I love sleeping, honk-shoo is so goated.
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Hi comrades, I’m feeling really confused. It doesn’t seem possible that I could actually have these feelings. I never seriously considered it an option for myself. I don’t feel like a man and never have. I hate everything about myself. I promise I’m really asking, I’m not trying to be a jerk or anything. I’m sorry. I’m always sorry.
Is it really possible to choose to be a girl if I want? I mean me personally. Like other people can but I don’t think I could. Is it really something anyone who wants to can do? Why wouldn’t everyone?
What if I’m just bad at being a guy but that doesn’t mean I should quit being a guy?
Similarly what if I’m equally bad at being a girl and it’s being human I’m bad at?
I saw a lot of pics, and literally everyone looks better as a girl, but what if I looked way worse?
Is it really true that most guys don’t feel any FOMO about being a girl? I only get one life why would I want to be a dude the whole time?
What if I’m just such a perverted and pathetic straight guy that I’ve tricked myself into doing this for some kind of thrill?
Obviously I’d love to be told I was a good girl and all of that, but again, who doesn’t?
How do I know I’m not being delusional? How do I know I’m actually trans and not pretending or deceiving myself?
the overwhelming majority of cis men
Most cis guys don’t agonize over it or give it much thought, and sure if they were really at home with themselves theyd probably be okay with being a girl for a few hours or a day but then wanna go back to being a guy.
We have plenty of trans mascs here who have made clear they do not want to be girls. If you wanna know if everyone would choose to he a girl if they could - nope! Trans men exist!
You can try this website and see how you feel: turn-me-into-a-girl.com/
I know trans men exist but it seems incomprehensible to me. I think I might just be particularly awful at being a man. I can’t actually imagine ever feeling like a man. I just wish everything about me was different.
It sounds like you might be a woman. Thoughts on this?
I don’t know. I had never considered it. I mean I’d thought about being a woman before as a fantasy but not as something I could actually be.
I think I want to be a woman I’m just so scared and unsure. I always thought everyone assumed being a girl is better. I would never choose to be a man.
Well it’s definitely something you can actully be, if you want. Probably worth giving that some more consideration.
Most men, for what it’s worth, have no particular interest in being a woman.
Theres a lot of gender stuff out there. Theres agender, nonbinary, gender fluid, trans femme but not strictly a woman, trans woman, etc.
Yes, its true! Not everyone wants to be a girl even some of the time (almost all cis and trans guys do not want that, a lot of trans men go through a lot of pain and oppression in the effort to be a man).
Did you try the website?
I did try the website and I liked it a lot. It was sweet. It’s really hard to embrace and conceptualize. If I was a woman all the traits I hate about myself as a man would be positives. I could be as soft, weak, and cute as I wanted. I could feel pretty and wear pretty clothes. I could walk different and talk different and act different.
I can’t understand how everyone doesn’t see masculinity as horrible. I try to be as masculine as I can to fit my roll as a man and I hate it. I hate how men are. I can’t imagine wanting to be like any of them. I hate being included in their group.
Why don’t you try wearing pretty clothes now? It’s Halloween! You could go out in a dress and makeup and no one will care.
When I still boymoded (when I was presenting as a man publicly but I had already figured out I was trans) I used to wear a bralette and panties under my clothes and painted my toe nails. You can try different sets of pronouns on this site, which ones make your heart sing? You said you liked being called a good girl.
This was me for a long time. I was a man because thats what people told me i was. I didnt feel like a man, i kept chasing social markers in the hopes that “oh if i have this social marker (e.g. a beard) then ill feel like a man”. But thats not how it works. As far as i can tell, men feel like men because they are men. I wasnt a man so i didnt feel like a man. I felt like a weird not-man-but-cant-say-woman-for-some-reason thing. My gender has expanded beyond strict binary-ness, but i do enjoy womanhood and spend a lot of time being a woman.
I cant tell you youre a woman, or even that youre not a man, thats for you to decide for yourself. But i can say that the men ive talked to about this never questioned their gender, they never had sleepless nights thinking about being a girl or a woman, they didnt fantasize about being an old lady. They wanted to be men. They didnt question it because it fit for them and they enjoyed their man-ness.
As far as whether you can be a girl or not, you absolutely can. Its not something crossed off and forbidden to you, its something you can be. Society sucks and all that, but despite its protestations you can absolutely be a woman. You can be many things. You can be agender, you can be nonbinary in some flavor, you can be bigender, but above all, you can be yourself. Youre allowed to be yourself. If theres something that brings you joy and doesnt harm others then you should pursue it. If being not-a-man brings you joy, or if it alleviates pain, then you should pursue it.
I’ve always felt so alone for feeling this way. Thank you for your kindness. I don’t know how to be myself. I’ve always been trying so hard to be what other people tell me I’m supposed to be.
