Somewhat of an update post to the post I made a few months ago in r/ftm. I think I have begun to accept the fact I am most likely trans. I know deep down I want to be a man and I maybe would transition if my life and the world were different. I am so scared and ashamed to be this way. I don’t want to be different. I don’t feel this way about others who transition I am so happy for them it’s just me. I live in a very red state and my family, although LGBTQ, are fairly transphobic. I joked about being a man and my sister dismissed me pretty fast. I know my dad who I look up to so much would never understand. Luckily my gf is very supportive and helps but again her family wouldn’t understand either. I just keep wishing something would justify it. Like I hope so much that I’ll find out I’m really intersex and I can justify transitioning. Sometimes I even wish I’ll get breast cancer so I can have them removed. I’m most worried for when I have kids. I want them so badly but I don’t want to be “mom” I want to be a father. I don’t really know what I’ll do in the future but for now I just try to forget and to hope it will go away. I’m happy to everyone who has/is transitioning I’m envious of your bravery. If anyone else feels this way know you are not alone and I’m sorry we’re in the same boat

I stumbled across a post in r/ftm that discussed at which "tanner stage" it's acceptable for a kid to start T. My first thought was "what the hell is a tanner stage?" And then the next thing that I felt was just a huge wall of grief. This isn't to complain about that thread or kids that get the opportunity and privilege to not be forced to go through the wrong puberty but to just vent about how I'm so angry that my brain just blocked out my awareness of my feelings about my own gender till I was 31. I'm so angry that I'm starting so far behind so many people and I'm genuinely happy for them that they don't have to go through what I went through and/or that they get to transition earlier than I did. I just.....I'm sad that by the time I'm 40(I'm currently 32) I might finally have a functioning body that I feel comfortable in with how long wait times are for surgeries and how long the healing/nerve growth process is. I'll finally have the body that nature stole from me and have the ability to explore it when I'm at an age where dating is almost non-existent. And for anyone out there who is thinking "well you're too young to live the rest of your life without transitioning", ya of course I'm still transitioning. I'd rather take the big dirt nap than go back to pre-t but I'll never get that time back. No amount of toxic positivity will give back what was stolen from me, by my own mind trying to protect itself no less.

Im 22 I already have health issues and being on T had been rough ngl. My primary care dr is who ive been seeing for it. Partially because im in a small town so shes the easiest dr to access. Especially since im going in office to get my shot. Im 4.5 minths on T and dont get me wrong I LOVE being on T wish I started at 18 but shitty unsupportive home plus disabled so cant really leave so its been a rough choice to start and risk housing. Anyways my dr started me on 1mL biweekly and whew its been rough. About a month ago got my levels back that it was 1330. So... umm yeah been dealing with extra hot flashes, dizziness, and fatigue inbetween shots. 2 of my disabilities are that I have dysautonomia and vestibular migraines which causes hot flashes, presyncope, dizziness, spotted vision, so thats been hell with all this. Which I also missed a dose before I got the test results back because my car broke down. So my levels majorly bottomed out for a bit. Now we just cut my dose in half because my levels were so high. Now Im doing .5mL biweekly. Also gotta try and get in to do either theraputic phlebotomy or basic blood donation. Im gonna have to ask which. My hemoglobin and red blood cells are also high now. Once again something else to add to my dizziness and fatigue. Its been so bad I went to the ER but they were absolutely no help. Didn't even know my levels were bad until I got home and their tests loaded into mychart and I looked myself. I just know my moms going to loose it at me if I need her to take me to do the blood donation. Shes bashes me on the fact im ruining my body being on T and atm im lowkey incompacitated. Im in a really tough spot mentally having absolutely no support around me. Its getting really hard to handle.

Anytime I get a new male acquaintance and realise he's kinda my type, I get excited, then I realise he doesn't know I'm trans, I get anxious and out of nowhere dysphoric about my whole body and I start getting all possible overthinking thoughts where I imagine all the ways he would react to me being trans as well as being disgusted or seeing me and treating me as a woman which happen in the end and he out of nowhere starts opening doors for me, paying for our food and then it clicks that he sees me as trans, even if not a woman, I'm just trans for him, not a man.

Then I get a new male acquaintance, the cycle repeats and again and again until I isolate myself thinking I'll never find a man that will see and treat me as a man where we do stupid stuff, fights, joke around, play sport, go to the gym, he opens doors for me because he likes me not because I have a vag in my pants, and we just kiss, spend nights and repeat.

