overview for RainbowReflection

spoiler :( I want to be a woman, but I'm not. It's been like four years of wanting to be a girl, but my egg only really cracked this June. Before my egg cracked, my concept of gender identity was that I wasn't really a boy, and I wanted to be a girl, but obviously I was totally cis because even though I knew about the existence of trans people, I couldn't possibly be one of them, after all, trans people know that they are trans at the age of four and are conviced that they are the other gender. I don't know what I was thinking.

Last year someone in my ap computer science class came out as trans, our teacher told us that the student wanted to tell us something, and people were like "did [deadname] die?" and the teacher said that the student wanted to go by a different name and pronouns. Then someone goes said that he wouldn't use she/her pronouns to refer to someone who doesn't look like a girl. At least some people were respectful, though. The point is, I can't trust the people around me to not be bigoted, although most of the people in that class, have graduated. The trans student was very cool though, she was one of the only students who took the class seriously (I think there might be something in the computers turning people trans!) and was probably a gamer. Too bad she also graduated. I'm not a gamer and I don't have anything interesting about myself. I kind of looked up to her, even though I didn't identify as trans.

My whole life has been a lie of pretending to be someone that I'm not. I'm a minor, and I live with my parents in the wonderful state of Florida, where woke goes to die. I have reason to believe that my parents are transphobic. My family is Catholic. I am not, but they don't know that. I have been pretending for years. I don't say anything about how I feel about my gender.

I am growing more body hair every day. It's awful, and I don't think I've ever had this much. As much as I would like to do something about it, I am scared of what other people would say. I don't even know how to remove it without accidentally hurting myself.

I feel like a robot. I do the same stuff every day, and by that I mean that I don't do anything. I just do my schoolwork, and school gets repetitive. It distracts me from thinking. But guess what, when I do think, I just think about how I want to be a girl, and then I get sad. But I don't actually get sad, since I don't feel my emotions very deeply.

::: spoiler Read at your own risk CW: autogynephilia I think I might have that? But also maybe not? I mean, it can be arousing to imagine myself as a woman? But also I can think of myself as a woman and not be aroused? Autogynephilia has been one of those things that makes me question if I'm really trans. Most research on trans women does make a distinction between two types of trans people, those who find out early and are attracted to men, and those who find out later and are attracted to women, and sometimes have autogynephilia. Yes, I know that this research is stupid. That doesn't help. I still think about it. Also, I'm not really sure if I meet the criteria for gender dysphoria from a transmed perspective. Wikipedia shows the dsm description, but it says that it has to cause clinically significant distress or an impairment in functioning. The thing is, I do well in school, and to most people, especially adults, I appear well functioning. But I don't know, I don't have many friends and no one that I am close to, but I don't think that gender issues are what is causing this?

If you made it this far, I'm sorry for putting you through all of this. I'm okay, even if it sounds like I'm not.