u/catholic-mario

Long vent incoming. I'm 24, ftm, and have been socially transitioned since I was 13 but because of financial reasons I was only able to start T at 22. I'm very tenuously stealth at work and to a certain portion of my friend group, and I get gendered correctly almost 100% of the time by strangers but I think it's entirely because of my masculine mannerisms and visible facial hair. I still have a really high voice (to be fair, it dropped from the very high end of the female range to solidly in the middle, lol) and a very feminine body shape that hrt has not affected at all and that I would have to get serious liposuction to correct (I've received a lot of uncomfortable comments about the size of my ass over the years...). I'm also fairly short and have a generally small frame, and even the people who wholeheartedly believe I'm a cis guy don't take me seriously as a man, which is endlessly frustrating. And even though the facial hair is certainly visible, it's patchy and gross.

But even aside from the fact that my transition is having subpar results, I'm just kind of.... exhausted with the whole process. I hate the constant doctor's appointments, the insurance and pharmacy nightmares, having to justify my whole existence to people in my life who know and having to endure less than favorable opinions of people like me from people who don't know. I don't want to spend the remainder of my 20's saving up money for surgeries and getting surgeries and recovering from surgeries. Hell, I don't even have anyone in my life that would be able or willing to take care of me after top surgery. And I'd like to be able to spend my money on other things, like traveling or going back to school or even just better quality food. Also, this is a more controversial point, but I just hate feeling like a freak and a loser. Most of my friends are cis and straight, and the ones who wanted to transition at some point all decided against it in favor of their relationships and careers, and I feel like they're judging me for actually deciding to transition instead of just growing out of it. And honestly, most of my trans friends are unemployed or broke or in some weird codependent relationship situation so I can't say I really blame that line of thinking.

The main thing keeping me from detransitioning is that... I actually am trans. I like being called he/him pronouns and treated as male. I love all the effects that testosterone has had on me (besides maybe the acne but I've made my peace with that). Growing facial and body hair is dope, bottom growth is fun and intriguing, it's nice no longer sounding like a prepubescent girl when I speak, and no periods?? Increased muscle mass? It's so awesome. I really don't want to give all this up. I'm also so wildly unfeminine that when I came out pretty much no one was surprised; I had multiple people tell me I was never good at being a girl in the first place. That's not to say that being feminine would make me less trans, but I feel like I would have a really hard time adjusting to "living as a woman" if I were to detransition.

On the other hand, I think I would have an easier time detransitioning than a lot of ftmtfs in a lot of respects. I haven't had any surgeries yet (although I think I would still want a hysterectomy if I were to detrans; I hate getting periods and don't want kids) and beyond needing to pass as a woman for safety reasons I wouldn't really care about being seen as "female enough" since I don't really identify with womanhood at all. I'm also not into men, and not into the concept of relationships in general, so I wouldn't have to concern myself with being seen as attractive. Plenty of people in my life would look down on me for changing my mind but to be honest nobody really respects me or takes me seriously anyways so it would kind of just be par for the course.

I guess to summarize this whole mess I just typed: I'm sick and tired of thinking about being trans, I just want to live my life without this looming in the background and I don't have much confidence in my ability to successfully transition. I don't really want to live as a cis woman but it would make my life so much easier and I could maybe learn to live with it and this has been weighing on my mind for years. What the hell am I supposed to do in this situation?

24M, Southeastern US. I went to college essentially just because my parents told me to and ended up with a degree in Economics. Fumbled my way into a boring government office job and I recently realized I can't stand anything about it. The work is mind-numbingly boring (it's related to financial contracts and such, not gonna go into too much detail for privacy reasons), I hate sitting and staring at a screen all day answering emails and approving forms, there's no path for advancement unless I have 10+ years of experience, and at the risk of sounding trite I think office work is genuinely draining to the soul. All this to say, I need out of this job and this career immediately. That being said, literally all of my background is related to finance, accounting, and data analytics so I would need to start completely over if I were to do something different.

My preferences for a career would be something where I'm spending less than half of my time on a screen, something that helps people or at least isn't making society worse, and nothing that's likely to be replaced by AI in a few years. Other than that I'm willing to give most things a shot.

My limitations are: I don't want to take on massive amounts of debt unless necessary (however, I'm willing to pay <$20k for a specialized education program e.g., a 2 year program at a community college or trade school), I don't want any job that involves life-threatening situations for myself or others (so no army, firefighting, etc.), and although I generally enjoy working with people, I'm a bit socially awkward so sales and related positions are not for me.

Does anyone have any recommendations or advice? I'm kind of at a loss for what to do, and I need to find a new job or career path somewhat urgently, as on top of not liking my job my current workplace culture is also pretty toxic and affecting my mental health to the point where it's also taking a toll on me physically. I obviously don't want to quit without anything lined up but it's in my best interests to leave sometime soon.

Also, I know I didn't list anything I'm specifically interested in, but if I knew what I was interested in I wouldn't have ended up in this situation in the first place. If it helps, in my personal life I enjoy staying physically active and am into outdoor activities like hiking and kayaking, and I also like baking, video games, reading (specifically biographies and non-fiction books about history and public infrastructure), technical theatre, volunteering, and traveling to new places.

Any input would be appreciated! It would also be nice to hear from anyone here who is/was in a similar situation career-wise.