Loki feels masculine and doesn't know what to make of it.

[Loki80]

I joined this community in order to put my story out there and hear what you people think. For I am in a difficult place of self exploration right now.

 

It started with something other than gender: for the past two years, I have been actively confronting some of my sexual issues. Before that, my lesbian relationship (now turned benevolent situationship) had defined much of who I was in this regard, I just had to trod along. And trod along I did, today I know it was because I never really worked through my inner questions. That is by no means to diminish what this relationship did for me in many other regards. But it came in handy that I could find an easy answer in it - just not MY answer.

 

So I went in and dug through layer after layer after layer. And pretty fast, those layers went beyond sexual issues. None of what I found was outright new to me. I knew these things about myself. But it’s like I lived detached from them, putting them aside, not knowing what to do with them. Some of them I would like to describe for assessment:

 

• AFAB and always had boyish interests. Hated dresses and dolls, never learned any girl stuff like makeup etc. I was very self aware though, I was raised to filter myself a lot from an early age and felt ashamed very easily. I subdued myself massively, and was definitely not the type of athletic tomboy hanging out with the guys. More of an awkward loner girl.
• My mother used to tease me for being boyish, making comments about me „thinking it’s better to be a man than a woman“ towards third parties in my presence and stuff like that. It was kind of inconsiderately shaming, for she never discussed it with me directly. Not that I wanted her to, for personal information is not safe with her - we have a difficult relationship altogether (both parents mentally ill) but all other things aside, here is someone who has known me since birth and who always thought I wanted to be a guy.
• Puberty and especially menstruating was a massive blow to my physical integrity. I do think that maybe it would have been a bit better had my breasts remained small, and had my period not been so painful (i.e. weaker reminders of me living in a female body). I think I started dissociating during that time, and developed a feeling of having no agency. I didn’t define my own sphere of interest, didn’t try for anything, remained physically weak and my personal and social development did not go too well from that point on and until my mid 20s, when I was able to sort my life out. I must mention though, that my surroundings were dysfunctional and mentally harmful, so there definitely were other factors to this as well.
• When my sexuality awakened, I was exclusively drawn to women, and mostly heteronormative and conventionally attractive ones. I also developed a „phantom male anatomy“, i.e. an intense sensation of being equipped male. My desire centers around the wish to use it physically, but I can’t because it’s not really there. My first (all secret) crushes were moments of crises, and the main theme of these crises was not homosexuality - it was not being able to be with those girls as their boyfriend or some nameless equivalent, not being able to approach them as a guy would be able to do. I felt like I had desire, but no liveable sexuality at all.
• I was so dissociated that I didn’t get how, finally, one of these crushes was interested (I understood years later). At one point, I was in her bed following an invitation to watch a movie with her, and I just turned around pretending to sleep. She even touched my hair during the night, but I was paralyzed in painful desire, thinking how bad I wanted to touch her and that I couldn’t bother her with that. There was a lot of shame and self esteem problems in it, but definitely also total confusion what I would even do physically. Today I read this and find it almost comical, but back then I was no less than in hell. (We never got together).
• Shortly after that peak of self repression, I had an untreated major depressive episode at age 18. Barely made it through graduation.
• At 20, I finally linked myself to homosexual behavior and decided that lesbianism was a way for me to be with women. I still didn’t do anything about it though because I remained pretty isolated and had body issues.
• A bit later than that (21-22yo), I watched a late night documentary about young trans men in the US. They were basically telling their personal journeys and about the community they had in California. I remember I sat there paralyzed, not wanting to ask myself if this was about me. I felt uneasy, confused, physically shaky. I also felt ugly because the guys in the film were mostly the „handsome, athletic tomboy turned transman“ type. Downed some beers, went to bed and left it at that for the next 20 years.
• Around that age I was in a precarious time of my life, but I did slowly improve and finally found myself with a job, a college program and a girlfriend in my late 20s. We went on to build a pretty solid middle class life from there. I did enjoy our sex life, until LBD (lesbian bed death) struck. I must admit though that we had a pretty fixed repertoire, and I was only ever able to climax from one specific practice while focusing on my „phantom anatomy“. I have never experienced mind blowing encounters other than in my head/phantasy - good: yes, ecstatic fireworks: no. All in all I would say I had settled into a comfortable life as a lesbian woman, as long as I accepted the „you can’t have everything“ mantra - and yet…
• …I was fundamentally unhappy. This is where it gets confused with some stuff from my past. There were definitely forms of neglect and trauma, and that is often correlated with feeling that there is this other, happier person that you should have become, had your life not been diverted. It is part of trauma therapy to discourage this line of thinking to help people focus on the present. I am not done keeping this „other me“ ideation apart from my gender nonconformity, but I can tell as much that this „other me“ that I longed for, had all kinds of imagined masculine traits. Being more assertive, having a more profiled career, doing more adventurous things, being more sexual etc.
• To some extent, I did something about it, but not in the field of deliberate gender expression. It was more about „real life endeavors“, like getting some military training in the reserves, I got into hunting for a while, did wilderness backpacking, my job is in a male dominated field with a high degree of real-live safety responsibility, and stuff like that. It wasn´t so much for the stereotypes, more about what I consider a certain approach to the world - and make of it what you will, that approach just often takes me back to stereotypically masculine things.

