hey, im zak :)

he/him 26 🏳️‍⚧️ just tryna find myself

[trans-zak]

I wish people treated being trans just like being cis. Rather than something to avoid, to try and persuade people out of.

Why is it always treated as the worst case scenario? Why am I always the burden, the person who is ‘less than’ just for existing? Why do I have to hide and be misgendered every day just for other people’s palatability when no cis person has to experience that? I guarantee they wouldn’t like it if someone started misgendering them doggedly 24/7.

Life would be so much easier if we didn’t need to justify our transness, or beg for acceptance, in the same way cis people don’t have to do either of those things. Being cis is just neutral, normal, accepted. I wish being trans could be like that.

[trans-zak]

I’m convinced that my PMDD is linked to being trans and I hate that the only ‘treatment’ is just to take antidepressants rather to transition and stop all this bullshit altogether. Nah, better to shove a bandaid over it and keep me living as a miserable women because that would be better than, heaven forbid, me being trans.

(Also, just gonna leave this disclaimer here for posts relating to this sorta stuff- I can’t take birth control. Trust me, I fucking wish I could. I can’t take the combined ones bc of estrogen and migraines being a stroke risk- not that I want any extra estrogen anywhere fucking near my body in the first place- and I also can’t take progesterone ones because they react REALLY badly with my pmdd and made me su1c1dal. I live in the UK where no doctor gives two flying fucks so there’s little chance to getting anywhere with any other kind of medical intervention. If you have any magical suggestions please feel free, but I just thought I’d copy paste this message as unfortunately it’s not as simple to take birth control to stop ovulation altogether. I also can’t access HRT to transition rn bc trans healthcare in the UK is non existent and I can’t afford to go private so barring a miracle I’m sorta stuck)

[trans-zak]

Just took my first dose of Prozac for PMDD, and I can’t help but feel spiteful that I’m having to take antidepressants for something my body shouldn’t be doing in the first place

EDIT- Read more for disclaimer but tldr, I can’t take birth control

(I can’t take birth control. Trust me, I fucking wish I could. I can’t take the combined ones bc of estrogen and migraines being a stroke risk- not that I want any extra estrogen anywhere fucking near my body in the first place- and I also can’t take progesterone ones because they react REALLY badly with my pmdd and made me extremely su1c1dal for the entire time I was on them. I live in the UK where no doctor gives two flying fucks so there’s little chance to getting anywhere with any other kind of medical intervention. If you have any magical suggestions please feel free, but I just thought I’d copy paste this message as unfortunately it’s not as simple to take birth control to stop ovulation altogether. I also can’t access HRT to transition rn bc trans healthcare in the UK is non existent and I can’t afford to go private so barring a miracle I’m sorta stuck)

[trans-zak]

I think I know what’s triggered this.

I had a bit of a crisis last night, the usual stuff really of despair and knowing I can’t transition and hating myself and my body. And I think as a way of coping with that intense emotion and dysphoria that I can’t solve, my brain has gone into ‘searching for all the reasons I’m not trans’ mode because right now, thinking I might not be trans is an easier option for my brain than dealing with the pain of dysphoria and knowing I’m trans and can’t transition.

Y’know, I’m actually very certain I’m trans. Even if I wasn’t a binary trans man, I’m definitely trans non binary and I’ve long outgrown doubting that part. It’s the trans guy/ wanting hrt part that is so hard to stomach sometimes, because it feels like such high stakes.

After this crisis and then seeing the monstrosity face app made of me, my mind is once again circling over all the reasons I might not be a trans guy.

What if I’m just really attracted to guys and mistaking intense attraction for gender envy? But then again, I’m also attracted to girls, and I don’t get the gender envy from them. But then again, maybe I’m just less attracted to women overall?

