For the past year or so I've been exploring my gender, at first i thought i could be genderfluid but it didn't stick so i decided transfemme would be more fitting. For the most part, I've felt like this really is me, but one thing has been bothering me while I've been questioning, and it's really starting to make me doubt. I've always struggled with my identity in general ever since I was very little, i'd find a person I wanted to be or an ideal I wanted to encapsulate and absolutely obsess over it for a period of time just because I wanted to be seen as I see them, try analyse everything i do compared to it, copy this person or ideal to a T with interests, styles, opinions, everything, I'd get really obsessive over it and it would really stress me out whenever there was a part of me that misaligned with this ideal that I couldn't change. But after a while I'd find something else and do a complete 180 from that and change everything in my life once again.
The problem arises when I realise a lot of the past identities i've clinged onto was mostly men, or masculine figures, and I didn't have much of a problem with it. Then about a year ago it was suddenly a woman, and thats when i was really considering if I was trans. I briefly came out to my best friend at the time but I went back on it and didn't explore it too much. I went back to being a guy and I didn't have much of a problem. I feel like unlike many other trans people I didn't have a feeling that being a guy was "wrong" for me but I did feel different from the other guys i was around, though that might just be something else. Anyway, after a while I genuinely started exploring my gender more and more, shaving my legs, putting makeup and feminine clothes on in private, growing out my hair, voice training, though I haven't really come out socially yet I find it too daunting and bad timing at the moment.
I find that despite the moments of happiness when I do these things and express myself in a certain way there's this nagging feeling that what I'm doing is just what I've always been doing my whole life. What if I've just seen trans people or women as cool and now its something I'm obsessed with wanting to be for a brief amount of time. Sure, I know that if I feel like I would be happier as a woman then I'm a woman, but I just don't want to be wrong. All these past "me's" eventually all blew over and I moved onto the next, what's to say this isn't the same? what if a few weeks from now I'd find a guy to want to be and I'm suddenly no longer trans. It's for sure a scary thought, in all honesty I want to stay this way, but i've always felt this intensely for the other me's in the past. It's probably a dumb apprehension and I should just enjoy the moment but what if I come out to everyone I know and medically transition and I'm not trans all of a sudden? It all feels too fragile. Right now I'm only out to another trans friend, but I want to come out to my parents soon, it's just hard to when I feel so unsure. I mean, I've never had any really telling signs in the past of me being feminine and I know that, I've always just been a boy who hung out with boys and did boy things, then I just changed and left all my guy friends and hobbies behind, and I'm still unsure why.
I know I'm not just a guy, and I know that right now I despise my broad shoulders and masculine bone structure, my deep voice and how other's view me. I know I feel happy and fulfilled when I get called by my preferred name, or I do my makeup and clothes. But I just wonder whether that's actually me or if it's just the part of me that just knows that that's what being trans is supposed to be like.
Sorry if that was awfully explained, I've never been well at articulating myself.