u/WaterrSheep

So I’m a 21 year old nonbinary transmasc pre everything except socially transitioning. My hair is short, I bind daily, I go by a male name and pronouns, etcetera and so forth. But I’m also in biological sciences. I want to study Forest entomology and pathology to assist landowners with their forest health issues. I’ve been working so hard in university becoming the top of my class for my bachelors (graduating with a 3.99 GPA and As in all my graduate-level classes), worked in research labs, published a paper, ran several student organisations, and performed hundreds of hours in volunteer work. I’ve won a UDSA research grant AND won an award at a national conference for my research. Hell, I scored a research scholarship in a different country for crying out loud. But after all this, people still don’t take me seriously.

Of the five labs I’ve worked in (both in summer and during the school year), only one of them has treated me like an actual human person. Every other lab I’ve worked in has either barely acknowledged my existence or genuinely harassed me. The head of the lab I won an award for told me that even after that win, he would never provide me a letter of recommendation. My boss in another lab called me “utterly incompetent and impossible to work with.” My boss in my current lab constantly “corrects” me over minor things and never criticises anyone else for doing the exact same things.

I know it’s for a fact that I’m always the only trans person in the room. Hell, I’m often the only visibly queer person in the room as well. It’s been really eating at my self worth for some time because even if I could transition at this time, I would probably be mocked and judged by these same people and/or wouldn’t be able to find any work in my field until I started passing. I love doing science. I love working in forestry and field work. I love doing this kind of thing, but I’m actively inhibited by the fact that I’m transgender. I just don’t even know what to do anymore because nothing that I do is ever enough for these people.

I know this is all probably pretty niche for a lot of people on here, but does anyone have any advice?

So I’ve been basically living in a glass closet for the last 8ish years or so about my identity. I have short hair, I dress masculine, etcetera and so forth. I haven’t started HRT, but every time I even try bringing it up with even my trans friends, I start to get supremely anxious. Like, my heart starts pounding, I start shaking, I become nauseous… it’s kinda frustrating. This has been happening since I realized I was trans and I still don’t know why. Any time I even want to begin brining up the medical aspect of my transition this happens. Is anyone like this too? This is something I want to do and I can’t understand why my body is reacting like this. Maybe things will change when I actually start HRT (which will indeed whenever I can get mass distance between my folks and I), but for now it’s miserable.