I'm 17 years old, AFAB, and over the past few months(years??) I've been realizing that I'm probably FTM. I've been questioning my gender for approximately four years. Some events may be missing or out of order, or just plain disorganized, because I'm writing this very late at night and I can't remember things properly.

In the past three years, I considered myself to be nonbinary and put "they/them" as my preferred pronouns on social media accounts, but never actually corrected anyone about those pronouns, so no one knew, since apparently none of my friends check my profile descriptions. Around October 2017, I started correcting people on my pronouns.

My reason for identifying as nonbinary was that I didn't """feel""" like a girl, and I didn't """feel""" like a boy, either. I did not consider myself to be transgender, because I didn't actively hate my body the way that it seems like everyone else does; and I didn't want to transition to anything, since I didn't know what was possible at the time since I had never actually seen FTM progress pictures before. I did think that it would be preferable to have a penis instead of a vagina, but I didn't want to have a phalloplasty, because it would lose feeling and not be able to get erect on its own. For whatever reason, I never actually searched the definition of gender dysphoria.

In February 2017, despite already calling myself nonbinary and using "they/them" for some time, I joined Gender Amino and described my issues in a lot less detail than I am doing here, hoping that someone would help me figure out what I am.
The exact post from February 21, 2017:
"I'm dfab and am mostly content with my physical appearance, but never really associated with "feminine" things, even outright rejecting them when I was younger. Lately I haven't felt comfortable with calling myself a "girl" or a woman, or even when people use she/her pronouns on me. Also, sometimes I have an intense desire to be a cute boy, and imagine myself as such, but I just kind of brushed that off as penis envy?
What is this called? Genderfluid? Demi-something? What's the deal here??"

I then proceeded to not use Gender Amino for a whole month until March 27, the day after my birthday:

"It doesn't fit the medical definition of dysphoria as far as I know, but I get some sense of sadness when considering that I will never have fully functioning male genitalia? That I'd never be able to have that; the option is completely cut off and I will never experience it. It's distressing, but I'm not sure if it's considered dysphoria, since that seems to only apply to hatred of one's self and body.

On that note, I don't think I experience typical dysphoria... I have no desire to be rid of my breasts or current genitalia, only a deep longing to have characteristics of the male sex, like a beard, or deeper voice. I would greatly prefer to have a penis but I don't hate my current state of genitals, if that makes sense?

Lately, I've been imagining myself with a beard. I feel like it'd be better that way. I think it would make my face look less round. Since I am very short and weak, it might deter sexual assault in parking lots and such? It seems wrong to say that, somehow (regarding the chance of assault), but that's the conclusion I've come to."

When I wrote that, I still don't think I had actually googled the definition of gender dysphoria yet.


In March 2017, I started searching #ftm on Instagram, because I felt some compulsion to do so, and it was comforting to look at the pictures. There, I found Jesse Diamond, and cried because he's the same height as me, and he used to be nearly the same weight as me, and I realized it was possible for me to look like him.

Also in March, I made an IMVU account and made a male avatar, and told people that I was a man. I played it for about a week, then uninstalled and never played again until this week.

In May 2018, I found /r/egg_irl and related a bit too much to a lot of the posts. Then I browsed /r/ftm a bit and related a bit too much to *those* posts, specifically the ones where people described their behavior prior to figuring out that they were trans.

In July, I enrolled to community college. There was a "preferred name" field in the online application, but I didn't fill it out because my mother was helping me and I was scared that she would ask questions. At student orientation, I was filled with dread for the whole day because I thought I would be stuck with my legal name on my student ID, and that everyone that I meet at college would know me by my shitty given name. Fortunately, an error occurred where I was given a student ID card with my mother's name on it instead of my own given name. I took this opportunity to put my preferred name (a typically male name) on my student ID.
I started going to a club on campus, because the club had a meeting on the day of orientation, and my father wanted to go to it. My father is also taking classes at the same college.

I started getting uncomfortable with being introduced by my given name, since I was meeting a lot of new people. My parents knew that I had changed my student ID, but they thought it was to my legal name. I showed them. They were shocked because I had not shown any signs of wanting to use any name other than my legal name before. At some point, my father started using my preferred name when introducing me to people. He still uses it but only when there are people around.

