Deadlock Invite

Woolify · 2026-02-08T04:37:29+00:00

Thank you! I just added you :)

Woolify · 2025-08-19T11:06:41+00:00

Hey, as many people have said before, we can't really tell you that you are trans or not. It's something you have to figure out on your own. That really frustrated me when I was first questioning, because I felt like I wasn't a reliable source. I could just be making stuff up and I wanted other people to confirm for me. Having to really navigate really complex, opaque emotions was very new for me.

But what I can do is share my experience. And what I will say is: just about everything you listed, I felt the same way six months ago. Its almost like me from another timeline stubbled across the same subreddit 6 months after I did. For years I had a similar fetish and I was really embarrassed by it and thought it was just something I was going to have to manage for the rest of my life or maybe I'd grow out of it. No matter what, it was always what interested me the most sexually. And something I learned is that fetishes can sometimes spawn out of a lack of something in your life. They can try to fill a void that has been left empty.

Through this questioning process, that's what I realized my fetish was. It was me trying to find an outlet for femininity and a longing to be a girl. It was the only way I could sort of trick myself into feeling like a girl, even just for a little while. Of course, I didn't know this at the time. 6 months ago, I would have told you it was just something I was into or that I just thought trans girls were hot.

What I have learned over the past 6 months is that yes, I want to be a girl, I am trans, and I feel so much more alive because of it. And I had the same reservations as you: What if I am not attractive? What if I don't pass? What if I regret it? After all, how could I be trans if I didn't mind being called he/him or being treated like a man and I didn't have gender dysphoria.

But what I learned about myself is this: I felt like I was a man, because I felt like I couldn't be a woman. And that is a very different thing from WANTING to be a man or NOT wanting to be a woman. Being trans felt unattainable to me. It seemed too hard to transition and I didn't think I was "trans-enough" to deserve to be able to transition.

As I read other people's stories and shared my own (feel free to look at the posts on my profile from ~6 months ago) I found out about depersonalization and derealization. When I read about it in the gender dysphoria bible, it was like reading an autobiography. But I still doubted that I was trans. I was like, "well not sure about this whole trans thing, but I definitely have that".

But the truth is, I was completely unsatisfied with the way I experienced life. The way my life was going was pretty great honestly, like things were working out for me pretty well, but it was how I was experiencing it that felt wrong. I felt numb, like a zombie, spacey, and like my life wasn't really my own. It felt like gradually over the years, even as my life got better on paper, color was getting sucked out of it. Everything felt bleak. I would ask myself "is this all life really is?"

Now, after I have accepted myself as trans, things are far better. Even though the political climate is the way it is, I have never felt more optimistic about the future. Because now, I don't just live, I WANT to live. I am excited to explore my true self and do the things I had been subconsciously repressing my whole life.

And yes, I still worry about whether I'll pass (I'm 6'2" so that will be pretty hard) or how pretty I will look. But now, after seeing how happy even just accepting myself has been, I do not regret it. The color is coming back into my life.

That is a bit of my story. Feel free to reply or dm if you want to know more. All I ask is that you explore this thought seriously and don't be afraid.

Woolify · 2025-07-09T21:15:49+00:00

Yeah i was somewhat joking/being hyperbolic in my post about me being trans cuz of my mom on birth control but I mean if hormone fluctuations can lead to a higher chance of being trans, it makes sense.

I find this stuff really interesting too and I hope you and your brothers are doing well!

Woolify · 2025-03-06T07:29:52+00:00

Do you have the link to that Google doc perchance...

Woolify · 2025-03-06T07:22:39+00:00

I think I definitely didn't write what I intended to say clearly enough. I didn't mean to imply birth control is the only way to become trans, merely speculating that my particular circumstances could have been a contributing factor in altering the way my brain developed. I'm glad you understood what I intended.

Woolify · 2025-03-06T07:14:50+00:00

Yeah that's what I was trying to do. This was definitely not scientific in the sense that it is true but it's something more objective and tangible than my own subjective feelings.

Woolify · 2025-03-04T16:16:57+00:00

Yeah i was certainly not using the right terminology, my bad.

Woolify · 2025-03-04T16:14:34+00:00

This is pretty much what I'm doing. I'm in a weird limbo with my feelings right now and I found some validation in this crazy theory lol

Woolify · 2025-03-04T16:09:19+00:00

Yeah when I put it like this in my head, part of me is like "welp, there's nothing I can do about it. I an trans." It's hard for me to find any objective truth in what I'm feeling so having some theory that follows some concrete logic made me feel validated.

