This is going to be a long post, so if you’re not interested in my situation, please move on now. I am very grateful to anyone who is willing to offer advice. I’m almost 15 years old and have been struggling with my gender my whole life. I was designated female at birth, but I have some anatomical defects that definitely make me eligible for the label intersex. I currently identify as a transgender male, and I came out to everyone important to me about 3 years ago. I’ve never been comfortable with my body and I received a formal diagnosis of gender dysphoria shortly after coming out to my family. I was fairly secure in identifying as transgender until recently, when I started to seriously wonder if I could remain physically female. I know that these thoughts probably come from the environment I grew up in, which was quite sexist towards men, but my confidence has been shaken by them. I hate how transition has caused others to alienate me from many of the communities I once felt safe in, and how I was notably treated worse by society in general as soon as I was viewed as a man. I also am a person with both traditionally masculine and feminine interests, which leads people to believe I’m “not really a boy”, I’m just a lesbian or a tomboy. I feel a lot of pressure to “choose” correctly. Deep down I don’t know if I’m supposed to be female, but doing anything else makes me feel like I’m throwing my life away. I do still want to undergo surgery and hormone therapy, because my breasts and body shape cause me a great deal of distress, but I don’t want to give up the respect of my female peers, and the freedom to express myself safely for the rest of my lifetime.
