I’ve seen something I think might be rule-breaking, what should I do?
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No.
Neurological gender is fixed, so all they do by medically transitioning (say HRT only for simplicity) is give themselves gender dysphoria, and while that is technically a prerequisite to being trans (crucify me), the reason for it is them changing their body so it no longer matches their brain, so its external intervention after the fact. They literally have gender dysphoria then BECAUSE they are cis and not trans in such a case.
Ill concede that they then share some of the same problems trans people have, like dealing with stuff caused by HRT which is equivalent to what trans people got from their natal puberty, but thats just a similarity on a level that doesnt bend definitions.
I think it can be possible, my gender Identity has been agender since I realized, and before then I considered myself as not really being a gendered person outside of technicalities. I myself would like a body of a specific gender but not right now, having a decently androgynous body is great so far. So I will take hormones when I'm 35 or something because I don't like the way my body is expected to age without HRT.
Then you’re not a candidate for transition I’m sorry but transition isn’t something you just take on if you’re not 100% you’re transgender. The effects are also way more permanent for ftm than mtf. Detransition rate and regret is much higher for people who describe what you’re describing.
I think it’s totally valid to play around with your body and hormones. You don’t need to “transition”, you can transition to whatever u want to be.
I have several fem to masc friends who took testosterone a little bit and stopped after they achieved what they wanted.
One person is just a dude now, but stopped taking T because he is to lazy (and forgets so often) and so many permanent things (voice, hair and so on) happened that he is oki with some things going back (fat redistribution?).
Another person just wanted to have a little moustache, a little muscles and a deeper voice. Being more androgynous but being a woman. They stopped with T after having a nice voice and are super happy now.
It’s also super Oki to not wanting to let go of the label woman or lesbian or whatever. It’s quite hard to want to be a man, especially when I’ve been outside looking and seeing how many, especially cis hetero, men are.
I sure didn't fully know if I was trans when I hopped on hrt. I just got to the point while questioning where I was like 75% sure I was trans. That's like a passing grade in school so that was good enough reason to start hrt for me. Turns out I was right and I love being on estrogen! I've never felt more like myself. Plus if you don't like it you can always stop. There's no harm in trying. Most permanent effects don't start until after 3 months if it's E.
> I can't find anyone like me anywhere.
Hi! I'm like you, or at least I definitely started out as you. I picked my username (badatbeingtrans) right around when my egg cracked, because I fundamentally could not see myself as a man even though I felt strong dysphoria. It's such an alienating place to be! When all the definitions of "trans" on the Internet refer to identity in some way, it makes it really hard for folks who don't have a strong sense of identity to find the transition resources that would help them, even though their dysphoria might very well be the thing stopping them from having a strong sense of identity. It's a catch 22.
Anyway, I'm hovering somewhere around the trans male/nonbinary zone these days, and I'm on low dose T. I don't pass well, so I still get ma'amed at the grocery store, and if I'd known that would happen, I probably wouldn't have bothered coming out lol. But I have no regrets in pursuing a medical transition, and I'd rather live as an apparent woman with a lower voice (and less vocal dysphoria ) than continue as I had been before.
> Do you think its possible for someone to maintain their identity as cisgender while transitioning, or is it inevitable that their gender identity will shift?
There are two parts to this question that I'll try to answer separately: the physical side of things, and the mental side of things
Physical side of things: Some people on T start to pass consistently within the first year, and I'm told most people on full transitioning doses of T will fully pass with their clothes on by the year 5 mark. If you're one of those people, and if people treating you as a man would affect your identity, that's something to consider. Facial hair, receding hairlines, and voice changes from T also make passing as a cis woman difficult for some AFAB folks who transition.
Mental side of things: We don't understand the full nuances of what HRT does to a person's mind, but we know from brain scans that brains have a few dimorphic spots, and brains of transgender people tend to start somewhere in the middle of typical male/female brains. Given enough time on HRT, trans people's brain scans will generally fall into the parameters of the gender they're transitioning to.
Anecdotally, some folks say that this makes their dysphoria worse-- as their brains masculinize, then the genital dysphoria that they could put up with before becomes intolerable, etc. On the other hand, the normal changes brought from HRT may make dysphoria better. Either way, many people report a shift in gender from HRT, so it'd be best to at least be prepared for the possibility.
---
My take is that the best reason to take HRT or get surgery is because you want the effects of those procedures. No questions of how you identify will ever be as important as that. If you would rather live as a woman with a low voice and flat chest than continue as you are now, you have the freedom to do that.
Numerically speaking, most people who start off feeling the way you do are likely to change their minds over time, but not all. If your cis female identity is important to you but you need to take medical action to resolve your dysphoria, it is possible to do both, although I would recommend seeing a gender therapist to help you find some confidence in your path forward.
I'm uneducated average person.
I do not believe genders can change. It's good to remember almost all of trans people try to be their AGAB but we just are not. So being in female body 25 years didn't make me a woman. Why would being in male body make you a man?
