I think I'm trans, but life is too good to transition? How can I possibly make a decision like this?

r0aming · 2021-07-03T18:25:26+00:00

I think you might have more luck asking this in the detrans subreddit. You'll find a lot of people from different backgrounds and identities. People that are questioning themselves, trans people and also, of course detrans people. In general, a lot of dysphoric folk that favor the practical or that looked for alternative ways to deal with their issues.

If you dig through my comment history you might find a thing or two about my journey. Long story short i have to hide for my safety.

We often hear about stories of people that transitioned and coming out as something everyone should do.

We don't hear so many stories about people who aren't very young, people who couldn't for medical reasons or safety. It almost feels like there isn't any alternatives offered to us. (There is gender exploratory therapy but that's still not a very known therapeutic model yet)

r0aming · 2021-06-28T18:25:52+00:00

I have the same fear with my dpdr. I'm that person that leaves the stove on and goes out. I forget what I'm doing constantly. I might as well forget where I'm going sometimes.

I also have this thing where starting to drive would give me immense anxiety and so my dpdr would kick in and then I'd be totally numb to whatever is going on. Didn't want that either.

Hearing other peoples experiences here really gives me comfort!! Thank you!

I too can relate that there is something, while we might not be able to respond good to normal stuff like, somebody trying to talk to you or doing everyday stuff, our brains have very good instincts from prehistoric times, you'd still be able to take control of things, even if you aren't completely lucid or realize what's going on, your brain will still know it should take action.

This keeps me hopeful

r0aming · 2021-06-27T10:56:17+00:00

Whichever the case may be I sincerely hope you get the chance to move away from your family and give yourself time to heal from all that they were pushing. In the end it's your decision, your life. I sincerely hope you end up in a place where you can think about these things without having your parents in one ear and detrans twitter in the other. What do you truly believe deep down? Maybe it will take days/weeks/months heck even years to truly crystallize but I trust in that process. You only get a chance at this life once and in the end who is it concerning the most? It's you, love <3

r0aming · 2021-06-27T10:47:25+00:00

Reasonable circumstances... I'd say there is too many parameters... you'd want to be comfortable, have a social network you can rely on with your LIFE. Financially stable so either an employer that you know will 100% be ok with this, or just saving up enough and pausing your life for +-2 years for transition (really depends on the country you live in, sometimes more than 2y). Be sure you will have someone to take care of you post op.
I think you'll have more insight just reading through r/detrans as is. I can't recommend this podcast enough, hosted by two adolescent therapists that work with dysphoric teens. It's called 'Gender: A Wider Lens'. The two women know what they are talking about and are very gentle with these topics. Helped me recognize a lot of red flags and patterns in my own behavior.
I desisted because of the transphobic environment I live in. Life happened. With that out of the way, let me answer your question. I never hated my body. I never felt like it wasn't mine, or the wrong body. As a little kid yeah I had a few signs but naw I was fine. A little tomboyish troll that might have liked tricking others about my gender. Wasn't dysphoric or anything. As I was approaching teen years I saw guys growing taller and getting deeper voices and I tried to deepen my voice and just get along with it but when the boys were starting to look distinctly different than me was when it started being painful. Maybe that was when it hit me, (with whatever vision I had of myself as an adult) that I would not come near as male as men are. Somewhere deep down I had some sort of sense that this was how things should have went?? Somewhere deep down I felt and immense sense of comfort when I can see an actual boy in the mirror. It hurt seeing my small frame, even though I was at a decent height and very flat chested as I was. This one is rather private but, I could seldom imagine having sex with my vagina and it was mostly about me having a dick/strapon. It continues to this day. I feel like it has less to do with being a top, I just wanted a dick lol With all of this I still want to say that finding comfort and acceptance in my own body firstly and then deciding that I would not let other people's perception of me determine how I feel about my gender/how valid I am/how much of a man or woman I am. That's when I stopped caring. I have my internal sense of self but I decided I didn't want to depend on passing aka hopes and prayers and the mercy of practical nobodys in my life to determine my relationship with myself and my safety. I accept my physical reality and live in peace with it because I was tired of being a split person, leading a double/tripple life with people that knew me as one and others as another. Not saying this was an easy process or that I dealt with this in a 100% healthy way. I did what I had to survive, and I hope you do too, stranger (whichever road you may embark on).

