starlightrosari

[starlightrosari]

Gender struggles from childhood to now (22)

I don’t look like the other girls

I don’t get along with other girls

I get along better with boys

I want to be one of the guys

I wish I looked more like a boy

I don’t feel I belong in women’s spaces

I feel uncomfortable with female gender expectations and experiences

I feel jealous of how my friends who are boys are developing into their bodies

I feel uncomfortable with my genitalia

I feel uncomfortable with my body

I want to look more androgynous

I hate my body

I don’t mind my name, but it feels too feminine. It’s okay on other people, but I’d prefer a nickname for myself

The first nickname was cool, but still felt too feminine. This new nickname sounds really androgynous though, it feels good being called it

I feel like a tomboy

Am I transgender?

Do I have internalized misogyny from having mostly male friends?

I wish I could get along with women so I was treated equally

I just feel small and infantilized, I have to dress more mature and womanly and then I’ll love my body

I’m depressed and dissociated from myself because of people pleasing and trying to fit in with heteronormative people

Who am I?

I’m just a lesbian having a hard time with my sexuality, that’s why I have these body issues and gender issues. And I just don’t know who I am because of depression and trauma

I stopped being called my birth name entirely. I guess family can still call me it even if it feels weird, but it feels good being called “Ari” at my college and by my friends

I stopped people pleasing

I feel better now that I’m dressing masculine

I feel better now that I’m not being called pretty all the time

Maybe I actually am trans?

I kind of like they/them pronouns

Maybe not, I’m okay with my body now and people think nonbinary isn’t real. This is too complicated

I still feel uncomfortable calling myself or being called a woman though

I don’t want to base my identity off the misogyny I deal with anymore, I feel most comfortable calling myself nonbinary for now, and it’s okay if it’s a phase, I just need to explore how I’m feeling

I don’t like using she/her pronouns

I’m terrified to come out to people, maybe I should just tell them I use she/they pronouns so it’s not as big of a deal

I came out to people, but now I feel like I shouldn’t have given them “she” as an option at all

I still wish I were more like a boy, but I don’t think I have gender dysphoria

I’m so envious of my favorite fictional boy characters, I want to cry, I’m nothing like them

I wish when I were out at night I didn’t look like such a girl. I want to look like the beautiful men and androgynous people I see. I want to cry, I hate my body sometimes

Actually I do have gender dysphoria and always have

I wish I were able to be androgynous in the way men can be

I feel uncomfortable being viewed as the feminine bodied person in a relationship. In fantasies I’m always masculine

I feel dysphoric every time I lump myself as sapphic, but maybe it’s just internalized lesbophobia?

No, I prefer calling myself queer. Just because identifying as lesbian stopped me from being cis/heteronormative and was an important part of finding my true self, doesn’t mean I have to keep identifying as it. Still don’t know if I’m attracted to men though

Actually I was attracted to men all along, I just wished I were viewed by strangers as an mlm couple and hated the idea of being viewed as a straight relationship. It was easy to mistake as being lesbian because it at least felt better being seen as a queer woman than a straight girl, so I avoided that possibility altogether by refusing that I was attracted to men because it felt too dysphoric to imagine

I often get really depressed being misgendered, and I feel really detached from myself most days. I don’t want to keep feeling this way

I definitely don’t feel good being called feminine terms or dressing feminine, trying to be more of a girl didn’t make me feel better about myself, I’m absolutely trans and don’t have to doubt myself anymore

I don’t feel dysphoric calling myself nonbinary and neutral language, but I don’t feel euphoric either. How do I identify and what do I do about my dysphoria?

Do I want to transition? It’s so confusing and scary, I wish I were binary trans so I wasn’t so afraid of the irreversible changes

Weighing out changes of the body on T and pros and cons of being off or on T, I’m definitely feeling like some of the changes would make me really euphoric compared to being without it

I actually kind of like calling myself masculine terms. I don’t feel like a man, but maybe I’m a demiboy?

I wanted an androgynous body when I was very young, and I still want one now. I was gaslit by cis people that how I felt about my body was just insecurity, when it was in fact gender dysphoria. I want to transition to a body that feels like me

I like he/him pronouns and feel affirmed being called masculine terms. I’m going to use he/they pronouns and I identify as a nonbinary boy

I’m terrified of having to deal with transmasculine erasure and transphobia coming out, but I can’t keep staying in the closet. It hurts too much. I need to come out

[starlightrosari]

