its different for everyone, but for me i had grown content being a guy but when i started opening up to the possibility that i could be fem, there was this indescribable euphoria that made me hopeful for my future in a way i had never felt in my life. it was then i realized my entire life before then i was forcing myself to fill a role i wasnt meant to fill. after that, i felt much more confident and able to discover who i am.

Early in transition here. I always feel like I’m really bad at being a man. I hate being expected to follow the conventions that go along with being a man. The specific handshakes, referring to each other with terms of endearment like “bro” or “dude”. Not to mention the constant expectation that I’m dumb, lazy, or belligerent. I hate wearing suits (yes, even stylish ones that are fitted properly). And yeah, I’ve had a hard time relating to most guy stuff throughout my life.

I used to say I didn’t hate being a man. But as I stopped repressing all these feelings and allowed myself to feel the decades of gendered rage and discomfort, I came to terms with the fact that yes, I do in fact hate being a man.

I’m vastly more comfortable presenting femme, and it it took me a while to come to terms with that. I was very aware of the whole deal from a young age, but always managed to talk myself out of it over the years. Holding me back was some combination of striver liberalism (not wanting to alienate coworkers/bosses) and internalized misogyny, both of which I feel like I’ve taken concrete steps to purge.

transitioning was a very uncomfortable prospect for me, though less so than wearing a man-suit any longer.

it only became easier/comfortable once I’d begun the process of untangling all the cisnormative bullshit id learned, beyond just “I know I’m definitely not a man” as a jumping-off point

My dysphoria was so complete and fuzzy I didn’t really figure out I was trans until well into my 20s. I didn’t “like” being a guy and would often fantasize about what if I’d been born a girl and I did a lot of drag, I knew the process transwomen were expected to go through from a young age because I looked up what transition was, etc etc. I browsed subreddits like egg_irl for years. But I made do with being a guy.

I didn’t look in mirrors ever, I avoided looking at myself - this is only something I really figured out after transitioning and hrt and laser and stuff. I wouldn’t have said I didn’t like having a male body, I didn’t think of it that way. I didn’t really relate to guys and most of my friends in high school and college were girls.

Even with all that, I didn’t crack my egg until like 4 years ago - and then it was like all that latent dysphoria just rushed up and I had to deal with it. Then I hated having a dude body and started the regular slow process a lot of trans people do of, like, “okay I’ll just crossdress at home” -> “okay I’ll just wear femme clothes out sometimes and Ill do my makeup every day” -> “okay I’ll change my name and socially transition” -> “well, fine, I guess hrt will be good even though I’m happy with boy chest and Ill start voice training seriously” -> “okay sure, I’ll do a little surgery to grind off my adams apple and do electrolysis” -> “fine I’ll get on a wait list for bottom surgery” (not saying this is how every transition goes or whatever just that it’s how mine went and the general pace seems like a common experience)

If you don’t like being a guy right now, you can totally experiment and see what makes you happy!

For me personally it was just total disgust with my body and identity. Being in my skin felt wrong, being told to man up felt like an impossible task, and every day felt like I was putting on an act to try to conform to this image of what I was supposed to be that I wanted absolutely nothing to do with. I guess you can say I hated being a man, but I also felt an incredibly strong sense of envy towards women/the feminine form and spent many nights as a kid falling asleep hoping that if I wished hard enough I’d wake up and be a girl. I know it sounds absolutely ridiculous, but it was an inexplicable, inescapable source of misery and I just desperately hoped for some way out.

When I finally got a bit older and found myself desiring to transition, it was not at all a comfortable prospect. Even though I had already experimented with women’s clothing and makeup all throughout my childhood, the idea of actually turning my whole world upside down socially was really intimidating. It was one of the hardest things I’ve had to do, but it was all so worth it in the end. Sorry if that answer was a bit excessive for your question, I figured it was mostly pertinent

I don’t identify as transfemme. But my experience, coming from a similar but not identical situation, is that I just decided to roll with the things I liked, change the things I don’t. I like having long hair so I grew it long. I hate having body hair so I started shaving then epilating, then shave and lasering. I started taking finasteride (a DHT blocker) recently because I was like, well I like my long hair and hate my body hair and this means my head hair (that is already amazing) will be better and hopefully my body hair less so.

