I’ve been on HRT for about 6 weeks now and I’m pretty sure I’m at female levels. Got a late start at 29 and I still strongly doubt that I’m even trans and should be doing this (seriously, my story is a weird one I think). I would quite welcome being cis because that would mean I don’t have to upend my life and essentially start over under 10x more difficult conditions. I considered myself agender for a long time and maybe I am.
Before HRT I considered myself very much vers. I do understand that severe bottom dysphoria is not needed to be trans, and I intended to do maintenance to retain my ability to top. Now that I’m actually into it, my feelings have changed.
I’ve read that a full erection once a day is needed to reliably retain full function, but that sounds quite unpleasant to me now? I just don’t want to do it, and I don’t really care if I never use my genitals to top again. I’m also finding myself more welcoming to the idea of SRS.
- Is it due to the nature of HRT and changing sex drive? I mean, duh, estrogen
- Is it due to repression breaking? Was I masking dysphoria before?
- Is it because I have read and internalized that this is how I should feel, in some people’s opinion, and I am conforming to that?
I don’t think it’s really the last one - I also understand I have more sexual/dating prospects if I’m vers, and I think I kinda care about that more than some fringe viewpoints about validity
Imo, worrying about labels like trans or agender haven’t been that helpful for me and it’s easier to just worry about what steps I’d like to take going forward. Also, librafem exists, so you can be transfem and agender-spec. It’s not necessarily one or the other.
As for bottom dysphoria, I think it’s normal to sometimes miss secondary or tertiary problems until the primary problem is addressed. Like, when painting the walls, at first the tiny mistakes might not seem important, but once you fix the bigger problems, those other problems now get your full attention. Or like, if you break one wrist, sprain the other wrist and elbow, and get some scrapes, you might just not care at all about the scapes and not notice the sprains at first. But if you only had the scrapes, then you’d care a lot about those.
Of course being aware that it’s possible to at least slightly internalize other people’s happiness with certain things and accidentally think that such is something you need as well can be good. Especially when you see constant memes celebrating bottom surgery. I doubt that it would trick someone who would otherwise be actively against the idea into someone who thinks they want it, but it certainly can nudge feelings a little.
I think there’s some thing I have a instinctual positive reaction to just because of the memes celebrating those things, but it’s easy to tell that the reaction isn’t really reflective of what I want.
Thanks for the response! I agree with your first paragraph - I’m not trying to find an identity, I’m not trying to figure out pronouns, I’m trying to figure out hormones and surgeries. That’s it.
The choice I’m facing is to continue with an extremely difficult transition and maybe emerge much happier on the other end (and maybe not emerge at all), or continue doing whatever I’ve been doing for the past 10 years which apparently evaporated while I wasn’t paying attention.
I imagine there must be comfort in knowing “I am a woman, I must transition” or “I am a man, I must not”. I don’t have that, I’m just lost. Starting therapy tomorrow to hopefully work on that
While I can’t say for certain, the past 10 years apparently evaporating could be a sign of some level of disassociation. Definitely something to ask your therapist about.
Agreed. Every change is its own journey and it doesn’t help that I’m bad at recognizing my own emotions. Therapy probably wouldn’t have helped work though things.
yeah. also there is a societal pressure to be ‘unambiguous’ i.e. binary. so if it is possible, to have a certain surgery, it becomes an unspoken imperative. i myself try to very carefully navigate all these currents. i fear i wouldn’t find home otherwise. and it is ok to sit on a stone for seven years (or so) untill you find out what you really want and only then sail on.
sure we’d love to accelerate this finding-out-process. but sometimes poseidon is gonna be poseidon. :/
(this whole oddyssee thing is getting to far (off). i’ll stop rn.)