What questions did you ask yourself in order to come to the conclusion that your gender identity was different than what you were given at birth, or that it was the same?
Well, for me it was a question of whether I was truly happy being a woman or if it was something I'd merely tolerated over the years because that's what everyone wanted of me. And the answer was, no. There's a question I often see questioning people asked and it's "In ten years, how would you see yourself? As a man? A woman?" And for me, I could see myself as either. The difference was, as a woman I saw myself as a miserable soul, a woman clinging onto everyone's ideas of what I should be, where as a man I saw success, or at the very least a man who had happiness in hand and knew who he was. Natalie Reed has a quote I love to throw around and I'll paraphrase it. She once said that identity was merely a vessel in which to navigate the world and our perception of it and I asked myself how I wanted to see the world. And as it turns out, I wanted to see it as a man.
I didn't question as much as I did reflect. I pondered my childhood, my mannerisms, and came to the conclusion that I am male and in order for me to be happy with my life, I need to transition and live as male. Growing up, I admired my brothers, and my dad. I never understood why my mum would never let me run around shirtless or get all dirty like my brothers. I felt awkward and was taught from a young age that I'm a girl, and I have to conform to those roles. I knew that I was different from my mum, because I didn't understand why I had to be female. I didn't understand it. As I got older, I always leaned on the masculine side of things. I never conformed to that gender role or representation of femininity. I always dressed guyish, behaved like a guy, joked around more with guys, and felt much more comfortable being masculine. My friends throughout my school years would make comments relating to my behaviour and how I acted so much like a typical boy. I've felt uncomfortable in my body since I was young, always dreading the things that came with puberty and this was before I even realized it was dysphoria. As I grew older, and learned more about what a woman "should" be, and how a woman "should" act, and with my body developing more, it was pretty much hell. I figured I was just a butch lesbian for the longest time and lived my life as so. I suppose I came to the terms that I am a boy, because of the dysphoria I felt.. and when I took the time to ask myself, "Am I happy as a girl? Do I want to live as female, and suffer?" The answer was no, so transitioning was and is my only option to live happily. I guess it was just a matter of conforming or not. If I live a lie and just live as female, I know I'm going to be miserable.. so here I am. Realizing that other people have gone through this too helped me make sure that I wasn't making a mistake, either. I learned that transitioning isn't a bad thing and that I'm guaranteed and I own the right to my own happiness. And if my happiness is living as the gender I know I am, then so be it.
The person I used to be did not go down with a fight. There was too much doubt and frustration to even summarize here. It came down to two thing: 1- If I kept trying to hold on to the person I was pretending to be that I would kill myself within the month, and 2- If I chose to transition then I had a chance to be ridiculed, abandoned, and discriminated against. I chose life. I stopped questioning and instead I started answering. That's when real change started, and my life began to matter again.
Questions I asked myself: Am I really happy this way? Similar to what LittleMemphis said above, am I happy as a guy or am I just tolerating being one because that's what society expects? One day when I get older and pass away, at my funeral do I want people to remember me as a woman, or as a man? Life is so short, and if anything should happen within the next 30 to 50 years will I say that I gave it my all, and I truly lived? That when my time came I did my best, and I did it well knowing what I knew and being who I am? Is this just a matter of expressing my femininity, would I be okay being a feminine man for the rest of my life -- or a woman? What would make me the happiest? Because at the end of the day it's my body, and my life. I don't expect everyone's approval of what I do, but I am an adult now and I have to do what I know is right for me. I can't live being so miserable and unhappy in my own skin. Another question was, even if I never passed and went into stealth mode would I still transition? That's something everyone should consider, as we all have different body types and it might be awhile before you can get the proper surgery done to feminize or masculinize yourself accordingly. Stealth mode being that people would never assume you were ever born as the other sex, unless you told them.
I'm probably one of the few cis people who's actually questioned my own gender identity. Basically, in my case, it was in reaction to two things: a) hearing transsexuals describe their strong feelings of being the gender other than what they were born as, and realizing I did not feel nearly as strongly about my own gender as they seemed to b) hearing that some people don't have a gender (agender). I thought for awhile that I might be agender, mainly because gender seems to have only minimal importance to my identity. But from reading it seems like most agender people aren't as unconcerned about gender as I am - it's more like they object to being identified as either gender, whereas I just don't really care. So I've figured out I am cis, but kind of a 'weakly-identified' cissexual.