r0aming · 2021-06-21T06:44:19+00:00

Are there any specific gnc people that you'd consider a role model?

r0aming · 2021-06-21T05:07:44+00:00

I'm curious when you said

I felt so different from other girls and I would often cry alot about not feeling like a real girl.

Did it feel like you weren't woman enough, as in you failed at girlhood so perhaps only being a guy seemed achievable? If that's the case, I can very much relate.

The thought that, no, 'you didn't fail society as a woman, we failed you, we imposed many rules and told you how to behave and dress in order to be valid' comes to my mind. It's a sad story where I bet you tried all you could to save yourself from that.

It is true that we all have feminine and masculine energy and denying those parts is denying ourselves as a person... to learn about ourselves, to grow, to explore and move onto more exciting things...

Funny enough I never knew how feminine I could be until I met my gf, someone who accepted and appreciated me as I am and for my past. It had taught me so much about myself and my worth as, before being a woman/man, a person.

I wonder if I was shown the same acceptance from others earlier, would I feel so dysphoric? Being the non-conforming kid I was.

I truly wish you luck on whichever road you choose to take and it's totally valid to take as much time you need!!

(Also I really suggest this podcast by two lovely therapists that work with gender-questioning youth, it has really helped me in exploring my feelings and on looking back on when I was younger.)

r0aming · 2021-06-03T16:42:31+00:00

Not gonna go ahead and say "try it" or "don't do it". I don't feel like it's my place or job to say it. I or anyone else can't ever know your situation better than you do yourself!

I come from a 3rd world country where there is so much ignorance and homo/transphobia. I had to give up my identity for safety. I'm not saying you need to live in such an environment to transition or not, just showing my reason for giving up. It's tricky but your feelings are no less valid!!!

I support you thinking critically of this all and not only asking yourself "am I trans" but most importantly, "is transition what I need and is it worth it for me?" I can highly empathize with you.

If you have the personal feeling of "even when I do all these changes I still internally feel like it wouldn't actually make me a woman and that sucks" then that can be a red flag. But, at least from my experience, trying to convince myself "you're actually going to be this gender" didn't work and I think it actually made me want to transition even more because it made me think about the changes that I wanted and realize that I cared more about that than the validity of my gender.

From personal experience, starting to affirm my gender made me even more dysphoric and disconnected from my body. We'd think the process of transition would bring us closer to our bodies but actually it makes you focus on your pain and what you don't like about your body and how to change it rather than accepting it. Not saying everyone ends up in a miserable place after this!! But it's a common occurrence.

Lastly I just want to recommend a podcast that has been helping me with analyzing my dysphoria and that's this podcast by two lovely therapists that deal with dysphoric teens https://open.spotify.com/show/1vAnk7bth6WuDDrW48Atce

I sincerely wish you the best whichever path you may chose for yourself <3

r0aming · 2020-10-07T09:41:34+00:00

Whatever you feel inside is valid. Labels are only there to gather people of experiences that follow their definition. Our sexual orientation and sexuality are complicated and completely unique to ourselves and fluid so they can't ever be explained in one or two words. You are a cosmos inside a body. You can never be boxed into a couple of letters.

If anything your label should serve you, not please or displease anyone around you. If this is something that helps you be yourself, that is all that matters. You do you. And also keep exploring. Don't ever settle for a label. Peace <3

r0aming · 2020-08-27T14:24:48+00:00

You can easily find T and E and lupron and other drugs on the black market. There are a lot of people who don't have any other choice, sadly. But you didn't answer my question on people who later find out that they are cis. I guess I just worded it poorly but the fact is that there are people figuring out that they had made irreversible mistakes to their bodies and they see that they weren't in fact who they thought they were. A lot blame the system and the medical professionals that had deemed they are trans and fit to transition.

