Hi, guys. It’s Larry/Jay. Ever since I was around 8, I wanted to do what the boys did and hang out with them. Sadly, I even went through a “girls stink” phase and my role models were my dad and male heroes. I liked it when I saw clothes that were for boys and I got super happy when my hair was cut short because I’d look like a boy. However, I was sheltered from LGBTQ stuff, so I just thought I was a tomboy.
The gender dysphoria never truly went away. When I was 11, I had another “role model”, a male character. I wanted to wear a hoodie to hide my long hair and chest and “embody” his male spirit. I even wanted to be called a “he” sometimes. I stopped telling anyone and felt bad about it though when my at the time friend laughed at me.
13, I started experimenting with FtM identity because I never felt fully female like at all, and I always wanted to be like male characters I saw and identified more with them and saw myself AS them. Detransitioned or “desisted” when my girlfriend started bullying guys and especially trans guys.
On-and-off, I’ve been trans and from what I remember, usually being called “she” or a “girl”, triggered me to start acting fem again.
But even with my family, even identifying as a girl, I feel like a boy and I felt dysphoria by being called “she”.
I don’t even know if I’m truly genderfluid or just FtM due to this since it seems from what I remember, I go back to being a girl due to force or feeling unaccepted.
There is this saying “gender is a spectrum”. I know firsthand how important the proper label can be, at the same time gender is something like a lifelong performance act - and it’s fine if you’re not sure right now what the proper label might be.
For me it sounds like you are on your own journey for a while now and you will figure it out by your own soon. Often family members shape our perspective of gender but as we leave family, make new friends and learn new things we can break free of the childhood stereotypes and find very own gender expression and/or label somewhere along the road.
I wish for you to meet lots of new trans, enby and genderfluid people this summer, so you can figure it out <3
I like this. I sometimes worry for the youngsters who so urgently want to have a label. I’m 46 now and have been so many different people throughout my life. I have been looking sometimes like a girl, sometimes like a boy, and doing both girl and boy stuff. Transition just wasn’t really something easily accessible when I was younger so I didn’t consider it. I’ve identified as bi throughout my life because that was the label that existed at the time but never made it my whole identity. The only thing I wish would change? That the perception of ‘boy looks’ vs ‘girl looks’ and ‘boy stuff’ vs ‘girl stuff’ would disappear from public perception altogether.
I want to wear my dress, then pick up the tools, then knit a scarf, then dye my hair, then protect someone, then nurture someone, then love someone, then wear the pants, then be the boss, then be the pet - and I want all of these to be non-issues that are not gender-related. They are just human things.
I know this reads a bit like ‘It’s just a phase’ - that’s not quite it. I’ve been proudly weird and non-conforming all my life and that has never changed. I just sometimes suspect the time for the torturous soul-seeking of young folk who urgently need to know whether they are boy or girl could be spent in more pleasurable ways. You don’t need a label, you can be who you are on each single day, and that might change quite a lot throughout the years.