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[Vent] Internalised transphobia and regret (lemdro.id)
submitted 3 days ago by to c/mtf@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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CW: internalised transphobia, regret, bitterness, just shitty thoughts Note: I'm enby and use they/them. When I say trans I mean 'not cis', not 'binary trans'.

Tap for spoilerI've accepted that I'm not cis since I was 13. At the time I would've said I'm binary trans. I'm not really sure how long I've "known". I do remember before that time, I occasionally read about trans kids socially transitioning, and it always made me irrationally angry and kind of sad. It isn't hard to image why, now.

I tried coming out to my mom a year later, it sucked.

Fast forward to now. I'm in my 20s, I feel ruined. I haven't come close to transitioning in any way. I feel utterly disconnected from being a man or a woman. I don't want to go on HRT because I feel like I have too much to lose. I don't want to be perceived as trans. If I'm to ever transition, I'd be doing it for myself, and I don't think I could ever be satisfied.

These days I mainly experience really intense bottom dysphoria. I'm not sure how I would ever go about getting surgery because I haven't been able to get myself to properly bring it up in therapy in years. They know I'm not cis, it's in my file, but I never get asked to elaborate and it's just too hard to talk about anyway. Especially since most therapists ive seen were women. Plus, I don't know what bottom surgery would be like without HRT. At this point, I wish I could have HRT minus the obvious physical effects.

I don't like being in trans spaces, or honestly around other trans people at all. It makes me really really dysphoric. It's lonely. I'm scared that if I attempt to transition, I'll become my own trans person to be around, making me more dysphoric, not less.

I hate being called transfem. Not only because I'm not "fem", but because it implies my agab, which is no-one's fucking business. I'm just nonbinary.

In general I'm also in very male-dominated spaces (read: compsci). Most of the women in my life are trans women. This is strangely enough very invalidating. It just makes me feel like what I do is a result of my birth defect

I feel fucking worthless. I'm not proud to be trans. I just hate being a man. I feel like I'm doing other trans people a disservice by not getting help that I can't get or afford, just because my self-loathing turns into other-loathing eventually.

There was a time where I experimented with names and pronouns with my friends. The only time it didn't feel like they were "just pretending" is when all communications were suddenly textual for two years. After that it was right back to every "they" or "she" feeling like a lie to my face. It was worse than being misgendered.

I once made someone cry because I said that if I were born a girl, I wouldn't have been non-binary. I feel like that sums it up pretty well.

Sorry if these kinds of vents are commonplace. As alluded to in the spoilered section, I am not really active here. Just needed to get some shit off my chest.

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[–] [S] 4 points 3 days ago (4 children)

Thanks for telling me :)

I get dysphoric around trans people, because they're a present reminder of the fact that I haven't put a single step in any direction in terms of gender. A reminder of how I feel unfixable. Of how my testosterone puberty could've been prevented. It's got nothing to do with the person in question. Some days I have the same with cis people, mostly women. A reminder of how different things would've been if I'd landed a coinflip the right way up. It makes it hard to go outside tbh.

What I might lose by HRT is a sense of normalcy in my discomfort. I'm not a woman. I'm not sure what feminizing hormones would make me feel. I don't hate most of my masculine features, I just hate that they make me a "man". Plus, I'm likely to lose the family I currently still depend on because the housing market is a mess. I'm afraid of losing the social safety that I have now. That said, I hate being treated as a man. What fucks me up the most is that I see trans women get treated as if they're men^1^, which defeats the purpose for me, as I despise being seen as a man, not my secondary sex characteristics. My thoughts are a bit scattered but I think you probably understand what I mean

^1^: this felt really shitty to write, but it does happen and it is a concern of mine

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  • [–] 3 points 1 day ago (2 children)

    What fucks me up the most is that I see trans women get treated as if they’re men

    At the moment, when I have not started by HRT yet, my experience is that cis women treat me almost exclusively as a woman. And I think the majority of cis men treat me as a man. (Grrrr!)

    But still: Earlier 100 % people treated me as a man. Now only some 30 % do. Yeah, many still do, but for me it's already very relieving that when I encounter a woman, I can safely assume I won't be misgendered. It makes life a lot nicer that you can see from the outside what people you can trust at least. And then of the rest (that is: men), still a large part are really cool as well.

    I've had a feminine gender expression since around beginning of July, and I've encountered shouting precisely once – after a guy had opened a door for me and then, when I was passing him, noticed that I am not a cis woman. Plus, once a man referred to me as "an uncle" to his child, which pissed me off quite a bit!
    But that's still an excellent track record, and far better than I would have expected.

