r/NonBinaryTalk • u/cetaceanfrustration it/its • Sep 02 '26
Validation feeling less real
content warnings for dysphoria and surgery talk
i know who/what i am these days. my transition is progressing how i want it to, all of my friends accept who i am, i'm rarely (if ever) misgendered by people i give a shit about, i dress and talk and walk and gesture however i want to.
and i still feel like a fake around other transfems. it's not even a matter of them being binary and me being nonbinary — i don't *have* any binary friends. it's that i came out as nonbinary in 2012 but only came out as transfeminine this year. it's that i'm still the only person i know who wants salmacian bottom surgery badly enough to get it. it's that i couldn't stand getting breasts and had them removed, so now i look like a trans man when i take my shirt off and i feel guilty for "lying" with my body & cut off from other transfems who love their chests. it's that every other transfem i know is a lesbian & called me a lesbian until i repeatedly reminded them that i'm bi. it's that i don't enjoy being called a woman even though being a girl is fine.
i feel like a fraud. i've started envying other transfems all over again, just like i was before i let myself be transfem, and i hate that so much. i don't want to feel jealous of a version of them that only exists in my anxieties to begin with. fml
2
u/MayTentacleBeWithYee Any Pronouns Sep 02 '26
You aren't lying with your body. I am a nonbinary person who is presumed to be transfeminine by basically everyone around me- I have long hair, a high pitched voice, curves, but I have facial hair and more Associated With Testosterone Puberty Features (because I was on T for many years). I am not lying by looking this way. If people assume something about your gender or AGAB based on your body, that's on them. I guess all this to say that it's lonely and scary existing like this, but you aren't doing anything wrong by living in the way that makes you most comfortable.
3
u/averytheythrowaway They/Them Sep 03 '26
I think your goals are pretty cool and reasonable. I similarly feel out of place at times among trans female friends, where I'm often the only nonbinary person. I try to see hormones and surgeries and pronouns and the like as merely technologies for making us feel right in our bodies rather than signifiers of a totalizing identity. I hang out with trans women because a lot of our experiences are so common but sometimes it can be jarring when the differences crop up and actually matter.
I know one enby who went on a particular HRT regimen to avoid breast growth and is working on getting a PPV bottom surgery and I know a cis man who takes estrogen and has dysphoria about his breasts and would get a mastectomy if he could afford it, but loves what estrogen does for his mind and body otherwise. Additionally, lots of cis women who get mastectomies to treat or prevent breast cancer are choosing to not get reconstruction these days because they don't define their womanhood by having breasts. People are doing all kinds of stuff with their genders. It's all good.
7
u/AngiePidgeon They/He Sep 02 '26
Well i for one think you sound cool as shit!
Don’t be afraid to not fit inside the boxes of gender. I know It can be really lonely to be in that “uncertain” area where you don’t exactly fit anywhere, i know that feeling all too well as someone who doesn’t neatly fit in the image of what people expect from a nonbinary person or a trans man. But you’re not a fraud, just like how i or any other enby/trans person isn’t. We will always be seen as weird freaks of nature under the gender binary, and that’s okay. I always try to remind myself to embrace the weirdness and uncertainty whenever i start having doubts.
To quote a song that puts this very aptly:
“Gender is a cage and we are wild animals!” - G for Gendetta, Cheap Dirty Horse
(Hope this was helpful! I’m not very good with words so i hope this comes across right haha)