As of late, I have had a bug in my mind that has been just eating away at me. The feeling that my somewhat atypical experience makes me feel fake. The accusations of us users here being “fake transfolk” is not exactly helping matters for me either. It really boils down to a few bullet points that I can hopefully outline in a coherent fashion.
I have moved with incredible speed throughout my transition thus far. I am in my mid-30s. I started questioning my gender in mid-late 2019. My egg finally cracked in June 2022, at the age of 32. I started HRT a short two months later in August of 2022. Since then, I’ve changed my legal name and gender. I have also started the process of bottom surgery and am currently scheduled to have the procedure in April. That is 22 months from egg cracking to bottom surgery.
I never really questioned my gender during my childhood. I read a lot of stories about transfolk who have known for a very long time. Like, most seem to fall into the realm of having known since prepubescence or somewhere in the years of puberty. Now, I had a very…special…time as a teenager where I don’t remember a godsdamned thing about any of it. To put it in short, I was thrown out of the house at 15 and was forced to take care of my dementia laden grandparent. Either way, I’m pretty certain that questioning my gender in any manner wasn’t a part of it.
I honestly just feel like any and all signs I had pointing to the fact that I was trans all my life feel fabricated on my part cause I feel like I’m chasing a fad so to speak. Trying to fit in with my friends and my family. This thought isn’t entirely unwarranted. I’m pansexual and came to realize this back in 2007. I knew this, yet still exclusively called myself gay at the time because I thought it would help me find friends. I just wonder if this is another of those cases.
I will post some positive reinforcement at the very least. As noted, signs did exist of me being trans dating all the way back to the age of 4. I used to pretend I was pregnant alllll the way back then when playing with my sisters. Something I did quite often if my memories serve me well. I never really cared for toys as a child as I preferred video games back then. I did, however, want toys geared towards girls back then, like Polly Pocket. Even to current me, those things were dope as hell and I wish I had one. Moving past the dark years, I wanted to dress in skirts in my late teens and try walking in high heels. I played girls in video games starting in my mid-20s. I openly wished to have breasts shortly thereafter. I m also on record at the time of saying “Y’know, I wouldn’t mind having a vagina. I don’t think I’d care that much if I lost my dick.”
Ultimately, I feel as though maybe I’m just psyching myself out because I have a major life change coming up in a scant couple months. Even with all this on my mind, I still think it was the best decision I ever made for myself as of current. I can’t imagine a life where I would go back to being a man. I can’t imagine losing all that I’ve gained thus far. My body, my voice, my emotions. All of it. I don’t want to lose it. At the end of the day, I’m just afraid I’m going to look back at all of this in 10 years and say “Boy I sure made a colossal mistake right there.” My experience being atypical makes me think that maybe I am just riding a fad so to speak. After all, I never came to this realization until recently, so late in my life.
When it boils down to it, I’m not really looking for validation or any of that. I get enough of that from my partners. What I want is a raw opinion and some discussion into the matter. If you feel as if you wish to respond, feel free to ask me any questions you so desire. So long as they’re not identifying, I don’t mind sharing most information about myself. I’m an open book. Either way, thank you for making it through this post. It is greatly appreciated that you took the time out of your day to read me rambling on in a word salad only fit for a big trough.
TL;DR I’m extremely insecure about my transness due to atypical life experiences compared to the community at large and am scared of making a big mistake.
Not atypical. But your feelings are valid and grounded in your material reality.
A couple notes: bringing this up is at its core, is trying to find further justification for something you want - which is to be a woman in every way possible. A cis person doesn’t want to change their gender, a cis person doesn’t feel comfortable even with the idea of transitioning let alone following thought on it. As trans people we can be scared and have doubts, we’re only human and it’s a big life change in an unsupportive world. What’s more, cis people don’t look for clues and signs that they’re trans. You’re reaching for as much justification as you can get because we live in a world that wants to deny us an existence, and our culture really does that to all kinds of people - that’s an ill of the culture, not you.
Further, not remembering chunks of your childhood is symptomatic of trauma. This trauma can be something that was directly done to you, but also being raised as the gender that you’re not is also traumatic but much harder to see than a flagrant abuse.
Talk with a therapist if you can get one! Either way, we will of course be here to lend an ear wherever we can!
I really should find a way to properly process the trauma that I dealt with as a child. I have some memories of the time between the ages of 14 and 17, but not very many. I know vaguely what happened during that time. Unfortunately, that was almost 20 years ago, so even if the memories are there, they might fade to the point where I won’t be able to properly deal with them. I really should look into a therapist though. If only it weren’t absurdly difficult to find one for LGBTQIA+ issues near where I live.
