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.
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.