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This was a really weird two weeks for me. I'm in my early 20's and just learned that I'm transgender.
So I was just browsing reddit absentmindedly, and I came across a subreddit called /r/egg_irl, which apparently is a subreddit for memes about transgender people who don't know they're transgender yet. I browsed it for a bit and related to most of the memes.
Over the past few days since then, I've been doing some research and soul searching now I'm pretty sure I'm a girl on the inside. I should probably schedule an appointment with a therapist or something.
Edit: Sorry for posting this thread then kinda ditching it for a few days. I was still kind of nervous to admit it anywhere but in my head and kind of chickened out on viewing the responses for a while. I know I don't know any of you but the kind words really mean a lot. Thank you.
OP here: I just regestered this username cuz fuck it.
You could check with @Deimos and ask whether he'll change your original username for you (if you don't want to lose your posting history).
Paging @hackerman in case you check that account first.
Hi, hackergal! How are you? :D
I'm feeling all sorts of things right now. I'm happy I learned this about myself though so I guess I'm alright for now :^)
Questioning can be a wild time. How you handle this is all up to you, and you don't need to conform to anything you don't want to. A therapist might be a good idea, especially if you can find one you jive with who specializes in this sort of thing. If nothing else you will surely learn some things about yourself.
Follow your bliss, my friend.
If you don't mind me asking, what's being a transgender person without knowing it like?
That analogy was really fucking spot on lol
I have the extra step of being nonbinary, not a man or woman.
As a kid, I got along better with boys than girls, but I always felt 'different' than them. Like I was just a guest in their area. But it was better than feeling like a complete outsider hanging around girls. I had camo curtains in my room and would tell everyone I hated pink. But I also hated being mistooken as a boy. At puberty I watched my chest grow and would be very alarmed when I saw it. I would bounce between wearing baggy clothes to hide my chest and wearing girly clothes to try and make myself face the lumps on my chest. Every girl that I made friends with treated me like a girl, and I couldn't handle it. But every boy I made friends with either treated me like 'one of the guys' or a silly girl. I would have weird daydreams of cutting off my breasts and running away. When I first heard of transgender men taking testosterone to transition, I had the thought "Man, I wish I could do that. Shame I'm not a trans man..."
A way that I described dysphoria to a friend (it's not perfect, but it got the general idea across):
Well...OP shouldn't feel any obligation to categorize or label themself. But if they want to use a label, there's nothing wrong with that either.
To borrow a phrase - if the shoe fits, wear it, but it's also fine to go barefoot.
This is incredibly dismissive. OP never said that memes were the only thing that helped her realize who she is. A soul-searching impetus can seem really small and insignificant to everyone but the person who's making the realization; she knows her mind better than anyone.
Admittedly I am not an expert either, but what I have learned from talking to transgender people both on and offline is that these conclusions are not as quickly jumped to as you might believe. 'Being trans' is not something you do easily or without trouble, it's not a confession you make without thinking it over three or thirty times. It carries with it so much insecurity, so much uncertainty, that by the time a leap is taken people are often fairly sure.
In fact the whole reason the half-joke of "eggs" exists is because so many people keep these feelings bottled up for years on end, never daring to believe themselves to be actually trans.
Ding ding ding! As a trans person, this is entirely it. It's like having a sudden breakthrough and suddenly everything makes sense. While it can seem really sudden to outsiders, it's more like a pressure bomb just exploded. Too much pressure built up in the egg and it bursts.
Yeah this is pretty much exactly what happened to me.
It's not that they dictated how I felt. It's more that I found a place dedicated to calling out the specific brand of cognitive dissonance that I had, which was the kick in the ass I needed to realize "holy shit I'm transgender."
OP says she's already in her early 20s; it's not like she's in the early stages of puberty. Wouldn't that window of opportunity already have passed? I'm not saying it's too late for her to start transitioning - it's never too late - but it might be too late for her to avoid the effects of testosterone.
While I agree on the most part (voice lowering and body/facial hair has probably already set, sadly), she can still help stop any male pattern baldness that runs in the family.
