I've always just never liked being a girl. Since I was young. Whilst the other girls played house, I wanted to play videogames, play with dinosaurs and cars. Their favourite Disney princess was Jasmine and Ariel, mine was Mulan. I loved power rangers, tmnt, sonic, etc.
Growing up, I didn't get along with other girls my age because they didn't like playing the same things I did. They found the stuff I liked weird. Only boys liked the stuff I did, but wouldn't let me play because I was a girl.
As a teenager, I went to school being referred to as an "almost tomboy". I played the part of the goody-two-shoes with perfect grades, sensible manners and simple presentation. On the inside, I yearned to destroy this picturesque thing I was and loathed myself. I still had no "girly" interests. I was resigned to my fate at this age, just deeming it as how things are, but feeling unsatisfied. However, one thing that happened in my teens was learn about LGBTQ+. As shocking as it is, I didn't know that people could be gay until the age of eleven, blame the conservative upbringing and growing up in the 2000s for that. The concept of a girl being a guy didn't even cross my mind until this time. I always had a strange gravitation to the topic I couldn't explain until I got older, but always kept the knowledge and interest toward it private, like some kind of secret that wasn't allowed. Seeing individuals "come out the closet", and live life as their true selves became something I watched in awe and what I later discovered, envy.
As an adult, I've stopped wearing dresses. My mum once took me dress shopping for a party and we had to go back even though we'd reached the area by train because I started crying at the prospect of having to wear one. I hated the idea of how it would look on me and how it would make me look. I dreamed of wearing suits instead, loving the practicality compared to the nightmare a dress is. Loving how I wouldn't need to wear torturous heels just because everyone else does. However, wearing a suit as a girl to those kinds of parties would make me look like a weirdo (the type of crowd would just not be okay with it). I decided to stop going to parties that would require me to wear this kind of stuff primarily because of all this. We were later picked up by my dad at the station back home. I told my parents I didn't want to go to the party, they were fine with it. After a while, they parked the car and left to get something. I sat there for a solid 30 minutes, mind reeling over what happened. This was the first time this issue had actually done something that affected life in the real world. This moment was what made me really consider that maybe I really, genuinely, am not okay with being a girl. In the car, I audibly whispered the question to myself, "am I trans?", for the first time. Something that had only occasionally popped into my head, said out loud to myself for the first time.
I stick to wearing clothes that are pretty unisex, androgynous, and baggy, because I don't want to accentuate stuff I don't like. I never wear anything tight. I wear silver jewellery that's from the men's section, things like snakes and skulls, aliens and outer-space (idk man this stuff is just what I like better).
I am also often frustrated by the restrictions that come with my gender. Having an asian background, there are certain things that are just not plausible for me to do just because I'm a girl, like go out late by myself, having a relationship before marriage (yet it's excused for boys...), travelling to another country or city on my own, etc. How in the society I grew up with, it's expected to get married by a certain age and have kids, and if you don't, you're a weirdo and there's something wrong with you.
I feel like none of these issues would exist if I were a guy.
However, in the culture I've grown up in, being trans is one of the biggest taboos. It would basically blacklist you from everything, family, social gatherings, marriage proposals, just basic communication. No one would want to associate with you. And the gossip would run amok, your named and family honour tarnished for life, and you'd be the butt end of every joke.
My parents and siblings would probably eventually accept. But I don't think the rest would ever, they already have a slew of other issues like racism, homophobia, sexism, etc. that they never learned to get rid of even into old age.
You could say, "why not just cut them off"? It would ruin my family's life. Call me sacrificial but I can't do that to them. Cutting off those people would mean cutting off everyone. Everyone. And my parents would just have to deal with a torrent of insults and humiliation because of me for the rest of their lives. I could never do that to my parents.
There's also the fact if I did become a guy... I don't think I would find anyone who would like me... since I would be into guys... but would guys like someone who's a trans guy (would this make me gay?). (I'm still trying to understand what all of this means to me, and have felt I've always had to figure this all out by myself, which hasn't been easy). For some reason, I feel I would be less desirable this way, a part of me gets melancholic that living my true self would cut potential partners down immensely.
So I exist in this state of limbo. Not really me. But I do dream.
I dream of getting a motorbike and riding it out late in the night. I often imagine myself with shorter hair, dyed and styled in ways I've never done so before. I want to dress like a guy. Lose weight, build lean muscle instead. Learn how to fight so no one can take advantage of my on the streets. Be my own person, free. Travelling Europe and watching sunsets with no fear of curfew. Be a guy...?
I'm now in a position where the appearance I have is something I just don't really acknowledge. I don't see it as myself. I can't see it as myself. It's caused me to be withdrawn, afraid to act openly, ended up losing the ability to socialise like I used to. Reclusive, shut in, because if I can't be who I want to be, why do anything? Social anxiety is at an all time high and I do see myself as chronically depressed.
I feel like it has genuinely affected my mental health all these years because I'm living a lie and I'm not being true to myself.
So I'm stuck. And everyday passes the more numb I get to this issue I have because if I had to feel what I feel I don't think I could mentally take it.
Be who I am and ruin my life, wear the mask in eternal misery.