Am I Trans Enough? Am I even still trans? Just self-conscious doubt.

Is it possible to suppress being trans and literally just not know till adulthood? I hear of so many ppl that are or did figure it out as a teenager. I mean yeah my mom's a tyrant and growing up she was emotionally abusive and could be manipulative to get her way and angered easily and would yell and scream and insult and shit and day to day still is quite dramatic. I'm not even exaggerating she probably has an undiagnosed mood or personality disorder she's in denial of. She doesn't even realize she's in the wrong.

But anways, like with my sexuality, instead of figuring myself out at like 11/12 when i noticed signs i suppressed it, convinced myself i was being inappropriate, and shoved it to the back of my mind by highschool. So is it possible that i did the same with my gender identity? The most obvious sign is the fact that for at least half my life, i either wondered why i didn't have a dick or wished i could just have a dick for a day. When i discovered masturbation i just couldn't figure it out at first and i didn't really care for it and my biggest thought was like okay, why didn't i finish. Despite me at this age having not discovered porn yet cause my parents gave me a computer that was basically child protected haha. Some kinda program on it that shut down internet after a certain time, blocked certain sites based on keywords, etc. But me being me i just shoved it aside as curiousity, that was my thing i would convince myself that any abnormal thought was normal but just taboo to talk about or inappropriate and push it away.

For years i just thought i was the modest, uninterested, straight religious girl my mom raised me to be. It felt wrong, nothing ever felt right, i felt out of place and like i didnt belong among the other girls and i never understood them. Never liked pink or princesses and although i don't mind shopping i see shoes as functional and clothes well i don't buy them unless i need them although i am choosey about what i buy, and to this day don't even know how to put on eyeliner much less a full face of makeup. I was my most authentic self in elementary school. I liked cartoons and video games and space and dinosaurs and science and history and although i liked boys clothes i wasn't permitted to wear them and although i wasn't and never would be sporty, i enjoyed playing outside.

I just...i doubt a lot. Because even though i see shopping for clothes as functional i still don't mind it. I like sort of girly things like wax scents/essential oil diffusers (basically alternatives to candles) and decorating for christmas. Sometimes at work i'll see a witty tee or a dress in the juniors section and think its cute - like if i had to dress up or wear girls clothes one day a year, that's what i would want to wear. But i mean, i own a dress - one single dress - and i've tried it on recently just to see my own reaction...cause i mean i bought it but never wore it for manipulative distraction purposes if mom ever forced me to go to church or dragged me along for some event or another. It was a pretty dress and i found a decent necklace to go with it from my old collection of necklaces (i would get them on birthdays from parents as gifts but never wore most of them)...i mean it was pretty but i just felt uncomfortable. I mean i'm sure if i had someone doll me up and i walked around getting compliments that would be nice but i think i would have still felt uncomfortable. but i also feel like i need to lose 20-30lbs so i can stop seeing hips in the mirror. Speaking of i also went through a purse phase as a tween/teen. I had a purse and i liked purse shopping. But you know the thing about girls clothes is they literally don't have pockets! And all i ever put in it was normal pocket stuff like money and my cell phone and maybe some lip balm if my lips were chapped bad cause winter, nothing girly like makeup...i never could figure out why some girls needed to carry a huge purse. Sometimes i'd try to be a girl and put stuff in it just to try to belong, whatever i could think of like a pad of paper, a pen, a tube of lipgloss that very rarely got used, some advil, etc. But once i found jeans this past year, two years really, with big enough pockets i stopped needing to carry one around. I've got a locker at work for that sort of thing.