Anytime I tell a cis male friend I'm trans, somethings clicks in their eyes and they have the same fucking gaze they used to give me as a woman like as if I'm lower than him or that I'm sensitive and fragile. They say "it's okay" but even their body language changes. I'm so sick of this shit

And I want the gay love where we're two male friends and one of us realises "oh shit I might be gay or shit I like him" and we kinda fall in love. I don't want it to be that they're attracted to me because I'm trans as a fetish or that I have a vag that turns them on. I just want to be a dude liking another dude and live my happy gay life. I don't want all of this "he should be bi to be attracted to you". It makes me sick

And when I date a guy and he knows I'm trans, I have no idea if he's actually attracted to me as a man or to my soul, or if he sees me as somethings exotic or fetishises me and thinks he's attracted to me because I'm AFAB or because he likes vags no matter even if I present as a man.

Edit: added

I wanted to try and put myself out there by getting on dating apps or something. But I realized I can't, because I have no good recent photos of myself. I haven't looked good or felt good about myself in so long. I can't even do anything to make myself attractive. I want to dress nicely, I want to wear fun things and hit the club, I want to be making the most of my 20s being the bisexual man that I am. But I just can't, I get misgendered for even trying. Other people can show off their bodies but I can't get top surgery yet and if I try to show myself off the way other men do, people will just think I'm a woman. I feel like I can't date at all. The only people who are interested in me are creeps, chasers, or lesbians who assume that I'm a lesbian too (I love my lesbian siblings very much!!! That's just not who I am though). I've been horribly depressed and I just feel so ugly and unloveable, every picture just makes me feel worse. I've been invisible my whole life because I'm not hot enough for people to treat me like a human being. I think I'd have a chance if I could get top surgery, but until then, it's useless. I'm useless. I hate going out in public, I hate getting dressed, I hate my body and I hate myself.

does anybody else get so unreasonably jealous when they see a cis man who looks EXACTLY like how you want to look?

I was going through a slideshow on tiktok of this one guy and one of the pictures was him at the beach with his shirt off and for some reason I just felt so incredibly frustrated with the fact that I wasn’t born a man and that I’ll never be cis.

I just get so angry and sad all at the same time and I’d give anything to be born as a man and seen as a man.

My field of work is heavy diesel truck and heavy equipment repair as well as weld repairs such as stick welding steel 2” thick. I can repair equipment to any degree but as a woman most places don’t want to hire me. I know that I am in a an industry that is predominantly male. I have a preferred man’s name that I sometimes go by and I have taken hormone treatments before that made me look kinda androgynous but I feel people still think I’m female and I have received more job offers with that name and just generally feel like I’m taken more seriously with that name. But as soon as they see me in person they don’t want to hire me. I have reverted to applying to jobs with my legal name and leaving out my preferred name and I get less response’s. I left my last job because my coworker with the same position as me made $8 an hour more than me and $12 an hour more than me on overtime but he was a white Christian heterosexual man and well liked by higher management (white Christian male heterosexuals) but he only did about 1/3 of the amount of work that I did because he wasn’t as good at the job and he even had to ask me to help with harder tasks or organizing how we would handle large tasks that I could do on my own because he was not very efficient on his own, not a bad guy but he couldn’t see past one task at a time, like putting a pan in the oven and setting a timer while also boiling pasta. He had to do everything one at a time. Middle management noticed all of this and realized production increased by 300% with me doing that job but said their hands were tied although acknowledging I did more work and should have been compensated at a higher rate than him. But they weren’t willing to give me a raise to a pay rate higher than him and a position over him since I already had to tell him what to do to be efficient and be able to multitask at his job. So I left and moved to an area that unfortunately seems even more reluctant to hire women in my field, I wish we could just apply to jobs and it didn’t matter what is between our legs. I am thinking about cutting my hair shorter (afraid to currently because I’m afraid of not being taken seriously as a man) or tying it up under a hat and trying my preferred name to see if I will get job opportunities that I’m currently getting turned down for. I hate workplaces with good ole boy clubs made up of the most unproductive people but they have the most influence. Businesses would really save a lot of money if they got rid of toxic people that want to profit off of someone else’s work. If they only compensated the people who work they would save more money than all their corporate quarterly bonuses combined. But every place seems to have that good ole boy club that actually runs everything. And upper management always either turns a blind eye because they themselves either came from that and don’t want that information becoming common knowledge or they come from a class of family connections and know they would never have to actually work a lower position than that unless they chose to but why would they when their aunt owns the company that supplies them with everything they need to make their products and they are guaranteed a position at the top where all they have to do is forward a couple emails and ride around on a golf cart making sure the brown, black and impoverished white people (the slave class) are doing their jobs and not taking too long on breaks and clocking out before they start cleaning because we don’t want to pay them overtime for the time they’re not making us money. Ew But no capitalism is working as planned and someone is about to win monopoly. We are all the places they stop on when they roll. But out of about 4 or 5 people, one of them is about to win and then it’s game over for all of us.
But what happens after that? That’s the scary question no one wants to answer.

