Happy New Year, everyone! I'm 20 years old, AMAB, and I have a bit of a complicated story. I was thinking about writing this to summarize my experiences with gender to wrap up the year.
I've spent the majority of my adolescence up until now with undiagnosed OCD. This year I have actively worked on it, and I can say happily that I've overcome it via acceptance-based therapy and mindfulness. Yay me!
Now, since I was a child (roughly around eight years old), I've had a subtle affinity towards femininity. I didn't quite have an outlet for it save for video game avatars. During my adolescence, I found myself inexplicitly expressing femininity in subtle ways. I grew out my hair, shaved my legs, and expressed myself completely feminine through video games. It was when I was seventeen years old that I found out about transgender experiences and HRT. I began to question my gender identity.
This is where things became complicated. For whatever reason, during this time, my symptoms of OCD began to increase in severity. This coincided with my questioning of gender identity. As such, I became extremely fixated on my gender identity. I was unknowingly under the assumption that if I "resolved" my gender, I would feel relief from the anxiety that comes from OCD.
Eventually, at nineteen years old, I received my diagnosis of OCD as well as an unrelated misdiagnosis. I didn't work on my OCD, as I thought I was well informed of its nature, instead addressing the misdiagnosis.
A month later, I began DIY HRT after planning for a year. The symptoms of OCD didn't allow me to consider another option, as I was dead set on HRT "curing" the anxiety caused by my gender identity. I would go on a monodose regimen of estradiol for about 4.5 months.
My experience this time was... odd. Most of this is largely in part because of OCD. I remember the positive being the physical changes. In particular, fat redistribution and skin softening. The odd parts were living socially as a woman.
I passed quite well during this time at work. Often up until the point I spoke, as I couldn't do voice training in my living situation. I recall being treated differently; I recall acting differently.
In retrospect, I didn't like the social aspects of transition as much as I thought I would've. I'm under the belief now that there are things I believe I like in theory that don't correlate well in practice. That was one such case.
I'm unsure if this was because of OCD or because of an innate incongruence. But I recall at one point being outside, looking at my reflection in a car window and feeling a sense of utter incongruence. The idea of transition after that point felt less and less appealing to me, eventually leading to my detransition.
The period thereafter was hard; in fact, it was probably one of the hardest things I've done. Whatever physical symptoms I felt during the detransition stage were amplified tenfold by OCD on a mental level. I spent nearly all of my waking hours during this time researching about every little symptom.
Eventually, I'd come to realize that OCD was the problem, which led to both my mental and physical recovery up until now. It was all very scary and very hard, but I always knew things would inevitably get better, and they did.
So where am I now in terms of gender identity?
I've found that when I strip all the fear and anxiety away, I find that I don't quite care too much about my gender identity. To be specific, I am now okay with ambiguity, and even more so, I find that I don't care for and even dislike labels. Gender identity isn't really something I think about often these days.
But if I had to label it, I'd say I'm certainly a guy, though I still have that affinity for femininity. I don't want to live as a woman. My thoughts of womanhood are often idealized, and I have lived experience to compare them to.
I will say, there are days now that are just so comfortable. I'm at my computer during the evening, playing a video game. I'm wearing comfortable clothing, not particularly feminine or masculine. Just loungewear. My hair is up in a ponytail, and my bangs keep getting in my eyes. My body hair is shaved. It's vaguely feminine, and I like that. It's enough for me, and I still feel male beneath it all.
The fear for me really is losing that, and that is largely why I feel motivated to post today. I know one day I'll get older, and I might not be as feminine as I'd like. Perhaps my hair will slowly begin to fall out as I masculinize with age. Despite it all, I still think about HRT sometimes. I often think about low dose without social transition, though I'm not sure if that's effective or safe. I like the idea of a middle ground. Having a body just feminine enough that I won't lose to time. It's not as if I am afraid of aging either. I just think it would feel sad to age in a way that makes me lose access to femininity forever. My hope (if the rules allow it) is that people more experienced than I in life could share some insight and perspective into my particular situation.
I'm finally at a good place, and now I'm just a bit worried I'll lose it one day.
I really do hope I followed the rules posted correctly and posted in the right place. This is, in fact, my first time ever using a forum or ever speaking about this topic with anyone; please let me know if I've accidentally broken a rule. I especially apologize if I have offended anyone, please know that was not my intent! Anywho, thank you for reading my post, and please have a happy New Year!