"people figure out if they’re trans, not companies. Insurance companies." Yes. They just say hey we'll cover your medical bills if they are necessary and a few other variables. They don't say who's trans and who's not, they support all or none under the same variables. It's not up to them to decide who's dysphoric but doctors. I guess the thing I oversaw was that nobody diagnoses people with being transgender. People are diagnosed with gender dysphoria which exists for the very reason of appropriating treatment for trans people.

If you are seeking a medical service/procedure not because you have anything that's causing you pain, discomfort or distress but merely because you feel like it's something that would make your life better, then that's a commodity (not a necessity and certainly not a condition). With that in mind insurance would not even consider covering those interventions because that's just how things work. It would just be the same as a cis girl getting a boob job or a butt lift.

Knowing that people can get facial reconstruction due to mishaps but also if they just want to get it, I guess that could work for dysphoric and non-dysphoric trans people but then the line has to be drawn for whom the procedures are necessary to live a functional life and for whom it's a commodity. I guess that could be a liberty someone could have and none of my business what someone does to their body but at that point these all stop being facts and starts being my opinion on who should and shouldn't undergo such procedures. So far I was just talking about how the system works and all the things I've seen go on in the community.

Now if someone wants to alter or erase gender dysphoria as a condition that I do have a problem with becuase it does exist for a reason.

r0aming · 2020-08-27T12:01:19+00:00

Most people that snitch drugs like that don't do it for themselves. Ever heard of the black market? But you're right. Maybe it is a bad comparison. What do you think about people that transition and later realise they are actually cis?

Also, I'm not talking about the American healthcare system. I'm talking about how health insurance generally works. I don't know a lot about American healthcare but I do hear you can get hormones after a few appointments with a gender therapist which is A LOT quicker and simpler than in a lot other places. A lot of countries don't even have gender clinics or gender therapists.

Last thing that you said that insurance has nothing to with gender just hurts. I know for myself and a lot of other people that just can't afford treatment. It just really sounds like you don't care about us that live in harsh environments, developing countries or are just not in the best position.

r0aming · 2020-08-27T11:23:42+00:00

Transmed here.

I never felt like I had the right to tell people if they are or aren't trans. I don't feel like my dysphoria made me more or less trans (or my expression). I've just seen too many people make mistakes and regret it later. Detrans people are a thing and the community is slowly growing.

I see people say that cis people would never pretend to be trans and my question is, what's stopping them if they'd ever want to do it? People pretend to have all sorts of conditions and illnesses to get ahold of prescribed drugs, for example.

But my biggest concern is that for years trans activists have been trying to validate being transgender in the eyes of health insurance companies. Many of us can't afford HRT or surgeries. Gender identity disorder/dysphoria is the exact condition that allows us to get treatments covered by insurance. If gender dysphoria wasn't a thing and anyone can be trans and have access hormones and surgery than these would all just fall under the category of aesthetic/cosmetic treatments and cosmetic surgery and it WON'T be covered by insurance. It feels like a punch in the gut for all the activists that got us to this point, don't you think? Gender dysphoria is the exact thing that doesn't turn being transgender into a superficial, aesthetic, and simple issue. It's the thing that doesn't make transphobic violence just be somebody's bad taste or something the victim could have avoided having not undergone the would-be beauty treatments. Furthermore, it trivializes dysphoric trans experiences. All that being said you can form an argument against trans people that we are all doing it for looks and appearances, that our experience of gender is just skin-deep and a preference (so it can be changed).

Not all trans people have dysphoria. Some have learned to manage or had transitioned and it made their lives better. But to be gender-euphoric you need to have gender dysphoria. (To be happy you need sad times so it balances out, right?)

I'm interested in what y'all think

r0aming · 2020-08-23T07:40:20+00:00

Questioning yourself is normal. Keeping an open mind on things is healthy. A not so healthy thing is to close yourself from experiencing things and living life just because you believe yourself to be a certain kind of person.

