u/okcommuter1

Hello! I’m a closeted trans woman trying to find her way out of the closet. I’m almost entirely sure that I’m trans, but the possibility of ROGD kinda freaks me out and I want to nip it in the bud before the worrying gets worse.

For background, I grew up in a pretty conservative household with my Dad in particular being a staunch Trump supporter. I followed in his line of thinking all the way through my teenage years and didn’t start deconstructing my previously held beliefs until I moved out on my own for college and had the space to think for myself.

I found out what a trans person was when I was 13, and as much as I was afraid to admit it to myself back then, I pretty much knew I was trans at that time. I think I had just repressed and built a wall of internalized transphobia strong enough to push it away for a while.

Then back in May of this year, the dam completely burst and there hasn’t been a day that’s gone by since where I haven’t thought at length about being trans. I just feel freaked out about how quickly things seem to have fallen into place this year and am worried about the possibility that I’m not really trans and I’ve just fallen head first into a rabbit hole convincing myself that I am.

I know that’s how my parents are gonna react too. They’re going to say how there were never any signs and that this must be the result of going to college and being surrounded by liberal peers who trans’d me. I don’t think they’re ever going to actually listen to me, they’ll just see me as some ROGD victim and mourn the loss of their son :/

Are there actually more people getting put on to TERF propaganda or are they just the LOUD minority? Swear it’s all over social media platforms and it just breaks my heart. Why are they so loud and why does it seem like so many people are falling into it? How do we break down their ideas to these people?

Celebration / Vent post

I’ve used Twitter regularly for over 6 years and have been open as a trans woman on there for about 3 months now. It was my go to social media app for years and truly loved it, until Elon Musk bought it.

Twitter has transformed into the worst mainstream social media app to be openly trans on. My account was relatively small, and still, the amount of horrific hatred I had directed towards me or was otherwise subjected to on the daily was unbearable. I was basically abusing myself by continuing to use it on the daily and had several depressive episodes because of it. It’s absolutely been the #1 cause of my repeated repression and the worsening of my internalized transphobia.

If anybody is looking for a sign to cut something, anything out of your life that is dragging you down and causing you to repress further, please take this post as a sign to do so. You are so much stronger than the hate. Please take some time today to be kind to yourself, it’s worth it.

My closing words:
Fuck Elon Musk, fuck his AI, and fuck the repugnant voices he promotes on Twitter every day.

Feels a little silly putting this as a “Good News” flair because in the grand scheme of things, this is pretty mundane, but whatever, this is big for me!

If there’s one habit I have that I could point out as being obviously detrimental to my mental well being, it would be my Twitter usage. I’ve used the app for years and years as a way to keep up with musicians I love, find new stuff to listen to every week, and talk to people about lesser known stuff that my irl friends aren’t into.

Apps been awful ever since The Evil One bought it though. My account wasn’t big by any stretch of the word, but even in the 3 months I’ve been openly trans online I’ve encountered some of the nastiest, most hateful shit on Twitter. Whether it be directed at me in the comment section of some random music post, or something I just saw while scrolling my feed, I’ve had enough exposure to TERFs and right-wing shitheads for a lifetime.

Should’ve done this a while ago but better late than never. Finally taking the steps to healing and self acceptance.

Hello! I saw a post on here the other day about OU’s acceptance of trans people and wanted to come on here and ask some questions of my own.

I’ve been at OU for a few years now but have only just recently started coming out to myself as a trans woman. Didn’t grow up in an ideally safe environment for trans people so coming to OU was the first time I was really confronted with the idea that transitioning was a possibility for me.

I wanted to ask about some resources that could potentially be useful for me as somebody who is trans but hasn’t taken any steps towards transitioning yet. I don’t know how comfortable I’d feel stepping into queer spaces immediately, I feel like I’d rather find something that could help me get started with transition and ease me into those spaces instead if that makes any sense.

Hopefully that makes sense and thanks to anybody who can give me some help :)

Told my mom I was going to do some online clothes shopping in case she saw any charges on my bank account, then she told me to send her links to what I want so she can place the order for me and then have me pay her back???

I’m so sick of having no privacy over my own fucking purchases as a 20 year old college student. I literally have no way to buy ANYTHING gender affirming without getting questioned by my parents and it pisses me off. They just think it’s normal to stalk their adult children’s bank accounts because my older siblings had no issues with it. Obviously they didn’t have to hide a secret as big as being trans from our parents though 🤦🏼‍♀️

I’ve been experiencing some pretty complex emotions that feel really difficult to put into words but I’m going to try my best here.

