Trans Musings & Rantings

[Was here]

49 minutes ago, Liebelit said:

Is it weird that I feel like in another life (aka one where I was amab) I might have probably been a crossdresser? 

I'm not talking about believing in past lives or anything like that, just that I think if I had been born and raised as male from the start and didn't have to deal with being trans and all the crapiness and dysphoria that comes with it I would probably enjoy dressing up as a girl sometimes for fun, I guess I'd try doing drag but I'm terrible at performing so I wouldn't do an actual show. Just put on a dress, heels, makeup, a wig, and then hang around the house looking like that for a few hours. Then take it all off and carry on with my day as I normally look. 

 

Is that kinda too weird coming from a trans guy? I remember before figuring out I was trans I had this weird relationship with dresses and feminine stuff like that. Part of me hated all of it and being forced to wear it for formal events but a little part of me got kind of excited at the idea and it was fun to look at myself in the mirror for a few minutes. But then I hated that everyone genuinely treated me in a more female way when I was dressed like that.

I guess I liked the dressing up part but hated that it meant people would see me as a girl.  

I think I can relate to that. Reading this made me feel like 2% better, heh. I like feminine stuff as objects and activities and such a little bit, not a part of me, though I realize people can still be girls and not like feminine stuff. Side note about trans stuff and yes I'm still overthinking because I overthink everything in general, I hate how it's so acceptable to be a girl and not like feminine stuff or your female body parts, it makes questioning a bit harder. Although I don't know if it's normal or not to hate your female parts on a deeper level than,"my breasts get in the way" and,"I don't like periods" and think,"My breasts are embarrassing and I need to hide them as best I can" and,"My female reproductive system is pointless to me, and I would much rather have a male system or at the very least not have a uterus." I blame puberty and the time I roleplayed with a friend online as male versions of ourselves for making me think about my gender a bit too much. (the roleplaying was fun and a bit awkward for me though). Now my parents think I'm an asexual 'tomboy' (in quotes because I'm not exactly masculine, just not into girly stuff; the asexual part was misinterpreting dislike and uncomfort with my genitals) who's a hypochondriac for thinking they're trans by wording it as,"You know that friend at school who's trans? I think I am" when in reality I was thinking about it for longer than the time my friend came out as trans.

NSFW v

Spoiler

Also I learned what a clitoris was when I was 10 and thought it was weird that girls had tiny penises that couldn't do what a guy's does. I wasn't dysphoric, I just thought it was weird, lol. Fast forward 7 years  and some number of months I don't remember and I'll occasionally go on a rant to myself about how much I hate my female parts sometimes. 

 

[nerdperson777]

43 minutes ago, Vislor said:

@nerdperson777 Yeah, June. I actually like that as a name, just not on me.

 

Edit: I might be weird, but I don't actually mind people knowing my birth name, as long as they keep calling me Asa, and at least act like they've just filed it away as a piece of trivia.

 

@BionicPi I know, right? The only reason I didn't go with it was because I view it as too feminine (because when I was a kid, still thinking of myself as female, I kind of wanted to rename myself that).

Well, people still call me Cat, because I don't mind it when it's my neutral nickname.  Also I never came up with an online username that beat what I had been going by for years.

 

Current activity: Browsing a sewing pattern site, gushing at the different patterns, including the girls' school uniform.  Do I want to make one?  Hell yes.  Would I wear one?  Hell no.

I should think of a new cosplay to make for myself.  I know that I already planned to make my two college friends something, but I should have something for myself too.

