bobatae95

[bobatae95]

I’m somewhat new to the lgbtq+community and I have so many questions about myself. So this is my little rant of kind of everything. If you have any advice or words of wisdom it would be much appreciated.

There has been a lot on my mind recently. And a lot of it has been about gender identity. It has been a wild 6 years for me. But I’ve learned over the past 6 years it’s hard to pick labels that seem to fit and sometimes you don’t need to put a label on yourself to know who you are as a person.

6 years ago I came out as a lesbian. Which was a big step but in all honestly shocked none of my college friends group. However all my high school friends stopped supporting me and blocked me on social media. Which did hurt a lot but I understood that growing up in a conservative Christian town most people I knew would never accept me as a lesbian.

1 year later I came out to my parents. It was one of the scariest things to do and to be honest it hurt. When I came out to both of them they didn’t believe me or acted like this was just a phase. They acted like I was doing this for attention since i had just lost my grandmother and they were going through a divorce. But it wasn’t and I couldn’t understand why they wouldn’t believe me about this.

I started to question my gender identity soon after. I started to read about finding people who had similar stories. I felt like I didn’t fit in to the mold of being female or the mold of being male. I felt like I didn’t know where to go. I started to ask myself was I dressing feminine cause I wanted to or was it because that was what society wanted me to dress. And dressing more masculine started to feel a little better. I would smile when I looked more masculine and felt confident when people used He/Him pronouns for me. But I also liked doing my make up and sometimes dressing up feminine. After a bunch of reading and talking to friends I learned about genderfluid and nonbinary. That was when I changed my name to Echo and I liked it. It felt more me. I also started using they/them pronouns.

My family didn’t respect the changing of the name or the pronouns. They kept making up excuses and again acting like I would grow out of it. It’s been 3 years and I still went by Echo and They/them. But they kept deadnaming me. So much so that I almost didn’t want to go and visit. And I hated that I responded to my deadname. I hate seeing it on my drivers license and passport. At work was also another story, some people would learn my pronouns and then others would automatically use she/her pronouns even after I told them I use they/them. It started to hurt.

As of the past 9 months I have again began questioning my gender identity. I started to feel more comfortable in looking and acting more masculine. So much so for a while I had started using he/him pronouns. It felt good. I tried coming out to my dad as starting to hint that I may be trans but he used the excuse that I grew up liking girly things and wearing dresses. But what am I to do with what I’m feeling now. I sometimes like wearing more feminine clothes but I’ve started to sell a lot of it. I hate looking at myself in the mirror. I hate my breasts and know someday I will have top surgery and have already started saving to be able to afford one.

The questions of who I was kept feeling my head. Recently I’ve been picturing myself more masculine and wanting to be a boy. I’ve started to look at other men and wishing that that was me. When I’m in my head imagining myself I’m a boy. I like being referred to as he/him. I’ve started binding and trying to present myself in a more masculine way as well. I love it. I’m also an actor and constantly trying to go out for male roles but it hurts when they offer me female roles.

But there is a small part of me that is scared to come out again to my parents and wants to secretly start T without their knowledge. But I love them. Even though I know they won’t accept me for who I am.

Thanks for listening. 🏳️‍⚧️