#transition doubt

As some of you might have read in my previous post, I struggle with self hatred and internelized transphobia. I am a man, born in a female body. So a transman, if you like. I’ve been out for six years and been going under male pronounces and my chosen name since then. I’ve undergone extensive physical and mental evaluations during the last four years and been diagnosed with severe gender dysphoria twice by different teams consisting of doctors, therapists, and psychiatrists. I am comfortable in my identity as a man, or at least as comfortable as a transgender person can be in their gender.

I’ve been on hormone blockers for two and a half years while I waited for testosterone. But when I finally got that call from the endocrinology doctor, giving me the green light, I felt doubt for the first time. I’ve been certain in my decision for years, longing for the day when I finally got to start T. I though I would be happy, over the moon with joy, but instead I felt dread.

‘What am I doing?’ I though. ‘What if I regret it?’ ‘is there even such a thing as transgender?’ ‘What if I’m just a confused woman?’ ‘Destroying my body and signing up to inject myself with foreign hormones for the rest of my life, how could that be considered normal?’

I didn’t take my first testosterone injection that day in december. I continued with blockers. I started doing research. Watching videos of detransitioners. Reading articles of people blaming doctors for ruining their life by “brainwashing them into becoming a man and destroying their body”. Came across Tumblrs preaching about how there is no such thing as “trans”. That there is only confused women, lured into medically transitioning by the patriachy.  

I could never relate to any of the detransitioners stories. I have never been raped. I am not autistic. I am not a child, pressured into anything by hollywood parents. I have never considered myself as a lesbian. 

But one thing I do have is severe, soulcrushing dysphoria. I could not possibly see myself as a woman, growing old in this body. I hate every single female characteristic I posses. Scars covering my body from attempts to transform myself into an unrecognitionable lump of flesh, free from my womanhood. But yet here I am. On the brink to happiness, which I refuse myself due to self doubt. 

I’ve always suffered from anxiety in decisionmaking. It does’nt matter if it’s about how I cut my hair, which buss I’m taking, or what colour soes I should get. I think that is just how I work. Hesitant by nature. So why would it invalidate my transition? Why would it be smooth sailing when absoloutely nothing else is?