I can say with near 100% certainty that I am no man. Since my egg cracking moment, there hasn’t been a single day where the idea of breaking free from manhood hasn’t been on my mind in some significant form. Many previously foggy memories from my childhood and teenage years finally felt like they had clear answers. I’ve tried to write that off as confirmation bias, but I seriously have no other way to explain those memories other than dysphoria.

The distress I’m feeling from this constant inner turmoil has become serious enough that it’s bleeding into other aspects of my life. I’ve started to have trouble concentrating on important things, enjoying personal hobbies, whatever. The only thing I want to think about is understanding what’s wrong with me.

I know that I don’t enjoy being a man but I cannot for the life of me understand what being trans even means to me. The idea of being a woman, dressing like a woman, looking like a woman, and being treated as a woman in society is appealing to me. I just don’t understand how I can just *do* being a woman though, it feels so right but so foreign at the same time.

I can buy some women’s clothes and try my hand at makeup and I can enjoy that but I’m not naïve enough to think that’s all being a woman is. I know there’s some innate factor to being a woman but I don’t know what that factor is or feels like. Hell, I’ve lived my life as a man for 20 years and I couldn’t tell you what the innate factor of feeling like or being a man is.

I’ve scoured the internet forever trying to figuring out what that factor even but all I’ve gotten is more self-doubt and more knowledge about TERFs and other anti-trans hate circles that I didn’t want.

I wanted to ask some people how they came to that understanding themselves. Is it just something that everybody has trouble understanding until they find the mode of expression that works best for them?

Thanks!

For I don’t know how many years, every time my birthday or Christmas rolls around, I’ve had a recurring fantasy about opening a present and seeing an estrogen prescription in the box…

I’ve had this for years before I “figured it out” 3 months ago. What kind of cis man fantasizes about getting estrogen for Christmas, am I really that dumb?

From my Dad’s conservative news watching habits, My Mom deadnaming an old friend of mine that transitioned while we were in high school, and my sister reposting TERF TikTok’s and calling trans women “t**nnies,” I just can’t get away from it. At every corner, I’m constantly met with the reality that being myself and transitioning is going to be the death blow to me and my families relationship. I’ve been through a lot in my life, but this is probably the toughest mental war I’ve ever fought.

The choice between living life as a miserable, sad man forever but still having my family and taking the leap, transitioning, being truly happy, but not having my family is a question much easier to answer in my head than face in reality. I fucking hate being a people pleaser.

Hi!!

I’m a 20 year old trans woman who is just now coming to terms with her identity. It’s been a long time coming, as I’ve wrestled with my thoughts for the better part of a decade now. I’ve been caught in a cycle of pushing away my deepest desires out of fear of disappointing my conservative, Christian parents. It was easier to escape from the thoughts as a teenager, but they’ve only grown more persistent as I’ve grown.

My tipping point was in May of this year when the dam finally busted open. Not a day has gone by since then where thinking about my womanhood hasn’t taken up the vast majority of my brain space. This very small sample size of time I’ve been openly trans on the internet has resulted in several brutal wake-up calls though.

It’s important to note that I feel like I cannot speak on real world experiences just yet. I’m a college student and live on my own, but my financial stability is heavily reliant on my parents, so my ability to seek gender affirming care or come out at this time is unfortunately compromised. As a result, this very early stage of my transition has been experienced almost 100% online. Even just the transphobia I have experienced through presenting a trans (albeit still anonymous) identity on online spaces such as Twitter or even here on Reddit has been rather disheartening to me at times.

I’ve unfortunately become much more familiar with TERF propaganda, in fact, I made a post yesterday on a trans specific subreddit talking about the dread I felt having noticed my own sister reposting a TERF video to her TikTok account. I’ve been subjected to people telling me I support “men in dresses invading women’s spaces to harm women and girls.” Being exposed to bioessentialist views diminishing my own freedoms to present and live however I please. All of this resulting in creeping doubts about myself and my womanhood that I’ve been kicking like hell to fight myself out of.

It’s made me realize that this journey is going to be very hard and much bigger than me. I’m going to have to face a lot of challenges that I’ve never had to face in my 20 years of cis-white-manhood. I’m almost certainly going to face rejection from my family, losing the people that I truly owe my life to in several respects. It’s scary and it sucks, but I need to surrender to my heart for good and be happy instead of trying to make others happy by being a fake, watered down version of me.

I’m making this post here just out of hopes that I’m seen and heard. As I mentioned, this is a journey that I have so far navigated entirely alone, and I don’t know exactly when that’s going to change. All I can do is get my way through school while trying to build as good a support group I can and then transition once I’m out of my parents’ grasp. I don’t know exactly what the future holds but I know I can’t push it away again, this time it’s for real.

