How do you know detrans is right?Been on t for 5 years, off and on but now 2 months off... TW SA, rant and questions
Not sure where I stand with gender even. I've posted a few times here and people often told me I was not really trans. I guess that's a fair assumption to make given the community here and the realizations you have come to. I came to my realization of being trans around the age of 12 and started to medically transition at 17/18. I've thought for almost half of my life that this was right. Doubts have started creeping in since 19. I'm 22 now and I don't know what to do, or how to figure out my place with gender again.
I don't know what to do, or how to come to a realization I guess. I've had a complicated relationship with my own body / gender since I can even remember with puberty. I had a very traumatic childhood growing up with a lot of emotional and mental abuse from my parents, later on sexual abuse before puberty. Nothing that was actual r*pe per se but definitely sexual assault. I witness my dad using my mom from birth. Both of my parents are narcissistic. I'm quite confident that I have autism as well and it's played into my relationship with gender.
I remember being hypersexual from a young age but no actual sexual trauma from before 12. Not sure that it didn't happen per se, but If it did I don't remember. I always had a feeling that I was different and " lesbian was the only one that I knew for that I would often watch a lesbian porn around age of 10 or 11, and from that drew the conclusion that I needed surgery to have a "perfect" downstairs like the girls in porn. Maybe that started my hatred of my genitals.
Since I started therapy at 17, which accompanyed my transition process medically, with testosterone (initially), EMDR for SA, and studying psychology, I've come a long way from my "top and bottom dysphoria" and I cancelled having top surgery TWICE. Every time it was actually planned out and got close to the date I started freaking out and cancelled it. I have a lot of medical anxiety and a smaller chest so I cited those as my reasons.
But. I don't know. I guess I'm just realizing it doesn't matter what I do, I won't be a man. But I don't know how to be a girl, let alone a woman. I "knew" I was trans since I was 12-19, and now I just feel like I don't know anymore. I'm just existing.
At the moment I've just been telling people that I don't care. I just stopped taking T and people are starting to re-gender me as a girl. I just feel. Indifferent. Initially transitioning felt good, right, like me. I was happy in my body and the changes. Lately I just feel like nobody sees me as a man, especially now that I'm 22, not 17/18. Seen as a boy, sure. Maybe a 12 year old one. But I'm 5 foot and androgynous, so if people see me as an adult, it's a lesbian/nonbinary thing. Doesn't help with the name I chose at 16 and legally changed. I don't know if you can even change your name and gender back now with the current laws/regulations regarding "changing your sex". All of my documents say male.
Tldr; I haven't ever had the chance to try really being a girl, only a traumatized child and I think one form of control/outcome of abuse was redefining my entire personhood.
that is the thing friend, transitioning to escape 'em traumas is , IMO , a very valid move because usually, many of childhood and adolescence traumas are related to gender.
Like, if you had the bad parents and childhood, when you hit puberty, you will see your peers slowly growing into adults with the skills to get the goodies... While you're stuck in a feeling of being a kid. Its traumatizing, and you do feel like you're not good enough as a boy/girl.
For me its easier to just send it to the space, hahaha, you know some people never heal from trauma and they carry it till their 70's. Its hard to heal. We do ourselves
Yeah I had another realization earlier:
Not fitting into the societal standards of a girl and then being seen as a sexual object from the immediate age of 12 and after getting sexually assaulted myself multiple times. Same age.
However, I did fit in with the boys because being "weird" was allowed in their groups yet as soon as I was seen as a sexual object as a girl when we all started hitting puberty by my supposed friends... I wonder if, I didn't want to lose my friend group / social / identity I had made/formed around them.
Mixed with gender non-conformity + autism, + trauma, I can see a 12-year-old coming to the conclusion of that they weren't a girl or weren't good at being a girl and fit in better with boys.
I remember the moment I learned about trans people was a transgender girl and I had the thought of "who would WANT to be a girl" and the subsequent realization I too could "change my gender"
Edit: formatting
Also on feeling like a kid, yes absolutely and I have a theory that myself (and likely other FTM people) transition physically because having no breasts is a child-like trait and when I wanted to begin my transition I was terrified of getting boobs and then subsequently started to hate them and my sex.