It takes a shit ton of effort to focus on making other people happy, so much that it can obscure what actually makes US happy
I don’t know what makes me happy. I don’t know what I want. My whole life has always been about everyone else.
You are mirroring my exact thought process for about 10-15 years. It’s only in the last week I’ve felt like I’m finding a goal, a future, where before I spent basically my whole life searching for people and things to distract me from the empty void. I coped by being self sacrificing and saying I was doing everything for others, but it never went away. Feel free to dm if you want to talk more
Oh hey it’s my thoughts from years ago
I always assumed all boys wanted to be girls a s were just lying about it. Turns out nope, it’s just us.
I’ve come to the conclusion that most if not all of us deal with imposter syndrome. Everything you’ve said in this thread is very normal thoughts for a trans person whose egg is cracking. None of them are normal cis thoughts.
I never feel normal. I definitely struggle with feeling like an imposter. It’s like I’m pretending or something. I’ve spent so long trying to copy and emulate other guys. I’m more chameleon than person.
Oof I feel this so much. It’s gotten way better for me as I’ve learned to be myself more and more. Self discovery is such a beautiful albeit messy process that a lot of us never really the chance to do when most of our cis peers did. But it’s never too late. And it has brought me so much joy and clarity already. I’m starting to feel like a person sometimes rather than just a walking mask!
I can’t even imagine how I’d actually like to act. For a long time there was this block in my mind, probably that I put there when I was younger, that just made all of that impossible. It’s like a bunch of rules for being alive and being accepted by society that I’ve enforced on myself. I see other people breaking them and used to feel jealous. Like it wasn’t fair that I was trapped in this heteronormative prison and they could just be free and happy. That it was okay for them but not okay for me. That they were allowed and I wasn’t. I don’t know if that makes sense.
I guess I just realized recently that I had options too. I really kind of want to get my nails done but it makes me scared.
Yup that’s exactly how I used to feel. I did daydream a lot when I was younger and I allowed myself to live a second life as a girl in those daydreams. If you did something similar, it might be a good way to examine what your younger self may have wanted to experience or express. If not, actually either way, experimenting is a great idea others have brought up. Getting your nails done sounds like a fun thing to try! I understand the fear, all I can say is that each of the few times I was at a nail salon, it was just no big deal. Which I’ve heard so many other people say. And if you have any IRL friends or family that you feel comfortable telling that you’re questioning gender stuff, maybe they’ll go with you like a few did with me when I was questioning and in my early days after hatching.
In my experience, you’ll learn more from a month of experimentation than you will from years of ruminating about it. Try on clothing made for women. Try out some makeup. If your hair is short, maybe try on a wig. Even just change your pronouns on here to see how it feels. Whatever you can safely access, you should give it a try.
Follow up each session of experimentation with some reflection and self care. You’re learning to love and be patient with yourself just as much as you’re experimenting with gender.
And for reference, I didn’t fully accept I was trans until I was 2 weeks on estrogen. In a lot of ways, the doubt is built into the process.
I don’t think it’s something that you can really tell without quite some introspection. Seems like you’re already doing that and are on the right track. Of course, no one other than you can look inside what’s going on in your head.
I mean this in a good way. You are not special. Why couldn’t you become a girl?
If you’re trans, then transitioning will make it easier to be good at humaning.
Don’t be silly, without perverts, how would people be born?
But on a serious note, being trans is hard, and doing it for a fetish is a terrible tradeoff.
Cis guys often get terrified of even appearing “girly” and mock each other for it.
I know I’m not special, I don’t know why I couldn’t. It never seemed like an option. I didn’t realize what my thoughts meant. I never feel like I can do anything. I don’t deserve it and it probably wouldn’t work out.
I feel fragmented inside. Like a porcelain vase that’s been glued together after shattering.
I feel afraid some part inside me is tricking the other.
I do wish I had been born a girl.
I always thought if I was just more successful as a guy and masculine enough I would finally feel better. I didn’t know I was already supposed to feel like a man. It’s always felt like something I had to work towards.
There was a significant period of my life where I was trying out girly shit (ex - nail polish, lipstick, women’s underwear, sex toys aimed for women, etc) and I didn’t even conceive of myself as trans.
When that idea first appeared in my head, I felt shocked, even though I really shouldn’t have been. I had the same thoughts as you. I thought I was simply a failure at being male so I wanted to change sides. I also feel highly dissociative and fragmented. I’ve felt that I’ve had multiple personalities, or broken pieces inside me for a long time now.
My point is, if you are trans, everything you are going through right now is expected.
My personal suggestion is to try out some stereotypically girly things. It can be anything. It could even be as simple as using she/her pronouns. Experiment a little and it might help you clear up things.