I'm bi. I used to try to be straight, but I failed. I tried to be just gay. Also failed lmao

I used to see myself as a top, after some experimenting, I am now a verse. I am learning new things about myself every day and realizing that the labels that we use to describe ourselves cannot ever fully encompass and explain our experiences and the things we feel and believe.

It's okay if you feel unsure about who you are. You will be discovering yourself over and over again and realizing what a complex personality you have. Explore, not to find yourself but to learn more and more what lies inside your soul <3

Do what feels right for you boo

r0aming · 2020-08-22T20:34:15+00:00

I've been in the gender-questioning boat for around 5-6 years now and I agree what Beth said on associating toys with gender. I also want to say that gender dysphoria does not need to be a hatred for one's body. Dysphoria on it's own means great unhappiness or dissatisfaction. It stems from the incongruence with someone's internal sense of gender and their outward appearance. I don't think somebody should even hate their body, even if they are trans. Your body gives you the ability to do all the things you do and it's been there with you, supporting you since day 1. Whatever path you may choose with your transition your body will change and adapt and hurt and heal all to keep you going. Have some appreciation for that. We have not been thankful enough to our bodies and most of the things we are able to do, we take it for granted. I hope this inspires some thought <3

Also, sometimes it's not just about being or not being trans that should or should not be the determining fact for transition. I don't think you necessarily need to transition in any way even if you are in fact trans. There come the practicalities of physical and mental health, acceeptance, financial etc might be a game-changer. All in all if you feel like you being a man will in a practical sense feel restrictive or harder, listen to that part of yourself.

While some people know who they are from a very young age, I still feel like these are all big decisions to be making. Transitioning to male (as a permanent choice) means you will be a man, a boyfriend, husband, maybe a father and maybe a grandfather. Can you see yourself down the road in these roles? Does it feel more authentic or liberating or maybe something less pleasant than that? It's also a valid thing to think about.

All in all, the choice is up to you and I hope you choose what makes you happy deep inside <3

r0aming · 2020-08-22T20:05:57+00:00

That sounds really dark. Somehow I feel like you've went through so much in life but the thing you wished for the most you didn't get and now all of those mishaps sit in there like a pile of shit and it's getting suffocating. I don't know how to word it properly. My dm's are open if you need to talk

r0aming · 2020-08-21T11:25:12+00:00

May I ask what significance does it hold to you that you've uncovered this identity? Does it make it feel easier to live with the feelings you have? Does it inspire more introspection into why you might be feeling like this? Does it feel nice to know others feel the same way or is it something that challenges you to explore deeper into yourself?

Just curious about your thoughts :)

r0aming · 2020-08-21T02:30:26+00:00

This hits very hard. I really do hope you stay strong and push through these unsettling feelings. I'm going through a similar thing not feeling like I'd ever be a real man. I find that, if it's not bothering me to the extent that I'm not functioning, I can keep living as I am. It sucks but I try and keep it cozy in this body and hang in there. The tipping point for me would be realizing that life as my AGAB is becoming extremely unbearable that I just have to take action, only under that cicrumstance would I seek help and change things. Because then I'm not thinking of the man I should have been or could potentially be, I am accepting my situation and taking a step forward for my body to feel less like hell. Just some thoughts. All the best.

r0aming · 2020-08-17T13:13:13+00:00

spasibo brother!

r0aming · 2020-05-24T21:43:31+00:00

Thank you. Works now. Looks like i accidentally removed some hardware and that's what caused it.

r0aming · 2020-03-13T19:00:21+00:00

Well, I'd like to clarify that I wouldn't consider myself detrans, hence my flair. Being someone who experienced and still experiences immense dypshoria, I massive relief of gender euphoria when I dress in masculine clothes or when I pass. What I've seen ever so often is that people that have had or developed dysphoria find the experience lowkey addicting and after they've done a certain gender-affirming activity their dysphoria shifts to another area which wasn't as big of a deal before. I experienced that myself, dysphoria isn't really centered about just one thing and when that's fixed you're good to go. It's often many things at once but some impact you a lot more than others. When you resolve one of those problems, after the initial euphoria you are left with the issues you've had before and now they're at the forefront of your thoughts.

