Hey, I’ve tried to say this multiple times and I’m just going to type some things and get them out there. I’ve had these thoughts for a long time around teen years and tried to shut them out, in my mind I was supposed to be male but I freaked out cause I knew deep down I didn’t want a male body.

I feel like my masculine features came a bit later and before I thought it wasn’t a big deal I was fine being a boy but then those features came in and oh no. I don’t think it’s me, I don’t hate being a boy but the image of being a girl gives me no grief. Aging as a man seems weird, a little wrong. However, wanting to be in a female body just seems to resonate with me in way I can’t describe.

I’m just really scared this is a big big thing to come to terms with, and I feel like I push it down and feel like I’m fine during the day when with people, but at night the feelings always creep back up. I get obsessed with what it would be like to be her. I’m so jealous of women where they got to live as women their whole lives but I see a beautiful woman and get a little sad I can’t look like her, as if I’m missing out on the greatest thing ever.

I also have to come to terms that cis men don’t have these thoughts and I’m most likely a her. I have a serious choice to make.

I’m 18 minus 2 I just started estrogens almost a month ago but I have a lot of dysmorphia and I can’t see how my face really looks, I look deformed sometimes and I don’t know if I’m pretty or if I’m very ugly and I don’t know what to do anymore :(

Sisters, I'm feeling awful right now.

It feels like even when I think I'm finally finding myself, I might actually just be "performing."

I've been trying to let myself be freer, more relaxed, and more spontaneous in the way I behave and express myself. I've been trying to allow my femininity to come through, including softer, more delicate mannerisms.

But I think impostor syndrome is making me question whether this is really me, or whether I'm just copying patterns I've seen online, on TV, or simply the stereotypes of how people of different genders are expected to behave.

I feel like I might be forcing a feminine performance instead of letting it happen naturally. I want to be natural. I want to be a girl who can just be herself naturally. But I think I've spent so much of my life conditioning myself to be a man that now, when I try to give myself permission to be who I am, maybe I simply don't know how to just be myself.

I'm starting to feel like focusing on labels might not be helping me. I thought I'd feel comfortable and at peace simply existing somewhere on the queer and agender spectrum, but somehow it still feels like I'm doing it the "wrong" way.

I just want to be natural, to fucking be myself, act like myself, and exist as myself — even if that means looking and behaving a lot like a woman.

This journey is so difficult. I feel so lost and so awful at the same time.

And on top of everything, it's hard to transition and figure yourself out when you already have a life full of responsibilities. I'm a parent of a neurodivergent child, a spouse, and I'm autistic myself...

Thank you for giving us this space, girls. ❤️