What if I just have a hormone imbalance that explains all this? I do have shitty hormones but no doctor has ever bothered to test properly. So what if I was just low on estrogen or something and if it was fixed, I’m not even trans at all? But I don’t want it to be fixed with estrogen, I want testosterone… but maybe if it was fixed, I wouldn’t care…

What if this is just a spill over of the eating disorder I had when I was a teenager? I am much better now but what if that mindset has stayed with me for life and I have somehow chalked up being thin for a masculine (not curvy) physique? The thing is, I’ve said before that I’d be super satisfied in my body right now (even though I’m a little heavier than I’d like to be) if I just could have top surgery. I wouldn’t really care about my weight. So equally, I often considered if dysphoria and puberty were what triggered my ed in the first place.

Those are the main ones but my brain loves to dredge up all kinds of doubts and explanations, anything that gives an alternative to me just not being trans. Maybe it’s internalised misogyny, maybe I’m just doing this for attention? I know it’s stupid, but all the hateful things people have said just rubs off on me.

The confusion stirs up a lot of panic and overwhelm, because if being trans isn’t what’s ’wrong’ with me, what the hell is??

It seems a lot more likely to have the one simple explanation of ‘I’m trans’ rather than all these different random things, when you hear hoofbeats think horses…and talking of that expression, I also have EDS and autism so the genetic link with being trans also seems likely. There are a lot of us lol.

My mind won’t just let me accept that I’m trans, and that there isn’t some huge ‘gotcha’ reason to explain it all neatly in ways that can be fixed. Because I can’t fix being trans. I can’t transition, and it causes so much pain. So my mind searches for things it can fix, so that maybe this isn’t it, maybe I don’t have to suffer like this.

Everyone else just seems to certain, so assured in their identity. I know that’s just the internet, but all I see are people proudly and loudly embracing their identity, being able to transition, being respected and validated, even if that’s not by everyone right now. I have none of that. I’m just alone, and stuck and ashamed of myself for being this way when it would be so, so much easier if I weren’t. This doesn’t get me anywhere. I can’t transition, so I’m what, just a miserable egg who will never know what it feels like to be free of this cage.

[trans-zak]

No but guys please help

I used the gender swap function in face app and now I legit hate myself. It made me such a fucking ugly meathead like WHAT that’s what I look like as a man???

I’m literally not even joking. I’m crashing out right now. What if I’m not trans? Cuz I’d rather look like I do right now than that. It legit make me look like a s3x 0ffender doing life in prison 😭😭

I only ever see people saying how dysphoric it made them- seeing their true self for the first time- but I am just horrified and confused. I was pretty certain I’m trans (I mean, I still defo am to an extent) but WHAT? Maybe HRT isn’t for me 🥴

I tried so many different photos. I even tried it on other people in my camera roll and it looks fine on them!!!

Maybe there’s nothing wrong with it. Maybe I just didn’t like how I looked as a man? Maybe I’m not trans???

W, and I cannot stress this enough, TF.

[trans-zak]

You know what's great about being a trans guy with PMDD who also can't access HRT?

I never get one fucking second of reprieve from this monthly hell cycle. I swear to god.

After I ovulate, I get hit with intense PMDD that makes me feel like a shell of a person, like the world is falling apart and I want to die.

When I bleed, I feel like I've been hit by a truck physically and get intense dysphoria AND the PMDD. I don't need to explain that.

Just when that is over, the week after, I get hit with a bunch of hormonally driven migraines that go on for literal days at a time and don't respond to medication.

Then I ovulate and the WHOLE FUCKING THING STARTS AGAIN.

I say this as that's where I'm at right now as clearly the PMDD is PMDDing so it's begun. I can't quite believe that I'm already back here after literally just having been through it! Do you wanna know how many days' break I got? Not even one!

Can't access HRT.

