and I was politically aware of them since at least 2015 with the bathroom bill craze in the US, so it's not as if I suddenly discovered the New World). I read some stories about men in their 20s and 30s and 40s suddenly realizing that they were trans and transitioning and I was scared
>-bleeped-<less, because I thought "what If I've been trans the entire time and my entire life is a lie?" or "what if I build a life with another man etc. and then suddenly I get the urge to transition or realize I've been trans in my 40s?". The problem is that these thoughts are praying on my realization of being a gay man and are trying to find similarities but it just doesn't feel right for me to be a woman. Again, I have no issue with trans people of all kinds nor have I ever been a transphobe, but even my progressive political sensibilities and my emotional sensitivity as a man is adding fuel to the fire, even though many of my male friends (even the more masculine ones) are somewhat sensitive and maybe insecure too.
I started obsessively thinking about this and feeling like
>-bleeped-<, fearing that I could be trans or a woman, I started thinking back to my earlier days as a child, as a teenager and checking and rechecking every memory and interaction and thought, I started asking other people if they ever thought that I might be a woman or if my name is masculine enough or if my behavior is masculine etc., along with admitting to some pretty embarrassing stuff about my bodily insecurities etc. and I basically humiliated myself by losing control like that, which only made things worse for my psyche. It doesn't help that when I was a child I wore once an article of clothing from my mother, or that I had a better relationship with my mother than my father before switching gears and having a better relationship with dad ever since I was a teenager. Thankfully, I resisted telling my parents because they are incredibly homophobic and asking them about my gender identity would have resulted in them having "fertile ground" to dismiss my homosexuality in the future (I intend to come out to them during this summer actually).
Eventually I visited a psychiatrist and he told me that those are egodystonic thoughts that are the hallmark of OCD etc. and basically he gave me some pills (Xanax and Zoloft) and those helped calm me down a lot. But I'm tortured by thoughts such as "what if I'm pretending this is OCD" or "what if it's not OCD"? In fact, I can't recall ever again thinking about this issue (at least I hope) from January 2023 to December 2023 (I stopped taking my pills without my doctor's consent during the summer 2023 because I felt that they weren't working for my depression and because I was upset when my doctor told me at one of our meetings that I have autism, because it confirms some of my worst fears and suspicions about me and my social deficiencies as well as about feeling in general less than human, feelings and thoughts I've been aware of since at least I was 6 years old). But even then this too worries me because I've read that gender dysphoria ebbs and flows and I've read stories and papers on trans women who lived as men up to their 50's and were very successful and masculine etc.
Recently, my country entered the process of legalizing same sex marriage and I'm trapped for the moment in a very homophobic family and work environment, both of which can't stop forcing homophobic
>-bleeped-< down my throat like the claim that "all homos want to be women deep down", all of which upset me and made me start fearing that I might be trans/a woman and that I've suppressed this so much that I don't even know who I am and that my "OCD" was a cover up for gender dysphoria all along. This has resulted in me doing gender dysphoria "tests" online, or reading papers about gender dysphoria, case presentations etc. or reading up on the experiences of trans people etc. I'm not blaming trans people or my friend for my neuroticism which is my own issue and on which I've started working with a psychologist, we've already made some progress but I'm afraid that I might like these thoughts and that I might decide to transition and become a woman. Although I have to say that this time around my symptoms are far better and far less intrusive and cause much less impairment than the last time.
The thing is that before November 2022 I've never had these issues I think, if anything despite my complex relationship with masculinity as a gay man who is sensitive and loves animals a lot in a conservative, religious society I've always yearned to be more masculine in presentation and I've always imagined myself as a man in the future, even when I was a child, I know this for a fact (I hope). Nor did I ever feel uncomfortable with my genitalia. In fact I was extremely happy during middle school when I started growing facial hair, checking out my facial hair on the mirror was and remains one of my fondest and strongest memories because some of my friends had already started growing facial hair and I was really really envious of them. Even this however gets distorted and I've started doubting whether I really enjoyed it, or maybe the fact that I was envious of other boys/men means that maybe I didn't feel like a boy/man deep down etc.
I'm terribly sorry for bothering you all with this and mostly for relapsing to reassurance seeking, something I had hoped would not happen again, but I'm really terrified that this might not be OCD but gender dysphoria. Unfortunately I've given my gender identity much more thought than I think it ultimately deserves in my case, and I've concluded that even If I'm trans I want to live as a man and be treated as man in a man's body if that makes any sense, or at least I hope that this is my real conclusion and not some form of denial. I will show this all to my psychologist no matter how shameful it is and we've already discussed my thoughts on gender/gender identity.
I just wish that I could somehow make these thoughts go away completely or at least not be bothered by them. I'm afraid that one day they might win and that I might start transitioning and living like a woman or that I might be tortured by them for the rest of my life, although I'd rather be tortured by them for life than live as a woman. Objectively speaking, If a friend of mine started talking the way I do, I would have told him that this is an obvious case of something that causes him anxiety rather than contentment, but my brain keeps treating myself as an adversary instead of a friend and it makes me feel like I'm lying. This isn't the first time this has happened by the way, maybe I'm coping by comparing these situations and trying to insinuate that this is just an obsession, but there have been extended periods of time where I was afraid that I might be a zoophile (triggered by the first episode of Black Mirror and my intense lifelong love for animals) or that my hair is falling (the only thing I hate about being a man tbh is that your hair at some point falls out and I'm prepared to dish out tons of money to not lose it, thankfully my dad's hair hasn't fallen off).
For more context, this is a forum post I made on November 2022 when I was again dealing with this issue:
https://www.mentalhealthforum.net/forum/threads/is-this-trans-ocd-or-am-i-just-trans.564196/I stumbled on this post when I was googling "Trans OCD" recently. Funnily enough, I had actually forgotten that this was mine and was taken aback at how much this was like my experience, until I checked the user name and the location lol.
Hope you have a wonderful day everyone.
