During the pandemic I came out as non-binary due to my personal feelings on how I perceived myself and the way I am.
Lately over this past year I’ve been asking myself how do I feel. Many thought have been going through my head like I’d be happier if I was born a girl and I’ve always wondered what it would be like to have a vagina.
I’m also under immense stress in my personal life that may be exasperating these feelings but they existed before the stress.
My face is scraggly, my legs are a hairy mess. Thankfully I have a safe space with my wife who knows what I’m going through and a friend who listens and offers support. My biggest fear is addressing my family. My mom is still misgendering me and my trans BIL who has fully transitioned. She still lives us and I think she loves him but has fucked up ideas. My dad who has been divorced from my mom for nearly my whole life is full blood republican who believes in personal freedoms from his time in the military but I also don’t know his feelings on trans rights.
I know I’m ranting but I decided I need to crack this shell and figure things out.
I don’t know the first thing about makeup also clothes shopping is overwhelming.
You know the scene in The Matrix where Neo gets a cookie, and there’s a sign above the door that says “know thyself” … well, the knowing thyself is a tricky thing that most people never try to do. Often because it’s too hard or scary. But you’re working it out, and by the time you’ve settled on the big questions you’ll know
kung fuhow to do makeup and find clothes.Two things to remember: There’s no “right” answer so these things can take time. There’s no “right” way to be a woman or any other gender (I have no fucking clue regarding makeup, for instance).
I’m undoing a lot of childhood trauma and shame and begin seeing a psychiatrist and counselor next week where I will lay out my identity then. I was a sensitive “crybaby” who at a very young age made friends with girls vs boys and as I got older I felt the pressure to be more masculine. I don’t want to play basketball I want to play pretend and be on the swings.
The only thing to do is to keep looking inward … it feels intense at the moment because you’re in the middle of making possibly the biggest change in your life, but as you understand yourself better you’ll both feel better and the internal pressure will go down. Talking to a properly qualified professional can help you to navigate yourself.
Be patient, keep at it, you can do this.
Cherish the wife that supports you through all of this. She sounds like an amazing person.
Figuring everything out under the cloud of parental intolerance is so tough. Especially with other life stresses going on. I’m so glad you have safe spaces with your wife and your friend <3
Is there somewhere (maybe with them?) that you can start leaning into more feminine gender expressions in a playful way? Not making any big decisions, but just seeing how it feels to inhabit femininity, whatever that looks like for you? (Luscious hair and perfectly smooth legs are not requirements for being a woman, thank goodness…)
We make gender such a serious thing — because it is serious for so many people. But reading your post, and all the weight you’re carrying, makes me think it would be good for you to find a way to experiment without it needing to immediately become a huge and impactful life decision.
We make gender such a serious thing — because it is serious for so many people. But reading your post, and all the weight you’re carrying, makes me think it would be good for you to find a way to experiment without it needing to immediately become a huge and impactful life decision.
This is the crux of a big disconnect between millennials like myself and gen z. We care, because we want you to be happy. But we don’t understand why it’s such a huge, anxiety inducing deal.
I’m a millennial and also in the “gender is made-up nonsense” camp and I still went through a month period of gender crisis (I still think about gender like constantly a year later, but it at least doesn’t keep me up at night). It shouldn’t be a big deal, but yet it can be. Especially when you live in places where you worry about discrimination whether it be employment discrimination, social discrimination, or violence (or at least perceive a threat as existing, even if the risk is greatly exaggerated).
It’s not for me personally. I’m a millennial too, and though I’ve never felt strongly aligned to my gender, I find it hard to imagine what gender dysphoria feels like. I was raised mostly by my dad, who is very androgynous, so I was taught from a young age that your assigned gender doesn’t have to dictate anything about you (other than the practical consequences of your biological sex, and those are more of a spectrum than a binary).
But while I’m firmly in the “gender is a social construct” camp, I also know that social constructs are real and powerful. I’m aware that people who inherit bigger burdens of gendered expectations than me are likely to feel the rub more when things don’t match up. And in any case, our world is only getting more gendered, and it’s impossible for anyone to escape socialised gender entirely.
All that’s to say — when people say they’re experiencing gender dysphoria, I think it’s important to take them seriously, and support them, and encourage them to be gentle and kind towards themselves. Like you said, we want people to be happy.
Thank you for your comments. I have severe anxiety so that’s probably why everything has to seem so big. My hair is fabulous though and I’ve shaved my legs before and loved it. In fact I’ll see if I don’t have a shitty razer and go at it tonight.
My next step is asking my wife if she can introduce me to some of her transfem and fem friends about this.
Thank you for your bravery in posting here!
Those certainly sound like pretty egg-y thoughts to me, though obviously the only real metric of whether or not one is trans is whether they identify as trans.
Scraggly face and hairy messes are totally solvable. HRT (and makeup) do amazing work; people who thought they totally couldn’t pass regularly discover they can after only a few months.
It sounds like you have trans people in your close circle. Finding where they go for support/shopping (a local community group? somewhere on the Internet?) might be a good next step. Even if you don’t decide you’re trans, you’d at least have friends who can give you the support you need for your journey.
Hrt is interesting and I might bring it up to my doctor after a few counseling sessions. I feel like a huge weight has been lifted after opening up to the few I have these past few days.
For some reason I find it easier to come out in times of stress just so I can bring my stress back to a management level.
I also use to joke I got extra estrogen when I was in utero… That was before I came out as nb.
On my side, I prevent myself on thinking if I “feel like a man” or “feel like a woman” because this only spirals in endless self-doubt. I just pick gender-affirming acts and think which ones made me happy, and which ones made me anxious. It began as I thought of myself as a kind of tomboy, and shopped for masculine clothes and got an androgynous haircut. I looked in the glass of a store as I was passing by and noticed I looked kinda masculine, and the thought of someone thinking I was a teen boy made me really happy. If I stopped to think “am I MAN or WOMAN or ELSE” I would never have begun that journey. Just do what makes you happy, and you’ll find yourself alongside the way.