Most the time I feel totally numb to the idea of my body. To transition or not to transition, either way I can’t connect because I don’t feel like myself in my appearance and can’t imagine ever feeling connected with how I look, but I know this is my body and I don’t know that with the idea of transition. But then I have these times like now where I’m really upset and bothered by how many times I’ve felt dysphoria and just dealt with being uncomfortable by trying to repress it, meanwhile months later being tired of trying to like anything with my appearance because of knowing the dysphoria and just trying to hide, having barely felt like anything of my style or body feels right to the extent of barely looking at myself or sharing photos of myself. I get so tired and sad of that repeated disappointment of not looking like the people I envy, and not even knowing what style aesthetic to draw inspiration with because I don’t know if it will feel right on me. So much of how I feel is numb, and right now I’m feeling very sad by that and wishing I could do something about it. I want to talk to a gender therapist for help in finding myself, but I can’t afford therapy right now. I need to get to that point where there’s someone I can talk to, where I can figure out what’s right for me, and where I can explore different styles and experiment. Lately I’ve just been baring with the dysphoria and obvious disconnect I have with myself, unsure what to do about it and bothered because it’s hard to connect with anything involving myself. Meanwhile with things outside of myself like my interests and hobbies or how other people look, it’s so easy for me to feel good about it, but it’s overwhelming and difficult if I try to think on gender and presentation and connect it to me. Then I’m left with the unsettling reality that I don’t feel connected or comfortable with myself, and can’t even begin to understand what’s right on my body and mind because everything feels wrong.

[starlightrosari]

How I feel about masculine pronouns

I like male pronouns. I like calling myself a boy, a guy, a man, a gentleman, dapper, bro… Recently I got called sir by a family member and I loved it. I like it all. I don’t know if I’m literally a man though. I don’t think it would feel right for me to be grouped with men in conversations about men because though masculinity resonates with me, I’m not literally a man, I’m a nonbinary boy. Using masculine words such as boy but then calling myself something cryptic like “vampire boy” or something feels like a fun celebrating way of embracing my unique masculinity in a way that fits me. Being nonbinary gives space to play with gender in a unique way that can be fun to partake in.

He/him pronouns have been seeming exciting to me in a way strictly they/them hasn’t been. Playing with male gendered descriptors is really fun for me too, and I’m starting to really wish I looked like a boy to match the gender. I feel strange asking to be referred in this way because I can’t see it within my appearance, but I know how I feel in my head and how euphoric it makes me. I can grow to like it. And I’m starting to realize that I’ve wished to be a boy for a long time, and since admitting to myself I’m trans, I’ve wanted to be called “he” and “boy,” not strictly neutral language, I’ve just been afraid to make that leap of faith in trusting who I am to fit that, worrying about “what if I’m wrong and I don’t like it? I’m not a man, how could I?” But I can figure it out.

I also wonder about terms like son and brother. I know I like boyfriend, and I’m starting to wonder if hearing son and brother might feel better then kid and sibling. I don’t know yet, but I can almost see myself using them. I’ve started using uncle and that feels okay, just still feeling a lack of validation in looking how I feel to really motivate me to feel good about using masculine words for myself.

I still have a lot of internalized shame from thinking for most my life that I could never be a boy no matter how badly I wanted to. I thought because of the way I looked being small I’d never be happy as one, and I couldn’t look like one, so it was best to just try to feel pretty. It was really based on how others see me. Now I’ve been slowly coming to an understanding of what I’m comfortable with and it’s really just that I like elements of femininity, but I don’t want to dress feminine. I’m finding myself dressing in my more masculine clothes and it’s a little awkward because it’s not feeling quite “me” yet, but it is a lot more comfortable in terms of dysphoria. I just feel a bit invalid because I don’t look like I’ve really figured myself out yet because my style isn’t figured out, and I was a lot less clueless with feminine style because of practicing it my whole life, but I’ll figure it out, and then I’ll probably feel more strongly connected to masculine pronouns. I am a feminine guy and I want to explore what style celebrates that in a comfortable balance and aesthetic that feels like me.

I’m exploring the possibility of wanting to be referred and presented more masculine because I want to feel affirmed and euphoric, and while using strictly neutral language and strictly calling myself nonbinary has alleviated the dysphoria I was carrying from being called feminine terms all the time, it hasn’t felt quite euphoric and sometimes I feel odd with it like how I felt with calling myself sapphic (calling myself queer). As I’ve been calling myself masculine terms more often and voicing my desire to look like a boy, I’ve felt more connected with myself in a way I haven’t before. There’s something here worth exploring.