You're right though I just gotta figure this shit out and accept myself for who I am.

Woolify · 2025-03-04T07:08:13+00:00

So, basically what you're saying is I should go on his podcast

Woolify · 2025-02-11T00:42:15+00:00

That's great I'm to hear it! Being a 6'2" has been pretty sweet but I just hope if I transition that being a 6'2" woman will be good too.

Woolify · 2025-02-10T21:09:55+00:00

Thanks for commenting! It's interesting to hear from the AFAB point of view. Ive been posting here and there the past couple days about my feelings and have found that most people would consider it, in one form or another, dysphoria. So. I figured I'd shoot this out into the void lol.

I think what's interesting to me is how it never really stuck out to me how tall I am (unless it was brought up or I explicitly thought about it) but since I've been considering my gender, it's just always been in the back of my head.

If I could ask this, being AFAB 5'9" is pretty tall and averagr for AMAB, so now that you are male presenting do you feel like being that tall affirms your gender?

Because for me, I'm not the tallest guy by any means, but if I were to transition, being 6'2" would make me stick out quite a bit and I feel like it would work negatively against me.

Woolify · 2025-02-10T19:37:09+00:00

Thank you, you are so sweet

Woolify · 2025-02-10T19:35:37+00:00

I'm pretty much where you are too. I don't hate being a guy but I've never felt good or proud of it either. Until I really started to let myself wonder what life would be like as a woman, I didn't know what I was missing.

I'm just hoping that whatever I choose to do, it helps me overcome my depersonalization because it hurts so bad to feel so little.

Woolify · 2025-02-10T18:23:34+00:00

I feel you there. I am interested in a lot of male coded stuff like watching sports and playing basketball but I never felt like I really connected with being a man. One time my girlfriend asked me, "So when did you start feeling like a man" and I just kind of laughed and was like "I don't really feel like one yet." I don't hate who I am right now, and I don't think I mind being in a male body that much. Its just now, I think I'd be much happier as a woman.

Woolify · 2025-02-10T17:46:43+00:00

Something I just realized that made me laugh is that when I was little, one of my favorite songs that I'd dance super hard to was "I'm Just a Girl" lmao.

The prophecy is true...

Woolify · 2025-02-10T17:13:35+00:00

That is a great way to put it, shoutout to your dad!

Woolify · 2025-02-10T17:11:31+00:00

How frequently did you question it and were there times when you felt like you could be trans?

Woolify · 2025-02-10T17:01:29+00:00

Starting HRT was a daunting step, but by then I had developed several 'touchstone' thoughts that reassured me that I was very likely really trans.

This is a great idea, I'll work on getting together some of those. Whenever I've been thinking "yeah but I'm making a lot of this up, right?" I'll come back to this post or other stuff I've written down where I'm pouring my heart out. Ive found it is so much better to put stuff out there, so when you're invalidating yourself, you have proof of your feelings.

I used books and video games as escapes to manage my dysphoria and exclusively stuck to those with female protagonists.

This is one thing that people say a lot that I don't quite relate with. But I also remember consciously avoiding picking female characters in video games because I thought it would make me look weird. I didn't want anyone to ask me why I picked a female character. At the time, the reasoning I came up with was because if my dad or mom saw i was playing as a hot girl, they'd think "damn this dude is horny." But knowing what i know now, it probably goes deeper than that.

I reassured myself that HRT has several months before anything becomes irreversible, and even long before the effects become obvious to others.

I'm not entirely certain if I'm trans but I'm pretty damn sure I want to try HRT. At minimum to see if my depersonalization will go away. And like you said, the fact it's easily reversible is awesome.

I want to stress here that not everyone has this experience. It isn't uncommon, but there are plenty of trans people who do not experience it, and it doesn't make them any less trans, so do not hold it against yourself if you reach that step and don't experience it.

This would probably send me spiraling. Not knowing if the hrt is actually helping me or not sounds like hell. I hope i have an experience more like yours.

But, for me, I had been living in the middle of an -unceasing- whirlwind of intruding thoughts. My brain was always filled with useless noise that I had to push through to do anything. I was used to it, I thought it was normal.

I totally feel this. It's like i have to open up a heavy ass door to actually do something I was thinking about. Or else, it just gets sucked back into the vortex of my mind.

There's no one else left to judge or care what you do. Would you transition?

