I spent so, so much time in trans subreddits, especially /r/egg_irl.

It took over two years of basically exclusively looking at trans memes, “to get a better understanding of the trans experience as an ally”, for me to start considering I might be trans!

I also recall a time near the beginning of that trans meme phase where I said to a friend “I think I’m probably non-binary”. He was like “what?” to which I answered “what?” and I just left it at that, not even a hint of introspection.

1. I was so relieved when my wife came out to me as bisexual, you know, “just in case”

2. Being jealous of women for having all the fun colors and variety in clothing, feeling dejected that men’s fashion was much more utilitarian and boring

3. Feeling uncomfortable and not knowing how to act in groups of all men

4. Having the thought “if I could decide for myself on a do-over, I’d want to be a lesbian woman”. I assumed all men felt this way lol

5. Hating and vigorously resisting the gendered uniform rules enforced by my Catholic school (like growing my hair as long as possible, and the school had to make a rule saying that boys couldn’t wear jewelry other than a religious medal or a watch)

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I remember thinking “No way I am lucky enough to be trans femme, I am not that special.” Yeahhh… not the brightest bulb

Lots of relatable experiences itt. I’ll add a couple things

*For a school assignment, I was required to call myself a crossdresser for a day and it felt like it was a little too on-the-nose for what was mostly supposed to be a silly scarlet letter assignment.

*I realized I specifically wanted an orchi and tried looking up excuses to get one without considering side effects (didn’t realize loss of hormone production without replacement was a problem) or considering that it might somehow be related to related to gender. I had 0 clue why it was so appealing and I refused to think about that for even a second.

Literally wishing that I was trans so that I could access bottom surgery

I never really tried putting all of this in a list before. It’s always just random stuff popping up when I think about this. Some of these memories are over 30 years old. And I repressed a lot of them.
So this is just a short list. There’s more, but some of it is too personal for me to share.

• Having a phase where I tried wearing masculine office wear (but no ties) and feeling very out of place.
• Never shaving my beard, because I don’t want to see what’s underneath. Using it as a mask to hide behind.
• Hating the general shape of my body
• Feeling very out of place in all-male groups.
• Feeling very in place when spending time with the few female friends that I did have.
• Internally wincing at being called handsome
• Looking enviously at my wife as she squeezes herself in a tight pair of pants, making me wish I didn’t have to deal with all that dangling stuff between my legs.
• Being very involved with helping my wife pick out clothes.
• Playing an online game under a female persona. *Pretending* to be a girl and really enjoying my interactions with everyone. Making a few female friendships that felt genuine and made me happy. And then deleting the whole account for feeling guilty because I believed I was deceiving others :(
• Writing a game module in my teens, wherein all the adventurers were turned into women by a wizard’s curse. And dropping it after a couple of hours when I realize having six women try out different dresses doesn’t make for an exciting fantasy adventure (and was getting uncomfortably close to a truth that I wasn’t ready to face)
• Thinking how nice it would’ve been if I were a lesbian instead.
• Trying out pantyhose and wearing it under my pants when I was a teenager. (Weird when under pants, better on its own when I was home alone :) )
• Also in my teens, fantasizing an entire alternate life as a girl when I was lying in bed.
• Feeling strangely positive when a girl in my class said that I walk like a girl.
• And of course, always choosing a female character when playing games. (With a whole bunch of other in-game activities that could form a list of it’s own)

Is it okay for someone agender to join in this discussion?

I relate to some of these, but I don’t experience dysphoria. I was raised female but I feel zero attachment to any particular gender expression.

Some things that come to mind:

• Never minding when somebody called me “one of the guys”
• Finding it funny when people mistook me for a boy
• I was always fascinated by medical shows, especially ones where people transitioned
• Fantasizing about freely switching between genders
• I used to make up stories with my dolls where people switched genders. Most of my Barbies got their heads swapped with Kens at some point in time.
• I hated make up. Still don’t want any. Whenever someone put make up on me, I lamented that I “didn’t look like me.”
• Dressing androgynously and choosing androgynous hair cuts
• Purposely shopping for “men’s” clothes to add to my wardrobe
• Being offended when people wanted to give me a “make over.” I guess this is something girls are supposed to be excited about, but I always thought it was a judgy way to say something was “wrong” with how I presented myself as a woman.
• Not feeling attached to any particular pronoun. I don’t like being asked about it, because I truly do not care.

