Share some activities you’ve been interested in doing but couldn’t do because you’re closeted.

Transmasc, Transfem, Nonbinary, and Gender Non-Conforming answers are all welcome and encouraged here.

  • @[email protected]
    2•5 hours ago

    Ah, I don’t think we’re that different, maybe just the timing of things were a bit different.

    I didn’t take hormones to change my body, but rather on the possibility that it would help my mental health - wishing for a female body under the t-shirt and jeans was too much hoping for me, I think.

    Meanwhile, once I socially transitioned, I felt going back to t-shirt and jeans was akin to going back in the closet, so I forced myself to stay femme so I would stay “out”. At first I really struggled with a femme identity and makeup, until I read Julia Serano and read about femmephobia and worked through the relationship between femininity and feminism. That really helped me feel like I could use makeup, and then I just saw it as a useful tool (rather than a betrayal towards women, which was basically how I felt before then about using makeup).

    Crossdressing and anything feminizing also made me more dysphoric pre-transition, which I took to mean at the time that I wasn’t trans, lol. My transition never had to do with my body or exploration that way - I struggled with being a man in the world, and I wished I could be a woman. My egg cracked when I was looking for resources to undo male socialization because I didn’t like that I was acting as a man sometimes, and of course those resources were in the trans community and inevitably I found videos about whether you’re trans, and this video in particular about common excuses to avoid transitioning. The video so specifically applied to me and I had had those exact excuses, so I was sort of shocked to learn I really probably was trans, at least according to these videos. Previously I had only used the DSM-V’s criteria for gender dysphoria to define trans-ness, and I didn’t understand the shape dysphoria could take to recognize it. I actually accepted I was trans before I realized I had dysphoria or how bad it was.

    • @captainlezbian
      2•5 hours ago

      That’s very fair lol. The militancy with which I’ve noticed many trans women approach feminism is also interesting. I to this day stand by my collegiate commitment to never wear makeup to work or to appear professional and to only use it to enhance or express never to hide perceived flaws. It’s important to me not to hold up the unfair expectations on my fellow women. And yeah Dr. Serrano also played a role in my willingness to embrace my femininity, but so did some very loud and outspoken femme lesbians who taught me to associate femininity with having the potential for power when I wield it for my own desire rather than for the desires of others. That said I’m still very much a lazy femme.

      And I kinda get that feeling that going back to jeans and a tshirt would be like recloseting. I definitely cringe at how long I wore oversized men’s shirts. But for me it was always “well this is what the other women in my life wear.” And for me there was the big beard shave that was my crossing of the rubicon. There was also an element of the fact that I had a pretty bad nlog phase in response to the expectation of hyperfemininity that was just starting to be relaxed on trans women in the mid 10s. Hell I could do a whole rant about how the the expectations that had been placed on trans people by the medical establishment in order to transition fucked me up even though I managed to transition relatively young for the time and not be blocked.

      And yeah I thought I couldn’t be a trans woman because I wasn’t hyperfeminine or boy crazy. My teenage relationship with femininity was downright normal by cis lesbian standards and my attraction to men was so mild and rare that I only really became fully aware of it when it went away after starting hormones. It took seeing trans women online who were just normal women (albeit normal by traumatized lesbian standards). Well that and they used to say that you shouldn’t transition until it was your only option to continue living. It was from an era where it was safe to assume transitioning would cost you everything, and well I waited that long. I just lucked out with how young I hit it.

      And yeah, as I came out and began transitioning the social floodgates continued bursting open. And thankfully I got out of my nlog phase and got to know women who’d transitioned before me. It gave context and provided me with the opportunity to grow into myself. That and spending more time with other lesbians. Sorry for the history rant lol, idk how I got to act so damn old despite only being 30.