[starlightrosari]

The idea of being a not totally binary trans guy who’s feminine and androgynous grows more and more as I find myself not being totally whole being nonbinary. I am not mentally well in so many ways and I let this hold me back in my gender so much because how could I feel whole if I’m in a mental hole? I can’t get therapy, my living situation is bad for my mental health, and I’m not building a better future for myself. I know it’s not the biggest concern of mine being closeted, not finding my true style or being the way I wish to look, and not knowing truthfully what my gender is, but I can’t help but feel that’s related to my horrible mental health. I didn’t feel like myself until a few years ago because my whole life was so controlled by the perception other people had of me, and me being an identical twin I was made ultra aware of the painful ways I was viewed by my view being doubled knowing people hardly see a difference between me and my twin. I never knew what it felt like for something to belong to me, always just being pushed into what others expected. I want to feel like myself, even if it doesn’t make sense to anyone, and I’m realizing so much of my life was spent either numb and pretending to be someone else disassociating or wishing I was a boy, that I could look like one, and being jealous of people who were trans. I repressed so much how I connected to trans men, being unable to see myself in them because of how much I internalized how unalike I am from men, feeling like I could never be one and I could never see myself as one, so I tried to like being a girl by being feminine when it never felt comfortable. I hated looking at myself then, and I felt like everything was an experiment with style, but I did it because I didn’t see tiny people like me being masculine which was associated with being tall and strong, I was none of that and I knew this because people would reinforce this idea on me all the time. Identifying as nonbinary was a way of freeing myself from the binary extremes that hurt me so badly, and admitting to myself that I never felt like a girl or wanted to be one. It was a way of acknowledging that there was another option for me, and it felt good, but I didn’t connect with it in the same way that I see other trans people feeling so euphoric about themselves, like that they’re right in who they are and found themselves. I still feel so lost and feel more and more dysphoric and disconnected like I did before I came out to myself. The neutral language has felt freeing in some ways, as in I don’t feel dysphoric with how I’m referred, but it still feels strange, and it doesn’t bring me peace like I wanted it too. In a way it feels confining, like I’m still that kid who wanted to be a boy but never felt I could be. It feels limiting rather than limitless. Idk, I’m still figuring it out, but I have felt so much more myself calling myself a boy and expressing my masculine side and masculine yearnings to those I’m close to. I’m so uncomfortable continuing to be in this place of not knowing what’s right for me and not feeling totally comfortable in my body and identity, but I do know everyday my understanding is expanding. Over the past year I’ve been thinking maybe I’m a nonbinary guy, like I want to be masculine and like a man but also feminine and free of expectations of men that I don’t want to be. I even consider if the nonbinary label is even important to me anymore, or if I more so see it as a way of expressing myself. I like so many masculine terms and they bring me so much euphoria, and I’m beginning to believe my connection to them. I want to try using he/they pronouns, and I’m starting to think I might be happy being called “son” and “brother” and may even want to replace the neutral language I use to refer to myself entirely. I still don’t feel binary, and maybe it’s me invalidating myself and holding back from just letting myself be a non conventional gender nonconforming unique kind of boy, or maybe I just really love exploring what being a nonbinary boy is. I don’t know but I want to

[starlightrosari]

Reassessing transition: Do I want to go on Testosterone?

I’ve been thinking on this a lot and feel kind of strange about it because while I do have dysphoria, I don’t have an overwhelming sense of dread for my appearance. However, I am a nonbinary boy who wishes to look androgynous in a way akin to androgynous men (think vampires and elves, or for more human examples, androgynous male models or celebs and emo boys). I often feel limited in how I’m able to look because I can’t be androgynous in the way I wish for being a petite AFAB person and it holds me back a lot on feeling comfortable embracing my masculinity because I feel like no matter what I do, I look to some extent like a girl.

Section 1: Dysphoria as a feeling

I would describe my dysphoria as more being saddened at times by the way I look being overly feminine to a female appearing degree when I want to be androgynous masc leaning in appearance. I get upset when I’m dressed very typically masculine and still don’t look how I want, knowing it’s because I’m limited in how to achieve that because of my petite body and young feminine appearance. I get jealous of people who can be both masculine and feminine and not look like women, and as much as I tell myself “clothes don’t have a gender” or “androgyny shouldn’t be based on AGAB,” I still can’t shake the dissatisfaction of how I look compared to others. Sometimes it can mean almost crying staring at myself or being in a space where I’m aware of others perceiving me and look around being surrounded by androgynous male leaning appearing people who I wish I looked more like. Other times I get dressed fem anyways and then feel really uncomfortable about my body being so apparent and feminine and don’t want that attention on me, feeling like I look even smaller than I already am and that my curves are overly visible in a way that’s too female appearing that it’s not androgynous anymore, so I change into something else or just bare with the minor annoyance of dysphoria because I don’t want to sacrifice style for comfort when I probably don’t pass no matter what anyways. It’s upsetting if I think too hard on it but I’m sort of numb to how prevalent this feeling is because I’ve always had it and dealt with it by just looking cool enough that it didn’t matter that much as the alternative of hyper-fixating on how I should look sometimes makes it worse. That was how I coped with it growing up with a poor view of myself that I could never look right as a girl or as a boy. Because of this, when I acknowledge how I actually want to look or the parts of my body that bother me, although it’s obviously dysphoria, it doesn’t make me feel much of anything, just minor annoyance, discomfort, sadness, and a feeling of wishing I could look the way I always wished to be.