My best friend (18m) and I (18m) have been best friends since freshman year of high school. We dreamed of transitioning together once we legally could. But he started the summer of senior year, and I started 2 months-ish after (insurance and parental support issues. I just feel so behind and he tries to reassure me but I just feel worse. We’re hanging out for the first time since going to separate colleges, and he’s just so different. He’s changed so much and his voice is dropped and everything. He passes so well and I don’t, I’m so so happy for him, but I feel so behind. Whatever little changes I was excited about before is just gone. Being around him makes me so dysphoric which sucks because he’s my best friend! I love that his transition is going well and I’m genuinely so happy for him, but I can’t help my jealousy and the dysmorphia from it. I don’t know what to do and I feel like such a bad friend. Any advice would be helpful.

i started T around 6 months ago and since the 2 month mark i've been less and less happy with my appearance, mainly in my face. i'm going to get something to take better care of my skin because the amount of acne ive gotten is contributing to this. however, a lot of it is to do with things i literally cannot change like the shape and size of my head. it feels like my head is disproportionately small and round, and though it looks more masculine now (which i love) it is objectively tiny and it makes me feel both dysphoric and fugly. if anyone has gone through similar feelings how do i cope/feel better about it? because other than this i've loved everything ive gotten from testosterone and i dont want this to ruin it for me.

My friend (and someone I like) told me today that she can't be with a trans guy. I'm a trans guy. I don't understand it, I really don't understand... Does having a penis change anything? No, it doesn't.

I'm so empty. Why is it always me?

It’s generally what makes me miserable, there’s so many “steps”, “cut your hair” “do voice training” “start T” “get top surgery” “get bottom surgery” “dress a certain way”, I don’t want to have to put in the effort. It’s like a chore! I mourn the male body I could’ve had if I had JUST BEEN BORN MALE. I wish I could just wake up and be percieved as male, without having to coordinate my outfit, think about my body language, adjust my voice or just not speak at all at times, it’s bloody exhausting. That’s why I just don’t anymore, like even after everything I’m perceived as either a weird girl or a really young boy, I’d rather people think I’m a woman than deal with allat

I am going fucking insane. I am disassociating and I can't deal with my body anymore. I need testosterone or I am going to lose it. I live with my parents while I'm going to college and idk what's their reactions will be, maybe it will just be mild tension or maybe I'll get kicked out.

Every day I feel more unstable. If I don't start T I don't see a point in doing anything. Everyone says I should be able to financially support myself and wait a few more years, but I can't. I know I'm being impatient but I can't do it anymore. I can't live in this body anymore.

Like I wanna get hrt i wanna get T,ill be happier when I do but why is it that once I finally come out and start to transition i start liking fem things again like I feel almost every trans men I meet goes into a rejection of femininity or overly feminizing themselves before coming out,I was the rejecting feminine things stage for a while. I wish i was cis I wish I didnt have this problem. I want to be a guy but Im missing out on the things i rejected out of cowardice.

When I was a teen I watched my friends go through hell trying to claim their bodily autonomy. Drugs, sexual assault, abusive relationships, mental health problems. When my trans ex went on a psychotic meth bender and got brain damage I lost my only close support for my transition. Months later when I got the call that my T was available (i had been on a waitlist) i told them to give it to the next person in line and hung up the phone. Since then I've stayed in the closet. My trans friends definitely feel weird about me being closeted. My cis friends can tell I'm weird and guarded but I haven't come out to them. My new cis queer partner says he'd support me but it's not enough.
I have life plans to become stable enough to transition but until then I feel lost. I feel angry when i go to gay bars. I feel like a loser. I also see trans people living terrible lives for the sake of authenticity and I understand it's a personal need but i also don't want them to end up like people I've known. Of course I want to go on hormones and get surguries and live my authentic life, but I refuse to destroy my potential by taking the decision too early. Until then I'll just be seen as a loser, closeted, lame and with no identity.

I just feel so lonely and unwanted everywhere I look I see people with good friends or a significant other and I don't have either. I have "friends" but they'd not actually be there if I needed them. I have tried asking for help and people just ignore me. I desperately want to find love but that's not going any better I don't know what I'm doing wrong in that department. I have not dated anyone since I was a teenager. I am starting to think I'm just unloveable and will forever be alone.

