I had made a similar post on reddit r/trans as well with the same account name.
Hello, if my account name was not a dead giveaway this is a throwaway account.
I am a twenty year old AMAB from India and I am very confused regarding my gender. I live near Delhi and though the culture is very open, there is no one in my circle who is trans. I have tried exploring my gender identity (mostly by comparing my feeling with those that other trans women have wrote they felt, anything aside from this, like cross dressing, might be too costly for me) but I feel like I am working in a vaccum. My question is if there is some resource than can accurately tell if I am trans. For reference, I have already read the gender dysphoria bible, I tick some but not all boxes in imposter and social dysphoria descriptions.
I have read accounts of various trans women and my experience is very different from them. I never felt uncomfortable due to my penis, I never felt as if I was better off as a woman as a kid. As a kid, up until I was 16, I was bullied as a “Chakha”, it is a derogatory term for trans people in north india, I don’t know if it is influencing my feelings. Due to that it took me some time to stop lashing out to be my knee jerk reaction to being called or compared to a girl.
As for reasons I think I might be trans is that nearly every few months I get these intense feelings that I wish I could be a woman. During one of those I nearly cried thinking that I can never be a mother. But these feelings pass by very quickly. Even though I prefer interacting online and even in games through a female persona most of my hobbies are male coded (like FPS games, wargaming, etc). I also hate keeping a beard and hate my belly, others tell me I am not that fat but I don’t feel great about it. Also sometimes I need to stop myself from acting a little too feminine. There was this one time when a friend used a male to female filter on me, I kept gushing about how cute the photo was the entire day.
Any help in this is very much appreciated. This is my first time writing in a forum so please forgive me for any mistakes. Thank you
Heya! Just wanted to say, I had a very similar experience to you before coming out. I have no plans to pursue bottom surgery as I’m fine with my equipment, I never really had an issue being perceived as male until my 20s, and I was also bullied quite a bit when I was younger with other kids calling me gay and plenty of other derogatory terms. I also have stereotypically “male” hobbies and interests like video games, comics, sci-fi, and other nerdy shit.
I mention all of this to say, there really is no “checklist” or set of requirements for someone to be trans or queer. You don’t have to be girly, you don’t have to have genital dysphoria, you don’t need to have suffered dysphoria for your whole childhood. Tomboys exist, nonbinary people exist, genderfluid people exist… you don’t have to conform to any stereotype in order to be your true self. Also, some of us are just late bloomers or take a while to understand what we’ve been feeling.
I’m not saying you are or are not trans. Your self discovery is your own journey and you shouldn’t let others influence that, but that also works both ways. Nobody can tell you you’re trans, and nobody can tell you your cis, or anything outside or in-between. That is for you to figure out through your own self discovery.
I would encourage you to explore your thoughts and feelings, and perhaps look into seeing a counselor to help work through them if that is a feasible option (though be sure to find one that is LGBT+ friendly and won’t just write this off).
Wishing you the best of luck in your journey, wherever that may lead 💜
Considering it is India that would be very hard to find not to mention costly. Also, I know with 90% surety I am not cis. The question is between the rest of the stuff, what am I? how do I find that out?
I’d recommend getting more involved in trans and other LGBT+ communities, and talking to others to learn about their experiences. Also, don’t focus so much on “what am I?”, but rather “what makes me comfortable and happy?” Putting a label on it can come later, or even not at all. Explore yourself first.
Here’s a page that’s got a few basic tips and links to other resources, hopefully it can be of some help https://uwm.edu/lgbtrc/support/questioning/