I know it’s cliche but the fragmentation always makes me think of Kintsugi, the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery. Many of the pieces are truly beautiful, and I think the acceptance of breakage and repair being an integral part of an items history and story, is particularly poignant as well.
Yes that’s exactly what I meant and how I’ve felt. It’s like you can see inside my head. It’s like someone else knows what I’m talking about for once. I worry about all of that too.
I don’t know if this makes it better or worse, but your worries are essentially word for word what I went through in my head over the last five years. When Covid started I used exercise to regiment my day and I hoped the ensuing physical changes would alleviate some of the stress just being in my body. It didn’t, I got “hotter” by cis man standards, but still felt disconnected and developed more harmful coping mechanisms. I’ve been scared and worried about how I’m perceived since I gained independent consciousness. Transition doesn’t instantly make you beautiful, but for many it brings comfort and confidence that is impossible to construct when living a lie. I’m not even on hormones yet, have just started experimenting with presentation and pronouns, and it already feels more natural than the suit and tie cis masculinity I was performing before.
Most people don’t have these questions and are comfortable in their AGAB. They don’t agonize over it because being a man or a woman comes naturally to them. The people in this thread have had an experience much closer to yours. Can you identify your primary fear at the moment?
This makes it a lot better. I’ve felt exactly like you described for as long as I can remember. I’ve always felt like I was memorizing a book of rules on how to be a man. I’ve always thought that’s all I could be. Everyone in this thread has more understanding of how I feel than I’ve ever experienced before.
I’m afraid of everything. I think I’m terrified to actually be trans. It’s not an easy or quick process. I don’t know how I could exist in my world in that way. It doesn’t seem possible in my life. Which means I’ll always feel this schism until I rectify it.
I’m already a failure and disappointment to my old tradional parents. I don’t feel welcome at family gatherings now and don’t go but I could never go again.
It explains so many of my thoughts, feelings, the things that bother me. Obviously I wish I had been born a girl but I wasn’t. Life is a prison.
Is this why I’ve never ever liked any part of how I looked? I can’t embrace any of it. I hate my body so much.
This is extremely real. I started using she/her pronouns on here years ago but didn’t work up the nerve to actively take steps in my real life until a month ago, mostly out of fear of how hard it is. Even now I’ve accepted it will be months and years before I see any major changes and that the dangers are way greater for me and my partner. Being a big man is a shield. Being a big woman can be a target if people want to be assholes.
I felt so bad staying in that mode that I was drinking heavily to cope with what I now know was dysphoria. After I got sober, it became overwhelming. It hasn’t been easy telling people close to me. It’s been really hard to seek out medical treatment re hormones. But the relief I feel from picking a side in the schism is palpable, even though the only steps I’ve taken so far are mental.
Nobody here will tell you exactly how to feel. There are so many variations within the trans experience that nobody’s dysphoria will present identically. I coped with the bodily discomfort through apathy and disassociation, telling myself I didn’t particularly care about my body or clothes to avoid having to face how I really felt.
ButAnd also saying the phrase “I wish I had been born a girl but wasn’t” can be a pretty solid indicator that you may have a non-cis identity. Did you check out that website another user had posted?https://turn-me-into-a-girl.com/
I’ve gone to the site a few times now. I like how it makes me feel. It’s terrifying and difficult to accept too. I’ve cried a lot today. It’s like my whole world has been turned upside down.
I know my comment here is 4 days late, but since you haven’t had a single comment from a transmasc person (that I’ve seen), I figured maybe you’d like to hear from one of us.
All of your feelings about being a guy (why would anyone want that? Do most men really not want to be women? Maybe if I just double down on acting like a man I’ll feel like one), all of those feelings I’ve had in reverse. It never made sense to me that women were happy as women, I really thought they were lying about it. I thought if only I could “perform girl” better maybe I’d actually feel like one, surely the women who are super femme are doing it just to feel more like women, right? And if I could just do the same, maybe I’d have their poise and confidence in my feminity.
Well, no. Of course not. I’m trans. I’m not a woman, and pretending to be one sucked so fucking bad. I crave a (slightly) more masculine presentation than I ever allowed myself when I thought I was a woman. And I feel so much more comfortable with myself now! I feel like I can actually be a human, actually be myself, now that I’m no longer working so very hard to pretend to be a woman.
I can’t tell you you’re a woman, you have to decide that for yourself, but I can tell you that there are people who would never in a million years choose to be women. There are lots of humans on earth who would be (and, for some of us, have been) deeply, deeply unhappy living as women.
Thank you for your comment, I really appreciate it. I never realized why I felt the way I did or that anyone would ever understand.
I kept waiting for some hidden force to kick in and turn me into a man. I thought there was some way I could ever feel validated as a man, by other people or society. I don’t though. I never feel that way. It helps to hear your perspective in the opposite direction.