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Gender and Religion: A Stumbling Block in my Transition

(This was also posted on a different forum site so... yeah)

(This is a rant so some of these things said may seem very aggressive, incorrect, distorted, etc. Please realize these are my feelings towards myself and my own transition put very bluntly and directly. This does not reflect my opinion on people transitioning as a whole and is only meant to be taken in terms of me talking about myself.)

This is going to be hard to figure out how to word, but I need it out of my brain now because it isn't doing anything good for me. For those of you who don't know I was raised very religiously and for the most part I agree with the religion I was raised in. The only conflict I run into on a large scale comes into the fact that I'm trans. I'm not comfortable in my current body and I do want to transition, but at the same time...

For one, my family with their religious standings are against me transitioning. My mother is willing to acknowledge that this is what I'm feeling, and I haven't told my dad yet... but he's a pretty conservative man. Don't even get me started on my grandparents. Almost no hope there for support. The problem is, I love my family even if they won't support me and I'm scared to live without them because I do decide to transition. I don't want to leave them behind just because of me being selfish and transitioning. It just feels like I know I'm going to hurt those around me which I don't want to do and that feels wrong, but on the other hand, I hate living like this and somedays it's insufferable. I don't want to have to do this my entire life and just pretend that it's okay and I'm happy.

Now we kind of are getting towards the religious part of it and not just my family. I want to keep participating in my religion as I move forward in life. Only problem is the deep-seated transphobia in my religion that makes me feel unsafe to be there at times because I feel like this. Why couldn't I just not be this way? It's not that I don't love myself, but I hate having to debate at every moment whether or not I can even AFFORD to live a happy life in the body I want. Not to mention the fact that it'll put me in danger from people in my religion or just people in general. The problem is most people's advice seems to be to just ditch the religion which I don't need right now. I can deal with that on my own. What I really need is just to know that I'm not alone in these feelings and just know that people will be there for me either way this ends up going... maybe even that someone's gone through the same thing as me and knows what this feels like.

It just seems every trans story I read just makes it seem like it was so easy to just assert themself and move on and transition... I just don't know how to do any of this right now. It just seems everyone else was able to dismiss it and move forward easily even though I can't. I can barely bring myself to tell people a thing about it. I hate it. I hate how fake I feel and how wrong my body feels on my skin. I want to just wake up and learn this was all some bad dream and I really am just some boy living a normal life. I hate it so much and I don't know what to do about it.

Even if I could convince myself to just transition... I can't even fathom how I'd afford it with already having to pay for college and basic life things. It's even more expensive for testosterone since I need the gel as I can't handle needles. I just don't know what to do anymore or how I can keep functioning with either choice I make in life.

(This is a rant so some of these things said may seem very aggressive, incorrect, distorted, etc. Please realize these are my feelings towards myself and my own transition put very bluntly and directly. This does not reflect my opinion on people transitioning as a whole and is only meant to be taken in terms of me talking about myself.)

This is going to be hard to figure out how to word, but I need it out of my brain now because it isn't doing anything good for me. For those of you who don't know I was raised very religiously and for the most part I agree with the religion I was raised in. The only conflict I run into on a large scale comes into the fact that I'm trans. I'm not comfortable in my current body and I do want to transition, but at the same time...

For one, my family with their religious standings are against me transitioning. My mother is willing to acknowledge that this is what I'm feeling, and I haven't told my dad yet... but he's a pretty conservative man. Don't even get me started on my grandparents. Almost no hope there for support. The problem is, I love my family even if they won't support me and I'm scared to live without them because I do decide to transition. I don't want to leave them behind just because of me being selfish and transitioning. It just feels like I know I'm going to hurt those around me which I don't want to do and that feels wrong, but on the other hand, I hate living like this and somedays it's insufferable. I don't want to have to do this my entire life and just pretend that it's okay and I'm happy.

Now we kind of are getting towards the religious part of it and not just my family. I want to keep participating in my religion as I move forward in life. Only problem is the deep-seated transphobia in my religion that makes me feel unsafe to be there at times because I feel like this. Why couldn't I just not be this way? It's not that I don't love myself, but I hate having to debate at every moment whether or not I can even AFFORD to live a happy life in the body I want. Not to mention the fact that it'll put me in danger from people in my religion or just people in general. The problem is most people's advice seems to be to just ditch the religion which I don't need right now. I can deal with that on my own. What I really need is just to know that I'm not alone in these feelings and just know that people will be there for me either way this ends up going... maybe even that someone's gone through the same thing as me and knows what this feels like.

It just seems every trans story I read just makes it seem like it was so easy to just assert themself and move on and transition... I just don't know how to do any of this right now. It just seems everyone else was able to dismiss it and move forward easily even though I can't. I can barely bring myself to tell people a thing about it. I hate it. I hate how fake I feel and how wrong my body feels on my skin. I want to just wake up and learn this was all some bad dream and I really am just some boy living a normal life. I hate it so much and I don't know what to do about it.

Even if I could convince myself to just transition... I can't even fathom how I'd afford it with already having to pay for college and basic life things. It's even more expensive for testosterone since I need the gel as I can't handle needles. I just don't know what to do anymore or how I can keep functioning with either choice I make in life.

And I keep trying to talk myself down and say I'd be fine living like this, and I could totally do it, but can I? Maybe... I don't really even know. Maybe sometimes I just like the idea of ignoring this part of me and trying to move through life without it and just pretend it's not there, so I don't have to feel like I'm disappointing my religion or family... but it always will be there, no matter what I do.

And other times I'm so proud to be a trans man and love my unique experience I've been given, but that feeling never lasts longer than a day or two...

Anywho, Imma just publish this before I chicken out.