My ex wife went through all this. Before E she was very skinny and athletic. E made her gain 45+ lbs all around her stomach and hips. But because she'd been born in a male body, the weight gain pattern was weird... she gained it kinda like a guy would, so she had a big "beer gut" thing happening. She was so unhappy with her body. She told me she'd rather have looked like a skinny androgynous boy than spending the rest of her life looking like a fat or pregnant girl. She tried everything, we kinda lived at the gym for a while.

The weight WOULD NOT come off - that's kind of normal for some women. I finally had to tell her "IDK hon welcome to life as a woman, sometimes no diet and exercise will force our bodies to lose the darn fat."

I want to be clear - I DIDN'T CARE how she looked as long as she was happier. But she wasn't happier. So I wish docs would TELL people -getting a female body doesn't guarantee you will get the female body type you WANT.

THANK YOU for posting this. I am so tired of the modern take on gender theory that would put every AGP person and every transvestite into the category of Transwoman and try to pressure them to transition. How far we have come! I am old enough to remember when a diagnosis of AGP was considered to EXCLUDE the possibility of someone being transgender and needing to transition.

On a side note I know it's problematic as heck these days... but I've had some great experiences with the regional BDSM/Kink community so you should know, there are Domme's out there who really enjoy making men "sissify" and dress up as women.

So IDK your whole story, maybe you already went down this road and it wasn't for you... but... there are women out there who would really enjoy "turning you into a girl" roleplay. It might not end up as a sexual relationship in the typical sense but that doesn't mean you both wouldn't get something out of it that fills those needs. (PS my boyfriend is super cute in a dress just sayin.)

Anyhow, thank you again for posting. These days the darn TRA movement seems to be more conservative in their views on gender roles than the actual conservative right wing! God forbid anyone step outside the gender role traditionally assigned to their biological sex - we better push em to transition!

I miss the damn 80's,... long haired glam bois in leopard print tights and glittery scarves and lip gloss/eyeshadow... and if you called one a queer, he might lay your redneck ass out and then fix his nail polish where he chipped it on your teeth. Or his punk biker riot grrrrrl girlfriend might stomp a mudhole in your butt, and then go put more green hairspray on her mohawk. Or both. Back then as a young teen punk chick, I thought, finally we've decided that gender roles can eff right off and people can just be themselves and be happy... Maybe we just need to do the 80's over again.

this ^^^ very very yes. - also have we REALLY gotten to the point of hyper-sensitivity about gender that people get labelled as TERFs because they dare admit they are cis-het-bio-female AKA a woman?

Because that's going to push a lot of people away from feeling able to be good allies, or so I worry.

If I can't call myself a woman and be your ally, I have now been cornered into choosing between my own gender identity being denied so someone else's can be validated... which... sounds kinda scary similar to old-school mysogyny.

It would be like if I can't say I am a white American, I have to call myself a "colonizer," otherwise black people won't accept that I can be an ally. Well I was born here and am 1/4 Choctaw, 1/4 Cherokee. So... I look white but... am I really an evil colonizer? (I haven't really heard that from anyone except real extremists, it's just an analogy.) People can be women, and admit we are women, and still be allies.

I can and do check my privilege and be the best ally I can and signal boost oppressed minority voices... but I cannot and will not hate myself, harm myself, and silence myself about the oppression that I experience, just to help others love themselves, ya know? That's where the line is for me personally. So I guess hurry up and start calling me an evil TERF?

Gender is basically a set of sterotypes assigned to a physical/biological body shapes by a culture.

Gender has varied SO much from culture to culture. In ancient Egypt, Greece, and Scotland, men wore skirts. In Hopi tradition, women spun the thread and men did the weaving. There's a tribe in Brazil I read about where the women do all the gardening and trapping of small game and raising and slaughtering pigs, and the only job the men are really trusted with is to go get firewood and lumber for building. There's a Chinese cultural group where the women live in big households together, own the homes and land, raise the kids as a group, and the men live with their mothers and go visit a woman they like in HER home - it's called "Walking Marriage."

Any gender stereotype you think of, you can find a culture that did it "backwards" from us today in the USA. To me that means there can't logically be some "biological lady brain urge" to wear dresses and skirts, because then what about all the Scottish dudes who grew up wearing skirts... are they Trans?

