I'm super confused

[Izzy Grondin]

Hi. I’m Izzy and I’m an 18 yr old animation student at the moment. To get straight to the point: I’m confused on my gender identity.

 

When I was 13 is when I started puberty and it just never really felt right to me. Sure when I was younger I dressed like a girl and was wearing dresses a lot and even if I was more of a tom boy between my little sister who is 3 years younger then me, I was still always my moms little girl. I didn’t have a dad until I was about 11 so there was a bit of a lack of male role models in my life. At 13 when I needed a bra and started my period it always felt so uncomfortable. To this day I want to be able to wear a shirt with nothing under it and just feel the shirt against my chest and I’m honestly jealous of guys and others with flat chests that can do that. I have period problems physically which I have been going to the doctor about to find out whats going on inside but its giving me a lot of dysphoria. At times I hate having a female body. Sure sometimes I’m neutral about it but other times I wish i had a male body. I feel like if I was born a guy I wouldn’t be so confused. My mom differs with me when I try and talk to her about all this and my dad tries to stay out of it. She says that I only started questioning when I joined my high school at the times GSA club after my first and only break up. It was a 2 year relationship which ended in him lying to me about trust and hiding different things he was doing from me yatta yatta yatta. One thing I learned from that relationship was that I didn’t like people calling me cute and I didn’t like people commenting on my long hair. I’ve always had long hair so it’s hard when my mom hears I want to cut it short. I will be getting it cut short soon cause I dyed my hair blue a few months ago and couldn’t bleach it out so we are waiting for my roots to be about an inch longer before I can get the blue cut out. I feel more comfortable in masculine clothing and I like feeling like one of those confident guys who looks pretty cool and is friends with everyone. I have a mix between male and female friends but its always usually fluctuated between one or the other throughout grade and high school. I did experiment with my friends calling me he vs she or even they and I went by non binary for a while until a few months ago when I just went with gender fluid to keep my mom happy. She says that gender fluid is just wanting to dress more masculine or feminine one day to the next and changing depending on your mood and thats kinda where I am at the moment so I’ll go with it for now. Right now I also somewhat have a girlfriend who is bi leaning lesbian and I really enjoy the girl moments with her. I am the more masculine one in the relationship and she calls me her Prince sometimes and I really enjoy that haha. I do like a lot of more masculine things but I also like feminine things even though I hate femininity on my body. If I get top surgery and want to have boobs one day, I can just wear a bra thats padded or stuff one myself. And for context, I am terrified of any type of surgery or anything like that at all, and I’ve been thinking about top surgery for like a year now. I usually only wear makeup when I am in cosplay, and it’s typically a male cosplay I’m in. I resonate with male characters more then female ones though sometimes I do identify with a female more then a male. With all this said I am still super confused because I really don’t want my mom to get angry at me or disown me or anything for something like this. She is always telling me that I’m a girl and that she doesn’t want me to look like a boy, but in cosplay I can pass as a boy. She is so dead set on trans people knowing when they are very little that I can’t talk to her about anything trans or even LGBTQ+ related cause she is very opinionated and likes to talk over me and shut my ideas down. I’ve been looking online for help since I found out what trans was back when I was 14 and still no clear answers on what I am. My dysphoria mixed with my depression and anxiety disorders are not a good thing and I want to get through this before I enter my second year of college so that maybe, just maybe, I can feel less stressed while working on my assignments.

Thanks in advance for those who take the time to read this and even comment. It means a lot that people want to try and help me.

