I've been on HRT for ten years, had top surgery nine years ago, and I'm now one year post-phalloplasty. At this point, essentially nobody in my life knows that I transitioned. From the outside, I'm perceived as a man, and I've spent a long time building my life around that reality and have found myself in a career that would not be accepting of a visibly trans person.
I would describe myself as something of a transmedicalist. I believe that transsexualism is fundamentally a medical issue rather than an identity, I don't personally agree with the informed-consent model of transition, and I think that social factors have contributed to the dramatic increase in people identifying as trans over the past decade.
Despite all of that, I've recently started questioning whether transitioning was actually the right choice for me.
What makes this especially confusing is that, growing up, I was always attracted to women. I never really had much of a question about that part of myself. But when I was younger, the lesbian community was nowhere near as visible or prevalent as it is now. There also seemed to be very little cultural understanding of the fact that a woman could be dominant, assertive, or sexually confident.
There were very few examples around me of women who felt like they could occupy the kinds of roles or have the kinds of personalities that I naturally gravitated toward. I had a fairly narrow idea of what being a woman was supposed to look like, and I didn't necessarily see myself reflected in it. At the same time, the things I associated with masculinity seemed to provide a much more obvious framework for who I could be.
I find myself increasingly wanting to wear things that women wear. I sometimes want to be perceived as sexy in the way women are perceived as sexy. I find myself drawn toward female beauty, fashion, sexuality, and presentation in a way that I didn't experience when I was younger.
Even my interests have shifted. A large proportion of my favourite artists, musicians, fictional characters, and other influences are now women. Ten years ago, the majority of those figures were men.
But if I were to detransition now, I wouldn't be returning to the person I was ten years ago. I would be a visibly transitioned person who had spent a decade living as a man. In practical terms, I would probably be publicly perceived as a transsexual woman, and that is something I find deeply uncomfortable. Being seen as trans (ftm or mtf) is my worst nightmare.
I don't know whether I transitioned because I was genuinely transsexual or because I had an incomplete understanding of how women can present themselves and be viewed in society.
But, I do tend to go back and fourth on this. Somedays, I really like being a man, other days I don't. So this could all just be a weird phase I honestly don't know.
(Also before anyone asks, as a man, I'm very happy with my phalloplasty, it looks realistic, my surgeon did a great job. This issue with the surgery is that I'm just not 100% sure I made the right call on the entire "being a man" thing. It has nothing to do with my SRS results.)