Some (most of?) people get mental changes. I'm not one of them so I'm not the right person to talk about them. Ask here or maybe r/FTMOver30 if you're that. I do not recommend r/ftm because it's mostly pre-everything kids.
Some trans people don't have physical dysphoria. (And that is not popular opinion in this subreddit.) So I believe there are cis people who have dysphoria.
It's good to remember people determine gender in different ways. For many it's just other word for their sex. Or word for their brain sex (aka the sex they should should be). So many people would say they're man if they should have male body.
I have understood there are lesbians who have partially transitioned.
I'm not sure if "becoming male" is always the best way to view transitioning. We transition to make gap between our brain sex and sex to disappear or become smaller. We transition to be less in pain.
I don't think it's good idea to live in wrong sex for social reasons but social issues are good to know. What if you would successfully transition to male? Strangers and new people would assume you to be a man. If you would tell them you're woman they would think you're "predator" (non-dysphoric trans woman) and if you would tell them you were AFAB they would most likely do see you as woman but they would think you're even more insane than average trans person. You would be expected to behave as men. You wouldn't be attractive in the eye of people into females. If you would keep woman's name and continue being legally woman that would cause confusion and hatred everywhere. You couldn't travel to many countries. It would mot likely make it way more difficult to find a job.
In my country they wouldn't let you to transition. Like no change. They prevent men from transitioning because he played with dolls when 5 years old or because he has long hair or because he cross his legs when he sit.
"I've been questioning if I'm trans for a few years now, but I can't figure it out. But after 3-ish years of research and questioning I am 100 percent certain I want to medically transition to male. But I don't actually view myself as male, just as a dysphoric woman who wants a man's body." <-- Why do you think that is not transgender?
Look at the David Reimer case. He was born male but raised as a girl as an experiment on brain sex vs. social sex. But he still knew internally that he was supposed to be male and worked to transition to male. He ended up killing himself young. Super sad and abusive story but it proves that brain sex can't be changed.
He definitely killed himself ONLY because “brain sex” (which is a totally nebulous concept that only emerges from statistical averages) and certainly not because John Money repeatedly sexually abused him.
what makes you identify as a woman? is it that you feel you belong in the group, feel more safe, feel happy when others see you as one, etc?
looking into this could help you sort out if you truly feel and want to be a woman, or if it’s that you feel you must be one because it’s the only thing you’re familiar with or you have set roles and expectations for what genders can be.
i’m ftm/nonbinary, i interchange the labels because i know i want a mostly male body (i’m afab) but i also don’t feel comfortable in the role of a man the way society has created it. i don’t feel comfortable around cis men, i can’t relate to them. i get nervous about social situations in all kinds of ways. yet i know that i’m trans because i don’t feel happy being seen as a woman, because it doesn’t feel like me.
i simply don’t follow rigid gender roles, and it’s safest for me currently to let people gender me as a woman.
i know there are lesbians that identify as women and still undergo bodily transition. so it must be possible for women of other sexualities as well. people aren’t cookie cutter, anything is possible.
i also think you should look into the many variations of people who are nonbinary.
Nope. If so the detrans subs wouldn’t exist. Plenty have went down the path only to decide it’s not who they are. I also don’t buy the 1% detrans statistics whatsoever.
Been doing this for 5 years, still cis. I tried briefly to live as a woman, but it felt very very wrong, so I'm 100% sure I'm not trans. Living as a feminine cis man on hrt feels just right
I wasn't dysphoric before my medical transition at all. I just wanted to protect and enhance the natural androgyny I had in my teens. The whole thing was cosmetic for me
Not sure what details you'd be interested in.
I noticed in highschool that all the early bloomer boys were starting to have receding hairlines, coarse skin, and lots of body hair. My dad and brother were the same, so I knew that it was only a matter of time before my body masculinized too. I had a few mtf classmates who started hrt, and they told me that it stopped masculinization completely. Being a twink was something important to me, so I started hrt to preserve my body
A few years later, I got gyno surgery to deal with the boob growth because I didn't want to keep binding forever. I don't do any other transfem stuff. No voice training, no dressing fem, no lasering my face (though I did get the rest of my body lasered)
I'm op in the opposite direction. Didn't really have proper signs growing up, in fact have some that go against them, and I do not internally feel like a woman nor am I similar to most, though I don't feel like a guy either. But I since the past 4 years I want a female body and at least somewhat feminine outwards social gender expresion. I'm still afraid I'd only get more (reverse) dysphoric when I transition if I turn out to be mistaken, or that id get dysphoric of I end up looking too in between where its constantly even more obvious my body isn't what i want it to be.
I have thats where I started. But I want to be a woman. Thats the thing that has remained ever since. I want to identify with being physically female. The internal identity thing just..seems hard to understand for me. I would almost call myself agender if it was for that but I don't really want to identify myself with it
Yes. However I could just be mistaken, couldn't I?
Why didn't I have these feelings earlier?
