Not sure what to do, not sure what to say, but I’m going to try.
To preface, I’m a male in my mid thirties, I’m married, work in the trades, and live in a red state. I don’t feel comfortable with the following for what I think are pretty obvious and understandable reasons. I have partially opened up about this with my wife, and while she is very understanding and supportive, I haven’t completely as I don’t completely understand it myself. I’m partially hoping writing and posting this will help me to understand who I am, and maybe start to accept it. I’ve been in pain my whole life, and I think this may be at least one of the scars on my heart.
Obviously you know where I’m going with this.
I’m not fully Trans, I’m definitely a man at least in body and mostly in soul. I’ve always felt more feminine then the men I grew up around and live and work with on the daily. I have often referred to myself as the daughter my mother never had. I not positive on the ratio, it seems to slide with my mental state. I’m bipolar and when I’m depressed it’s probably 70% male 30%female, when I’m manic it’s pretty close to 50/50 potentially 40/60 when it spikes. I dunno, it’s really hard to gage since I’ve been repressing it for most of my life.
When I was young, probably 9 or 10, I was encouraged to try on one of my cousins dresses. To my grandmother and my brothers it was really funny, they got their embarrassing photo to hold over my head and a reason to laugh at me. Not in a mocking or belittling sort of way, just a poking fun tee hee sort of way. The joking never bothered me. The thing is, I really enjoyed it. I like how I looked, it put a big smile on my face, I loved posing for the photo. Legs tucked together and bent to the side, arms extended, with hands overlapping on my knees, batting my eyelashes.
A year or two later, I started trying on my sister’s clothes, including her underwear. She lived with her mom during the week but had her own room with clothes for when she would stay with us on weekends. Durring the week I essentially had the house to myself till my parents got home as my brother would lock himself in his basement room and ignore me. So I would ‘sneak’ into her room grab some clothes and undies and try them on in the bath room looking at myself in the mirror. They never really fit right but I enjoyed it non the less.
By middle school, I had stopped all cross dressing in secret and basically pushed all those thoughts out of my head. I mostly hung out with girls and felt closer to them than I did the boys. I still had male friends but they were never really my best friends. I was pretty heavily ostracized because my family wasn’t religious and we lived in a fairly evangelical suburb. My three best friends were girls and I spent most of my free time durring school hours with them.
In high school we were allowed to dress up for Halloween, and one year a friend and I decided to dress up as girls. I was very excited, not to have an excuse to wear girls clothes in public, just to do something with a friend. My mom loved the idea and took me to goodwill to help me pick out an outfit. We decided on an early 90s valley girl kind of look. Pink knit shirt with super short sleeves the hung on the sides of my shoulders and a white skirt even got a wig to go with it. Again, when I tried it all on and looked at myself in the mirror I got really excited, a huge smile on my face, fucking loved it.
But then I got scared. Why did I like it so much? What if someone thought about it the wrong way? What if I looked or acted the part too well and people started talking? I couldn’t handle the anxiety and chickened out. Guys aren’t supposed to like dressing that way, they did it for a laugh. My friend was bummed but understood, it was just my social anxiety. No worries.
When I was a senior in high school I had a friend and roommate who just made me so happy to be around. I was dating someone at the time but she didn’t make me happy like he did. Years later I realized he might have been my first male crush, or at least the first I’d admit to myself. I can still see his smile to this day.
WARNING SUBSTANCE ABUSE and SEXUAL CONTENT
I repressed it again, and spent my junior and senior years; all of college; and my early 20 smoking weed and doing psychedelics, self medicating. I stared drinking heavily after my girlfriend of three years, the woman who I was sure I was going to spend my life with, broke up with me and basically said she never should have dated me. She stared dating me to get with my friend. She did fall in love with me but we really weren’t right for each other. This coupled with starting to work third shift drove me deep into a bottle.
I quickly became an alcoholic, a 750 a night. The alcohol soothed the pain and helped me go to bed at 10am. This combined with the powers of the internet led to some exploitation of my desires. Trans porn, led to sissy hypno, led to female pov. I was drawn towards being on the female side of a sexual relationship. I wanted to be the woman, to please a man, to be filled.
When I found femboy stuff, I stared to not just want to be a woman in a sexual way. I envied their lithe bodies, their small breasts, their smooth skin and curves. I wanted to wear those thigh high striped stockings, with matching bra and panties. I wanted to put an a skirt and crop top.
I only recently found out about feminine chastity. I kind of want one of the really tight pink ones that kind of look like to have a clit. I’ve tried a training dildo before and didn’t find it went in far enough, now i want a full sized, but am terrified of being caught.
Realize this has been over the span of 10+ years. During this time I had a few girlfriends, a few flings, sucked a total of one dick, and eventually met my wife.