Section 2: My dysphoria

So I’ve explained how my dysphoria feels and vaguely what it is, but how about specifics? What feels wrong? Well, for starters, I have always loathed my tiny skinny arms hands and shoulders, wishing desperately that they could be bigger, partially because it’s an inconvenience stylistically (for example, I have really skinny fingers and wrists that make jewelry shopping difficult), but also because I just don’t want to be so small and feel dysphoric seeing my tiny arms. My height is another thing that I absolutely hated growing up, being triggered by how behind I was from everyone else and how overall young I look being petite and only 5’ tall, also worrying this is a big deterrent from me ever appearing masculine (so much so I repressed that I felt trans for most my life even though I’d have thoughts along the lines of being trans through most of it). I worked on this a bit in Highschool when I realized it would never change, and that even if I were a girl I’d still be bothered by this because it’s annoying for anyone, but it’s still difficult at times. Another thing is my feet. I hate how my feet look and how skinny and small they are, same with my toes. I try to keep socks on and not wear sandals to help this, and when I was young I always got uncomfortable comments about how tiny my feet were and would purposefully sit in a way that would hide them even though it was uncomfortable. It’s also annoying because my tiny feet and ankles and calfs make it hard to buy cool shoes. And I have huge thighs that sometimes bother me, and then below the knee is skinny when I wish at least that my legs were pencil shaped. My small waist is something I feel mixed emotions about. On one hand it’s kind of cool to have a unique feature on my body, and it can be hidden underneath shirts anyways, but then it also makes me really uncomfortable having it exposed. I feel similar about my hips. It’s cool my hips even out my body features a little but I don’t want them super visible, though I’m grateful to have them at the small size I do because they’re not so noticeable but they also make my big thighs appear slightly slimmer. My torso in general is really thin when I want it to be more square shaped. My voice sometimes bothers me too, more than I think even realize. Like, I don’t like hearing my voice back in recordings, and I don’t like repeating sentences because it makes me aware of how I sound. I feel annoyed that hard of hearing people can’t hear feminine voices as well as masculine ones because I hate shouting and hearing the sound of my voice so loudly, and I also internally think of my voice as androgynous so it’s frustrating realizing it’s not. I also hate when I subconsciously raise the pitch of my voice to seem more approachable to other people because it’s not how I want to sound. I also have mixed feelings about my face because I like the shape of it and my bone structure and big nose, but I wish it didn’t have such feminine fat and stretch to the skin, and I wish my jaw were more prominent and in general that my features were less round and more angular. And then there’s an area of my body I try to not ever think about that I hate, I have bottom dysphoria. I hate the function of that area, and how it genders me as belonging to women’s space. It always felt icky to me and I feel major dysphoria if being asked by a doctor about my fertility/sex life or about my period. I have an irregular period but when I get cramps and bloated and bleed, I feel so miserable and too embarrassed to tell anyone, and I hate thinking about how people in the house probably can see someone is on their cycle and know it’s me. My chest normally doesn’t bother me that much because I’m small but I wish I could have a flat chest and sometimes feel like my chest is just another obvious indicator of my assigned sex at birth that I don’t want to be referred by or seen as.

Section 3: Transition goals

Transition is complicated because I want to look like an androgynous boy, but not male. I want the effects of a deep voice, but still in the androgynous range. I want to get taller, which I doubt would happen but I’d be really happy if it did. I would be a lot happier with my skinny small body if it were more angular and masculine, with a wider torso and broader shoulders. I want my feet and hands to get bigger. I want my face to mature in a more masculine way. I want an atoms apple. I want bottom growth. I want my periods to stop, and to be infertile. I want fat redistribution to move fat away from my thighs, chest, and butt and distribute it in a more muscular male appearance. I want the curvature of a masculine frame that’s more stoic and angular, and to not be so overwhelmingly circle, pear, and curve shaped like women are. I want to wear makeup and pretty clothes and feel like I look like a pretty boy in it, not having to feel dysphoric for a way of expressing my style that I enjoy. I want to be non-normative in my appearance, feminine and glam or soft and masculine, but underneath all the styling have a boy base for my body that I much rather have than the feminine base that makes me uncomfortable in feminine clothing because I want to look like I boy in it.