I don't deny there can be some brain chemistry, hormone, and perhaps brain structure differences between sexes, but I DON'T see a biological way that those differences can make someone hate math, or love makeup automatically.

IDK why your post sparked those thoughts for me but that's what came up.

A suggestion - maybe they/them pronouns and calling yourself a "person" or a "human" instead of a "woman" would help?

You can replace woman with person in most sentences and nobody will blink - if they know you are talking about a female adult human, it also promotes seeing women AS people too! My feminist pintrest board is called "Women ARE People" because of this idea. Maybe it can help I hope.

Glad you told them. Telling the truth is never betrayal. I hate the phrase "it's just a phase" because there's nothing WRONG with going through different stages of life and changing a lot as you learn and grow. You are not obligated to be the same person at 14 as you were at 12. It's perfectly normal to try out different ways of expressing your identity - and totally healthy to change when an old identity doesn't fit anymore.

If I had to still act and dress like I did at 14, 15, 16, and still believe some of the things I did back then. Wow. I'd be really stuck in my growth as a person. It was 100% right for me then, but that doesn't mean I have to stick with it lifelong. Identity is fluid, and grows and changes as a person grows. Especially for a younger person. So many changes - going from child to teen to adult, going from student to college student to career person - going from living at home to living on their own - potentially going from never having dated, to being in relationships... All HUGE changes, so it is 100% reasonable that people SHOULD change a ton during those years.

What would be really UNhealthy is if you forced yourself to stay in a certain identity because you're worried about what others will think. You'll go through a brief tough time here and now - but imagine if you went through years of hormones and top/bottom surgery, and ended up being 20 and stuck with a body that *still* didn't feel "right" to you anymore. That would be the real betrayal.

If you have a supportive therapist maybe they would help talk to your parents and explain. If your mother is having a hard time adjusting and takes it out on you, remember that it's her problem, not anything you did wrong. It was probably hard for her to go ahead and stand up for her trans kid. Maybe she had to fight to overcome some old beliefs. Maybe she had to stand up for you to family or church members. Possibly she had to make therapy and medical care fit into a household budget. That doesn't mean you "owe" her anything or should feel bad - just trying to explain that she might be feeling like she "went through all that with you for nothing."

Just remember, it's NOT for "nothing" and not a mistake or betrayal. In life, sometimes we have to give things a good solid try, to find out if they are right for us or not. Maybe when she calms down in a few days, you can see if she can accept that point of view.

Best of luck and I am glad you didn't let yourself be pressured into something that turned out not to be right for you. Remember, detrans is much harder to do. medically, than transitioning - so if a person is not 110% SURE transition is what they want, it's probably better to wait and let their personality and identity develop and solidify more.

TBH I think the best treatment for a lot of dysphoria, would be for our societies over all to fix the issues that create certain types of dysphoria. If people feel like they can dress how they want, have the hobbies they like, have any personality traits they want, and do whatever career they like, without being sexually harassed or discriminated against because those things are "wrong" for their sex or gender... TBH a lot of dysphoria would probably go away.

If someone has been told their entire life that women are weak, women are lesser, women are victims... and you just cannot identify with that, cannot bear to live in that reality and that role - of course your body will feel and look wrong to you. Of course life as the female gender will feel wrong to you. I can say from experience, that if you end up with PTSD and disassociation symptoms, feeling like you're never right inside your skin, like your body is this weird meat suit that you are trapped in, but it's not you, and not yours... that's definitely a possible symptom of those issues.

I'm not sure it is possible to be a woman in today's world, and NOT have a little C-PTSD and some symptoms of dysphoria. I also think, we need to consider differentiating between physical body dysphoria versus gender dysphoria.

There are definitely some people who have primarily physical dysphoria. I've met several folks who just... don't feel right in their body. There's no abuse, no trauma, no clear reason anyone seems able to point to, they just look at their body and feel "nope, that's not mine, that's not right." In those cases surgery may still be our best option.

But what I'd call gender dysphoria... I truly do think we can treat it better by breaking down stereotypical gender roles overall. Coping with internalized feelings of dislike and disgust and distance from the (toxic) stereotypical role that's been assigned to your birth sex... that's really hard painful exhausting work emotionally. I think our culture in American medicine is very much "can you just give me a pill for it, can I get surgery or some medical treatment for it?" That culture needs to change.

