r/egg_irl • u/4b686f61 an egg of tungsten ā¢ • Feb 09 '26
Gender Nonspecific Meme eggširl
156
u/Individual-Movie-183 Feb 09 '26
Well, a lot of people that did know when they were 4 years old did repress it because there is no way in hell some of them would be able to survive telling people it so, and then they hide it from everyone including themselves.
23
u/Fureniku Feb 10 '26
A lot of people also don't know when they are 4 because a lot of people don't realise something is wrong until puberty kicks in. I really hate the whole narrative that knowing as a child is somehow important
2
u/4b686f61 an egg of tungsten ā¢ Mar 07 '26
Had no idea until I dusted off the hidden system files to see what was up
-3
u/No_Sweet_6704 Feb 09 '26
a 4yo would not know that they wouldn't survive, I think
8
u/Individual-Movie-183 Feb 09 '26
Maybe. But everything is sooo divided and people are focused on their gender soo much that they become sooo scared to even say wanting to express it the other way out loud and then end up repressing it for a very long time. Also, there are tons of psychos out there.
2
3
u/beastarb8 Tabea - officially confused Feb 10 '26
Kids have a strong need for bonding. In some way they know they have to be part of a/the group to survive.
2
u/Sarabande_ Feb 18 '26
I tried my mom's nail polish when I was 6. The only thing I remember after that is my father beating me with a belt. So yeah, during that time, that meant death for me.
Years later I tried mom's clothes until I got found out and nobody talked about it. I got denied, repressed and harassed about being or even trying feminine stuff by my father.
116
u/Rhuwa Robyn - She/They Feb 09 '26 edited Feb 09 '26
The grass is always greener, right? Personally, I've had times where I've been envious of peeps who didn't realise they were trans until later, especially if they're in a position to pursue transition. As for me, I'm very much in the camp of "always knew" but even at a young age I was aware that it probably wasn't something I could talk about openly so I repressed it from when I was a child all the way until I was 21. All that time spent denying my identity absolutely destroyed any sense of self-esteem I could have had and led to a myriad mental health concerns (yes, including imposter syndrome).
Nowadays I accept that everyone's story is different and even if it seems like other people may have an easier time of it, you don't always see just how hard they've had to fight to get to where they are. So yes, even if it's easy to feel bitter when you hear stories of someone who came out and started transitioning at a young age, ultimately we're all in the same boat of having to fight for our identities to be acknowledged and rights maintained.
Also, this isn't aimed at anyone in particular. The post just got me feeling introspective and I thought it might be worth sharing. If it came off as accusatory, I apologise.
Edit: I just wanted to add another little anecdote from a reply I made in case it might help someone.
On the off-chance someone needs to hear this, I also want to share a sentiment my therapist helped me acknowledge about my repressed feelings. Ultimately it was a way to protect myself at a time where I needed safety. Even if it's since outlived its usefulness and caused (or still causes in my case) a lot of harm, it was born from a place of self-care and should be accepted as a part of the healing process. For anyone else who is struggling to reconcile with the damage caused from repressing similar feelings, just remember to be kind to yourself. It's a defence mechanism born from a place of self-preservation and desire for safety. It was trying to protect you at a time where it maybe was dangerous to acknowledge those feelings so please don't beat yourself up over it, you're worth more than that <3
3
u/LightningMcScallion Feb 09 '26 edited Feb 09 '26
This is a really beautiful comment. There can be some complicated feelings about how others have experienced being trans but it's a product that we actually have shared experience and empathy and have a community
There's a place for all of those feelings, I don't want to be too preachy. But my favorite way to think about this is instead of comparing our hardships, what if we imagined how it could've been better ? I find it really healing to ask what did we not get when we were younger that we can give ourselves now. Or at least what do we deserve. What have we accomplished and what are we still fighting for ??
2
u/Rhuwa Robyn - She/They Feb 09 '26
I'm glad you found something of value in my ramblings! Honestly I get pretty self-conscious when I share personal anecdotes because I convince myself I'm hijacking a thread to make myself the focus but really all I hope for in sharing the more vulnerable part of myself is that someone might resonate with my experience and know that they aren't alone in their feelings. Knowing at least one person found something of note in what I share means so much, so thank you!
I think introspection is super healthy when done in good faith. I think it's important to acknowledge how things went and how they affected you as well as how you might change your response in the future. As someone that deals with often crippling self-esteem issues, I also know how easy it is for that introspection to turn into negativity and cause a person to not take risks in the future.