    So, yeah, some people do indeed treat us as men. But those who do, tend to be people I would not really want to hang around with anyway. A human has a right to be wrong. They see me and then they incorrectly assume something. If someone believes the sky is going to fall on their heads for sure within the next 1½ minutes, then why should I worry about it? They are wrong and they have a right to be wrong about stuff. And if they believe that I somehow "am a man", then they are wrong, and that's their problem. If they're someone I really need to interact with, it'll get annoying. But that's super rare!

    I've had incredibly good experiences with talking woman-to-woman. There's a huge amount of small nice things women are constantly doing to each other but cannot do to men because men interpret it as flirting and then get angry for having "been promised" something and not receiving it "after all". And then they can get dangerous. Let's go for an anecdote: Right after I started wearing women's clothing and jewelry, I was riding my bicycle somewhere. A woman was walking hand in hand with her boyfriend or husband or whatever. She looked me right in my eyes and gave me a wonderful smile. My first thought was "hey, you're walking hand in hand with that guy, don't flirt at a random passerby such as I am!!!", but then I remembered I look like a woman, and figured that it was just a smile. And this is not an isolated incident. I keep getting smiles everywhere. And it's awesome. And when I am walking out there, I get random compliments about my clothes from women. Or about my eye makeup. Or everything. And it's really nice, it does good for your psyche. In comparison, getting misgendered is of course annoying, but the feminine gender expression has given me so much good that the dorks' reactions are far from being able to push the balance to negative.

    So, yeah, some people will treat you as a man. But women will treat you as a woman, and that is super nice. And a lot of men will treat you as a woman as well.
    Therefore: That is not an efficient argument against at least trying HRT :)

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 1 day ago* (1 child)

    I should preface this by saying I've already been somewhat convinced that it's worth trying to get hrt

    That said I'm really happy for you that it panned out like that. And I'm somewhat relieved to hear it.

    Sorry if this is rambly and venty. I tried to stay coherent

    --

    Right now, I already look queer. I get called names by strangers in the street, I've been a hair from being assaulted by a stranger in the middle od the day before, and that's just by looking gay (in a theoretically fairly progressive country). What I'm saying is, I think I can trust the people I've got around me. They're not the problem.

    The problem is that right now when I give a kid a high five, I get a nasty look, and I understand. I present myself as a dude, after all. But if I start trying, I don't think that'll stop, but it'll hit so so so much harder. Just an example, of course, but you get what I'm saying

    I'm afraid of trying and looking in the mirror and still not being able to like who I see, or maybe even liking it less than who I was before. I don't want to be feminine. I dislike women's clothes and makeup. I just don't want to be a man, but I feel like achieving that externally will be much harder without those things to support the image. My body has used its growing time to grow into the broad strokes of a man, and no amount of HRT is going to change that. Sure, fat will shift around eventually, I would grow boobs (dont think I want to. Not 100% sure tbh), but my face won't be demasculinized, my voice won't get un-fucked (I have been training my voice but that's not the point). I don't think I could live with myself if I actually tried and I still didn't get any closer to being happy.

    So I guess that's why I'm really so apprehensive about HRT.

    Well, that and waiting lists being measured in years, if they're open at all, meaning it's easy to just give up.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 day ago

    If you live in the EU, you can have a video appointment with a doctor working in Malta or Spain where the trans legislation is much better than elsewhere in EU. They will then send you an EU prescription in paper form and you can get the prescribed blockers and hormones from your local pharmacy, completely legally. There's no need to really wait through all that waiting time first.

    I'm beginning my HRT through a private hospital in Spain as describex, but I'm also applying for the long queue in the Finnish system. I'll switch to that one once they let me in.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 day ago

    Of how my testosterone puberty could’ve been prevented. ... Some days I have the same with cis people, mostly women. A reminder of how different things would’ve been if I’d landed a coinflip the right way up.

    Oh, I relate to this a lot, specially concerning my tall stature. I don't have much to add other than that I am willing to settle for good enough because I'll simply never have perfect (maybe my good enough could be a perfect? it's better to think optimistically) (also I'm sure if I was cis I would've found issues to have with my body anyway--even if not to this extent...) It's a sinking feeling in my chest that makes it hard to think, trying to ignore it is very difficult and just ends with me crying later (i think this is what dysphoria is, it sucks). I hope you can get better, I can only make plans but it has been feeling like a race against time.

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