[Light02]

I remember that a while ago on this forum we had a discussion in which we agreed that most of us (trans people) are obsessed with or were obsessed as children or teenagers with stories about transformation. I didn't participate in the discussion at the time but I did relate to it, albeit in a slightly different way. As a teenager I was obsessed with this comic book called W.I.T.C.H. which was a story about five girls who can control the elements. They also used transformation in this story but they would transform into more mature and "more" female versions of themselves. In their everyday lives they would sometimes dress in a plain, sporty and even sometimes masculine way and when they transformed they looked much more womanly and adult and they even had bigger boobs. In one story arc though they literally became the elements that they could control. Here's what they looked like: http://readcomiconline.to/Comic/W-i-t-c-h/Issue-62?id=22350#30

 

At the time when I saw this I loooved the way they looked and how they almost didn't really have a physical body. It made me kind of jealous and made me wish I looked in a similar way. Now I realize this has to do with desiring a gender-neutral body. I don't want to look female, I don't want to look male, I don't want to have any sexual characteristics that other people would gender! After reading this issue I actually wrote a story in which my main character was female but they were given special powers of some sort and they became something like an energy being that almost didn't have a physical body. Around that time I also had a dream about an alien that came to visit the earth. On this alien's home planet they had no concept of gender and this alien, again, looked sort of like an energy being with a vaguely human looking body but without any sex characteristics. When I woke up I thought how much I'd like to look like that alien. In a way, I feel like I want to transcend gender and sex, to the point where I'd even be happy if I didn't have a body. I think that's why when I first read this theory or whatever that explains that, beyond our physical plane, everyone and everything on the Earth is one on an energetic level, it really clicked with me. It's one of the main reasons I consider myself to be a spiritual person, despite not being religious. 

 

I wonder if this is common for non-binary people? I think it might be. For example, there's this singer-songwriter who goes by the name Perfume Genius who has said in the past that they do not identify as either a man or a woman. Apparently in their newest album "No Shape" they talk about wanting to transcend their human body (although I should add that I've not listened to this album, I just read a review of it). I've seen interviews with them where they talk about this and how they feel that everything is energy and how they're a very spritual person and I relate to all of that and I think it's probably some form of gender dysphoria.

[nerdperson777]

@Light02 I've said in some post a few years ago but I wanted to be Danny Phantom, blinking my eyes, and instead of a ghost, I would become a boy.  Except, I didn't even have a concept of what being a boy was (socially), so no matter how many times I decided that I was "going ghost" or "going boy", my wish would never happen.

[999papercranes]

As a kid I also had an interest in transformation. I was obsessed with shapeshifters and I wanted that to be my "power" if I was a superhero. I also loved reading stories about historical women cross-dressing. I can't believe this didn't tip me off more. I would literally wonder what it would be like living as a guy, escaping womanhood, and I wanted that. My favorite was the true story of Charley Parkhurst after I read the kid's adaption of their story, how they were born as Charlotte and escaped an orphanage to dress as a boy and fool everybody, becoming a masterful and respected stagecoach driver nicknamed "One Eyed Charley" after surviving a horrible stagecoach accident. I also loved the stories of Emma Edmunson and others like her who cross-dressed to serve in the military as men. 

[daveb]

My fascination was with female impersonators and other male performers who dressed as females, especially when it was more convincing and natural, rather than drag queen-like (not that there's anything wrong with that; it just wasn't where my fascination lay). Or occasionally, actresses portraying men who were pretending to be female. You could say I was more drawn to the gender expression rather than gender identity. And envied guys who got paid to do that! (although with my shyness I would not have wanted to be in any sort of spotlight)

[Starbogen]

@Light02 Whoa... W.I.T.C.H. That's so old, I remember I watched the tv series but never knew it was a comic. 

Hmm I don't think I cared so much about transformation in general but I really loved seeing characters who crossdressed or had gender expressions or personalities that were the opposite of the expected for their sex or gender. So of course Mulan is a good example of that in my early childhood. But I also really loved the crossdressing alien in Lilo & Stitch, and kind of just anything where a character dressed up and pretended to be the opposite sex. 

But I think something interesting is that my favorite characters in anything always seemed to be whoever was most neutral or gender nonconforming. 

[ChillaKilla]

@nerdperson777 you can just go to the pharmacist again, no need for the doctor's  

[Mezzo Forte]

9 hours ago, Vislor said:

so I went with Asa instead of it.

Wow, I have a family member with that name, and they're the only person I had ever met named Asa up to this point. Cool seeing that name pop up elsewhere.  