From a technology standpoint, sometimes I wonder what could be done with VR? If a body-dysphoric person could come home and get some theraputic time in a VR environment where they can see their avatar in a mirror or "look down at their body" and see something they prefer... I wonder if that would either help alleviate some of the dysphoria without needing hormones and surgery, which could allow people to take more time to make that huge decision. It might also let them see if "being" their chosen sex actually DOES "fix" the issues that bother them. Might let people practice living as their chosen sex and gender role in a safe and anonymous way, to try it out and see if it actually helps as much as they'd hoped.

It reallly sounds like all the classic issues that autogynephiles talk about.

I do want to comment on what said about gender roles. I am a totally "normal" female and I love science, went to a math and science focused high school, can change a tire... gender roles are a lie. Changing a tire has no sex. Wearing a dress or makeup has no sex. It only has gender.

It's 100% possible and FINE to be content being of the male SEX, but being more comfortable in a traditionally more female GENDER role. Where things can get dangerous, is if you mix up the traits we get from our sex, versus the traits we get from our socialization in a certain gender role... and start thinking that there's a biological connection to wearing dresses, or enjoying a STEM career, or wanting to feel pretty, or changing a tire.

If it helps, I am a woman, born woman, happy to be a woman, and I do all those things too. And I know men, born men, planning to stay male, who bake cookies, dye their hair blue, wear nail polish, like to be pegged - and who have to come get me, the woman, to remove spiders from the bathtub.

IMO whoever thought up gender roles, sold us a crock of BS. Please for your health, before you do anything that's not reversible, look into a therapist who has actual experience and credentials in helping people with autogynephilia.

When you're reasearching, be careful to look at sources that are factual and respectful of AGP - of late, there are some AGP people who have insisted that AGP and severe sex dysphoria disorders are the *same* condition, which they're not. Treatment and management for one, doesn't actually completely help people with the other.

It may be that once again, we can blame prejudice against gay and gender-non-conforming men (and women) for some of the headspace you now inhabit.

It's so much easier for conservatives and bigots who can't move past conventional gender roles, to look at an effeminate man, and say "Oh, well, he's ACTUALLY a woman, always was, get him some hormones and surgery and a gift card to Sephora." than to just *deal* with that effeminate man AS HE IS.

I remember in the 80's most of the male hair metal fans had long hair, earrings, wore some lipgloss and highlighter and eyeliner, a bit of nail polish. Sometimes they'd throw on a skirt. It went great with the studded leather jackets and combat boots. Nobody said shit about it. They wouldn't have liked the ass stomping they'd have gotten. 50/50 chance that the ass beating would have come from the punk rock chicks who were dressed like gay leather daddies. Nobody thought of them as not women, by the way. It was a simpler time.

But yeah... if you end up discovering you're trans, so be it. But it might be worth trying on the mindset of "Maybe I'm just a dude who gets sexually aroused by looking like a certain type of sexy woman, and that's fine."

My ex wife was MtF trans, and after transition, she started trying to dress like a soccer mom. I was like, babe, WTF. You're a metal guitarist. What's with the hippie skirts and french tips here. This isn't YOU. Look at all the women around you in the metal scene, do they dress like you're trying to? Does anyone think they're not women, or not sexy? She took a long look at the concept and decided, screw it, if I'm a woman, then I'm a woman. A woman in ripped jeans, combat boots, and a metal band t-shirt is still a woman.

I say that, to once again strongly emphasize - do you want to live in a mostly-feminine gender role and appearance, or do you really actually want to be physically a woman, as much as hormones and surgery can accomplish? And please, really take an honest look at the arousal aspect of it.

Because, as a woman, I can tell you, when I masturbate, it's NOT to thinking of myself as a woman and looking at how I look in lingerie. Nothing about *being* a woman inherently turns me on. Dressing sexy isn't even really a turn-on in and of itself, just more the idea of my partner's reaction to it. Women can turn me on, (I'm bi) but just *existing* as a woman or even dressing up and performing feminine gender roles, doesn't. That's the normal reality of being born a biological woman.

