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How did you all figure this out for yourself? I mean, what made it click?
I knew something was up when a friend came out to me and I realised it was possible to be something other than your assigned gender.
5 years later, I'm reading an article about a non-binary person and bam, it all made sense.
I wish I could have learned about nonbinary identity much earlier. Like back when I was having a crisis about my gender in high school I only knew the full binary MtF and FtM existed. But whenever I thought about it being a girl felt just as wrong as being a boy to me. Just for different reasons. No matter how hard I tried I couldn't reconcile not wanting to be a boy, periodically wishing I had been born a girl, but not actually wanting to be a girl.
Wasn't until about 12 years later at like 26 when I met my now wife and she told me all that sounded like nonbinary and I suddenly had things to Google. I wish I could have had a chance to actually transition before fully growing into being 6'2" and built like a fridge in a fursuit. But like now I'm 33, I had other medical issues that I didn't want to try piling a potential transition on top of, and I'm not even sure what realistic transition goals I could even have let alone have a chance of attaining.
I can absolutely sympathise, I've got a bunch of medical issues and only began my transition journey recently, well past puberty. It's the best thing I've ever done, the only goal I'd say you should ever have for your transition, is to be happy.
Also, it's useful to keep in mind that there are many ways of affirming your gender other than medical stuff, though I'll admit the medical transition has been the best for me.
I kinda have the opposite experience of gender, I feel equally comfortable as being boy and girl though generally prefer a mix at most times. It's so cool to me how differently we can experience these sorts of things
WillStealYourUsername has already given a very good overview, to add to that...
It is a highly individual process and while many trans people share certain experiences, no two trans people will have exactly the same kind of journey.
While the public perception of trans people is very much focused on the rather rare cases of young children who will insist on being trans from an early age on. While these cases definitely exist, far more trans people are going through a gradual process of realization. There may be a final "egg crack" (the moment of final realization), but it is usually preceded by a slow process of smaller realizations and it is nowhere near a linear process...
As WillStealYourUsername describes so well, in hindsight all the signs and individual quirks make sense, but most people have to attain a certain level of self-acceptance before being able to recognize the various symptoms for what they are.
In my personal case, it was an intense jealousy of fem people that would never go away and culminated in a moment where I had an emotional meltdown over a fictional character who transitioned from male to female in their storyline. That's when I finally realized that I could do the same thing if I got my shit together and accepted being trans.
Define "figure out." I figured out I disliked being male by considering what I liked and disliked about myself. All the positives were more feminine or neutral, while all the negatives were masculine or masc coded. I decided on NB, but it still felt off. I didn't want to be considered male, but I didn't know if I wanted to be female.
For years I couldn't parse my feelings when I imagined myself as a woman. I felt better, but I struggle with even identifying emotions, so it wasn't clear enough to convince me. Eventually, I imagined myself as a mother: being pregnant, giving birth, raising a child that was my own. It felt so euphoric that I broke down crying because I knew I could never go back.
I still took another 5-6 months to start the process of coming out. I was still uncertain and terrified when I finally took the leap of faith. I was on death's door mental health wise. I realized I could not carry on any longer as a man, yet it still took so much effort to make the best decision I've ever made.
It was night and day. I never thought I could be so happy or love life like that. It's a miracle that I made it 23 years feeling like I wasn't alive.
Thanks for sharing. I think maybe my dysphoria isn't as strong. I guess I'd gravitate more towards being non binary than fully identifying with being a man/woman (what does it even mean). But I'm not sure, I feel physically fine in my body, but I guess I'm still questioning a lot of things.
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