Hi, if my user account did not give it away, I am going to be using this as a throwaway.
So a little about me. I am an AMAB, i quite frankly don’t know the proper ettiqute for being in an internet community so please forgive me for any mistakes. I am still exploring things but only have a general idea about everything.
I have lived most of my life in India and it has been a pretty good one so far. I honestly can’t pinpoint one moment where I definitely wanted to be a girl, but the strongest I have ever felt was when I prayed desparately as a 14 yr old to be changed into a girl. I was bullied for being a little feminine according to my peers by being called trans which was still treated as a slur at that time.
Aside from that, trans people are still not accepted by atleast my immediate community, even those I know of are ostracized, even my own family is against them. I don’t even know what gender dysphoria even feels like so once again I am confused.
If I have to answer honestly, I would love to be a girl if I could restart my life from scratch. I often dreamed of exchanging lives with a girl. But I do not hate my genitals and I don’t hate being a guy, so I am a litte confused. So is just a fantasy or am I trans? Can someone please guide me in the right direction.
You can be trans without dysphoria. the only requirement to be trans is that you would be happier if you transitioned.
Also, “trans without dysphoria” doesn’t always mean that you don’t actually have dysphoria. this link and actually that whole website go into a lot of the ways that you might say “i don’t have dysphoria” but end up realizing later you totally did.
I used to say that, too. And there are a whole bunch of things that i had misattributed to something other than gender dysphoria (blaming physical features of myself that aren’t gender related, when those don’t bother me when i present feminine) or just something where i didn’t experience the dysphoria because i had never experienced the euphoria, and didn’t really understand that was a way you could feel.
I didn’t start transitioning until right before my 42nd birthday. Looking back at my life, the signs that i was trans and all the dysphoria were always there, it was all just internalized dysphoria or feelings i didn’t understand.
I’m transmasc, not transfem, but I think some of the basics when it comes to “feelings” are the same.
You don’t actually have to have intense dysphoria to be trans. Like, you don’t have to hate your body or genitals. Some of us just experience more euphoria at being perceived as/treated as the gender we identify with, and overall end up with a higher level of life satisfaction if we’re able to transition. (There’s a link in the sidebar that talks about dysphoria that might be helpful to you…it also covers euphoria.)
I will leave the rest of your questions for actual trans feminine people, but I do want to say one thing from a safety perspective…
…if you’re in India, be aware that some of the advice from people online in general (here or elsewhere) might come from individuals who are NOT in India and are not familiar with your local community or culture. (I honestly don’t know what trans acceptance is like in modern India.)
Sometimes things that are safe in one country are not in another. If you think something is risky from a safety perspective, even if online people act like it won’t be, and you choose to keep yourself safe, that doesn’t mean you are more or less trans. It just means you don’t want to be in danger, and your instincts are telling you something that might be safe enough for other people might not be safe for you.
You can 100% be trans and still want your genitals. You can be trans and not have any dysphoria at all. The only requirement for being trans is that your gender identity doesn’t match your gender assigned at birth.
I would love to be a girl if I could restart my life from scratch. I often dreamed of exchanging lives with a girl.
This sounds very similar to my experience! I’ll just say that when I accepted myself as trans, I didn’t stop smiling for two weeks.
