Hi. In my current situation I feel really held back by essentially everything…
I (18) am a (currently) masculine presenting person who, as a young man, is in a very comfortable position. My father likes me for who I am currently and my friends at school and the teachers there are the same. I am learning IT shit in that school amongst only boys. Unfortunately right now, I do not have female friends irl. I still have contact with some older female friends digitally, and we are doing pretty well, but that’s not the same. So now let me actually get to the point.
I feel like I am too comfortable in my current position to do anything. I am accepted too well by the people around me to transition, but I would also not be okay with pulling back with the small social behaviours I have changed (I tend to talk softer and make some totally super totally hilariously funny jokes about being just too manly for this world, isn’t that so fuuny!?). I already told my mother and she kinda just took it. She seems supportive, and I feel like she would be okay with me transitioning. Father is a very different story, as he not only tends to laugh at trans people in TV shows but he also refers to me very often as “my son” and envisions my future as some very handsome and very manly man.
So yeah, my current situation is so interesting to me that I talk to myself about it daily for hours at a time and always end up with something along the lines of -well I’m comfortable rn so what?- or -it is what it is-. I keep putting -staying like this-, -actually transitioning- and -pulling back completely- side by side and end up deciding that clearly transitioning is the best option, as I fell awful with myself currently, but also apffff, as if! As if I would want to become a girl! Look at me! I actually am rather handsome, have a bunch of good friends, acceptable connections with father, a somewhat safe career and fairly convincing charisma, why would I want to run the risk of losing any of that? It would be insane!
This next part is about a more adult topic (one might say NSFW), so maybe skip it if you don’t feel comfy: ################## For the longest time in my life I was unable to jerk off. I simply couldn’t, I’m guessing my thing is just weirdly randomly generated. Even my urologist said “haha, oh well, that looks like quite the surprise package to me”. About 3 months ago I found a different method to even do it, but it feels TERRIBLE! How can people be happy with this? I feel terrible before I do it, I feel terrible when I notice the urge, I feel oh so very awful after doing it, having to clean up the most disgusting part of my body and sometimes crying afterwards, knowing that I’ll have to do it again to make these ball of mine happy. I am incredibly dysphoric about that part, but I try to distance that very far away from the topic I actually want to adress with this post, even though I know very well that T-Blockers would recude horniness and that it would make me feel better and that I wouldn’t have to do the disgusting deed every three days. I have no idea on if this is connected to wanting to be a girl or if this is some other thing (I might be asexual, but really not sure…)
Just because the path for manhood was laid out for you doesn’t necessarily mean that it is the correct choice. It might be, and if it is, great. However, don’t assume that the default settings are necessarily the best settings just because they are default. It sounds to me like you aren’t happy with cisnormative manhood but are afraid and unsure. At the end of the day only you can decide what will make you happiest and accepting default manhood is just as much of a choice as deciding to reject all or part of it. Both choices come with a cost and a benefit. From what you describe, it sounds like full manly conformity comes with the benefit of built -in social acceptance but with the cost of being uncomfortable with your body and always wondering what could have been. Transitioning or even just deciding to identify as not-totally-cis comes with the benefit of self-actualization but may come with social costs; however sometimes people surprise you and are way more accepting than you might expect.
Also realize that gender is a spectrum and that people can be anywhere along that from man to non binary to woman and some people have identities that are ever-shifting and changing. There are a whole lot of ways to have gender and I encourage you to do a little reading to see if anything fits. You always get to change your mind if you identify one way and decide that it doesn’t fit later. If you decide that cis-man was right after all, that’s fine too but then you will know for sure having tried on a different identity. At 18, you have a lot of life left to figure it all out and university is a great time to explore gender.
https://genderdysphoria.fyi/en/
Good luck and we are rooting for you.