Section 4: Doubts

I’ve explored what I want and how I feel dysphoric, even linking back to feelings that have been with me since childhood, and I understand how I feel limited in these goals without transitioning, but there’s still some things I haven’t quite figured out if I’d be okay with about transition. Since I want to be androgynous and T is geared towards masculinizing people to a male appearance, I worry some of the effects may not come across as androgynous as I hope for. I am very small and petite, and my features reflect that through the delicateness of my skin and bones and lack of muscle, and my hope is that T would masculinize this in an androgynous way that I’d be really happy with, where I look between male and female, masculine yet androgynous. I’ve felt this way since before I even fully came out to myself as trans or even was questioning my gender fully, and often envied how T effected people who were petite like me pre T. So I’m not nervous about the body and face changes, in fact I feel like those are what I want most out of T and am confident I’ve been really bothered by these things without it my whole life, wishing to be more androgynous. And I know I want the bottom growth because that was the first obvious dysphoria I had since I was a kid, and however strange it might be I feel like it will feel more right, as I always wished I had something different than I’ve been given. Any amount of doubt I sometimes have about this is more societally based, like concerns over if pants will be harder to find or if people will find my body strange or if I’ll still feel uncomfortable with my naked body. I also worry about if the hair increases will look strange on me, or if I’ll feel weird growing facial hair because “fems aren’t supposed to have hair.” I feel like on my own, I don’t think it’s weird to be hairy and have facial hair, even with me being small and androgynous, but the idea of other people seeing it makes me nervous. The voice change makes me nervous too because I don’t want my voice to get too deep and I love singing and don’t want to lose the ability to sing. I also feel like I’m supposed to want everything and feel terrible in my body because that’s what I see so many people say but I don’t want every effect and feel invalid for that. I feel like I’m supposed to know 100% that I’ll love every change of transition, and I don’t think I can know that to be honest. Though my body gives me dysphoria, the idea of changing it however fascinating it may be also is scary to me, and it’s a big decision that I’d like to feel more strong feelings about before deciding on it, as well as more good about the secondary sex characteristic changes I’ll get. I think it’s okay to not want so much of the hair changes, I can just be a guy who shaves, and I don’t mind so much being hairy on my body even if I would prefer not to be, it doesn’t feel like I’d feel wrong about having that change, it’s mostly just I don’t know how I’d feel with the facial hair, and I don’t want to feel ugly or not like myself. I think there’s just a lot of work I need to do to understand myself better, because I know I’ve felt immense jealousy over guys deep voices, flat chests, facial hair, and hell, even body hair sometimes, yet these are all the aspects of transition I’m least sure about.

[starlightrosari]

As a kid, my dysphoria was always prevalent, especially in middle school and High school, but I confused it for the desire to look more mature and womanly. I was a late bloomer, and the idea of being a sexy woman was appealing to me, but felt so impossible given how twig like and small my body was. I wore kids clothes for a long time and hated the style of girls clothes, but once I could wear women’s clothes I finally felt somewhat cute in what I wore. So it was easy to think then my struggle was not being feminine enough, yet within all that time I really wanted to be and dress like a boy, I just yet again didn’t think I could because my body was too small to pull it off. The idea of going back to the kids section to get boys clothes felt shameful to me after working so hard to get to a point of fitting in adult clothing. I started envying androgynous tall woman who could do both women’s clothes and men’s. Even in cosplay, I was interested in cosplaying boys but thought I’d look ugly if I did so I never tried it despite really wanting to. I entirely missed that my desire to look like boys but never acting on it was because of dysphoria stopping me because I didn’t feel I’d suit the look. It was easy to mistake the dysphoria for just wanting to look more mature since a lot of it was placed on how short and petite I am, so I also thought maybe cosplaying sexy women who also seemed impossible for me to cosplay would feel liberating, but instead I only cosplayed cute girls since that was all I knew how to do. I was interested in growing curvy because I thought I’d look more mature if I did, which I was desperate for. I was excited if my hips, chest, or butt grew, but not as excited as if I grew taller, and my chest growing started to get uncomfortable over time, and I hated my big thighs (I think I only liked my hips growing because it made my thighs look more proportionate/ slightly less big, my hips never grew big anyways). Meanwhile that whole time, what I really wanted was to be tall and androgynous. I watched trans fem YouTubers obsessively to try and validate that I was comfortable in my gender assigned at birth, watching them for advice on how to hyper feminize myself and look mature and pretty, like I was convinced I wanted. But I didn’t feel comfortable in hyperfemininity and wound up starting to dress androgynous anyways. I didn’t connect with the gender euphoric feeling of being a woman and being referred to as one that trans women described either. I started noticing how dysphoric it made me to be referred to as a girl all the time, and how fed up I was by my small dainty body that I didn’t know how to style like a boy. Everyone talks about how easy and accepted it is for women to dress gender nonconforming, but it wasn’t for me. My mother didn’t let me cut my hair until middle school and even then it took me till I was 19 to have the courage to try short short hair. I was so small that shopping for boys clothes actually felt dysphoria triggering to my biggest problem of being small. Despite my body not having curves, I didn’t feel androgynous and sexy, I felt like a little girl. So I tried to repress the dream of being a boy, since I didn’t see people like me being boys. But then I saw trans men and nonbinary people of my height do their things, and the desire to be a boy became harder to repress as the shame started to fade. I didn’t “not have dysphoria” as a little kid, in fact I thought about wishing to be a boy or wanting to get boys clothes all the time, it’s just my interest in feminine clothing came in result to the size dysphoria I had and still needing to explore gender fully.

