I think I’m feeling overwhelmed with everything. From things needed to transition to things encountered socially, to my overall mood and internal turmoil. I’m just a bit tired. I also apologize for posting a book here lol.
Supportive. Prior to my accepting of being a trans woman I watched lost in transition with my wife.
She asked at that point if I was trans and said she’d love me no matter what. I was fearful of losing her despite her saying this, I felt like she didn’t know what she was saying. Anyway I told her I wasn’t. At this point I was obsessed with learning everything I could about being transgender–surgery was something I think I researched quite heavily at first. I don’t think I had known about it prior to watching lost in transition. I knew about doctors reassigning gender at birth and stuff so I’m not sure why it never occurred to me to check.
18 months later I finally decided I was definitely a trans woman. Eventually I told her and we went through a great amount of turmoil, following this we would go in cycles where I would tell her that I needed to transition, then I would decide that I wanted our marriage more than transition, and each iteration I would realize regardless of stance on transitioning it is who I am. She tried to convince me not to transition. She went through grief phases and fought depression seemingly triggered by my need to transition. She initially said she was supportive, withdrew support, and reinstated it. She’s straight and while she supports transgender people, it’s a different matter when you find out you’re married to one.
I slowly let some family and friends know. Most seem to acknowledge it at a distance, giving support in the form of it’s your life and you can live it how you want. This sort of support I thought was great at first until I realized it was a surface reaction. Some are not so supportive and I get things like you didn’t show any signs. Yes that’s one that comes up a lot on here. I’ve been assimilated into male culture, chemically I’m still male, and my body is male. My soul is female, my brain I don’t know what it is but I believe it rewired a little bit when I acknowledged my being a woman. Anyway sometimes I wonder what would happen if I weren’t in this fishbowl of poison. What would growing up have been like? My brother in particular gave this sort of support. He doesn’t acknowledge me as a female at this point. I think with everything going back and forth with my wife he might be waiting until I settle in. Maybe it’ll become real when I present as the woman inside. I’m not sure.
Imposter Syndrome and Doubt. Lately I’ve been doubting the whole thing I guess I’ve been comparing myself to my wife and daughters. I think well I never had any interest in that. The shows I watch or are interested now differ greatly from my wife’s. But really this is to be expected, we’re afterall still two individuals. I mean really my interests differ from the stereotypical woman I think. My wife seems to remind me periodically that I don’t know what it’s like to be a woman. I mean that is all true but it doesn’t change my journey. My mom was the one that mentioned about my not showing signs. She doesn’t seem very supportive but she wants to talk about it sometime. I think… it might be difficult, I’m sure she thinks about when she was having me and how she knew I was a boy (or so she and anyone would have thought).
I think about my younger days and how gender may have colored it to some extent. I think gender guided my interests if anything but perhaps that’s not really a fair assessment. Some interests weren’t really chosen. Some were, like video games and math. On the other hand my daughter loves math and she likes video games. Anyway I would spend a lot of time in nature and I feel like most of my life up to the past 4 years nature would seem to have a way of alleviating the gender dysphoria I wasn’t aware of, it just doesn’t care and gender doesn’t color my experience of nature.
Anyway I feel myself constantly watching myself and I find myself thinking would a woman do that? And if not then am I really a woman then? Who am I to say that though?
Newest Challenge. So the newest challenge is my wife’s job and how my transition would impact her job. I will just say it, my wife is a pastor. We think the congregation would not be accepting of either my transition nor her orientation due to my transition. It’s a funny scenario to think about, honestly it kind of tickles me somewhere when I manage to get away from the gravity of the situation. The idea that she would have to justify something that she didn’t choose is beyond me. The denomination itself is accepting of homosexuality. But churches get to adopt their own stance–congregations and their governing boards. Oddly there’s a running joke about my coming out of the closet. I’m not sure if they know which closet I’d be coming out of (does it really matter? lol) Anyway I’m kind of 50/50 on how I feel about transitioning with this church.
She’s talked about returning to school, and initially I wasn’t sure what she actually thought of it. Eventually though she told me I was going to rob her of her dream of ministering. I’m not sure how to react to that. It’s definitely not my intention to do so. I’m not sure how long I’d be able to pull off boy mode at the church if I started to transition. I am larger so it might not be as noticeable? That is of course assuming I’d be able to do hormone replacement at all.
Therapy. I definitely need to start seeing a therapist/counsellor and that’s a whole other challenge. I’m not sure where to start with this, I know I need to contact my health insurance company (my wife will need to help me do this since her name is primary). Maybe they’ll be able to help me navigate things with family/friends and stuff as well as maybe making it “official” that I’m a transwoman? I’m open to any advice someone might have.
Family and names. I’ve been asking my daughters what if scenarios. Like if I were a girl what would you name me? (They suggested Nella and Samantha.) I was surprised our little one suggested a name I hadn’t heard her being exposed to. I’m a bit curious where that came from. Anyway, I think they’re cute names that I’ll consider but I don’t know that I’d go for either. I really like Bian and Biana. I’ve tried a couple others: Brooke and Braelynn. I kind of drifted away from Brooke because my brother’s friend dated a Brooke. I interact with my brother and his friends pretty frequently and I don’t know that I want to take a name like that? Braelynn is one I’d consider revisiting. I like that it’s ornate but at the same time I don’t feel like I am very ornate myself. I feel like Brooke was quite a cute name and I have an attachment to water as an element so I really liked it from that angle as well. I didn’t like how common it is (everyone knows a Brooke it seems). My legal name is pretty common though too so on some level I feel like it’s a good equivalent name. My best friend has the same (legal) first name as I do. Anyway asking my mom what she would’ve named me I don’t think would help much because she didn’t have a girls’ name in mind. Asking her what she would want to name me is a consideration but she’s not in that accepting position at this point I think. As far as Bian and Biana goes I’ve been using it online lately and watching people on twitch, hearing people say Bian is fascinating and quite enjoyable. I get 50/50 with something like Be-en (close to bien in spanish) and something like biyahn (kind of like beyond without the d). The second pronunciation is pretty. I was thinking about Biana to force (more consistent) pronunciation. Make me feel more feminine because of the following a, but hearing Bian like beyond makes me feel really good. Like a sunset or… something.
Anyway I’m open to thoughts/comments/suggestions/encouragement/etc. If you made it this far also thank you for reading! Sorry if you were looking for a tldr, I don’t really have one.