The cis people don’t question/think about their gender is one that I heard so much and makes no sense. As I opened up to people about how I felt I found out a lot of cis people feel weird about how they are gendered, how they perform gender, how their bodies aren’t “ideal” for the gender they are. I truly believe it’s actually rare to not think about it. It may be true that trans people just obsess about it more or feel way more acute distress. I don’t know. But I’m certain cis people do question things they just don’t frame it in the same way.

I believe the criteria for being trans is identifying as such. Even people who have don’t full transitions can stop identifying as such. And people who have done no procedures can also be trans. At least by the current definitions.

Regarding your desire for surgeries, it is absolutely normal for even totally gender conforming women to want breast reduction. Probably not removal, but I don’t think it makes you trans to just not like having breasts. Especially large ones. Gender stereotypes are so unbelievably stupid but also less rigid than a lot of people tend to believe, especially for women. Truly you can be butch, gnc, androgynous and be fine. People might be rude about it but they don’t matter.

Just remember that getting a hysterectomy comes with life long consequences like needing to take hormones and some other things. It is a sort of radical surgery to have with no medical need as your reproductive organs do a lot for your body. I would recommend doing heavy research into that beforehand. I think you’ll find it hard to get such a procedure covered if you aren’t trans and have no medical reason to. Doctors will be hesitant and insurance most likely won’t cover it at all.

All of that will be a terrible inconvenience as well.

My big advice for you would be to wait as long as you can to have any surgery because complications are real and important to consider, but also your attitudes can change a lot from 18 to later on. When I was 18 I had a lot of feelings and thoughts about my body and the world at large that I have totally abandoned now. No one likes to hear that. I hated people telling me that when I was 18. But it turns out they were right. You might consider therapy to figure out why you are feeling so bad about having these parts.

I would also consider that even if you aren’t exactly trans you will be in a somewhat unique position and body and that might make it harder for you to find a romantic relationship or people to relate to you. Your body will be different but you won’t have the trans catch all to explain any of it. People won’t really know what to do with a cis woman who opted to have her breast and uterus removed. You might not care about that at all so you can disregard that point, it’s just another thing I thought of. Maybe you live in a large queer community and both men and women will be totally into what you want to do.

Anyway that’s just one person’s thoughts but I hope they help.

I don’t have experience exactly like this, but just like you should be free to be yourself when you are trans you should be free to be yourself when you figure out that you aren’t. People might be confused, but probably no more than when one transitions or is non-binary. I think more detrans visibility is a good thing. It’s been sort of maligned as something that negates trans identity, but it’s not. It’s just a true thing that happens. It takes bravery to transition and bravery to go back. I think you can do it. Just be honest and ask for the changes you need. It will probably be uncomfortable but once it’s over with it will be over with and you can put it behind you.

Yea I think a lot of them just want to reinforce man and woman. But do you think a person should be forced to identity as cis if they are not trans? Like I know they aren’t forced in a significant way, but in discourse people often say if you aren’t trans or non binary then you are cis and that’s just that. Should a person be able to say “no thank you I will not be using these labels” without bending accused of transphobia?

Oh I feel for you. Saying you don’t know if you are allowed to be GNC— that’s it right there. Your brain, for whatever reason, is stuck on the idea that there are feminine and masculine people and you need to be seen as completely one or the other. That’s a lesson transpeople teach each other it seems. Over and over we hear it is dangerous and precarious to be GNC and we have to pass as one or the other. Maybe your need to bind if you lean masc is out of safely. Maybe your going more femme is about safely. But you need to know that in this giant world a lot of people are gnc and androgynous and are FINE. Times are scary, but for the most part people are worried about themselves. There might be assholes who make comments about you, but that’s going to be true for pretty much the entire LGBTQ community in some parts of the country. Liberate yourself if you can. If you like a hair cut or a shirt or a skirt or whatever just get it. Just rock it. I know it’s easier said than done, but labels like femme and masc are a trap. We don’t need to code clothes and hair so meticulously. Really. Once I learned to let it go I developed a weird style all my own and it is going great because I just try to own it. I surround myself with people who don’t give a damn about my gender or clothes or presentation. I’m so sorry your family is going to be awful about this, but this is your life. Just remember that T-shirt’s and jeans are gender neutral at this point. So are almost all shoes other than heels. Wear what is comfortable on any given day.

I only desisted and never had medical intervention so take this with that in mind, but I was seeing a therapist about anxiety disorders and did CBT to retrain how I think about things and how I self talk. My therapist talked about how what we focus on gets magnified. So if I was fixated on a worry that worry would grow. She didn’t apply this to gender, but I started to think that maybe a lot of my discomfort with my body came from obsessing on it and comparing it to people around me, and to standards of what was masculine and feminine. For me part of coming to terms with my body had to do with generally loathing medical stuff and not wanting to go there and so knowing I will always look how I look. So to focus on it is fruitless. I had to practice radical self acceptance and love which is really really hard.

