traaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnns
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I would like the input of the experienced and wise trans sages of hexbear.
I've been going through a years long process of gender experimentation that has intensified lately. I feel like something just hasn't clicked for me yet.
There are times when I'm perfectly happy to be a non-gender conforming man, and there are other times when I feel the call of the woman very strongly. There are times when I really like having a beard and getting bigger as I increase my muscle mass. I want to clarify that I like these things. It's not just default to me. But there are other times where these same features (mostly the facial hair) fucking kill me. Then there are other in-between times where I don't feel feminine but I wish I did, and I just get sad that I don't feel that way.
I've been going by she/her at home lately, and sometimes it feels good, and other times it doesn't. Most of the time, it just feels fake (I know this is normal).
Sometimes I really want to try HRT, and other times I'm scared of the permanent changes. While the idea of having a vagina seems cool, I actually don't want to get rid of my penis.
I could be experiencing some kind of bigender or gender fluid thing, but honestly, the emotional whiplash is just exhausting. I'm trying my best to just enjoy who I am at the time, regardless of whether it's masculine or feminine, but this makes me feel like I'm using femininity and womanhood like a costume instead an actual gender identity (okay, now that I'm typing this out, I'm seeing similarities to a lot of other trans people).
Am I having a unique experience, or is this just regular dysphoria stuff? Tbh, I feel kind of fraudulent hanging out here sometimes.
Cw discussion of dysphoria
spoiler
This sounds a bit like gender fluidity. Generally the rule of thumb is to transition to fix your lows for gender fluid people. If you feel suicidal over something, it's better to fix that than to feel good about something later, if that makes sense. Suicide is very permanentBut it's really important to measure how you feel when going about hrt for gender fluid and nonbinary people. I would suggest keeping a journal of your thoughts, what you were doing that day, and see if anything triggers the desire to feel one way or the other. Keep doing this, then if you think you've found a pattern,try something new, and then measure that.
Id like to point out that I'm very binary, but this is advice a genderfluid person I know gave to someone else. In general it seems hellish to me, you never really get rid of dysphoria completely if you are gender fluid.
For me as a trans woman, I never really felt good about my masculine characteristics. Muscularity id argue isn't necessarily one, but beards and so on are. Id even argue feeling fine about your penis is common enough for trans women. I could understand when I looked good to other people, but never felt that way myself, it felt like something was just off about it. It felt like my eyes never had any light in them, I couldn't figure out how to smile naturally, I felt like my skull was weird, my skin felt wrong (like it didn't have enough fat under it or something,or the texture was wrong). I felt kinda perpetually disgusted about all the tiny things T does to you
Thank you for your insight, as always
dysphoria
Not going to lie, I just kept reading this sentence over and over, and I had to get up and walk around because I felt like I was gonna barf. Because yeah, it kind of feels like that. Anyway, that sudden spike in dysphoria is actually instructive for me. I'll follow the signal and reflect on why I feel that way.
I notoriously don't smile. Like, that's a thing about me that people comment on. My wife, unprompted, has said that I just look happier when I'm presenting femme. I smile in the mirror more when I'm femme. Also, random people and friends compliment me when I'm dressed femme. When dressed femme, I get more compliments in a week than I probably ever have in a lifetime of dressing masc. I also just generally feel a wider range of emotions when femme.
I'm also grossed out by a lot of T stuff. My skin, in particular feels wrong. Body hair, etc.
So, I think it's good advice to keep a journal, but I don't see the connection to HRT. Could you explain?
So for some genderfluid people, they can have triggers that cause them to "swap" gender identity. If you measure these things you can find ways to avoid "swapping".
Again, just spit balling here, but measuring your mood, what you did, what seemed to trigger dysphoria, you might figure out if you're that flavor of gender fluid. Your experience is definitely out of the norm for a trans woman, but it could be you have hangups that are cultural too that are confusing it. (Re: muscularity, women with penises) It's possible you could be a lot of things
I think the important thing is to try to measure stuff so you have a more concrete list of things going on. For example I helped a xenogender person irl that seemed to have swaps based on sunlight, turns out the swap was based on vitamin d and taking that helped them stay more towards one identity
That's fucking wild
I don't want to avoid swapping all together because I like the expression, but having more control would be helpful.
Thank you so much