All TERF logic is stupid, but I find this one particularly dumb. Why do they believe that we don’t suffer at all from the same patriarchal structures that cis women do?

Is the fact that we are 4 times more likely to experience SA not a concern? Is the fact that the both of us are being subjected to rights trying to strip us of our bodily autonomy not a concern? I’ve even heard people say that trans people are MORE protected in this country on average than cis people. It’s lunacy.

I just seriously do not understand TERF logic, it’s the most reactionary, ridiculous shit

TW: TERF talking points (yuck)

It’s hard to put into words the pit I feel in my stomach right now. I literally just put a reply under my post from earlier about my impostor syndrome saying just how much better I feel and feeling like I found the root cause.

Check my phone and got a notification saying my sister reposted a TikTok with the following caption.

“WOMANHOOD. ❤️ It’s not just beautiful, it’s all encompassing.”

I clicked on the notification and the video started with the infamous podcast clip from Drew Afualo and ER Fightmaster that’s been making the rounds lately where ER says “I think trans women have a more beautiful understanding of what womanhood is.” This clip is immediately followed by various pictures and clips of women from all over the world, including several prominent women’s rights activists. The video was very clearly mocking and demeaning trans women’s womanhood and the comments made It even more clear that that was exactly the point the video was trying to make.

In the comments you find all your favorite TERF phrases.

“We’re not cis women… we’re women”
(This one had a picture of Sophie Cunningham photoshopped as Lady Liberty attached to it, and the creator of the video replied and said “Hey gorgeous ❤️ agreed!!!)

“NOT A FUCKING FEELING”

“Society is moving rapidly towards erasing women completely”

All kinds of gross TERF messaging just flooding my eyes and my brain in a flash. And my own sister reposted it.

I’ve known that my sister is a conservative for a while now. She’s taken after my Dad’s politics and is engaged to a man who is so similar to my Dad personality wise it’s scary. However, I’d always held out at least a little hope that she’d be one of the ones who’d come around to me one day after my coming out. Not anymore.

I swear I cannot catch a break. One moment I’m feeling great about myself, finding the roots of my impostor syndrome, ready to go to work and fight back against it and then bang, I get slapped in the face with my sister being a TERF. It’s just another reminder that likely, the only road to authentic womanhood is going to involve getting disowned by my family. It sucks. My family has done a whole lot for me in my life and I quite literally owe my life to them in several respects. The idea of disappointing them is scary, but the idea of never becoming myself is even scarier. Sucks that they likely won’t ever get to know me for me, but their loss I guess.

I’m honestly feeling quite sick, but scrolling through some more reaction videos to that same podcast clip made me feel a good bit better right away. I was seeing all kinds of cis people coming to our defense and saying how truly beautiful a trans woman’s concept of womanhood is. It not only helped work the pit out of my stomach a little bit, but planted a seed in my head that I really need to do my due diligence and explore what my own womanhood means to me, as I feel like that’s probably another factor in my impostor syndrome. I want to explore what it is about feminine art that makes me feel the way I do, explore that fire that burns inside me in my moments of euphoria and what makes it burn, make a map of my influences, all the people, all the art that make me feel and appreciate what it is about them that makes me feel that way. So, I guess in a way my sisters TERFism is actually gonna help me solidify my identity.

So… take that ya loser ass TERFs!

IMPORTANT EDIT: Ok, so this really did just make a full 180 into being maybe the most important moment of my entire journey so far, I’m really freaking out right now. The egg is fully cracked, I literally understand it all now. My vision of my own womanhood has been so hard to pin down and so hard to navigate because I’m looking everywhere but inside.

I’ve been hyper focused on societal acceptance, like what my family and friends will think. I’ve been focusing on my body and what I don’t like about it. The HRT, the surgeries, the any-fucking-thing I’d ever “need” in order to be seen as a woman in society.

In doing so I’ve literally abandoned the entire reason I had my original epiphany in the first place, the feeling. I haven’t spent anywhere near enough time figuring out WHY I feel so compelled by femininity. All the art I love, the women who came before me and set the stage for me to walk on. I’ve forgot to explore what makes me me. I feel like a total fucking dumbass, like no shit that was the problem, girl!!!!

That is some sweet, sweet irony that TERF propaganda actually made me more confident in finding out why I’m trans.

Thank you terfies!!!!!!! 🤗

Trigger warning: dysphoria, extreme self-doubt

I absolutely hate the way the gender/sex distinction seems to invalidate my being as a trans woman. I see people who claim to be close allies say things like “Trans women deserve to be treated as women in society, even though they were born male.”

