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[Rolan7]

Eyyy I'm LW I shirk from labels because I think they draw people towards enforcing rigid divisions between genders and sex rather than bring people together, but if I had to say, I'd say I'm a speed-strength-kinaesthetic-spatial main because it's like being a Dex build without being a filthy Dex build. GOD HATES DEX that is all _{even though dex build is the meta build. We have to show STR builds love otherwise they will lose their pride and become really small.}

Sure, that's how I've lived for... most of my life.  As unlabeled as possible.  Always different, always defining myself by what I wasn't.  Indie music, neutral fashion, politically centrist. 
Maybe an exceptionally strong person/ego can define themselves without labels, but language shapes thought.

HRT-wise (you didn't ask, but it feels relevant):  Taking mine for the first time, I obviously felt a wave of excitement which I expected to die down.  It did not - until my HRT stopped working.  I was an involuntary detransitioner, and it sucked just as much as my life before had.  But then I was prescribed a solution (because I'm a bland centrist who doesn't just avail myself of the many grey-market options) and I am even happier.  Also, sadder, but at appropriate times!  I think that in my desperation to restore the hormone-balance I prefer, I got a little overcautious with how I take my sublinguals... It's possible I get more of a dose than most would, from my 4mg/day.  Every morning, right after drinking some water, first thing.

But then there is still some enby in me.  I had a lovely evening with my dad and his SO.  He didn't comment on my comfy top (or my 6-month-HRT soft tissue).  I even referred to myself in the third person as his son, once, because we were sharing a nice moment in a shared interest, and I wanted to do that for him.  Maybe the middle ground isn't always bad, if it's *my* middle ground.

(my dreams strongly disagree, but nowadays they advise not terrorize)

[Iris]

This is going to be a little awkward, because I haven't shared much of this here yet, but I figure that you guys deserve to know where I'm coming from.

I suppose I identify as female, but there's a lot of baggage there - I've often struggled with whether I'm 'really' female, just a very confused cis man, or something else entirely (I identified as a demigirl for a fair bit). I've changed my username, I've changed my pronouns, but is it an improvement? I don't know. I really don't know. I'm afraid to buy female clothes, or try hormones, or really much of anything else besides what I've already done.

Sometimes I feel like I'm stuck in limbo, unable to happily be a man, but unable to happily be a woman either. I just hope it gets better eventually.

At least I can be confident that I'm (mostly) attracted to women, right?

Right?

Labels are hard. I'm Iris. Just Iris. Nothing else.

[Great Order]

Eh, that's perfectly fine. Stuff takes time to work out.

I said to my psychiatrist that it's a bit difficult to work out if I feel like a girl on account of the fact I've only had one experience, ie being me. The situation's closer to a best guess than a definite "I am a woman because I know what the difference between being a man and being a woman is", I just feel like I'd be happier as a woman.

Besides, the whole situation's not a race. Nobody's out there recording how long it takes you to work out if you're trans or not and putting it on a leaderboard (I hope, if they are you have other issues) so you can take as long as you need. There's only one way of failing at it, and that's arriving at the wrong conclusion because that's what you want rather than how you feel, and even then you can transition later or detransition, both have been done plenty of times. Heck, there's been people who have transitioned, detransitioned, then retransitioned.

[Vector]

I really strongly recommend trying to find a trans person to talk to on a personal level IRL. 98% of the trans people you encounter will be supportive and helpful with your situation.

If you live anywhere near a major city in the west, there will be LGBT-safe hangouts where you can get coffee and talk to your friend about things.

[alway]

Elise here; she/her, trans gal.

Yeah, what Vector said. Realized I was trans nearly 5 years ago, waited nearly a year from then to actually meet up with local trans folks, and what a waste of time that wait was tbh. After the first one or two local meetups, I had a trans friend group, board game group and shortly thereafter, a hell of a lot more self confidence. Highly recommend it; the monthly meetups felt like a battery recharge. Meetups are like, the one time a month you get to talk to normal people instead of cis people.

[Doomblade187]

Hello. Here to lurk in support.

[Magmacube_tr]

Meetups are like, the one time a month you get to talk to normal people instead of cis people.

but i cri

[Vector]

that's normal

[Great Order]

Meetups are like, the one time a month you get to talk to normal people instead of cis people.

but i cri

That's called being a human. Sometimes you feel funny and then spring a leak. The where determines whether that's crying, urination, or a stomach bug.