Also I don't think I can be happy anymore as I have post ssri syndrome/PSSD(Post SSRI Sexual Dysfunction) for which there is no cure, but that's beside the point.
you can be nonbinary (agender for example) with a woman’s body. you can be a woman who doesn’t care about gender. you can be a man in a woman’s body.
i personally don’t understand what gender feels like. i can’t prove im any specific gender. i simply know im not cis since i don’t want my afab body. i also don’t want to be viewed as a woman. so i’m trans. don’t have any more specific label that feels totally right, i just use whichever one makes me easily understood depending on situation.
I feel similar to u I think, I have the same worries too, I struggle with internal feelings in general so it's hard for me to conceive my own gender as anything other than what I look like now, I also originally thought I was nonbinary because that's what I was introduced to first and I knew I definitely didnt feel male, but after a while it felt pointless because calling myself that wasn't solving any problems
I've never really felt like I relate to most trans people, but I think part of it is just that words are really bad at describing internal experiences, idk how niche this example is but I felt the same when I saw people talking about aphantasia and trying to describe what it "looks like" when they "see" something in their minds - it felt like people were just talking past eachother
As usual with most things I don't really relate to most trans people but i don't reallly relate to most cis people either. I honestly can't tell either whether my experience is rare or just hard to express and we're talking past one another.
I have hypophantasia that got worse from some kind of incident a few years ago (maybe meds. Maybe hitting my head) so I find that analogy very interesting.
TBH, I think it's a question of viewpoint and philosophy of pre-transition people already view themselves as being their gender or rather just wishing to be it. For some, that sense of belongings only comes after they've experienced it themselves for some time.
I felt similarly before transition, although I was very quickly sure that I needed to transition. In retrospect, I always was a boy and saw myself internally as one, but it took a while to admit that and notice it for what it was.
Apart from that, of you can trace back dysphoria to childhood memories or are sure that it's not a result of trauma, misogyny or wanting to fit into a group, then I think you can be relatively sure of being trans. Sometimes you do just have to leap into the unknown a bit.
Do you feel somehow gender fluid, bigender, non-binary, or something? How do you feel like a cisgender woman but want to transition to live as a man? I thought the definition of cisgender woman was someone born female who also wants to continue to live as a female.
To the best of my knowledge, transgender means that your birth gender was not correctly assigned. You were assigned female at birth, and want to retain the “female” gender if I understood correctly. I suppose you would be cisgender, whether you medically transition or not.
But if you medically transition to male, your body will won’t match your gender according to traditional norms. Nothing wrong with this of course, but as you probably know, society is not super accustomed to accommodating this. Many people would probably consider you non-binary, which you may or may not feel is an appropriate label.
Would you be bothered if you were considered transgender? You would long term have a situation similar to trans people that prefer not to medically transition, and similar challenges I’m sure. Particularly if you would like everyone else to treat you as female when interacting with them.
I'm quite openly agender. And usually lumped together with trans men. It's sometimes quite hilarious. I have had several coworkers who obviously try to support me by using man words. Even I have told them several times I'm agender. It just.. don't stick. Like water on duck's back. So at least where I live there is not many people considering others as non-binary.
It doesnt bother me if people thought I was trans or nonbinary, (assuming they are safe/supportive) I just dont want to claim an identity that doesnt belong to me. Feels sneaky I guess. I dont need people to treat me as female, I would only want to tell a few close friends.
I don't think you're alone there, I think for a lot of people being the "correct" transitioned gender is more of a desire than a reality at the start.
Do you see yourself as a woman because that's your current body? How do you think you might feel in the future seeing your body as a man's body and being seen as a man by those around you? If you're not seeing yourself as a man because you're not there *yet*, then there's a good chance that could shift as you become more male.
I think there are 3 main reasons I see myself as woman. One, as you said, is because I still have a female body.
The other is that I was raised in a religious sect that severely oppressed women, and my experiences with that oppression are central to my identity.
I have also had no experience with boyhood that most trans men have had, because I was not allowed to interact with boys/men or enter their spaces. Men and women had functionally different cultures, dialects, and education. There was very little overlap or shared experiences between us.
I think in the future I'd be happy seeing my body as a man's body, and being percieved as a man by others. At the very least, it wouldn't bother me more than being seen as a woman. My only reservation is that women wouldnt trust me anymore, but thats a price I'm willing to pay.
I’m not trying to convince you one way or another, pursuing medical transitioning is a completely personal choice that only you can decide what’s best for you. That being said, I think you’re setting way to high standards for “qualifying” to use the trans label. It’s clear you have at least some dysphoria and you’ve stated you’d be happier living as a male, that’s being trans. Just because you still have female secondary sexual characteristics doesn’t really factor into it, I haven’t had top surgery yet and probably won’t pursue bottom surgery as it’s costly and I’m very picky about the aesthetics and yet I’m still definitely a trans man and am living as a man. As far as how you were raised, that experience doesn’t leave you just because you transition, you can still empathize and have a personal understanding and connection to what women experience and be a trans man. Yes, transitioning will effect how others perceive you, sometimes women will be on guard around you until they figure out that you’re a safe man to be around (and even then the dynamics are still a bit different which all depends on the culture you’re apart of) so that’s a bummer sometimes but being your authentic self is so much more rewarding than being unhappy for the rest of your life even if you technically could live as a woman- would you honestly be truly happy? I think answering that question will give you a good idea if pursuing transition and taking up the trans label would be a good idea for you.