Biological, anatomical, whatever the hell other kind of descriptor.
Male.

Sure, they’re saying that we deserve to be treated as women, but it feels undermining that they feel the need to stress that we are “born male” all the time. It’s like they treat their acknowledgement of us as some kind of courtesy that they are granting us, some kind of pity.

Not only is that annoying, but I also find it to be extremely invalidating. In fact, I’d say the gender/sex distinction is probably one of the things that forced me to repress as long as I have. The idea that I am a “woman” but that I’m also not the same as a cis woman.

I guess I don’t have much else to add. I know it’s probably the truth, but it does feel so incredibly invalidating that I won’t ever truly be “the same” as a cis woman. I wake up every morning to see the dude looking back at me in the mirror and feel like I’m a huge fraud.

Hopefully I can get on HRT within the next couple of years and start to feel better though. Shits tough right now though.

I’ve made a few gloomy posts on here, even about a lot of things surrounding this moving out, but I want to focus on the very obvious good this poses for me. I’m headed back for my 3rd year of college and finally moving off campus into my own apartment.

I’ve finally reached the first step in the most important journey of my life. I actually have a safe space to explore my womanhood without worrying about having a roommate or parents around. It’s fucking surreal, I can’t believe it’s all happening so fast.

Still have a ways to go before HRT is a realistic option, but this is a monumental first step. It probably won’t look great but that first attempt at makeup is going to feel so great, I’m so excited 🥹

I’m headed back to college for my 3rd year next week and I’m FINALLY going to be able to live in my own space and work on my identity!!! I’m so excited to finally have my own safe space to experiment with more feminine clothes and makeup without having to worry about a roommate or parents to get myself outed earlier than I’m ready for.

Still won’t be able to start HRT until after graduation because I’m still financially reliant on my parents but this feels like such a monumental first step, I’m so stoked.

Also does anybody have recommendations as far as good, cheap makeup goes and good beginner tutorials to follow?

Would also love to hear about good places to shop online for cheap, cute clothes to experiment with.

Thanks everybody!

I (20, MtF) have been dealing with TONS of self-doubt as of late surrounding the entire trans women in sports “debate”. Seeing all the mentions of excluding trans women from sports and using language like “men in women’s sports” has really started to wear on me as a very recently self-discovered, pre-everything trans woman.

It’s brought a lot of my repressed, internalized transphobia back out of the woodwork and made me doubt that I’ll ever be able to see myself as a woman. I’m scared that I’ll only ever be able to look into the mirror and see a man.

The summer brings this out of me the worst. Literally as I’m writing this out, I’m in Los Angeles and it’s been a day of dysphoria hell. Walking around in even just shorts and a t-shirt makes me feel like a fat, sweaty, disgusting man even though I maintain quite a healthy weight. I hate my body and wish I could live in a cold climate year round to wear winter clothes and hide it. I hate how much I sweat, I hate my hairy legs, and I hate getting razor burn from shaving my face and neck every day.

It’s just that with all the nasty transphobia in the world right now, the denial of even trans women who undergo years of hormone therapy to play in sports leagues that match their identity. If those people aren’t “women” enough then how am I ever gonna be? It doesn’t help that my parents and basically everybody else in my life are transphobes and would never accept me.

It terrifies me and makes me wonder if transitioning is even worth it. I want to feel comfortable in my own skin but all of that makes me afraid I’ll never see the woman in the mirror :/

The sports debate is something that seems really silly and unimportant to me. However, it’s become such a big talking point in the current zeitgeist that it’s now nearly impossible to ignore.

I saw on social media earlier today that Enes Kanter, a failed, washed up former NBA player turned right-wing grifter, mockingly declared that he was declaring himself eligible for next year’s WNBA Draft because “simply declaring who you are is all that is required” to compete in the WNBA.

Obviously, if you’ve spent any time on Twitter post-Elon-buyout, you should know that the discourse around this has been unbearable to read through. There’s people rightfully calling him out for being a grifter asshole trying to cling on to any last bit of relevance he has, and other people using these callouts as a way to attack trans people once again.

It’s the same arguments you see all the time. The “Well, if Enes claims to be a woman, then you have to respect her wishes and let her play in the women’s league” kinda things.

And while I wish these things didn’t bother me so much, they really do. The constant “what is a woman?” questions and discrediting of my own identity is tiring as hell. It feels like they found something that really gauges the public and it’s worrying. I want to be able to fight back but their rhetoric works on me too, it makes me question myself and I don’t know how to fight back.

I just want to be me. Is that too hard to ask?