In August, when classes actually started, I had to fill out a sheet for my mandatory college-readiness class. It had an entry field for preferred pronouns. I put "they/he" because I felt like if I used "he" while still having long hair I would look like a fraud. My father saw the sheet, with the pronouns on it. He made fun of me for a few days. I think he called me "he" for two days, only while making fun of me, then gave up on that.

My father started making strange jokes about gender after that. While buying body soap for showering:
"here's lavender soap to bend your gender, it's what keeps old ladies ladylike"

Conversation with my father from 30 days ago:
him: "hey if you're gonna use that he pronoun maybe you should draw on a fake beard"
me: "well I have to let the doctor to let me take testosterone"
him: "no, you shouldn't take testosterone, you'll destroy yourself, what do you need hormones for? what, a deeper voice? what will hormones do for you?"

After that conversation, on the same day, at dinner, father said that he'll tease me forever about how I "want to be a boy". He said that I should not take hormones because it will destroy my body and make me mentally ill.

A little over two weeks ago, I got a haircut. I chose the haircut specifically because it would make me look more masculine. The stylist kind of fucked it up but I still felt good about it.

At some point after that, first thing in the morning, my father said that a study came out stating that "transgender is a social contagion". This one: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0202330
I don't agree with this. I don't think it's right to ask the parents whether or not their child's identity is valid, especially when they're all already on forums for parents who "doubt the transgender narrative". My father often just reads headlines of articles and takes them as truth, without actually reading the full text. As an example, he almost forbade tea from our household because of this article: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/05/170531092458.htm

A little over one week ago, I went out for dinner with just my mother. We somehow got to the topic of legally changing names. She said that she'll never call me by my preferred name, even if I got it legally changed, because "that's weird". I made some offhand comment about how difficult it is to legally change gender. She got very upset and cried in the pho restaurant. She said that if I "change my gender", she'll cut me off financially and remove me from her will. She told me "you'll never look like a man no matter how much you change your DNA" and that I have no idea how hard it is to be a man (but she doesn't know either...?). That if I choose a life that's more difficult, while fully knowing that it'll be more difficult, then she won't support me. I asked her "you would rather have a dead daughter over a happy son?" and her response was "if I wanted a son I would have had a second child".

She apologized about that the next morning.

Last week, a waitress called me "he", and I felt fucking *amazing* for the rest of the night, to the point where I couldn't sleep because I was just so *happy.* My father noticed and said "looks like you don't need testosterone after all".

Today I cried, at school, during club meeting, because I had the thought that other people might think that I'm a girl because my father introduces me to them as "daughter" and uses "she/her" on me, when they would otherwise assume that I'm male. No one noticed, but that's probably good. While I was having those thoughts, my father was telling the group about things that I did as a child, all while calling me the "she/her" words. I wanted to correct him but I did not because I was crying and I did not want to make the club members distressed, because if they associate the club with family drama, they might not come back to club.

I have yet to actually tell my parents the words "I'm transgender".

Tonight I went through my old (from 2+ years ago) tumblr posts and I have a lot of personal text posts that basically say "x would be better if it had a male character instead" or "y would be good if it didn't have a generic attractive woman in it". A few of them said things like "why do masculine words always sound cooler wtf" in regards to gendered words like lord/lady. Also, for some reason, a lot of posts that just say "girls are GROSS" and nothing else. I don't remember the context of any of these.

I think I've had some kind of misogynistic tendencies my whole life, like thinking that women are "catty" and always talk behind eachothers backs, despite barely socializing with girls and only having one cis female friend.
My one and only female friend had a phase in 2015-2016 where she thought she was bigender, then FTM trans. The other day I asked her what her reasons were for thinking that she was FTM. She said it was because people have called her ugly her whole life because she was not feminine enough, and that she hated herself and her body. She keeps saying that she had two years of genuine gender dysphoria.

She sometimes responds to my venting (on the designated discord channel for venting) with how she was exactly the same way and that Feelings Can Change.
Direct quote:"you should probably at least wait until you're an adult to go on hormones...it is Big Decision"
Then she told me about one of her friends, who has been out for four years, who is just now getting ready to get on T, because "he wanted to wait until he was absolutely 100% certain he was trans before taking that step".

I'm an adult in 6 months. How long do I have to wait until I'm Adult Enough to make this decision? What do I have to do to make people stop doubting me? To stop doubting myself?

last edited 9/20/2018