Same 😭 I think I’m fine enough being a guy but starting to unlearn the conventions of patriarchy has helped a lot. I recommend The Will to Change: Love, Masculinity and Men by bell hooks, available as an audiobook at !audiobookbay@lemmy.dbzer0.com
Depending on what society you’ve been a member of, this may be a lot to unlearn but you’ll make it. It’s never too late to start being an ally or member of the LGBTQ+ community, and you’ve already taken a lot of steps in the right direction. I’m sure everyone here welcomes you publishing your introspection or asking for advice on the next steps if you’re comfortable with it. If you’re too shy, that’s fine too, there are resources like the book I mentioned that will let you gain insight on how to be more accomodating of others and even your own feelings, undoing the damage of legacy social structures you’ve been accustomed to.
Personally, I’m in my mid-20s and from a rather traditional family and I’m not ready for a full gender introspection yet. I used to think my musings on “what if I’m not quite male” were a burden on the community or attention-seeking behavior but they were very happy to provide resources. Consider joining the Genderverse or 196 Matrix spaces for more insights.
I’d love nothing more, but since it can’t go beyond thought, it’d be a waste of people’s time.
I’d be happy to share my thoughts with people if I knew it’d help someone, but I have had no real experience in life, despite being in almost my mid-thirties. And thought without some basic experience is useless.
I will say, I couldn’t experience so many things until I transitioned. There were a lot of things I wanted to try as a man so that I could be more sure that it wasn’t for me. I worried I was just taking a shortcut that wouldn’t actually help me; that I just wanted to transition because I wasn’t happy with myself.
However, no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t do the things I am able to do now. I ultimately couldn’t force myself to be a person when I had to play a role I wasn’t built for. The biggest realization I had about being trans was that it wasn’t my choice to make. I just was, and the only actual choice I had was to live or to not.
Thankfully, it quickly became clear that transitioning wouldn’t solve all my problems; only make them solvable. I still need to do all the things necessary to be a happy, healthy, or even functional. I’m still struggling in so many ways, but despite how hard, scary, or depressing things seem, I know they would be so much worse if I didn’t transition. I’d rather die than go back.
Considering your circumstances, I don’t blame you for not feeling like you have any choice but to play the role of man. However, you have even less choice in what gender you can be comfortable as. If you are actually trans, nothing you do will ever make the thoughts go away, or make you happy with who you are now. If that is your circumstance, I’m sorry you have such shit options.
Some of what you said here gives me this idea: maybe I am trans, and the proof of that is how far I have been able to imagine being a woman. Not simply a girl who is trying makeup to make herself feel better, but a woman in a life of humanity.
Or maybe I am such a good empath, or at a delusionally good one, that I think I can feel what it’s like to be a woman.
I can at least be happy that I have felt some beautiful feelings. That I think I know what it’s like to be a woman. Even if they ultimately have to be repressed.
I appreciate you, everyone, who takes the time to talk to people this supportively.
Why wouldn’t it? Being introspective is fine
Introspection is good. But it can be paralyzing if it leads somewhere you can’t actually go. And I’m very prone to analysis paralysis.
Same 😭 I think I’m fine enough being a guy but starting to unlearn the conventions of patriarchy has helped a lot. I recommend The Will to Change: Love, Masculinity and Men by bell hooks, available as an audiobook at !audiobookbay@lemmy.dbzer0.com
Thanks for the recommendation.
That’s exactly what I have to do. Unlearn a bunch of stuff. Not just conventions of patriarchy though. Some basic stuff as well
Depending on what society you’ve been a member of, this may be a lot to unlearn but you’ll make it. It’s never too late to start being an ally or member of the LGBTQ+ community, and you’ve already taken a lot of steps in the right direction. I’m sure everyone here welcomes you publishing your introspection or asking for advice on the next steps if you’re comfortable with it. If you’re too shy, that’s fine too, there are resources like the book I mentioned that will let you gain insight on how to be more accomodating of others and even your own feelings, undoing the damage of legacy social structures you’ve been accustomed to.
Personally, I’m in my mid-20s and from a rather traditional family and I’m not ready for a full gender introspection yet. I used to think my musings on “what if I’m not quite male” were a burden on the community or attention-seeking behavior but they were very happy to provide resources. Consider joining the Genderverse or 196 Matrix spaces for more insights.
I’d love nothing more, but since it can’t go beyond thought, it’d be a waste of people’s time.
I’d be happy to share my thoughts with people if I knew it’d help someone, but I have had no real experience in life, despite being in almost my mid-thirties. And thought without some basic experience is useless.
I will say, I couldn’t experience so many things until I transitioned. There were a lot of things I wanted to try as a man so that I could be more sure that it wasn’t for me. I worried I was just taking a shortcut that wouldn’t actually help me; that I just wanted to transition because I wasn’t happy with myself.
However, no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t do the things I am able to do now. I ultimately couldn’t force myself to be a person when I had to play a role I wasn’t built for. The biggest realization I had about being trans was that it wasn’t my choice to make. I just was, and the only actual choice I had was to live or to not.
Thankfully, it quickly became clear that transitioning wouldn’t solve all my problems; only make them solvable. I still need to do all the things necessary to be a happy, healthy, or even functional. I’m still struggling in so many ways, but despite how hard, scary, or depressing things seem, I know they would be so much worse if I didn’t transition. I’d rather die than go back.
Considering your circumstances, I don’t blame you for not feeling like you have any choice but to play the role of man. However, you have even less choice in what gender you can be comfortable as. If you are actually trans, nothing you do will ever make the thoughts go away, or make you happy with who you are now. If that is your circumstance, I’m sorry you have such shit options.
Some of what you said here gives me this idea: maybe I am trans, and the proof of that is how far I have been able to imagine being a woman. Not simply a girl who is trying makeup to make herself feel better, but a woman in a life of humanity.
Or maybe I am such a good empath, or at a delusionally good one, that I think I can feel what it’s like to be a woman.
I can at least be happy that I have felt some beautiful feelings. That I think I know what it’s like to be a woman. Even if they ultimately have to be repressed.
I appreciate you, everyone, who takes the time to talk to people this supportively.