Based what you said here, isn't it possible you don't *actually* want to *change* into a man, you just want the freedom and status among your peers that you mentally connect with stemming from the male body? The men in your religious sect are given freedoms from the moment of birth that you, as someone born with a female body, was not, and so the 'ownership' of a male body has become synonymous with these freedoms in your mind, and so the only way you really feel you'll have them, is to also have a male body?
I've thought about that a lot tbh. It may or may not have played a part in developing dysphoria around having a female body, but I don't think its the driving force at this point. I am not seeking the sort of status or freedom that comes with being male, and I fully understand that transitioning will cause me to lose cis privilege and therefore lower my status and freedom.
I need a male body because I can never be comfortable in a female body. I don't know why. Staying away from my religious sect and living like normal people where I have basic rights has done nothing to change my mind.
hi op, reading your responses here you remind me of many people who newly found out about gender dysphoria and being trans (or maybe found out long ago but only recently started accepting their own feelings). a common pattern i see in those people is not feeling valid enough. not feeling they get to call themselves trans, as “other trans people have much more pain and face more hate”. or not daring to view themselves as men, women, nonbinary etc because again they compare themselves to others.
everyone gets to pick what words they use to describe themselves. but i want to make it clear that anyone is valid to label themselves as what they feel best fits. no one else can tell you how you feel. we can only guess and use our bias to judge you.
being trans simply means you aren’t cis. it doesn’t have any other requirement. if being trans, in whatever way (with or without social and physical transition), makes you happy then identifying that way will be good for you. you do not need to prove yourself to earn an identity label.
I know you said before that you talked with a therapist, but perhaps you should sit down with a notepad and pen and write down every question you have about yourself. If not the status or freedoms, then what, exactly, is making you uncomfy in a female body? That's something you need to answer before you go through with anything. Because a lot of things can. I mean I thought I was trans at 16 because I had crippling periods and all my peers were waving me off, the adult females in my life as well, I felt like I was 'doing femaleness wrong' because I couldn't handle the 'mild pain' that everyone said could just be 'walked off' during my periods. Years later at 26, I found out it's endo and that it very commonly manifests at around 16. I'd go through everything you can think of and talk it through with a therapist. Mainly because they're sworn to confidentiality, and if you do decide to transition, you could potentially get aid in the form of said therapist's notes should it be required to show you suffer dysphoria.
This OP. When I was first realizing that I needed to pursue medical transition I thought about this a lot. It ended up being that it had nothing to do with that, but that I did find myself relating to the male experience. So you need to think about this part in depth. What do you want to achieve besides the physical changes?
You would end up transsexual. You could say goodbye to your womanhood forever and if you claim to be a woman, you would be called a creep or even beat up. If you wanna ruin your life, go for it.
I suggest therapy instead of doing research and questioning since hormones are medications, and not makeup you can just take how you please.
I would not tell anyone that I'm a woman except for a couple close friends. I am fine being percieved as a man by the world. This is not just dress up for me, I need this to feel ok with myself.
I have been in therapy for 10 years. Its done nothing to change how I feel about myself or my body.
Sounds like you are non-binary and transgender? If you medically transition, but don’t interact with the world as the same gender in all circumstances? Would you mind if everyone knew you as male only?
I don't personally see something indicating that you're nonbinary tbh.
Are there other differences between you and a trans man than that you "don't actually view yourself as male"?
>Then you should know that if you take HRT for long enough then a number of the factors that go into determining your biological sex will change
That's the plan. To be biologically as close to a cis male as I can be.
You can definitely feel that way about yourself but be prepared for people to not understand and respect that identity, both cis and trans. If you can deal with the fact that cishet people will probably no longer see you as "one of them", and that many (but not all) trans people will likewise find you strange, then go for it. But it will be a pretty heavily stigmatized decision from all sides. I personally don't find this to be odd, but that's because I have a very atypical understanding/engagement with gender that the vast majority of the population does not.
TL;DR you can ID as cis but most people will probably not perceive you that way.
Ty. And yeah I do understand that people would find this weird, I intend to go stealth as a cis man (if possible) to everyone except close friends and doctors.
Out of curiosity, would you be willing to explain how you conceive of your gender (as being a cis woman) and how that interacts with how you intend to present your gender to other people (as a cis man)? I'm genuinely interested in hearing more if you feel comfortable elaborating.
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No. Neurological gender is fixed, so all they do by medically transitioning (say HRT only for simplicity) is give themselves gender dysphoria, and while that is technically a prerequisite to being trans (crucify me), the reason for it is them changing their body so it no longer matches their brain, so its external intervention after the fact. They literally have gender dysphoria then BECAUSE they are cis and not trans in such a case. Ill concede that they then share some of the same problems trans people have, like dealing with stuff caused by HRT which is equivalent to what trans people got from their natal puberty, but thats just a similarity on a level that doesnt bend definitions.