She came from a catholic background, and while she has given up Catholicism, she is still very modest. She’s a horse girl, jeans, loose tee shirts, cowboy boots. She’s thin and tomboyish, maybe that’s what drew me to her when we met. I was very drunk that night and even though I was at the party to try and hook up with another girl, when I saw my future wife I was infatuated immediately, I felt like even though I was talking to the group I was actually just talking to her.
I want to embrace this feminine side of me but I’m afraid of it. I like watching auctions because it helps me jot spend money on stupid shit (most of the time). The other day there was a cute rave skirt, basically booty shorts with a black lace draping from waist to ankles, a pink bob cut wig, and a blue white and pink long curly wig with pig tails. I could picture my self in them and liked what I saw. I added them to my watch list, but as soon as they hit the first page I got nervous and removed them. How would I explain it? Would I have to hide them? Could I actually get myself to wear them in my home, at a Halloween party, or god forbid in public?
Who am I? What should I do? Am I allowed to embrace this side of me? Is Nissa allowed to exist? Am I allowed be be Nissa, even just some times? Do it push her away again, bury it again? I’ve already burned her/my clothes once, threw away the make up. If I do embrace it, will I actually buy myself the clothes I want? Will I wear them? Will I feel good about how I look? Will I have to hide it? Will I end up burning them again?
As much as I’m not Nissa, I am Nissa. Always have been, since before I was born when my mom hoped I was her daughter. Nissa was my first name.
But am I allowed to call myself by that name?
As a supporter of the LGBTQ+ community, the answer is yes, of course I can. Embrace who I really am. Buy the clothes, wear the clothes, call myself Nissa, even if just from time to time. But I also only just grew into who I am as a man, a loud, confident man. A man who wears fun colors and three piece suits. Who wants to stand out and be the guy who can talk to anyone and everyone.
As Nissa I don’t know who I am, I’d like to know but the fear is real.
Part of me wants to be accepted but part of me wants to be rejected, to be given another excuse to give up.
Regardless of what you say, I’ll probably still doubt myself. Question if it’s real. If I, Nissa, am real. And if I am, should I be?
Thank you for your time
- Love, Nissa
P.S. I’ve been writing and reading and rewriting this over the last few day, and the more I do the more I visualize me as Nissa. Wearing the clothes, swaying my hips, long curly hair done up in pig tails and fun colors. It’s made me smile on the inside a bit more than usual
Hi Nissa!
You’re the only one that can say for sure, but it definitely sounds like you’re trans. You don’t have to fit in a binary box to be a woman, and it’s normal for it to feel different from time to time.
If you feel comfortable with it, I definitely recommend talking to your wife/friends about how you feel. Definitely be cautious if you’re not sure how they’ll respond. Your safety is important.
What you do next comes down to 3 major questions: Who do you want to be? Is it safe for you to be that person? If it isn’t safe, what needs to change?
There’s no wrong or right way to be trans. You don’t have to have any specific traits, and you don’t have to follow any specific transition path. Do what you feel is right.
The thing that stopped me for way too long, that kept me in the closet / in denial, was the thought that other trans people were completely certain about their identity. That they just knew.
Well it turns out most of us were very uncertain, that we had all the same doubts as you have right now. That the first steps to transition were accompanied by massive screaming self doubt and fear. Eventually though, as you accumulated more and more experience, the question “what if I’m not really trans” starts to lose its power as it becomes more and more ridiculous in the face of evidence.
Nobody can tell you who you are, that is for you to decide, but your experience sounds very similar to many trans women.
I think you have a really good idea of who you are. I think you may be more scared of how your life will be uprooted and disrupted if you go through with it. I’m not diminishing that fear. It has been terrifying for me and my circumstances sound safer than yours. The question is, is it scarier than stuffing yourself back into a box you don’t fit in and pretending for the rest of your life that nothing is wrong?
I hope you can find some people close to you to confide in that will treat you with love and acceptance. It’s so much easier when you’re not going through it alone.
Wishing you luck Nissa.
Im sorry youre struggling with this so much. I can relate to you tho, because this is eerily similar, almost a word for word retelling of my experience.
I did try on the girls clothes when i was young and ended up repressing those thoughts as i went through puberty. “Guys” werent meant to have thoughts like that, and i got called the F slur alot. My family was also extremely homophobic and violent, so i never felt safe. Getting to high school i substance abused and was sexually promiscuous to compensate. I quickly turned into an alcoholic, got the wrong girl pregnant. Eventually gave up drinking but the thoughts NEVER LEFT. Ive spent the better part of my life dreaming of this and i couldnt think of it, i wasnt supposed to be like this. My dad was gone so maybe it was because he wasnt around to teach me. Maybe i hang out with to many girls and need to stop. These are all thoughts i had.
