This hit me like a week ago. I straight up panicked. I still kinda am. I don't know what to do. I'm fucking terrified. How do you learn how to be a girl in your forties? I don't even know how to do makeup, every time I tried it looked like shit.

I thought I was a femboy. A kinky weird femboy with a supportive girlfriend that didn't mind the occasional dressing up. This is probably way too much for her. I think it's too much for me. But now that I know this I can't not know it. It's like my subconscious just came out of nowhere and was like, "Hey you know that quirky thing about you? Well it turns out that's entirely you, and you're miserable trying to deny it. By the way everything in your experience tells you that people will hate you for it, and the state is actively trying to harm people like you. Also crazy people will probably want to kill you about it Byeeeeeeee!"

What do?

Edit: Thanks everyone for all the helpful comments. All this is still big and scary right now, but I feel a little better about where I am now, and the first few steps. This is a good community here.

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[–] knightly@pawb.social 16 points 8 months ago (5 children)

Congrats on cracking through your shell, former egg!

I know it's scary, but you're gonna be okay. There's an internet-full of trans sisters, brothers, and others who are eager to help each other up. You'll be on this side of the conversation sooner than you think.

The most important thing to know off the bat is the Egg Prime Directive, https://genderdysphoria.fyi/en/am-i-trans

My good friend Lily coined the phrase “Egg Prime Directive” to describe the fact that trans people have an unspoken agreement not to tell people who are questioning their gender whether or not they are trans.

When someone is just told they are trans, that opens ground for denial; it activates defense mechanisms built by internalized transphobia, and it has a high probability of pushing them further into the closet, if not making them outright transphobic. Even when it doesn’t, it leaves ground for their own subconscious to reject their dysphoria, claiming that they were just manipulated or deceived. The much more effective strategy is to talk about your own experiences with dysphoria so that they see the common grounds and come to their own conclusion about their gender. The code doesn’t forbid helping them to explore their gender; it forbids assigning a gender to them. Or, to put it more succinctly, you cannot be told what the Matrix is; you can only be shown.

After that, the most important thing is to be true to yourself. There's no one right way to be trans, it's up to you to decide how open you want to be with your identity, whether you want medical assistance to transition, etcetera.

It's definitely not too late for you, I started my transition in my late 30's and I've seen trans folks who only got started in their 60's. Learning to be a girl is something you can do at any age and there's lots of resources for it, but equally important will be the unlearning of internalized transphobia and habits that don't serve you anymore.

So, just relax, take a breath. Spend a few minutes meditating on how weird it feels when the relief of finally acknowledging the dysphoria is combined with the fear of how trans people are treated by normative society. Let the initial wave of panic, excitement, and existential dread wash over you. Then, start thinking deeply about what you want from life as a trans person and how you'll achieve it for yourself. Everything else will flow from that~.

[–] subverted_per@sh.itjust.works 7 points 8 months ago (1 children)

The paradox is that most closeted trans people are absolutely terrible at trusting their inner voice. When you spend your whole life with a nagging disconnect between how the world sees you and how you see yourself, it becomes easier to rely on other people to tell you “who you really are.” Even if you know deep down that all the people in your life are missing some fundamental fact about your identity, it’s nearly impossible to avoid listening to others over oneself.

This right here. my instincts are all off because every external voice told me i was wrong my whole life. Like I was always bad at tests because any time there was an obvious answer I had to question the wording or the context because me feeling right about something is always wrong.

[–] knightly@pawb.social 5 points 8 months ago

Those aren't instincts, they're self-defense mechanisms that become habitual in people who have been raised to believe that they can't trust their own feelings.

But you've already broken through the wall of that prison and into the light of self-awareness. Now is the time to start sweeping up the rubble and deciding how you want to use the newly liberated bricks. You're free now~.

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