Well let my start off by giving some basic information about myself. I'm currently 22 years old and I live in a very small southern town. For the past 2-3 years I've been questioning my gender and I was wondering if anyone might know what this sounds like or have some advice. Sorry in advance for the super long post but I feel like I need to be thorough. When I was little I always played with the more stereotypical little boy toys. I had hot wheels and legos and played in the dirt. The only really girly toys I played with were my ponies because I loved horses. When everyone would play house I always wanted to be the dog instead of the mom or dad. I remember my mom telling me about how I hated dresses and refused to wear them. During school I had almost exclusively male friends. I've never really fit in with women and I get really uncomfortable when they used to separate everyone by sex. I never wanted to be with the girls. I didn't understand girls and we never seemed to have anything in common. I was far more comfortable with the boys but even then I kind of felt like an outsider. Part of this may be due to my extreme shyness. When puberty started was when I started to get more uncomfortable. I was so afraid of it that when in school they were showing those videos about female puberty to all the girls I actually convinced my parents to make the school let me opt out of watching them. Everyone was telling my to be excited about getting my period because it meant I was becoming a woman but every time they said that I just got upset and scared. I also became hypercritical of my chest. During middle school I started to feel a lot of pressure to fit in and be more like all the other girls so I started to go through phases of trying to look more girly and wear make up. Eventually I would stop because it all felt so fake and then start up again because of peer pressure. At the same time this was when I first began to question my gender. I often said that I wish I had been born a boy. One very vivid memory I have is of being in the grocery store with my mom. I was wearing a big pull over hoodie and some men’s jeans and I remember thinking about how good it would be if someone were to mistake me for a guy. Then I instantly got scared that I might be trans and told myself that I couldn’t be because I didn’t want to be a guy all the time. This was also the first time I wanted my breasts to just disappear. I tried not to think about it afterwards. During high school I continued to have these phases of trying to be more feminine to be more attractive to men and to fit in better. The only girl clothes I actually liked were very costumey. I liked Gothic Lolita style and renaissance fair type dresses so I sewed my own clothes frequently. I never fit in any better because I just didn’t share any of the same concerns or interests as the girls around me and so my group of close friends was always entirely geeky dudes. Right after I graduated from high school I was in a polyamorous relationship with my two best friends. One of them came out to me as a transgender woman and because I wanted to support her the best I could I started to do research. It was then that I first came across non binary gender identities. That really interested me and I kind of let it stew in the back of my mind for a few months. Then I had a fight with my family about my girlfriend and went to stay at my boyfriend’s house for a week. One day that week I was feeling really bad and I wanted to cheer myself up so I said that we should go to the movies out of town to the big theater. I got the overwhelming urge to dress masculine and even went out and bought a sports bra to bind. I borrowed my boyfriend’ clothes and off we went to the movies. And it felt great! Not to long after that I bought a binder and bound on and off for about a year before going full time. I also cut my hair into a faux hawk. The problem is that I’m not entirely sure how I feel. I know I don’t feel like I’m a girl but I’m not sure what I am. I’m constantly second guessing myself and my feelings. For a while I thought I might be FTM because I’m more okay with male pronouns than I am with female ones and I present more masculine. Most of the time I feel more masculine too. But I’m not always comfortable being seen as a man. I want to get top surgery but I don’t know if I have bad enough dysphoria that I need it. I’m conflicted because most of the time I don’t like my chest but sometimes while I’m being intimate with my boyfriend I like it touched. I also don’t really have bottom dysphoria. A lot of the time I wish I could just be a person instead of a man or woman. All of these thoughts have been kicked into overdrive because I came out to my parents and they didn’t take it well. I had to move in with my boyfriend and its left me wondering and doubting my own feelings. I even went so far as to buy a regular bra and try it on (I got rid of all my old girl clothes last year because I wasn’t wearing them). The bra felt really weird and uncomfortable and I didn’t like the way I looked with boobs at all. However, every once in a while I get the urge to buy a long wig (preferably pink) and get dressed up like I did in high school. It really confuses me. IDK maybe I just like to cross dress sometimes?
I'm currently exploring nonbinary identities as well; one thing I keep getting hung up on is how many people think they're genderqueer/nonbinary and then move into ftm identity; kindof like how some people think they're bi and then move into gay identity. But for many people, ftm (or going back to f) is not their endpoint; being agender/queergender/nonbinary/demi/whatever is their endpoint. So i don't know if maybe you're feeling pressure from within the queer community to commit to ftm? It's okay if you're not a guy; just be yourself and follow your instincts. One thing I am working on (and have been since coming out as queer) is not putting a label on everything; start with the assumption that it doesn't really matter what gender you are. Going without a label might be a temporary state until you get settled on an identity, or maybe you will find that you don't identify with labels at all. Hope this helps.
I agree with you. I defined myself as a transman three months ago. Afterwards, I found out I was feeling pressure from the queer community to fit into the binary sistem. That was the reason why I defined myself as FtM. But it wasn't my true identity. Now, I feel free because I realised there's nothing wrong to be non-binary or genderqueer.
After a few more days of soul searching I had an epiphany. I googled demiguy on a whim for the first time and it just hit me with such clarity that this is what I am. I'm so happy right now!