[Mezzo Forte]

I was definitely part of the "soft spot for shapeshifters/transformations" camp. Still am in all honesty.

 

As a teen, I also had a bit of a fascination with female characters who would crossdress for one reason or another. Mulan, Haruhi Fujioka, and Naoto Shirogane all resonated with me in ways that no other characters ever did. (One eye-opening experience was having a similar resonance with an actual FtM character in a webcomic I read while I was still questioning my gender.) That said, I remember being disappointed by most genderbending manga when I tried to seek it myself. Guess the series that tried to remind you every 3 seconds that the character is *really* cis via lots of gender stereotypes just kind of turned me off.  

[Starbogen]

Oh something else I just remembered about the crossdressing trope in movies and tv... I didn't like it so much when the character felt uncomfortable with their new look or didn't know how to act the part, but I loved it when they enjoyed (cross)dressing up that way and presenting themselves as the opposite sex. Like Pleakly in L&S just naturally loved presenting as a woman in public even when there really was no reason.

And in the movie Some Like It Hot I really liked it when Daphne kind of got so into being 'Dahne' that she momentarily forgot she was Gerald (I think that was his name) and at that part of the movie I was mentally going like "Aww no, just be Daphne, you seem to be much happier with that." I also liked that they were both originally going to use the female versions of their boy names but then Daphne just impulsively chose Daphne instead at the last minute...almost as if he had thought about it before. Details like that just always interested me and made me sympathize with the character more. 

[SkyWorld]

11 hours ago, Vislor said:

On slightly different topic, have any of the other non-binary people here thought about what name they would have chosen had they been assigned the other sex when they were born? I probably would have picked September (nn Ember).

Well, my mom told me that if I was born a boy, my name would have been Rico. Though, if I were to give my given name a masculine version, the closest it would be is "Elijah". And I actually like that name a lot. Though, I prefer and actually really like my name as gender neutral, even though the spelling is more masculine and it annoys me when people spell it in a feminine way (especially when I literally just spelled my name to them and they still get it wrong)!

 

10 hours ago, (D)anny said:

I think I can relate to that. Reading this made me feel like 2% better, heh. I like feminine stuff as objects and activities and such a little bit, not a part of me, though I realize people can still be girls and not like feminine stuff. Side note about trans stuff and yes I'm still overthinking because I overthink everything in general, I hate how it's so acceptable to be a girl and not like feminine stuff or your female body parts, it makes questioning a bit harder. Although I don't know if it's normal or not to hate your female parts on a deeper level than,"my breasts get in the way" and,"I don't like periods" and think,"My breasts are embarrassing and I need to hide them as best I can" and,"My female reproductive system is pointless to me, and I would much rather have a male system or at the very least not have a uterus." I blame puberty and the time I roleplayed with a friend online as male versions of ourselves for making me think about my gender a bit too much. (the roleplaying was fun and a bit awkward for me though). Now my parents think I'm an asexual 'tomboy' (in quotes because I'm not exactly masculine, just not into girly stuff; the asexual part was misinterpreting dislike and uncomfort with my genitals) who's a hypochondriac for thinking they're trans by wording it as,"You know that friend at school who's trans? I think I am" when in reality I was thinking about it for longer than the time my friend came out as trans.

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  Hide contents

Also I learned what a clitoris was when I was 10 and thought it was weird that girls had tiny penises that couldn't do what a guy's does. I wasn't dysphoric, I just thought it was weird, lol. Fast forward 7 years  and some number of months I don't remember and I'll occasionally go on a rant to myself about how much I hate my female parts sometimes. 

 

Spoiler

I found out what a clitoris was almost 2 years ago. I am currently 19 and will be 20 in less than 4 months... I know very little about anatomy on an embarrassing level considering how old I am... When I found out what it was, I honestly thought it was kind of cool how it's kind of like a mini-penis.

