#saw the girl who bullied me in middle school the other day at the gd hardware store :

[chchchandler]

that kid you called a dyke in seventh grade? yeahh he's still a dyke

[jameseros-blog]

My personal struggle with GD

**Trigger Warning -- talk of genitals, sex, transphobia, and misogyny** This is a vent post about my feelings surrounding my gender dysphoria, how I figured out I almost definitely have it, and why my family would probably think I'm faking because of tucutes making trans people look like clowns. It is unorganized, entirely too long, might not make sense, and I'm positive I'm forgetting big details. I just need to get this off my chest though.

All throughout my life I've hated my body, and even though I could try to blame it on other problems, I had some pretty clear signs of gender dysphoria even before my life got fucked up. It all seemed normal to me though. I could rationalize it. I'm too masculine to fit in with girls; autistic females have a tendency to function on the same social level as neurotypical men. That makes sense. I hate my body; I definitely don't look like the girls I would like to date. That makes sense. I feel like cutting off my female chest and sometimes guiltily wish for a horrible disease that requires its removal; I'm a CSA survivor and was bullied in elementary school for my early development. That makes sense.

In middle school something started to happen that I couldn't explain though. I developed a "phantom penis". It actually felt like I had a fully functioning dick. I asked a guy friend what a boner felt like and he described what I felt perfectly. I never told anyone what I felt though. I just made a joke out of it. Whenever I felt a "hard on" I'd whisper to my friends "Suck my dick" or "My dick is hurting". We constantly made dick jokes so nothing seemed off about it. I liked the feeling of it. It upset me that it wasn't real. The feeling came around less often in high school and I wrote it off as nothing.

The inkling of negative sexual habits was already in place in 4th grade, but I fell into truly self destructive sexual habits in high school. I felt unsatisfied with life and everything regarding my existence. Every day was a chore I could barely manage. I wanted something to fill up how empty my life felt. I started using my tits to get free food in 4th grade. I would tell a couple of guys that I'd show them my tits on the last day of school if they would give me what ever food I wanted from them for the rest of the year. This took place up until 7th grade where they stopped believing me because I never held up my end of the promise. It didn't matter too much though because at this point they were already used to giving me food.

As 8th grade ended I noticed how unnaturally masculine I felt, even more so than before, like it didn't really fit my body. It was getting harder to blame it on my autism. That scared me so I went seeking some sort of validation that I was a woman. I found my first boyfriend. I've never really been one for romance, so our relationship quickly turned into something sexual. The entire thing made me uncomfortable. I hated the whole ordeal. I didn't really find him all that attractive, but I pretended to fairly convincingly. Neither of us wanted to be purely sexual, but it was the only thing I knew how to do so I kept being this sexual creature I hardly liked and barely knew. He broke up with me because we never really talked anymore and when we were together I always ended up sucking his dick. It was fine. I never stayed true to our relationship. I was sending nudes to people on the internet. They made me feel like I was a pretty girl, the kind I fantasized about. I could escape my real self and be someone else on the internet. It always felt like I was catfishing them. I never felt as feminine as I portrayed myself online.

My 10th grade year of high school I dated one of my ex boyfriend's best friends. The same thing happened as my last relationship. I'd try to change how unnaturally male I felt by being in the most misogynisticly feminine role I could think of. The first time I had "real" sex it felt good, but something was off about it. And I don't mean in the "the first time always sucks" kind of way. I'm a firm believer in if you are fully comfortable with a person and you both know each other's boundaries and there isn't any judgment between you, then there won't be anything uncomfortable about sex. We had all these things, but I still felt uncomfortable. Then he went down on me. I had another "phantom dick" moment; I could imagine him sucking me off as if I had a penis. That's when the discomfort ended. I couldn't explain that so I told no one and wrote it off as nothing.

I've always heard mentions of trans people in passing throughout my life. In 3rd grade I heard my friend call another boy a "he-she". When I asked him what that was he said it's a guy who dresses and acts like a girl. In middle school I learned there were surgeries to give males female genitals. In 9th grade my science teacher corrected a girl when she said "they have to cut off their balls and turn their dick inside out" in reference to mtf bottom surgery. I saw an article that same year about a man that gave birth and learned that ftm trans people exist. In that same 9th grade science class a girl mentioned the size of my chest when expressing her desire for bigger breasts. I spilled my guts about how much I hated having them. I realized that it wasn't a natural thing when other big chested girls told me it wasn't nearly as bad as I explained. It confused me that they didn't feel the same. At this point I still didn't know what GD was or what it actually meant to be trans.

