this post was submitted on 18 Sep 2024
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I'm somebody who absolutely does think I am trans purely by life circumstances, but I also recognize that the vast majority of trans people aren't. Like I am incredibly glad that I transitioned and am now living life mostly stealth as a woman, years down the line, but I'm almost positive that if I wasn't put through literal hell as a child (in the very cruel and specific ways that I was) I wouldn't have even thought to have transitioned as a young adult. Perhaps I am completely incorrect in my assumptions about myself, and I would have turned out this way no matter what, but I find it hard to believe that if I wasn't relentlessly bullied, harassed, beaten, and rejected by my peers as a child, that I would be sitting here now as a woman. I feel like I literally became a woman by sheer force of will in order to save my life, because I literally could not continue as the broken husk of a "man" I was at 21, and by some miracle it worked. But maybe I'm just delusional, idk
What do you think happened that made your internal gender change? To me, and to most trans people in my experience, it was a discovery of an already present internal gender and not a change.
It is also true that people who are more introspective, such as people who experienced trauma, are more likely to come out as trans - perhaps this is true for you.
I guess I am rather unique in my experience of transness in that I started living full time (and even passing) as a woman before I even self identified as one. The thing is, lifing as a women for aabout a year literally changed my internal sence of gender, I wanted it to happen and I made it happen. Maybe that's just me rationalizing my inherent "transness" but that's my recollection of events.
I'm sorry if I misunderstand, are you saying you were forced to present as a woman? If so, I'm sorry that happened to you but it does sound like it worked out for you.
If that wasn't the case, to me it sounds like you were unconsciously aware of your gender but had conscious defense mechanisms that took time to work down.
My experience isn't all that dissimilar, in that I admitted to myself and my therapist that I was "not cisgender", knowing perfectly well that that would definitionally mean I am transgender, but also denied that I was transgender. This was repression, "still cis though" to a higher level. It sounds like your experience was similar.
Forced? Only by myself, as I thought it was the only way to keep living, though maybe that's just proof that I am trans, and I simply constructed a bunch of mental hoops to jump through due to internalized transphobia?
Yeah, that's what it sounds like to me. Cis people don't transition their gender even if it's "just for a year", but trans people do try really hard to not be trans especially just before coming out.