Not allowed to take combined BC because of migraines with aura making it a stroke risk

Can't take progesterone-only BC because PMDD is driven by my body basically rejecting progesterone (tell me again how that's not an intersex variant but ok). I've tried before, and the whole point is that it sticks you right in the PMDD hell phase, which literally made me suicidal, so that's not safe either. Oh, and not to mention I gained 20kg of weight on it too! (which I have now lost) which isn't fun for anyone, but as someone who was hospitalised in the past with an ED, yeah I found that quite difficult.

What the fuck do I do? I just want it to stop! But I feel like I have absolutely no control over my body. It feels like there's truly no way out. Every time I think about it, desperate to find a solution, I'm just reminded that I'll never outrun it, I'll never escape from it.

Even if I got on T, I'm not sure that I want to be on a full dose forever, and even if I was, that wouldn't necessarily even stop it either. Regardless I'd still really need a hysto anyway, and there's fat chance of getting that on the NHS. I won't even be able to get HRT, or top surgery on the NHS, not for another at least 10 years on the waiting list.

I swear to god I wish I could just rip all these fucking parts out of me and put a stop to this. I didn't consent to this.

[trans-zak]

Does anyone else just vaguely feel like they're...drowning

Since coming to the realisation that I am a trans guy around 6 months ago, I've just felt myself fall further and further into a pit of despair.

I can't medically transition. I can't afford to do it privately, and access to public healthcare in the UK will probably take me over 10 years. I'm already 26, which I know people will say 'isn't late', but it feels late to me. I feel such grief that I will never know what it would have felt like to experience boyhood, to live my early adulthood, or even my 20s and probably 30s, as a guy. I will have wasted half my life, my good years, as someone I am not. As a woman.

I am exhausted. I am so, so fucking tired. I feel like no one understands how bad it is, how suffocating it is. To live like this, knowing now what has been wrong all my life, and completely powerless to do anything about it. If anything, it's worse.

I'm supposed to try to distract myself, to 'stop caring' about being seen as a woman, that if I know who I am on the inside, that it shouldn't matter. But the thing is, I'm tired. Tired of keeping up this fucking charade of lies.

The alternatives are antidepressants. I can access those, but not the care I really need. Here, let's put a shitty plaster over what's breaking you whilst you're falling apart, like it's my fault I feel this way and not just the fact that I was born in the wrong body. Something that could be fixed, not numbed, if only I could access the right healthcare.

It's like I'm just supposed to be fine with my whole life being wasted right in front of my eyes, and I'm supposed to just watch that happen and somehow crack a smile about it. Be patient. Don't overthink it.

I'm so tired of trying. What's the point in bothering, painstakingly binding my chest until I'm having panic attacks, feeling like I can't breathe, or my skin is weeping and torn from the tape. What's the point in deliberating on what clothes I can wear that I deem masc enough, when none of it matters, none of it changes the fact that I am Very Clearly A Woman and will never be anything else, not without HRT. It doesn't matter how masc my shorts are, my vest with my binder showing out the side. None of it hides my body, my curves.

I'm sick of trying. I'm fed up. I wish so painfully I could just be the good little woman everyone wants me to be. Wouldn't that be so much easier? I tried so hard at that too, but I'm just trapped either way.

[trans-zak]

It’s hot, I’ve soaked through the front panel of my binder, my back is absolutely slick with sweat, and when I cool down and just miserably soaking wet for hours afterwards

I tried wearing a breathable compression top round the house for a sensory break but to stop my chest touching my body and I look like Mrs fucking Trunchbull

I’ve ripped skin off my chest and am now covered in deroofed blisters because I had the audacity to leave my tape on overnight for ONE NIGHT even though you’re literally supposed to wear it for multiple days anyway but my skin apparently can’t tolerate it for longer than a few hours at a time

I am fucking SICK OF IT. I am so fed up of being stuck in this body, suffering like this and no one fucking gets it. No one understands. I feel so gross and disgusting and subhuman, mentally and physically. Knowing there is something out there that could magically fix this massive burden on my life once and for all, that I’d never have to think about it ever again, but I can’t afford it? It fucking breaks me. It feels like the universe saying fuck you, you deserve to suffer like this.