Ah, this is kind of TMI, so another spoiler:

Spoiler

I never really think about my genitals. I have very irregular periods, to the point I almost forget that I get periods (yes, I know that isn't healthy, but I honestly don't want to "fix" it). I also have no libido and I never get/been aroused. I pay it no mind except for hygienic purposes and even then I just look away. It doesn't make me feel dysphoric, except when it starts bleeding (this is why I don't want to "fix" my irregular periods, even despite the other unhealthy side effects, it's just to me, I don't think it's worth it...). Otherwise, I just don't really care too much about it or pay any attention. I have barely have any need to do so.

 

 

@999papercranes @daveb When I was younger, I was very fascinated by tomboys, as well as those movies where women were disguised as men. I always thought the way they'd look and act was really cool. I've also been super fascinated by feminine guys. The way they'd dress wasn't too masculine or overly feminine, but the way they dressed and carried themselves... just something about these that I just liked a lot and somewhat, that's what I wanted to be. I agree that for me, it was more about their expression than identity, but for me it was kind of more than expression.

[Light02]

I'm trying to think of any characters that crossdressed or had an atypical gender presentation that I saw and identified with as a child and I honestly can't really think of any. The movie Mulan and specifically the song "My Reflection" always made me super gender dysphoric and while I empathized with Mulan I didn't want to watch something that made me sad. The only character that I can think of that I've ever strongly identified with is Buttercup from the Powerpuff Girls. Obviously, she always wears a dress but she's such a tomboy, I always thought she was just like me - looks like a girl but feels masculine on the inside.

[nerdperson777]

12 hours ago, 999papercranes said:

As a kid I also had an interest in transformation. I was obsessed with shapeshifters and I wanted that to be my "power" if I was a superhero. I also loved reading stories about historical women cross-dressing. I can't believe this didn't tip me off more. I would literally wonder what it would be like living as a guy, escaping womanhood, and I wanted that. My favorite was the true story of Charley Parkhurst after I read the kid's adaption of their story, how they were born as Charlotte and escaped an orphanage to dress as a boy and fool everybody, becoming a masterful and respected stagecoach driver nicknamed "One Eyed Charley" after surviving a horrible stagecoach accident. I also loved the stories of Emma Edmunson and others like her who cross-dressed to serve in the military as men. 

My second cosplay was a female pirate, who presented herself as male to get somewhere in life, because when do women really get to do anything but be a housewife during that time period? I was starting my questioning stage around that time. Then when I identified as a binary male, a friend said that I was crossdressing as a crossdresser. For some time, I was really drawn to masculine girls. Feminine guys weren't on my radar too much until after gender discovery, probably due to the negative connotations. Now I'm just feminine boy all the time. 

[ChillaKilla]

I was a bit of a shapeshifter-y kind, but it mostly revolved around wanting the ability to fly grow angel wings and hide them when needed. Also invisibility. In retrospect, I realize that as a child I had a huge imagination, but very little about it revolved around 'myself'. Whenever I imagined flying it was almost always in 1st-person perspective, or I would imagine a vague person figure that I would associate myself with. I was extremely apathetic about my own body back then... what a luxury I lack these days...

 

OH- was anybody else like 100% sure they were a werewolf because that was totally me

[999papercranes]

1 hour ago, ChillaKilla said:

I was a bit of a shapeshifter-y kind, but it mostly revolved around wanting the ability to fly grow angel wings and hide them when needed. Also invisibility. In retrospect, I realize that as a child I had a huge imagination, but very little about it revolved around 'myself'. Whenever I imagined flying it was almost always in 1st-person perspective, or I would imagine a vague person figure that I would associate myself with. I was extremely apathetic about my own body back then... what a luxury I lack these days...

 

OH- was anybody else like 100% sure they were a werewolf because that was totally me

Oh wow, I totally relate to all of this. I wanted wings and the ability to fly and invisibility and basically every power under the sun. I also had too big of an imagination for my own good (still do) and my obsession with superheroes and powers wasn't helped by this. 

