this post was submitted on 16 Jan 2026
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That's literally me right now. I cannot imagine what someone must feel for them to transition and how they might feel because of the transition (though can obv appreciate and accept that some have those feelings I can't directly relate to).
I don't know, I genuinely feel like it wouldn't change that much about my life. Even if the things I want and do stay the same, I feel like I could do those the same way no matter my gender. What does my gender even change about my life? Is gender even real?
It's possible you might be agender. Many cis people, myself included, have a deep, inexplicable attachment to their assigned gender at birth, and the prospect of living as a different gender causes them deep discomfort or distress. Whether you find that agender is a term that resonates with your experience, know that the degree to which people experience attachment to their gender is just one of the many dimensions of the variety in human gender, and that you don't need to label your experience if that doesn't feel useful or right for you
The first time I allowed myself to wear a dress when I first saw myself in the mirror as a woman I immediately understood how it feels to identify with your body. Before I would always say I am not a body I only inhabit it. But as soon as I could see myself as a woman something clicked in my brain and for the first time I felt like I was that body. Before that I didn't even know that was something one could feel. So at least for me gender is very real.
I still haven't worn skirts often sadly - I feel the 'parts' are in the way. And I don't know how to tuck them effectively - I have shapewear, but that's it. Tucking it into the body I cannot do.
Plus I feel like I don't dare yet to go full skirty outside yet. I'm taking E and pass for many, but for myself I feel like I don't yet -- due to my jawline. I don't know if you've done so yet, but how do you overcome that fear? How do people react?
If it's specifically your jawline that troubles you, have you considered starting by wearing a mask? They're not as common as COVID days, but it's normalized enough. It could be a good way to test the waters and build up more confidence.
I'm not the person you asked, and I can't personally relate. Apologies if what I said is unwelcomed.
Unfortunately I can't help you there. I still remember wanting to dress super cutely feminine only to look into a mirror and find myself too masculine to pull it off and sadly changing to wear something else. Or the first time I tried to wear heels only to get scared after a few steps outside and hurry back inside to change. Only facial feminisation surgery did it for me and now I know I pass.
Idk not having tits made me want to kill myself and I was willing to pay nearly a college degree of money to undergo major genital surgery despite being allergic to opiates. Gender as some metaphysical thing, yeah felt that on acid once while several years into transitioning.
So I can only speak to my own experience and I'm still a baby trans woman, so I've only gotten a small part of the experience. It's hard to explain, but I literally have never felt better about myself in my entire life than I do right now, by such a wide margin it makes me believe I've probably never actually felt good about myself before at all, I was just experiencing various degrees and flavors of self loathing. Yet to most people almost nothing is different about me yet. It's profound and subtle and life changing. There was and is a lot of fear but that's more about other people than me. I would still transition if I was the last person on earth.
To add a counter example to emphasise your (and others') experiences: I am a cis woman who, after getting into learning about queer theory, concluded that it was irrational to be so attached to my assigned gender at birth, and that it would be more logical to use they/them pronouns. I tried this for a few weeks and found that it was deeply uncomfortable and I had to stop. In hindsight, I find it utterly hilarious that I basically tried to brute force my way out of being cisgender.
I'm also a scientist, and due to the fact that women in science still face a lot of misogynistic bullshit, I have sometimes wished that I were a man so that I wouldn't have to deal with that. At first, when I had those thoughts, I wondered if this might mean I was actually a trans man, and that I should consider whether that was a path I wanted to take ("we have the technology, we can rebuild him"_robocop_meme.jpeg). However, I found that imagining myself living as a man filled me with an unpleasant gnawing sensation, like an itchiness of the soul. I think this was effectively simulated gender dysphoria?
So yeah, cis people do exist, and I'm proof. I don't understand it, but I probably never will. Gender is weird, and I just have to acknowledge it as a fact of my reality. Part of why I'm sharing my experience here is because I've contributed to the cracking of at least three people realising they were trans. I was able to recognise the discomfort of simulated gender dysphoria because of the contrast against what I usually felt, but it can be much harder to notice if it's just a background discomfort that, for some people, is mostly tolerable.
And on a nicer note, being in community with trans people helped show me that cis people absolutely can experience gender euphoria. Queer community was a huge part of how I worked through all my internalised misogyny, and now I'm at a place where I can get angry at all the patriarchal bullshit women face while also feeling free to explore what it means for me to be a woman.
Definitely something to be said about how gender isn't "real," but people's perception of it is.
There's no pattern of masculine or feminine behavior/style that is consistent across cultures and throughout history. It's all arbitrary.
But that binary perception of masculine/feminine is nevertheless all around us, even if it's not consistently represented.
I'd like to think that not much would change about my style or mannerisms if I had been born with different parts, and I find it odd how unnecessarily gendered so many aspects of society are. I'm just "me," what else would I want to be? But I also need to remind myself that I only think that way because I've never had to worry about being seen as something other than what I am, even if I don't feel that strongly about it. It's easy to overlook just how much of my life experience has been colored by my effortless gender presentation.
Not everyone gets that by default, and it's hard to put myself in those shoes because I simply can't understand what it's like to be viewed as the opposite gender, or why it might cause discomfort.
If I were airlifted to some other culture that viewed pants as feminine and skirts as masculine, would I toss all of my jeans to conform? I'd like to think I wouldn't, because I like the comfort of pants and attributing a gender standard to clothes has always seemed silly to me. But if it affected the way people saw me, I just might.
The answer is probably different for each person. I always felt weird about the expectations people have on me based on my gender.
Great question! I don't know. Probably is... and isn't. I think about it like a social construct, like money for example. Money doesn't exist in biology or in physics. Its just paper, or metal discs, or a number on my screen. But it definitely affects the lives of people living in any civilization. But gender can't be just a social construct because it's too subjective. There probably is more to it.
There isn't much scientific research in gender. We definitely need more.
I can relate to that.
I like being a dude, I enjoy dressing in a "manly" way, and if I had to change something about my body, I'd wish for broader shoulders without having to work out, or the ability to grow a decent beard without looking stupid. I couldn't imagine having breasts or not having a penis, that would just be wrong.
That said, if I had somehow been born as a girl, I doubt it would have changed much about me (ignoring the different expectations / gender norms and all that shit). If someone offered me to magically swap into a female body for a day or two, I am pretty sure my curiosity would win.
Manhood can be a spectrum with all sorts of variants. What you wish to feel as is what you feel as!
Scottish men wear kilts on formal occassions, women frequently wear trousers. Lipstick or nail polish is used by men and women alike.
I personally view myself as a gal, but I generally like to dress neutrally/masculinely. Only very rarely do I go full skirty, so to say.
Transitioning can be in all sorts of ways, some transition only by dress, others only hormonally, others medically, and others do some or all of these. Some trans gals keep their dick, others want it gone.
If you're thinking of hormones, is a pretty big thing, but it's generally reversible up to three months. I'd recommend storing your reproduction cells (sperm/eggs), before starting. This is because hormones will make you temporarily infertile, and if used for longer (e.g. if you wanna continue), permanently. If you wanna stop to store them, you get some hormonpausal (peno-/menopausal) symptoms.
I actually offered hormones to a cis friend as a joke before, but he was like "nah, no thanks". And that's valid too. For me, and they helped me a lot in that I felt more home in my body - that my body was becoming more my own rather than some foreign body my spirit inhabited.
For the beard thing, for you - it depends. Most guys don't get the capacity for a 'full' beard until their mid-twenties, some even take until their thirties. I don't know where you're at but I think you'll be fine in that regard :p