It was a while ago, and I was depressed at the time, meaning my recollection is a bit iffy. I think, though, that it was a question of picturing the rest of my life, and seemed unbearable to be anything other than male. Thats how it is now. I occasionally, after having a bad time, think something along the lines of: "Who am I kidding. Transition? In this society?". But whenever I try to picture myself as being cis, I'm always a guy. Also, dysphoria. I hate my body's sexual characteristics. Most of the time, I just feel right. Like I'm getting closer to fitting into the mould I was supposed to be in.
I don't know if I ever questioned it. I really just had the thought of being a woman one day and liked it. I think the only question I ever asked was "Do I really want this?" and I answered yes and that was the end of it. Really it's the same as what hexagon said. I even have a strong connection to my male voice because I've worked really hard to develop it and I'm willing to work harder to develop a female one and live my life that way.
Well to be honest, in the past I thought that I couldn't be anything but a girl, because I was born in a females body, and everyone called me a girl. That doesn't mean I didn't have these feelings of wanting to be a boy. I'd actually fall into a depression like state whenever the thought of, I'd never be able to live as a male, came to mind (which happened often). I don't think I ever really questioned my gender identity though. :eusa_eh: Once I found out what the term "transgender" meant, I was like holy crap...that's me. And ever since I've been proud to say that my identity is male.
I did this, and I always naturally saw myself as a women. I also asked myself if I was happy? If I was more likely to be man or more likely to be a women? I also asked myself these: 1. If I had a magic button that you could press that would make you wake up tomorrow as a girl, with everyone else understanding you and relating to you as a girl, irrevocably but painlessly, would you press it? 2. Alternatively, if I had a magic button that you could press that would make you wake up tomorrow still as a guy, but without any of the gender issues you've been having, not questioning your gender, and able to live happily as a guy with zero dysphoria, would you press it? 3. If I had both of those buttons, which one would you rather press, all other things being equal? 4. If I had a test that could tell you if you were a guy or a girl, which answer would you be hoping for as you took it? Which way would you try to skew your answers, if you did (consciously or not) try to skew them in either direction? 5. If you washed up on a desert island, by yourself, but with any amount of both male and female clothing, with no hope of rescue but otherwise everything that you needed for a relatively healthy and happy life, would you choose to present as male? female? neither? a mix of the two? one way some of the time, the other way the rest? If for some bizarre reason a lifetime supply of hormones washed up with you as well, do you think you'd take them? What if you washed up with the button from the first thought experiment - in a situation where you were by yourself, would you press it? 6. Let's say I had a test that asked about all of the things, very thorough, and at the end it would tell you, with 100% accuracy, whether or not you were trans. So you take it, and it tells you, "Well, you've got some mild gender confusion, but you're definitely not trans, and you shouldn't transition." How would that make you feel? 7. On the other hand, what if the test told you "Yup, you're definitely trans all right, and you should probably start planning your transition." - how would you feel about that?
Well, I didn't, I'm like never believe :bang: , still, I didn't have to. It slapped on my face :eek:, not only once, more. Last time it went home :eusa_doh: hm I'm here
there wasn't ever a point where i sat down with a list of questions to ask myself, it was really just reflection... reflection on my life past and present, reflection on my feelings towards myself, reflection on how others feel/identify in comparison with myself. it has always been easier for me to know what i was NOT than to actually know what i AM, if that makes sense. so i guess i tended to focus on the "i'm not..."s. i'm not feminine. i'm not masculine. i'm not somewhere in between feminine and masculine. i'm not a combination of feminine and masculine. i'm not genderless. i'm not gender apathetic. i'm not genderfluid. etc etc one thing that did hammer it home for me, though, was the realization that not only do i hate feminine presentation on myself-- the very thought of any of that stuff on me felt like crossdressing to me... as in i imagine that i felt the way a cis-male would feel if he were put into a skirt and makeup or how he would feel if he were addressed as "Maam". at the same time, the same could be said for me about masculine presentation on myself-- it would feel just as wrong to me. while gender presentation/expression and gender identity are two separate things which do not always mirror each other, in my case they do in fact mirror each other. my gender expression very much mirrors my gender identity and it has for far longer than i have actually labelled myself as gender neutral.
