Freaking out about passing

Hey. I need to fish for some support. I don’t know how I’m coping with all this. I shook the box a bit last year and I started to pass in the autumn for whatever reason. I just got a short haircut and a packer. Then I decided I didn't like the haircut and grew it out, I also stopped trying to pass, so I stopped passing. Then gradually passing came back and I have no clue why. I have online classes and for whatever reason, teachers doubt my femaleness on the phone. Now, I’m not sire why this is happening, voice was my weak point when I did pass. I overheard myself on one teacher’s speakers and to be honest, I was surprised, because I really sounded like some... rapper guy? I don’t get it. Visually it totally varies, but I seem to get called a sir way more often than I did and in moments that I would never think I would pass. I get called almost exclusively a sir. People are confused by my ID.

I consider two reasons for it. Number one is confidence. Maybe passing for a few months straight gave me the feeling that I have the right to treat myself as a man like walking into men’s bathrooms and buying men’s clothes and nobody can tell me not to. So maybe people just think “heck, this dude looks girly” but... they read the confidence as a sign of “just androgynous physique”. Also, I tend to act very masculine when I’m not trying to behave in any certain way. I get odd questions sometimes. An acquaintance asked me if I am a woman at all at the same time admitting that I look like one 100% (that was a few years ago), that was one hell of a strange question. I answered that I don’t feel female, because I didn’t really want to dig into it. So he asked what I do feel like. I told him. I’m not sure if he didn’t think I transitioned from male to female. I heard this theory a few times... I can’t really grasp why people would think that.

Another thing is that I have hormonal issues going on. My testosterone is rather high. I sometimes lose periods, have peach fuzz on the face, hairy arms, I’m tall and I have a very large clitoris that basically looks like a small, but fully developed (glans of?) penis. My face could pass both ways. I make an attractive woman, but probably more of the androgynous beauty type. I’m also physically very strong. I’m on par with men similar height. I build muscle very easily and watch out not to bulk up excessively when doing sport, but I achieve a very athletic build regardless, with clearly defined muscles. Lately I’ve had some hormonal turmoil going on, treating the missing periods and the issues that result from it. The problems are fixed, however, there seems to be something wrong in an elementary way my ovaries function when they do, because my clitoris grew even larger, it looks like a candidate for surgery. I’m also not sure if something didn’t happen to my voice. I wouldn’t have noticed if something else happened, because I shave head to toe already, and I don’t look like the feminine extreme anyway. My head is doing much better, though. I’m not sure what I worried about so much a few months ago, so I was right about hormones being an issue. I also suspect doing sport to contribute to passing in terms of muscle mass, way of carrying yourself and way of speaking (we do scream a lot at trainings).

One way or another, I stress out about the passing. It pushes me to confront the issue. I wanted to pass so badly but now I freak out when it is happening. I have a difficulty adjusting, getting used to it. I’m not sure if it wouldn’t be the right time to tell the teachers that I’m transgender and want to be called a masculine name and he pronouns. But I worry about transphobic responses. Not even that they won’t call me the right name and pronouns but the talking. I also have a difficulty getting used to being perceived in a different way, women not trusting me, especially. It sort of is true that I want to beat people up out of the blue (not that I do that outside trainings...) and that I lift very heavy weights, which looks kind of comical compared to my rather medium size. But. Like. I’m not a criminal? Right? I see the women being wary next to me, when earlier they would want to hug me and stuff. Now they don’t even want to talk to me. Not that I felt comfortable with the hugging, I’m ashamed to admit it, but I’m easily triggered into thinking sexual things and into arousal. The amount of physical contact women want from each other just made me either constantly ready for action or beating myself up over feeling this way or both at the same time. I do get urges to... well, act on those desires, and it’s a very uncomfortable if I don’t know if the female friend really means it. I have a fast fuse in addition to all that and I’m used to being the active partner, those situations with female friends wanting physical closeness from me are uncomfortable bordering on morally disgusting. I don’t find my libido pleasant at all. But yeah, I don’t think it’s a reason to not befriend someone at all - with the hugging excluded. They kick me out from female bathrooms, I’m not sure if that I pass for male either, I’m tired of overthinking which gender I pass as on a given day. Men’s bathrooms are filthy, but nobody even gave me a second look so far (men generally don’t look at each other in the bathroom, so unless I wore something obviously feminine, they wouldn’t pay attention, I guess), in the women’s I get stared at all the time for years and years.

And in addition to all this and in all this panic I don’t even know who I am any more. Is this what I wanted? I don’t know. I was surprised to pass at all. I wanted to make any impression of how I want others to treat me. I didn’t feel like I was heard. I was so frustrated and ignored and like I had to prove over and over that I’m not someone I’m not. I don’t know. I admit I’m lost. I don’t pass as female when i want to, I don’t now why and this sudden loss of ground makes me feel strange to say the least.

 

Normally I should want to present as female and try to if something like that hormone thing happened to me, right? I dreamed to have any choice at all and to be able to present as whichever gender I wanted. I felt so much like I lost the chance at puberty. Didn’t want to ruin the so wanted possibility to have children. I just can’t move forward for whatever reason, but I can’t go back, because I hate to do anything that actually would make me pass as a woman, I want to be as masculine as it gets. I don’t feel female at all, apart from it, so I don’t feel like I would be portraying anything real if I did try to pass this way. I would be so happy if no transphobe got in my way or i got minimal trouble and got to be a man forever. I don’t ever want to go back. In some way, this whole situation requires a statement, because nobody seems to know any more. Maybe I just relaxed and this is the way I behave when lest to my own devices. I realise that I’m an extreme of masculinity, and this is why being pressured to be a woman at all feels so bad. If it was one behaviour or two, I would manage without all this trouble, right? But it’s just that every single thing separately, I want to do it like a man or do it like a man. It reaches the degree of absurd and the only female thing about me remain the malfunctioning internal organs and the vagina I’m unwilling to use.

Sorry, I needed to vent ((

I’m so stressed out. I can’t avoid the topic any more and I’m afraid some transphobe will jump at me. I slowly brough an elephant to the room, it seems.

The other women also make me feel so guilty for not sharing their perspectives. If I used to feel disconnected from womanhood as a whole, I feel like I’m losing any touch with it now. I don’t even think I share the experiences of other trans afab people. It now begins to feel so much like it has always been this way. I get accused so much of not engaging enough with feminism, like I should relate more to the experiences of women or afab people. Maybe this is what an elephant in the room looks like... but how am I suppesed to relate if I never went though any of what they talk about, if my relationship with womanhood has always been dominated by the experience of being odd or ill fitting for it in any reasonable way.

 

I feel like I should want to. I always have been gender non-conforming and was always told to compensate for it.

Also, I don't think I exactly pass as male. I mean, I think you could tell that I don't take testosterone. Most probably from the voice. But I don't think I pass as female either. Maybe I just lack confidence, though.

Safety - I worry about teachers at school noticing I don't pass for a guy fully either and in a way specific to trans individuals and making me trouble acaddmically because of it or trying to talk me out of being trans.

 

I don't know but they can try to. I had that happen but that was a strange story, I had a nervous breakdown about peers' reactions. And then the teacher did the same thing acting like I was just someone who hates their body. Both acted so TERFy.

 

Maybe I'm too self-critical. I frequently have this issue.