My appearance is unequivocally female today, but it’s not something I care hard enough about to change. It would require significant top surgery. If I lost my breasts I think others would be more upset than I would be - I’d just double-down on the androgynous look I had before these puppies grew so much. I have told friends (both trans and cis female alike) that I’d happily donate breast tissue to them if I could.

Anyway, so that’s an agendered woman’s experiences.

I was Narnia deep in denial, but the signs were there.

1. I knew I liked guys since I was like five, and even experimented with sex with boys at that age, but it didn’t feel quite right. I do not like gay porn so I can’t be gay, right? Better get a couple kids and a couple wives.
2. My cousin wanted to put makeup on me and god I wanted that. Didn’t dare to say yes.
3. Jokes about wanting to wear dresses because they aren’t as restricting as pants and nicer when it’s warm. A lot of similar jokes, you know the ones. “Trying to lose a bit of weight, it’s soon bikini season.”
4. I think I remember every trans reference I’ve ever heard.
5. When being depressed I constructed elaborate fantasies about myself as a woman.
6. Bad mental health

7. Always hating how I looked in the mirror. I recently realized I look kinda hot as a guy. Skinny, androgynous and a nice smile. I’d totally let me do me. Is that weird?
8. NSFW

There were other signs too of course.

One thing I remember is gaining muscle after working out for a few months and feeling this really confusing sadness when I noticed that my shoulders got broader. I was so confused as to why so many guys liked being muscular but it just made me really depressed instead. Took me a while to realize that that strange feeling was actually gender dysphoria.

A lot of mine are the same as ones that were listed, so here are the most stupidly obvious ones I somehow missed (or ignored) for like a decade.

1. I hoped my future partner would be bisexual “just in case”
2. Always being weirdly interested in watching trans youtubers and learning about HRT “as an ally”
3. And also weirdly envious of lesbian relationships, yet finding it hard to imagine myself in a relationship as a guy
4. Whenever I’d see a transition timeline, my immediate thought for transmasc ones was “good for them!”, but for transfem ones it was “dang, that’s goals” followed by “wait I’m cis, where did that come from”
5. I “knew” I wasn’t trans, but kinda wished I could be
6. Just before finally fully admitting I was trans I started HRT so I’d “know for sure”, and was worried that after starting I would realize I wasn’t trans and not be able to keep transitioning lol

1. Always playing girls or male none-humans in pretty much all forms of fiction

2. Hating the way guys treated girls (most often in dating)

3. Rejecting traditional masculinity, hated the idea that it was expected to act like that

4. Ungodly ammounts of trans related porn and no interested in traditional one

5. Very open and radical pro-choice position, even from a relarively young age

6. Being around guys was always scary and wrong, while being around girls made me feel safe and in the correct place

7. You could not bring me to undress in front of guys

Imagining that it was perfectly rational to keep a complete set of women’s clothes in the house just in case you end up having someone over who has somewhere important to be the next day and no clean clothes to wear.

Every girl i dated was a lesbian and I was “their only exception”.

• Hated being topless, even while swimming
• Curious how having boobs would feel
• Drawn to lesbian relationships
• Never even tried to look good as a man
• Been taking antidepressants since a little after puberty
• Cried when a psychiatry form asked if I had thoughts of being the opposite gender
• Hated being juxtaposed to men
• Didn’t dream much about romance or sex because every time I thought about them they would just feel underwhelming and draining
• When I imagined myself following a similar life path to my dad or any other male figure, I felt like life wasn’t worth living if that was my future
• Wished I was born a different person, because I had no attachment to who I was and nothing to lose
• Disassociating in the mirror
• Hated being seen as a big man, I wanted to be seen as soft instead
• Just like, all the signs that who I presented as made me feel awful