So this is a totally personal question and do not feel obligated to respond, but I noticed you are openly transgender and i was wondering how did you come to the conclusion that you are trans? This may sound totally weird because i don’t know how to put it but i’ve just been trying to figure things out and i’m looking for advice so i know what im doing :)
Honestly, I’ve just never felt like a girl. Not since I was at least 5 or 6, at least.
In elementary school, I always wanted to play with the boys. I wanted to play chase, tag, dinosaurs, whatever. The girls always played boring things, or just walked around and talked. But because I didn’t have phones like they did, or even a computer or iPad, and I wasn’t allowed to watch the things they watched or read the things they read ( due to conservative Christian parents ), I couldn’t relate to them.
I was continuously told I was “unladylike” by my grandmother and informed that if I didn’t play with the girls, I would have no friends in middle school or high school. However, I was taken out of public school by my father for my health, and isolated from any human contact for four years during the pandemic. I quite literally did not talk to a single person besides my father, step-mother, half-sister, and grandparents for F O U R Y E A R S. I was still not allowed any online access until I was 13, and so I just read and read and read. I was always drawn towards male characters, and never female characters. When I created my own characters, it was always male ocs.
Okay so I know this seems like I’m rambling, but THERS IS A POINT I PROMISE.
When I was 13, I was finally allowed to have an iPad, and I got Roblox. I realized I was much happier dressing my character as a boy or androgynous instead of feminine. I always played a male character in any game. When I finally was allowed onto YouTube, I found some pride videos. I was SHOOK. I had been raised with the viewpoint that any lgbtq+ person was evil, of the devil, wrong, nasty, disturbed, ect. I read a book with a gay character when I was 9 and was physically sick for a week due to guilt but never told anyone.
But when I found those videos, I couldn’t help but wonder… why is this bad, again? The people seemed happy, and nice! And I started meeting lgbtq+ people online, talking to them, making friends with them. And they were nice, too! And so supportive!
And slowly, I realized that I wasn’t comfortable being a girl. I didn’t want to wear dresses or skirts or become a housewife and raise babies, the way my grandmother expected me to someday. I didn’t like being called my deadname and she/her. So I started going by my online name of Comet, then Bread, then Deyna.
I discovered what genderfluid was, and settled on that for quite awhile. But I never felt fully female, so then I switched to genderfaunet ( genderfluid but never any female genders ) and then to demi-boy and then agender and then non-binary and then back to genderfluid. I bounced around for a long time, before finally realizing that I just wanted to be a boy; it didn’t matter what label I used, as long as I was referred to as he/they or he/him!
As puberty fucked up my whole body, I also realized that I hated not having a flat chest, narrow hips, and short hair. I started looking at boys with gender envy instead of just budding attraction. I started feeling… angry when I looked in the mirror to see and hourglass figure and long hair and ( 🤢 ) a curvy chest.
When I got together with my now-partner of a year and a half, I started embracing more “feminine” things because my partner really validated my gender :) I didn’t have to dislike all “feminine” things ( skin care, lipstick, facial care, pink but only baby pink because that’s the only shade of pink I like ) just because they’re gendered as for females-only!
And so now I can embrace that sometimes I want to be a femboy :) not always, as sometimes I would rather be a super masculine, with decent muscles and stuff. Other times, I wanna be a frilly femboy wearing pink and white striped thigh highs and a fluffy skirt and tank top ( tho I’d likely never wear that irl, since I’m pre-T and still in the closet )
Basically, I just dabbled around until I found a label that made me feel comfortable. Sure, I can add a ton of micro-labels, and those would fit, too! But trans is a big umbrella, and that’s the term that, at this moment, feels right :)
It’s all about remembering that gender is a spectrum and isn’t stagnant. A label that fits today might not seem right tomorrow, even if nothing about your gender had changed. You just have to figure out what makes you feel good! Hope this helped!