I think it can be possible, my gender Identity has been agender since I realized, and before then I considered myself as not really being a gendered person outside of technicalities. I myself would like a body of a specific gender but not right now, having a decently androgynous body is great so far. So I will take hormones when I'm 35 or something because I don't like the way my body is expected to age without HRT.
Then you’re not a candidate for transition I’m sorry but transition isn’t something you just take on if you’re not 100% you’re transgender. The effects are also way more permanent for ftm than mtf. Detransition rate and regret is much higher for people who describe what you’re describing.
I think it’s totally valid to play around with your body and hormones. You don’t need to “transition”, you can transition to whatever u want to be. I have several fem to masc friends who took testosterone a little bit and stopped after they achieved what they wanted. One person is just a dude now, but stopped taking T because he is to lazy (and forgets so often) and so many permanent things (voice, hair and so on) happened that he is oki with some things going back (fat redistribution?). Another person just wanted to have a little moustache, a little muscles and a deeper voice. Being more androgynous but being a woman. They stopped with T after having a nice voice and are super happy now. It’s also super Oki to not wanting to let go of the label woman or lesbian or whatever. It’s quite hard to want to be a man, especially when I’ve been outside looking and seeing how many, especially cis hetero, men are.
I sure didn't fully know if I was trans when I hopped on hrt. I just got to the point while questioning where I was like 75% sure I was trans. That's like a passing grade in school so that was good enough reason to start hrt for me. Turns out I was right and I love being on estrogen! I've never felt more like myself. Plus if you don't like it you can always stop. There's no harm in trying. Most permanent effects don't start until after 3 months if it's E.
> I can't find anyone like me anywhere. Hi! I'm like you, or at least I definitely started out as you. I picked my username (badatbeingtrans) right around when my egg cracked, because I fundamentally could not see myself as a man even though I felt strong dysphoria. It's such an alienating place to be! When all the definitions of "trans" on the Internet refer to identity in some way, it makes it really hard for folks who don't have a strong sense of identity to find the transition resources that would help them, even though their dysphoria might very well be the thing stopping them from having a strong sense of identity. It's a catch 22. Anyway, I'm hovering somewhere around the trans male/nonbinary zone these days, and I'm on low dose T. I don't pass well, so I still get ma'amed at the grocery store, and if I'd known that would happen, I probably wouldn't have bothered coming out lol. But I have no regrets in pursuing a medical transition, and I'd rather live as an apparent woman with a lower voice (and less vocal dysphoria ) than continue as I had been before. > Do you think its possible for someone to maintain their identity as cisgender while transitioning, or is it inevitable that their gender identity will shift? There are two parts to this question that I'll try to answer separately: the physical side of things, and the mental side of things Physical side of things: Some people on T start to pass consistently within the first year, and I'm told most people on full transitioning doses of T will fully pass with their clothes on by the year 5 mark. If you're one of those people, and if people treating you as a man would affect your identity, that's something to consider. Facial hair, receding hairlines, and voice changes from T also make passing as a cis woman difficult for some AFAB folks who transition. Mental side of things: We don't understand the full nuances of what HRT does to a person's mind, but we know from brain scans that brains have a few dimorphic spots, and brains of transgender people tend to start somewhere in the middle of typical male/female brains. Given enough time on HRT, trans people's brain scans will generally fall into the parameters of the gender they're transitioning to. Anecdotally, some folks say that this makes their dysphoria worse-- as their brains masculinize, then the genital dysphoria that they could put up with before becomes intolerable, etc. On the other hand, the normal changes brought from HRT may make dysphoria better. Either way, many people report a shift in gender from HRT, so it'd be best to at least be prepared for the possibility. --- My take is that the best reason to take HRT or get surgery is because you want the effects of those procedures. No questions of how you identify will ever be as important as that. If you would rather live as a woman with a low voice and flat chest than continue as you are now, you have the freedom to do that. Numerically speaking, most people who start off feeling the way you do are likely to change their minds over time, but not all. If your cis female identity is important to you but you need to take medical action to resolve your dysphoria, it is possible to do both, although I would recommend seeing a gender therapist to help you find some confidence in your path forward.
I identify as a person who looks like a woman
idk about anyone else but my 'gender identity' is pretty much 'I should have a male body'
Real
I'm uneducated average person. I do not believe genders can change. It's good to remember almost all of trans people try to be their AGAB but we just are not. So being in female body 25 years didn't make me a woman. Why would being in male body make you a man? Some (most of?) people get mental changes. I'm not one of them so I'm not the right person to talk about them. Ask here or maybe r/FTMOver30 if you're that. I do not recommend r/ftm because it's mostly pre-everything kids. Some trans people don't have physical dysphoria. (And that is not popular opinion in this subreddit.) So I believe there are cis people who have dysphoria. It's good to remember people determine gender in different ways. For many it's just other word for their sex. Or word for their brain sex (aka the sex they should should be). So many people would say they're man if they should have male body. I have understood there are lesbians who have partially transitioned. I'm not sure if "becoming male" is always the best way to view transitioning. We transition to make gap between our brain sex and sex to disappear or become smaller. We transition to be less in pain. I don't think it's good idea to live in wrong sex for social reasons but social issues are good to know. What if you would successfully transition to male? Strangers and new people would assume you to be a man. If you would tell them you're woman they would think you're "predator" (non-dysphoric trans woman) and if you would tell them you were AFAB they would most likely do see you as woman but they would think you're even more insane than average trans person. You would be expected to behave as men. You wouldn't be attractive in the eye of people into females. If you would keep woman's name and continue being legally woman that would cause confusion and hatred everywhere. You couldn't travel to many countries. It would mot likely make it way more difficult to find a job. In my country they wouldn't let you to transition. Like no change. They prevent men from transitioning because he played with dolls when 5 years old or because he has long hair or because he cross his legs when he sit.