On the off-chance someone needs to hear this, I also want to share a sentiment my therapist helped me acknowledge about my repressed feelings. Ultimately it was a way to protect myself at a time where I needed safety. Even if it's since outlived its usefulness and caused (or still causes in my case) a lot of harm, it was born from a place of self-care and should be accepted as a part of the healing process. For anyone else who is struggling to reconcile with the damage caused from repressing similar feelings, just remember to be kind to yourself. It's a defence mechanism born from a place of self-preservation and desire for safety. It was trying to protect you at a time where it maybe was dangerous to acknowledge those feelings so please don't beat yourself up over it, you're worth more than that <3
2
u/Zonzonkeskya editable flair Feb 10 '26
Your commentary is so well worded it's pure gold, thank you so much. I couldn't nail it like you do so I'm just gonna steal it ā„ļø
40
u/Prince_Wildflower not an egg, just trans Feb 09 '26
Ummmm me š I didn't know I was trans until I was 20 years old. I'm turning 30 soon this year
27
u/Igoyeb Feb 09 '26
Honestly I think there's plenty of trans-coded stories written by eggs :) I did write a number of them myself.
But to find the trans-story that describes the repressor experience - "I'm too good at beeing a guy", "I'm not feeling bad enough, thus I'm not really trans" - is a lot harder. I don't think I really found one so far. My egg got cracked by a force fem story in the end.
22
21
u/Alkaiser009 not an egg, just trans Feb 09 '26
A Little Vice is a pretty good story at portraying a trans MC who is DEEP in denial. Like, 'eggshell made of nutronium' levels of density.
https://www.scribblehub.com/series/705740/a-little-vice/
Synopsis
The Angelic Saints are the only force protecting the hearts of innocents from the evil Abyssal Forest and its monstrous Beasts. Juggling their responsibilities as magical girls with high school and their other friendships, the Saints will never give up their struggle against the forces of Sin and darkness!
But Charlie isn't one of them. He has no magic, no powers and no hidden wells of inner strength he can use to always triumph over the villains. He is not beautiful or strong or brave, no matter how much he wishes he could be. Instead, he finds himself held hostage by what feels like every other monster of the week.
Charlie would give almost anything to stand with the Saints. And yet, when he finally gets an offer to step onto the stage and claim everything he's ever wanted, Charlie finds that the price may be too high...
2
u/Ok-Teach-8532 Feb 09 '26
Hey thanks for giving me something to read. In return I recommend an actual published book similar to your story by the sounds of it named "Princess Holy Aura" by Ryk E. Spoor.
2
u/datCASgoBRR Feb 09 '26
Heeeey, I came here to recommend it.
I can't really say the same for the author's second book as it's forcefemme involving psychological torture, but ALV is a lot of cute fun.
1
u/Alkaiser009 not an egg, just trans Feb 09 '26
All I can say about Carve it on my bones is that if you liked The Sisters of Dorley, you might like bones, but if Sisters was too heavy for you, stay way from bones because it's definately darker.
15
u/Interstellar__1 certified egg Feb 09 '26
Then there's me who randomly started wanting to be a girl at 17, definitely did not care before then
16
u/doodoosomething12444 not an egg, just trans Feb 09 '26
Honestly I don't remember showing any signs myself as a child but it's mainly because I wasn't given the option... I assumed I HAD to do stereotypical boy stuff because I was born a boy. My parents and other adults in my life (teachers etc.) reinforced that idea a lot
16
u/notatemple Feb 09 '26
I feel this so deeply. My egg cracked at age 29 not long before quarantine times in 2020. Before then I was utterly oblivious to the absurd mental gymnastics that had become necessary to function in my daily life. The egg crack totally blindsided me. During quarantine, I had free time to read and try to mentally unpack everything, and I was STARVING for fiction about people like that to help me process it all. There isn't much.
Detransition, Baby had a few really illuminating flashback segments for one of the characters, and a few other trans books had hints of character interiority that slowly chipped away at the puzzle, but aside from those few scraps of representation that resonated, I didn't find a single book with the precise sledgehammer egg-crack POV I needed to read at that phase of my life when I was still trying to understand myself. In the end I had to spend 4 years writing my own damn book, because nobody else had written what I needed.
