(sorry if this is too much.)
Hi,
To start this off I’ll say I very recently came out to both my parents as trans, they are supportive and I am very lucky to have them :)
I’ve been on/off questioning for 3 years, which I guess is indication enough, I remember it starting off as me joking that I weirdly fit lots of egg stereotypes, as well as just consuming an ungodly amount of trans content and information (mostly on YT), but I certainly couldn’t be trans because I didn’t fit an exaggerated binary, “I didn’t hate myself enough to have dysphoria”, “I never wished to be a girl” etc.
I came out to a friend as questioning around October of 2025, and somehow managed to not do anything about it until last week, where it felt like I only just cracked my egg despite “knowing” for much longer. For what it’s worth I seem to be very good at putting barriers up in my mind, when I was talking to my parents I couldn’t quite articulate my feelings or really even feel what I felt during the night before, and that made me feel like I was lying. I don’t know what that means but I’ve learnt to keep track of what I would feel if there weren’t any external pressure, as such I’m writing this at 2 AM.
I think I might be genderfluid/demi-girl? Based on the fact I can’t really get a feel of an innate sense of gender and my feelings change too often, I only really have the dysphoria to guide me, I still hate mirrors/photos but less so since I have awesome hair now. I’m pretty confident I want to look/pass as a girl, and I like the idea of HRT and voice training, while pronouns and my name I can’t feel much either way yet (all stuff I’ve told my parents).
Regardless, my original plan of just going with it and figuring out if I’m binary or not later is probably the best one. Also I just had one of the weirdest brain worms right now, that I can’t be trans because “I’ve been looking up to trans women for too long”, as if that means I can’t be one??? like what lmao.
I think the next best steps would be getting to know queer people local to me as well as contacting the NHS. Although everything I’ve heard makes me very scared to talk to the NHS, given I might need to change my name, and the fact they aren’t very supportive, plus the waiting list, oh and that the records will be shared with Palantir, it’s just a lot and I don’t know what I’m doing.
Thank you if you read through all of this, I’m not sure what the purpose of this post is, but any feedback is cool!
First of all a hearty welcome to the sisterhood <3
Nice to hear that your parents got your back, that’s worth a lot! Have you tried to experiment with your name / pronouns, yet? Tried to see what it does to you if you actually get called by something new?
Labels are first and foremost for you to get closer to yourself. Personally I go with she/her/woman and that feels nice to me, but I see it as a working hypothesis that may change some day and that’d be okay. Though, the likelihood of that seems to go lower over time. For me a lot of it came from the thought that I haven’t really understood what non-binary means and that it was just very new to me.
Oh and hey, if no one has told you yet - everyone has doubts or anxiety surrounding their identity. People who do transition do so in spite it, not because it isn’t there. Society likes that idea of a trans person who knew about their gender from childhood, always wanted the changes and pressured their surroundings as soon and as much as possible. People like that do exist, but they’re actually the exception, for most of us it’s much more complicated.
For me, my understanding of feelings has evolved a lot in the last few months. I’ve barely had consciously thought about being a woman or other wishes that may revolve around that identity. I thought these were not possible, so what’d be the point of indulging in them, huh? But yeah, my feelings were there and did everything they could to try and show me what I need to see. I was blind and it took me two decades to finally start getting myself.
I am so so grateful for all the visible trans people who live their best lives and have shown me it’s possible.
I’d like to leave you two links: If you haven’t already, The Gender Dysphoria Bible is a great read and starting point for this journey. Almost single-handedly cracked my own egg.
Also https://turnmeintoagirl.com/ is a fun experiment, maybe it does something with you :).
Can’t wait to hear more from you and enjoy the ride <3
Thanks, I’ll have a look at those links.
For experimenting, not yet, my reasoning has been for people previously “mis”-gendering me as she/her occasionally, and I didn’t feel overly euphoric or anything, but then again from experience I know my brain likes to brush off anything less than definitive, since every time that happened they couldn’t see my face. I’ve also had 2 occasions where people have asked me if I’m a girl or a boy, the first one I found mildly amusing but it was a guy and they didn’t need me for anything so I could’ve just been weirded out by it, the other time was on the bus and two girls asked me, that time I can’t remember what I felt.
You’re right though I should probably ask my parents if they could mix it up a bit, but I’m scared it could make me feel weird about it, I know personally to myself I can sometimes feel comfortable seeing myself as a girl, but only really in isolation (the sun is up now and I’m already feeling a little bad), I do have a history of a social anxiety disorder so that could play a part in me feeling so weird about it. Although I did feel kind of good about adding my girl name alongside my birth name here and there.
I’ll absolutely keep posting updates though, and thank you again!
No pressure! Whatever happens, do it in your own pace. This is your journey and yours alone.
Heh, makes me think of that time decades ago where a girl in my class said with my long hair I’d look like a fat woman. That really stung, that she called me fat.
Some people can really just be mean. Compliments are usually more likely to go unsaid in my experience, I had one person berate me over my hair throughout my last year of secondary school, and never once had been complimented, 2 years of sixth form go by, the entire time thinking people hated my hair, only to hear second hand that someone in my class thought my hair was “beautiful” when being reminded of me, the person telling me this also agrees, and around the same time someone in the street wanted to know what hair product I was using. So safe to say people 100% think nice things about you all the time, but for whatever reason refrain from saying them.
Absolutely, the fun bit just is how I didn’t feel insulted in the slightest for being called a woman. Wasn’t euphoric either, but still think that’s saying something.
Well, now I want to know, too, sounds like you’re doing something very right there.
Regarding compliments, I kinda get that, I’ve never really been able to give them to others. Not sure why, maybe missing self worth, maybe scared of giving a wrong impression. It’s actually something I’m actively trying to improve currently.
Oh lol, then I guess it’s cool that helped you figure it out. I’ve been meaning to compliment someone at uni (they seemed nervous) but I missed the chance, I’ll be sure to do so when we start again in September.
About my hair, it’s naturally thick and curly, so I’m not sure if this will work for everyone, but it normally gets very frizzy if I don’t do anything with it, so my Mum taught me to use hair mousse, and I’ve settled on one of the strongest ones that Wella (the company) makes, other than that I don’t really take care of my hair as well as I could be, just that and re-doing it every 2-3 days to stop it from knotting. If you know Tony Statovci then mine is just his if it were shorter, although he ties his hair up a lot so you’ll have to see it when he has it down.
Thanks again I really appreciate all the support everyone is giving me. <3