I started to watch Blaire White. That set me on the path of finding more and more trans YouTubers. I connected to them in ways I didn't really understand. I felt less like an alien while watching their videos. I never connected this to my being trans though. They all had the same story of knowing when they were young. I never questioned my identity when I was young. I always just existed. When I look back at it I think I honestly should have questioned myself. If I weren't autistic I probably would have.

When I was young, about 4 or 5, it was the easiest thing in the world for me to just drop everything about being a girl so I could become James. This was done after hearing my dad say he wished he had a son. I insisted I was James for almost a year. Now that I'm older my nana has told me my dad was worried I might actually be trans and he didn't want me getting bullied when I go to school. He died when I was 5 or 6; this explains something that I'll touch on later.

Even after the James phase ended I prided myself on my masculine tendencies. I was proud to be "basically the son" of the family and "basically the brother" of my sisters. With my step dad we would make jokes about having a "guys night out". I would even try to dress as boyish as possible to get mistaken as a boy. One time I cried when a boy told me "I know you're a girl". When I found out girls could have beards I was extremely jealous and was confused by the fact I couldn't grow one. I've always hated long hair I always wanted it cut short in a boy's haircut. In middle school my friends told me I write like a guy as an insult, but I thought it was a genuine compliment. I've always had an obsession with extreme body modification. The idea that I could escape my body and look however I want was always appealing to me.

When I was young I held the belief that my thoughts and personality were exactly the same as a boy's. That was the reason I preferred to hang with guys. That was why I would feel happy when I was described as one of the guys. It was why I didn't connect with girls the same way as guys. When I was diagnosed with autism, I thought it explained why I felt like an alien among other girls, and why I fit perfectly with guys, and why my thoughts were so male to me. When I learned what GD was, it fit me too, but I thought I couldn't have it cause I didn't recognize it when I was young. Then I started watching the podcast 'You're So Brave' hearing the way they found out they were trans hit closer to home than any other time I heard stories of people discovering they're trans. I was still very iffy on if I had GD or not though. Kovu uploaded a video recently it basically sealed my belief that I have GD. I decided to list off all the ways I wish I could look. The look I created is absurdly masculine; tall, hairy, tatted, and rough. I couldn't be exactly that though. I'm far too short. Besides I'm not as one dimensional as that. I love the elegance of romantic goths and muted pastels are my favorite aesthetic. I love crop tops and even dresses. I'm very effeminate for a man. A lot of people hate on gnc trans guys, but honestly I relate to them hard. I'm still not 100 percent sure of my gender though. The only thing I know for sure is that I need my female chest gone.

Before I even started to question myself, I've heard my step dad's opinion on trans people. "There is no such thing as a third gender! I don't understand why these trans people keep trying to push this idea!" he says in reference to a completely binary trans woman who only wants to be seen as a woman and not a third gender. I defend them by saying the vast majority of trans people are completely binary, don't believe in three genders, and want to be fully recognized as the gender they transition to. He continues to think tucutes are the only kind of trans people there are and generalizes all trans people saying they all have the "76 genders" ideology. He thinks all trans women are instantly recognizable by their adam's apple despite the fact there is a reduction surgery and lots of cis women have prominent adam's apples. I won't even try to bring up non binary people to him. He'd never understand. My mom has backed him up on this multiple times. I can't come out to them. It's too dangerous. My step dad is a violent man that gets into lots of fights. (He's never hit me or my family; don't worry.) He has threatened to kick me out before and I know he and my mom have seriously considered it within the last year. I don't know if me coming out could result in my homelessness.

You may be thinking "You're 18, just move out." To that I say: I absolutely would, if I could. I'm autistic. It's a disability that leaves me unable to drive and makes it difficult to maintain a job. Not to mention no one has prepared me for living alone. I have a friend I could go to, but I don't want to live somewhere and not be able to give back to them in some way.

All I really want is to know for sure whether I have gender dysphoria or not. The only problem with that is all of the gender therapist in my area (deep south Alabama) have practices that sound eerily similar to conversion therapy. Even if I do come out and move in with my friend, I won't be able to get therapy or a diagnosis.