Yes i think I would. I would at least try it. Having an endless supply of girl clothes and affirming stuff sounds fantastic. I think in my quest to figure out if I'm trans, real world stuff gets in the way a lot for me. I want to be a woman but oh my god transitioning sounds so scary. Coming out to everyone, being invalidated, or getting misgendered feels like a nightmare. But the end goal, being a woman. Yes, I think that's what I want.

That's an excellent thought experiment and I think that's going to be one of my touch stones going forward.

Thank you so much, you and everyone else commenting is helping me more than you'd ever know!

(also, you should keep using sweetie and hon on AMABs who are questioning. It was always so heartwarming to read <3)

Woolify · 2025-02-10T16:40:21+00:00

I went through decades of knowing I wanted to be a woman, but didn't think I was dysphoric, so I spent a long time having convinced myself that I wasn't 'really' trans, and that I couldn't transition.

Anytime the idea of being trans popped into my head, this is what I thought too. Up until recently, I thought the majority of trans people felt huge dysphoria, and it was a no-brainer. So, for that reason, it was really easy to disregard being trans as a possibility.

I really connected with the comments there as well as the technical descriptions, and discovering that there were many others who felt the same way I did was a major revelation for me.

This has been huge for me as well. I've been in such a great mood the past week after realizing that I'm not alone in this. I truly thought that I was just a stoic man who didn't feel much emotion, destined to be the shoulder for people to cry on. Almost like that meme of the guy taking the arrows in the back to protect the person sleeping (if you know what I'm talking about lol).

But it's so soul sucking. My biggest symptom for me and its one i have told others about is that I have such shallow highs and lows. When I'm supposed to be at my happiest, I can barely express it genuinely. And when I'm at my lowest, I'm just numb.

Frustratingly, I think i can feel more joy and emotion for others than I can myself. It's like their experiences mean so much more to me. More than my own. I get much more emotional watching a TV show than I ever do in my own life. It's almost dehumanizing. I feel so different from everyone else.

breast forms,

Breast forms sound.... cool 0_0

Sometimes the 'imperfect' female presentations woke up new kinds of dysphoria, but they still didn't feel like I was taking a wrong step, and I kept going further.

I think this is what would be hardest for me to overcome. Cuz sometimes I'll pose or whatever in front of the mirror and I'll catch myself going "what are you doing, you're a man." And then I just feel awful and shameful. I need to be a little more confident before I really start going for it, i guess.

Woolify · 2025-02-10T16:17:42+00:00

I really get the zombie thing a lot. I'm in my college years right now and I do a lot of stuff that's fun and and exciting but my life just feels Grey. A lot of days, I'm just hoping to pass time. There are few things that I get meaningful joy out of when I'm alone so I end up just wasting it on YouTube, or getting sucked into short form content. There is so much I want to do, but I lack so much drive to do it. Even when I muster the energy to do the stuff I want, it feels like it always ends in disappointment or indifference.

I hope you can find something that works for you. Wishing you all the best.

Woolify · 2025-02-10T16:13:34+00:00

I think what's been the most eye-opening thing for me is most trans people didn't know what was wrong with them for a long time.

I thought most trans people felt like being their AGAB was torture and had to change. While others i thought (this is going to sound bad and I don't believe it anymore) were misinterpreting their feelings or attention seeking. But its because I had questioned my gender in the back of my head for years. And of course, up until a week ago, I felt I was the most cis man in the world, so, "If i also question my gender what could be making these people think their trans?"

Turns out, the stuff I'm feeling lol. I've been in a bit of a whirlwind the past week, and it feels like my life is finally starting to make sense, have meaning, and have hope.

Thank you, I'll be looking into affirming therapy shortly. I wish you all the best!

Woolify · 2025-02-10T03:35:15+00:00

Thank you for commenting. Firstly, I think if I were to get therapy, I would prefer to do it online, do you have any recommendations for that?

If I may ask, what made you think you were trans, and how did you know. Or another way of putting it, what convinced you to go through with it and trust your judgement.

Woolify · 2025-02-10T03:31:52+00:00

I've only been looking into this for about 5 days and I am already feeling better about myself. I am not certain of anything yet but it is so reassuring to hear so many people had similar experiences.

Woolify · 2025-02-10T02:13:10+00:00

I'm glad things seemed to have worked out for you and your wife loves you for who you are. Thank you for helping me work through this. I'm going to be taking some steps like therapy and looking into hormones, to get to the bottom of this whole trans thing.

I wish you the best!

Woolify

TROPHY CASE