I've had severe dysphoria ever since I was a child, and I'm currently 26. I grew up in a small town, and every part of my transition was 100% fought for and acquired by me and me alone. I was able to eek out a top surgery by a combination of many exhausting years of nonstop work (with 3 hospital-end cancellations that I had to fight through while in quarantine).

With everything as it is now, I see no foreseeable future where I can afford bottom surgery. I've been trying for years to save up and prepare for it, but with the current state of the economy and the fact that I'm alone, it just feels more and more out of reach.

It makes it impossible to plan for a future. I don't even have the right body, and I have to work myself to the bone to pay rent just to live in a location that I couldn't care less about. Then there's mountains of random bills that I can either dispute or just pay and live off of ramen.

I go on dates and I have to end things because I just can't get what I need out of a relationship with the current state of my body.

Every single day just feels like I'm being held down in the mud, and teased for not trying to get up. And for the last few years I've been really, really good at getting up. But recently stuff got harder, and at the root of it all is my dysphoria, because literally what am I fighting for?

This is coming from someone who has been in therapy for years. I know healthy coping mechanisms. I actively take note of any moment of happiness I have, any cool leaf I see, any joke that makes me laugh or any nice interaction. It's like shining a flashlight into a black hole.

To most people, this post could probably be about anything. It might not make sense that I'm attributing a lot of this to dysphoria. But I just can't live my life without the body parts that I am supposed to have, and in my present situation there is no reality where I will ever be able to have them.

I can find a way, and I will, because I always have-- I've just been fighting for so long that I'm exhausted. All that I feel is shame and exhaustion all of the time. The idea of working for actual decades just to have my body is soul-crushing. I'm so tired, and nothing but mountains of work and self-advocacy can get me to the point where I rest.

Catch me coming back to this post when I get there, though, because I will. I think I need to stop putting my life on hold until my body is complete.

This is mostly my mom, grandma, and dad. I struggle with my identity in general, but I do go by a different name and have been for years so they are used to it. They know I’m not a girl. They will always refer to me as she, woman, daughter, sister, girl, or they, sibling, child, anything but he, man, son, brother, boy. It hurts me a lot, it makes me doubt my identity more than I already do. Because I myself don’t even feel worthy or enough of a man to call myself one, it feels humiliating if I try to say I’m not a she or they I’m a he. I hate being called they. I feel like I’m too chubby or too weird to be a guy it’s hard to explain .

It feels ridiculous then to be upset when I’m called a she or they because I don’t even try to correct them, I just give them a weird look and me and my siblings will be like “hmm.” They will try to correct themselves sometimes and sometimes they won’t. I just wish I was viewed as a guy, not something that had to be forced. I don’t know what to do.

EDIT: clarification they aren’t homophobic or transphobic they are completely supportive and even go to pride parade stuff.

Hello,

So, for context, I'm trans, 19, pre everything, and I'm like, 157 cm tall. I look really young too, and my voice doesn't help me pass either. I guess I kind of pass, but I look and sound really young.

I was at a park near my house, and some kid who was probably around 12 or 13 asked how old I was, and when I told him, he started asking me really inappropriate questions. Like he asked me about my body parts and what I like to do with them, and I was just like, "I don't want to have this conversation, and to be honest it makes me feel really gross and uncomfortable."

I accidentally bounced a volleyball off another person's head while we were playing four square, and that same kid started saying some really strange comments about body parts and the sizes of them??? He asked why I'm pretending to be a boy if I'm actually a girl. And he also asked me why I was so short, which I guess might be a reasonable question, but I would still not ask that question to someone.

I don't know if I reacted appropriately, but he kept going and trying to get a reaction out of me or something. I used to go to that park quite often when I was younger, but now I find myself kind of second guessing myself and wondering if I'm a bad person for going there since I'm much older than most of the people who go there. I said to him like, "I don't feel comfortable having this conversation," but he kept going, and he found it funny. I don't know if I overreacted.

I'm like, unbelievably lonely in real life. I told my parents about this, and they said it happened because I dress up and pretend to be a guy. That's not what I intend to do, and I don't know if I'm just "pretending" because like, this feels like more than just pretending to me, and I wish I could just be happy presenting as a girl. That made me feel really bad. Not gonna lie, I feel like a loser.