[starlightrosari]

I never knew I had dysphoria growing up, even though I spent so much of my upbringing hating how I looked. There was nothing wrong with the way I looked, I even looked pretty and cute, sure I was tiny, but guys liked small girls. The problem was inside I felt like a boy, and if I was small for a girl I felt tiny for a guy. I dreamed of being androgynous and tall, for my shoulders and arms to not be so skinny, and for my legs to be pencil shaped without such large thighs. I wanted my face to be sharp and angular, but instead it was round and baby-like, and I always looked a few years younger than I actually was. I thought I could never be a boy, so I let go of the fantasy. I let myself believe through social conditioning of my girl upbringing that how I felt was because I didn’t mature enough into a woman. I started thinking maybe I just needed to be more feminine. At the time I was watching a lot of trans women YouTubers, for some reason I was fascinated by them, and I began shaping my view of femininity and gender around them. I thought because I’m so hairy from my ethnicity, maybe that was what bothered me, and maybe from being so small, I wasn’t feeling euphoric about the way clothes fit me, so I tried getting clothes that would highlight my womanly curves and shaving in entirety. Those were the main things that made trans women dysphoric, and it was something I could relate to. I didn’t like how different I felt from everyone else, and at first it was nice being more feminine because I got more attention from everyone and didn’t get weird stares anymore. But it didn’t feel like me, and it didn’t fix the problems I felt. I still felt like I was different than everyone else, and I was starting to think in the back of my mind that maybe I was trans, something which I’d always think about but never knew I could be. I still repressed the thought a lot, thinking I should just be happy because I was finally starting to present in an aesthetic that made me happy. As time went on I started questioning my sexuality that I always knew to be some form of gay. I thought maybe I was lesbian, and it opened up a lot of gender feelings I had long repressed. I remembered wishing I could dress boyish, and feeling hopeless like I could never find clothes to fit me or I wouldn’t suit the style. I finally let that go for the sake of exploration and I was so happy! People were finally noticing my boyishness, sometimes even commenting on how strong and brave I am, or calling me dapper. I didn’t feel like I was any of those things, but it felt so good after hearing compliments of how beautiful and cute I was my whole life, which always felt uncomfortable. I still wasn’t dressing entirely boyish, but I had my oversized sweatshirts, hoodies, denim jackets, and beanies, and I felt the most myself I had ever been. Still, lesbian didn’t feel right. For one, I just wasn’t sure that matched my sexuality, and two, it felt odd identifying with the one thing that always made me uncomfortable, being a girl. I always tried to fit into that label because I was supposed to, but I eventually realized I couldn’t because I didn’t connect with girls in the way I did with guys and being called a girl, lady, or sister made me incredibly uncomfortable. I finally realized that the body struggles I had and the social struggles I had were all gender dysphoria, and yet I still thought for a long time that I was too feminine to fit under the trans umbrella. What I realized is that my femininity is conditioned to me. I wouldn’t be feminine if I knew there were other options for me. Femininity is all I’ve known growing up, despite always feeling like a boy, because I didn’t grow up into a pretty girl. I always felt ugly and tiny, unable to fit clothes, and I learned that masculine styles make me feel bad about myself, but it wasn’t for the reason I thought. It was because I couldn’t fit into masculine style the way I did feminine, and I still looked like a girl and that made me dysphoric. I’m nonbinary and now I dress androgynous, but I want to look like a boy really.

[starlightrosari]

Born in the wrong body: A nonbinary perspective

I used to feel so invalidated as a nonbinary person, feeling like the script of what makes someone trans I didn’t fit into. After all, how could I be born in the wrong body if the body I wanted didn’t exist? However, recently I’ve been more honest with myself in my feelings, and become more aware of what would have been the right body for me. Now first off, I want to clarify that I don’t endorse this narrative as it feels rooted in transphobia and is excluding of trans people who are comfortable and happy in their bodies given to them at birth. But with that out of the way, here I go. I always felt it was wrong and unfair how short of height I was born, and that I should have been born with androgynous features. I don’t directly feel I should have been born with a different agab, more that I wished I had features thought of being androgynous — that I either had a model body or a pretty boy body essentially. There are things I wish I had that I would if I were amab which I wish I had, like wider shoulders, less overall small, wide and bony jaw, pencil shaped body, taller, etc — though I wouldn’t mind if I were born in an androgynous “woman’s body” either, as some afab individuals naturally are quite androgynous without having facial hair or as much body hair which would masculinize me. I feel if I were amab I would try to feminize myself a bit to look androgynous (like always shave, wear tight clothes and clothes from the women’s section, wear makeup, have my hair somewhat feminine, etc) to make up for looking more binary than I feel I am, and I might have a hard time with my size wanting to remain twinky (though I would love being tall). Instead I was born neither way being a small afab person, being able to look most accurate to a little boy or kid if I try really hard to look androgynous due to my small afab body. I wish I was able to do a mature more adult looking androgyny, but alas, I was “born with the wrong body” to do so. As a result, I currently find the decision of whether to go on T or not really confusing, as while it could help me look more androgynous, it also could make me look too masculine for my personal perception of myself, meaning I’d go from trying to masculinize myself to trying to feminize myself — and I couldn’t even get what I’d want most of all which is to be taller. Ideally, I would love if I could be taller and have a wider jaw with less fat in my cheeks and slightly broader shoulders than my super narrow twig shoulders (and be overall less small). I am at a point right now where I’m still working out whether or not I’d be open to having slight facial hair and a deeper voice (as my voice already is close to being androgynous by being a bit deeper than the average high pitch voice).