I was also convinced I was a werewolf or at the very least shared some special connection with wolves. I felt like I understood them on some spiritual level. I never wanted to be your everyday werewolf, no, I wanted to be like the kind from Maggie Stiefvater's Shiver trilogy that I read when I was a kid. Also I always wanted a wolf of my own. There's a forest in my backyard and I imagined it living there. I would go out there and pretend I was petting it and I would talk to it. I wanted nothing more than a giant fluffy wolf to cuddle with. Alas, the closest I ever got was my battered stuffed husky Ofie.

[nerdperson777]

It's okay if I take my shot a day early, right?  My first shot was on Monday, but if it's a weekday I want to rush and get stuff done.  I'm also the world's biggest scaredy cat.  Would it be bad to give myself the shot with no experience?  I'm making myself nervous just thinking about it.

[nerdperson777]

6 hours ago, nerdperson777 said:

It's okay if I take my shot a day early, right?  My first shot was on Monday, but if it's a weekday I want to rush and get stuff done.  I'm also the world's biggest scaredy cat.  Would it be bad to give myself the shot with no experience?  I'm making myself nervous just thinking about it.

Well I guess 1am is considered Monday. I just did my shot with no one telling me tips on how to give myself a shot so I hope I didn't mess anything up badly. I spent a long time getting the last half mL out of the bottle. I didn't even pay attention to how much I drew out of the bottle. I probably injected my arm with a lot of air because I couldn't get the T out. Then I prepared myself for the slowest shot ever. Slow in, slow out. I put a bandage on it and thought it looked like a big red dot. Turned out that I put the bandage on some random acne on my arm instead. Fixed that. Whee! I did my own shot all by myself! Wait.... why is there still an alcohol wipe here? Oh, I forgot to disinfect my arm first. But I just had a shower like 20 minutes ago? Massive ways to fail on the first try.

 

My injected arm won't stop vibrating. I forget if that's what happened on the first shot too. Okay, going to try and sleep with this hyper arm. 

[Mezzo Forte]

16 hours ago, ChillaKilla said:

OH- was anybody else like 100% sure they were a werewolf because that was totally me

I'm pretty convinced that testosterone made me a werewolf with all the hair and whatnot.  

 

@nerdperson777, it's okay to take shots a little early or late as needed. I actually had to take one shot a week late because of top surgery, and the most that happened was that my energy was a little low. It's natural to be nervous doing your own shots, especially if you miss small details or something unexpected happens. A little air in your T shot isn't enough to do damage, and I imagine that you disinfected most the surfaces before the shot, so even if you forgot to wipe down the arms, you still minimized risk of infection in quite a few other ways. It might help to write down a checklist of things to do for the next shot since you're still new to it.

 

I didn't do my own shot until I was over 7 months on T, and I had a nurse guiding me through several of my early attempts to engrain everything. I had some issues with anxiousness doing my shots for a while after I messed up a shot in February, (pulled out too quick and started leaking testosterone,) but I've found my methods that keep me calm thankfully.

[nerdperson777]

@Mezzo Forte I only used a wipe on the bottle. When I got enough T out, I just went straight to my arm so totally forgot about the wipe.

[Mezzo Forte]

1 hour ago, nerdperson777 said:

@Mezzo Forte I only used a wipe on the bottle. When I got enough T out, I just went straight to my arm so totally forgot about the wipe.

Only spots you usually wipe down are the bottle and injection site. Only other contamination risk involves having the injection needle touch a non-sterile surface before injection, which is sounds like you didn't do either. You should be fine.  

 

The thing I'm bad about remembering is aspirating the needle, but injecting into a vein is 1) incredible rare/unlikely and 2) not deadly even if it does happen. Some doctors don't even bother aspirating. All that happens if you hit a vein is that the T just doesn't really absorb into your system. It's a waste of a shot, but not a big deal otherwise. 

[butterflydreams]

Me: See, but there's this voice in my head that says no one is going to want you because being with you is so much more work. Why bother with all that when there are plenty of real girls out there?

 

My (female) friend: Hadley..."real girls" are just as much of a pain in the ass.

