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Gender My Experiences Being Transgender

I suppose I should share my own personal experiences with being trans. I dunno if I'm the only FTM (Female to Male) transgender member on the forum or in general the only trans member, but I feel sharing my experiences will maybe help those who are struggling or those who are unfamiliar with the topic. So I'll start with the age I was aware that I was born in the wrong body. I was eight years old, I noticed that a girl at my school was a tomboy and wore boys clothes. I thought "Okay I'm not the only one like that!" So this is when I started wearing boys clothing. My grandmother and parents were okay with this, I'm sure in their minds this was just a phase. I never felt comfortable wearing girls clothing. I even remember being even younger than eight and wanting a pair of Airwalks like one of my male cousins had.

Anyways fast forward to ten. Back then I would easily pass as a young boy, and any time someone would call me "buddy" or use male pronouns for me it made me feel happy. But then that happiness would go away because then my grandmother or mom would correct them... It was around this time I started telling my mom "I wish I was born a boy." I'm sure that caught my mom off guard. This was the year 2000, hardly anyone talked about being gay or being a lesbian, and on tv most of the time these people were the butt of some jokes and were mocked. Being trans was obviously even less talked about. She would tell me "Well you would have to get surgery if you want to be a boy." I think she said this to scare me away from this thought, because she knew I had a fear of getting surgery. After that I just bottled up this feeling, and came out as a lesbian to my parents when I was 17. I suppressed this feeling until 2015.

In 2015 I finally came to full terms with my gender identity and at this point I finally came out as trans. I cut my hair off, told everyone to start using my preferred pronouns and name and made a huge post on Facebook. Of course not every family member was accepting, but the ones that did accept me for who I was are still part of my life to this day. Fast forward to 2020, where I finally made the next step. I started taking hormones in August and I've been on testosterone ever since. I really wish I could have gone through a male puberty when I was younger. Things were different then though, and there was no guarantee that my mom would have allowed me to take testosterone. Ever since I came out as trans and started taking hormones, my confidence has boosted. I'm hoping to save up some money to get the surgery that I want to get to help relieve me of my dysphoria. Feel free to ask me any questions if you like, I'm very open about this.
 
I never have had an opportunity to meet a transgender in my life. I do not know any exact reason. Perhaps, that was due to the inbuilt fear of growing up in a society where transgenders were frowned upon. It was a taboo topic and it is still a taboo despite the law protecting transgender people. Good to meet you here.
 
Nice to meet you as well Nomad! Society isn't exactly where it should be when it comes to my community (and honestly I doubt it will be even in my lifetime) but it's definitely come a long way. It's tough being trans in general, but I could only imagine it was much more difficult growing up in the 60's, 70's, and 80's. (I was born in 1990 and it was even tough in the 90's and 00's... Heck even the year I came out in 2015 was rough too.) Even at some point it was taboo to talk about homosexuality, and people of color were treated unfairly too.
 
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