[Tory Bailey]

<p id=”docs-internal-guid-15f4a464-7fff-fbdd-9e58-da2f9553d084″ dir=”ltr” style=”line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;”>Hey Izzy, I know how it feels to be confused.  I just started taking being transgender seriously a few months ago and this was the first place I really found help from, I hope you can find some of the answers you seek.<br class=”kix-line-break” /><br class=”kix-line-break” />I have been having issues with my family like you are with your mother.  My mom thinks trans people know from a young age too. I’ve had issues with the way my body works that I told nobody about for years, but I’m just turning 33 and only began to seriously consider myself transgender a few months ago.  And I’m not the only one, I’ve read over and over that everyone’s journey is different. But many people don’t understand gender dysphoria, they think you are who you are born and that’s all you should be. That’s basically how I was raised and why it took me so long to overcome that thinking to realize there was something inside me that wasn’t right with being a man.  And that seems to be how everyone around me feels sometimes. But people like us need to do what we feel is right for us. We are the ones who need to live with ourselves, in our bodies, in our minds. If we don’t feel comfortable with ourselves, if we hurt because we can’t live the way we want, it can hurt our quality of life and the way we interact with others. It can make us miserable and depressed and withdrawn, and for some people that can be dangerous.  If we live the way we want, if we can show people that we are happier and better off for doing so, then those who truly love us will learn to understand and accept us for who we are. <br class=”kix-line-break” /><br class=”kix-line-break” />As for your confusion on what gender you are, like I said, I know how it is to be confused.  Where you had just your mom and sister until you were 11, my mom was my only female presence in my life until I was 22 and got a girlfriend.  And I was afraid to ask my mom any gender related questions on either end, aside from one time I recall finding a used tampon. She didn’t react to that well.  So when I started to consider I might identify as female, I had never even tried crossdressing before. I realized some time ago that I was uncomfortable in men’s clothes, but I love women’s clothes and I would love to dress in them full time.  And I love painting my nails, I actually keep them painted at work and wear a woman’s ring set and get compliments on both. But I have mixed feelings about wearing makeup, I used to dance and had to put on makeup for recitals and I hated having it put on.  I know it will help significantly for feminizing my appearance and I’m hoping if I wear it by my choice and learn to apply it myself I might be more receptive to it, but I know I used to have issues with it. Also, I have no female friends outside my wife and her sister, and my sister in law isn’t as receptive as I’d hoped and my wife is trying her best but certainly has issues.  So while what I’ve explored for myself makes transitioning seem just wonderful, I honestly don’t know what more I can or should do to assert my femininity. Then again, I have spent so long being interested in anything but video games, and not even masculine ones but pretty much gender neutral and cutesy ones, that I can’t really identify much masculine that I was ever into in the first place.</p>
 
<p dir=”ltr” style=”line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;”>But what I’ve realized, there’s a whole spectrum of things we love.  There are girls who like guy things and guys who like girl things. Not only should being transgender be no different, we should most definitely have interests all across that spectrum.  Because while we all might desire to become more like the gender opposite of what we are physically, we were all raised at one point as the gender we were born into. It’s not our parents’ fault they raised us that way, it’s hard enough sometimes for us to figure it out for ourselves sometimes.  They do what they think is best. And so we all have all kinds of things we like and dislike and that’s ok. If you want to live as a guy at times, that’s great. If you have a day you’re feeling girly, that’s alright too. You be you for you. And if the day comes when you decide you’d be comfortable more without breasts and/or your reproductive organs, the surgery will be an option for you.  And they will screen you intensely first to make absolutely certain you want that.</p>
 
<p dir=”ltr” style=”line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;”>So in conclusion, it’s up to you to find what’s best for you.  Get a counsellor. Try to work things out with your mom. But you need to do what you feel is best, and take care of yourself.  You know better than anybody else what’s going to make you happy, and it is your life. When things got too overwhelming for me, I wrote my thoughts in a journal.  I highly recommend that, it really helped me think about what I wanted and why I wanted it.</p>
 
<p dir=”ltr” style=”line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;”>I wish you luck on your journey and take care of yourself.</p>

[Anonymous]

Hey Izzy, welcome to TGH. I hope you are able to find some friends and good resources here. I am also FTM and currently weighing my options for transition, not sure how I want to go about it yet. I want you to know that you aren’t alone and I’m here to support you. Feel free to send me a private message if you ever want to talk.

[Author]

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