I can’t seem to shake imposter syndrome or doubts about whether I’m “trans” or whether I’m a woman, etc.

Just wondering what you all do when you feel that way, if you have any recommendations?

It makes me feel awful, there is so much commitment to a transition it feels like you have to be certain, but I just don’t have constant certainty.

Sometimes I’ll sit down and try to analyze it objectively, basically considering the “null hypothecis” - if I am not trans, then I would be cis, if I were cis then a certain set of things would be true (like, estrogen would probably not feel so great, testosterone would not make me depressed, etc.).

  • Frozzie
    12•1 month ago

    I cracked my egg about 1 month ago. I’m about to start HRT in less than 2 months (MTF). I’m 26.

    I sometimes do have moments of doubts but they quickly vanish when I look at myself in the mirror wearing my fem clothes, or when I do makeup. Something incredible is how I feel like jolts of pure happiness when people call me by my new name.

    I remember the day I told myself I am trans and going to do HRT. There was a storm and I was outside yelling, crying and dancing. I didn’t care about the rain, nothing mattered around me for a moment, just me being incredibly happy, maybe for the first time in my life. Just the realisation itself is a strong sign for me.

    • @[email protected]OP
      5•1 month ago

      First of all, congrats - I wish I had transitioned when I was 26!

      I do feel happiness when called my name (esp. by strangers or people who didn’t know me pre-transition), and I feel happy wearing women’s clothes (I felt this way before my egg cracked too, which is weird because I have internalized wearing women’s clothes as a part of my “cis male” identity and experience).

      I think “doubt” becomes a bit of an amorphous term, at some point I think it’s clear that what I’m experiencing is essentially an emotion, a sense of insecurity, fear, and uncertainty about transitioning rather than a reasonable intuition that I’m not trans or that I am wrong. Ironically I seem to “doubt” the most when I am dysphoric and feeling the symptoms that prove I am trans most strongly, when I can look at those symptoms and reason through that this is what makes me trans.