 

So that is the backdrop. My current situation is that I am 44yo, and much of the extensive mundane tasks that life gave me by default setting, have been completed. Meaning that I managed to become a functional, financially secure adult against some serious odds, given my background. I guess it´s not uncommon that once you have some security, higher needs such as self realization return to the surface. In my case, this started as a deep-felt need to heal my sexual limitations. After getting clearance from my girlfriend, I sought out the help of a sexual bodyworker, and that spiraled into all this old unprocessed stuff very quickly. All the points I wrote above, I remembered them for all my life, they were not gone or something. I just treated them as though they were irrelevant. And now, bit by bit, I just saw them for all they were. How defining they had been.

 

I have since achieved to really let it sink in that my desire towards women feels deeply masculine to me. I have stopped saying „Oh, that? Yeah, well…“ about my phantom anatomy, and let myself feel it. Meditate it basically. I started packing occasionally and it´s like this little anchor to me. On the flip side, I don’t really know how to label myself because despite „female masculinity“ as a term feeling very right to me, I kind of developed an appearance that is not very masculine - it is also not very feminine. I think it sits in some adult casual place that makes sure I don’t feel like I look weird to others. I don´t feel sexy ever (never have, don’t know how to), and I don’t like the way I look as a butch, it´s not something I can pull off that well style-wise. I do get recognized by people with gaydar, but I don´t think that the average person would look at me and go „alright, found the -lesbian-“ or find me very androgynous or something. I suspect I’m actually a bit boring, lol. 

 

I don´t know if those are giveaways of me not having the same kind of urge as unmistakably trans people. Or if transgenderism is always an inevitable course of events. If I fall under the category. Or if I was on the same path to a certain point, and then chose a different direction. Or am something else altogether. I can not really process the thought of myself undergoing full medical transition. It´s too big of a concept for me. I do know that my sexual reality is very unfulfilling due to incongruence. I looked into autoandrophilia, and recognized some of it in me. I know that being a woman is definitely a VERY acquired taste for me, and I do not feel part of Greater Womanhood. Still the one woman I have become, I have been through so much with her and for her, I don’t know if I would want to erase her now, so to speak. And don't people know much earlier? I mean, I am 44yo and obviously put all those issues into some box where I could handle them without going the trans route for several decades...?

 

So this is where I am at, I have all these puzzle pieces but now I need some external input from other people who have got their definitions sorted. Just to put it into perspective.

 

Sorry for having you read so much. I am confused and couldn’t put it any shorter. 

[awkward-yet-sweet]

Well, Loki, first....  Herzlich Willkommen!   There are some members here from Germany, and I'm sure you'll run into them after a while.  You're not alone!

