I’ve been questioning and curious, and I wanted to talk to some people about my experience, who know more about being trans than I do.
I am almost 30, I’m bisexual, and I was assigned male at birth. I was raised in a very Catholic household (and went to Catholic school from elementary through high school), so it wasn’t exactly an environment that was going to give me the language to understand who I was, or encouraged to explore my sexuality and gender identity.
I was always more emotional than my peers - my parents put me in wrestling and karate during elementary and middle school to “toughen me up”. Although that may have had to do with my RSD (rejection sensitive dysphoria) from my ADHD.
I never really enjoyed sports like wrestling or football - I ended up liking volleyball and distance running. I preferred hobbies that are more traditionally feminine, like baking and sewing. Don’t get me wrong, I also liked camping and stuff with Boy Scouts (not that camping and hiking are inherently masculine) but I definitely never felt like a super masculine as a kid.
I would get in trouble for growing my hair out as long as I was allowed to, and then some, and I got in trouble for wearing more jewelry than a Catholic school was appropriate for boys too (too many rings and necklaces). I was made fun of in middle and high school for wearing pink, or liking things that were too girly.
About 5 years ago, I started to identify as nonbinary, as I learned more about queerness and started to find the language to describe what I was feeling. When my wife came out to me as bi, I finally felt comfortable coming out as nonbinary to her. And since then, I’ve started to feel more confident expressing my gender differently, mostly in small ways, like growing my hair longer and painting my nails. I’ve still only come out as NB to a small handful of people, and day-to-day I probably present more as “eccentric guy” than anything else.
The thing that I’ve noticed, though, is that the less masculine I look, act, and present, the more I feel like myself. I feel like men’s clothing is so limiting, and I always feel out of place when I’m in a group of otherwise all guys.
I feel like If I had been born as a woman, I would prefer that to having been born male. And if I could flip a switch and instantly be a woman, I would. But I don’t experience the sort of revulsion at my genitals that I hear some trans people describe (although I do hate being so hairy).
All of that said, I don’t know what exactly it feels like to be trans, or be a woman, so I don’t know how to compare my experience to how I “should” or “shouldn’t” feel.
And obviously right now is a scary time in the US to be queer of any kind, so there’s a part of me that’s very scared about what if I am trans - what that would entail in terms of how people/my friends and family would react and treat me.
Anyway, I’m not trying to presume anything about the trans experience, and I apologize if anything I said seemed ignorant. I guess I’m just confused and looking for some insight and support, since there aren’t many people in real life that I can talk to about these things (wife and therapist aside).
I should say, as a trans woman, my experiences are pretty much the same as yours. In some sense I still don’t “know” that I’m a trans person, but it seems like my desire to be a woman and my comfort with steps I have taken to become a woman indicate I’m probably trans.
Considering you were raised Catholic, it’s hardly surprising you would struggle to conceive of yourself as or accept being trans.
Reading and watching certain things when I was at your point really helped me:
These were resources that helped expand my notion of what gender dysphoria could look like. Previously I thought trans women just knew they were girls from very early ages like 3 - 4 years old, and experienced extreme distress from that age on if not allowed to live as a girl, etc. - these resources opened my eyes to the variety of trans experiences and the different ways gender dysphoria can present.
I also personally found it helpful to read science articles about trans people, as it grounded my sense that something is happening biologically and that it’s not just “social contagion” or anything like that. To that end:
Reading Swaab’s work in particular was eye-opening, since trans women whose brains were autopsied were found to have structures in their brain that were like cis women and not like cis men, even without ever undergoing hormone therapy. While the picture that emerges with later research did not point to something as simple as “male” and “female” brains, it is particularly grounding to me to have empirical evidence like this that lends credibility to our experiences. It really is more accurate to say trans women have a “female brain” than to say trans women have a “mental illness” as though the gender identity were due to delusions or psychosis.
If reading scientific literature is challenging, the famous neuroendocrinologist, Robert Sapolsky, has some talks that summarize the situation:
Other scientific research that I found helpful early in transition is the empirical evidence that transitioning is actually effective for alleviating gender dysphoria and improving clinical outcomes with very low regret rates. This Cornell University systematic literature review summarizes research done on the effects of transition on well-being, and links to 51 different studies that collectively indicate that gender-affirming care improves the well-being of trans people:
What We Know Project, Cornell University, “What Does the Scholarly Research Say about the Effect of Gender Transition on Transgender Well-Being?”, 2018.