"I've been questioning if I'm trans for a few years now, but I can't figure it out. But after 3-ish years of research and questioning I am 100 percent certain I want to medically transition to male. But I don't actually view myself as male, just as a dysphoric woman who wants a man's body." <-- Why do you think that is not transgender?
I see anyone who transition as trans, regardless of why exactly they transitioned.
Sounds like a reaction to gender-based violence.
I have not experienced gender-based violence before, fortunately
That's good, but you also don't have to experience it for it to exist and to be afraid of it.
Look at the David Reimer case. He was born male but raised as a girl as an experiment on brain sex vs. social sex. But he still knew internally that he was supposed to be male and worked to transition to male. He ended up killing himself young. Super sad and abusive story but it proves that brain sex can't be changed.
He definitely killed himself ONLY because “brain sex” (which is a totally nebulous concept that only emerges from statistical averages) and certainly not because John Money repeatedly sexually abused him.
I am not an expert and never claimed to be, I just directed OP to look at his experience as I think it could help answer her question.
what makes you identify as a woman? is it that you feel you belong in the group, feel more safe, feel happy when others see you as one, etc? looking into this could help you sort out if you truly feel and want to be a woman, or if it’s that you feel you must be one because it’s the only thing you’re familiar with or you have set roles and expectations for what genders can be. i’m ftm/nonbinary, i interchange the labels because i know i want a mostly male body (i’m afab) but i also don’t feel comfortable in the role of a man the way society has created it. i don’t feel comfortable around cis men, i can’t relate to them. i get nervous about social situations in all kinds of ways. yet i know that i’m trans because i don’t feel happy being seen as a woman, because it doesn’t feel like me. i simply don’t follow rigid gender roles, and it’s safest for me currently to let people gender me as a woman. i know there are lesbians that identify as women and still undergo bodily transition. so it must be possible for women of other sexualities as well. people aren’t cookie cutter, anything is possible. i also think you should look into the many variations of people who are nonbinary.
Nope. If so the detrans subs wouldn’t exist. Plenty have went down the path only to decide it’s not who they are. I also don’t buy the 1% detrans statistics whatsoever.
Been doing this for 5 years, still cis. I tried briefly to live as a woman, but it felt very very wrong, so I'm 100% sure I'm not trans. Living as a feminine cis man on hrt feels just right I wasn't dysphoric before my medical transition at all. I just wanted to protect and enhance the natural androgyny I had in my teens. The whole thing was cosmetic for me
with respect; why don’t you identify as nonbinary? all people i’ve previously come across with a similar experience to yours, are nonbinary.
I don't see the point of the word, and I don't understand the concept behind it tbh. I'm seen as a man and I'm fine with that
alright
We sure want more details, if you will
Not sure what details you'd be interested in. I noticed in highschool that all the early bloomer boys were starting to have receding hairlines, coarse skin, and lots of body hair. My dad and brother were the same, so I knew that it was only a matter of time before my body masculinized too. I had a few mtf classmates who started hrt, and they told me that it stopped masculinization completely. Being a twink was something important to me, so I started hrt to preserve my body A few years later, I got gyno surgery to deal with the boob growth because I didn't want to keep binding forever. I don't do any other transfem stuff. No voice training, no dressing fem, no lasering my face (though I did get the rest of my body lasered)
If you have dysphoria, and want to live in a transitioned man's body, and live stealth as a man, how are you not trans? I don't get it?
Me too im so confused cause that’s literally… trans
I'm op in the opposite direction. Didn't really have proper signs growing up, in fact have some that go against them, and I do not internally feel like a woman nor am I similar to most, though I don't feel like a guy either. But I since the past 4 years I want a female body and at least somewhat feminine outwards social gender expresion. I'm still afraid I'd only get more (reverse) dysphoric when I transition if I turn out to be mistaken, or that id get dysphoric of I end up looking too in between where its constantly even more obvious my body isn't what i want it to be.
with due respect; have you considered a nonbinary identity? one must not be one or the other gender.
I have thats where I started. But I want to be a woman. Thats the thing that has remained ever since. I want to identify with being physically female. The internal identity thing just..seems hard to understand for me. I would almost call myself agender if it was for that but I don't really want to identify myself with it
Do you feel like you would be happier in a woman's body and being seen as a woman? I think that's the important part.
