Yeah basically. It kind of sucks but lots of men get their man boobs removed so if anyone ever asked you could just say that’s the reason why.

Also your breasts are likely not fully developed as a FTM’s breasts are so the scarring would probably be less. Often the pictures you see are people who’ve gotten their breasts removed in the last year or so. Scar tissue reduces over time.

I’m kind of lucky because I have a concaved chest which causes my ribs to dip inwards. I might have to get surgery to adjust my ribs someday anyway so I’ll have scars from that and can just say my mastectomy scars are related to that.

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1. Yes, I completely think this is possible. My own experience growing up was to be constantly ridiculed for my body. I was AMAB and was really lanky, skinny, had webbed toes, and a concave chest. Every day in the locker room for traumatic for me. I tried to hide my body to avoid being picked on, which never worked and made it worse. I was physically hit, and pushed almost every day. Days when it wouldn't happen people would threaten and act like they would. It was very abusive bullying and made me hate my own body. Even by the time I was in my mid-twenties and was doing well in life I still hated my body. A chance to have a new body sounded amazing and I got completely caught up in the belief that if I became a woman I could love myself.
2. This is a question I don't think anyone has the answer to. If trauma created dysphoria does that make transitioning the right or wrong choice to alleviate that? I think it depends and even though I have dysphoria and transitioning has helped with that it didn't deal with the underlying self-esteem issues.
3. I think being transgender is going to lead to depression and anxiety regardless. I don't think being depressed and having anxiety can create the conditions to have gender dysphoria on its own. I dealt with anxiety before I transitioned, but it was manageable. After transitioning my anxiety grew ten-fold and I became very depressed. I think it's a combination of HRT and also increased social pressures. After a few years into my transition, I stopped caring as much and I did find my day-to-day anxiety drop a lot, although I was still depressed because ultimately my desire was to be a cis woman which wasn't going to happen.
4. No, they often don't. When I went to see a therapist when I started questioning it was basically like a time and place where they'd just try to alleviate my doubts. In reality, I think I had doubts for legit reasons. I wish I had explored my underlying mental health issues before starting transition. At the same time though, I REALLY wanted to be a woman and from my therapist's point of view if I wanted to be trans then that probably seemed like a pretty good sign.
5. I think I'd agree with this. Now that I have gotten through the worst parts of my transition I do partly feel at peace with it. Facing adversity made me double down, that's for sure. My Mother was very opposed to me transitioning and that honestly just made me want to prove her wrong. That wasn't my sole reason for transitioning and I would have done it even if she was accepting, but it definitely pushed me down the road faster. I currently work in a place that completely accepts me, as do all my friends and I don't even think about being trans as often as before. Being accepted does alleviate dysphoria. I have no doubt about that.
6. Yes. Yes. And yes. I only started questioning if I was transgender when I looked into the communities. And although there are some reasonable voices that tell you only you can figure it out, the majority of people there just tell you you're in denial if you try to find reasons you aren't trans. This likely comes from a number of different places on their end. They also frankly ignore reality. Unless you transition early and have a good body for it you aren't going to look female (I do think transmen have an easier time passing on HRT). The whole community loves to hug box each other. It's understandable, but I think it leads to false expectations of how the rest of society will perceive you. They make it easier to ignore the challenges you will face.
7. I had, for many years, had female embodiment fantasies. Basically I really enjoyed vividly imagining the pleasure my partner was experiencing. It felt good to think about how good I was making her feel. Eventually that became the only way I could enjoy sex. I don't think that in itself was unhealthy as it made me want to make my partner feel as good as possible but it started to turn into me wanting to also experience that because in my mind I turned it into this amazing fantasy. It seemed like being a woman was just better. I know a lot of theories from people like Blanchard are disregarded, and I do think they have their flaws. I have a hard time believing there isn't a bit of truth to them.
8. While I'm not full detrans and I'm exploring where I want to be. I'm not rushing it, but I'm feeling that I'll likely end up as male again. I do think there are different types of dysphoria. For me, being feminine in any way as just never accepted when I was identifying as a man. Being a woman allowed me to be closer to my true self. I wonder now if I do go back to be man, but accept the feminine sides of myself if my dysphoria will be gone. I do think some trans people have to fully transition to be happy.
9. I'm not sure how I feel about this. I do think there are a lot of people who are legit trans and going on HRT at a young age would help them. At the same time, there are a lot of people who probably shouldn't. The current process is to give them hormone blockers to delay puberty and then go on E or T once they're 18. Delaying puberty doesn't have major consequences so I think this is alright.
10. I'd just like to say that I'm really glad you aren't becoming hateful towards transgender people. I see a lot of people that have a ton of anger and resentment towards trans people on this sub, and while I understand why they feel that way, it ultimately is hurtful to those who do need to transition to live happy lives.