It's never too late, I've seen people very happy with their transition in their 60's, but it's easier to reverse or halt certain changes such as stopping hair loss, bone structure which is possible that it is not totally fused yet (I think mid-20's it's mostly permanent depending on the person), stopping body hair growth (which continues to get coarser and thicker into old age).
What are these long term effects of testosterone? As far as I know when some bodybuilders mess up hormones they develop feminine features, so it may look like the masculine effects of testosterone are fragile and are ready to fade once this hormone is subdued.
What @Cocoa was saying with the testosterone having irreversible changes is relating to trans women, not trans men. Saying to get on HRT ASAP, before 100% of the testosterone changes have a chance to affect you.
Testosterone thickens your vocal cords, causing them to give a deeper voice. It causes the growth of body hair and facial hair, which wont go away if you start taking estrogen. Same thing with male-patterned baldness. And testosterone actually changes the shape of your hair line, making it so you don't grow hair in a particular pattern. There are a few other changes too, but these are some of the big ones.
IIRC, if you take too much testosterone, the body converts it to estrogen. But I'm not 100% on that one.
I know we are talking about MtF, and your explanation is informative, thanks. Hair line changes over time indeed, but isn't voice of biological male deep as early as late teens? Same with body hair, it can get more full during 20s and even early 30s but it's common to have beard and body hair as early as at 18 or 20. Is there a difference for MtF change regarding voice and body hair in case when they are already formed?
Body hair wont go away unless you electrocute or laser it off. Voice wont get higher unless you train it. I'm not sure when the voice fully sets deeper.
I'm also female at birth, so these are just things I've heard from my trans women friends and extrapolating from the changes I'm going through now.
Congrats! The path ahead of you is turbulent but very exciting! I just realized I was trans back in February, so I understand the sea of emotions you're probably feeling right now. It's anxious but incredibly peaceful to finally find the answer to a life of strife and to realize you're not the only one either. Feel free to PM me anytime you wish or on Discord (Meghan#2032) and definitely give r/traa a look when you get a chance :D
Dysphoria is very real but I'm so much more happier now, now that I can explore my true self
Hey, that's fucking incredible! I'm so glad you found yourself, I was 32 when I finally admitted it, and it's the best thing I've ever done.
If you ever need anything, I'd be happy to try to help if I have the answers.
Congrats! That's wonderful! I definitely recommend finding a therapist but make sure that you do your research on good therapists first. There's shitty therapists out there that can be a roadblock for you. Don't be afraid to go somewhere else if you don't feel comfortable. But I would find a local transgender support group or even Planned Parenthood to try and connect to a specialized therapist in your area. Also I love how many other trans folks are on Tildes :D
I'll definitely look into the Planned Parenthood thing. That sounds like a pretty good starting point to me.
I'm so glad that you found yourself! Cracking that egg can be very very hard at times. But I feel so much better living as nonbinary than I did as a woman. If you want someone to talk to (or have questions about nonbinary genders), feel free to pm me :)
Someone can feel that something is "off" for a long time without understanding what it is. Then they read/see something which is similar to what they're feeling, and they suddenly understand what they've been feeling. It seems sudden, but the issue may have been bubbling underneath everything for years.
This is exactly what I went through, but I was having difficulty putting into words. Thanks doing it for me lmao.
I posted this above in response to @clerical_terrors, but I think it belongs here too
Ding ding ding! As a trans person, this is entirely it. It's like having a sudden breakthrough and suddenly everything makes sense. While it can seem really sudden to outsiders, it's more like a pressure bomb just exploded. Too much pressure built up in the egg and it bursts.
Discovering your gender doesn't have to (though it can be) be a many year long process full of "Omg am I this? Am I that? What is gender?!" Sometimes It's as simple as "Wait, men don't pretend to be women in their daydreams?" or just simply realizing "Hey, I'd like it much better if I were X."
Are you trans? Because if not, you don't know what it's like to discover you're a different gender. Similar to how I, a non-doctor, wouldn't go around giving critical medical advice, us cis people should be aware of our own ignorance when commenting on the trans experience. In general it's a good thing to keep in mind when talking to marginalised groups about their lived experience.
I think Batcow were talking about how you seemed critical of how fast OP made the decision. While you likely didn't intend it, the message read as you were saying that everyone had to go through a big long process to figure it out, when they really don't.