[Grim Portent]

Or hemophilia.

[voliol]

I have to wonder if being on Tumblr and Bay 12 Forums both, and now especially this thread, will make my intuition of how common trans people are really estranged from the statistics of humanity as a whole. Like, I think I know most of the people I meet in real life aren't trans, but the internet places I frequent has my mind going "oh, it has to be at least a fifth of the population, everywhere, right?". Hoping this observation doesn't come off as weird.

As for another thought on LGBTQIA+ issues, I feel it's important to try to accept people even when you're not able to understand them. Being pan, I for one can't understand monosexuality, be it of the hetero- or homosexual kind. I can try, but the closest I get is interpreting it as kinks or preferences, and I know it's more than that for people. There's just something I can't grasp, and I'm pretty sure I never will, and that's okay. And that applies to everybody in different ways, we have to listen to others and try to trust them, perhaps especially in cases where you can't understand them, weirdly enough... Maybe the most cookie cutter take in history, I dunno.

[alway]

As for HRT, it's great stuff. Mundane in the ways you might expect it to be weird, and weird in the ways you might expect it to be mundane. I started at 25; by which point my brain had largely blocked out or forgotten all the weirdness of changes that come along with puberty. Going into that a second time, as an adult in my mid to late 20s holding down a professional career, was wild. It came with things which included but were not limited to: Emotional changes; breast development; diminishing density/thickness of body hair; thinner, softer skin which is less oily; thinner, faster nail growth; hair regrowth/healthier hair; changes to gait resulting from changes to hips; thicker hips; curvier shape; and even weird things like subtle changes to eyesight.

There's also this fascinating interaction between perception of age and hormones, where doing a late second puberty makes you look younger? Turns out the fountain of youth is real and it's just HRT. I look younger than I did 5 years ago. It's wild looking around me at people I worked with close to a decade ago, and seeing how much older they look now, vs looking at my own selfies and seeing how at most I look the same age now.

I was a ball of anxiety about it at the time I started, but like, honestly it was the best decision I ever made. And had it gone otherwise, what was the worst that could've happened? I end up as a queer cis guy with a nice pair of tits? On the scale of genders, I'd definitely rank that above where I was at beforehand. And where I'm at now is just wonderful and far beyond what I ever dared hope for.

Out of all of the transitioning stuff, my favorite part is that, if you are visibly trans, the coolest, cutest, queerest people in any given room gravitate towards you and chat like old friends. While all the awful conservatives who otherwise enjoy sharing Opinions About Who Should Be Allowed To Exist give me the side-eye and maintain the desirable distance of Far Away From Me. Like, did you know there were pills that could do that?? It's great! Worth it all on its own honestly, even apart from things like being comfortable with my own body. (Okay, honestly that's mostly just my rad outfits doing the heavy lifting, but still)

[Telgin]

I have to wonder if being on Tumblr and Bay 12 Forums both, and now especially this thread, will make my intuition of how common trans people are really estranged from the statistics of humanity as a whole. Like, I think I know most of the people I meet in real life aren't trans, but the internet places I frequent has my mind going "oh, it has to be at least a fifth of the population, everywhere, right?". Hoping this observation doesn't come off as weird.

I've wondered the same, actually.  I remember reading more than a few years ago that estimates put somewhere around 10% of the population as being homosexual, but I honestly don't know if they were including anything else like trans people in that number.  There was also almost certainly a bias in the results since they were self-reported, which would be impossible to remove entirely.

I'm guessing that on the internet you're more likely to find groups of people who identify that way and actually talk about it, while in person people are more likely to keep it private.  Maybe it is more than 10% in reality.

As for another thought on LGBTQIA+ issues, I feel it's important to try to accept people even when you're not able to understand them.

Agreed.  I'm about as normal and vanilla as it comes on these matters, aside from being debatably somewhat asexual, but I can respect people and their personal lives even if they're different from me.

[MrRoboto75]

I've heard that neurodivergent people are more likely than average to be LGBTQ+

[Great Order]

I believe with trans people it's the case, but why isn't known. Could be that neurodivergency means you're more likely to realise your trans, or they're "co-morbid" (For lack of a better term), or one influences the other, or there's a set of genes that increases the chance of both popping up.