This is going to be a bit of a ramble.

I'm not even sure where to even start.

Browsing r/egg_irl has me confused. Am I trans? What does it mean for someone currently living as their birth-assigned-gender to be trans? Would I be happier as a woman? Or non-binary? I don't feel major bodily disphoria. I don't dislike my body. I am curious what it would be like to have a female body.

When I was a teenager I read Commitment Hour, by James Alan Gardner. It's about a village where young people switch back and forth every year (go to sleep as one, wake up as another), until they turn twenty and have to choose one or the other. I loved it. I fantasied about what it would be like to quickly switch back and forth. I liked the idea of finding out what it's like to have a female body without having to permanently commit to it. That fantasy has tempered a bit since then, but I wouldn't say it's completely gone.

I've been growing my hair out, but I've also grown my beard out. Both started as laziness. I didn't feel like bothering to get my hair cut or mess with shaving my face. I hate shaving. Now it's something of a security blanket. I feel exposed without them. Another reason I grew my beard out was because there were a couple of times when I was a teenager that a stranger thought I was a girl and it made me uncomfortable. I grow hardly any chest hair and I like it that way; but I have a lot of leg hair, and I like that too.

I've never been the macho type or had much use for machoness.

I don't know If I would like being female, or if I just like the idea of it. There have been other things that I liked the idea of but not the thing itself. How can I respond to others seeing it as a phase if I'm not even sure myself if it's a phase.

I don't like the social stigma around it. I come from a conservative family. I don't know how they would react. I live in a small predominately Mormon community where everybody knows everybody and gossip runs rampant. I don't know if being female is what I really want, but I at least want the space to experiment and find out.

I don't know what I want and I hate not knowing. Even deciding whether or not I should even type this out, let alone post it, has been a major mental battle.

I've been on Tildes a while, but I created a new account because my main account could be connected to my real identity and I'm so not ready for that. Even putting this out there anonymously has me terrified.

Hello y'all!

I wanted to make a post where all us trans peeps can introduce themselves and say hey to each other, since I find it nice to have other trans peeps to chat with. Come say hey, or drop me a line!

For my own intro: I normally go by Nihilistic Janitor online, and before you ask I really don't know jack about philosophy I just thought the phrase "cleanliness is next to meaninglessness" is funny. I'm a nineteen year old pan trans woman, currently wheelchair-bound, who enjoys reading and writing and who recently finished a draft of a fun cheesy gay romance novel. I'm also in with some other trans-heavy communities, so if you're curious and want to check those out, message me!

I never talked to anyone in real life about it before yesterday, and even though it was really, really difficult, I'm glad that I pulled through.

I had a meeting with a nurse and a doctor at the psychiatric wing of a hospital, but for other reasons - I have a lot of mental health issues so I keep in touch with them in case I have a breakdown or whatever. That way I won't spiral completely out of control; they can catch me. So anyway, after meeting with said nurse and doctor which was a rather quick meeting, I asked my nurse (who is sorta my contact there) if she had a moment for a one-on-one conversation. She thankfully did and we went to her office. I was pretty anxious all along and once we sat down, I could barely even speak because I kept losing my composure, and my voice was super shaky and I nearly cried.

But I managed to get through it, and told her how I'd seen a short film a couple of days ago that made me burst into tears. How I'd been questioning for years at this point, how I'd always felt out of place and like I was the odd one out. How maybe it's all sorts of things, but perhaps it's because I'm trans.

Not to sound arrogant or anything, but I'm really proud of myself for having the guts to do it. I wouldn't have been able to do that just one year ago. She did say that I was cool/tough for being able to say it out loud and honestly she was the best about it! No judging, no nonsense, no crap. She said all the right things and was really empathetic and understanding despite not at all being qualified for this kind of thing.

So basically what came out of it is that it really felt good to talk to someone face to face. She said she didn't know what to do, but she knew how to find out - which is of course all that I could ask! She's gonna get in touch with a different hospital that has a sexology department (don't know if that's a thing in other countries, I don't know the English name for it sorry). And then she's gonna call me on Monday with her findings!

I still don't know if I'm trans though. I feel like I might be, considering the way I could barely even speak when talking about it out loud. But maybe I'm non-binary too - that's why I'm hoping to get to talk to someone from the sexology clinic. Perhaps they know what questions to ask... I'm also moving in two weeks and I have two exams in that very same week, within 24 hours of one another. But the number one thing on my mind is the above... I think that's pretty telling.

Thank you for reading <3

After a let of questioning, I am reasonably sure that I am a transgender girl. But what do I actually do? I'm 18, but I'm still in high-school living with my parents who won't be supportive of me if I come out. I have no consistent income and don't have a therapist. I guess there's no magical answer and I just need to wait until I'm independent and then start thinking about it.