I definitely am just kinda fishing around for justification for being trans as well, but part of me also wishes I weren’t. Life for me has gotten so terrifying and so fucking difficult since I made that jump to start HRT 17 months ago. Constantly having to worry about passing, how I look, how I sound, if my boobs are growing properly, if my beard is finally gone or not, if my clothing choices make sense, if some random chud is going to clock me and start shit with me, just everything really. It’s just so much and takes such a mental toll on me.
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Your last point is pretty damn good, ngl. You’re right. A cis individual would never think such things or even do such things. I guess I’m just really scared of everything. I have a ton of major changes in my life happening over the next 3 months along with my bottom surgery and I’m just…not really keeping up with it mentally. It’s rough. But you’re right. This is my path. Just because it doesn’t match up with others doesn’t make it any less valid. It’s mine after all.
Also, I love your username. That is all.
What makes your experience atypical? What specifically does that change about transition?
My honest thought reading that was that I don’t see that as very atypical. Or rather that atypical experiences like that are pretty typical. Vaguely having some things in childhood that could have just been a boy playing around but not actually being able to process any of it for years due to processing trauma instead until it comes together all of a sudden? I’ve heard that one before!
For me I don’t think I’d ever be able to afford it and I don’t think I’d ever be in a position socially where I could safely come out. And I don’t always feel that strongly about it, sometimes I think if I had been born a woman I’d just want to transition to being a man. Sometimes I think it’d be cool to just have a vagina but still be a man or get an orchiectomy and leave it at that but I can’t see committing to either one.
i feel the same way sometimes. i know a lot of us do. i don’t know that it’s possible to know the self to any permanent extent, but personally anxieties about the way i might feel in the future aren’t what i want to base my choices on. and i am happier now. imagining going back is a nightmare. if i change my mind in the future, i was happier for a time and i think that’s worth it
sorry if this isn’t a helpful perspective, but it’s something i think about a lot and this is always the answer i come to
Doesn’t seem atypical to me. The common narrative that is presented to cis people (often by other cis people, but also by trans people trying to present their personal experience or provide a compelling example) is that of a specific subset of trans people, which is partly dependent on certain conceptions of gender, life experiences, etc.
Personally, I didn’t really grow up with strict gender norms in the household (mostly because my mom doesn’t follow the social expectations of her AGAB) and didn’t know anything about trans people. Gender was just the body parts you were born with, so of course I thought I was in the “boy” group: behaviors, preferences, etc were all irrelevant. Sure, I conformed more when in public, but given I’m also ADHD and probably autistic, masking was second nature from a young age.
For other’s, they had a very strict family with regards to gender conformity and never really had a chance to express themselves any other way and never realized how much they dislike the box they were forced to occupy because they knew nothing else.
For many trans people, there’s the knowledge that they’re different from others with their AGAB in some ways, but they lacked the conceptual framework/language of gender or being trans to have the words to put to their experience.
To put it in short, I was thrown out of the house at 15 and was forced to take care of my dementia laden grandparent.
Just want to point out that something like this would be so pressing that you really might not have had the liberty to think about your gender as much as you might otherwise have done were it not for this. It’s a lot harder if you’re struggling to survive.
As others have pointed out, your experience is actually highly typical of the community at large. As in, you hit all the marks of actually common trans biographies. The thing is, if you feel that you’re speedrunning your transition and that you aren’t ready for bottom surgery yet, it’s ok and valid to postpone and make another appointment at a later date, or to call it off entirely. You can progress through this at your own pace, it’s your decision which steps to take and it doesn’t make you less trans or less of a woman when you’re unoperated, the only question should be what kind of body you want to live in and that just varies a lot from person to person. I know several people who went off testosterone HRT and still identify as nonbinary and are still gender as fuck and active parts of local queer communities. I just met another one yesterday at my local dyke bar, bowl cut, miniskirt and complete bear mode body hair, pronouns any / all, but statistically they count as a detransitioner when the reality is simply that they’ve gotten all they want out of T and are fine with that. The idea that we need to follow a pre-determined checklist of necessary transition steps and must not deviate from it, the threat that backing down, reversing, stopping or just pausing aren’t acceptable options, that’s such a pile of horseshit. This isn’t how our lives play out irl, people are messy and complicated and we’re allowed to have messy and complicated relationships to our gender and to our transition.
I’m not so concerned that I’m not personally ready for it, but rather that I don’t deserve it. As noted, I’m moving super quickly through this whole thing and I know that there are a ton of folks out there who have been waiting for so long and have known for so long. It’s a matter of I feel guilty that those other people are getting what they need over me, someone whose egg cracked a mere year and a half ago. I just feel…fake. I hate feeling like this. I don’t want to feel like this. I don’t like the doubt. It’s really unsettling and just fucks with me fully.
Also, I refuse to detransition. I’d rather die. Hands down. I want to keep moving forward. It’s why I refuse to cancel my surgery. It’s why I do my damnedest to give my injection every week. I don’t wanna go back. I never want to be a “man” ever again.
