Seriously confused about myself [AMAB 29]
Hi all. Reposting from r/Genderqueer though that post seems to be under review. Have been on hormones for 3 months and started questioning 8 years ago. I’m hoping for any advice and opinions, even if it’d mean detransitioning.
So I had considered myself a tomboy for a while because who I wanted to be presentationally was female, and I didn’t want to sacrifice how I behave to get there. But I’d get thrown through a loop in thinking I’m not woman enough. Asked in [r/MTFtomboy](r/MTFtomboy), got an affirming response and felt I could be whoever I am, *as long as I am always she/her and always a woman.*
Saying that last part to myself made me crash, pump the breaks everything in crisis style. This wasn’t a lie before, and suddenly it was? I looked over in the mirror and felt that suddenly I was in the wrong body, the body I had been transitioning towards. I had dysphoria for my AMAB body after some time accepting I was a woman and it didn’t feel nice, but felt different, like a numbness or looking through myself. I didn’t like being reminded of my male aspects. If I had felt euphoria before presenting and being seen as a woman, except around other cis women where I felt I had to perform more or be quiet, why the sudden change? Why does willingly choosing my male voice or looking back to see the guy I was \*also\* feel so jarring and uncomfortable?
I don’t want it to feel like I’m being obtuse but I can’t put the full rundown of my life here and all possible evidence against / in favour of me being one binary or the other. I mainly know that I’m a late bloomer in regards to everything, I have Inattentive ADHD (recently diagnosed and with a lot of low self esteem issues from it) and for that diagnosis I only had to be completely honest. For gender incongruence, it felt like I had to scrounge for answers, because while I had some repressed memories of being a mummy’s kid, preferring to be with the women in my family, and liking dancing - flamboyantly even - once I reached a certain point before puberty I did enjoy being a guy, just none of the parts where I had to stuff my sensitive heart away to feel safe for years.
I became aware of femboys in 2015/2016 and that threw my sexuality into question and I had dreams of being one. I saw a genderswapped photo of me in a metal t-shirt in 2018 and loved it so much that I wished I had just been born a girl. Then the first time I took hormones I had a nightmare where I was 10 and dressed in black that involved me not fitting in or relating to all the other girls dressed in pink, and I got pushed in the back and neglected by virtue of being a boy, an enforcement that denied how sensitive and needing of hugs I was. And I had a died who tried, but who was ultimately a lot more intimidating, abusive and controlling than he realised and I inherited a lot of his rage issues.
I did one little gender quiz ages ago and the results were a mix, and feeling like it was a mix stuck with me, even when said mix felt like it shifted. I had considered more nonbinary styles of identity but I had felt that it was othering to go by they/them and it also felt like conceding or defeat if I considered myself male. I had also tried to identify as genderfluid and doing so caused me to spin out as I felt who I was kept changing rapidly. Calling myself genderqueer recently must be somewhat true right now because it still makes me smile a little, while the first night I tried it I felt so free to be myself in \*every\* way that the gender euphoria felt extremely buzzing, the sort you’d crash from the next day (and I did, yesterday). Maybe it’s the nonconformity that made me feel free.
But… now that’s just left me with so many more questions and a lack of certainty or stability. And I \*need\* stability just as much as I need freedom of gender expression. I don’t know what this means for how to present myself, my hormones, how I see myself in the mirror, how others see me. I know that this is a lot and maybe not enough, please feel free to ask if you have any further questions.
Edit: A couple more things for now, I felt like for a long time it would be nice if I were a woman, I tried pursuing it because it made me feel happy. But also I have found a lot of comfort in the fact that I am trans in some way, which goes against that whole notion of trans people not wishing being trans on anyone. If I am genderfluid however, I \*seriously\* don’t wish that on anyone. To me - if that is me - it feels horribly distressing.