I just really doubt myself sometimes...and i'm sorry to anyone who had to read this its just really been bugging me. Like just because once or twice a year i could probably tolerate being all dressed up or even being forced into normal girls clothes...or cause i look at a handful of items in the juniors section and go hey that's cute but meanwhile i know i wouldn't like it on me...but at the same time there was a phase where i liked juniors section tees and skinny jeans but at the same time, i mean what else is there to buy? Mom made me dress modestly growing up (no low neckline, no tank tops, etc) and with jeans it always seemed to be bootcut and i hate bootcut or skinnies. So skinny jeans it is. Even if i hate hate hate my thighs in them. I just...i mean if i was your typical jock this would be easier to bear. I mean yeah all my handful of friends were outcasts and tomboys or boys growing up. But...like is it really possible to hide from yourself that well? Can i still be a real trans guy if i had but vehemently deny having things like a purse phase or liking select juniors clothes for what seems like a long time as a teen? I mean if my mom had let me buy graphic tees from the mens section or so much as walk into hot topic it would have been a done deal, but that was never happening so i had to make due with clothes from the grocery store.

 

GOD DAMNIT i had an entire paragraph of edits, typed out exactly how i felt, and JUST CAUSE THE TIME LIMIT EXPIRED its all gone now, not even able to be saved and copied pasted as a second post? I swear moments like these remind me why i am probably borderline. Literally triggered as fuck right now. As if i didn't ALREADY feel bad enough today.

 

WHat i was trying to say summed up is that i went through puberty young. Which is surprising really cause while i was tall for my age, i was always underweight. Because of this is sort of just took it as a fact of life and nobody else my age was going through it so there was no one to talk to or compare it to, not that i had friends at school to begin with. It was just an annoying, unfortunate fact of life that was it. I didn't feel anything towards breast development either. At best i would just look at them or poke at them and be like why are you there or huh this is amusing but that's it.

When i discovered masturbation, i mean i had a laptop at this point and i was in middle school but it had some kind of child safe program on it so i literally couldn't look up anything PG13 or parent unapproved. I had no clue what i was meant to be doing and i never really got into it either, i could never figure out why i didn't finish or at least it didn't feel like i was, whatever i expected that to be.

 

It means that there are signs dating back for half my life indicating that i think i physically should have been born a boy, but yet at the same time an absence of expected others. Like i've heard many say they hated their breasts from the get go. I didn't hate mine, i just didn't really care for them or understand why they were there.

TYSM for this <3 Even as a trans person its hard to separate gender expected behavior and gender identity. Even if i don't support gendered toys and play for kids. Its just...surprising but also not surprising that i was able to suppress something like this. But i think even I tend to gloss over what went on when i was a tween/teen and how much it affected me even if at the time i thought i just got used to it.

 

I'm gonna edit this and be blunt but your not helping. I doubt myself because i'm not like the kids they parade around on tv that just always knew. And it hasn't been years that i have even identified as trans its only been for about a year. I literally grew up knowing nothing. I just kept my head down and tried to stay out of my mom's way and keep alert cause i felt like i had to protect myself, my parents, and my younger siblings from being found out about and tracked down by some dangerous person i'd never met. As a tween/teen i had other things on my mind, i never really got a chance to be a teenager really. So often i wonder if i would have still gone through the 'i like girls' and 'oh hey am i boy' thing if nothing had ever happened - if i had a normal mom and a normal life. Or if i am just confused because of all that shit, mentally ill like they all say and some therapy for that will make all this go away.

I came on here originally to figure out my sexuality and as i read about people's stories being trans, i identified with them and started to consider odd things i'd noted but, as is my coping mechanism, reasoned away and brushed off and labelled as inappropriate because that's what mom would say and mother is basically god. Ever since then, ever since i got on here and started reading and questioning, i've felt the same, the only real change is that instead of feeling wrong in general like i did my whole life and could identify and put a finger on, the wrong-ness has an identifiable source. To put it simply, not being able to wear my binder for whatever reason for an extended period of time like several days in a row is bothersome whereas before i didn't know why i always felt wrong and couldn't stand to see myself in the mirror. I experience gender euphoria moreso than dysphoria but i think its because i just got used to feeling like shit all the time.