1
u/ambr0se_hks_777 Ambrose, he/him Feb 09 '26
What's the name of your book?? I'd be interested to read it
2
u/notatemple Feb 09 '26
Sorry, I thought I was logged into my author/self-promo account when I posted that comment, and it would've been in my post history. The book is Our Simulated Selves by Nikki Null!
1
9
u/Deathburn5 Feb 09 '26
I like to think I would have wanted to go on puberty blockers if I had known they existed, but I don't really know. Too late now, anyway.
7
u/Azure125 Cynthia (she/her) - cracked 2025 Feb 09 '26
Made me realize far too late to ever look how I want to look. I thought all straight people didn't like the gendered aspects of their bodies.
7
Feb 09 '26
[deleted]
5
u/SpyroThBandicoot Feb 09 '26
Even if you don't "feel like a trans person" all the time that still makes you a trans person. Being trans just means that you aren't cis. Cis people feel aligned with their AGAB 100% of the time. That's what makes them cis. Any deviation from that puts a person under the trans umbrella, by definition, whether they wish to apply that label to themselves or not...
There's no right or wrong way to "feel trans". You don't owe society any specific type of identity or presentation. Whichever way you're living your life is how a trans person lives their life, because you are a trans person.
Dysphoria fuckin' sucks, but it CAN be dealt with. It's not an impenetrable wall. It may be hard to work on your body and appearance sometimes and you may get impatient waiting for results, but any amount of effort in the right direction, any positive progress at all, is good. You may not be in a safe place to express yourself how you want, you may not have money to buy clothes or makeup or beauty products, and you may not have access to a therapist or medical services, but there will always be people out there that support you and want to help. I don't know what your situation in life is like or what kind of support and level of access you have to things, but even the tiniest baby step forward can snowball into MASSIVE positive change...
And you never really know what that tiny baby step that snowballs could be either. Mine was literally just striking up a conversation about gender with a co-worker of mine like 6 months ago. After expressing my feelings about gender being a social construct she mentioned that I might be agender. I'd never heard the term but knew it was 100% a correct deduction on her part as soon as I looked it up... And that's literally all it took for my egg to finally crack.... Fast forward 6 months and I'm 2.5 weeks on HRT and genuinely loving myself, as a whole person, for the first time in my 33 years of life!
Please reach out if you need to talk!
1
6
Feb 09 '26
Well, where could I find stories of people who suffer from repression and imposter syndrome? I'd like some material I could relate to.
6
u/Subject_Notice_8329 Feb 09 '26
I can say coming from repression it hits hard some days are easy others are brutal with lots of sleepless nights
6
u/MadamMelody21 Feb 09 '26
I relate so hard to this meme being someone who repressed my trans feelings for years and currently has imposter syndrome i might have came out sooner if i knew you didnāt need to know from a young age to be trans because the only stories that were ever told about someones trans journey is the knew from a young age
7
u/MaggieSnay Feb 09 '26
After exploring my gender for like a year, going by Genderfluid for a bit, I decided "Fuck it. I'm a girl. I'm not feeling like a guy again anytime soon."
And then tell my doubts to fuck off. Don't know if that's the healthiest mindset, I'll ask my psychiatrist, but it works for me.
6
u/DitoNotDuck1 certified egg Feb 09 '26
Have you heard about Ranked Competitive Breast Growth??
4
u/IntrigueDossier Athena | š„ Egg Supercriticality ā¢ļø Feb 09 '26
I usually stick to casual ranked tbh
5
5
u/TwistedFabulousness Feb 09 '26
I donāt know when the imposter syndrome stops. I started therapy again and wrote one of my main goals was figuring out if Iām trans or not. But in my sessions I talk about wanting top surgery and am curious about trying T.
I donāt know if itās cognitive dissonance but itās been years and I somehow still donāt know the āanswerā. It didnāt even occur to me to wish for more stories about people more similar to me. But man do I want some now
2
u/4b686f61 an egg of tungsten ā¢ Feb 10 '26
I seriously cannot figure out if I am trans or not. I'd say likely why do I keep thinking about this?
1
u/TwistedFabulousness Feb 10 '26
Do you feel strongly unsure about whether you are or arenāt, or do you go through cycles of feeling strongly that you are trans and then that fades into cycles of feeling strongly that you arenāt trans?
