Anyone out there like me? FtMtN

Hi y'all. :) I've never met anyone like me in the queer community and I very much want to meet someone (even just online) like me. Thanks for reading. I know it's a lot of text. But I just really want to meet someone like me!!

I was AFAB. Super girly as a kid, but in elementary school my brother started molesting me, and the fundie cult I was raised in suddenly started putting a bunch of "girl" and "future woman" shit on me and it disgusted and frightened me. So I very aggressively turned into a tomboy.

My brother kept on molesting me. I developed ocd and ptsd and dissociative disorder (diagnosed waaay later in life). My identity made no sense to me and I didn't live in reality most of the time. I spent almost all of my time just in my own head pretending I was male fictional characters that I liked.

I experienced no sexual attraction, but I developed a lot of VERY intense crushes on my friends, when I had friends. And the thought of having to marry a man and bear him a bunch of children once I turned 18/19 made me want to die. I HATED wearing skirts and dresses, I HATED jewelry. I HATED makeup. So I tried to come out as a lesbian when I was 16, but it was punished and I just stopped talking about it. It's not like I wanted to date any girls anyway. I didn't wanna date anyone. I just really didn't want to date men. I was constantly harassed and punished by my community for how bad I was at being a young woman.

When I was 18, all the Caitlyn Jenner shit came out and I learned about trans people. I became obsessed with coming out as trans, and as soon as I escaped to a public college a year later, I fought like hell to transition. This was 11 years ago. Trans medicine back then was NOT where it is now (especially in the South). Doctors didn't even know about nonbinary people, and neither did I. It was all still very combative. You had to go to great lengths to prove you were trans, get dozens of letters and see a bunch of different professionals. You had to be very binary. Being honest about sexual trauma or mental illness or even just about feeling nonbinary made the entire process STOP. And if I couldn't get a mastectomy and HRT, I knew I was going to kill myself, like it was out of my hands. Also, I was homeless after escaping my home situation, and I needed to pass as SOMETHING ASAP so I could get a job and eventually get out of homelessness. It was a matter of safety. Being homeless as a woman is TERRIFYING. Also, my period was excruciatingly painful every month, like can-barely-stand-up painful, and I left my body for basically the whole week every time. Everyone told me this was normal. I HAD to make it stop.

So I just told the doctors that I was a trans man. But I did NOT want to be a man. I found men terrifying and disgusting (no hate to y'all now). But I couldn't STAND the thought of being a girl, either, or god forbid a woman. Being a girl meant being property, being raped, never having a personality, and not getting to live the life I wanted. Being a girl is what made my life so miserable for so long. Also, it became more and more of a safety issue out in the real world. Encountering sexual material or even seeing my own body or being gendered heavily literally made me black out. I would come to in handcuffs at the psych unit because if I saw my own breasts in the mirror when I was getting a shower, I would black out and wander around campus naked or half-naked. I was worried I'd be raped, murdered, or put in jail.

Basically, in the midst of a house fire that would surely kill me, I saw a fire escape labelled "TRANS MAN" and I jumped through head first. I did NOT want facial hair. I did NOT want a super deep voice. But I DID want my breasts gone. I DID want a DIFFERENT voice (I had a vocal disorder from sexual trauma and had trouble using my old voice). I wanted a DIFFERENT body. I couldn't live in the one my brother and my community growing up had destroyed so much.

But since I couldn't be honest with my doctors and they were not educated, I got sent down a very binary path. Basically, I didn't want to be a girl or a woman or a man. But I thought that maybe I could be a boy. Like Peter Pan. It never quite connected for me that boys always become men, even t-boys.

Inside my head, I HATED he/him pronouns, I HATED she/her pronouns. I longed to be refer to myself with it/its pronouns, but I didn't think that was allowed.

I was on testosterone for 3 years. I got top surgery and a total hysto. I got a lot of therapy and psych treatment. After my hysterectomy I just went off my testosterone, since I didn't need it to suppress my period anymore. I was still experiencing housing insecurity, so dealing with getting the new dose of T was just too much. I was off T for a while. I learned about nonbinary people and FINALLY allowed myself to wonder if I was one of them. I met a woman that I wanted an ACTUAL relationship with. I fell in love with her. Became sexually attracted to her. Married her. She is now my wife. My life became a lot more stable after that, but the gender feelings intensified and became very volatile. I didn't want to be her husband. I wanted to be her wife. But I didn't want to be a woman. I started dressing super femme and chose a very nonbinary name. I came out as agender as a placeholder, but I had no idea. I just tried not to stress about it.

For bone density, I went back on a low dose of T. I had constantly cycling Weird Gender Feelings. I kept switching from low dose of T to very high dose of T. I felt very confused. I grew a beard, which wasn't as repulsive as I thought it would be. It actually made me look handsome, so I didn't mind. I dressed super femme all the time. Homophobia everywhere I went.

As I did more and more therapy and felt more and more like myself, I fantasized about going on estrogen more and more. I wanted to just be a lesbian, like tiny me wanted to be when I was a teenager. I realized I hated how low my voice had gotten. I realized I hated the beard. I hated being perceived as male. I wanted to be a girl again, but like a very nonbinary version of one. I tried going by my birth name for a while, but it felt so awful. I hated that name. I experimented a lot.

Long story short, I ended up picking a femme name. I dress pretty femme now. I go by it/its for those who know me very well and she/her for those who don't. I call myself a lesbian, and I still identify as transgender. I'm on a VERY low dose of T (since the total hysto eliminated my ability to make my own hormones) and a high dose of E. I feel very very good about myself now, and my identity feels very real and stable in a way it never did before in life. I'm happy. I've healed a lot from my trauma and I continue to heal every day.

I wish my voice wasn't so low. I wish I had just changed it a LITTLE bit, not so much. I do have some voice dysphoria. I want to do some voice therapy, but it feels impossible. I wish I didn't have facial hair. I save up for laser sessions every now and then. I wish my hairline hadn't receded a bit, but it didn't recede that much, and minoxidil is helping. I love my flat chest and the tiny bone/cartilage changes in my face that linger from my time on T. I feel very beautiful and loved. I feel like myself. I feel like I have a sense of self for the first time. Everyone perceives me as a trans woman, and that's fine with me. The transmisogyny that gets directed my way can be frustrating, rage-inducing, and sometimes very frightening, but its the price I pay for being who I want to be. I don't feel like a detransitioner. This just kinda feels like a second transition. Like I went FtMtN. I don't know. Sometimes I yearn to just be a woman so that I didn't feel like such a fraud when I call myself a lesbian. I wish the world had not been so unsafe for me when I was first transitioning. I feel very jealous sometimes of masc lesbians who just microdosed T and now have beautiful slightly low voices and no facial hair. I grieve the loss of the ability to have a beautiful treble singing voice. It's hard for me to listen to singers with treble voices sometimes. But I try to just keep moving towards happiness and not compare myself to others.

Does anyone relate? I know it's a lot. I just wanted to get it all out to a community that would understand. Much love to you all. <3