 

There's a lot in your post to unpack...but you've clearly been thinking about this for a while.  I identify with some of what you've said.  I'm AFAB, but living in my boy form now.  When I was younger, I started out as a lesbian.  I love the female form, and I have been fortunate to have a very cute girlfriend and female partners.  I'm also married now to my husband, and that's been an interesting experience.  Sexuality and gender can be kind of fluid or squishy.  For example, I never was really attracted to guys, but in my boy form I really need attention from my husband....he understands aspects of my body that female partners don't. 

 

As for your interests - some AFAB trans people like typically "male" activities.  For some that's a sign, and maybe that means something for you.  But not always.  My GF is very feminine...she's all girl.  But she loves cars and guns and tools, and she's never worn a dress in her life, even on her wedding day.  There's a real spectrum of interests, and sometimes interests correlate with gender and sometimes they don't.  

 

I identify with your feeling of "phantom male anatomy."  Oh, surely I do.  It drives me crazy sometimes, especially relating intimately to my partners.  This feeling  that there ought to be something "there" to use, and there isn't.  Not much, anyways.  My anatomy was sort of larger than the typical girl, and I've used testosterone to enhance it a bit, but there's still the "phantom" feeling.  This is probably one of the stronger indications of being FtM trans, from what I've learned.  I have a very intimate, long-term relationship with my GF and female partners.  But since accepting the male aspects of myself, intimacy with my husband has really become excellent.  My thought is that in my girl form, I needed other females to understand my body best.  But now in my boy form, I need male attention.  Life is weird, and my experience is just one example.  Your experience is/will be unique to you. 

 

I think you're fitting your own puzzle pieces together.  You might fit into a category, or you might not.  And either way, its OK.  I'm not exactly transgender - I'm intersex, which carries with it some physical variations uniquely my own.  Your experience could be similar, or it could be very different.  You might consider talking with a physician about what you're experiencing.  Choose a doctor who has experience with gender issues.  I was looked at for years by a family doctor my parents chose, and some very obvious things were ignored for the first 30 years of my life.  I saw an experienced doctor a couple of years ago, and she discovered that my internal anatomy is very different from "normal" even though on the outside I look mostly female.  That discovery changed a lot of things for me.  Getting some help to discover your own uniqueness (whether physical, hormonal, or otherwise) could be a good thing. 

 

Hopefully some other members will add their own experiences here, and give you some other perspectives.  🙂

[Vidanjali]

@Loki80 thanks for sharing your insights and story. I related to a lot of what you shared, some directly and some in my own way. I also came from a highly dysfunctional background with 2 mentally ill parents. Not everybody gets what that's like, but I do & I feel for you. Additionally, like you, I have become a high functioning human against all odds & I know how improbable my survival was, all things considered, so I want you to know I'm really proud of you. Not only have you survived, but you have a very keen insight into your past, your identity, and who you are now. I know that may seem unexpected considering you're here asking questions and exploring yourself. But everything you've expressed, although you currently see it in fragments, paints a picture of someone who has already made leaps and bounds in self-acceptance.

 

A bit more about me, so you know who's relating to your story. I'm AFAB, 48 years old, and masc-leaning nonbinary. I have experienced romantic, but not entirely sexual attraction towards women, which was confusing and distressing because I didn't understand it at the time. I am married to a man and don't have a sexual relationship with him although he'd prefer to. I've accepted myself as asexual and he has come a long way in accepting it too. I do sometimes wonder what my sexual orientation would be if I were born as a male. Would I have gone through the pain of compulsory heterosexuality like I did in this life as a female-bodied person? Or would I be a out of control party boi. Lol I've come to realize that asexuality is a gift in a sense because my life is ultimately spiritually-centered. Anyway, I share this because I do relate to many other things you shared, although in my case there was never any urge to realize actual male anatomy or sensation. But in my own way I understand because for a long painful while I struggled with not being able to relate to men in a gay manner. 