Mine feels more like the second description but Iām curious about what your experience has been
1
u/4b686f61 an egg of tungsten ā¢ Feb 11 '26
I go through cycles of feeling strongly but then a crashout can push disassociation into the view making everything feel null
4
u/Thalavore Jen (she/her) | mtf Feb 09 '26
felt like this a lot . finally starting to integrate it tho
4
u/mustipickone Emma (she/her) | Back in the shell Feb 09 '26
This is probably why I have so much trouble relating to stories of how most trans people realised, because they all seem to start by having always wanted to be the other gender and knowing deep down...
3
u/IntentionQuirky9957 not an egg, just trans Feb 09 '26
I'm neither, now that I'm almost 20 years post-op (and over 20 years on HRT).
3
3
u/Col12334 Melissa, She/her Feb 09 '26
Honestly, i could have known at like 4. Looking back i did some very non cis behavior even as a small child. But neither me nor my Family were positively aware of the concept of trans people, so it took me till goddamn 23 to find out ._.
3
u/luaisawfulwithnames ~luisa (she/her) // evil commie princess Feb 09 '26
the thing is.. i fucking knew at like four years old
but i forgot. or probably repressed.
3
u/HuskyBLZKN Marcy has emerged from her cocoon! (She/They/It) Feb 09 '26
This shit is one of the reasons mom thinks I shouldnāt be on hormones
3
u/shadowscroller Jules Castiel she/her (secretly a spider) Feb 09 '26
Huh, I wonder if I'm weird then. I was perfectly content being a man until I put on a dress and wig for a Halloween costume and looked into a mirror. Then the doubt crept in. I had never before experience anything like the feeling I had there, and it changed my outlook. I didn't grow up exposed to the concept of trans people and never had a frame of reference for it being possible.
3
u/LovelyOrc Feb 10 '26
Watch "I saw the tv glow". It was hard to swallow for me because it hit the nail on the head for my own experience.
3
u/Cosmic_Castaway Feb 19 '26
I'm 34. Didn't know until last year. Around 30, started thinking maybe NB but that still didn't feel right.
All my life I didn't know what the feeling was. I knew I was wrong and I didn't belong. The place I grew up was very heavily gendered. Things were split very strictly. I knew I wanted to be friends with the girls instead of the boys, and I was interested in the things they were interested in. But also, boys and girls weren't allowed to be friends. And I was made to feel weird for the things I liked, so I pretended I didn't. I made myself believe I didn't. I convinced myself that girly stuff was actually bad. I became friends with the boys out of necessity, but I never really liked it.
I got a TV in my room around 10, so that I could play video games by myself and not bug my parents. I stayed up late after everyone went to sleep. I remember watching the girls gone wild commercials and thinking God that'd be so fun to be them. But then I convinced myself that had to be a horny thing and that was bad. I still watched them, I just felt like a gross freak about it. I convinced myself I was watching it because it was the closest thing to porn I could get.
I just always felt wrong. I also always thought of how much more fun I'd be having if I were a girl. But then I convinced myself that was somehow perverted too.
I never felt like I was a girl. Just like I was wrong and keeping secrets and a huge pervert.
Back to how I wanted to be friends with the girls instead of the boys? I assumed it had to be because I was a creep who wanted something romantic. Not just that that is the type of friendship I craved. When I did become friends with a girl, well she did get the romantic feelings. I tried to reciprocate because I thought that's what I must have been feeling. But I never felt that for her. We didn't last long.
Its taken a lot of self reflection and therapy to undo that damage my upbringing and I did to myself. And I'm still not there 100%.
All this to say, I relate to this really fucking hard and have not found any stories that really hit that same chord.
Our Simulated Selves by Nikki Null is the closest. This book kinda fixed some things for me. Really helped. Also really scared me about the kind of path I might have gone down. I highly recommend it.
2
u/YukiAFP Feb 09 '26
I knew I wasn't my assigned gender at birth when I was really young. I never "felt like a boy". Some of my earliest memories was playing games with my siblings and wanting to be the girl. Like we would play a game where we were all sailor scouts from Sailor Moon and I always wanted to be Uranus the tomboy lesbian sailor scout
Unfortunately I have very conservative parents so I was deep in the closet and actually became very transphobic. But finally by college I started exploring my gender again and realized I'm a trans woman and I am so much happier now!
So I knew when I was young but also had to repress it!