I definitely hated the societal expectation of presenting and acting “like a man”. Even before I knew about the concept of being trans, I always wanted to try conventionally “girly” things and I was also kind of ostracized for being a “soft” boy.

I consider myself mostly transfem but I do identify a bit with being a femboy.

For me personally I thought I was a girl until my parents forced me to watch Thomas the Tankie EngineTM.

Content warning for mentions of suicide, self harm, abuse.

I realised something was off when I started to feel isolated and left out everytime I got split from my female relatives off with “the guys” like my dad and uncles and conversely felt at home hanging with my female family members.

Then spending too much time day dreaming about being a girl and “pushing that big red button to swap genders” but just assuming that was a normal thing.

My mental health puberty onwards tanked and i never felt like I had an identity or knew who I was. I felt like a toy that needed to be wound up and set off doing its preprogrammed day to day boy life. That an constantly falling in love with my guy friends and imaging horny things where I imagined a girl version of myself probably should have made me realise something.

Going to a Christian school and having regressive parents probably glued my fake male persona pretty tightly. That plus abusive parents and a incredibly toxic patriarchal family structure had me in pure survival mode for most of my formative years. I tried to kill myself around age 11 due to it all, the abuse, the identity issues, feeling like I wasn’t the real me etc.

As I grew older I found that I just didn’t engage or relate to typically boy things like when my friends were all going nuts over beard oil and I was perplexed that was even a thing. I just assumed guys grew beards and vibed.

Conversely I intimately related to a lot of the cultural norms pushed on girls including an interest in fashion, makeup, I was neurotic about styling my hair and looking “cute boy next door” which was just soft boy fashion. Like things I now wouldn’t ascribe gender to but back when I was a teen everyone gendered.

I think as well what should of being a red flag was that I kept in touch so to speak with my real self throughout my life. I’d always imagine my real self and I interacted and perceived my life through her which clashed with the guy persona I’d learnt to adopt from my friends and family and gave me all sorts of issues.

As I got older and was slowly conditioned to be this alpha Chad wannabee by my friends I found myself struggling with more identity issues, suicide, self harm, internalising men’s issues but not knowing why I’m meant to be angry and upset about dick size for example. It got really messy and since I was in a band I tried to be super player/womaniser to offset the mockery I got from friends and family for being so soft and effeminate. I was like a 5’6 petite soft boy with long hair who wore oversized hoodies in a band of 6ft hyper masc womanisers who’d weirdly all spoon me when we’d crash at each others uni flats etc, it totally confused me but seeing how alien their vibes were to mine made me at least acknowledge I wasn’t a traditional guy at the time.

Eventually the constant thoughts of wanting to be my real self and someone I know taking the plunge made me realise I couldn’t bottle this up anymore and conversely I could actually be my real self.

However with an abusive partner I had to slowly ease myself into it to protect myself from her wrath including doing the whole pipeline of coming out as bi, to being a femboy, to identifying as non-binary, all the try and scratch the itch and avoid “ruining my life” that I had at the time.

Eventually I realised it couldn’t go on like that anymore and with the help of my gender doctor I finally shed the last bits of repression and here I am.

Now I have a bf and I’m very happy relatively (I’m Bri’ish ffs, I can only be so happy).

To say I hated being a guy is an understatement. I didn’t know if I’d be comfortable if I transitioned, what I did know is that something had to change and I had already tried a litany of medications to no avail, it was basically my last ditch effort to stay alive. Of course, I knew deep down I was trans in a dozen different ways, I just handwaved those things away to avoid upending my life and making myself a target (spoiler: I was already a target, I swear the psycho bullies of my youth had a better trans/gaydar than I do).