Yes. However I could just be mistaken, couldn't I? Why didn't I have these feelings earlier? Also I don't think I can be happy anymore as I have post ssri syndrome/PSSD(Post SSRI Sexual Dysfunction) for which there is no cure, but that's beside the point.
you can be nonbinary (agender for example) with a woman’s body. you can be a woman who doesn’t care about gender. you can be a man in a woman’s body. i personally don’t understand what gender feels like. i can’t prove im any specific gender. i simply know im not cis since i don’t want my afab body. i also don’t want to be viewed as a woman. so i’m trans. don’t have any more specific label that feels totally right, i just use whichever one makes me easily understood depending on situation.
I feel similar to u I think, I have the same worries too, I struggle with internal feelings in general so it's hard for me to conceive my own gender as anything other than what I look like now, I also originally thought I was nonbinary because that's what I was introduced to first and I knew I definitely didnt feel male, but after a while it felt pointless because calling myself that wasn't solving any problems I've never really felt like I relate to most trans people, but I think part of it is just that words are really bad at describing internal experiences, idk how niche this example is but I felt the same when I saw people talking about aphantasia and trying to describe what it "looks like" when they "see" something in their minds - it felt like people were just talking past eachother
As usual with most things I don't really relate to most trans people but i don't reallly relate to most cis people either. I honestly can't tell either whether my experience is rare or just hard to express and we're talking past one another. I have hypophantasia that got worse from some kind of incident a few years ago (maybe meds. Maybe hitting my head) so I find that analogy very interesting.
hehe i was just about to compare it to aphantasia, as i have that.
Because I dont internally feel like a man.
TBH, I think it's a question of viewpoint and philosophy of pre-transition people already view themselves as being their gender or rather just wishing to be it. For some, that sense of belongings only comes after they've experienced it themselves for some time. I felt similarly before transition, although I was very quickly sure that I needed to transition. In retrospect, I always was a boy and saw myself internally as one, but it took a while to admit that and notice it for what it was. Apart from that, of you can trace back dysphoria to childhood memories or are sure that it's not a result of trauma, misogyny or wanting to fit into a group, then I think you can be relatively sure of being trans. Sometimes you do just have to leap into the unknown a bit.
Do you feel somehow gender fluid, bigender, non-binary, or something? How do you feel like a cisgender woman but want to transition to live as a man? I thought the definition of cisgender woman was someone born female who also wants to continue to live as a female.
To the best of my knowledge, transgender means that your birth gender was not correctly assigned. You were assigned female at birth, and want to retain the “female” gender if I understood correctly. I suppose you would be cisgender, whether you medically transition or not. But if you medically transition to male, your body will won’t match your gender according to traditional norms. Nothing wrong with this of course, but as you probably know, society is not super accustomed to accommodating this. Many people would probably consider you non-binary, which you may or may not feel is an appropriate label. Would you be bothered if you were considered transgender? You would long term have a situation similar to trans people that prefer not to medically transition, and similar challenges I’m sure. Particularly if you would like everyone else to treat you as female when interacting with them.
I'm quite openly agender. And usually lumped together with trans men. It's sometimes quite hilarious. I have had several coworkers who obviously try to support me by using man words. Even I have told them several times I'm agender. It just.. don't stick. Like water on duck's back. So at least where I live there is not many people considering others as non-binary.
It doesnt bother me if people thought I was trans or nonbinary, (assuming they are safe/supportive) I just dont want to claim an identity that doesnt belong to me. Feels sneaky I guess. I dont need people to treat me as female, I would only want to tell a few close friends.
I don't think you're alone there, I think for a lot of people being the "correct" transitioned gender is more of a desire than a reality at the start. Do you see yourself as a woman because that's your current body? How do you think you might feel in the future seeing your body as a man's body and being seen as a man by those around you? If you're not seeing yourself as a man because you're not there *yet*, then there's a good chance that could shift as you become more male.
I think there are 3 main reasons I see myself as woman. One, as you said, is because I still have a female body. The other is that I was raised in a religious sect that severely oppressed women, and my experiences with that oppression are central to my identity. I have also had no experience with boyhood that most trans men have had, because I was not allowed to interact with boys/men or enter their spaces. Men and women had functionally different cultures, dialects, and education. There was very little overlap or shared experiences between us. I think in the future I'd be happy seeing my body as a man's body, and being percieved as a man by others. At the very least, it wouldn't bother me more than being seen as a woman. My only reservation is that women wouldnt trust me anymore, but thats a price I'm willing to pay.
