Y’know, I didn’t even know it was TDOV today, and I heavily considered just not doing anything for it until now (’specially since my story’s kinda boring).
Growing up, I hated dresses and skirts, let’s just get that out of the way. Anything really girly, I hated, but I always liked pink (it was kind of my assigned color by my mom, my sister’s assigned color was purple). I was way more comfortable with male friends than female friends, I hated being “lady-like” (crossing my legs, posture, manners, etc.), and when I lived with the white side of my family, I played outside a lot, sometimes barefoot, I loved playing with bugs (until my ex-uncle threw a bigass beetle at me when I was 3), and I didn’t care about getting dirty (living in the country at that time, getting dirty was just unavoidable). I just thought of myself as a tomboy, and never had a problem with it
I didn’t really start questioning my gender until two years ago, when I started feeling uncomfortable(/dysphoric) about my body, but I never told anyone caus e I was too scared too. I didn’t really come to terms with myself until around Christmas I think, and the only person I told was my sister. She was perfectly fine with it and even helped me some more. I stuck with identifying as genderfluid but I still don’t really know if that’s really what I am. My sister helped me come up with AJ for my name (the “A” standing for Amber, my birth name, and the “J” standing for the name I would’ve gotten had I been born male: Jonothan-Michael), but I don’t know if I’ll keep it.
Being misgendered all the time, having the wrong name used most of the time, my mom still having trouble accepting my identity (baby steps, I guess), stuff like that does make me feel dysphoric a lot, but I’m happier than I used to be knowing that some people really do accept me, no matter to what extent it might be, and I’m really thankful for that. I’m still trying to find out about myself, but for now I’m alright.
