i identify i as a female but i feel male (+venting)

[mintyramen]

i have been feeling like more of a male than a female for as long as i can remember. when i was younger, i wasn't into all that "pretty pink princess" or "barbie doll" crap. i know that doesn't really mean anything, but i have noticed that i really hate anything to do with feminine products such as makeup or even down to tampons and pads. when my breasts began to grow, i became self conscious and actually a little disgusted. when i first got my period it was even worse. i don't want to carry children. i don't want breasts. i don't want to have to wear a bra. i don't want to be treated like some fragile thing. i don't want a vagina. i've never enjoyed anything considered "girly". i remember getting jealous of my two male cousins because I didn't look like them. i wanted short hair like them. i wanted to be able to walk around places with baggy clothing and not get called a slob just because i'm female. my mother would always try to dress me in skirts or dresses and i always refused. i've tried talking to a relative that i am very close to and they said that "it's just a phase." and "the feeling will go away eventually. i don't want to talk to with my mother because i know she is a major homophobic. she disagrees with the lgbtq community saying that "it's not natural" and "it's basically a disease", which really upsets me. there was a time when we were watching television and something came on about being transgender and my mother said "that's not even natural. it's quite sad to be frank. if god gave you a vagina, your a girl and if god gave you a penis then you're a boy. you shouldn't be able to change that." i really don't know what to do. if i'm being honest, i'm getting quite stressed because of this. i haven't been able to get much sleep because i've spent all night thinking of how better my life would be if i were male. and when i do start to sleep, i sometimes cry because i'm afraid what my few friends and family will think of me if i told them about this. i remember when i was back in elementary (leaning towards first grade and second), this certain group of girls would always try to "insult me". one day one of them said "you think like a boy! and you know what boys are?! icky, smelly, rude, and dumb!". you know what's funny? i didn't feel insulted. i actually took that as a complement. but i didn't only want to think like a boy. i wanted to look like one, talk like one, be one. i still do. sometimes i'll find myself doing something, such as homework or cleaning the dishes and suddenly i'll just think to myself "i want to be a male. i just really want to be a male. i would give everything up to become a male." the other day, i was looking at korean and japanese names for males. my name means "pretty flower" or something like that in japanese and i want to change that. i've taken a liking to the korean name "minhwan", although i don't really know the meaning behind it. sorry if i went all over the place with this, i'm pretty new! i just wanted to type this all down and not keep it bottled up inside. i appreciate that you took time out your day to read this (:

[mintyramen]

i have been feeling like more of a male than a female for as long as i can remember. when i was younger, i wasn't into all that "pretty pink princess" or "barbie doll" crap. i know that doesn't really mean anything, but i have noticed that i really hate anything to do with feminine products such as makeup or even down to tampons and pads. when my breasts began to grow, i became self conscious and actually a little disgusted. when i first got my period it was even worse. i don't want to carry children. i don't want breasts. i don't want to have to wear a bra. i don't want to be treated like some fragile thing. i don't want a vagina. i've never enjoyed anything considered "girly". i remember getting jealous of my two male cousins because I didn't look like them. i wanted short hair like them. i wanted to be able to walk around places with baggy clothing and not get called a slob just because i'm female. my mother would always try to dress me in skirts or dresses and i always refused. i've tried talking to a relative that i am very close to and they said that "it's just a phase." and "the feeling will go away eventually. i don't want to talk to with my mother because i know she is a major homophobic. she disagrees with the lgbtq community saying that "it's not natural" and "it's basically a disease", which really upsets me. there was a time when we were watching television and something came on about being transgender and my mother said "that's not even natural. it's quite sad to be frank. if god gave you a vagina, your a girl and if god gave you a penis then you're a boy. you shouldn't be able to change that." i really don't know what to do. if i'm being honest, i'm getting quite stressed because of this. i haven't been able to get much sleep because i've spent all night thinking of how better my life would be if i were male. and when i do start to sleep, i sometimes cry because i'm afraid what my few friends and family will think of me if i told them about this. i remember when i was back in elementary (leaning towards first grade and second), this certain group of girls would always try to "insult me". one day one of them said "you think like a boy! and you know what boys are?! icky, smelly, rude, and dumb!". you know what's funny? i didn't feel insulted. i actually took that as a complement. but i didn't only want to think like a boy. i wanted to look like one, talk like one, be one. i still do. sometimes i'll find myself doing something, such as homework or cleaning the dishes and suddenly i'll just think to myself "i want to be a male. i just really want to be a male. i would give everything up to become a male." the other day, i was looking at korean and japanese names for males. my name means "pretty flower" or something like that in japanese and i want to change that. i've taken a liking to the korean name "minhwan", although i don't really know the meaning behind it. sorry if i went all over the place with this, i'm pretty new! i just wanted to type this all down and not keep it bottled up inside. i appreciate that you took time out your day to read this (:

[Sam W]

Hi mintyramen,

No need to apologize, I'm glad you felt safe enough here to share all of those tough feelings! And I'm sorry that you feel like your friends and family are not people who you can talk about this with (and that they've said such upsetting things in your presence). However you identify, gender-wise, is okay and valid. There's nothing wrong or bad about it, no matter what some other people may say.

Since it sounds like there are lots of thoughts and feelings crashing about in your mind right now, I think it would be helpful to offer a few different ways that we might be able to support you around all this and you can pick which ones you think would be most helpful to you right now. For example, one place we could start is with some reading and resources about the different types of gender identities out there and how people come to figure out which identity feels right for them. For instance, have you done any reading about the experiences of trans men? If you have, do you feel like those accounts come close to matching how you feel about your gender?
Or, if you feel like you have a pretty decent grasp of how you identify and what's stressing you the most is how to reconcile that identity with the expectations you feel other people have for you or your fears about how your family may react to your identity, we can talk about ways to approach those situations. And if there's something else that you feel would be helpful to you right now, we can absolutely focus on that (and if what you need is a supportive space to vent or process through your feelings, you can certainly do that here) . How does that sound?

[frogtoad]

I'm sorry your family and friends are not being helpful with this. What you are describing seems normal to me for plenty of female people. Plenty of women I know never liked doing "girly" things even as kids, being treated like a weakling, wearing dresses and pink princess stuff, etc. I never cared for most of that myself (I mean, who wants to be treated like a weakling?). I also know a number of women who never wanted kids (and don't have any) as well as women who are electricians, carpenters, scientists, plumbers, athletes, and a lot of brilliant women with PhDs. None of these women are weak or girly, at all, but they are still women. The emphasis on gender stereotypes was, at least for me, at its worst in middle & high school -- after that it got much better. From college on, nobody seemed to care or even notice that much. I know it may not help right now, but I do think that the picture might look a lot better in a few years. I do think you are right that males seem to have more freedom in some ways, or are somehow taken more seriously -- but maybe the answer is to expand the definition of female so that women can have the same freedom and be taken seriously too.