I’ve been admittedly struggling with my identity as a whole, especially as I approach my 1 year mark on Estrogen. So far it’s the right call for me, but I’ve discovered that I’m becoming more comfortable with my masculine traits and even find myself binding my breasts that I’ve waited so many years to have, while the next day I’ll do the complete opposite and present femininely.

I feel like I have no consistent sense of self and often have a hard time even knowing what’s going on in my head haha

Constantly trying to figure out if I’m a boy, girl, both, or neither, because I admittedly struggle with my body in various fronts. One day I’m too feminine, the next I look too much like a man, or I’m not androgynous enough.

Frankly, it’s exhausting. I used to think I was just a woman but it doesn’t seem to fit as I continue hrt.

It feels odd to express all of this but, I’ve not really talked to many trans people as I’m chronically shy. Is there anyone who can relate to what I’m going through?

  • AdaMAEnglish
    17•1 year ago

    Why is there so much pressure on trans people to put themselves into one box or another?

    Many reasons, some or all of which play in to any individual trans person’s experience

    • Trans people are punished more harshly for not adhering to gender norms than cis people are.
    • There is a long legacy of denying trans folk access to transition and health care if they don’t fit in to a binary gender. So a non binary trans person often knows that they’re not cis, and consciously or unconsciously tries to force themself to be binary, because that’s the only path available to them.
    • Gender performance, gender identity and dysphoria overlap and interplay with each other. Whilst they are all distinct, when you’re trying to tease apart your own experiences with them, it’s often hard to tell where one ends and the other begins, which in turn creates confusion and pressure. For example, you talk about gender fluidity freeing us from sex based boxes and norms. I’m a trans woman, but I’m not gender fluid. My experience of gender has been consistent my whole life, even before I understood it. I have zero desire to be constrained by sex based norms, and I have little time for gendered restrictions on expression, but that doesn’t mean my gender is fluid. Yet it’s hard to distinguish those concepts sometimes…