am i trans?
hey everyone - this is a genuine question; i don’t know if there are other people out there who feel this way or how to identify.
for context, i’m 26 and AMAB.
i knew i was queer from a young age, experiencing attraction to males, but as a teenager, i read about non-binary gender identities on tumblr and started identifying and presenting as androgynous. many people thought i was a girl and i enjoyed that.
i went to a religious school and had conservative parents, i couldn’t even tell them i was gay. when i got a little older, i thought about transitioning, but just got overwhelmed and sad that my body was changing and i couldn’t. i distinctly remember driving to school one morning and resigning to keeping a male body, as long as i was an attractive man. i developed my appearance by growing out my beard and working out and became happy with it. i basically didn’t think about it for a while after and just kept a male ego.
then i converted to Hinduism and spent 4 years living in monasteries. Sanatan Dharma teaches that you’re not the body, and actually all souls are fundamentally female. my particular tradition (majority the prominent saints being male) even emphasizes an internal and eternal identity as a young girl (gopi), it’s pretty esoteric i won’t get into it.
the point is, this validated my feeling that i can feel feminine inside but i don’t need to change my (temporary) body.
i’ve thought like this for years, and i don’t often tell people, but when i do, they tell me i’m a transgender woman. i just say i have a feminine psyche and male body and i’m ok with that.
i completely understand why people transition and if it wasn’t so daunting and scary to even transition socially (plus people wouldn’t believe me bc i’m masculine presenting and like it that way).
however, i recently witnessed a really moving speech at graduation of a trans woman. and i’ve been realizing, i do see myself as a girl/woman 100%, i relate with women so much better, i want to be invited into female spaces, and be seen as a woman.
for a long time, i didn’t feel a need to label but recently i’ve started to identify as a genderqueer man b/c i don’t know what to call myself.
basically i don’t feel trans enough to call myself trans and i don’t even know what to call myself. i’m also wondering if anyone else out there feels like me?