My Experiences as a Transman

I am transgender. I'm a transman to be exact. There are so many examples of perfectly transitioned guys that pass or look and seem like a cisgender man. Sadly, that isn't the case for every trans guy out there. In fact, I know plenty that don't 'pass'. And it can be a whole different experience for those guys.

Before I started transition, I was the sort that had curves, was short, and had that soft voice that a lot of straight men enjoy. It seemed strange to people that I was transgender since I would wear makeup and occasionally dresses that my friends would buy. To be honest I could only wear dresses for short periods of time before I felt out of my skin in a way some friends didn’t understand. I like my pants and shorts and it was simply more comfortable for me to wear those then make myself uncomfortable wearing a dress or skirt. I had a pair of heels that I liked, but I never wore them. I had them mostly because I liked the look of them and eventually just gave them away because I didn’t wear them. The same happened with any of the dresses I had. I just never used them. I liked makeup because it was a form of art for a lot of people and I liked the challenges it posed. It was simply the kind of fun that I could sink hundreds of dollars into so that I had plenty of colors to choose from when doing so knowing that I also enjoy cosplaying and having makeup makes that easier.

Let me just say this. Those pictures you see of guys looking super comfortable in their binders is absolute bull if you have a large chest. It is so uncomfortable. You get told to wear a binder that easily fits, but to be honest they make binders with small chested guys in mind more often than they even consider guys with large chests. And it is torture. You want a flat chest, but even with a perfectly sized binder it still looks like you have a pillow stuffed in your shirt. You can rearrange your parts any way you want and it still looks the same. I found using the side tucking method worked best for me, but it still was considered incorrect binding, but if I did it the way of simply pulling on a binder and calling it good, I looked terrible in my opinion. I hated it. If I wore my binder for more than a couple hours my ribs would start feeling uncomfortable... And my binder was sized correctly. I envied the guys that could wear their binders for the full eight hours that they say is the most you can wear one. I could barely get to that point without some level of discomfort.

Now there are plenty of guys that pack. For anyone that doesn’t know what this means it’s using an artificial penis to fill out the empty space in your pants to look a little more cisgender and a way for some guys to feel more at ease with your dysphoria. I never felt the need to buy or use one. I sort of took it as a benefit that I never needed to spend the money to buy myself one. Let me just say they make them in different sizes and colors and my husband has a couple. I think they’re fun to play with because the ones he has are almost like jelly in the way they wiggle if you shake them just a little. They’re soft and sort of sticky since they’ve never had any kind of starch applied to them like some guys do. He’s shown me how you go about packing them since a lot of guys either use the double up on the underwear method or use special underwear to keep them in place. I still never felt the need to use one, but I intend to try it out someday.

Let me just say though. I am entirely jealous of the guys that have full perfect facial hair. I get a bit on my chin and a couple stray hairs on the edge of my jaw and that is about it. There are some guys that get full beards and have five o’clock shadows that make me feel a little less masculine when I look at them since I will never have that, but I got facial hair none the less so I suppose it is one of those take what you can get scenarios. My face though is still that soft feminine shape that has barely changed even after being on T for close to a year and a half, although it does take longer for some guys to get that at all. My husband has been on T for close to four years now and he looks so much more masculine than I do and it’s a little disheartening, but there are some changes that can take about that long. It’s understandable that I don’t have those changes just yet.

Sadly, I didn’t get as lucky as I would have liked in the voice department. I still have that soft voice that just makes me sound like a flaming gay boy and to be honest I still talk in a feminine manner that just makes me seem that way too. I never picked up the whole cisgender passing thing. I don’t honestly feel the need to either. I’m panromantic bordering very close to gay so I simply accept that I will never sound close to straight no matter how much I try. It’s just not in the cards for me. Plus, it doesn’t help that I prefer my hair either really long or very short. I’m currently keeping it very long and I get pretty embarrassed when someone refers to me as a lady or miss. But I also understand that my voice doesn’t help that and neither does the long hair, but I don’t feel the need to change either of these things.

So, all in all there is no perfect way to transition and if you don’t pass it just happens to be what it is. There’s no shame in it transgender or nonbinary. Heck even if you’re just gender nonconforming or anything in between. All that matters is that you are happy with yourself.