[trans-zak]

So my parents have known I'm non-binary for a while (I'm actually a trans guy, but haven't told them yet) and pretend to be accepting

The first question they ever asked me about it was 'what do you think about school children identifying as cats and requesting access to litter trays', which is a BAD start comparing being trans and... that, as obviously it has nothing to do with it

Oh and every time I bring up something related to being trans like top surgery (I'm in the very early process of trying to get) they will LEGIT just go silent and not say anything at all and change the subject

Anyway, what I wanted to say was, idk wtf they think nonbinary is but what IRKS me to death is the continued usage of ALL the gendered things, the constant she/her, the continued deadnaming even though they know I changed my name, referring to me as their 'daughter'...

They never ask about any of this stuff. I feel like they just think it's a preference thing for them to choose not to bother with any of it. Like nonbinary is still basically the same to them as being a woman.

Maybe it would make more of a firm statement if I did tell them I was a trans guy, seems like it would be harder for them to pretend to get confused then, but at the same time, if they can't even get this right, me being the whole opposite gender seems a step even further for them to wrap their heads around.

I really wanna just be like 'please stop calling me your daughter' or 'please stop she/her-ing me' or at least like ask me how I feel about it before assuming, given I've very clearly explained to you that I. Am. Not. A. Woman.

Talking of- my mum also called me FUCKING SPIDER WOMAN- when spider man was right there? But no, she literally changed it from what it is actually called, to the female version...

It's like they're fine with it so long as it doesn't inconvenience them at all

[trans-zak]

When it comes to pronouns I don’t even know how to seperate what I want vs what is realistic/ gonna get me least bullied/ most respected

What I’d LOVE would be he/him but I don’t feel like I can ask for that still looking completely like a woman with long hair and pre t and pre everything

They/them is the most I feel I could possibly get away with. But I don’t personally love those pronouns, they’re not fully me. But they’re 100% better than she/her

I can try and ask for they/he, is less provocative, and it is nice to at least get my actual preferred pronouns in even as an afterthought that I know everyone will ignore, but at that point I feel like the he/him part is just seen as a joke when I clearly am not, a he

He/they feels better. With my preferred pronouns at the forefront, making it clear who I am. I am happy to accept they/them as an alternative considering I know most people would struggle to he/him me pre transition as I am. But it’s still not… right. But maybe the best option for now.

Who am I kidding. All I EVER have been called is she/her. I can list on one hand the amount of times ANY pronouns except she/her have been used for me, whether they were my preferred pronouns or not. Anything is better than she/her.

The only time I’ve ever had my actual pronouns (he/him) used, was once, totally at random, by someone on reddit where my account is totally anonymous so no one would know either way

[trans-zak]

Had a dream where I came out and everyone just immediately saw me as guy instead of a mentally ill woman and wow that was nice

[trans-zak]

Hot weather as a trans guy is the worst

I’m just staying at home today and binders are too thick and too long to wear underneath normal clothes so I’ve got on this gross little super tight bra thing which is the least fabric for the most squish but

a) it fucking hurts because it’s so small the band is cutting into my ribs and the straps are digging into my shoulders

b) having any kind of boob bulge and wearing a muscle vest just is NOT the vibe. Idk how women do it and look lovely but I just look fucking gross

-

I am on a long and arduous journey to fix my relationship with taping but my skin gets super irritated from it and I can’t wait it any longer than like 12 hours at a time and my deflated saggers need an entire fucking roll to themselves each to lift them up from inside my lap to get them anywhere near reasonable

My latest development has been buying super sensitive gentle k tape and using only one small piece on either side to spread the boys and a binder on top. That has worked surprisingly well, means I can get away with a size bigger binder, but yesterday I tried it as I always do to go climbing and had a mental breakdown because even after retaping again, something was going hella wrong because I looked WIDE and fucking deformed. The sports binder I wear over the tape is less of a binder and more of a a shit sports bra but without the tape the lads would fall straight out the bottom

Anyway. None of this solves binders in hot weather, because I have to wear a binder OVER the tape. So this brings me back to, maybe I could try JUST tape in very hot weather, but Jesus Christ finding a way to make my chest look somewhat normal, if not entirely flat, with tape is like fucking origami.

