Confused Rambling

[Guest Jay.desu]

I'm a biological female, fifteen years old. Sometimes I think I'm transgender of some sort. Other times I think I'm just a huge lesbian, and sometimes I'm comfortable with that, and sometimes I'm not. I seem to get these waves of gender dysphoria, which I've been getting for a few years now, with increasing frequency and severity. But let me start at the beginning. Be warned... this is sort of life my life story and it's probably super unnecessary, but whatever.

I remember feeling different than other girls from a young age. I didn't feel like I was "trapped in the wrong body" or anything like that, but my first friends were boys. In kindergarten, I would usually build blocks instead of playing house (although sometimes I took turns playing both). I remember asking some male classmates if there was any way I could be a boy and vaguely wanting to be one. I was also a very take-charge type as a young kid, and when I did play with girls, they usually did what I said. I had some feminine interests, but I was never a girly girl, always a tomboy. Back then my mother dressed me about bought feminine clothes for me and did my hair in little pigtails, but I always refused skirts and dresses.

Then things changed for me. I have high-functioning autism (diagnosed at an early age, and reinforced throughout the years...), and when my peers started to grow and develop at a different pace than I was, I lost my friends. I withdrew socially and spent most of my time alone, finding new hobbies such as writing. I became highly anxious and shy, not at all like I'd been before. For a while I conformed completely to my mother's will and I continued to let her dress me. I tried and generally failed to make female friends, with only one or two exceptions.

I remember the first time I told her what I wanted to wear; that happened to be a Pokemon t-shirt. She obliged and for the first time I felt liberated knowing I could buy t-shirts from the boy's section. Eventually I did make friends and most of them were boys. I was interested in Beyblade and Pokemon and video games (where I always play guys), and so were they. I went to middle school and was mostly normal, dressing only in t-shirts and jeans. At the end of the eigth grade I finally stood up for myself again and I got my hair cut short. Around that time I started to recognize feelings for other girls in the wake of a pretty devastaing unrequited crush. After becoming very depressed, trying and failing to commit suicide, I accepted it and started identifying as a lesbian. Relief ensued.

Then I went to high school, where I am now. I feel a definite pull towards the lesbian community and I'm definitely attracted to other lesbians. I definitely fit in better as a "lesbian" than anything I've tried before, but there are some things about me that are beyond the stereotypical lesbian, to the point of seeming kind of extreme, if that makes any sense. (I know sexual orientation is independent of gender identity, but it's relevant in my mind, so I think it at least deserves a mention in my wall of text). It's not just that I don't want to or won't dress femininely anymore; it's that I just feel that I can't. It's not comfortable and it isn't right for me.

I've suffered with severe anxiety for a long time now, and one of the few things that relieves some of my daily stress is dressing and acting like a guy. I have both masculine and feminine interests, but I definitely lean towards masculine. I have some notable masculine mannerisms naturally. I even think I show signs of having a slight hormonal imbalance, which would connect a lot of my puzzle pieces together. I often find myself jealous of guys, envying their looks.

For a couple of years now my gender identity has bothered me. I have days where it doesn't occur to me at all and days where I'm kept up at night with wondering thoughts. What sort of threw me over the edge was having a dream where I came out as a transguy, and people accepted me, and it felt really great. I think my subconscious might be saying something. I don't know if it's saying I'm transgender, but it's saying something. I currently identify vaguely as genderqueer, just because I'm really not sure where I fit. Another example like this is in my writing... most of my characters are feminine men. This definitely makes me a second-class writer, but I just cannot work with typical females; they always come off flat and lifeless. I have one female character, and she's an androgynous little tomboy with the body of a ten-year-old. Literally.

I hate my chest and my belly and a lot of the things that make me feminine (I have a real hourglass figure). The special time of the month is like a nightmare for me. On the other hand, I don't want male bits, and I'm fine with having a vagina. I have absolutely no desire to be a macho man. In fact, what I want is more like the third example here. An androgynous body? I'm fine with any kind of pronouns, but I like it when people call me "mister" or "sir" and I'd like to take an androgynous or masculine name in real life (right now I'm toying with "Jayden", because it's the only name that starts with J that I like, and my legal name starts with J; hence, "Jay"). When people mistake me for a guy, they usually think I'm a little kid and call me "buddy", and even that secretly makes me really happy.

My friends are all guys these days. We play video games and tag out in the woods. I like basketball, even though I'm too short to be any good at it. I clearly have a highly logical mind, which is generally the "masculine" way of thinking. My friends treat me like a fellow guy instead of one of the girls, and they've proclaimed me an "honorary man". I'm currently having more social success than I have had in a very long time.

This christmas I became depressed because my family gave me purses, jewelry, and other girly things instead of the trucks and dart guns that my male relatives get. I've always wanted to get trucks and dart guns. My grandmother insisted "You're just like _____; she would never wear the color pink!" and "You'll grow out of it someday." I'm not sure I can put the feeling that gave me into words but I hated it. As stupid as it is, and I know it's stupid, it took all I had not to cry at the end of the day.

I make either a really butch girl or a really effeminate man, I guess. I've felt guilt over my gender nonconformities for a long time. I sometimes feel like my friends might say I'm faking it, which probably wouldn't happen because they're a very accepting group, but I can't help but feel it (I think in part due to my anxiety issues). Also I feel like to identify as something other than female means I'm no longer part of the lesbian club, which is true, I guess. Heck, sometimes I feel like I'm just overreacting or making it up and it's really nothing.

Regardless of labels, I desperately want to start binding and wearing men's underwear and pants, but my mother says I'm not allowed to. I know I should probably see a gender therapist, and I want to, but I can't right now. I think I basically just wanted to get that off my chest, this seemed like a good opportunity to do it. And I'm sorry for the ridiculously long post! This has sort of been building up inside me. I've never told anyone the whole story before.

If you actually read this... wow, I'm impressed xD Legit. I can't remember being this open (read: wordy) in my life. All for what? Logic that goes in circles? "I'm a manly lesbian... I think"? How pathetic is this?