inthewind-inthewater

[inthewind-inthewater]

I’m really, really trying to give being AFAB a solid try, and yet and yet and yet

[inthewind-inthewater]

*this* close to accepting I am closeted transmasc (maybe ftm, but also not binary trans, who even knows) and I am so tired of trying to figure out what the fuck to wear

I’m never going to pass as a dude, the best I can hope for is sort of andro-ish?

but do I just accept I will never pass and continue being femme, or do I dress in ways that I feel like make me look unattractive but are more gender-affirming? I hate this so much

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I hate that I might be trans masc because if how awful cis men always are. I don’t want to be like them! I can’t. I can’t.

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One of the reasons I think I might be more transmasc than I thought was how frustrated I keep getting at they/them pronouns lately. I don’t like that it is “non-gendered”, that the word for folks who use it is person, rather than man/woman. I want an identity word, too. Enby is better but still feels clunky in a way.

But I also don’t think the category of man (or woman) fits either. Idk, maybe I’m just a he/they or they/he/she or something.

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Yes, this! My young self was a tomboy, but she was a girl, and girlhood remains something I feel connected to even now for that reason. It feels awkward and even incorrect to call my childhood self by my current pronouns. I also want to see and acknowledge the way girlhood impacted me, and left me with gendered trauma. I also didn’t use to dislike being a girl - I wasn’t feminine as a kid but I was proud to be female?

But at the same time, I knew I wasn’t like other girls. But that might have just been my sexuality and being ND, idk.

I feel a sharp divide between childhood/teenager/young adult, they’re all sort of different people to me. Blanket statements don’t encompass that.

I think for some people, identity just shifts and changes so much over time, and others less so. I wonder how much it is worth trying to retroactively assign gender stuff, because that time has simply passed now. I was who I was.

DAE who transitionned in their twenties or later struggle with the idea that they were a trans kid or don't identify as a trans kid who grew up at all ?

It's something I've been wondering about for a while. I was definitely a queer kid, as I was openly bisexual from quite a young age, but I don't feel like I was a trans kid. I see by inner child as a little girl, being one and being seen as one played a huge part of my experience as a child and teenager, and the way I was socialized was very conservative "future wife" like.

If I felt and was seen like a tomboy from time to time, I always was "corrected" by people to not be this way in very harsh ways.

But I used to like being a girl, and I had absolutely no idea that things could be different in any way. I suffered not being able to play with my boyfriends anymore when we started going through puberty, and boys and girls started not engaging with each other unless for romantic interests (or later, sexual). I dreaded being sexualized while seeing it as "something to be proud of" because my parents taught me that.

But when I try to ask myself, "Maybe it was dysphoria," or any early signs of me being trans, it just doesn't seem to fit.

To me, child me and teenage me were separate people, early adult me who was confused in their gender and started to know things about transness was someone else, and then I came to be as a result of just life.

Idk if it's the same for other people, if you'd like to share your experiences I'd love to hear about it !

[inthewind-inthewater]

I woke up this morning and was pretty sure I at least need to come out to myself as genderfluid, but tbh it doesn’t feel like it always ends there

I have no idea what I need to look like to feel comfortable, either.

[inthewind-inthewater]

go get yr $15 shoes and you will also get compliments

Hey. You. Yeah, you, the transmasc with small feet reading this.

A women's size 7-7 1/2 is a boy's size 5.

You're welcome.

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I always thought I’d be someone who would pick the most ostentatious Victorian child fae vampire prince names, but I’m just over here like huh, maybe my name is Neil

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something i feel like queer ppl have been steadily forgetting over the last ten years or so is that “genderqueer” isn’t a specific nonbinary term, or even a synonym for nonbinary - it’s an umbrella term that encompasses nonbinariness and more. 

any flavour of trans (yes including “binary trans”)? you can call yourself genderqueer. fem, butch, androgynous, drag artist, crossdresser, or in any other way gnc? you can also use genderqueer. detrans but not in a radfem death cult kind of way? you too can be genderqueer. “i guess i’m basically cis but my other queer identity impacts my gender in a way that’s hard to put into words-” genderqueer!

it’s entirely acceptable and normal to be genderqueer but not nonbinary or genderqueer but not trans. it means literally nothing but “i’ve got a gender that’s queer” and it fucking rules we should use it so much more

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I’m so scared to be transmasc because I feel like I am going to be so unattractive, because I don’t feel like I can do masc “right”

I have such a femme face and femme mannerisms and I’m short and curvy, and I feel like I see so many non-binary and masc folks looking gorgeous and I’ll never get to have that.

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Yes!

It’s so interesting, because the more I grapple with my own gender identity and possibility being trans, the more comfortable with my femininity I become.

I definitely went through an overcompensating, hyper-femme “I’m a WOMAN who only like WOMEN” phase as well, and I’ve oscillated between being hostile to femininity and secretly wanting to embrace it, while also simultaneously feeling the same way about masculinity?

and while I’m relatively sure my sexuality is mostly still just that, I’m trying to be finally open to having a different gender identity and exploring what that can look like but it feels like none of this makes any sense! none of what I feel and think aligns with each other, it can change on the day, it can change based on whether or not I’m feeling brave or vulnerable or anything at all

but I think this has allowed me to separate my sex from my gender. Being female doesn’t really have to dictate anything about my gender, and neither does my gender expression, or my mannerisms, or what others want or expect from me.