(Now, hearkening back to my time in BDSM culture - dressing a subbie boy up in pretty lingerie and making him put on makeup...? Oh yes. Let's just say there's a reason I know autogynephila exists, and what some of the classic signs of it are :) BDSM, problematic though it is, still has something to teach us about the difference between our actual sex/gender identity, versus having a kink or a fetish or a paraphilia. )

My ex wife, when she talked about transitioning, didn't talk about finding her new body sexually arousing to herself - what she spoke of was more an emotion of relief. Of looking in the mirror and not feeling like her body was wrong anymore.

Seems like these days, everyone who wants to dress or act differently than the stereotypes surrounding their birth sex, instantly gets all this pressure to transition. Like I already mentioned, personally I chalk that up to conservatives who want to shove people into neat little sex-gender boxes. If you're not a perfect fit for one, then you must be the other, right?

You can be a guy, who is turned on by dressing feminine, without being gay, or trans. There's nothing wrong with it. I dare anyone to tell me one actual bit of harm done by a guy putting on some high heels and lipstick for a wank? If that's what does it for you, then that's your kink.

If you decide to be open about it, you'll catch some heat for it - but probably not more than anyone who comes out as gay, or transgender, or atheist. If you decided to transition, it would also have some rough effects in your life. So if you discovered you're more AGP than Trans, the fallout in your daily life would probably be about the same either way TBH.

Maybe start by finding some good articles on being gender-critical and talking about some of those issues with your parents.
You could start by saying, you know, I realize that there are women who enjoy being strong, women who want to be soldiers, and play rough contact sports. And it doesn't make them not women, not female.. heck it doesn't even make them un-feminine.

Tell them you realize there are guys who like to look nice, who would like to stay at home to raise their kids and enjoy braiding their daughters' hair - and you notice that those guys are still able to be cis-men, still thought of as manly.

You could point out some celebrities such as Jeremy Renner (Hawkeye) who used to be a makeup artist, and Chris Pratt who knows how to do a great french braid. Nobody thinks those guys are trans, or gay, or GNC. Ask what your parents think of those concepts.

Point out some celebrities your parents will remember, such as some of the 80's glam rock bands who wore silk, frilly shirts, eyeshadow and nail polish, yet definitely were seen as very masculine, sexy guys. See if they feel that those guys were definitely male even though not GNC.

Those are some ways you could open up the conversation of "You know, I don't know anymore if I feel like I have to be *physically* male bodied to live the gender role that I want to live."

You can also research some of the medical dangers and lasting health risks of transitioning, and tell your parents you really want an honest answer - do any of those things secretly worry them?

You never know what people are secretly thinking. If I had a friend or kid of my own, as young as 14, who was medically transitioning, I'd be supportive because they're going through enough without me voicing my doubts. But at the same time I'd be privately worrying about them- about the health risks, and about the HUGE changes a person's personality goes through between the ages of 10 and 20. It's like people aren't even the same person in some ways after all those changes.

So maybe your parents have been secretly more worried than you know, and might be partly relieved to put transition on hold for a while. But maybe hiding it from you because they love you so much and want to be 100% supportive.

Regarding body hair... women in general have a LOT MORE body hair than the media shows us. You're probably around young women who do a LOT of daily maintenance to remove every darn hair from the eyebrows down. You might be surprised to see that you're closer to the normal range for female furry-ness than society thinks.

And if it turns out you're on the extra furry side? Who cares. I'm kind of a furry chick myself and even though I'm definitely a feminist and believe women look fine as they are, I kinda don't like how MY body hair is. It's very dark compared to my super pale skin, and it tends to stick out in some weird directions instead of lying flat like most girls (curse of being genetically Irish/Native combo I guess.) So I just use an electric clipper because it's faster and just don't stress about the stubble.

Also keep in mind, different people have different preferences - they just don't talk about it openly because our culture is so closed-minded and judgy and quick to call everything cringey. It took my current boyfriend a long time to admit he just prefers the natural look on a woman. One of my ex-girlfriends would yell at me for shaving, she really hated the hairless look because she said it made her feel like she was trying to date a pre-pubescent.

If it really bothers you, you can always wax, shave, or eventually get laser hair removal. If you decide to get off T and finish puberty with estrogen, your body may also just compensate. 5 more years of puberty can do a LOT of changes.