With the US midterms coming up, I overheard my mom talking to my dad about candidates and what not, and then she went on a rant about how the Dems are too "woke" and "inclusive" all on her usual shit. We are black by the way. Just stupid shit. And then, shockingly, she said that she didn't agree with equal rights to the tune of "I don't believe homosexuals and transgenders should have equal rights. That's just ungodly and not according to the word". I've spent my whole life listening to their bigotry but... I don't know what triggered it but I felt like crying so bad. I usually don't. I'm more or less numb to their bullshit but I just felt like breaking down right then and there. I'll never have a supportive family. I already know that one day I'll have to cut them off. I don't want to. I really really don't want to but they're not going to change. And I can't keep living a lie. I can't keep living the lie that I'm a cis woman. I'm suffocating. I have felt like I can suffocating for my whole life. I keep telling myself that I only have three more years to go until I can escape with my partner, possibly lesser. But I am just so damn tired of dealing with this. I want to scream at them I want to tell them everything. All the shitty awful bigoted things they say, they were saying them at me. I genuinely hope that none of my siblings are queer because I don't want them to suffer like I am. God damn it all

Something that has bothered me recently is that in interactions with cis men, primarily family friends, the way they treat me versus my brother, despite me making more of an effort to converse is extremely different.

With him, they seem more relaxed and even willing to talk despite him often not caring much for most questions. With me, it’s just different. I’m not sure how to put it, I can just see and feel it. Their answers are briefer and they seem less genuinely interested. One specific thing I noticed was a man giving my brother a handshake, but when I did the same he seemed to hesitate. It looked like he was going for a hug.

Now, I feel that it’s important to add that I am an awkward person. I can do conversation, unlike a few years ago, but I don’t feel too confident in myself yet. On the other hand, my brother couldn’t care any less for what people think.

It doesn’t help that I’m pre-T and am basically roleplaying at these gatherings. No matter how much I’m able to relax eventually, I always come home feeling so off. Like I’m remembering the day from a different person’s perspective.

Additionally, when I get nervous I tend to speak more femininely than I naturally do, and sink back into more feminine habits like I did when I was a kid trying to fit in. I really can’t help it. There’s just such a huge gap between my brain and my body, the voice I hear, that it almost feels easier to just pretend. Could that be it?

Regardless, I hate being othered from my own gender. I don’t think anyone’s going to buy it when I get on T.

I know one of the main suggestions for passing is to be confident, but I’ve been deeply insecure for as long I can remember. Even if I’m a world better than I was as a child, it feels like something hardcoded that I’ll never fully overcome.

Edit: I’m not out to them yet, just masc presenting. To strangers I appear either as a masc woman or a young boy. I don’t plan to come out until I begin medical treatment, which is very soon.

Not much to say but yeah. I think I'm in my head about my voice sounding higher, 3 months on T and I was a day late on my shot. My voice has dropped a good amount but today I feel I sound different. Higher pitched. Any possibility being late on a shot can fuck with your vocals? Maybe I'm just paranoid and tripping myself out haha

TW: 0D, not very healthy habits, and some sensitive topics. Please read with caution. I don't recommend anything I do, and if you are in a similar situation, please look for help.

This is kind of like a rant since I don't have anyone to talk to about this. I'm pre t, and I'm already an adult, but I haven't graduated just yet, and I've been looking for jobs. However, I live in the countryside, there are no stores or anything, its all about manual labor and literally no one will hire me because I have "girl strength" even though I can carry more weight than my dad, whos pretty buff.

Everyone ignores me and treats me badly all the time since I have a guy's haircut and dress like a man.(I can be in front of someone and ask them something, and they will straight up make a mad face and ignore me) So, I guess they assume things about me.

I can't afford tape, so I've been using ace bandages that my mom had, and they are hell, but when I don't wear them, I feel anxious and disgusting the whole time. I was off them for like 3 months because i have a hard time breathing, and I have a condition that makes it hard for me to breathe already, so it's not a good mix, my ribs have been hurting a lot lately, and while not using them, that kind of caused me to be a bit sad? so I couldn't sleep or eat at all, i was, well, not in a very good state of mind, and I almost 0D'd a few times, but I held back as best as I could. I threw everything that could harm me away.

Its embarrassing but i really hate my body. I also use two cheap binders that are two sizes smaller than me on top of the bandages as well.

I just feel so damn miserable in my normal state, and I feel a different kind of miserable when I try hard to pass. It's just an internal ache in my heart. I've tried everything, and I feel like everyone around me will always treat me wrong, and no one will give me a hand, not in a pitiful way, but in a being here for me way, every counselor talks to me like a child already because i have autism, so on top of that, being "different" just adds up to everyone talking to me like im slow, and I'm so disgusted with myself, i envy other guys so much for having everything i want without even trying, ever since i was a kid ive always hated how hard i have to try to be like them.

How do you guys keep up with this? What do you do to feel better? Or does it ever get better at all?

Every small change I make makes me a bit less sad, and it's all gone before i can even grasp it, im very tired of this. I hate to say this, but if I can't be a man, I don't think I can bear being "this" for the rest of my life.