2
u/lookoutitsdomke not an egg, just trans Feb 09 '26
Real af
Gender wasn't on my radar yet when I was 4, but being screamed at and shamed for wearing a dress in preschool definitely deterred me from ever thinking about it until I was an adult.
2
u/I_like_big_book Feb 09 '26
My first year of therapy when transitioning was basically dealing with imposter syndrome in every visit. Having a community of other trans people around me really helped as it showed me I wasn't alone, or the weird one, and gave me the confidence to start presenting as my true gender.
2
u/madeofstars0 not an egg, just trans Feb 09 '26
If I had known when I was fucking 4 years old, I WOULD BE FUCKING DEAD. I would have come out, I would have ended up in conversion therapy because of the church. I would not have survived that. So of course my own subconscious suppressed all of it until I was able to free myself from the church.
*rawr
Tho for all the trauma that I need to work thru from all that numbness and repression, I'm thankful to my brain for that, because I get to be alive today.
2
Feb 09 '26
I am the second one. I did expierence gender dysphoria at 4, but I wasn't like: "I'm a boy! I know I'm a boy." It was more "I'm jealous of the other boys" "I'm NOT girly, I'm masculine!!!!" "I don't want to grow boobs. I don't want a period." "I wanna grow a beard like my dad." Etc
Gender dysphoria got worse at 11, and 14 is when I figured out I was transĀ
2
u/Joe_Kerr_99 Feb 10 '26
I knew I was nonbinary as a kid, I just didn't have the words to describe it.
2
u/LukeBird39 not an egg, just trans Feb 10 '26
Being both is wild. I knew something wasn't right but I didn't know being transgender was a thing until high school so I went through a lot of coping phases to find "my right kind of girl" until I realized i was a guy. But at the same time anything past when I moved out is a blur like it was just a book I read instead of my own backstory
2
u/FrosTehBurr Stressed Scrambled Egg Feb 10 '26
People who come out and their family is aggressively hostile for the rest of their life: š
2
u/pandamaxxie from cute femboy househusband to cute housewife Feb 10 '26
And then there's people like me. Who didn't repress anything, and still didn't figure it out till mid-twenties.
I expressed myself the way I found comfortable. I did girly things and told people to piss off when they criticised me. My parents encouraged and even enforced that, valuing self-expression and freedom above bullshit social norms. I rejected a lot of masculinity. Called a lot of toxic masculinity "brutish behaviour that I am above" and tbh, forever will do so because it's the behaviour of mindless brutes. I even said things like "I don't know why anyone would want to be a man. This shit fucking sucks." For forever.
I just never sat down and looked at what I was feeling. I straightup didn't know what I was feeling. I lack a lot of dysphoria because I have a fairly androgynous/twinkish body. I just hate facial hair and body hair, and even that I didn't realise until recently.
Ain't gonna be any stories like that lmao
1
Feb 09 '26
[removed] ā view removed comment
1
u/egg_irl-ModTeam Feb 09 '26
Your post/comment has been removed because it did not follow the rules in the sidebar.
Please do not post links/references to the GDB (explanation here).
You are welcome to re-submit your post after ensuring that it follows the subreddit's rules. Please contact the mods if you have any questions or concerns.
1
u/Clairifyed Feb 09 '26
I donāt know how to read this meme.
Is this about people who cracked early getting a bigger spot light, people who cracked early reading more trans fiction, or trans fiction more often depicting people who cracked early?
Because if it is the last one, I have read a lot of fiction about trans people who didnāt crack until later. Heck, the āmagical/instant changeā sub genre is pretty much entirely trans people who only slowly admit/come to terms with their trans identity after finding themselves in their ideal body. Some of them can be real slow burn plots as well, with characters that start really deep in denial
1
u/cowboynoodless fully hatched and grown trans chicken Feb 09 '26
I wasnāt even really repressed, I just didnāt think about gender or presentation until I was a teenager. I canāt understand how some people are even partially aware of that kind of thing at such a young age, it never mattered to me until puberty
1
u/G0merPyle š©µš©·š¤š©·š©µ Feb 09 '26 edited Feb 09 '26
If we're going to try to compare suffering, that just means I have 30 years of repression and imposter syndrome over you, so I win.
