Want To Be A Girl, Feel Like A Goblin

[SaoirseB]

I wasn't sure where I might turn as far as any of this goes, but this website feels like a decent place to start.

I've never really had a real issue with my gender identity growing up, I felt comfortable doing boyish things and expressing as a boy, but around puberty a creeping feeling of disassociation that flares up during periods of panic has dogged me since I was maybe 13 (I'm 21 btw). It was also around that time that I started to feel a real sense of alienation with others, developing some of my most antisocial tendencies and generally feeling isolated from others. I started to feel like my expressed identity was maybe a little performative and not representative of who I really wanted to be. I felt (and still feel) hopeless when it comes to forming meaningful relationships with people, and where romance is concerned I feel I have zero interest in pursuing relationships of any kind as the gender I currently identify as. I've always felt this has made me weird, as I can have deeper feelings (both romantic and platonic) for others but can't seem to bridge a certain gap where my personal identity is concerned. Thus I've maintained a very small group of friends, some of whom I have rather toxic relationships with, and haven't been able to branch out socially or experience things I imagine are important to my own personal development.

I've had a lot of doubt as to my actual gender identity. I only really started questioning this fully about a year ago. On the one hand, I feel pretty strongly that I want to be girl, but on the other I feel as though my conception of what that means is flawed. I feel like I'm escaping to some kind of fantastic feminine version of myself who was born a woman and lacks all the worst characteristics of myself, and then I come back down to earth and realize that I'm still just a creepy goblin hiding from the rest of world and being awful to the ones closest to them. I know full well that transitioning won't make me the person I am in these fantasies, at least not to the extent that I might be free of all the awkward and difficult things that actually entail a transition or that I might become a new person all together, and knowing that fills me with even more doubt. Furthermore, I wonder whether or not I'm just somehow impersonating these feelings, as though I might actually just be a weird shut in who's processing things weirdly because they haven't had enough intimate experiences with other people to know what they actually want. I know that I want to transition, at least on some level, but I'm filled with dread at the thought of what that would demand from me (i.e. facing the world as a trans woman and not just as a weird creature who people occasionally see emerge from its hole when it needs to buy groceries).

When I look in the mirror I don't feel particularly dysphoric (I don't think), in fact the strange little creature looking back at me feels familiar at this point. Its acted as a sin-eater all this time, a naked representation of everything vile about myself basking in its own self-hating squalor. In theory we can get along like that, but in practice the dying parts of me trapped within it languish. My hairline continues to recede, which is something I've never noticed before, and my body feels less and less like my own. Everything feels like a blur of sensory input with a few highlights until I forget what I was worrying about and crawl back into my hole. Reading this back to myself, maybe I am dysphoric.

Sorry, this turned into a bit a ramble. But, I guess to sum it up: I want to be a girl, I think, but I don't know if that's just a selfish escapist fantasy that isn't in touch with itself or the world at large. I don't know If I know that I'm actually a woman. I don't know if I've ever really been in touch with myself enough to actually answer that question.

Thank you in advance for considering my questions. 

-Saoirse B.

[VickySGV]

Welcome to the mob here.  If you read as many posts here from new people as I have they all say a lot of the same things, so indeed you will be able to get some good ideas here.  I feel like a broken sound track, but if you have questions about your gender identity at all, you are not Cis gender because that type of person never has a single thought they might be another gender.  Exactly where you belong in the Trans gender spectrum is going to the the object of a long period of discovery.  Gender Dysphoria is nothing to be ashamed of, especially here with so many of us that have it.  Dive on in and enjoy things.

[Cyndee]

Welcome Saoirse B to the forums, just the fact you are asking these questions tells me you would most likely gain value from participating here  So have a look around, you are among friends and like minds, and do post away.....

 

Hugs

 

Cyndee -

[Jani]

Welcome to the forum!   It is certainly all right to ramble on a bit.  We don't mind.  

 

Jani

[Raven1981]

Hello and welcome to the form.  Like most of the other ladies have said, the fact you are questioning means that you are not CIS.  But hope you get some ideas here and maybe one day even look up a gender therapist to go to in your area to help figure yourself out.  There is many different levels in the Trans community besides the standard Trans-masculine and Trans-feminine to gender fluid.  But do not be ashamed of having dysphoria.

 

Hope you find ideas here that help

[SaoirseB]

Thank you all so much for the warm welcome. I’m equal parts excited and terrified to take my first steps on this journey.

[KymmieL]

You can ask the others but I have rambled on, here a few times. As I have seen others do. We all understand sometimes you have to. This forum and the great people on it have helped me figure out things in my own life.

I finally added 2 and 2 to figure out what I am. However, it took me over half a century to do it. Growing up Yeah I was the, well not typical boy but did boyish things. I had to look back on things that I did back then to make the realization I finally did.

 

Read what others have posted here. Also feel free to ask any question you have. Most likely one of us has gone through it before.

 

Kymmie