 

 

[Starbogen]

Does anyone feel like you thought you were asexual mainly because of unrecgonized body dysphoria and when you realized that was going on and started thinking about maybe having sex as the gender you actually are, and maybe imagining doing it with the body you feel you should have, suddenly you don't seem as asexual anymore? 

 

I still don't feel like I could quite call myself sexual, maybe I'm kind of grey.. But maybe it's because I thought of myself as asexual for so long. In any case, sex definitely makes more sense when I think about it as a guy. It's not something I would get particularly excited about, but it's not repulsive at all either. When I tried imagining it from the other point of view it was literally unthinkable and made me feel deeply disturbed. Now I can fantasize about it and it can even seem like a pleasureable activity. 

[Was here]

16 hours ago, Liebelit said:

Does anyone feel like you thought you were asexual mainly because of unrecgonized body dysphoria and when you realized that was going on and started thinking about maybe having sex as the gender you actually are, and maybe imagining doing it with the body you feel you should have, suddenly you don't seem as asexual anymore? 

 

I still don't feel like I could quite call myself sexual, maybe I'm kind of grey.. But maybe it's because I thought of myself as asexual for so long. In any case, sex definitely makes more sense when I think about it as a guy. It's not something I would get particularly excited about, but it's not repulsive at all either. When I tried imagining it from the other point of view it was literally unthinkable and made me feel deeply disturbed. Now I can fantasize about it and it can even seem like a pleasureable activity. 

so yes. I mislabeled myself as asexual because I thought being asexual could also mean you hated your genitals and didn't want to have sex with them.

Edited August 1, 2017 by (D)anny

[Iota Tau]

1 minute ago, Liebelit said:

Does anyone feel like you thought you were asexual mainly because of unrecgonized body dysphoria and when you realized that was going on and started thinking about maybe having sex as the gender you actually are, and maybe imagining doing it with the body you feel you should have, suddenly you don't seem as asexual anymore? 

Yes, sort of. I didn't really know about asexuality, but when I figured out my gender and corresponding body (male in every way except "down there"), I got a lot less embarrassed when I got aroused from reading fanfic.

 

Of course, I'm demisexual and have known that since I had the word for it, but still.

[ChillaKilla]

@Liebelit I might have done that with aromanticism... similar to you, I'm probably gray or some other kind of aro-spec identity, but being seen as a girl especially in a heteronormative relationship was absolutely repulsive to me so I figured I was just fully aromantic. But now I have an SO of some sort, so that can't be right! 

[Starbogen]

1 minute ago, ChillaKilla said:

@Liebelit I might have done that with aromanticism... similar to you, I'm probably gray or some other kind of aro-spec identity, but being seen as a girl especially in a heteronormative relationship was absolutely repulsive to me so I figured I was just fully aromantic. But now I have an SO of some sort, so that can't be right! 

I was kind of the oposite with romantic attraction and used to think I was romantic but now I seriously have no idea. Also, I have an SO too and neither of us considers our relationship romantic so just because you're with someone in some way doesn't necessarily mean you're romantic at all. 

[ChillaKilla]

1 minute ago, Liebelit said:

I was kind of the oposite with romantic attraction and used to think I was romantic but now I seriously have no idea. Also, I have an SO too and neither of us considers our relationship romantic so just because you're with someone in some way doesn't necessarily mean you're romantic at all. 

I'm probably a- or quoiromantic... it feels like my ASD makes determining the exact nature of many of my interpersonal relationships nigh impossible  I do dislike saying I'm 'dating' someone (not to mention that we're 'open'), much rather say I have someone who is very important to me and whom I care much about. It's all so weird  People are weird 

[Just Me!]

'They're looking at me strangely! Could I actually be...passing in the AGAB bathroom?

 

Or do I just look strange in general?

 

'

 

[Emery.]

*sigh* I don't even know what would make me satisfied. I feel so sad sometimes that I'm not being a guy but I have to idea what it would mean to me. I have no idea what would make me happy in that aspect. Or what I can do. I have such conflicting strong wants sometimes.