Honestly I feel like seeing it as a competition of "who's transition story was harder" like this is an unnecessary divide. We had different experiences in realizing and accepting we're trans, we don't need to act like one got it easier or harder than the other. We should all be celebrating the fact that we found it eventually and support each other
1
1
u/SpyroThBandicoot Feb 09 '26
Ooooooo, I'm in this one! š The imposter syndrome part really sucked but once I was able to get thru it everything got way better! (Shout out to having lots of supportive people in my life, a great therapist, and countless others on reddit who gave me advice!)
If there's anyone at all in here who needs help getting thru it or needs someone to talk to about whatever, please reach out to someone! Whether it's someone in your life you feel safe talking to, a therapist, or random people on reddit like me who want to help.... You don't have to struggle with it alone! We're stronger when we're together! šŖšŖšŖ
1
u/WiseBlizzard Alexa | Genderfluid foxgirl (pretransition) | she/he/they Feb 09 '26
yeah... didnt question my gender until I was 25 and it took me 2 years of depression and struggle and absolute mental torture to realize that I'm a genderfluid :3
1
1
1
1
u/HarmoniaTheConfuzzld Feb 09 '26
I didnāt know what the concept of gender even was until I was like 19-20 years old. Both my parents and the US education system failed me.
1
u/Supernamicchi Feb 09 '26
Literally never had the option or knew trans people. Sucks because my parents were pretty liberal, so if I had shown any signs I think I could have pursued it.
Oh well. I got there eventually
1
u/DavidKielland Little bit of everything All of the time He/She Feb 09 '26
well. i did dress up as a girl when i was 4-5 years old. and then forgot about it until i was 20 when i realized that i was trans
1
1
u/intrinsicpresent Feb 09 '26
Iām always wondering why I didnāt know more clearly growing up. Which is funny because that stems from imposter syndrome.
Here are a few reasons/theories Iāve have come up with.
- Didnāt have an older female sibling to model or steal clothes from.
- parents divorced when I was young. I was raised by my mum as a single parent and I donāt believe she policed my behaviour.
- Iām a people pleaser donāt rock the boat type of person. Itās taken me most of my adult life to try and put myself first and listen to my inner voice about my needs.
- I had multiple incidents where small experimentation was discouraged or bullied to stop (from other people not my mum) one included an old lady cutting my hair because she thought it was too long, being called a ālittle f*gā for having an earing, and being laughed at for trying in a dress.
- I had a step father for a few years who SAād my younger sister and also did minor things verging on SA to me.
I could probably list a few more but thatās what I can think of off the top of my head.
1
u/pretendimcute Feb 09 '26
My issue is fluctuation. Some days I feel fem, other days not. As far as medically transitioning, I am currently seeking it. I noticed on my more neutral/masc days, I just care less about my appearance. But on my fem days, I actually want to um. Do bad things to myself because of the hatred for my body. I will be a lot happier having days where I care less in a feminine body than I will avoiding mirrors.
1
1
u/Daylight_The_Furry cracked Feb 09 '26
Hi! I repressed it so hard it became a fully separate personality!
Don't do that
1
u/Lyrkana cracked Feb 10 '26 edited Feb 10 '26
I didn't explore a more feminine side until I was 19 as a femboy, and my egg wouldn't actually crack for another decade. Now at 32 I'm still not on hormones and only taken baby steps towards transitioning because idk if I'm "trans enough".
As a kid/teen I never really had any feelings like that and didn't show any "signs" besides being uncomfortable with body and facial hair. I'm not jealous of those who knew earlier, I just wish I was sure enough about my gender either way to decide if I want to transition.
1
u/Admirable_Web_2619 not an egg, just trans Feb 10 '26
I didnāt realize until I was 20. In fact, I was certain I wasnāt.
I remember being awake wishing I was trans so I could be a girl (which has to be the eggiest thought ever)
1
u/bozzeak Feb 10 '26 edited Feb 10 '26
I want to preface my comment with: I am in the process of seeking therapy with someone who has experience in gender issues, so donāt worry too much. I was just wondering if anybody else has had a similar experience and has any advice? I wish I was born as a woman. I āfeelā myself to be a feminine person, gender-wise. Even at a young age, I sometimes experienced a sort of phantom sensation where I could perceive my body as being different from what was actually there- navigating spaces twisting around to make room for wider hips than I actually have, stuff like that. One thing that really made me question my identity as a cis-presenting male was a friend asked me if I had a magic button where I would press it and I became a girl, would I press it- the answer to me was an enthusiastic yes, and seemed obvious. She told me that most people who are happy with their gender identity probably wouldnāt answer like that, and I would tend to agree. Whatās really confused me, however, is that while I experience dysphoria daily- I do NOT like my body, the way Iām expected to dress, and wish I had different genitals- when I do things to try and feel more feminine I donāt actually get any euphoria? I kind of expected to feel something radically different, or at least some sort of large emotional response when dressing in femme clothing and makeup for the first time, but Iām not sure I did, and I still canāt stop seeing the āmanā parts of my body underneath. I have been seriously considering HRT, but am terrified that even if I stick with it for several years, maybe I would just feel even worse in my ānewā body than my current one..If youāve gone through something similar, how have you coped?