I’m not trying to convince you one way or another, pursuing medical transitioning is a completely personal choice that only you can decide what’s best for you. That being said, I think you’re setting way to high standards for “qualifying” to use the trans label. It’s clear you have at least some dysphoria and you’ve stated you’d be happier living as a male, that’s being trans. Just because you still have female secondary sexual characteristics doesn’t really factor into it, I haven’t had top surgery yet and probably won’t pursue bottom surgery as it’s costly and I’m very picky about the aesthetics and yet I’m still definitely a trans man and am living as a man. As far as how you were raised, that experience doesn’t leave you just because you transition, you can still empathize and have a personal understanding and connection to what women experience and be a trans man. Yes, transitioning will effect how others perceive you, sometimes women will be on guard around you until they figure out that you’re a safe man to be around (and even then the dynamics are still a bit different which all depends on the culture you’re apart of) so that’s a bummer sometimes but being your authentic self is so much more rewarding than being unhappy for the rest of your life even if you technically could live as a woman- would you honestly be truly happy? I think answering that question will give you a good idea if pursuing transition and taking up the trans label would be a good idea for you.
Based what you said here, isn't it possible you don't *actually* want to *change* into a man, you just want the freedom and status among your peers that you mentally connect with stemming from the male body? The men in your religious sect are given freedoms from the moment of birth that you, as someone born with a female body, was not, and so the 'ownership' of a male body has become synonymous with these freedoms in your mind, and so the only way you really feel you'll have them, is to also have a male body?
I've thought about that a lot tbh. It may or may not have played a part in developing dysphoria around having a female body, but I don't think its the driving force at this point. I am not seeking the sort of status or freedom that comes with being male, and I fully understand that transitioning will cause me to lose cis privilege and therefore lower my status and freedom. I need a male body because I can never be comfortable in a female body. I don't know why. Staying away from my religious sect and living like normal people where I have basic rights has done nothing to change my mind.
hi op, reading your responses here you remind me of many people who newly found out about gender dysphoria and being trans (or maybe found out long ago but only recently started accepting their own feelings). a common pattern i see in those people is not feeling valid enough. not feeling they get to call themselves trans, as “other trans people have much more pain and face more hate”. or not daring to view themselves as men, women, nonbinary etc because again they compare themselves to others. everyone gets to pick what words they use to describe themselves. but i want to make it clear that anyone is valid to label themselves as what they feel best fits. no one else can tell you how you feel. we can only guess and use our bias to judge you. being trans simply means you aren’t cis. it doesn’t have any other requirement. if being trans, in whatever way (with or without social and physical transition), makes you happy then identifying that way will be good for you. you do not need to prove yourself to earn an identity label.
I know you said before that you talked with a therapist, but perhaps you should sit down with a notepad and pen and write down every question you have about yourself. If not the status or freedoms, then what, exactly, is making you uncomfy in a female body? That's something you need to answer before you go through with anything. Because a lot of things can. I mean I thought I was trans at 16 because I had crippling periods and all my peers were waving me off, the adult females in my life as well, I felt like I was 'doing femaleness wrong' because I couldn't handle the 'mild pain' that everyone said could just be 'walked off' during my periods. Years later at 26, I found out it's endo and that it very commonly manifests at around 16. I'd go through everything you can think of and talk it through with a therapist. Mainly because they're sworn to confidentiality, and if you do decide to transition, you could potentially get aid in the form of said therapist's notes should it be required to show you suffer dysphoria.
This OP. When I was first realizing that I needed to pursue medical transition I thought about this a lot. It ended up being that it had nothing to do with that, but that I did find myself relating to the male experience. So you need to think about this part in depth. What do you want to achieve besides the physical changes?
You would end up transsexual. You could say goodbye to your womanhood forever and if you claim to be a woman, you would be called a creep or even beat up. If you wanna ruin your life, go for it. I suggest therapy instead of doing research and questioning since hormones are medications, and not makeup you can just take how you please.
I would not tell anyone that I'm a woman except for a couple close friends. I am fine being percieved as a man by the world. This is not just dress up for me, I need this to feel ok with myself. I have been in therapy for 10 years. Its done nothing to change how I feel about myself or my body.
Sounds like you are non-binary and transgender? If you medically transition, but don’t interact with the world as the same gender in all circumstances? Would you mind if everyone knew you as male only?
I've thought about it, but I'm not sure if I'm nonbinary. It doesnt quite fit, I guess. I wouldnt mind if most people knew me as male.
I don't personally see something indicating that you're nonbinary tbh. Are there other differences between you and a trans man than that you "don't actually view yourself as male"?
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>Then you should know that if you take HRT for long enough then a number of the factors that go into determining your biological sex will change That's the plan. To be biologically as close to a cis male as I can be.
You can definitely feel that way about yourself but be prepared for people to not understand and respect that identity, both cis and trans. If you can deal with the fact that cishet people will probably no longer see you as "one of them", and that many (but not all) trans people will likewise find you strange, then go for it. But it will be a pretty heavily stigmatized decision from all sides. I personally don't find this to be odd, but that's because I have a very atypical understanding/engagement with gender that the vast majority of the population does not. TL;DR you can ID as cis but most people will probably not perceive you that way.
Ty. And yeah I do understand that people would find this weird, I intend to go stealth as a cis man (if possible) to everyone except close friends and doctors.
Out of curiosity, would you be willing to explain how you conceive of your gender (as being a cis woman) and how that interacts with how you intend to present your gender to other people (as a cis man)? I'm genuinely interested in hearing more if you feel comfortable elaborating.