I mean the transition... the hormones, the social change... have those things helped you with the dysphoria? What is it like to meet guys as a trans woman?
Last year I was trying to start transitioning and I was very excited, my friends supported me and for a moment I even stopped seeing myself as a disgusting weirdo. But I entered a loop where I saw everything as useless and that no matter what I did or how hard I tried, I was never going to be a woman on the outside... you are what you are... I would give anything to simply be a normal cis woman.
So I backed out with the transition and I've tried to be a man and accept myself since then but that's what I've been doing for 22 years and it hasn't worked for me. I don't want to tell others that I'm going to transition and then back out again. But I can't take it anymore. I have nothing to lose anyway, I don't want my life, this life that I have built I don't feel like it is mine, I simply prefer to die than continue like this.
My question is simple. Is it worth transitioning? Has it helped you? Do you feel better now than before?
I know I'm going to continue to feel like a weak, disgusting, weird, pathetic piece of shit no matter what I do. But the strategy I have been using all my life has shown more than enough to not be useful so I have to change. I'm sorry mom and dad, I've tried to be a man, I've tried. But I'm not happy, I feel like I'm fooling everyone around me and that the person they see is just a fake. The only time I felt like others saw me as I truly am was when I told the truth last year and I was trying to transition but that only lasted until my cowardice struck again and I went back to hiding. If later, people don't like who I am, then that's fine, but I'd rather live with that than have to calculate every little step I take, every word, every gesture. It is exhausting.
Going to break this up to match your questions and concerns as best we can.
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*1: Transition has helped immensely. Honestly would have been gone a year ago if we had been unable to start transitioning. (At 28, so quite late compared to optimal.) Can't comment on meeting guys as we are sapphic and have past trauma that will mean never exploring that side at all. A friend of ours has gone on a few dates with guys although never clicked with any of them just like cis dating often ends. There are certainly guys that will treat a trans-woman as the woman they are.
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*2&3: Transition takes time. Hormones take a long time to have a large impact. The difference they can make in time though is quite shocking. We look almost nothing like we did just a year ago. We went from pretending to be someone we weren't for 28 years, to getting correctly gendered even in a red state (not in the SE US). Even younglings seem to get it right most of the time now. We've even caught people trying and massively failing to be sneaky about checking us out grocery shopping...
What we did, was to hormonally transition, and socially transition to people that knew us really well, but continued to present as the lie in public for safety. (Was in a really bad part of the deep south at the time, so being read as trans was very much not something we wanted.) Once we moved further north, we still presented as the lie UNTIL it was very clear we were confusing people and we were getting correctly gendered most of the time without even presenting authentically. Now, we present correctly all the time. Also, if you start ASAP, the hormones will have more of an impact than starting later like we did. Hips fuse around 24 and T related things also do a lot in that time-frame. You'd be amazed the difference hormones can make given time. Neither us, nor our friend look anything like we did before.
Aside from a bitch at the DMV thinking she figured out some daming secret and proudly+smugly saying "SIR" after looking at our paperwork after she fucked everything up once,(which we just ignored her like she never said it. Even her coworker gave her a look that screamed "what the fuck bitch.") we haven't been misgendered in about 4 months now even though we feel we don't pass very well. We even got asked at the ER if we had ever had ovarian cysts and had to explain to the nurse that unfortunately we don't have the required organs to have those.. They were confused at first until they went back out of the room and talked to other attending staff who knew we were trans-fem and what that entailed.
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*4: Absolutely, yes. We only wish we had known what was possible way sooner... We never had access to info and didn't even know about hormonal transition due to a shitty conservative upbringing.
Transitioning has absolutely helped. This may sound hypocritical being on this forum, but we feel a lot better than we did just over a year ago. We had hit the point of either transition or CTB so we chose to transition. We are on this forum because of other life circumstances although we are recovering lately. We would not be here without having transitioned. For the first time in our 28 years on earth, we feel like our life is really ours and we WANT to live.
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*5: We tried to live as a lie too. It was miserable to put it lightly. We have known "boy" was not right for us since childhood, but weren't made aware of the effects transition could have until we hit our breaking point and after we spent a lifetime repressing. Also trauma the few times we tried to explore ourselves. We wasted so many years pretending to be what everyone expected us to be. Life should be lived for you, not for others. We lost nearly everyone in our life between transitioning and a sudden divorce this year. (part of the driving factor was our transition, although not all of it.) We found out which family members never really meant "We will support you in whichever path you choose.". Those people don't have the right to be a part of our life anymore and we disowned them with no chance of redemption. If we were sent back with what we know now, we would still choose to transition. Nothing will take that away from us. We have found new people to be a part of our life since, that not only accept, but love us as the woman we are. Living the lie was so exhausting.. Living authentically certainly has it's challenges, but at least they feel like they are worth facing. Living the lie, every day was a pointless struggle. Existing just to exist. Making it through one day, just to do it again the next. It was not living at all and we are still paying the costs of existing like that, not caring to live past 25...
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*BONUS: We suggest that you transition hormonally and go from there. You seem certain in what you want, but hesitant in going for it. We felt better within the first few months of just hormonal transition. We were even happy for the first time every before our sudden divorce. It felt like the curtains had been lifted and we could experience life for the first time. Like we finally unlocked the correct control interfaces for this body. Social transition can happen as you feel comfortable doing so. Anyone that chooses not to support you on your journey, never really supported you before either. They likely just enjoyed the control they could exert over you. Parents tend to be the worse about this if not accepting and encouraging. It's better to know who is like that than not. Be prepared to lose people, but know they were likely not worth keeping around anyway as they only accepted you under false conditions you have no obligation to fulfill. Anyone that will not accept and cherish you as YOU are not worth the effort to try to get them to. In the end, you only get one life, and should not live it worrying about what others think of actions you wish to take to better yourself. If you feel like you are a woman, then you are. Some of us just had to take a different path to figure that out and live as such. The downsides are transphobic people, but for the most part, their opinions really don't matter. Just don't engage with them and distance yourself from them. To show them they hurt you, is to give them power over you. Deny them that, and their entire sick game falls apart. From experience, some of those transphobic people will have quite the shocking discovery later in their lives and very much regret being so awful... Most of them are internally confused and lashing out to make themselves feel better, or to fit in with a worthless crowd.
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