 

You expressed earlier as an "awkward loner girl" as opposed to a tomboy, etc. That was how I felt as well. I don't remember a time when I felt at all like "other" girls or women & I really beat myself up about it. In my early 20s I made a decision to dig in and try really hard to be like other women. I never felt like I was succeeding, though the external feedback I got indicated otherwise. And it always felt like a mask and made me constantly self-conscious. I found it remarkable your viewpoint on the woman you've been - how you feel like it would almost be dishonorable to abandon her to explore another way of being you. You actually used the word "erase" when referring to that woman. I thought it was interesting you put her in terms of a VERY acquired taste. So, is it fully acquired, being a woman? Or is it an ongoing process?

 

I want to dispell the notion that all trans people know they're trans early on. I don't have any statistics, but I'd venture to guess that most trans people do not know they're trans early on. I believe we have clues we can reflect back on and say "oh, that's what that was", but not necessarily fully come to terms with being trans until we're ready. What makes a person ready? Well, first of all, knowledge that trans is even a thing, and what that really means in terms of lived experience, that others have felt the way you have. That they have done various things with their lives, some transitioning to a vast array of varying degrees, some not. Most importantly, a person has to be at a point in their life where they are ready to engage in deep introspection. And that sounds like where you are. That was certainly true for me. I hit a bottom with my own mental health in 2019. But that enabled me to give myself permission to let go of all compulsory identities and just see what emerged. Then the pandemic happened and I didn't have to present to the world for a whole year. I think the pandemic, in that sense, was a boon to many latent trans people. 

 

So getting back to the concept of erasing the woman you are. What is womanly about you? What is you about you? You, the essential you, cannot be erased. If you begin to experiment with different ways of presenting physically, expressing sexually, interacting with the world, you are still you. Nothing has been erased. It's entirely your choice. It's more about integration of your self than erasing and embellishing. You will find your way. Of that I am certain because you have already come so far in your life's journey and you naturally have that momentum to keep improving and evolving. There's no right or wrong way to do it. But you do deserve joy. 

 

 

[Ashley0616]

The length is great. Describing your history and true self is going to be a long one. I'm the opposite and that pretty much fit in my story. The only difference was I was living in denial and was with women because I was pretending to be them. I picked out outfits and cute shoes and they didn't even notice. I hated myself and wished I was born female. I always fit in better with the females but the problem was they thought I was hitting on them. You could be trans and may not. I'm not a trained psychiatrist. I would recommend that you see one and see if you are. It should take a few visits to get a truthful answer. I'm going to be 40 in June so not too far off from total experience and the trials and tribulations. I did join the military and would easily do it again. Thank you for your post and look forward to many more.

[LittleSam]

One of the lines that stuck out to me was, "I don't like the way I look as a butch." I'm someone who realised I was trans because I felt euphoria after trying on typically mens clothes. I've always felt I should be labelled butch, but just can't resonate with that label. After I felt the euphoria, the dysphoria came. My boobs made me realise that I should have a male chest, so I can go swimming topless with pride. I think my face will look better with a bit of facial hair and a less rounded face. I don't think I look bad, but I know I can look better my making myself more masculine, because I feel so much more confidence when I wear male clothing  and have male pronouns or they / them used on me.

You wrote such an eloquent post and clearly have really thought this through. I hope you get the chance to be your best self and I wish you luck in your journey, whatever that is.

[Lydia_R]

Thanks for sharing @Loki80. I hung on every word!

 

It's interesting that you picked up on assertiveness. As a transwoman, having to be assertive drives me nuts. I had to do it twice today...

[Loki80]

On 3/12/2024 at 8:26 PM, LittleSam said:

 I've always felt I should be labelled butch, but just can't resonate with that label. After I felt the euphoria, the dysphoria came. My boobs made me realise that I should have a male chest,

 

I didn´t view it from that angle before. But it makes perfect sense. Like, for some butchness is a step in the right direction, and for others it can make them realize they are going in the wrong direction, or make. Thanks for pointing that out.