Not that it doesn’t matter whether transition is “right” for someone, but that the idea of it being right or wrong doesn’t exist in any way that can be separated from a person’s satisfaction with the outcome. If someone transitions and that makes their life better, that’s the whole story. There’s no hidden answer waiting to be revealed about whether they were actually “supposed” to transition. Whatever biological comparisons or categorizations could be made about people who transition can only meaningfully be descriptive. They can’t actually separate which people are “meant” to transition.
For a while, that felt like a comforting lie I was telling myself, and I still worried that someday someone was going to prove I wasn’t actually trans and I was wrong to think I was. But with time and experience, I’ve come to accept that all that is literally true.
Transitioning is absolutely a different thing than skateboarding in some ways, but I think the differences that matter are different than the ones you're worried about. I pressed you with one of the questions I got caught on a few years ago when I was wrestling with things that sound similar to what you've been saying. Over time as I've worked through my thoughts about being trans, being a person, and being a trans person, the things like this that worried me most at the time feel more and more like they don't need to be part of how anybody lives their life. I'd enjoy talking about it more if you want to.
Would it mean it's not right for you? If you had learned to skateboard and that made you happy, would you need a medical test to prove you were meant to be a skateboarder?
The idea of a trans gene or test was really important to me when I was early on in figuring out my gender. I knew it shouldn't matter, but it still felt like it would be really helpful.
"Yes I'm disphoric and I would be happier living as a woman* and I hate being seen as a man, but do I feel those things strongly enough for it to count? Maybe if I were 'really trans' I would feel those things way more intensely, but I don't so I should just get over it. If only someone would use the transometer on me, and tell me whether or not to transition."
At the time, the idea seemed comforting, but as I worked through my feelings, I've found it way more comforting that that doesn't, and pretty much couldn't, exist.
That is literally the fundamental concept of an ad. What could they possibly do that could be called an ad, but wouldn’t fit that description? You’d need a very creative definition of “influence” or “answer” or “give”
For most of my adult life, it’s felt like it only makes sense to say I’m asexual, but I’ve always had a deeper feeling that to accept that would be to misunderstand myself. I never know where to go with that thought though.
I’ve had sex a few times. Each time there were parts of it I really enjoyed, but overall I felt uncomfortable, and later worried about the other person expecting me to have sex with them again.
In hindsight I can say those were not people I would want to explore sex with, and theoretically it would be better with the right partners, but it’s hard for me to imagine that. It would help to find trans partners, but just meeting trans people is going very slowly already.
Some of it happened when I was an egg, and some of it was at a time when I was trying to convince myself I was happy with where I was in my transition. In both cases it brought things to the surface that I didn’t know how to process.
I’m on E now, and that might be opening up new possibilities of what sex could mean to me, but I’ve mostly been treating it as a relief to have even less of a sex drive.
There’s very little in my surface level feelings that shows any sign of ever wanting to have sex again. But I think on a deeper level I would be happier if I could develop a place for sex in my life. I worry that’s just internalized ace-phobic societal norms, but I think I’ve rejected enough norms to recognize a genuine feeling.
I think I want bottom surgery some day, but I’m not comfortable getting it with so many unanswered questions about what I want out of my genitals sexually.
Any kind of reply is appreciated. I feel like I’ve been mostly shouting into the void lately (other places, not here).
I used to think that my parents would be the easiest people for me to talk to, and I built up in my head how much more difficult making friends would be, and how I wasn't ready for that. Eventually I pushed myself to start meeting people anyway, and at first it was really hard, but it got easier over time as I recognized how much the people I met were not like my parents. Now talking to my friends makes it much easier to deal with my parents.
I had been in the closet a long time when I started making friends, but that situation hasn't changed much since I came out.
After two years it seemed like my mom had almost adjusted to using my pronouns consistently, but now it looks like she's learned the One Weird Trick where she can just constantly say my name and avoid ever having to use any pronouns for me at all.