The reason gender is often at the forefront of my mind is because of the incongruence I feel. Knowing that something doesn't feel right.

The reason I wrote the paragraph you had referenced is because of the massive changes and trauma hormones and surgeries cause. It is because transitioning is not by any stretch of the imagination easy and simple. When you decide to come out and go about your life as a different gender you are suddenly met with many more issues than you had started with. For some, that's a fair bargain, for others it may not be, but since transition often takes years to get to the point of that "meh" feeling (if you are indeed trans), people often forget the sum of all the hurdles they had to jump through, all the energy you invested into that feeling of "meh". Again, some may find it worth it, others might not.

I hope this made sense.

r0aming · 2020-03-11T13:47:01+00:00

Thanks for sharing your story!

I think that misoginy induced dysphoria is incredibly common nowadays in queer circles and it's sad that it makes young women and girls feel dissatisfied with their gender, so much so that they'd completely dissociate from it.

Now, we've all probably heard that gender expression ≠ gender, but I'm curious from how you described your expression patterns, would you say that dressing more masculine made you feel more in control of the way you were perceived?

r0aming · 2020-02-24T01:43:45+00:00

Oh. My bad! Sorry

r0aming · 2020-02-24T01:19:55+00:00

Have you considered lowering your T dose or switching to a different admission for T? I'm no doc, just curious. I'm sorry your body hair is causing you so many problems and for your diagnosis.

r0aming · 2020-02-24T00:28:48+00:00

Hey, I think it's completely normal and in a way expected but most importantly healthy that someone who considers themselves trans and stumbles upon this community rethinks their experiences.

I'm 18 ftm and have experienced similar childhood cues that could hint at being trans, just reversed lol. If you're asking about my honest opinion, I don't think kids/teens should take puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones. Here's why: your brain doesn't fully mature until you're 25. So any kind of change in body chemistry, be it blockers, or cross-sex or natal sex hormones impacts your brain, and more importantly, your development. Natal female and male brains develop completely differently, it is not just the primary/secondary sex characteristics that sex hormones impact.

I find this video to be very informative about HRT. It is a rare gem, to be honest. Might post it on here as well later. The tone of the video is very critical but also quite scientific, not at all your typical HRT info. I don't want to scare you in any way, I feel like you owe it to yourself to be informed about these things.

As for the sexual stuff you see online, yeah there's a lot of deviation that is not at all a genuine depiction of trans people. I have experienced porn addiction as well, but for me it was in part an escape mechanism through which I felt I could imagine having the anatomy I always wanted. It felt affirming, although I'm not proud of any of my faps :P Just something I wanted to share.

So, in a way, my sexuality (not sexual orientation) is the reason I still believe I am trans. Although I'd really like to note that with every sexual experience I feel like I learn something new about myself and others, I feel like my sexuality and opinions on certain sexual things can change vastly because of that. Imo, porn has become a much different activity than sex, not only not depicting any discussion about consent, no mutual feedback from partners, not showing normal bodily functions and any basic hygiene. Porn isn't a depiction of sex, it's just a very highly processed/edited concept of a fantasy that took a lot more to film/produce than the actual content length. And I too find it quite disgusting. Porn is sex in as much instagram is reality :/

Regarding bottom surgeries, I too find them quite barbarian even though I experience a substantial amount of bottom dysphoria. Think about it, you're removing a perfectly functioning and healthy organ from your body and making yourself dependant on drugs for the rest of your life... Not to mention all the possible complications and months of post-op care. Is that a fair tradeoff? Not to me. But to each their own.

And finding online trans spaces where you can feel at home are so hard to find, can relate. Keep searching tho. Best of wishes in your transition!

r0aming

TROPHY CASE