I wanted to document my sort of personal identity journey leading up to now. It's been on my mind for a while and I felt it good to put it out there, to get it out of here 🧠

Early teens: I met a same aged guy at a school event, made a new friend. I felt some sort of attraction to them, however they were a bit more feminine (but identified as gay), and I felt (based on my media exposure) that I might be gay or bisexual.
–
Mid teens: I recall doing a few book reports on books featuring female lead characters, protagonists, or otherwise that were explicitly female oriented or "intended for female audiences" 😅​ I remember reading Chicken Soup For The Soul series a lot, but felt awkward after realizing it wasn't really something "boys" read.

I also worked away from home for one summer, staying overnight during weekdays. I recall:
* wearing (somewhat often) womens clothing like short shorts, crop tops, womens jeans, etc. Explicitly purchasing the clothes to wear during the summer away from home.
* Wearing makeup sometimes. Shaving my legs and chest areas.
* Presenting male 90% of the time, but still being against the male-headspaces.
* Flat out asking the owners what would happen if I showed up as a girl (as in, transitioning) the first day of work, despite being interviewed and listing myself as male on paper. Maybe I was doing all of that for attention, or personal confusion, or being a stupid teen, who knows now. (Also the transition question happened 3 months away from work start, so clearly nothing significant would have happened... this was WAY back before how things are now)

I identified as gay, and kept generally closer friendly relationships with the girls working there; the guys as well, but I felt a better connection to the girls :). I stayed in men's sleeping areas though given AMAB. At the end of that summer working, I came to find myself liking one of the girls I worked with. I then identified as bisexual.
–
Mid-late teens: Identified as bisexual but didn't really make it any part of my personality or feeling at all. Dated a few girls but it really wasn't anything serious
Adulthood: Identifying as bisexual but mainly living on autopilot, work, school, whatever. Not dating anyone for many, many years (still single yay)

Finally, the past summer while traveling, I hit breaking points in my physical, emotional, and mental state, which sort of made these "suppressed" thoughts come back up. I felt a lot of gender dysphoria in the summer. A lot of body envy since it was the summer, and general thoughts of "I wish I was a woman but that's a lot to go through if I did" and such related things (i like her outfit/hair/etc). Jealousy I guess? I don't know. Lack of creature comforts too I suppose. The general lack of emotional connection on my trips, as I didn't make too many close connections, didn't help either.
I felt an immensely more positive/comfortable connection when staying in shared sleeping spaces with women, versus those when men were present. Primarily because 99% of the time, the women NEVER snored, and were always polite and quiet late at night, but also were far more pleasing to talk to... whereas the sometimes opposite of that for the men... I also really envied the female-only spaces, as I heard from female travelers that they always had great experiences in there (meeting new friends, going out as a group together, feeling safer in their space, etc).

I called Trans Lifeline for a good hour one night mid-summer, and thanks to whoever helped me calm down and process my thoughts, as well as sharing online accounts and people I could look to, who were non-binary/GNC, or transfem. As well, explaining what body/gender dysphoria is in simpler terms for me.

And well... even after, I still didn't do much, because I really was on autopilot just trying to live while traveling. But now having been back home again, it's all really come up to a head. So I guess this is just my way of sharing what happened to bring me to this point, that it's not all linear, and it doesn't have to be. But I guess just it's important to try and be happy in a sense. Maybe someone will appreciate this rant a bit.
Slowly I'm going to make myself feel better :)

#trans #thoughts #rant #longpost #pretrans #preop #amab #enby #nb #TransThoughts #personal #story #nonbinary