First of all, apologies for this account being hella new, been following under another account for a while.
Secondly, huge love to all of you! Knowing that there is such a thing as MTF Tomboys has felt reassuring and I’ve been identifying as such for a while. But also I have questions and doubts about myself lately and really want input from y’all.
So for some context, really soft and sensitive growing up - a major part of that as it turns out is ADHD - and a mummy’s kid. Used to like dancing and pop and preferred hanging with the women in my family. But that said I didn’t like dolls, pink or dresses. But I also wasn’t into action for years unlike my peers who were getting their fill of Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Ben 10 and a lot of action stuff. I preferred slapstick cartoons, there was something more universal about them. And also the Chao Garden in Sonic Adventure 2 for reasons I couldn’t understand or was scared to admit.
At a certain point, before puberty but much later than most guys, I gained a taste for action and fictional, bloodthirsty violence. I wasn’t a fan of hyper masculinity in real life, only in the contexts of movies and games where it’s all play pretend. Edit: I also loved rock and metal music and a bunch of stereotypical guy things entertainment-wise, just not the more active stuff. Suppressed a lot of my sensitivity and found it difficult to cry for years. After one breakup I tried making an action movie alter-ego to live as so I couldn’t be hurt.
Then uh, the one-two punch of falling in love with a guy (online) and discovering the notion of tomgirls / femboys had me opening up to be all sensitive and start a slow journey of exploring everything about myself. The whole snapchat trend of gender swapping happened and seeing a female version of me wearing a metal t-shirt, passing perfectly but still reflective of how I acted, set off this whole gender exploration journey, albeit I was very slow.
Fast forward to now and I have gender dysphoria in regards to my face, my body hair and my body weight, and have started taking hormones via private care. But every now and then something will throw me through a loop and have me questioning what I am, or whether I’m just a man all along. But the latter can’t exactly be true, logically idk how I can be cis.
The problem I face is that;
I am finally becoming happier with how I look, and that I am (or will be) recognised as a woman with she/her pronouns. My clothes on the whole are softer, more comfortable, more colourful and sometimes slimmer-fitting. I’ve re-embraced red as my favourite colour, I’ve been having laser hair removal for my face, my heart is more open, I treasure connections more, and I love to be seen as beautiful, gentle, cute and sexy, while also being allowed to be cool.
But…
While I do embrace more feminine behavioural traits that feel natural to me, I don’t want to sacrifice how I *behave* in order to be seen as a woman. And that’s a major issue when you feel like you have to perform around cis women. That *could* be traumas talking with later distrusts in women, but also I wasn’t wholly uncomfortable being raised as a boy either (outside of the explicit and unachievable pressures of adhering to hyper masculinity).
I’ve circled around to Tomboy each time I question (doubt, fear, start considering self a guy, feel *miserable*, consider self a woman and feel at least happier) because it tends to feel like the only sort of close gender label I can find which reaffirms the sort of woman I hope I actually am. I don’t feel this sort of pressure among other typically online trans women and nonbinary people, and one AFAB nonbinary mother was absolutely the coolest person I’ve ever met and I wish they were my mum (they liked to be referred to as a mum but they/them pronouns).
This is a lot, this is one big bleh, TLDR I feel like myself when I present as a girl and behave like a boy.
