Scarleteen

(Sorry if this is long or doesn't make any sense I just need a place to word-vomit my thoughts before I feel confident enough to come out to anyone irl)

I think that I'm a man. This is something I've been thinking about for a long time, consciously or otherwise. I'm a pretty impulsive person so I think maybe it's for the best that I've thought about it for so long before coming to any rushed conclusions.

I never even considered that I could be trans until summer 2023 when I vaguely considered it, beat myself up over it for a week, cried, and then suppressed it for another year. It's like, I knew that trans people existed and I was uncomfortable with how I was, but I had never even considered that I could identify with that label. I think I saw a video of a non-binary person starting low-dose testosterone and was like "Woah, you can just DO that??"

I think because I had a very typical "girl" childhood I had never even considered it, like, I played with monster high dolls, and I wore skirts and liked the color pink, and stuff. I think I used to think that if I wasn't claiming boyhood since birth then I was "fake trans" or whatever.

I've been uncomfortable with my body since puberty, pretty much. I hated my breasts (still do) and my curves (still do) and how my body looked. I'm 17 now, so it's been a while since puberty, and I thought it was completely normal for people to hate everything about their bodies. It killed me to see all of my friends grow from girls into WOMEN and I just felt... stuck. Uncomfortable wearing anything less than an XL t-shirt and a sports bra to flatten my breasts and curves and baggy jeans to hide my thighs. I thought this was just because I was fat. Maybe it is, I don't know. But it made me so angry to see girls just existing, like their existence was a slight against me and my own feminity. Because I felt so uncomfortable in my own body, it really pissed me off to see people my own age be so shameless. This anger was doubled when it came to bigger girls, because they exuded feminity in a way that I couldn't, and I knew I could no longer blame my size as the reason I was so "unfeminine." I was so crazy when I was 15, I concluded that there was some kind of intangible quality that all girls had that I somehow lacked, and that's why I felt so disconnected from feminity.

I was always very angry at myself for being an "ugly girl" - I've always been pretty butch and people pointed it out all the time. I've been called "butch" or a "stud" or a "dyke" for years now, complete strangers asking me if I'm a lesbian or calling me gay. This only got worse when I transferred schools. I go to this school with a lot of white people (really different from my old school) and it really pissed me off me whenever I did anything too "manly" because I'd get called a dude and I'd think like, "Who's this fucking white girl to tell me I'm not a woman?" But to be honest, this never bothered me too badly, but was sort of humiliating. I think I felt more embarrassed than angry, like I was "woman-ing" wrong. I thought, "wow, nobody sees me as a woman, only as a "dyke". " I kind of clung to the label for a while, like, "if this is how everybody sees me I'll just run with it. It's not like I was a WOMAN so the second-best thing would be a dyke," was my logic. I never felt much like a woman anyway - I always felt like I was playing dress up whenever I had to present more feminine.

Thinking of myself as a dyke or a butch instead of a woman kind of helped me be more comfortable with my presentation. I didn't feel so much that I had to adhere so strictly to certain roles, and I felt a lot more comfortable in myself (not that I changed anything about myself physically, just my mindset about it).

Anyway, I've started thinking about it again. And it feels very odd. Like, you'd expect to be happy when you discover something like this about yourself, but I just feel... off. Half-happy, half-sad, and mostly just disgusted with myself. I bought a binder that fits me for the first time and it feels good when I wear it, but when I look at myself in the mirror all I can see is a girl. I find myself looking at the boys in my school and feeling really angry, like they don't know how good they have it. Even my good friend who's trans, I feel so upset and jealous that he's out and doing hrt and I still can't seem to find the words to express myself properly. And I feel really embarrassed, like what if this all turns out to be a stupid phase? Or what if its not a phase? How am I going to explain this to my immigrant grandparents? My grandmother, who barely speaks english? My immigrant parents? My friends, or my cousins, or my teachers?

But beyond that embarrassment, I feel really afraid, like I'm gonna end up as another talking point for crazy conservative people ranting about "young women mutilating their bodies" or something like that.

I think if I didn't have to deal with other people's opinions I could feel so much better. Like, if I could just start testosterone in secret, and get top surgery without anyone knowing somehow, I would feel so good about myself. And even if it turns that I'm actually a girl, I wouldn't have to feel bad about it because I'd be okay with being a woman if I looked more like a man. Does that make any sense?

Anyway, I'm not so sure about dysphoria. To be honest, I'm still not exactly sure what it is. Like, there are some things that really upset me and others that I feel kinda "meh" about. I don't really like my voice (I sound kind of annoying) but I think that's normal. I don't feel anything about my vagina. I definitely don't hate it. I hate my breasts more than anything. They barely feel like a part of my body. I kind of hate getting dressed just because of them. I only feel comfortable wearing a sports bra/ binder so that they're at least somewhat compressed. I don't like my hips either - it makes me really uncomfortable to wear anything that shows them off, like it's a dirty secret that I'm hiding from the world. I hate it when people comment on my body too, it always makes me feel disgusted with myself. I hate my thighs but maybe just because they're fat. Pretty much anything above my knees and below my collarbone I hate. I'm okay with my face. I wish it was less soft. I wish I could grow more leg hair.

Maybe none of this makes sense but I've been thinking about it for a long time and just need to get it out of my brain. This is something I've been thinking about a lot for a month straight and (in case you couldn't tell) has been bothering me.

Hi there!

You don’t need to apologize. It *is* clear that this has been bothering you, and it’s understandable why - questions about gender can be difficult on their own, and in your case they are tied up with some thorny subjects - body image, race, family, and politics - along with painful (and often hard to acknowledge) emotions like jealousy and anger. I’m glad you feel comfortable discussing this here.

It makes sense to me that this realization feels bittersweet. It is one thing to know what changes would make you happy; it is another to look at a mirror and face the difference between what you see and what society has told you about about how men or women should be. There is a lot that we can discuss from your post, so I want to start with a few ideas. You might know these things already, but I wonder if it might help to see someone else say it.

Boys can play with dolls, wear skirts, and like the color pink. That means you can be a boy even if you did all those things. Trans people don’t have to know that they are trans or ‘show signs’ from when they are young, so you would not be ‘fake trans’. All you really need to be trans is to not identify with the gender you were assigned at birth.

Dysphoria is discomfort with an assigned gender/sex, or with features associated with those things. You don’t need to experience dysphoria about everything to be trans - it is pretty common for trans people to experience dysphoria about some things but not about others.

I can see that you’re worried that this might be a phase. Allow me to suggest that there is nothing wrong with that. Everyone is allowed to explore their gender, even if they decide that being trans isn’t right for them. Temporary things can still be meaningful and important.

I understand your fear that your family won’t understand, especially if you don’t have the vocabulary you need to discuss this in the language that your grandparents speak. That said, transness isn’t a concept that exists only in the English-speaking world, so this subject may not be beyond your family’s comprehension. You don’t have to come out to anyone unless you are ready, but if you want, we could try to find resources in your mother tongue that you could use for such conversations.

P.S. If you’re interested in low-dose testosterone, we have an article on the subject.