i haven't posted about myself to the broader trans community or tried to find other transfems who feel like me, but the more i keep my thoughts private the more alienated and alone i feel. i'm sure other people can relate to how my identity manifests for me. i'd like to share.
my physical body does not match the mental image i have of myself nor does it align with my gender identity. when i went through male puberty my dysphoria only got worse. i have the expected body of a man and this causes me significant anguish on a daily basis. staring at my reflection and not seeing a femininizing image looking back is so debilitating.
however, i was socialized and raised the way i was, and that was "as a boy." i have an attachment to my male youth and i find comfort and affirmation revisiting those periods and seeing myself as a boy in some corner of my headspace. i developed as a boy, i made friends in "boyish" ways, i had some typically male oriented interests, and i genuinely became attached to gay romance and sex that i began seeing myself as male-but-in-a-girl-way.
if i "feel male" to some degree then why can't i just be content being a man? who am i to say that i'm trans-anything? it's something i have struggled with my whole life, but i simply detest the label of "man" being applied to me. the idea of being seen as one feels like erasure of my own identity to satisfy the morality of someone who isn't me. i don't embody masculinity, i don't relate to it. more importantly, it causes me stress and physical reactions to be placed in the category of "man;" to be seen as broad shouldered, wide, bulky; a prominent forehead and thick arms and legs; to be assigned roles based on my perceived manliness
however, i do not see myself as a woman either. it doesn't cause me significant distress to be seen as one, merely i can recognize womanhood isn't what i'm channeling. whatever space i am occupying feels rather close, though. it is 10x easier to talk to women and i've noticed several traits of mine are regularly assigned to those same women and would be described as "feminine." it's clear to me that regardless of my varied interests that any gender could take part in, i run feminine as a default setting lol.
so, as someone who has a positive connection to certain aspects of masculinity and refers to themselves with he/they pronouns i think i'm at odds with the majority of transfems, but i genuinely feel like the label best represents me. if anyone is curious i can go in-depth or answer questions, i don't mind. hopefully one of ya'll can relate as well.
I'm an it/they/he enby, and I feel you. Being somewhere between Femboy and Trans Tomboy is a weird space, even after two years of hormone therapy folks still reflexiely gender me male.
It's awkward to be called "sir", but until more folks start seeing people of mixed gender I'll have to be content to put up with it.
lol my boyfriend jokingly calls me a tomboy and it makes sense yeah. strange! i do feel rather fem but in a male sense, i guess?
I know exactly how you mean, you're basically describing my exact presenation~<3
I like to say that I'm sort of the opposite of agender, genderfull rather than genderless, but it's really difficult to achieve that look. Hell, I can go out hiking topless in public and nobody even notices my tits, my moustache might as well be an cloaking spell. XD
That is to say, there are more folks like us than you might think, we're just one of the least visible segments of the trans community because even if you're used to recognizing trans people and agender folk, there's no set aesthetic for us in-betweeners yet.
ideally i would look as close to a woman as possible, but i know my male features will always be a tell. i don't mind that, though. it actually is something i find affirming. i think visible trans people are beautiful.
Likewise! I'd love to be seen as a person of mixed gender, but I'll happily settle for being as visible as I can.
Being enby is perfectly fine of course, but in case you're feeling like you'll "never pass" and trying to console yourself, know that HRT is scarily effective.
i feel like the changes on HRT at 36 would be limited, but also i'm not interested in passing like a cis woman. i more want to pass as feminine for myself. right now i barely feel it at all.
Fortunately, that's not the case at all! For example I started at 40.
ah well hey, that's rather encouraging. thank you for sharing. i'll need to talk all of this through with a therapist. i know that is my best way forward.. but it's challenging to even start. i'm resistant to learning more about myself. life is already difficult.
I started HRT at 36 myself. The only downside is needing a lot of hair removal that I haven't even gotten started on yet. XD
i hate my body hair ugh. does it get thinner at least?
It does! Not enough to banish my body hair dysphoria about entirely, but it really does help a lot.
good to know. i’m not knowledgeable on what medications i would be on as a non-binary transfem; something to talk about i guess if i pursue this.
Hey, I'm enby too! =D
You might also wanna look into Finasteride, it blocks the effects of testosterone on hair follicles, reducing or stopping male-pattern hair loss.
ayyy!~ i don't run into a lot of nb transfems. :3
hmm.. noted, thank you. i've heard of Finasteride. i don't know how to have this conversation with a physician though. i am becoming increasingly nervous at pursuing any form of documented transitioning given our current administration as well.
Valid.
I'd say try talking about your discomfort without referring to it as dysphoria. There are plenty of cis guys who get Finasteride for balding too.
And yeah! Transfem enbies are definitely underrepresented. I made it all the way to my 30's before I saw another person like myself.
https://transfemscience.org/articles/serms-transfem/
Here's one source on SERMS to get an idea of some of the options. Wish there were better options (and maybe there are - I haven't done any reading on them in the past year and this source is about 5 years old).
Personally, I considered them when I was thinking about trying out HRT, but I didn't like the idea of potential long-term medical issues. Didn't think I would want boobs, but also didn't think I would hate having them, so I just tried out boobs via breast forms to see how I felt about those.