Being an adult i tried overcompensating again, got into guns and mechanics. Went shooting, worked on my car, hung out with other strongly male types, all that. I never was happy. I never looked in the mirrow and saw myself. I was living my life through a barrier yknow? Like i put on a protective suit before starting my day. Noone knew the real me, most still dont.
I cant tell you how your journey is going to go, noone can. I will say that about 5 years ago i started embracing it a bit, slowly but surely. I was taught ALOT of homophobia and toxic masculinity growing up and i still deal with it sometimes. That voice in my head still says some really hurtful things to me, i ignore it. Ultimately im happier in a dress than mens suits, i think i look better in a pair of skinny jeans or shorts than i do in big bulky pants, and ill wear tanktops over buttons ups all day evety day.
I think as i slowly dipped in the more i realized this is me, and the more joy and fun ive had from it. Its taken years, but im finally in a place to share with people (hence my posts) and im on the verge of coming out to everyone (week or two away)
The thing is, im happy. Not just pretending to be or just saying i am. I TRULY am, and during all this i figured out ive never been truly happy in my life. Its such an intoxicating feeling.
Coming out to my wife was the hardest thing ever, she was the first to know. She didnt leave! But it also took alot of time to adjust to it, and there werr hard times. Weve also had conversations about the future of intimacy that i wont get into now but it gives her options later yknow? She supported me, she took me to buy my first dresses, shes the best person ever and i know im so lucky to have someone supportive especially considering the lack of support others have.
Im still scared. I get so afraid to go in public. Im scared my daughter wont understand when i do talk to her about it. Im scared of people judging me for some stupid reason. The whole thing is scary AF and its completely natural to feel this way.
Start small like i did. Talk more with your wife about it! My partner helped me so much, including with clothes shopping discreetly (whos gonna question the husband saying what looks good and what doesnt when your wife holds up clothes?) Maybe talk with her about discreet shopping? Immerse yourself slowly, get a dress, take care of your skin, do makeup! These are all small things that can bring a huge amount of joy. And the more you do them the more youll figure out those questions.
Brcause idk about your experience, but mine started small like that, until i realized the pure joy and happiness that i got from it. Now im fully in, expecting to start hrt in just a few months, and loving myself even if internalized phobias are still there. The floodgates are open for me at this point
I hope it goes ok for you. Ill also say that being redstated sucks, i live in oregon which is vastly different and im still scared. I cant imagine what its like for you. Please reach out to me anytime, DM me if ya want. We have such similar lived experiences i wouldnt want you to go it alone like i did. Im here for ya, as we all are. And we love having you here, no matter what you end up figuring out about yourself. Youre here, and still an ally. And honestly we need all the red state allies we can get.
Dm me anytime, keep your head up!
Congrats on getting to where you are and good luck getting where you’re going
Thanks!
Thank you for writing this out. I’m so proud of you.
Aww thank you! Honestly its been a journey, and ive been through quite a lot. But starting to see the landscape through the light at the end of the tunnel, i feel much better and would hate to see anyone of you go through the same stuff i did alone.
This post resonated with my experience so much i even questioned if i blacked out and wrote it myself in certain parts, so i just had to say something lol
That’s happened to me a few times reading people on here. It helps so much with imposter syndrome to see yourself in the stories of other people.
I was so paralysed by imposter syndrome before. This place and the people in it are so important to me.
You sound a lot like me before I transitioned. I would highly encourage it.
The doubt is normal. I felt the doubt constantly from the time I started considering I might be trans until I started taking estrogen. The doubt lessened greatly, but it was still there. The doubt and fear came back whenever it was time to take the next step. The first time wearing a dress in public, coming out to friends and family, changing my name, every time the doubt came back. What if I’m not really trans? The doubt is part of journey, its a fundimential part of the trans experience, but so is the courage to push past the doubts.
I would highly encourage you to take a small step. Something small, something low commitment. Take that step, see how it feels. If it feels right, take the next one.
I can relate a lot to your posting, but instead of repeating what others already said, allow me to add something else.
These “gender feelings” that you describe will not go away. You had them for20-odd years already and they won’t go away in the next 20-odd years either. I don’t write this because I want to scare you, but because it is something that you should seriously consider whether you decide to transition, decide against it or find an entirely different way.
Nonetheless these feelings are a part of who you are and you have to face them in order to be at peace with yourself. Because at the moment, you very obviously are not. Nobody can fight that fight for you and while you may fear the consequences of it, also consider the famous adage: “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.”
So you may find your answer if you ask yourself what path you would walk, if fear did not hold you back.
Godspeed, friend!
Hey Nissa :)
A lot of us have been in similiar places you are/have been. It’s going to be ok. You can be who you want to be.