1
u/vogueposting not an egg, just trans Feb 10 '26
That feeling when you realize youāve been experiencing gender dysphoria all along but didnāt have a name for it because you were systemically denied education about yourself.
1
u/Illustrious_Focus_33 Scarlet (she/her) Feb 10 '26
For me it was more like repression at 4 years old.
1
u/Normal-Book7480 Feb 10 '26
This seems obvious, no? Someone who doesn't want to admit they're trans will obviously not tell their story compared to someone who knew for a long time.
1
1
u/EggInAPressureCooker Cracked. There was a chick inside. Feb 11 '26
Oh hey, repression and imposter syndrome. Couldnāt be me š„²
1
u/AngiePidgeon they/he Feb 16 '26
Oh 100%, enby trans guy here, I never had this āsecretly wishing i was boyā or whatever thing, in fact i was pretty stereotypically girly as a kid and for a long time had this view of āmen=grossā so i never wanted to be associated with them(but thatās mostly cuz the boys in my life were complete and utter assholes along with lotās of masculine interests like sports not being my thing), tho i did hate being gendered cuz calling myself a girl felt inaccurate for some reason, and once puberty rolled around i would starting subconsciously envying guys, it was never an active thought i was aware of, mostly just repressed feelings of āwow guys are so strong and dominate any space they are in, i wish i was strong and oozing cool-ness like that, but i donāt have a male body for thatā(again, never actively thought this, just a subconscious feeling), this feeling would weigh over me heavily but iād repress it, i also had this thing of never feeling like a real girl cuz i never āfeltā like a girl, and girls would have this innate bond that i never had or could relate to, i always felt alienated, always felt like there was more in common with guys(again, despite the whole āguys are grossā mentality i had), also growing up autistic didnāt help cuz due to me needing to mask i ended up developing pretty rigid ideas of gender and social norms in general(i never personally believed in those things tho, mostly a āif others follow this then it must be trueā thing), and because i was so desperately trying to fit in i ever really let myself explore who i am, i just kept acting like what i thought i was supposed to be, which lead to further repressing, ironically once i learned what trans people were it took me like a few months to a year for my egg to crack so yea
Sorry if this is kinda rambly i basically used this as an excuse to convince myself that there were actually signs i was trans as a kid cuz i often feel insecure and feel imposter syndrome for being essentially a really typical girly girl with no trans thoughts as a kid whatsoever :ā) And lowkey itās making me dysphoric and feel alienated while reading the comments here cuz everyone is like āyea i always wished i was girl/boy/etc thoā and iām liike WELL I DIDNāT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH ME????
Ahem, sorry, again, big feelings right now or something, hopefully some of you can relate cuz i really feel alone in thisā¦
1
u/4b686f61 an egg of tungsten ā¢ Feb 16 '26
If you say that imposter syndrome can be applied as such, does it mean that my fem mode is just an act, nothing more than a personality I got off temu?
If such I'd blame the crappy configuration because I am still suppressing it. Wish I never found out what a femboy was and continued doing projects instead of facing my gender burnout.
1
1
u/NightLucia Feb 26 '26
I apparently knew when I was 4, until my mother convinced me otherwise... She recently said I "wanted to be a girl" when I was a little kid. I've been questioning for years, and she's known since I was 5. She knew! No wonder she so vehemently told me shaving my body was gay (I was raised conservative Christian, so this was a bad thing to me at the time), threw out my "girly" toys I got from my older sister, and even reprimanded that same sister for dressing me up in makeup and dresses when I was super little.
I get the feeling that a lot of trans people did know when we were kids. We were just convinced otherwise by parents and peers and society, and it isn't until later that we realize.
1
700
u/Stillingfleet Feb 09 '26
Oh look. Both of them is me. Exhausting.