With anxiety I employ a lot of strategies that help me focus only on positive things I know to be true in the moment. Maybe you could fine a therapist and explain you have obsessive thought patterns that make you unhappy and you want to work on how to turn your attention away from it. Hopefully they won’t get scared away by thinking they just have to affirm. Tell them upfront you don’t want affirmation you want help with negative and obsessive thoughts.

I cannot fathom how suicidal contagion magically doesn’t exist when we are talking about kids who are having gender discomfort. When adults are screaming about how kids will kill themselves as part of testimony in places like congress, of course more kids will think they’ll want to kill themselves, will kill themselves, and demand medicine they otherwise wouldn’t! It’s common sense. And yet.

I wish we talked about how normal this is. So many (especially young) women do not want to be associated with the feminine. The messages they receive make being a woman sound way worse than being a man. It’s is absolutely normal when faced with puberty to want your less obtrusive less attention eliciting body back. We just don’t talk about it. A lot of women become obsessed with striking a balance of being attractive to men but not too feminine so that people know they are strong and independent but also feminine and sexy. It’s exhausting. I went through it. It was made even worse by having a twin brother and seeing he wasn’t having to deal with what I was.

It is perfectly common for women who are not trans to dislike their large breasts for practical reasons even while enjoying the nice parts of having them. I know that I prefer being a slight small chested woman and when I gain weight the reason I want to lose it is just that my breasts are too big. It’s all normal…but only discussed openly and often in trans spaces and so it is associated mostly with being trans.

Gender role stereotypes and the plain inconvenience of womanhood make a lot of women uncomfortable but we live in a “girl power” moment where we think we need to embrace it and challenge men or whatever. I do not identity with the girl power feminine women. At one time I didn’t want to be called a woman because I don’t belong with them. But now I know I’m just a different kind of woman who happens to fit in better with other types of people.

In my opinion you are having obsessive thoughts based on pretty mundane normal ones because you have obsessive thoughts. I don’t have OCD but I do have anxiety with intense rumination and when I was in college I thought I could fix a lot of my fears by not being feminine or straight, that as an androgynous pansexual I could get out of striking that balance we are all looking for. No one could expect anything from me if I labeled myself this way.

But the actual truth is that I am a woman who sometimes wants to look what you’d call feminine and sometimes does not. I sometimes have long hair and sometimes short. I wear dresses sometimes and other items hiking boots and overalls. Makeup sometimes, other times not.

I don’t need anything about me to be stable or labeled. People will already expect something from me and perceive me however they want and I can’t fix that. I can exist as a bi woman who has to exercise to have the body she wants to keep the excessive curves from coming on. We all have an ideal body type and a struggle to reach it. That is not a trans trait only.

I think I mean “social pressure” when I’m saying forced. Of course they don’t have to, but the uncharitable and immediate response to someone who says “I don’t want to be called cis, just a woman” is that they are being transphobic. When I’m actuality a transperson can decide when and if someone calls them that. Or I should say a person feeling they aren’t cis can choose their descriptor from trans to woman to non-binary to man. Whatever they like. A transperson can identity as a transperson or JUST as a man or a woman without the trans part. Whereas a person who is not trans must be cis or they will be labeled transphobic. They can’t just be men or women. That distinction is political and not logical. I think we all ought to be able to opt out of any label that refers to our identity if we don’t want to use it. Perhaps that’s something for after we fight this stupid culture war. But that would be my ideal.

I take your original post to really be about how hard it is to try to conform to unrealistic body and beauty standards as a woman. And because mastectomies are so common in transition it puts even more focus on breasts and what they mean. Removing them or hiding them is what makes people feel more masculine so if you don’t have them to begin with how can you feel feminine or womanly or whatever. So much seems to revolve around them and their size for cis and trans people. But here is one awesome thing…a lot of people like small breasts. You don’t need to mourn not having them. And people with large ones are often quite annoyed with them. I know it’s trite and annoying to just tell you that you should love your body, but I mean damn we need to stop letting people make us feel all kinds of ways about ourselves. Frankly having small breasts is awesome. They don’t get in the way or bounce to much when you exercise. You can wear all kinds of clothes and not be self conscious about exposing cleavage. There is so much unhealthy obsession about body parts in cis and trans spaces and I really hope you can be happy with how you look now. It’s hard as hell to do, to be happy with your body, but it’s a worthwhile goal to learn how to let the worry about it go.