[starlightrosari]

Lately I’ve been struggling with what I believe is dysphoria. My gender is feeling more solidified in masculinity, and I feel very nonbinary. I realized something that once felt uncomfortable was holding onto being recognizably feminine and “girlish”, and I’ve begun putting that to rest as I wish to not be associated in that binary way. I feel separate from my agab, wishing to distance myself from the perceived gender I once was. I feel hurt if I try to hold onto some connection I once had to the cis woman experience and identity, as it’s not connected to how I wish to be perceived and I’m not connected to it. I feel so confused about my dysphoria, but I the thought of looking like a cis woman makes me incredibly uncomfortable and anxious, even giving me a sense of dread because I don’t want to live my entire life looking like a girl. I want to have broad shoulders and an androgynous torso, and I want a wide jawline and toned cheekbones. I’m afraid of transitioning because I don’t know if I’ll be satisfied by it—what if I become to masculine and don’t look androgynous like I want to? There’s comfort in knowing how I look now, and it’s uncomfortable pursuing something that I’m not 100% sure of when I don’t even know how I’ll look. But I realize there are other trans masc people and men like me who like alternative ideas of masculinity that are more “soft,” or “dapper,” “feminine,” etc. You can transition and still partake in feminizing yourself just as cis men and trans fem people can. But I get confused because I don’t feel that knowing tell of feeling awful with the way I look. I can recognize dissatisfaction and feeling like I was supposed to be born androgynous, and I can see the lack of confidence in myself and portrayal of awkwardness when being stared at, but I feel such lack of assurance in who I am or where to go. I don’t know what that’s like to dislike my chest or wish I looked like a cis guy because I don’t recognize those feelings in myself, yet the discontent and weirdness I feel about my body do have me feel like maybe I would feel euphoric if I looked more masculine and just don’t know yet. I think another source of my anxiety over the idea of whether to transition or not to transition is in being nonbinary. My goal for transition would be to look androgynous in a masculine/male connected way, but I would not want to look entirely male. I don’t want facial hair or increase of body hair, and I don’t know how I’d feel if my voice became really masculine. I want to sound and look like a pretty boy. But then again by not transitioning I feel very uncomfortable in the sense where I know I’m always going to be perceived as feminine and girlish no matter how much I do to look like a boy. It feels limiting and dysphoria inducing. Sometimes I wonder if my uncertainty about transition is guided in internalized nonbinaryphobia, as a lingering fear in my mind tells me there’s no place for nonbinary people. I feel a compulsion to be male aligned or female aligned to fit into society better, even though I know I’m more neutral than I am anything else. Sigh, it’s confusing and I don’t know what to do, but maybe some day I’ll understand these thoughts better

[starlightrosari]

