Questioning
Dealing with uncertainty can be really difficult, and questioning is no different. For some it's arguably the hardest part, it's not too uncommon for people to spend years questioning before finally transitioning. Hopefully you get a little closer to your personal truth after reading this.
Am I Trans?
The tricky part about this question is that it tends to point us in the wrong direction when trying to find an answer. When we're first starting to question, it's hard to confidently say "Yes, I'm trans, and here's why." We don't have any experiences or proof to back a statement like that up, just a bunch of vague feelings that we haven't explored. The best way to get to a place of confidence is through experience.
The end goal should be to find some places where you feel socially secure presenting female. This gives you the chance to spend time with your feelings, and get to know them better. It'll also help you get experience interacting with others as a woman which is another helpful data point.
At first you'll probably just dress up in the privacy of your home, just to practice female presentation. Over time you might start putting yourself out there online, where it's still somewhat anonymous, but you can have some human contact and get feedback on how you're doing. Then when you're feeling more confident, you might want to go see people in person, like at an LGBT or cosplay event.
As you're doing all of this, just evaluate your feelings and see if any of it is helping you express yourself more comfortably. You might feel like a fake girl at first, since it's still an identity you're still trying to solidify. But as you gain more experience with that presentation, you'll have a lot more information to base your decision off of. You'll know if it feels natural or not, or if there's something that doesn't feel right about it. From there, you'll likely be able to decide if it's time to transition, and can weigh the pros and cons a bit better.
Unproductive Thoughts
Usually the biggest hang-ups we have are ones we create. In order to cope with the gravity of our situation, we latch on to the easiest "common-sense" conclusion without actually searching for the truth. "I'll never be pretty, I was born male." "My friends will feel awkward around me." "My dating pool will shrink, there's less gay girls than straight girls."
The problem though, is that these are almost always complete oversimplifications that we don't even have a basis for. These thoughts might comfort us from the burden of finding true answers, and lead us to the easy route of not transitioning, but they don't help us escape the emotional hole we've fallen into.
If our thoughts are binding us instead of helping us, we need to learn how to untangle them. We need a strategy for figuring out what uncertainties we have based on our negative thoughts, and how we can become more certain of their answers.
A good way of doing this is by keeping some kind of note that you can edit from your phone/computer/etc. As you encounter unproductive thoughts, add them to this note. When you're in a clearer mental state, re-read it and try and answer these two questions: What uncertainty am I dealing with, and how will I figure out the real answer? Here's an example to give you an idea of how it could look:
| Unproductive Thought | Uncertainty | How to figure out the real answer |
|---|---|---|
| I'll never be pretty | I don't know how I'll look as a female | Learn makeup and get a wig to see how I would look. Look for girls who have similar facial features. Learn what HRT could do for my facial features. |
| I'm not really trans, this is a fetish | I don't know if I'd prefer a female identity | Find emotionally safe opportunities to present female in-person, see how it makes me feel. Make a female online persona. Can I express myself better this way? Do I prefer this aesthetic? |
| I can make being a guy work | The status quo is bearable, and I'm scared of making it worse | Figure out how transition will benefit me. Collect supportive friends, cut out transphobes. Ask questions so I can reduce uncertainty around social transition and friends/work/school etc. |
| I don't want to risk my health | I'm scared of developing complications from surgery/HRT | Schedule consultations with different doctors/surgeons, ask how common complications are. Ask for examples of their work. Talk with an endocrinologist about my family history + risk factors. |
| Nobody will date me if I'm trans | I'm not sure what the dating pool is like for trans girls | Make friends with trans girls and ask them what their dating life is like. See how a dating profile with my girl pictures does. Talk with my therapist about their other clients' dating lives. |
Whenever one of those feelings pop back up, take a look at what you've written in the list, and hopefully it'll help diffuse those feelings over time. Once you've dealt with all the negative feelings that have accumulated over time, you'll find it much easier to diffuse new unproductive thoughts you might run into.
Making The Choice
Transition isn't one big decision, it's a series of small choices you make every day. Taking hormones, presenting female, and practicing voice are things you're actively deciding to do regularly, and as long as you're checking in with yourself to see if it's helping, there's little risk. You can always stop if any of it feels wrong.
Feel free to take a look at Female Presentation if you're interested. In the next parts we'll go into more detail about the various aspects of transition.
Further Reading
- https://amitrans.org (links to really good articles will appear after a few seconds)
- [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QScpDGqwsQ](Neuro-biology of trans-sexuality : Prof. Robert Sapolsky), great lecture about the biological basis of trans-sexuality
