It sucks. I hate it. And I hate that I have no other choice.
I thought I passed pretty well and for a good bit now, and there where no indications that I didn’t. I’ve been on HRT for over 1.5 years now and it has done a lot too.
Yet lately, especially at work, the misgendering has been getting worse and worse. Both from colleagues that knew me from back then and colleagues that are relatively new.
Why… How… What changed… I don’t get it. What is that people actually think about me. I know what other people think of me doesn’t change who I am but it’s still just such a punch in the face every time.
Why couldn’t it all just be different… Why could I not have been born the way I want to.
Edit: I don’t want to be trans, I don’t want to hold the trans label and I don’t even want anyone to remotely think about that. Not because I’m ashamed of it, just because I just want to live a normal fucking life the way I want to live.
I keep flip flopping between wishing I was born a cis woman and being happy I’m trans. I think partly I do really want to look like a cis woman in all the subtle ways people take for granted, but also I know that if I was born a cis woman it wouldn’t really be me at all. There are things about being trans women that are unique to us, and while society treats those things as bad and wrong and tries to punish us for being trans, or push us to transition more completely or not at all, I don’t want to lose the parts of me that are unique and special just to pass better. Partly I feel that way because I have the body I have and accepting it for what it is even as I try to change it hurts less than the alternative, but also I want to love myself for who I am not become someone other people deem worthy of love.
The concept of intersectionality comes to mind. I’m trans, bi, have audhd, and probably aro. I’ve spent the majority of my life under complex layers of masks, hiding my neurodivergence, hiding my sexuality, hiding gender, hiding my lack of interest in traditional romantic relationships, trying to fit into boxes other people presented to me. I did that to myself every day for my entire life. I fabricated a person who never existed for the benefit of others and wounded myself emotionally, constantly, to keep up the facade. What I learned from that experience is that hiding myself doesn’t really get me anything, because any love or affection or approval or praise that I got because of my masks meant nothing to me. If I could pass as neurotipical, straight, a man, whatever, and feel nothing for the accomplishments of that person I was playing, why would I feel any different about playing a cis woman? I’m not a cis woman. I have a penis and testicles. I have a y chromosome (as far as I know). I am who and what I am, and I want to love myself for the real me. I want my loved ones to love me for the real me. I want everyone to see the real me, see what the real me has accomplished. If they hate me for it at least they’re hating the real me. That’s better than them accepting a mask in my place. Idk. That’s just how I feel about it.
Hmmmm, see I think we have different experiences - I feel living as a straight man was a real lie, whereas living as a cis woman feels entirely natural and compatible with who I am.
I do sort of feel what you’re describing about how my trans-ness contributes to parts of who I am, but I think I would be more me if I were a cis woman (if that makes sense). I also just assume that because I’m bisexual and mostly sapphic that as a cis woman I would still be me in those authentic queer ways, and I think I sometimes can positively view my transness as connecting with my sexuality as a queer woman (like, maybe I look more like a lesbian as a trans woman?) … but if I were cis I still think I would probably look like a lesbian and I wouldn’t have lost anything crucial to what is me.
I think I also experience this alienation with my neurodivergence (assuming I’m right about being neurodivergent) - there are neurodivergent traits I have that very much make me “me”, but which I do not endorse or like and wish were not how I am. (This makes it like the transness, it’s definitely a big part of who I am, but I still have a strong desire to be different than this - it feels wrong, not like an authentic part of me, like a part of me I don’t like or endorse.)
I think sometimes this topic comes up in disability discussions, about how some people can really identify with their condition (like neurodivergence), while others don’t identify with them and experience it more as a pathology.
For me, my transness and my neurodivergence are more pathologies that are barriers in the way of being “me”. I know not everyone experiences them this way, but it is how I experience them - and I think it’s not uncommon that others experience it that way too.
When my partner loves my trans body or my body before transition, it doesn’t make me feel loved - it feels like she loves someone else, because I didn’t identify with my male or “hermaphroditic” body (for lack of a better term). What she sees is not the authentic or real me, and just because it’s my body doesn’t make it more authentic or real.
Maybe you just have a gender identity more compatible with your genderqueerness?