When I was in a lot of doubt, this really helped me, as silly as it may seem:
Well Nissa, you’re never going to find out without trying. I personally think that showing this post to your wife may help convey your feelings to her, though depending on what you find it may or may not impact your relationship.
So I’m just going to start by talking about how I found myself. I’m a few years younger than you, and I transitioned a little over a decade ago. I had similar childhood desires for experimentation, though I was never brave enough to do it openly even as a joke. By my mid teens I was questioning my gender, and began using sexualization of it as a means of attempting to silo ir off (that’s absolutely not how I would have framed it at the time, but at rhe time I thought all boys just really hated not having breasts so I was very in denial then). I was constantly maladaptively daydreaming, often imagining myself becoming female through convoluted means. But at the same time I was large and masculine and complaining I wasn’t allowed to wear a beard to high school.
At 18 I did some reflection and came to the conclusion I was bigender. I then proceeded to decide I’d hide the feminine portion of that forever. I was a good catholic kid from a swing state that was headed red, and while I was progressive as all hell, I worried about how others would see me. This was before most people had seen trans people in a positive light. But I kept struggling with it. No amount of trying to hide it or ignore it made it actually go away. I occasionally experimented with using a female name online (yeah it’s now my govvie so I’m not using it here) and it felt uncomfortably right. I experimented with stuff like painting my toenails and shaving my legs (I still have the scars lol). I grew my hair out, but didn’t shave my beard.
Then when I was 19 I saw a post by a trans woman that made me feel like it was something I could be. She was just kinda normal. She was gay and not super femme. She’d be cliche today, but I’d read so much about gatekeeping and RLE that I’d just assumed that even if I was a trans woman I’d have to lie to doctors, acr more feminine than I felt, pretend I just wanted a good husband, and completely abandon my life. For the next two months I was seriously thinking about my gender and seriously asking myself how real the male side of me was. I used a female name online. I seriously thought about my dysphoria. And one week while my parents were out of town I decided to experiment (in retrospect no idea why I didn’t do it in my dorm a month earlier)
I went to a Walmart in the middle of the night and bought some makeup (it was hideous on me lol). And I got supplies to make breast forms. They were certainly of a weird quality, accidentally too big and they began leaking, but they were appropriately dense and jiggly and with them taped to my chest, I couldn’t go back. The night I tried them I did some real thinking. It clicked that the reason I’d always been unhappy crossdressing was that it made me too aware of my masculine body, and that that’s what I had an issue with. That night I realized that while I thought I was genderfluid the times I felt male I really just wasn’t feeling particularly dysphoric. That night I accepted that I was a binary trans woman and that I needed to transition sooner rather than later.
The next year was a struggle against mental health, fear, and life. But within a year of that fateful night I began hrt. Everything afterwards are different stories. Life during and after transition have been hard, but they’ve been a lot better than a life spent struggling and wishing I could actually like who I am.
I’m happy to talk more if you’d like. I’m not saying where you’re headed, just telling you what my path was. Good luck, this won’t be easy no matter what you find, but not looking won’t be easy either.
Just a quick note to say thanks for the story. It resonated with me a lot. Especially the line
the times I felt male, I really just wasn’t feeling particularly dysphoric
And the feeling of crossdressing not feeling right because it can really make you feel how male your body is and that can be more distressing.
Thanks for sharing ❤️ I can empathize this feeling of back-and-forth, of uncertainness. I don’t it’s common knowledge, but apparently this uncertainty, this “but I’m not 100% femme!” and “I don’t hate my current body” is apparently common for trans people. The emotional rollercoaster that is this article by Cassie LaBelle helped me through this.
Personally, I try to not rush it. I’ve repressed it long enough, but that doesn’t make it a race, I’d rather try not to trip. Give it a few weeks to see how the feelings towards regarding yourself as a woman develop. Test out what being called Nissa feels like, either in your imagination or by supportive friends / your wife. Don’t worry about it being a commitment, it can stop when you want it to, just like putting on a dress isn’t a commitment.
If it makes you happy and you feel more confident moving forward, you can plan ahead, do some research, and come out on your own terms and schedule.
Reading stories on gender euphoria has helped me to find reassurance in wanting to dare go this path. For me that was mostly transmemes and the book Gender Euphoria.
Chase your joy, Nissa. The only way to stop wondering is to try something different.
Hi Nissa!
I hope you’re doing okay. I’m happy for you that your wife is on your side. I don’t have much to add to all of these other wonderful answers. You’re not alone. I’ve also pretty recently woken up that maybe I’m trans. It feels weird, but somehow…easier, like there’s a small piece of a puzzle that has slotted in. You’re going to be okay as long as you continue taking it at your own pace and by being honest to yourself. I think that’s the toughest pill to swallow when society around us is telling us that “men are men, perkele”. Keep doing whatever you can that makes you happy sweetheart.