Oh and I refuse to use nipple covers because for some reason they irritate me more than anything, and I’m not keeping those sons of bitches anyhow they can fuck off when I finally get the boobs lopped off. I hate my nipples lol, I don’t want them on me resized or not. My skin is so fucked and stretchy that the tape just kinda pulls my skin over my nipples and makes like lil nipple sandwiches anyway.

[trans-zak]

I hate being perceived as a masculine women, because even though people would probably feel that the ‘masculine’ is at least a step in the right direction, it actually couldn’t feel further away. It literally feels like the polar opposite.

I’m not a masculine woman. I’m a feminine man.

I mean, not that there’s really anything remotely feminine about me, I have to clarify because calling myself a feminine ANYTHING rn feels dysphoric but like, you get me? A fruity, gender non conforming, genderqueer man.

[trans-zak]

You know what’s really unfair is having hella defined pecs which make me so proud and euphoric but then having a massive saggy chest underneath them ruining it all

Man my chest would be so flat and defined if I could get top surgery :( could finally get that twink climber build instead of having all this fat squished up in a binder making me top heavy

[trans-zak]

Trans pride is here tomorrow (idk why we never seem to do pride in actual pride month lol) and I ✨will not✨ be attending

Not because I don’t want to, but because I would feel like an actual joke attending as a man trapped in a woman’s body who is actually aware he is trans and completely helplessly unable to do anything about it

Not being able to access transition is physically painful, and tbh I don’t feel like I have anything to be proud of

Of course, I am so proud of all my trans siblings. But to see all those people living their authentic selves whilst I am still miserably trapped in the closet, I think it would just hurt more

[trans-zak]

I just finished paying off my loan from when we were homeless a few years ago, and my credit score has never been better. It went up 17 fucking points last month and it’s literally like, in the best category, which has NEVER happened

Buttt still have some credit card debts to pay off, and won’t financially be in the position for me to take out another loan for my top surgery until next year :’)

Even then, there’s no guarantee I’ll be accepted for a loan. Which, I can’t even bare to think about. It’s the only fucking way I’m ever going to be able to afford it.

Basically things are still shit. I’m still suffering, still waiting. And the urge to just say fuck it and apply for a loan right now whilst my credit is good and actually know what it’s like to experience a life where I don’t hate my body with every fibre of my being every minute of the day, to experience freedom, it’s overwhelmingly tempting.

I know it’s such a terrible way to see the world but I can’t help but feel like all this time waiting is just wasted. Wasted life, waiting to transition, to be free. Waiting to live.

[trans-zak]

Such a niche situation but damn this triggered my dysphoria so bad

Idk how many of you are familiar with Invincible (the comics/ TV show)

Myself and my partner were talking to our friends today about which characters we’d be today (and like Halloween costumes and such) and they were like OMG we were talking about who you two would be!

I immediately braced myself internally like oh fucking god. They don’t know I’m trans. They think I’m a woman. This is gonna be bad.

It was :’)

They said my partner would be Robot and I was like hell yeah, sick choice.

A part of me was like, surely? Surely they know me well enough? Surely it would make so much sense to say I’d be *literally ANY male character* instead of a female character. Because how could they ever think I would be any of the female characters. I had a sudden, fleeting moment of hope. It’s not so outlandish that they might accidentally affirm me. I’m very masc, after all (I wonder why)

Who am I?

I’m monster girl :’)

How can I tell them, I wanna be fucking MARK GODDAMMIT