I don’t know if what I’m feeling is dysphoria or dysmorphia. I’m 4’11” tall, very skinny and tiny with a small frame, tiny shoulders, wrists, hands, and feet, tiny chest, and I look much younger than I actually am, often being assumed to be 14-15 when I’m 18+ years old. I always wished my face looked less baby like, having more androgynous features like a broad jaw and less fat in my cheeks. I wished I’d be tall like an elf, or at least not so tiny, having long legs. And I wanted a wider frame to my body with broad shoulders muscle and less skinny of arms and wrists. I wanted bigger hands and feet. But I didn’t get those things and it makes me really sad sometimes. I try to avoid thinking about it, but I feel like even when I’m not thinking about it then I feel very awkward in the way I look. Then I think about how I’m trans and how It really just content with my body, but that maybe with so much left to be desired I could be more euphoric. I conformed to what I thought would be most flattering to my body because I was confused and thought I just felt ugly, so I tried to fox that by making myself look pretty. I wore tights and skin tight clothes that would make what little curves I have stand out, and I also tried the cute thing of wearing skirts dresses and pastels. I kind of hated both options, though I still do a little bit of both. I felt even more awkward. I never really gave myself a proper shot at dressing androgynously even though I knew it was what made me most comfortable, because I convinced myself I wouldn’t find anything that would fit my body (typically fitting into women’s XS and S and having difficulties with pants because of small hips with thighs that overextend my hips). For a little during puberty I liked the changes happening to me because I thought maybe then I could look my age, but instead I just wound up with nipples that I feel awkward with and need to hide and lots of body hair that makes me feel ultra hairy and like everyone’s staring at me. And a period which thankfully is very infrequent, which could be causing problems Idk but I’m afraid to tell my doctor because I hate having one. And people asking me if I’ve lost my virginity or am ever going to have kids. I hate the attention. I’m lucky in a way by being so small because it makes my chest dysphoria easier to deal with and it hasn’t caused me much issue because of that, but being so small is a big trigger for me dysphoria wise. I knew if I did T it wouldn’t help with my height, but maybe it would still help me stop feeling so small. The thing is I’m really just not sure if these things are gender related enough for me to be comfortable with getting even more body hair and facial hair, and I already have no idea what it would do to my voice and I don’t like that. But still, I wonder if I’d be happier like that all the time. I think a lot of my uncertainty lies in that I haven’t tried enough to feel it yet. Right now I still feel awkward. Sometimes I really like how I look, but never to a degree that’s euphoric and looks nonbinary to me. I feel like I need to try binding and different clothes, more short haircuts, and experiment more with names and pronouns because I’m just not seeing myself yet. I know I’m nonbinary, but I don’t know how much I am I guess. Sometimes I feel very trans, while other times I feel like I’m just a fem presenting enby, which honestly sucks because what I wear would come across more androgynous if I weren’t so feminine physically. I like the way I dress but I don’t like how feminine it makes me feel, I hate that it makes me feel like I look like a girl. I know everywhere I go I’m gonna be haunted by the dreaded “ma’am” “miss” “lady” “girl.”

[starlightrosari]

I don’t want to transition, but if I had the option to look feminine and sexy when I’m all dressed up and then take off that look whenever I want for a more casual look and look masculine and like a boy, I absolutely would—Oh wait, I think what I want to be is a drag queen then! Time to start T and be like Gotmik lmao

[starlightrosari]

My butch and I are both lesbians. We are, neither of us, men.

But I call him my boyfriend. I call him my boytoy, my boy, sir, Mr., guy. Cause this language makes him happy. It supports his gender and expression, and it makes him happy.

Butches of all flavors and types have been using he/him pronouns and masculine language forever. Butches have been called boy, guy, boyfriend. Butches have used "traditionally masculine" names like Mitch, Ed, Mac, Joe.

Cause guess what?

Language is fake! It's all made up! If it makes you happy, use it! Wanna call yourself "boy," even if you're not a man? Do it! Wanna be called "boyfriend," even if you're not a guy? Go for it!

[starlightrosari]

I forgot some people genuinely refer to their chests as breasts or boobs… Now I remember how uncomfortable I was the first time someone mentioned me growing them… I don’t entirely have chest dysphoria, though referring to that area of my body as anything different than my chest makes me irk.

[starlightrosari]

It is valid to consider/call yourself transmasc even if you don’t seek out transition options. Transmasculine simply describes someone who was assigned female at birth but doesn’t identify as female (or if you’re multi gender, identifies beyond your agab like bigender, demigender, or androgyny). It’s a broad group of people who may identify as male, nonbinary, Agender, genderqueer, gender-fluid, etc. Though some transmasculine people may seek out transition through hormones and surgery, others may not and it isn’t a necessary part of identifying as transmasculine. If you consider yourself transmasculine but don’t fit the stereotype, say you are anyways if the term is resonating. Don’t let the idea that there’s only one true way of being trans stop you from having confidence in your identity! Likewise, anyone who’s nonbinary spectrum can call themselves transgender even if they’re not taking/planning to take hormones or getting surgeries

[starlightrosari]

Gnc culture is people using one set for you so often that you start to dislike it because you feel like it's keeping people from accepting your entire identity

I'm assuming this means one set of pronouns? If so, then yeah its super annoying when people don't change things up.

Some solutions I've seen for this have been letting some people (usually other trans/gnc people) use your full set of pronouns, while others are expected to use specific ones. e.g "please use he/him for me unless I've specifically said otherwise". That can change things up a bit.

Also feel free to completely remove a set of pronouns from the rotation, it's completely fine.

[starlightrosari]

Not all transmascs want to be masculine and not all transfems want to be feminine. Just like not all cis people want to be masculine or feminine. Leave trans people alone.

[starlightrosari]

Come on guys it’s 2022, we’ve acknowledged the fluidity of gender, normalized the use of they/them pronouns, become aware of dysphoria and trans related violence… Why are we still hearing people mock youth for being nonbinary? I thought we were done with the attack helicopter jokes but even if people are using different phrase’s it’s basically still the same thing. If you don’t support nonbinary, you don’t support transgender—you support assimilation, discrimination, and hegemony binaries. You support all of us or none of us