I just know, wherever I go or end up, that I want it to be a place of self-acceptance.

I never would have guessed being on T would make me feel peace with my femininity

I first came out as gender fluid & then realized I was more trans. And started using primarily he/him pronouns & changing my name & realizing I wanted to medically transition.

I still was non-binary in that I don’t think anything in life can be binary.

But lately- the past few weeks on T. I’ve felt like so much love and embrace towards my femininity.

Like before I came out. I was hella overcompensating and I was like- I am a woman who only loves women. I hate all men- they’re monsters. Like super entrenched in gender essentialism that was just rampant in the art history world.

And my relationship with femininity was almost hostile & very defensive.

And allowing myself to come out & face what I was afraid of admitting & slowly start to experiment with letting myself love masculinity.

And t has been pretty great overall. I am super worried about hair loss which has kind of overshadowed some of the things I like with T

But I’m most surprised that I feel like this love of being afab- but not in like a way that I have to prove it to anyone. It’s just within me.

& it’s made me really feel and love that being trans is just this expansive experience that just builds and changes and grows. The whole point of it is the journey, and letting myself feel all the contradictory and complex feelings. Instead of assigning rules to them.

Anyway. Didn’t expect that to happen

[inthewind-inthewater]

I feel a constant push-pull towards femininity

I have gone through ultra-fem and ultra-masc phases throughout my life, but I seem to oscillate wildly between wanting to embrace and love my body as it is, curves and softness and all, and wanting to medically transition

all sometimes in the span of a day. it’s so exhausting.

I think I’ve never allowed myself to be ~curvy~ and ~sexy~ and there is a part of me that wants to let go of the fear of being so, and there is also a part of me that wants to get top surgery and jawline filler

I often don’t know which is reactive, which is real, which is what I really want

because performing femininity can feel awkward and uncomfortable and fake, but performing masculinity can feel awkward, in that I feel like everyone can see through me - because I have no masc energy, because I am truly just soft

I fear I will transition and be ugly, if I can admit it, despite the fact that I never think this about other transmasculine people, ever.

[inthewind-inthewater]

If you're holding back on being masc because you think you need to be a skinny white man to pass, give that the fuck up. Be big if you're big, be brown if you're brown, be assertive, take up space, be whatever the fuck kind of man/masc you are and stop waiting. Stop trying to diminish your power out of fear.

[inthewind-inthewater]

ryan pisaneschi

[inthewind-inthewater]

like - do I want to be a dude irl? Do I want to be a dude in that I want to be fictional, not really real, but one in my head? Do I want to obtain a sort of mythical attractiveness? Do I experience social dysphoria? Physical dysphoria? Am I genderless? A demiboy? Ftm? Can I be this way even though I only have scarce childhood memories?

Some days I feel so strongly one way or another, sometimes not at all. I don’t know if I ever feel 100% cisgender, though. I don’t know.

I didn’t start seriously considering I might be a masc-aligned gender until I started letting go of my internalized transphobia just a little bit. I’ve been exploring the possibility of being nonbinary since 2013 (or even earlier tbh) but I never really, really let myself go there until more recently. As soon as I did, waves of dysphoria started to hit me that I had repressed. I’ve always experienced gender dysphoria around being so soft and feminine-looking, even at times when I’ve presented femininely. But I do still retain a strong link to girlhood.

I just don’t know - there’s so much to give up, and so much to gain, so much to try to understand.

[inthewind-inthewater]

I guess I’m trying to figure out what is fantasizing and what is more than that?

Can I ask - do cis folks look at folks of other genders and feel envy/want to look like them? I don’t mean specifically that they are attractive, but feel like “man, I wish that could be me”

whenever I see transmasculine folks get top surgery - or anyone get it! - I wish I could have a chest like that, but then I wonder if it’s just my body dysmorphia and wishing I was skinny

I will also say that I envy transmasc folks who take T, even though there’s a bunch of stuff that I wouldn’t want from T, but I’d love a sharper face and a more masc body shape

But then I wonder - would I want to actually move and live in the world like that all the time? Or do I just wish I could shapeshift? I don’t know how to know for sure.

[inthewind-inthewater]

Can I ask - do cis folks look at folks of other genders and feel envy/want to look like them? I don’t mean specifically that they are attractive, but feel like “man, I wish that could be me”

whenever I see transmasculine folks get top surgery - or anyone get it! - I wish I could have a chest like that, but then I wonder if it’s just my body dysmorphia and wishing I was skinny

I will also say that I envy transmasc folks who take T, even though there’s a bunch of stuff that I wouldn’t want from T, but I’d love a sharper face and a more masc body shape

But then I wonder - would I want to actually move and live in the world like that all the time? Or do I just wish I could shapeshift? I don’t know how to know for sure.