I’m not sure why you think you don’t have gender dysphoria, because what you’ve described is exactly that. According to the clinical definition of gender dysphoria*, the definitional signs include:
- A strong desire to be of another gender (“every day I wish I was born a cis man and was a gay man instead of who I am”)
- A strong desire for the primary and/or secondary sex characteristics of another gender (“when I imagine what I’d look like on T or with a binder I cry because I want to look like that so bad”)
You need two of the six characteristics, by the way, to meet the clinical definition*, and I see two in your letter alone, so it seems like a pretty open and shut case.
* I don’t necessarily think psychiatrists have the right to define who is trans and who is not and I don’t necessarily think that you need to have gender dysphoria to be trans or benefit from transitioning. You might, for example, feel fine/okay/good as a woman, but be really delighted when you’re treated as a man (gender euphoria, rather than dysphoria). But even by the most narrow, strict, gatekeepy definition, I feel like you would undeniably qualify.
As one of my favorite people on /r/ftm puts it, “Trans and scared is still trans.” In other words, the question of whether you are trans and whether to transition are two different questions. “I’m scared/I don’t want to/I have too much to lose” is a reason not to transition, but it’s not a reason you’re not trans. You don’t get to choose whether you are trans, and you can’t reason your way out of it. You can choose what, if anything, to do about it. Whether to come out (to anyone/everyone/individual people), whether to take any transition steps (medically/socially), whether to experiment with presentation (privately/publicly/in specific environments): it’s all up to you.
So. Let’s talk about being scared to transition.
I can’t tell you that your fears are unfounded. While closeted people often overestimate the dangers or negative consequences of coming out, it’s hard to know how accurate your fears were except in retrospect. In particular, youth who depend on their families for financial and practical support are often being logical when they choose not to come out until they are on their own for reasons of safety and in order to do things like complete their education.
With that said, it’s my experience that trans people considering transition (and human beings in general) tend to be too risk-averse. We overvalue what we stand to lose, and undervalue what we stand to gain.
Of course it’s a lot easier to picture what you may lose. That’s stuff you have now. Your current personal relationships, opportunities, status in your family and community, etc. It’s harder to appreciate a future that feels hazy and theoretical, feelings you have never experienced and may have never seen modeled. Things like:
- What it feels like to not have dysphoria. To feel at home in your body; as if your body is simply yours. What if feels like to have an enormous part of your brain just sort of freed from constant low-level anxiety and discomfort, just available to relax and do other things - be creative, plan the future, be more present in your life.
- A raised bar for happiness. So many trans people I know, including myself, experienced this. You go your whole life experiencing a certain range of happiness - let’s call it -100 to +100 with -100 being the saddest you’ve ever been and +100 being the happiest you’ve ever been. You think “What right do I have to be happier than about 0, maybe +10, most of the time?” Then, you transition and realize that your +50 was most people’s 0. Most people were just happier than you most of the time! And your cap is higher, too: you thought it only went to +100 but actually it goes to +200. You are not deliriously happy all the time after you transition, but your baseline and your cap have been raised because there’s not a constant weight of dysphoria dragging them down.
- To be your authentic self in your relationships. To be able to be truly honest and vulnerable with another person, walls down, and not to worry that if they catch a glimpse of the “real you” they’ll run because this IS the real you and they see it and they love you as you are.
- To bond with other trans people based on shared experiences and outlook, and to realize you’re not alone - profoundly not alone - that super specific experiences that you thought made you weird actually made you a member of a community.
I can’t guarantee that you experience all the most joyous joys and benefits of transition that a trans person can experience, nor can I guarantee that your fears are overblown and that you won’t lose a thing. Plenty of trans people experience loss and change along with their transition. (I lost some, directly and indirectly related to my transition, though I still feel that what I gained is so so worth it.) There is always risk in life and, unfortunately, an unfair share of it falls on the shoulders of queer people.
But I can promise you that there are joys. There is a future for you where you just have a normal boring life as a man and you don’t think about gender all the time. It is possible. Being treated as a man, having a flat chest, a deep voice, a beard, a “he” pronoun, nearly any aspect of maleness that seems so unattainable to you is eminently achievable and very reasonable to want and expect and reach out and take.
You only get one go-round on this earth so why not find out?
trans-advice