I'm only been on HRT for 3 years and had no surgeries (and a good chunk of that I was struggling to get my estrogen levels up). And honestly for the last year I had kind of stopped caring about my voice, female mannerisms, and dressing female. So I hope I don't come across as odd. Honestly the kinds of people I hang out with are generally very accepting.

I'm kind of going through the same thing right now. The thing is, I get treated completely as a woman even though I believe I don't pass 100%. I get read as a woman and people use the proper pronouns but I know people know I'm trans because whenever I tell them they aren't shocked or surprised. But despite that I still live with constant anxiety. Is my voice not high enough? I am not walking like a female? Are my interests obviously not female? I feel like generally I just don't fit in with women, even though they're all really nice to me. It feels like I'm constantly hiding my true self from people in an attempt to be more female.

It's a hard decision to make and I'm taking it one day at a time but if I can be happy as a cis male than that's what I want. The question is, will my dysphoria be manageable? I have no idea. I lived for years and would say I was happy, although I had low self-esteem, a lot of it related to my body. I'm really skinny and was always the weakest male so I felt inadequate. I'm starting to wonder if I could have just found a way to accept that part of me - and all the other parts I felt I failed as a male - that I could have been happy. I don't know if it's like this for you but I wouldn't say I had gender dysphoria before I started questioning if I was trans. I had body issues though.

I recently had my partner of ten years leave me, largely because my mental health was a wreck and I couldn't be a good partner. Now that I've lost that safety net of having a pretty cis girl as a partner the world of dating is terrifying. I'd want to date women (ie lesbians), but I don't have genital dysphoria and really don't think I want to get GRS. But my chances of dating a lesbian who is ok with really limits me. I also don't want to date a trans person as a trans person because frankly I just don't find most of them attractive and I don't want a relationship where we both have massive gender issues to deal with. I just want a normal relationship and life.

For now I'm just going to explore my gender and see if being a male with feminine traits is ok and makes me happy. It's all a journey and being trans, cis, or whatever right now doesn't mean that's the final destination for you or me.

Jealous. A few years ago I was at the same point but did transition. Realized now that it didn't really fix any of my underlying issues and now I have to deal with those and with detransitioning to be happy. It was an interesting journey that really taught me a lot and I don't judge myself for doing it. But yeah, my life would be way better right now if I never transitioned.

Glad you're finding happiness! As a transwoman who is kind of leaning towards identifying as non-binary and presenting primarily as a male and stopping hormones how did you finally reach that conclusion? And what does it mean for how you plan to live your life?

I'm just curious because I'm exploring that option as well.

I wish I could give you some good advice but you really need to find your own answer.

I too, had a very similar experience with AGP although I ended up transitioning. It's been four years and now I'm in the processing of detransitioning. And my AGP has pretty much faded. I'm worried it might come back but I've kind of stopped thinking of myself as a "manly" man. I really just see my soul as genderless or non-binary and don't care about gender expectations anymore. It's still a new process for me but I plan on presenting male but slightly more androgynous. There is nothing wrong with not feeling the urge to be just masculine.

My hope is in the future society will move more towards accepting gender non-conformity so people don't need to feel like they need to transition. If I hadn't been ruthlessly bullied for being a feminine male when I was young I never would have repressed that side of myself and likely could have been happy just being a feminine male. But I felt so ashamed of it because of how I was treated when I was younger. That repression lead me to feel like transitioning was the only way to be true to myself.

I think transgenderism is showing society how stupid gender constructs are and I see a future where it's acceptable to be as feminine or as masculine as you want - whatever your birth sex is. I think we'll see more gender non-conformity and fewer people feeling that they need to medically transition to explore that side of themselves.