Was sitting on the couch with my Dad today as he was watching Fox News. They were running a story about the Michigan Democratic Senate race between Abdul El-Sayed and Haley Stevens and showed a primary poll where El-Sayed was projected to win. He shook his head, looked at me and said “What’s with your generation and wanting communism?”

This didn’t shock me at all, he was all in on the Anti-Mamdani train during the NYC mayoral election (we live in Ohio) and made several comments about him being a communist. Back then I told him about the Mamdani White House visit where Trump said he would be very comfortable living in New York under Mamdani and he looked at me like I was an insane person. He literally could not fathom that Trump would have said that, and judging by what he said today, he clearly didn’t learn anything from it either.

It just blows my mind that we’re seeing McCarthyism work its way right back into American politics in real time and people are still falling for it. I’d like to try to talk to my Dad about it but frankly I’m not super well equipped to do so and I know he wouldn’t listen anyways because he doesn’t care about my opinions. Can’t wait to get out of this house again 🤦🏼‍♀️

I went out to a nice Italian restaurant for dinner last night with my parents, sister, and grandparents to celebrate my sister’s birthday which was a few weeks ago.

Already wasn’t in the greatest of moods. I had a pretty shitty day at work and all I wanted to do was come home, relax, and do nothing. Then right before I was about to clock out, I got a text from my mom saying that we were going to a restaurant out of town and I needed to get ready as soon as I got home. Fantastic.

So I went home, showered, got ready and packed into the car. I was feeling dysphoric because my outfit looked like crap and I couldn’t even shave because my skin was too irritated from shaving yesterday.

Then we get to the restaurant and of course, I feel like a background character. All the attention is on my sister and her picture perfect life. She’s graduated from college, has a job lined up, is engaged to a great dude who treats her like a princess, has a future lined up with him, is an immensely talented artist and everything. My grandparents are talking her ear off and hardly ever even look at me. Most I got from them was a little pat on the back and a “good luck at school!”.

I swear my parents hardly even bother with me either. I hate being in a bad mood in public a lot but I really just can’t help it anymore. My parents know how much of a chronic bad mood I’ve had lately and how easily irritable I’ve been and they don’t even think to think about what’s going on with me. I can’t tell you the last time I got asked an earnest “Are you ok?” from them. They just tell me “Stop being so negative all the time.” and it makes me even more upset. It honestly just feels like I’m a burden to them sometimes.

It just makes my whole situation even worse because for the vast majority of my life, my family has been all I’ve had. I’ve spent so much mental effort trying to keep the peace in my family and it pains me to know that that’s probably going to be all for nothing whenever I come out.

Venting/dysphoria post

My sister’s getting married next summer and I’m very excited for her! She met a guy who treats her like a princess and it really seems like they were made for each other. I don’t really see eye to eye with her fiancé on politics, but other than that, we have a pretty good relationship. A good enough relationship that he asked me to be a groomsman in the wedding. I agreed to, of course, and I’m super excited to be able to celebrate my sister’s marriage in some capacity, but deep down, it aches me so bad that I won’t be able to be on her side.

The idea of being able to go through all the steps with her, going dress shopping, touring the venue, going on a bachelorette trip, celebrating her with all her other bridesmaids that we’ve both known and been close with since we were babies, getting ready and taking pictures on the day of. Everything in that mental picture feels perfect, like how it’s meant to be.

Then I take a glimpse at how it’s gonna go in reality and it feels so off. I’m gonna be a groomsman along with several other guys I’ve either briefly met or have never met in my life. I’ll get along with them fine, for sure, but it won’t feel natural, I know I’m going to feel out of place and it’s going to be awkward being around a bunch of dudes that would probably hate me for who I really am. I’m going to have to wear a suit, which isn’t suuuuper bothersome to me. I mean, I look fine in a suit, even conventionally attractive in one, but it still feels wrong. I know the day of is probably going to be dysphoria hell but I’ve come to terms with that.

It’s gonna be a fun time, especially when I get to be around my sister and her friends on the day of and the night before, but I just wish so badly I could be with them the whole time.

Even if I came out to my family today, nothing good would come out of it, I’d risk losing the financial support of my parents, and in fact it’d probably make me miss the wedding in its entirety. This is a wedding between two very conservative families, in a chapel, where there won’t even be any alcohol outside of the bride and grooms suites. There’s no chance either family would be ok with a trans woman being in the bridal party.

I’ve come to terms with the fact that I won’t be able to celebrate the wedding as happily as I can (though hopefully our secretive alcohol will help out a tad). I lament that fact very much, but I’ll just have suck it up and go to the wedding as I’m supposed to so as to not throw a wrench in everything and “ruin” the day for my sister, who very much deserves to have a happy, stress free wedding day.